kaib

The gauntlet likes to bug out. Sometimes all the spawns that are supposed to run in from behind just gather at their spawn point and despawn when you kill the guy on stairs or boss, dunno. We had that the first time we were there. The other two times the mobs ran in accordingly, also this tuesday. Doubt they got removed. We had a tank up front and a tank in the back and we just killed all mobs right there. When eagles came we aoed them, sometimes we had to wait as there were new elites, but generally just aoed the eagles first and then dealt with the elites before moving on.
It definitely requires fairly high dps.

 

Tyfusius

So any EJ community pre-mades for Zul'aman going on this weekend that would need a shadowbolt spamming Gnome?

 

Prinsesa

Quick question: Do the timered chest drops share the same loot table, such that you can either get 2 or more [Amani Divining Staff] per run, or alternatively, 2 or more chances to get one?

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

kaib

I would guess the chests do not share a loot table. Maybe the first few, but the later ones are definitly much harder. Anyone should be able to do at least the first two bosses timed. 4th, 5th and 6th should get challenging. Would be very disappointing if they had the same loot table at least.

 

Fendryl

Didn't For the Horde get a bear mount out of the 4th chest? I'd think that'd be a pretty good indicator that the loot tables are shared. Well that, or equally plausible, someone goofed up the loot tables =)

 

Citrinite

My guild is running a raid tonight on the US pvp realm 7 pm. We might have some open spots depending on how many people show. You can message me around that time if you would like to get in. We are called "good eminence" on the ptr.

 

KrinKer

Any chance you'd need a druid ? ?? (resto)

On a completly other note

Anybody has got the Tome of Diabolic recovery to drop ??

I'm wondering if it stacks with essence of the martyr for the + healing effect.

This will make me not use Zhc anymore ( yeah i know )

 

buschi

there are only 4 chests.
after the 4th, the event is completed/ done and the time stops.
btw. we got the mount in our 4th chest on monday: bayimg - image: mountinc.jpg - free uncensored image hosting

 

tritus

Yes, it does.
http://elitistjerks.com/512434-post252.html

 

Torn

How did you handle the packs before the second boss? Amani'shi Wind Walkers, Amani'shi Guardians.

I was doing them last night with a PUG (equip was T4 with a few SSC/TK loots) but we failed. Basically what we tried was:
- One tank (feral druid) catches the Amani'shi Guardians from behind, a DPS class tries to take them down before the next two come.
- The second tank (feral druid) handles the frontline and those birds coming.
- Mages bomb the birds.
- We put a rogue on the Amani'shi Wind Walkers to interrupt healing.
- Move upwards.

However, the dps was not enough to kill both Amani'shi Guardians before the next two come. Also, the feral druids had problems tanking more than three adds. I guess the warriors' Thunder Clap might help a little but we didn't have a warrior.

How do you do them?

 

Lavode

We beat the gauntlet last night, in a half guild, half pug group
Tactic was that I offtanked every warrior that came from behind, while a dps warrior killed /dps tanked the incoming birds from the front - He might have had helping hand from our solitary mage, I didnt see since I was rather buzy.
Our second feral tanked the stationary trolls while all other dps killed them as fast as possible -
Points of note: this was not even a full guild run, and we only had one real aoe class present, but it was still quite doable with proper tactics - I am certain there is a fairly large number of viable strategies for this gauntlet but you must match your plan to your group, so it does take some tought. The actual boss fight after the gaunlet is relatively straightforward, but a tonne of fun.
Hint: Follow the purple beam!
*edited for clarity and grammar*

 

Tyfusius

Hi Citrinite,

I forgot to mention that I am on EU ptr.

Thanks though. *

 

kaib

ooh, that sucks.
In our 2nd raid to za (the first being limited by the 6 pm ptr instance reset) we did the first three timed thigns easily, but picked a bad boss order with bear, hawk, lynx and then eagle. We had like 12 minutes left for eagle but did not make it fast enough. Still, in that case if you are t6 geared the timed event should be a piece of cake with a bit of practice. Was hoping it would be for all 6 bosses, which would make it pretty challenging at least.

 

Happee

Hey,

I am in a very casual guild that has downed Gruul and Lurker, but not Mags or VR. Granted, we are stacking our Test realm group with our best players, but we have had more success in ZA then I expected.

