thaddius

We went tonight and changed one of the Spriests to a hunter for the melee group.

We ended up having the last timer run out as the lynx boss was on 1% due to honor rollover lag and people dying.

It was lame : (.

 

Grifter730

I've read on this thread where some of the group makeups that's completed the 4-chests timed run have a 2-healer team where one of them is a resto druid. Obviously if this has been done, it's doable, but my question is, is this a much harder makeup than if it was, say, holy pally and priest combo? Or is it relatively the same? I imagine that healing this raid makeup will be different than healing something like KZ or 25s.

The way I see it, technically the raid shouldn't be taking much damage, so throwing a lifebloom and letting it bloom over a 6-seconds period, along with CoH from a priest should be more than enough. But I'm wondering if this is really the case. If you're a resto druid, or you've been in a party where a resto druid is 2-healing the run, could you give some insights on the healing strategies to ensure that the whole party stays alive? What's required of the druid? What's required of the party?

 

Narishma

They actually do take a lot of damage. I haven't run it with a resto druid myself, but coh is used quite a lot, so ae healing is definently valuable. Eagle boss before everyone manage to lump up, dragonhawk for people missing their positioning by a tad, and lynx. Quite a bit on trash before dragonhawk as well.

 

bznotins

We just got our first Bear this weekend. We're 4/5 and 4/9 with only a smattering of MH/BT loot. Mostly ZA/TK/SSC. Per our Priest and Tree, healing doesn't seem to be too much of a challenge. With the Tree buff on the tanks, CoH is that much more powerful, I guess.

Group 1

MT: Prot Warrior
OT: Prot Pally (MT on Eagle)
H1: Holy Priest
H2: Tree Druid
D1: Destro Lock

Group 2

D2: BM Hunter
D3: MM Hunter
D4: Rogue
D5: Fire Mage
D6: Shadow Priest

We finished with almost a minute left. A mostly perfect run. One set of Scout adds on DH trash and a couple random deaths through the run. Here's our WWS of the run. We had the Darkmoon Faire buff.

Thanks to everyone here for all the tips, and a request: Those who are posting their times, would you please state the level of gear that you have? It's hard to know if we could be doing better when I could be comparing apples to oranges.

 

Hexy

We were ~4 minutes away from a timed run with the following group:
Group 1:
Prot pally
Feral druid
Fury warrior
Survival hunter
Enhancement shaman

Group 2:
Destro lock
Resto druid
Resto druid
Shadow priest
Fire mage

Unfortunately we had a problem with the priest messing up a mind control pull and agroing an extra pack before dragonhawk. It was also my first time tanking ZA since I started the druid. We should be trying it again with the same group relatively soon and I'll do my best to get a WWS up.

 

Zene

After weeks of attempts and trolling this forum daily, we have finally attained our first bear mount. We had about 1 minute to spare due to a horrible execution of the Lynx boss. (Prot pally forgot to replace his half fire resist gear from Dragonhawk)

Group1
Destro Lock
Destro Lock
Spriest
Ele Shaman
Fire Mage

Group 2
Prot Pally
Feral Druid
Holy Pally
Resto Shaman
BM Hunter

We switched the spriest to group 2 on trash and to group 1 on bosses. We switched the shamans to always give group 1 heroisms on bosses. For some reason, our caster dps always does better than our melee dps in our guild and although we've tried to stack the melee group for za's they just don't seem to perform as well, does anyone have any tips?

Progression wise we got Archimonde down for the first time last week putting us at 5/5 4/9.

 

Hegen

First some background so you know on what basis I make my observations:
We've been running ZA with a rather fixed group and a 3 healer setup (priest, paladin, druid) since November and had our first clear on December 18. At that point we were a Kara+Heroic group, 2 people including me had some Gruul items. The resto druid was much better equipped with a number of BT/hyjal items, and the rogue had a few SCC/TK items. Right now we have almost every usable ZA item and hit the wall after the third chest - we've been stuck at about 6 minutes left after chest three, DPS being the most prominent reason.

We then switched to a 2 healer setup (druid and priest (me)), supported by a shadow priest's mana reg (no VE though). The paladin respecced to prot for offtanking at a rather horrible equipment level (11K life unbuffed and not even crit immune) and little tanking experience.

So, for the first few tries we certainly didn't have any high hopes. Still, we managed both ids without losing chest three.

Healing with the druid worked like this: he stays in tree form at all times and maintains lifeblooms throughout the raid, where applicable, and on the tanks. The priest (me) spams PoM, Gheals the tank(s) and helps with flash heal (lots) and CoH where needed. Raid damage IS high, make no mistake, but it's doable even at our equipment level. Overall, I do a bit more effective healing than the druid - I think that's normal for this combination and scenario.

