I do often wonder if the PTR actually helps very much with testing anything.
It does. If you have been playing since the release of Blackwing Lair (Gatewatch anyone?) you would know this. AQ and ZG were the first instances that used the PTR to test content and Naxx is where it really took off. You could always see where testing came to a conclusion on PTR as raiders would encounter major bugs with a boss fight on live(C'thun/Saph/Kel'thuzad). And as mentioned earlier, only Gruul's lair was lightly tested in TBC beta and we saw the disaster that raiding was once progression started post 70.
Another day in ZA and I want to make another observation... I play a shadow priest, which many of you know is the irony class of TBC: We make mana for others and yet we are perpetually out of mana ourselves. The mana requirements in ZA are fairly insane even on the "aspect bosses" and it's my understanding it gets worse as you move forward.
We are still learning in ZA and have killed bear/eagle/lynx, but I can tell you that's going to be 3-5 Super Manas/Mad Alch's for me even 3 months from now. I'm not whining too much, but really a fight for a somewhat casual instance that requires 2 Super Manas per attempt -- success or failure -- is long for the sake of long. Maybe my complaint is more about shadow priest mana mechanics than about ZA per se, but I'm not the only one noticing the exreme mana requirements in there.
Also, as far as reaid composition, it's doubtless flexible. And yet it's simillarly clear that having a hunter is gigantically useful. It's not just the tranq, it's trapping on the gauntlet, it's reliable CC everywhere. Having a feral druid as one of your tanks means a lot more dodged saberlashes and a typically larger HP pool to eat those as well as the other attacks off lynx. Not having a mage? The flame casters should be a blast -- pun intended. No warlock? Enjoy the gauntlet without an "unlimited mana" AoE class.
I mean there are fixes for all that, but I'm not sure I'd want to live with them too often.
It does. If you have been playing since the release of Blackwing Lair (Gatewatch anyone?) you would know this. AQ and ZG were the first instances that used the PTR to test content and Naxx is where it really took off. You could always see where testing came to a conclusion on PTR as raiders would encounter major bugs with a boss fight on live(C'thun/Saph/Kel'thuzad). And as mentioned earlier, only Gruul's lair was lightly tested in TBC beta and we saw the disaster that raiding was once progression started post 70.
*hmm* To the best of my recollection Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad were defeated within a week of the first groups reaching them, this would be the first time I have heard about any serious bugs with them for sure. Also, I might be wrong here, but I don't recall any major changes at all done to the Naxxramas encounters as a result of the testing by the players, which based on what people wrote about it at the time wasn't very extensive (GM's death touching bosses and then letting people do a few pulls). And you mention Gruul.. We had, what? 3 major changes to that encounter months into live and this was after several months worth of "testing" in TBC beta. Sorry, I have yet to be convinced PTR testing is of any inherent value at all, seems more like the designers "got it right" with Naxxramas, and that is about it. I do know there were a lot of grumbles about TBC encounters in the beta, but these went largely ignored until march-april.
Sorry, but if you don't want to get spoiled, don't read boss strategies, don't watch kill movies and don't use BossMods. Strategies for ZA have been out on EJ the day it hit the PTR, BigWigs had modules 2 days later.
There is no other way to not get spoiled. Zul'aman wasn't different than any other instance upon it's release, other than it was a 10-man and was out-geared by the majority reading this board.
And yet i agree with most posters before me. Zul'aman's timed approach is great. It's a challenge for every progression state.
And i dare saying i have seen and completed the instance with my Main decked in T6 and with my alt in Karazhan and crafted tailoring gear. I don't say we managed the time event beyond the first two bosses in the alt run but it was nonetheless fun and manageable.
