Ellyh

Does anyone have any feel for how heavily run ZA is? Do you think that it is getting the usage that we (or Blizzard) would expect.

On my server there are always lots of people running Kara but usually only 1-2 groups in ZA. Also there seems to be less enthusiasm for the instance when I talk to friends.

While I wouldn't expect as many in ZA as in Kara the ratio I observe seems very large.

 

KooZ

on bloodscalp-eu there are only a handfull of guilds on my (horde) side that have the ability to clear ZA. Even though you still need a more then decent group to do so :/ Karazhan on the other hand is a walk in the park for any kind of setup, any starting raiding guild can get decent epics there and the amount of badges you can get in a 2 hour clear is insane.

 

Bunni

I have both my max rank Flash and Greater keys set up as macros to heal either my target (if friendly) or my target's target (if my target is hostile). Since I tab over to have the boss targeted at the start of the phase the only thing I do when someone gets focused is start casting Flash instead of Greater. It really helps to not loose time when he focuses on someone.

 

Idk

I can tell you the perspective from a backwater server, the forgotten coast.

TFC has about a dozen struggling raiding guilds. The number of capable raiders is quite low.. and organizing them is even harder. The two most advanced horde-side guilds for 25s have downed 2 and 1 bosses in SSC, and VR in TK. The other ten or so have most of KZ on farm and can do Gruul on a lucky day. You would think ZA would thrive on this server.. it's hard to get 25 people together to raid, but it's not nearly as hard to get 10.

I'm in a guild of 7 people and we grab a few others when we want to do a KZ or ZA. We're the only guild on our server that's killed Zul'jin and we've cleared 3/4 of the timed event 3 times in a row (which I'm very proud about seeing as we have no 25-man gear beyond Gruul). While I personally don't think that ZA is very hard, all of the other raiding guilds are struggling.. I don't think any guild has actually downed Lynx without one of our tanks in the raid. More than half of the guilds can't kill Eagle. Given the difficulty, and the desire for the larger guilds to try to hold the interest of 25 people for the larger raids, ZA isn't seeing much action on our server.. I'd say the ratio of KZ:ZA raids is 10:1. We have no difficulty 'sniping' a few players from other guilds for our ZA runs.. which goes to show the larger guilds aren't actually organizing ZA runs.

 

xyruul

Do you run a mod to check seconds or just guess? Our last kill the timer ticked from 9 to 8 a few seconds before he died. It's always hard to gauge the seconds for me

 

Lavode

Earthen Ring is.. Problably the worst possible example of an average server possible, since we are an RP realm where nearly all raiding is done by raid "syndicates" which are at best very loosely related to actual guilds. (which made the guild bank feature.. interesting. we made a guild for unguilded members of the syndicate and everyone elses bank alts..)

But I will say that I am seeing quite a bit of Zul'Aman gear in shattrath, and that most of the syndicates are quite clearly knocking troll heads to some extent or other - but I have not seen a single bear mount or even a chest ring on anyone yet, and for some bizzare reason the one Illidan killing guild on the server isnt doing it.

To be honest, I suspect that what ZA needs for really widespread appeal is for someone to knock off a really good tactics guide for the place. Hmm. Actually, that shouldnt take that long..

 

galzohar

Bosskillers seems to have sufficient guides for clearing the instance, only lacking sufficient explanations for the dragonhawk boss (handling the adds is more coplex than what explained there) and slightly lacking on the eagle boss by not telling you to move in 10 seconds before the storm as the easiest start by far.

 

JarL

I've noticed quite a few posts addressing Zul'jin difficulties. We originally cleared ZA the first week (horde first on our server) in nothing but kara gear having never set foot in 25 mans. Being undergeared you can quite easily handle Zul'jin with the right approach.

Phase 1 and 2 don't worry about healer mana, just make sure nobody dies. During phase 2 use any shadowfiends, innervates, and mana tides (they will be back up in phase 4 or 5).

Phase 3 just let the melee do their thing and focus on not dying. This extends the phase to about 5 minutes of patiently kiting whirlwinds and playing smart. When the phase ends you should have all 10 people alive and everyone at FULL mana. Essentially you've just reset the fight!

