Chess Event

Chess Event
Race(s)	Human or Orc
Location	Gamesman's Hall, Karazhan
Karazhan Attumen the Huntsman Prince Tenris Mirkblood (Scourge Invasion) Moroes Maiden of Virtue The Curator Terestian Illhoof Shade of Aran Netherspite Chess Event Prince Malchezaar Nightbane (lore) (lore) (lore) (lore) (lore) (lore) (lore) (lore) (lore) (lore) (lore) Servants' Quarters Beasts Hyakiss the Lurker Rokad the Ravager Shadikith the Glider (lore) (lore) (lore) Opera Event Wizard of Oz The Big Bad Wolf Romulo and Julianne (lore) (lore) (lore) Loot

The Karazhan Chess event as seen in an official artpiece

The Chess Event in Karazhan must be solved in order to reach Prince Malchezaar. The raid plays a sort of chess match against Medivh.

Although the analogy to chess is usable (Daemons are "stronger" than Footmen for example), it's not very strict. The pieces from the event behave very differently from real chess pieces, in particular the pieces autoattack enemy pieces they face, automatically cast their spells (but do not move) when not controlled by a player, and the Kings are actually the strongest pieces in the game. In order to start the event, a player has to take control of the King piece of their own faction. The objective is to kill the enemy King without losing one's own King. If the game is won, a Dust Covered Chest appears with loot. If the game is lost, the pieces reset, and another game may be attempted.

After a victory, the pieces are reset and it is possible to play a friendly game within the raid. Whenever a game is going on, there is a silence debuff in the chess room to prevent clearing the trash mobs leading to Prince Malchezaar.

It is possible to reset the event by talking to the Echo of Medivh.

Unlike other bosses, there is no reputation reward.

Chess Piece Abilities and Control

After the event begins, raid members can control any currently uncontrolled piece of their own faction by talking to it. Upon taking control of a piece the player character is teleported onto a platform at the side of the chess field. The player gains the "control piece" buff, his viewing perspective changes to that of the controlled piece, and their action bar is replaced. It is possible to release control of a piece by removing the control buff (right-click it). This incurs a 15 sec debuff, during which time it is not possible to take control of another piece.

The action bar for controlling a chess piece has the following layout:

1	2	3	4

• 1: Move: Click on an unoccupied square. Only certain moves are allowed. See piece description for details.
• 2: Rotate Piece: The same for all pieces; click an adjacent square on the board to face toward it.
• 3: Special Ability 1: The piece's first unique ability. See piece description for details.
• 4: Special Ability 2: The piece's other unique ability. See piece description for details.

The abilities can either be activated by clicking on the action bar, or by using keys 1 through 4. It's faster to use the key shortcuts, particularly because the movement controls have a timeout. Each chess piece auto-attacks if it faces an enemy. While pieces can move diagonally, they can only face towards four directions. After a diagonal move, pieces turn 45° clockwise to realign themselves.

Movement and rotation share a common cooldown of 5 seconds, and the special abilities have another shared cooldown of 5 seconds. If an ability has a cooldown of more than 5 seconds, the other ability is only affected by the 5 second cooldown.

Chess Event Pieces
Piece	Alliance	Horde	Movement	Ability 1	Ability 2	Notes
King	King Llane	Warchief Blackhand	1 Space any dir.	Sweep / Cleave Deals 4000 damage to 3 frontal adjacent enemy units.	Heroism / Bloodlust Grants 50% increased damage to all allied humanoids on all 8 adjacent spaces, does not affect self. Cooldown 15 secs.	High Health/High Damage. The first side to kill the opponent's King wins.
Queen	Human Conjurer	Orc Warlock	Straight 3 / Diagonal 2	Elemental Blast / Fireball Deals 4000 damage to any single chess piece. Range: Straight 4 / Diagonal 3.	Rain of Fire / Poison Cloud Deals 6000 damage to any hostile chess piece and all adjacent hostile pieces. Cooldown 15 secs. Range: Straight 4 / Diagonal 3	Medium Health/High Damage
Bishop	Human Cleric	Orc Necrolyte	1 Space any dir.	Healing / Shadow Mend Heals a friendly piece for 12,000. Cooldown 20 secs. Range: Half of board.	Holy Lance / Shadow Spear Deals 2000 damage to enemy units standing in a straight line of 3 squares in front.	Low Health/Low Damage. Only Healer.
Knight	Human Charger	Orc Wolf	2 Straight / 1 Diag	Smash / Bite 3000 damage to a target 1 square in front.	Stomp / Howl Reduces damage of all adjacent hostile chess pieces by 50%, last for 10 secs.	Medium Health/Low Damage
Rook	Conjured Water Elemental	Summoned Daemon	1 Space any dir.	Geyser / Hellfire Deals 3000 damage to all adjacent hostile chess pieces.	Water Shield / Fire Shield Reduces damage taken by 50% for 5 sec.	Low Health/Medium Damage
Pawn	Human Footman	Orc Grunt	1 Space any dir.	Heroic Blow / Vicious Strike Deals 1000 damage to a target 1 square in front.	Shield Block / Weapon Deflection Absorbs 500 damage. Lasts 5 secs.	Low Health/Low Damage

Warning: Medivh Cheats!

