EJ Forum Community - Zul'aman testing - Page 4

PSGarak · 10/13/07, 10:13 PM

While I definitely agree a resto druid sounds ideal, I don't think raid-stacking is the intention of a casual 10-man instance. Can the silence be avoided by other means like pally bubbles or grounding totems, felhunter dispel, or range?

Jeffrey · 10/13/07, 10:17 PM

Originally Posted by Vhex

Edit: Sorry, the dangers of hitting reply and then finishing your post several hours later. To clarify, our Dragonhawk kill was exactly 5 minutes and 3 seconds and he enraged at the 4 minute mark for us. I'm fairly certain it's % based, if not it could possible be time based -after- all the eggs are hatched?

10/13 20:34:20.061 Jan'alai attacks. tank dodges. <- first combat log entry, don't have exact e
10/13 20:38:55.845 Dragonhawk Egg dies. (hatch-all, our initial strat was "umm aoe fear and some aoe", no that did not work)
10/13 20:39:18.807 Jan'alai gains Enrage.

This was at 33%.

His despawn thing seems to be pretty simple: tries to respawn every minute, if someone is on his platform he waits another minute. He took exactly 1 minute to respawn after our rather stupid pug lock decided to pull him with a Eye of Killrogg when we didn't have anyone jumping around on the platform.

The bear boss does seem slightly overtuned yes, in that he's basically not doable without a resto druid unless very overgeared. I consider his burst fine, you should expect no less than tanks who can tank Gruul (so at the very least 18k HP raidbuffed). Just not the silence. Should probably be moved to humanoid form given that humanoid form doesn't have any real abilities.
We had two feral druids tank him, a Kara-geared one for human form and a late-T4/some T5 geared one for bear. Did him second try. This was with 2 healers (druid and pala) and a shadowpriest.
We didn't bother offtanking his Saber Lash move at all, just healed through it. 30k seems a lot but considering that any tank has at least 60% (and probably more like 70%) physical damage reduction 12k is very healable.

funkydude · 10/13/07, 10:40 PM

I just finished off some Zul'Aman modules for BigWigs, if anyone is interested in participating in testing you can grab the latest version from WowAceUpdater & co.

bludwork · 10/13/07, 10:42 PM

Originally Posted by Sapp

Is the uh, the "Saber Lash" esque move the big spiker? It looks like it goes off a lot, and his melee seems weak-ish, but my transfer hasn't gone through yet to experience personally. With two tanks it looks like 15k pre-armor on each, but with 3 targets (or even more!) it'd be 10k pre-armor on each.

Could you resolve it like we did for the original hard-mode Romulo and Julienne and romulo's Deadly Swathe, which was basically a 15k Saber Lash? IE, have melee attack from in front?

10k pre-armor on a rogue = 8k spike, probably not lethal albeit dangerous, if not dodged or parried. A warrior or retadin in front would take a lot less, more like 6k. Somewhere in between for enh or something.

It seems like his actual melee isn't the killer, it's the bleeding and the saber-lash-oid attack, so even a string of parry-haste on the boss likely wouldn't kill your tank.

His brutal swipe attack will be an insta-gib if not spread between the two tanks. It hit me for about 10k today and maybe more for any non gruul+ tank. The silence + brutal swipe combo greatly increases the difficulty of this encounter considering for the target audience. The rest is well tuned in my opinion.

Vhex · 10/13/07, 10:56 PM

Originally Posted by Jeffrey

10/13 20:34:20.061 Jan'alai attacks. tank dodges. <

Odd, my crap must have just been off then. I stand corrected.

I think mana will be a greater issue on bear boss then simple heal output really. Just stick two healers on the MT and put on healer on keeping the raid up and it's pretty much a non-issue. Druid HoT's will negate the bear form DoT's pretty handily. If you don't have a SP/shaman though I can see just not having the mana to last.

• alcaras · 10/13/07, 11:00 PM

I should note my raid set up last night was:
Tanks: Warrior Druid
Melee DPS: Rogue Retadin
Healers: Resto Shaman, Holy Priest, Holy Priest
Magic DPS: Mage, Warlock, Boomkin

Both the tanks were T4-geared. We got him to about 85% before we had people leave/disconnect... we didn't know about the Saber Lash though, so I (Warrior) ate a couple of those at 11k. There were also a few deaths from being low when he went to bear and silenced and then bled... also, I believe the silence prevents taunts as well, compounding the problem (not sure about this though).