The most critical points with this setup are situations where the whole raid takes damage (flamecasters and end of gauntlet come to mind) and single targets take high damage at the same time. In that situation, the priest needs to compromise between COHing the raid and throwing some token FHs just so that it works out with the druid's lifeblooms. This really can get dicey, and DDs are well advised to play less aggressively in these situations: the usual emergency heal probably won't come.

Overall, I rate the combination of resto druid and holy priest very high for a two-healer setup in ZA. It's very smooth with the exception of the cited situations where the healers (well, mostly the priest) need to be aware of the exact combat situation in order to set priorities well.

If you have specific situations in mind regarding the healing strategy, feel free to ask.

Edit: As for group setup, we do deliberately not put the resto druid in the tank group:

Group 1:
Feral Druid (MT)
Prot Pala (offtank)
Warrior (DD)
Rogue
Hunter

Group 2:
Mage
Warlock (Destro)
Shadow priest
Resto druid
Holy priest

Reason for this setup is: with two healers, we want the druid buff on the weaker group, increasing CoH effect on the tanks is much less important IMO. In addition, the druid profits from the shadow priest's support.

After the run, for Malacrass, we change this so I have the paladin's concentration aura.

 

Shelendil

I would say the ability (and perhaps gear) of the healers is far more important than their class. Here's a wws of a successful ZA timed run where both healers are tree druids. They had a protection paladin who off-healed for eagle, Hex Lord, and Zul'Jin, where there is more raid damage, and they had a shadow priest for mana. Those two also took care of dispels.

Groups:
Prot warrior
Prot paladin
Enh shaman
Surv hunter
Resto druid

Fire Mage
Destro Lock
Destro Lock
Spriest
Resto druid

I would guess two druids is more difficult than one druid and one other, but one druid and one other shouldn't be more difficult than any run.

 

Grungo

If you're looking to improve your time with this group, I would recommend a slight change: switch the prot pallie and the resto druid. A resto druid in tree form should be able to function without the shadow priest mana regen, whereas a prot pallie will often find himself mana starved and needing to drink between pulls (at least this was the case for my group). Assuming the warrior is keeping up BS as opposed to CS (which he very much should be if you're running for time), the pallie gains very little synergy from group 1. And though group 2 might be the squishier group, group 1 is going to be the group needing the most healing, so keeping the tree buff there will improve mana efficiency for your healers.

Alternately, if your pallie doesn't have mana issues at all, I might say swap your hunter for the resto druid. The hunter loses LotP but gains the mana regen. And assuming he's BM, the benefit of having ferocious inspiration in group 2 should just about break even with having it in group 1 (unless your tanks are having threat issues).

 

Hegen

Thanks for the feedback, I will discuss that on the next run. So far we have been trying to play it safe and get the hang of a 2 healer setup while giving the prot paladin time to learn to tank (has no experience, but has bravely consumed the prot paladin thread here).

He's currently not BM, unfortunately. But now that you remind me, they actually do. Especially visible on Nalorakk, our druid's threat buildup seems to be the limiting factor. Maybe he is trying to contribute too much dps instead of tps.

 

vorda

Is there a difference between those 2 as druid? (when tanking obviously)

 

Hegen

Unlike warrior tanking, I have almost no grasp of the finer workings of druid tanking (except what every healer has to know). I was assuming that like a warrior a druid can make choices regarding play style (and also talent points) in order to produce more damage or more threat where sometimes this leads to the same result regarding threat and sometimes not. I was also assuming that an aggressive druid tank might be tempted even more. Now this is a lot of assuming so I will just read up on druid tanking mechanics.

Edit: Seems like talent point distribution is a no-brainer for tanking druids. The real problem in this case, however, seems to be the utter lack of hit rating (18) and weapon expertise (none). This has to hurt TPS. Time for some WWS digging.

 

Kolmar

Possibly a bit late, but it should be pointed out that Battle Shout is a very strong boost to all melee and not completely useless for hunters thanks to their pets. In addition, twisting GoA and WF will really boost your Rogue rather obscenely. Warrior with 5/5 imp demo also lets a warlock use CoReck, easily the best curse in a physical heavy group by a wide margin. We're not too squishy either if the player's bright enough to switch to Defensive and put on his shield; of course if he's not bright enough to carry one at all times by all means bench him.

 

Sandron

After reading up on this thread ive got a few questions.
Alot of groups arent using 2 tanks specifically a prot paladin. Is a dps war in tank gear really sufficient for the bear boss?
Also regarding the bear boss, How do you deal with silence? Our tanks only die when healers get silenced.
Are the healers just timing this wrong?