We killed the bear boss the first night, and considering we didn't realize we needed to split the cleave, it seemed like a fight that was MUCH too hard. After some reading up on the fight, we had a much easier time.

The gauntlet will be the bane of casual guilds, but we were able to get through it with our group. Our pally is a part time tank (he was having some ret fun for this run) and respecced after a few attempts. We had me (prot warrior) grab all the warriors that came from behind, the prot pally grabbed the eagles, and our feral druid grabbed the Protector and Caster. Our warlock seeded the birds and warriors, but otherwise the dps concentrated on the bears targets.

I am very concerned with the gauntlet and one of our regular groups. There doesn't seem to be any margin of error for a group at our gear level, and casual guilds tend to include less then the best play from some members.

The eagle boss was easy. We simply had everyone collapse to the tank in the seconds leading up to the storm. This included having the protection pally tank and me (prot warrior) as dps, so obviously not optimal.

While we didn't kill the Lynx, but I think we could have with a few more attempts.

So, from my T4ish perspective, the first three bosses are accessible. In fact, I am hoping that all the bosses don't fall as easy as these did. With our casual schedule, SSC and The Eye fights take a long time to learn, and ZA is really good new content for us. I hope we don't chew it up too quickly.

 

• Falk

The gauntlet does seem to be a little overwhelming when its working correctly. You need a certain threshold of DPS as a minimum baseline if you don't want to be overwhelmed, and even more than that to push through and make progress (Similar 'mechanic' to Hydross transitions and adds - where burning down the adds by the next transition is the minimum baseline)

Considering that it seems the dudes behind function to make sure you have enough offtanking power, (and the birds teach how to not let mobs focus fire and gib overeager AOE) they probably could make the mobs behind non-elite and instead apply a stacking healing done reduced (done, not received) and it would have more or less the same effect - you still need to keep them off healers, but you don't have to devote DPS to burn them down till after pulling the final mob.

 

Juli

We did a full clear of ZA the other night, group setup was Warrior Warrior Rogue Rogue EnhShaman in group1 and ShdPriest RestoShaman RestoDruid FrostMage HolyPaladin in group2. I was the shadow priest. Everyone was in 2-3 piece tier6 and mostly hyjal/bt nonset gear with the exception of the EnhShaman which was a pug from the PTR and I believe was in tier5 level gear? the RestoDruid, and the FrostMage who was in season2 arena gear. Warriors are our 2 main tanks for raids, rogues had Illidan dagger and completed warglaives set. My impressions were:

Nalorakk - Bear Avatar:
Very simple (and kind of boring) for my part. The fight is very long, even for our gear. I would say a 10-15% reduction in his hp would be reasonable, but since this should be tuned around people in full-karazhan gear and I was neither healing nor tanking, nor were we at that level of gear, I don't believe I can speak definitively on the tuning numbers.

I do know that we got a taunt resist + challenging shout resist + mocking blow finally landed, followed by another taunt resist on the next mangle, which led to some pretty nasty spikes on our tanks based on what I was hearing on vent. It seems unreasonable to expect a kara-level group to deal with that unless the healers/tanks were exaggerating. Something should be done to prevent "lolRNG" wipes from taunt resists if the spikes are really that big.

Akil'zon - Eagle Avatar:
Pretty fun fight on the whole, but there are some things that need to be fixed. The boss does a random toss up into the air that makes you crater for about 4k. The toss can be cast immediately before the storm cloud, meaning that you can get tossed, the storm ticks, you crater for 45% of your hp, and then take another storm tick and basically get gibbed if you don't have an immunity effect or slow fall of some sort, especially if you have the +nature debuff. I can't imagine that is intended.

This ability combo could be fixed by either creating a minimum amount of time between the two abilities, or by making the storm damage start low and ramp up, similar to the now-fixed fatal attraction damage. I'd find the latter to be the more elegant solution.

Jan'alai - Dragonhawk Avatar:
Probably my favorite fight in the zone, I don't really have any complaints here. Not really sure why this is regarded as one of the harder fights, it seemed pretty well tuned (that is, easy for our gear), but as stated before, our gear isn't ideal for fine-tuning difficulty here.

Halazzi - Lynx Avatar:
Pretty straightforward. We lost a couple people near the very end because totems weren't dying fast enough and we didn't spread ranged well enough to minimize damage from chain lightning, but I believe that was player error. The encounter seems pretty well done on the whole.