Our healers said they were going to have mana issues if we were going to continue with our current strat, some of them were T5 or even T6 geared too :-/

Not sure that it should be tuned to mandate a SP+resto druid in the raid.

Akhtal · 10/13/07, 11:26 PM

With myself as the best geared player in our raid, we killed him in 3 attempts, using a warrior and myself tanking, and 2 holy priests + 1 holy pally for healing, in a complete pug... It seems well tuned for the first boss in there IMO. I know I'll have to make my OT regem and enchant his tanking gear though because he hasn't tanked since Kara and I doubt he will be able to live through that...

A question to do people who cleared it... Will a feral druid as MT and fury warrior as OT in Kara gear work for all the instance or should we consider bringing a prot warrior instead?

Jeffrey · 10/13/07, 11:35 PM

Originally Posted by bludwork

His brutal swipe attack will be an insta-gib if not spread between the two tanks. It hit me for about 10k today and maybe more for any non gruul+ tank. The silence + brutal swipe combo greatly increases the difficulty of this encounter considering for the target audience. The rest is well tuned in my opinion.

It's tuned for early T5. Just assume that it's Gruul and that your bear form tank is the MT and your humanoid tank the OT, the damage patterns actually match pretty well too.

Splitting the damage is actually a bad thing to do. This is a Patchwerk-like gear check fight, heavy tank damage and very little raid. From a (non-druid) healer perspective, having to make sure that 2 different characters are topped off is very distracting in a way. From a druid perspective it's very good, double the amount of people and you get double hots.

Really, the bigger problem with this fight is the insane burst/silence in Bear. And I consider even that very healable.

Our healers said they were going to have mana issues if we were going to continue with our current strat, some of them were T5 or even T6 geared too :-/

In our kill (druid/pala with SP - 2 Kara/early T5 healers), both of us ended at 85% mana. Neither of us potted/flasked at all (slightly more than half a shadowpriest at this level). Pretty sure we could've managed it without. But the DPS needs to be good, at least ready for T5 - if you don't have this it'll take too long. Expect 800 DPS from 5 DPSers (takes ~6 mins for the kill then) at the very least, probably more given that there's no movement involved.

KamPa · 10/14/07, 12:41 AM

5 x 800 DPS for Karazhan level guilds is a lot, especially if you consider it's only 10 man instance, so you will be missing some buffs and it's very unlikely that you will have optimal group composition. Although being tauntable allows to do higher damage than they'd usually do.

Originally Posted by alcaras

also, I believe the silence prevents taunts as well, compounding the problem (not sure about this though).

It certainly does, and Silence prevents Challenging Shout as well, but wouldn't Mocking Blow work?

Zaroua · 10/14/07, 12:46 AM

Originally Posted by constantius

4.04 seconds, tank takes 9983 damage from Rend Flesh, 2966 from Lacerating Slash, and one physical hit for 2674 = 15,623 damage. 3867 dps from the boss.

I don't totally blame this on tuning: one of the healers didn't land a heal on the tank during this time (was topping up a charge victim), but this string of damage followed a period where the tank was steady, and not spiking at all.

This death was fine; this is what happens when a mangled tank gets Lacerating Slash and Rend Flesh. At the same time as a silence. Ow.

Would this death have been an issue if we'd had a timer for the Silence? Probably not. He took a couple hits, we all had heals in the pipe; the silence at :28:49.5 interrupted them all, and before the silence wore off, he took another 7k dmg and died. Tank starts from full, and is completely dead in 3.84 seconds, with healers incapable of doing anything about it, UNLESS we got lucky and the heals landed before the Silence.

It's a fun fight; the mangle is well balanced to require 2 roughly equal tanks in gear and skill.

The silence makes it a touch too difficult given how hard that DoT ticks. Reduce the incoming damage by 10-15% to compensate for the Silence, and it'll be tuned correctly for T4-level people. They have to assume it's Kara -> ZA, NOT Gruul->ZA.