*hmm* To the best of my recollection Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad were defeated within a week of the first groups reaching them, this would be the first time I have heard about any serious bugs with them for sure. Also, I might be wrong here, but I don't recall any major changes at all done to the Naxxramas encounters as a result of the testing by the players, which based on what people wrote about it at the time wasn't very extensive (GM's death touching bosses and then letting people do a few pulls). And you mention Gruul.. We had, what? 3 major changes to that encounter months into live and this was after several months worth of "testing" in TBC beta. Sorry, I have yet to be convinced PTR testing is of any inherent value at all, seems more like the designers "got it right" with Naxxramas, and that is about it. I do know there were a lot of grumbles about TBC encounters in the beta, but these went largely ignored until march-april.
This is getting a bit off topic, but from what I remember in Naxx on PTR: Heigan feared, the 4H marks were not an issue, Noth was changed three or four times, Gothik had some major bugs that could easily be exploited, Instructor Raz was dramatically changed (the mind control caused infinant aggro on the priests and required taunt rotations from two warriors per add (8 total) to keep it off of the priest until it was mind controled again), Grand Widow/Anub were essentially unchanged, and I never saw much of Grob, Maex or Thaddius to know what they were like. Also, the trash mobs were all toned down from the way they were on PTR, esp the Abom wing. As far as Saph/KT goes, I believe that several hotfixes went into both encounters the first weeks that DnT and Nihilum were on them.
And for TBC, look at the changes for Magtheridon, Vashj, Hydross and others that came about from live testing on the realms.
I will always prefer to see new content tested on the PTR.
I'm in a guild that is in front of Kael'Thas and I found it refreshing and quite nice to run.
That said I fear that for the low-end audience (guilds that juste stepped out of Karazhan, maybe even for guilds at mid- SSC/TK) the instance is a little bit too unforgiving in terms of group composition. You need :
- One MT, one OT, should be quite well-equipped if you want to deal with bear
- Priest / Mage / Warlock for CCing on Malacrass adds
- Hunter for Lynx tranqshotting
- Pal for anti interrupt aura is almost required to handle Malacrass AE
- Shadowpriest for manaregen is a prerequisit in most fights (especially since a low-end group will have longer drawn-out battles because they lack DPS)
That means that if you want to make your group and have the usual three healers you have... no wiggle room at all (just the luxury of having to choose two among the four flavours of healers)...
I'm in a guild that is in front of Kael'Thas and I found it refreshing and quite nice to run.
That said I fear that for the low-end audience (guilds that juste stepped out of Karazhan, maybe even for guilds at mid- SSC/TK) the instance is a little bit too unforgiving in terms of group composition. You need :
- One MT, one OT, should be quite well-equipped if you want to deal with bear
- Priest / Mage / Warlock for CCing on Malacrass adds
- Hunter for Lynx tranqshotting
- Pal for anti interrupt aura is almost required to handle Malacrass AE
- Shadowpriest for manaregen is a prerequisit in most fights (especially since a low-end group will have longer drawn-out battles because they lack DPS)
That means that if you want to make your group and have the usual three healers you have... no wiggle room at all (just the luxury of having to choose two among the four flavours of healers)...
I think you're overlooking something... most guilds fresh out of Karazhan won't -get- to Malacrass unless they seriously gear up on the other bosses first.
For the first 3 bosses at the very least, you do not require much. A few decent tanks, yes. But I didn't find the Bear Boss to hit extremely hard - most of it was Bleed damage, which ignores armour anyway. If you have a tank or two that can handle Prince, you should be more than fine for Bear Boss.
We didn't go with a Hunter and ye - that put a somewhat larger strain on the healers, but it's entirely doable to keep someone standing on the Lynx boss.
Didn't read to much of the thread as this same topic comes up with the release of each raid zone; Does such zone work or fail?
The main drawback for ZA at the moment, it's not the gear requirements, but the complexity of some of the fights. If you look at Karazhan, and the difficultly of the fights there, Shade of Aran and Netherspite are the toughest bosses by far, and neither of those come close to how hard the fights in ZA are.
The idea behind ZA is very very nice. Provides loot to progress into T6, also awards T6 level loot on the event chests. The badge loot now on G'eras povides the filling gap to what ZA doesn't drop, perfect design, nice hefty cost to the items too.