Medivh cheats at random intervals during the game. Although on paper the effects look tough, in reality they usually have little effect on the course of the event.

• Healing Cheat: Heals Medivh's king (and possibly all the other pieces) to full HP.
• Damage Cheat: Medivh places a fire AoE on a random player controlled piece.
• Berserking Cheat: One of Medivh's units gains increased size, speed and damage.

Strategy

The king is quite strong and thus should be used in an offensive way — he is in fact similar to a DPS tank (be cautious though). A reasonable kill order is to deal with the enemy healers first, then drop the queen, and finally the king. If king and queen work together efficiently, and have good support from the bishops, the combats on the remainder of the board are less important. The friendly healers should move only very little, and concentrate on keeping the king and the queen at top health.

One simple strategy is to have each player chose one non-pawn piece which they want to control later. Then, each player moves the pawn in front of their piece as far as needed, releases control and takes over their "real" piece. As soon as holes in the pawn line appear, attack with the player controlled pieces. This is an excellent strategy for higher-levels trying to complete this event in a five-man or other smaller raid. By having a few players concentrate, at the start, on moving pawns and 'unplayed' pieces forward, these pieces are in range to auto-engage combat.

A more sophisticated strategy has four players initially controlling the four central pawns, and four other players on the king, the queen and both knights. The two remaining raid members should take the bishops. This allows to move the offensive pieces more quickly.

This event can be beaten with one person. First, move as many pawns one square ahead as possible, to give the back row of pieces room to move from the fire when the Echo of Medivh inevitably cheats. As soon as fire appears under a piece, control it and move it out of the way. Then play the queen piece and focus on damaging the opponent's king from range. Switch to a bishop to heal the king if necessary.

Dust Covered Chest appears after the game is won.

Macro

A macro can be used to gain a slight speed edge over using mouse clicks to gain control of / cancel control of pieces. This is especially recommended for soloing, since multiple pieces will need to be swapped between, and the player will need to react to Medivh's cheating quickly. The following macro cancels control with a modified click / keypress (i.e. with alt, control, or shift), or takes control of a piece that has been spoken to with a simple click / keypress. Players will still need to right-click on a piece they wish to control.

/cancelaura [mod] Control Piece
/run SelectGossipOption(1);

Alternatively, a player may split this into two macros. Since the encounter does not involve any traditional combat, players are free to swap macros into their action bar in any convenient location (although the 1-9 keys will still be replaced with the unit's control keys, so should not be used).

Bugs

• As of patch 2.4, releasing from a piece may cause the player to spawn below the floor of the room, leaving him back in the Curator's hallway. This can prevent the player from looting the chest because running back may take too long before it disappears—use a Warlock summon if possible in this case.
• Taking control of a piece may sometimes result in an near-immediate disconnect. The only way back into the game is to wait some time until the player is removed from the game with a "desertion" like debuff, or by quickly releasing control of the piece before the disconnect actually takes place.

Loot

Dust Covered Chest drops

	[Battlescar Boots]			[Bladed Shoulderpads of the Merciless]
	[Fiend Slayer Boots]			[Forestlord Striders]
	[Girdle of Treachery]			[Headdress of the High Potentate]
	[Heart-Flame Leggings]			[King's Defender]
	[Legplates of the Innocent]			[Mithril Chain of Heroism]
	[Ring of Recurrence]			[Triptych Shield of the Ancients]

Quotes

Gossip

To pass beyond my Hall, you must defeat me in a game of skill! Control your king when you are ready to begin...

The "Echo of Medivh" speaks at various events during the course of the game.

Event begins

Very well. Let the game begin.

Cheating

• Perhaps a change is in order.
• Time for an alternative scenario.
• One must not become too complacent.

	Pawn	Rook	Knight	Bishop	Queen	King	Checkmate
Player loses	Let us see. A transparent stratagem. Ah, the wheels have begun to turn.	Foolish! Very foolish!	Yes... all according to plan.	The slightest loss of concentration is all it takes.	Now it gets interesting.	As it should be.	Nothing less than perfection will do.
Medivh loses	Hmm. No matter. Interesting.	A minor concern.	Yes...of course.	A necessary sacrifice.	Ahh, I should have known.	And so, the end draws near.	And so it ends.

Gallery

• 

  White Bishop in Hearthstone.

• 

  Black Bishop in Hearthstone.

• 

  Onyx Bishop in Hearthstone.

Patch changes

• Hotfix (2013-05-24):
  • Medivh's buff to damage on chess pieces has been reduced to 100%, down from 200%.
  • Damage from Medivh's fire has been reduced to 4k, down from 10k.
    
• Hotfix (2013-05-21): Increased the delay between moves for enemy chess pieces.
  
• Hotfix (2012-09-12): The Chess encounter should once again proceed at its former, more leisurely pace.
  
• Hotfix (2007-02-14): Fixed an issue with players losing control of the chess pieces in Karazhan.
  
• Patch 2.0.3 (2007-01-09): Added.
  

External links

Boss Slayers Instructional videos on all the KZ bosses.