From what I've read in a post coming from a blue poster, the bear boss is supposed to be on par with Nightbane/Prince. Prince can get 2 hits on a Warrior immediately after Shield Block is put up then get a Thrash with triple crushing blow and 1 shot your tank. Nightbane can Fear/Breath/Hit/Cleave and almost 1 shot a tank. Even worse with parries thrown in.

Comparing with what you've posted, I don't see much of a problem.

On the subject of the Bear boss - does Stoneform remove the bleeds?

Vhex · 10/14/07, 1:18 AM

I know BoP didn't.

• Falk · 10/14/07, 2:35 AM

Additional comments re: bear dude:

He drops SSC/TK level loot and is much more easily accessible. Sure, 2t4 tanks just coming out of Kara are going to have a little bit of a rough patch on him, but it's doable... and that should be the target difficulty anyway. That, and gear gets better fast anyway, from both drops and badge rewards. Is he overtuned when considering groups coming fresh out of Karazhan? Maybe very slightly. Is he overtuned considering the loot table accessible by killing him? Not at all.

I'm sure with the better knowledge of his abilities (Saber-lash type swipe for example) there exists a greater margin for error to help the lower-geared people attempting the fight.

Also, the entire crux of the fight seems to be to get Mangle and Bleeds on different tanks. You can't have both up and expect to win, any more than you can expect a cube clicker to fail on Mag and win. There are always ways to mitigate unlucky resists/silences - Mocking Blow, or failing that, BoPs (Keeping in mind that since this is a tauntable tank-swapping fight, the other tank will likely always be 2nd on aggro), combat rezzes, soulstones, etc.

• constantius · 10/14/07, 5:34 AM

My concern for Bear is that Prince does not have a Silence effect. And Prince will only "1-shot" your tank (assuming 15k HP, 14k AC, consumables, etc) once the sunder AC effect is stacked. Which happens somewhat slowly, and is very predictable in both its mechanics, and how to get it to fall off.

Bear tank gets the DoT on him, you start spamming just like you would for a sunder stack on Prince ... and silence screws you over.

As I said, I feel it's a bit too much to handle with only 2/5 T4 tanks, even assuming access to the new badge loots. You could stack 4 healers to deal with it, but I'm assuming they don't want to make this an instance you have to raid-stack for, given that you only get 20 minutes per boss, which leaves little time for screwing with the raid.

And yes, while geared resto druid hots would be helpful, the tank was taking almost 4k DPS at the same time as a silence. That'll still come close to killing a tank with nothing to prevent it, assuming the silence lasts a couple seconds, and then you start a heal as soon as you able to (+1.5-2.5 for the heal to land). Swiftmend/Divine Shield may be the only way to deal with it.

If a group in Karazhan+Badge Loot can manage to beat Bear without it being a complete cock block, I'll take back my statement. Until then, I think most of us are powering through the tougher aspects of the fight without realizing we're powering through it. My T5+ healing gear has a *ton* more +heal and +regen than my Karazhan did. I'm up 40 Mp5 and 350 +heal, along with 2k mana. That's fairly significant for a fight like this with high burst damage.

• constantius · 10/14/07, 5:35 AM

As far as Saber Lash goes, we saw hits of upwards of 19k on a single 16k AC target. It hits for a lot, and splitting it only 2 ways is a recipe for disaster. Probably should be looking at 4 targets: anyone in plate, plus a rogue (potentially).

• constantius · 10/14/07, 5:36 AM

And yes, Stoneform removes the bleed effects. It's good for one removal during a Silence, which can save your tank.

Vhex · 10/14/07, 6:08 AM

A kara geared tank has what, like 13~14k health unbuffed give or take? Flask up and take a priest, warlock, paladin or druid buff and you're looking at 15k health. They're just going to have to play smart and keep a potion, last stand and shield wall at the ready for when shit hits the fan.

Though...

If it's meant to be a gear check, perhaps just have the deafening roar instead be a stacking 10% melee/spell slow? I mean right now the silence is the only thing keeping this fight from being trivial. This I think would make things interesting while at the same time reducing the chance for the 'uncontrollable insta-gib.'

As far as chances for the random 1-shot goes, this is more manageable then most. A druid/priest/paladin healing team would make this pretty trivial. From what I've seen so far of the zone, 3 healers is going to be ideal on most fights.