Where ZA fails though, is not in ZA, it's in Karazhan with the BoJ. For the average guild wanting to clear ZA, already clearing Karazhan easily, done Gruul, VR, maybe Magtheridon, and trying to progress deeper into the T5 content, badges may or may not be easily come by. If the BoJ's would of been added to Karazhan one patch earlier, people would be having more fun progressing rather than wiping.
I gotta say that for the bear boss, he is perfectly tuned, except for the mounted bear guys. For some reason, with a slightly bad placed mob, or pull will cause an instant wipe for a Karazhan/T4 geared group. The dragonhawk is still, for the overall encounter over tuned. If they were to reduce the number of eggs, shorten his enrage timer, berserk timer, and make it more of a straight dps fight, it would be more fun. The eagle boss is perfect except for the damn range of the eagles that spawn. To hard to kill them off effectively with certain group make-ups. The Lynx boss is nearly perfect, except for the the room you fight in....same for Hex Lord Malacrass. Zul'jin is perfect except for phase 4, the lynx phase. This phase is easily done with multiple paladins in the raid, but with a bunch of clothies, becomes unreasonably hard. And each boss is more over, trivialized by the use of a shadow priest.
Once ZA is finally tuned, it may be referred to as the second best raid zone to date right behind Naxx, but all depending upon how long it takes to get tuned, and when Sunwell is released to those fixes.
What really makes ZA though is the lack of trash. Difficult bosses, nice rewards, low on trash, the total opposite of Karazhan.
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
That is not true. Due to constant lack of healers we've only been in ZA twice so far. First time we killed the Bear boss on our 3rd try. The second time we pulled the last trash before him with 8 minutes left on the timer, but we had a silly wipe then and hence blew the timed event
Our raid group is made from two guilds and (with the exception of 2-3 people who have a piece from Gruuls lair) we only have Karazhan and crafted gear as well as heroic stuff and badges rewards. Basically your average Karazhan guild. Possibly even worse since we only had our third Nightbane kill last night, heh. At the time we did ZA our MT was still using some greens and blues.
So, from the point of view of a guild who still needs 2-3 days to clear Karazhan, ZA seems perfectly tuned so far (we spent some time just scouting around, trying trash pulls to get a feeling for the instance) and we're looking forward to kill Hawk and Eagle with not too much trouble.
Blizzard gets two thumbs up from us for creating ZA as a very enjoyable and do-able instance for our casual group of friends.
[10:05:49] <Nat> how do u know if a unicorn is a virgin?
I posted a similar post in the German R&D - ZA is very very well designed, a lot of fun, not overly much trash, interesting bossfights, nice loot (I agree with Whiteknight, I will definitely go for some tanking pieces since they cover an interesting niche) and a great atmosphere. The idea with timed runs is cool as well. The only gripe I have with this is a result from the composition of our ZA raid which is throws T6 raiders with casuals wearing Kara stuff. We won't be able to complete all timers (I guess bear and eagle should be possible, more will be probably impossible). Either we substitute the less geared less stellar players (which I don't want to do) or we just have to run a second group for the second lockout. Which is why ZA is great as well: the shorter lockout is a godsent, really.
Regarding the longterm motivation via badges: this will probably not be true at least for 25 man raiders. You don't really need all the stuff and getting Kara clear for badges is probably much easier and quicker. I also predict that primal nether prices will take a steep dive.
Sorry, but if you don't want to get spoiled, don't read boss strategies, don't watch kill movies and don't use BossMods. Strategies for ZA have been out on EJ the day it hit the PTR, BigWigs had modules 2 days later.
There was a major difference. Time. Whereas people can hold their curiosity a few weeks, it borders on the rediculous to try to pretend no-one knows about the BT fights at this stage and go in "blind". 5 months into T6, everyone has seen something, even if they try to keep it to a minimum.
Eventually they're going to have to remove mana potions from the raid game through one mechanic or another and rebalance mana regeneration mechanics accordingly, but in the meantime it looks like Blizzard has no plans for conclusively addressing mana issues. Mana potions will continue to be a tax on playing a mana-using class, and that's really all there is to it. Just hope it gets addressed in WotLK.