Hex Lord Malacrass:
We got the ogre, dragonkin, nature elemental (his ability was volatile infection, dispellable disease that ticks AE damage on friendlies for ~1.5k), and undead ghost.

The spell pushback from his power drain ability is obnoxious and seems unnecessary. The damage is fine, I'd just like to see the pushback removed. Without a paladin for concentration aura, it could make the fight significantly more difficult, especially for a lesser geared group. The AE fear and mind controls from his priest-stolen abilities were harder to deal with than any of the other abilities (although the mind control is dispellable) mostly because they disrupted CC on the adds we left alive. At one point our paladin got MC'd, dispelled poly, then consecrated on top of both CC'd adds, then MC expired and the consecrate continued to tick and broke both poly (again) and shackle.

Zul'jin - Final Boss:
Phase 1: Troll - Whirlwind and top-off dot
Easy and straightforward.

Phase 2: Bear - Paralysis debuff
Again, quite easy. We had ranged clump up off to the side. Every time he cast the debuff, I'd mass dispel all 5 in the caster group and the paladin would get the tanks. Can't really speak about healing difficulty or tank spikes.

Phase 3: Eagle - Tornados and spellcast damage penalty
Probably the hardest phase for us. It seemed like I did better damage and took less damage when I focused more on dodging the tornados staying away from other people, and less on squeezing out an extra spell completion. Melee complained about constant knockbacks from tornados and said that the claims that melee do the vast majority of the damage in this phase due to the lack of spellcasting penalty were probably exaggerated.

Phase 4: Lynx - Fixate with stacking damage debuff and whirlwind
Damage seemed high on fixate. Maybe our tanks weren't spamming intervene on the fixated target for the last few hits or HOTs weren't being put up fast enough or something, but intervene shouldn't be a requirement unless you want mandatory warrior tanks. His damage on fixated targets should probably be reduced a bit. It was healable in our gear, but we have considerably more hp than someone in karazhan gear. I can only imagine how fast I would've died with ~8k hp in frozen shadoweave. I don't think anyone in our raid was below about 11k buffed hp and one of our squishiest targets was in full arena gear.

Phase 5: Dragonhawk - Moving fire-beam-voidzones and buffet
Easy and straightforward, durr don't stand in fire.

Overall the zone seems very well done, I just don't think its completely tuned for its intended audience. I would just like to see those few changes made to the bear hp, toss+cloud on eagle, pushback on malacrass, and fixate damage on zuljin's lynx phase. I'd also prefer to see the timed event timers start from when the prisoner NPC is done with his script, not from when the boss dies, although that's pretty minor and more of an annoyance.

 

Tuhalu

The Avatar bosses do seem pretty straightforward to beat once you have them figured out.

Malacrass is a step up in difficulty, mostly due to the pain he brings with his aoe shadow damage attack. We cheesed it a bit by putting on shadow resist neck, cloak and wrist, but non-T6 guilds could probably consistently handle that move with practice or consumables anyway. We found it best to take out the adds that would take a healer away from healing duty. We had Ogre, Wind Serpent, Elemental and Undead and while we were able to cc every one of them, we wound up killing the Undead and Wind Serpent right away so that our Holy Priest and Restoration Druid did not have to waste valuable crunch healing time on ccing mobs. His various soul drained abilities are pretty interesting and would definitely be trouble for a guild that was less on the ball about handling his abilities than others. I can see a lot of newer guilds having a long learning period on this guy.

With Zul'jin, the only stages that seemed worthy of further analysis were the Eagle and Lynx stages. It only took our guild a couple of attempts to beat him, but with lesser gear, I can see people dying a lot on those two stages.

In the Eagle stage, you have to dps hard and fast while still avoiding the whirlwinds. With practice, melee can evade a good number of the whirlwinds, but taking 1000-1200 damage per whirlwind while being ping-ponged around can add up fast (the closer you are to the middle, the more likely you are to get ping-ponged around). Additionally, when you cast any heal, you will get hit for around 1500 damage by a lightning bolt. This seems to be intended to make it counterproductive to just spam HoT on everyone while running away from whirlwinds. Healers need to find places they can stand and land big heals to minimise damage to themselves. While overgearing this stage can make it seem like a bit of a joke, I can certainly see how it would be quite dangerous at the intended gear level.