Is it fun however? I said no when I sent in a report. In bleeding edge content, the one shot is something you come to terms with. Whether it's poison + flamestrike on Illidari council or getting air bursted right after eating a hellfire on Archimonde....you just learn to deal with it and move on.

But in a more 'casual'-friendly orientated environment? No thanks.

Sapp · 10/14/07, 6:11 AM

ZA is kind of meant to be more serious raiding on a smaller scale, though.

We'll see where they want to take it, I guess.

Akhtal · 10/14/07, 6:17 AM

The highest I've been hit for was 8k, with 33k AC of course though... (and we were not splitting it because I didn't know at the time)

The other tank wasn't at T5 level at all (Gruul/Mag/Kara/etc) and he only died once due to burst (silence). I think the real test will be tomorrow, I should go back in, hopefully with the warrior I'll be tanking ZA with once it goes live... his gear only comes from Karazhan, so I'll be able to judge if it's that bad... I'll record a WWS and post it here also... On that topic, is anyone on horde-pvp-us planning to go tomorrow? If so post here, I'd like to spend more than 40 mins in here with pugs, and guildies couldn't get their toons copied yet..

The biggest question is where exactly do they want the instance to be? Right after Kara, somewhat between T4 and T5, or on T5 level, but with 10 people? We can't send feedback in a reliable way until we know what we are looking at... The timed quest sounds rather easy once you have that place on farm, but it seems it will be harder to switch people who needs gear for a certain boss, or to bring an alt or a new raider, because you can't afford to wipe one time on the boss... It's extremely unforgiving

• Falk · 10/14/07, 6:27 AM

Ah, right, if you're looking to min-max to overcome a gear shortage, put a bear on human form, and a warrior on bear form. Reasons being

1) Mocking Blow can be used during Silence on Humanoid->Bear transition (which is more sensitive than the other way round since the Mangle debuff lasts longer than the bleeds)
2) More panic buttons - bear phase is more intensive
3) Bear armor mitigates humanoid specials (Swipe, etc) better, while Warrior has 10% reduction on bleeds (which ignore armor)

It may be a minor boost in efficiency, but hey, every bit helps.

Dynasty · 10/14/07, 2:03 PM

Ive updated my post on page 2 with a bit more info, footspeedy if you wish to copy go ahead.

Onomatopeizator · 10/14/07, 3:06 PM

This is slightly offtopic, but as I don't have any organized group to copy to ptr with me, I'm wondering which of the 2 EU test servers is better to transfer to for some Zul'Aman.
The last time I transferred to pvp test I was literally walking on corpses... but that was when they first introduced premade characters.

Bulgarth · 10/14/07, 3:09 PM

In response to the "enrage timer" on the dragonhawk boss:

We had some pretty low-end, straight-out-of-Kara geared damage classes in our raid. This actually made the fight go WAY too long. We hit the 5 minute enrage, and didn't notice too much of a difference in damage, only had to focus on the tank a little more then we did.

Here's the thing, we actually lasted till 10 minutes and found ANOTHER enrage. This enrage is like his berserk enrage. Basically, our BT geared tank got one-shotted for about 25k damage instantly. We only found this out because we were being careful on popping the eggs, taking our sweet time to make sure we didn't screw up. This was also on the day after the PTR went up, so public strategies weren't available yet.

Dynasty · 10/14/07, 6:45 PM

For the bear boss a t4 tank can do it np cuz I tried using 1 tonight instead of the usual t5 and it works, further more we did it with 9man and most of this pug group was in t4, 3 healers (2 (1 being me) palas and holy priest). The silence should be a very minimal barrier for everyone as long as the tank is near full hp, make sure you have 4-5 ppl stand on the MT so you all take about 7k dmg, you will see this in my tacts listed on page 2. Have 2 healers concentrate on the MT/OT and 1 raid healing and healing up the MT/OT if no one is charged etc.

Darkrenown · 10/14/07, 6:59 PM

Originally Posted by Dynasty

Also during the storm have ranged/casters target the eagles in the air and dot/attack them to give you more time on dpsing the boss, the melee just concentrate on the boss himself. A very easy fight, might take a wipe or 2 to understand what is going on.

Why, what do the eagles do?

Dynasty · 10/14/07, 7:06 PM

Eagles come down for lunch mate

They appear during his Storm cast.