*hmm* To the best of my recollection Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad were defeated within a week of the first groups reaching them, this would be the first time I have heard about any serious bugs with them for sure.
Apart from the whole despawning and not reappearing trick Kel'Thuzad kept pulling etc which was a pretty glaring issue and as someone else already pointed out there was already several other changes implemented as a result of testing feedback. I'm guessing you also didn't run into the fun that was BWL when it went live initially etc as that was the single biggest reason the PTR was introduced due to the number of glaring issues that were present in the instance when it went live.
And you mention Gruul.. We had, what? 3 major changes to that encounter months into live and this was after several months worth of "testing" in TBC beta. Sorry, I have yet to be convinced PTR testing is of any inherent value at all, seems more like the designers "got it right" with Naxxramas, and that is about it. I do know there were a lot of grumbles about TBC encounters in the beta, but these went largely ignored until march-april.
TBC beta testing was phased, it wasn't till the last while that we were even able to level past 67 and zones like Blades Edge, Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley also weren't available untill the same time the level cap was pushed up as well. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that everything was fully tested in the TBC beta and to a degree you're right, everything up to Karazhan was but the raid content was not ready for testing. This was why the leveling content and various instances were generally very well done when they went live but at the same time heroics weren't beta tested properly and look at how overtuned some of those were. Gruul was added in the last few weeks and was beaten on the first night by a "pug" though I use the term "pug" loosely as it was a collection of people from the likes of DNT etc. At that stage he had something like 1.5m HP, didn't hit as hard etc and was generally quite a wuss, the result of the kill was what we got on the live realms as it was never put onto the beta after it was changed due to the fact TBC was about to go live, as such we ended up with a massively overtuned cockblock of a boss that was an utter mess and had no place being the first real raid boss people would be facing.
The lack of testing in SSC/TK also meant we got that mess which took months to resolve until 2.1 finally came along and fixed a lot of issues. The real problem with Karazhan and the various issues that arose such as itemisation wasn't the lack of testing tbh, it was the lack of action on blizzards part to a lot of the feedback. People said right from the start that these blues were better than the Kara epics etc yet it wasn't till months after it went live that stuff like this was changed. Public testing done properly helps dramatically with the tuning and bug resolution, to think otherwise is utter idiocy tbh however it does depend a lot on action being taken on the feedback even if sometimes the developers dont fully agree with it.
If you take the time to scroll back to my original post, you'll find I'm not against testing, but questioning if the PTR is very efficient as a testing tool. Right now, it seems mostly to be a tool for advanced groups to start training new bosses ahead of schedule. The results are also very varying *, as the poster above sort of points out. What I was suggesting was testing by invited raid groups who have signed a NDA.
* - There are plenty of examples of tested encounters that ended up not working on live and untested encounters that have worked just fine.
In general it is the untested content on the PTR that really is by far the worst culprit for bugs/lack of tuning. Fair enough you're concerned that the PTR isn't terribly efficient due to its openess but then I guess the question is who would you have testing the content? Prime example, would you really want the likes of Nihilum, Curse, DNT etc being responsible for the fine tuning of Zul'Aman, good guilds but thats not who the instance was really aimed at as they are way beyond the real intended audience. The PTR is far from ideal but in general it gets a good cross section of the people Blizz actually want testing the content in there without having to go through some overly complex procedure of picking who they want testing it.
P.S. One of the main points about the TBC beta I missed earlier was that it was also in fact invitation only.
Speaking as a Raid Leader in an SSC/TK guild I find ZA is perfect for giving our raiders a break from the stress of the 25 mans. The trash is light and easily handled, and it is all fairly easy to lead. Besides the mana-intensive nature of some of the fights it's a easy ride while still being fun. It uses some unique mob mechanics—the invulnerability totem, the reinforcement calling scouts, the bear-riding trolls—which keep things interesting.
