Healranktwo

Pardon me if this deserves to be in some other thread (more specifically the ZA testing one), I just though this would be more suited to be a discussion of it's own rather than cluttering up another thread and derailing it.

I think Blizzard did a great job with ZA. It's the first of it's kind if you think about it. With most of the in-game updates lately being tuned towards the average player (don't turn this into a hardcore/casual debate!!!), it's a nice change of pace to see a zone that's designed for almost all players of the game.

People who are "just right" for the place get to down some bosses, have a great time (maybe not so great time lol), and generally make small progression. As they gear up more from the zone, they are able to do the timed event and pick up more loot.

People who outgear the place a little down most, if not all the bosses, probably beat the first 2 timed event, and get some loot in the process that is a nice upgrade over their t5 epics.

People who SEVERELY outgear the place get their little challenge from the timed event, which is actually pretty decently hard, yet if they manage to complete it, rewards them with an item (Amani War Bear) that while basically says, "Hey, look at me, I finished the timed event which isn't a cakewalk and got one of the best looking mounts in the game!" yet doesn't actually affect gameplay or make the average casual player feel like it's something that should be accessible to them. Yet if they are people who fall between the middle of the two, they will eventually gear up and have a shot at finishing it.

Of course, Blizzard's blunder sorta screwed that all up, what with most people able to just loot the bear mount now with the Lynx chest bug and pretty much losing the "value" that it should have, which I think was what Blizzard intended for it, but that's for another thread or something. Anyway, what do you think? I personally hope to see more dungeons like that. I'm not saying that every dungeon from now on should have it's "bear mount reward" thing going on, just that it's kind of nice to be able to actually have an incentive to do ZA regardless of where you are in progression besides the "OH I LOVE TO RAID!" motto =P

Since Blizzard has it's own schedule and is unable to pump out content for all demographics constantly, ZA is a nice addition that attempts to statisfy those that are just out of Karazhan, those working on Kael/Vashj, and those that are already done with Hyjal/BT (and everyone else in-between) imo.

 

• Whiteknight

I think the feature I like best in the dungeon is the 3 day lockout timer.

 

◊ Vectivus

I think the 'timed' model is a wonderful incentive, and rewards all of the things that are desirable at the pinnacle of raiding - no dying/wiping, minimal mistakes, speed, little-to-no downtime, etc.

I often wish that our 25-man raids had similar systems built into them - having a built-in mechasnism as part of the game to encourage intelligent play, wipe recovery, rebuffing, etc. is a phenomenal idea.

Hopefully this catch-all way of catering content to every level of player is further extended into the WotLK development cycle. I know it's too late to hope for it to be brough backwards into existing content.

 

Soladoras

The 3 day reset timer, the timed event that incentivizes a fast paced raid, minimal trash, and the badges from the bosses have made this a very enjoyable instance for me. I hope to see these particular aspects of ZA utilized in future raid zones.

 

heel

I just about everything about ZA. It's short and fast, there's still an element of challenge (timed event), and there's a broad spectrum of rewards (epics, badges, mounts, gold, vendor-spawned goodies). The only real problem that I have with it is how they randomly decided to sprinkle a T5.5-ish loot table with items that are better than T6. Every single one of our casters needs Hex-Shrunken Head (and nothing else); all of our melee need Berserker's Call (and nothing else). Running ZA for these items today is fine, but there will definitely be people who still need them three months from now. Everyone will have their bears, everyone will have every conceivable badge reward, and we will be running the instance in the hopes of seeing one of two items.

It's really silly that I will be replacing a trinket that drops from Illidan with one that drops from ZA, and it's insane that the guild is probably going to have to do 70+ runs of such a trivial instance to get that same trinket for everyone. Right now, ZA is fun. By January, it will be agony. BWL for Rejuv Gems all over again.

 

Kodus

The only thing I can think of that I'd like to see is making dungeon's "scalable". So if you have 10 people it's hard, 20 people harder. Not more tedious or more trash, but the bosses hit harder and have more health etc.

I also like how at least some of the encounters require everyone to be paying attention, not just 1 or two tanks and the healers. although this has been the trend since AQ it still makes me feel happy, tank and spank is so 1999.