Phase 4 many already touched on using fast cast heals, however, we generally also designate one paladin to spam holy light on the focused player while the other two spam fast heals. BoP your squishiest target if they get targeted (usually one of our priests or a mage).

Phase 5 is easy as long as people survived phase 3 and 4.

I also noticed a post concerning raid composition for a kara geared raid that was only using 2 healers. You must take 3 healers and a shadowpriest if you want to take down some of the harder bosses undergeared. Lynx, Malacross, and Zul'jin are very healing intensive.

Our original raid looked like this:

Prot warrior MT
Feral druid or arms warrior OT
Enh Shaman
Warlock
Rogue

Holy Paladin
Holy Priest
Resto Shaman
Shadow Priest
Mage

Good luck to any other kara geared guilds doing ZA, its a load of fun.

 

Idk

We're a KZ/Kara equipped raid that does ZA (including ZJ) with 2 healers.. we do have a shadowpriest and we have a moonkin that shifts out to heal for phase 4.

Our group comp:

Prot pally MT
Feral druid OT/DPS
Rogue
Afflic lock
MM hunter

Resto druid
Destro lock
Holy pally
Shadowpriest
Moonkin

While our group comp is a little strange (and we're lacking a lot of synergy) it's surprisingly very beefy and resilient.. which is why we don't really need the 3rd healer. Most groups will be more successful with a 3rd healer but I don't think that you _must_ have one.

 

Samurai

Couple of people in raid said it was 9:55, dunno if they were just guessing or had a mod. It was at 10mins until about 4% though, so could have been a guess.

 

galzohar

Hunter can help a lot with tranq shots on some fights while still being able to attack on zul'jin phase 3, overall more useful than enhance shaman but it really works fine bothways. Overall yeah you really want no less than 1 shadow priest and 3 healers preferably of different classes. Also if the priest is specced CoH you just made your run that much easier.

 

xiaoxin21

I am thinking 2 healers is the way to go for ZA. My guild normally run with 3 healers and bosses in ZA take an eternity to kill. Bear boss takes close to 5-6 mins to get down and the dragonhawk takes about the same time(we hatch both sides in 1 hatcher or 2 hatcher spawn depending on whether hatcher is able to make to the other side in the aoe).

Our gear is mostly BT/Hyjal standard. For the timed runs, we sometimes could get the 3rd chest but not further than that.

composition is normally, 1 prot tank(or feral druid), 1 pally tank , 3 healers, 4 range dps,1 melee dps

I am wondering if people flask/consumables for the run to get the time event over, as we normally run bare except for some taking pots on their own accord.

 

• Insom

Sorry if this is in the wrong thread, first time poster long time lurker, did a quick search and found this thread.

We are also in the same boat, my guild is 5/5 and 5/9, with Archimonde down 3 times, so you can roughly gauge our gear.

Last night, we had a dig at the timed event, going from Eagle > Bear > Dragonhawk > Lynx, we managed to down the Dragonhawk with about 7 minutes left on the timer, but didnt want to keep going after there. Was this silly? How much time should we be aiming for to get to the 4th chest on time?

We ran with:

Group 1
Prot War
Feral Druid
Holy Paladin
Slam War
Resto Shaman

Group 2
Balance Druid
Fire Mage
Ele Shaman
Resto Shaman
Shadow Priest

Everyone is fairly geared (Comparable to myself gearwise) except the shadow priest, who is a little undergeared. Where can we make up a few seconds here and there, or perhaps a few minutes?

Thanks

 

galzohar

Were you rotating the bloodlusts/heroisms to group 2 by swapping the resto shamans around or did you just have each shaman BL his own group? And how much did it actually help to have 4 bloodlusts on the timed run?

 

Derketo

The biggest single thing I could tell you is to try your best to run with two healers. If that means you have to bring two shadow priests instead, do that.

I'll be alright when we get to pass out time.