I think the instance works best not only as a transition from Kara to SSC but also as a supplement/morale booster for guilds making their way through the beginnings of learning SSC and TK. In my experience there's no bigger morale boost for a raiding crew than seeing your friends get gear.
Also, regarding the weapon/armor models. It's refreshing to see some in-game models which aren't the high fantasy "Outland" style. There's nothing like bludgeoning something with what is essentially a bamboo reed with a blade through it and the plate armor models are particularly interesting with T5 voodoo warlock-inspired design.
I was surprised that Blizzard didn't put all the trinkets on a head-quest item, I'd say they knew that the trinkets were the reason a number (people who already won the game) would run ZA.
Zul'Aman seems pretty well done. The trash is really easy for my group, but we've been reckless and the bosses were punting us around pretty bad. We were able to get away with a prot-specced MT and an fury-specced warrior OT in Karazhan, but we barely survived the Bear boss with the same combination, even with the OT having very similar gear to the MT.
Ironically for us, everyone's had an easy time with the eagle boss but our group wiped 10 times before getting him. Really we needed to quit goofing around and get our paladin back in the team and give us Concentration aura. It's a good wake up call though, we know we need to try better after having done Karazhan in our sleep for quite a while. Others in our guild who haven't really understood Karazhan (really casual players) were in for a rude awakening in Zul'Aman.
The loot is pretty spiffy, but it doesn't seem that much greater than tier 5-6 except for a few pieces. It has some really big numbers but lacks what you'd normally see in a usual set of gear. Maybe that's what some raiders are looking for, to alter a few pieces because they've got so much of their item budget wasted on stats they don't need.
The lore seems totally out of place, from what I can tell, it seems that factions in the Ghostlands have to worry more about the Scourge than the elves or trolls. They could've made the instance like Stratholme, with a Scarlet Bastion barely holding out against the forces of Baron Rivendare. In turn, just make the forces of Zul'jin fighting against a new Scourge general that's threatening to consume both sides. Zul'jin and said Scourge General could both be "last bosses" of the raid instance. Might put a new spin on things. And I thought Zul'Gurub was well done for story line since it's been brought up, since we help Yeh'kinya (Getting duped is something our toons are too good at) retrieve the essence of Hakkar. We go through Feralas, Zul'Furrak, Jintha'alor, Sunken Temple, then Zul'Gurub. Storyline-wise, I think that's pretty cool. I digress, that's in the past.
Apparently I'm in the minority but I've been there only once and don't really plan to come back. The main problem is that everything feels so small and uneventful that it's quickly boring. As a OT the bear fight is "remember to click on taunt every minute or so and hope it doesn't get resisted", the eagle is "run to MT whenever your boss mod tells you the boss is going to use his special ability", the lynx is "stand in front of mob 1, pick up mob 2, stand in front of mob 1, pick up mob 2..." - we stopped there (we didn't have much time), but globally what I remember from this instance is: stupidly hard trash for stupidly easy bosses (kind of reminds me of Kazrogal). Of course we did the easiest 3 bosses I guess, but still. It didn't feel like there was anything challenging to it - the fights are harder than Kara because the bosses hit way harder (and by the way all the encounters seem to be designed to put a lot of pressure on healers) and are maybe more unforgiving, but the complexity of the encounters is way less than in Kara - which I think was intended when the designers said a fight shouldn't take 10 minutes of explaining. It's true, it doesn't - the trash does, though
So, yeah, not original, not challenging (maybe the time event is), but still holds the key to the best feral dps trinket and ring and some nice eq too. So I might have to run it, but I don't really enjoy it.
It's a nice addition to the game. A good opportunity for BT/MH guilds. Some tuning might not be bad. Ultimately I found the instance to be interesting, but boring. I think it reminded me too much of ZG. I don't think I'll run it too often, but that's mostly due to my greed. The only item I want from the instance is the trinket off of Hex Lord, and I dont' think I'll spend a lot of time farming it.
I was hoping it would be something our apps and non raiders could run while they're waiting for raid invites, but from what I've seen so far, they don't have the gear or group composition to get past Hex Lord.
