Originally Posted by rbbrdckybk
Just thought I'd post my thoughts since I'm running a group doing ZA at the intended gear level (mostly Kara-geared, some people in blues, absolutely nothing from 25 mans), which seems like a rarity. We're also running with only 2 healers (+1 shadow priest), and it sounds like 3 is the norm.
Anyway, we've only spent a total of maybe 4-5 hours in there (2 trips of maybe 2.5 hours each), but what we've seen so far seems appropriately-tuned. Our normal group makeup:
Tanks:
1 prot warrior (mostly kara gear)
1 feral druid (mostly kara gear)
Healers:
1 resto druid (mostly kara gear)
1 holy paladin (undergeared, all blues/greens)
DPS:
1 arms warrior (mostly kara gear)
1 hunter (mostly kara gear)
1 shadow priest (mostly kara gear & FSW)
1 warlock (mostly kara gear & FSW)
1 mage (mostly kara gear)
1 ele shaman (mostly blues/heroic gear)
Everyone was flasked.
Our first time in we got the bear boss down on our 2nd try without much trouble at all. We proceeded to the gauntlet before the Eagle boss and had a lot of trouble with it, so went to explore some of the other trash; no real progress after that.
Our second night in, we missed the timer on the bear boss due to a silly wipe on the trash before him. We changed out strat for the gauntlet a bit and had no trouble at all with it this time (we tried not using AOE at all, and had our MS warrior just single-kill the eagles while the tanks held them and other DPS focus-fired elites). We got the Eagle boss down after 4 tries - was much easier for us after we had people run to the tank when the storm cooldown was up instead of having everyone try to run to the cloud. Healing was a bit strained here with only 2 healers (1 very undergeared) but the shadow priest and shaman helped out a bit when necessary.
Obviously these are the 2 easiest bosses, but so far we're having fun. The difficulty seems to be a small step up from the second half of Karazhan (we only started Kara 2 months ago, so its pretty much all new to us). We're looking forward to the Dragonhawk boss this week.
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We are also running ZA with everyone in Kara/Heroic gear and zero 25 man content items. We have everyone flask/food/weapon buff.
Our general dps setup varies greatly from reset to reset. The only thing that remains the same is we always have 2x Prot Warriors and 3x healers. Usually healers are best geared: 2x Holy Priest and 1x Tree Druid (although we've used 1x Resto Shaman or 1x Holy Paladin in place of any of these).
We have downed bear boss every time we have attempted him, usually first attempt. The only wipes are usually on the pull when the tanks don't run in together and the pulling tank gets hit for the full Brutal Swipe amount. We have always done him first, for ease of the fight. For the first two kills, we decided not to even attempt the timer since we felt it was better to learn the pulls. The third attempt we decided to give the timed attempt a whirl. We took out the initial wave and ran down the stairs. We ended up running into the pat, so we took them out. We skipped 2/3 of the bear packs before the boss stairs. We charged up the stairs and didn't wipe on any trash. The pull before Nalorakk we keep 1 add sheeped and 1 add perma-feared. After they are killed, drink up and the tanks run in together to pull the boss. (We actually wiped on the pull due to tanks not running in together, so we wiped as fast as possible - ho heals - and ran back together, buffing along the way) After all were ready, wasted several minutes, we pulled again. We generally fight him on the stairs for less movement. We actually have all DPS/Healers stand on his 6 o'clock. We are all bunched up on his back side and nobody gets charged. BigWigs seems to be perfect in the form timer, so it makes the transitions very easy for our tanks. Healing doesn't seem to be a problem. Priests keep up Renews and if we're blessed with a Druid, all the better. After knockback from the AOE silence, we all reposition ourselves behind the boss again. We pulled the second attempt with 7 minutes left on the timer and beat the bear boss with 20 seconds to spare.
Knowing we didn't really have a shot at the Eagle timer (have only downed him twice at this point and still perfecting the gauntlet), we watched the event for the chest.
Our strategy for the gauntlet is 1 tank up front and 1 tank in the back. We burn the healer first obviously. We do ZERO aoe on the gauntlet. I think that due to us being T4 geared and not overgeared for the instance, we have problems with aoe taking too much damage, or when they put on +stam gear, not outputting enough dmg. Our OT in the back burns the back adds along with the Afflock/Spriest refreshing DoTs (only) on the back pair. Melee dps single target the birds down and all casters take out front pair of elites. We take a slower pace up the gauntlet than most it seems, probably due to lack of AOE, but we find this the most effective way to reach the top given our situation.
We timed the birds/back adds one night and the birds seem to come every 30 seconds and the back adds every minute (maybe slightly more on the back pair).
Eagle boss we use the "collapse on melee" method. We spread out around the square that surrounds Akil'zon to prevent the Static Disruption and run in to melee when there is 2-3 seconds left on the BigWigs timer for Electrical Storm. The first time we downed the Eagle, we were lucky enough to have a Resto Shaman to raid heal, but the couple times since, we did it with 2x Holy Priests and 1x Tree Druid. The first couple times we decided to use AffLocks/Hunter to down the summoned birds, but on our most recent attempt last night, we decided not to kill any of the eagles and focus on the boss (we were melee heavy: DPS Warr, Rogue, Enh Shaman, 2x Prot Warr). Due to the heavy melee + not killing any birds, the raid took a bit more damage than our previous attempts, but didn't really notice the difference until around 20% when we started to feel a bit overwhelmed. We downed Eagle with the majority of the raid alive. Despite the new strategy attempt (seeing if there was a cap on the number of birds that spawn), it does seem to be easier if you kill the birds.
We have only attempted Dragonhawk one time, and still working on an effective strategy with our group composition, so I can't talk too much more. Our biggest concern at the moment is perfecting trash pulls to Dragonhawk. We must not be skipping enough, because it seems silly how much there is to clear.