I'm kind of surprised that Kara is still 7 day, but now that it's badge heaven I guess it has to stay that way or people will be getting a truly insane number of badges a week.

 

cheadstina

I think this instance it too hard for a guild that only got Kara gear, since it's ment to be the next step after karazhan for 10man raids

 

◊ Vectivus

On this note, I guess my one concern with ZA is that there is a very clear 'ideal group' for it. Having done it a few times, there's a marked difference in difficulty between having two Mages available for CC and having none, for example. Arguably Karazhan was similar, in that you could trivialize many encounters based on your class composition (Moroes with 2 Priests? Maiden with 2 Shaman?), but for the most part any moderately-competent group could do it.

Part of this might just be the "new-ness" and the relative difficulty - as strategies propagate and gear scales, people may find that the need to have X AoE or Y kind of tank will diminish.

 

cigar3tte

In full Kara gear, I don't think the place is too hard. You won't make the time event, but you shouldn't anyways (in the beginning) if you don't outgear the instace.

 

• Snowy

If you aren't getting to at least Malacrass with a Kara-geared raid, then the problem lies with your execution, not your gear level. The timed trial is something tuned for higher gear levels, but there's no reason you can't eventually get the Bear and maybe the Eagle down before the timer expires.

Benefactors' Bar, where you get free English lessons:

 

Lymmel

I really enjoyed the instance, but it feels more like a 5 man, i.e. something you do in your spare time instead of something you schedule. The short clear time makes it feel a bit less immersive and engaging, but it's also a lot more friendly to doing other stuff along playing wow. It's the first time I can do an instance and schedule to go out later as well. I welcome this if it's an actual change in design orientation because as cool it was to clear 4 naxxramas wings, it wasn't exactly the most social friendly design. I was never a fun of behemoth instances and this could be a nice change of mentality, even if I won't hold my breath. I guess one shooting most encounters didn't really help with making it more intriguing, which should be true for sunwell. But I would really like it if sunwell on farm took the same time as ZA.

On the matter of trinkets though heel is absolutely right. At the very least those trinkets should be zul'jin token drops like the hakkar trinkets instead of low % drops from hex lord. They are what's interesting for the instance in the long term and every time I see the 3 gnome trinket I feel it could have been my hex shrunken head.

 

Soladoras

I have cleared this instance twice with no AoE beyond 2x magma totems, and with no CC to speak off beyond the MC from a Shadow Priest. While yes, with a little more AoE / CC, the instance becomes easier, I didn't notice marked difference between ZA with a "sub-optimal" group and those Karazhan fights you mentioned with a "sub-optimal" group.

 

Eylirria

This.

I'm part of a casual 10man group (we only get together to play on saturdays, thus, casual regarding time spent playing together) that made it's first attempts at ZA this last weekend. We are Karazhan/Heroic geared, and for the record we've been clearing Karazhan every week for the past 3 months or so. On our first ZA group we managed to kill all 4 Avatar bosses. The next day we had a fresh instance, and we again cleared the 4 Avatars and added Malacrass to the list.

From where I'm standing, the instance is not complicated or terribly hard for a decently geared in Karazhan-gear guild. It is perfectly cleareable without stacking or even having certain classes required -- we've done Lynx without a hunter, for instance. Considering how every boss fight there for us has so far proved to be a matter of getting the execution down, I expected Zul'jin to be dead this weekend. Its real challenge is the timed event, not being able to kill Zul'jin.

(We are nowhere near close to completing the timed event. We got bear with 1 minute left on our first time, and we failed the timed event on the next one -- this upcoming saturday we're changing the Avatar order to Eagle --> Bear --> Hawk --> Lynx, hoping to improve some)

 

Ztorm

I love the design of the instance itself. The bear boss is a nice gear-check for the instance: do your tanks have the gear and do your healers have the endurance for a sustained fight. For a guild that's just finished karazhan, I imagine this will be a significant test. The winged format is also of great design. If a guild gets stuck on one boss (ie: dragonhawk), it allows them to go to a different one that they might be better suited for. Overall, I think the dragonhawk boss and Hex lord Malacrass are the most difficult - maybe too difficult for the instance. The dragonhawk boss requires a lot of raid mobility and DPS coordination. Malacrass has a pretty hefty. If you don't kill him after 5-6 drains, his damage eventually becomes too great and you lose CC/healers from the shadowbolt volleys. Wearing some SR gear can help, but the DPS benchmark still has to be met. Overall, most of the fights are fairly enjoyable and some are quite innovative. Phase 3 on Zul'jin, the dragonhawk's bomb phase, and the randomness of Malacrass are highlights for me.