To everyone complaining about doing Flamecasters without a mage, learn to have fun with Mind Control for once!
Admittedly I'm ina 6/6 3/4 guild, but we had no problems clearing the first 4 bosses without a single mage in the raid. We also used a fury warrior as OT, with 0 points in prot (though admittedly pretty high quality gear - I used to be an MT several months ago). We've also killed Lynx without a hunter without any additional problems - all the damage comes from the Saber lash, not from the melee attacks.
As far as I can tell, no class is required. Pretty much every CC works - not just sheep, but sap, fear, MC, Trap, Hibernate, Cyclone, Entangle, Scatter shot, etc., not to mention that most stuff can be offtanked fairly easily. If you're reliant on polymorph, maybe you need to be a bit more imaginative.
Blizzard's audience and gamers in general are getting older and have much less time. Many of us were hardcore gamers in high school and/or college, playing 30-40 hours a week without worry of responsibility, bills, spouses, etc.
I led several internationally well ranked counter-strike teams, played wow since beta in a bleeding edge alliance guild, and more while I was in college. I had a blast and I can't stand dealing with mediocrity in players. I spent the last year playing with some folks I love, but since we had much more relaxed time requirements, we didn't get any further than SSC/TK and that frustrates me to no end.
Though my wife is incredibly generous about my gaming time (I play ~20+ hours a week), I think it's pretty silly that even a hardcore gamer like myself requires ~20 hours of raiding to fully experience end-game content. Blizzard's model before ZA was more more more. More trash, more bosses, more instances, more time, more clears. With the introduction of token based loot, speed runs, raid-related quests and instances like ZA, we're seeing more and more recognition of the fact that some of Blizzard (and the gaming community's) most loyal folks don't have as much time on their hands.
It can infuriate me to play with lackluster or mediocre players, unable to do their jobs. And while I recognize that mmo's are definitely a game genre about time and knowledge more than skill, it's nice to see my favorite genre moving in this direction.
I've got a beautiful wife and a child on the way. I fully intend to play games intensely for the rest of my life and welcome the evolving scene that allows me to do so.
Eventually they're going to have to remove mana potions from the raid game through one mechanic or another and rebalance mana regeneration mechanics accordingly, but in the meantime it looks like Blizzard has no plans for conclusively addressing mana issues. Mana potions will continue to be a tax on playing a mana-using class, and that's really all there is to it. Just hope it gets addressed in WotLK.
You are of course correct. But mages are getting meaningful assistance in the mini-patch that's upcoming via a 3-charge mana emerald. It's a band-aid, I imagine, and I'm sure mages will still be suffering mana issues (someone with more experience can confirm?). While it wouldn't fix much, giving shadow priests a 2-mins-off-cooldown on shadowfiend would help a bit. Maybe we can get that sometime soon.
And, yes, a real fix come Lich King would be quite welcome.
Did you mean just for the annoying trash mobs or the instance as a whole? I'd like to see the pre-t6 group that can do Malacrass without a priest for fort/shadow prot AND a paladin for conc aura.
I agree with Raeken. As an instance, it's a lot of fun. I especially like the new tricks that the trash throws at us (the gauntlet run, the cat ambushes and those scouts...). And trolls are just inherently comedy characters.
But it feels a lot less 'epic' and immersive than Zul'Gurub did. ZG had a long and complicated questline (well, not really a proper questline, but a lot of quests touching the history of the Hakkari priests), and had quite an involved reputation plus token system on the Zandalari island. It also had a lot of optional/extra rewards and special tokens, like the Voodoo dolls, the Idols, the Edge of Madness or the crazy fishing stuff. There was a lot of Stuff To Do, and things to loot beyond just epics. I don't think Zul'Aman beats Zul'Gurub. The actual in-game lore is very meagre. The only motivation for Zul'Jin and Malacrass comes from a machinima, and Budd's camp is really just a totally unexplained random NPC camp. But Griftah's involvement makes up for a lot of that.
11/21/07, 7:26 AM
Similar Threads