In the Lynx stage, everyone is a squishy when he fixates on them. His Claw Charge starts off fairly weak, but adds 100ish damage per application and goes for about 17 attacks. It's also unmitigable. I took just as much damage in bear form as others were taking in caster gear. His Claw Charge does in the vicinity of 15000 damage total over the period of time it takes (5 seconds?). It's simply a test of the healers ability to heal the right target fast with big heals. In the same sense as the Eagle stage, having more Health on every character just increases the margin of error.

 

• frmorrison

Overall, I think the damage done to the raid for all the bosses need to be tuned down or HP pools reduced a bit.

I think the in-house raid team helped tune this dungeon, but even assuming they only used Kara, badge, heroic gear, they are likely really good at staying alive, while the average player is not.

 

Abbi

We're 2/6 SSC and 1/4 TK (well, 3/6 as of Thursday), and we powered through the gauntlet with 8 of our regulars plus a fillin hunter in Karazhan gear and a Karazhan geared priest. It took us four or five tries, but I can't imagine it's not going to get easier with practice.

We put me on the front two mobs, and our feral on the rearguard. Once we figured out the kill, eagle, move forward rhythm it wasn't bad at all.

 

Krennick

Question:
Is there something funny about Halazzi's melee damage in phase 2?

Background:
A number of raiders from my guild have copied across to the PTR mainly to get some first-hand experience with ZA, and while we haven't done actual raids we've been able to field a full ten a couple of times and have at least seen the four avatars in actions, and killed eagle and bear in different instance IDs.

On Sunday we entered an instance, killed the eagle avatar (so he is the only dead avatar) and moved through to have a look at the Halazzi the Lynx Avatar.

Phase 1 was very manageable. We had a hunter along and when he enraged he just got tranqued and life was good.

Phase 2 saw our tank (me) seemingly insta-die. Similarly to when he enraged he went big and red in phase 2, but I don't think our hunter had a cooldown ready to tranq him, or maybe he didn't even try, not having gotten the warning. We tried a couple of times, I tried stacking avoidance gear, but it occurs to me that he was hitting me with a normal melee hit, non-crit, non-crushing, through shield block and 21k armor and defensive stance for 11k, 13k or 16k. He also swings about twice per second with his dual wielding. I could go about popping Moroes and the Scarab for increased avoidance and just hope for good luck, but my gear isn't at a level where I can become 100% melee immune, even against dual wielders.

I'm fairly unconvinced that upping your avoidance to the point where you cannot be hit is the way to tank phase two to avoid getting insta-gibbed by seemingly increasing melee hits.

I've spent some hours reading all the info I could find, and noone else seems to have commented on something like this - is this a real fluke, or is there just something very basic we haven't done correctly?

 

Cohren

He is currently bugged. His Berserk timer is 60 seconds atm so he is not killable until they fix it.

 

Kasi

One question about ZA I have that I've not been able to find deals with the level 141 rings from the timed events. Is it a quest where everyone upon completing it gets their choice of rings, or are the rings random drops from chests and you only get 1-2 total (and random) on each event?

 

Vestyanna

Very good thread.

Question: Has anyone seen the Lynx boss in beserker? We only attempted a few times and first time we saw that.

Thanks!!!

 

• Falk

The thread was so good you didn't read the latest few posts? The ones that say "Oh hey, he's bugged and berserking early"?

If you did mean something else, your post could benefit from a little more clarity.

Re: Rings, we got one off the chest for Nalorakk, but this was on the first build of PTR. Haven't run ZA for the latest few builds, so things may have changed since then.

 

Cromfel

Dont know if this is appropriate place to request help for some PTR testing, but really this isnt suitable for own topic. I would like to gather optimal melee group and go benchmark at Blasted Lands mobs to see how the Retribution additions work in comparison to other classes.

If anyone have spare time tonight and are on PTR, feel free to add Desdaaja on friend list and we will go get some WWS logs. I would like to see the team be melee shaman, feral druid, rogue, warrior and my self. Server would be EU PvP PTR.

Feel free to also throw me a PM or something so I could add some volunteer names to friend list also.

.:. Retribution Paladin Hideout .:. http://cromfel.battlefield.fi/