I agree that having a certain class types are definitely desirable (mage for CC, melee for Zul'jin, etc). Overall though, I don't see a lot of need for raid stacking. If you're a guild that's working through SSC/TK, you can clear the place with one group as long as you have a good blend of DPS and 2 viable tanks.

@Heel: I agree that while much of the loot in ZA are of appropriate power level, a few pieces are a bit overpowered. The trinkets are either the best or second best trinket available. For mages, the only upgrade to the Shrunken head is the Skull of Guldan from Illidan, but I would still have the Shruken head in my second trinket slot. The hood of hexing is arguably better than T6 with +12spl gems. The rings from the timed quests are only eclipsed by the exalted hyjal ring, and the later takes several months of farming Hyjal. Although nerfing the ZA items might be a solution, I think a better and more appropriate route is to buff the BT/Hyjal items. Much of the BT/Hyjal loot are currently equivalent or inferior to items you can obtain through badges or ZA. The melee weapons from season 3 arena are higher DPS than drops from BT/Hyjal (except from Illidan) instead of being equivalent to them. I think increasing the quality of BT/Hyjal items, much like how they buffed SSC/TK weapons, would do a lot to produce contrast between gear levels.

 

◊ Lord BEEF

The gnome mask trinket is a "bonus" item slot and won't take up the space of the spell damage trinket. We had both drop from Malacrass last run.

 

Uglesh

Personally I'm very happy with the instance itself. It's FUN. That's the big thing. It's quick, challenging, but still requires some skill and attentiveness. The rewards for speed are a GREAT new gimmick that I think we'll see lots more of. I'm still unsure about the 3 day reset though, as I feel this will lead to a short shelf life and excessive gear for the time investment.

Where I find myself let down is with the quality of drops. Did we really need to trivialize SSC and TK?? Sadly since the expansion the loot distribution has gone turbo. Remember how ZG only gave a few epics with mostly blues?? But those blues were still upgrades.

It seems we are doomed to the recent trend of nerfing things for the sake of casual players and the whole "make epics available to everyone". What is often lost in the casual vs hardcore debate is that there is a large population in the middle. For those people who were pushing through SSC and TK, you have essentially provided a disincentive to progress in 25 man content.

 

Nerull

Healranktwo , I dont get your question. Step in the right direction ? For whom ? You cant compare this instance to Karazhan as back then everyone started back on 0. This instance is in many ways the AQ20 of TBC, an instance that has to be done with proper execution by most or simply brute forcing it for people who outgear the instance from the start.

Was AQ20 good for BWL killing guilds ? Not aside Cenarion Circle rep pretty much. There where some nice items in it , but they got rendered useless prettymuch by the loot in AQ40 ( which was pretty much a joke until the huhuran NR gear cockblock was met ) . Was there good loot and challenge for Zul Gurub raiding guilds ? Defenitely, it was defenitely the next step in their raiding progress.

Now ZA : I dont see the use for tier 6 geared guild to go Zul Aman aside the questline which is a nice pile of gold - although I doubt anyone in a tier 6 guild really needs money. The only thing unique it drops is .. a bear ? Tier 6 guilds dont need badges, dont need more than at most 1 item ( although there are better alternatives at BT available ) from it.

Now the public it is aimed for : The Karazhan clearing guild. They can get some nice upgrades and badges for even better gear, I suppose its all good for them, although I read from some posters here it is found too hard. From what Ive seen its like AQ20 all over again, very execution dependant although I can imagine that the lynx is a tank check and the hex lord a dps/sustained healing check.

I admit being in a middle tier guild and Ive had some fun clearing it the first two times, but basicly Im just there to get two items of BT quality and then probably get out to never come back again. Its fun to clear it once, but not THAT fun that Im up for clearing it two times a week for some badges I soon have no use of at all again.