 

galzohar

It seems like it's more of an HPS problem than a mana problem. While it's easy to go oom with no shadow priest, with 1 it's very hard to. The damage some bosses/mobs deal is just too bursty especially if you have no hunter. Also the effectiveness of chain heal / CoH changes dramatically between the different fights. I mean on lynx after he transforms topping everyone off before a totem fires at the one person that didn't get healed in time would put you one person short, easier to just run with 3 healers and not take chances, although I'm not compeltely ruling out the possibility of doing it with just 2 healers. But unless you have an incredible raid (for example killing totems before they even get 1 shot off which i'm not even sure is practical but I never played DPS in ZA so I don't know) I don't see how it would be easier to beat the timer like that.

 

Derketo

The difference between 2 healers and 3 healers from start of event to beating it is generally about 4-7 minutes for us.

If you're geared to beat the timed event, then 2 healers is plenty, if you're not then you need to have everyone use more consumables and still come with 2 healers. If you're so massively under geared that bringing just 2 isn't feasible then maybe you shouldn't be beating the event yet I guess.

It can be done with 3 yes, but I would advise the 3rd healer to be a hybrid spec, or at least dpsing some fights as heal spec.

I'll be alright when we get to pass out time.

 

• Insom

Sorry, my mistake, we had a Holy Paladin in group 1 instead of the second Resto Shaman, i've fixed my post accordingly. The two Shaman's in group 2 chained their lusts after each other. Group 1 only received 1 lust each fight. Also, could looting be causing us to lose time? Im not sure how long the bodies stay dead for with loot on them, cause after every boss we looted our badges, mounted and moved on. We left the chests for after we had done dragonhawk, since we would never make it to Lynx on time.

Might suggest that we take 2 spriests next time, and probably drop one of the shamans. If we keep a similar group setup, we just chain the lusts for group 2 i would assume? Or would it be more advisable to get one of the shamans to go ele, drop the paladin and get another lust in group 1?

I think, with another 7 minutes, we could kill Lynx. It'd only take about 10 minutes to clear and kill him yes?

 

Soulcow

It was guessing. It was approx 5 seconds after the timer went from 10 to 9 mins that the boss died.

 

Derketo

Keep it on group loot, dont bother with your badges and move right away after every boss death.

I think we have 12+ minutes after dragonhawk usually, I'll check for sure next time we do it.

I'll be alright when we get to pass out time.

 

jaske

I' curious what most people do for dragon hawk(specifically the hatcher's/adds). Normally we let one hatcher get about 4/5's of a side and kill the other one instantly. We usually run 2 paly, 1 resto sham, one paly stands at the "popping" side and consecrates then heals themselves with righteous fury up, we wait for a port then AOE it down, often its pretty rough though. I think we might try dragging the boss to the side with the AOE so he gets some more damage faster and not wait for the ports in future.

 

• Insom

We usually have it on group loot, im just thinking of how long it takes for the bodies to despawn. Like, would the eagle despawn if we kill lynx? I think if we can stop all the unneccesary looting and more chain pulling, we could probably make 1-2 minutes, which would still only leave us at 13-14 minutes to start dragonhawk, whereas you guys are killing him with that much time left.

We let each hatcher hatch one side fully before we kill him off, then aoe the side down. Dont know what else we can be doing to decrease time taken.

 

galzohar

Better to let the paladin keep healing normally and have another healer healing the paladin so he gets lots of mana back if you do this strategy. Can a non-tank paladin really tank a whole side though or do you have to do it by parts?

 

xiaoxin21

Yes we had a non tank pally take the entire side before when the pally tank is not free. The tank itself dont take much damage and everyone have to start single dps adds from the start till the critical mass for aoe. At least if you bring a frost mage, between frostnova and freeze the adds dont move around much too. Try to use freeze when the boss do the firebombs throwing.

 

Joy

Question for other guilds who have many bears already, has anyone successfully sold a bear?

We run with 3 healers and a Warrior and bear as tanks and our last run we had 7 (and a half?) minutes left, so it should be pretty plausible that we could dump a healer and sell a spot for the whole run.

Thinking about it now if it was pre-arranged you could pretty comfortably get someone to sub in after DHawk when we are already well ahead of the timer.