Conclusion :
- High end guilds have nothing to do here aside from having killed zuljin a few times for the fun of it and a vanity mount.
- Mid tier guilds can go here on non raiding days, members have a small chance on getting that one rare item and some badges, although I the use of badges soon becomes obsolete again. I know mages who took the haste gear just for a lol set ( the ones from Heroic Badges arent so good for raiding imo ) , since they have nothing to do with the badges anymore for quite some time.
- For Low end guilds its a step up to get some nice items , although karazhan gives a far better badge/hour ratio which can be turned in for better upgrades for them. Without talking to arrogrant, I find it strange that people in these guilds can attain items of sick power ( hex lord caster mask, trinket to mention two ) which are very close to end BT loot.

Step in the right direction ? It all depends on how you look on it, Im curious to see the enthousiasm of the high and mid tier guilds for ZA after clearing it a few times because they where too bored.

For low end its a pretty good instance and thats about it. Not that I mind, I hope everyone has their fun in this game.

 

◊ Bryne

I really fail to see how a 10-man instance on a 3-day reset that is designed to be cleared in 90 minutes or less (maybe two hours plus for undergeared raids) competes at all with your SSC/TK progression.

Sure, the items are good, but let's be serious - this is the most casual-friendly (in terms of time spent) raid we've seen yet in the game. Zul'Aman is something you should have groups running on off days or when there's a spare 2 hours and 10 people interested, not something you'd replace your 25-man progress raids with. I think it does an excellent job of succeeding Karazhan in that regard once you're finished with T4 content.

 

• Falk

To hell with the bosses, we had no mages and a pack of 3 Flame Casters/1 Guardian. It was...

was...

was...

... OH MY GOD SAVE ME BLOOD EVERYWHERE MAKE THE MSTOP THEY'RE COMING

That aside, I do share the sentiments that ZA is a really, really good change of pace - It's all mentioned before in the thread, but it's short, challenging, has good rewards worth clearing every reset (come on, it IS short enough, compared to T2 pants, not to mention the manageable raid size)

I do feel however, that its success does come from its uniqueness. It's like Durnholde and Black Morass in a sense - a really fresh breakaway from the usual cookie cutter build of an instance, and amazing fun because of it. If every single raid instance had a timed mode... well, I dunno; some instances could benefit from it, but I feel it would just break the overall pace and feel of raiding somewhat.

 

◊ Vectivus

I think arguing that ZA is 'boring' or 'pointless' is jumping the gun a little bit - even as the MT of a 5/6 & 2/4 guild, I can find a number of great upgrades for my tanking and DPS sets in ZA, not to mention the ~300 Badges of Justice worth of tanking upgrades alone that I could use. This gear is well itemized, and the appeal is absolutely there. If you're in a BT-farming guild, sure, there's no meaningful upgrades for you - but there's likely not many meaningful upgrades in BT, either, so the point is moot.

Overall, I think ZA was a timely addition to the game, and it has a very strong offering in terms of supplementing gear for progressing guilds.

 

Ztorm

Completely false statement. The trinkets and rings from ZA are simply superb, and most classes will use them in conjunction with or over BT/Hyjal items. Many of the other pieces in ZA fill in itemization gaps that result from unlucky drops: our off-tanks are looking to get the Bulwark of the Amani Empire and the cleaver of the unforgiving. In fact, most of our members plan on running 1-2 ZA per week in between Hyjal/BT clears.

 

Uglesh

For guilds with limited raid nights this VERY much competes with 25 man progression. A 3 night a week guild would be hard pressed to push content when one of those nights becomes a ZA night, and with loot this good everyone will want to run it. Many of the items in ZA are comparable if not BETTER then SSC/TK loot.... not even factoring in the badges.
Furthermore, if you are able to run 2-3 ZA groups rather then one 25 man group, the loot to time investment ratio would prove much better.

My point is that for the level of difficulty, the loot seems overdone. We all know that the current model challenge of raiding only increases when you add more people. Getting 10 people on the ball for a ZA run is FAR easier then gettting 25. For this reason alone, the loot shouldn't be as great as it is.