As for dragonhawk...if you have the druid MT the boss how do you deal with the adds?
2-3 at a time?

lastly, regarding our set up and timing.
Would anyone recoomend a pally, shaman 2 heal?
our healers insist on a spriest as well but from the looks of this it seems spriest is not a requirement.

Right now our immediate goal is 2-3 chests. How much time should be left after eagle and bear?

thanks for any feedback

 

vorda

*I first typed something about you guys probably being undergeared if your tanks are dying on the bear boss and then openend your armory*

I cannot imagine a t6 tank going in with 90-100% hp dying during the silence.
If you're not going in with that much hp, your healers are to blame. If you are, take a look at the combatlog for parries/crushes.

A paladin-shaman healing team would defenitly work. As for the shadowpriest, dont forget he offers more then just mana for your healers, there will be 2 other DPSers in the group aswell who will perform alot worse without him. He probably isn't needed if your healers love chaining mana pots (on a proper timed run that is), but the synergy they offer to other spellcasters (mana+shadow weaving+mysery) is more than enough to justify taking one.

Frankly, I'm very amazed that even after reading this topic a t6 guild is having troubles reaching the second or third chest. Your problems seem to be beyond just group setup or tactics. Are you sure your group isnt playing in ZA the same way they do in an alt Kara run?

 

Grayson Carlyle

After our tanks had a mix-up on a speed run last week, resulting in the druid dying to Nalorakk on the first bear transition (at roughly 60%) because he had the debuff on him from human form, I tanked the next 2 bear forms in my DPS gear with a sword and shield. 2 healers. We still got our bear mount.

 

Tuhalu

A week or so ago, I forgot to change back into my "threat tank" gear after dpsing down the Eagle boss. We were in the middle of downing the Bear Boss when I realized my mistake and switched in my tanking weapon. I'm sure it was harder on our two healers, but we still killed him. Honestly, the bear cavalry trolls just before the bear boss were scarier, because the spike damage is just as bad and you only have 1 healer on you until the first one goes down.

A DPS warrior in tank gear is actually not that bad off. They lose crush immunity (only 1 increased chance shield block per 6 seconds instead of 2), 5% less shield block, 10% less armor, 5% less hps, 30% less damage blocked by shield, 6% more damage from spells (bleed in this case). The probably take about 20% more damage (and their threat generation is probably worse), but that's hardly unhealable. Not if a bear druid with 18k armor is still healable anyway.

 

Fydar

WWS: WWS Loading...

We did our 4th consecutive bear run tonight, 8 of the 10 are raiders - we are 5/5 8/9. The resto shaman is a recruit with a mix of badge/kara gear, and the prot paladin is an alt with badge/za gear and a few random hyjal epics.

Group 1:
Prot Warrior
Arms Warrior
Enhance Shaman
Prot Paladin
Feral Druid

Group 2:
Holy Paladin
Resto Shaman
Destro Warlock
Destro Warlock
Shadow Priest

With this group setup, the warlocks provide the brunt of the damage. With a priest to stack shadow-weaving for them, they are about 40% of the damage for the entire zone. The Feral helped out tanking trash occasionally, but spent most of the run in kitty form.

We made a few mistakes, notably the prot paladin stood on a bomb during dragon hawk and kill himself, but a quick AE taunt / Last Stand combined with his soulstone makes it an easy recovery with 2 warlocks chaining Seed.

We finished the run with about 3.5-4mins remaining.

 

Fydar

Typically if your tank is full health, he should not be dying during a silence. If you have a HoT based healer, that will help with the silences.

We use a Holy Pal / Resto Shm combo with a Shadowpriest with great results.

On tonights run, we had 28mins remaining after doing Eagle and Bear, and after clearing Dragonhawk and the Lynx trash, we had 6mins when we engaged the Lynx - took about 2.5mins to kill him roughly.

 

Inaiwae

I would start looking at the druid's threat cycle first, from my own experience i'd say that druids should do sufficient threat with 0 hit rating and 0 expertise provided that both tank and dps are on equal gear level. Om t6 level this might be not valid but there's some hit rating on t6 level neck and leggings at least.

@Hegen: do you have WWS?

 

Shadowwjack

Would it be possible for a Ret Pally to throw on tanking gear for the Bear boss? We currently run with a Prot Pally and either a Fury/Prot Warrior or Feral Druid, but neither our Feral Druid nor Warrior can make the run this week. So I was wondering if the Ret Pally that generally runs with us could throw on some tanking gear and off tank on the bear boss.

Another question I have is do any groups run with Amplify Magic on? If so which bosses/trash do you use it on?

 

dakalro

For another "How much tanking do you really need", on our last alt run (1 main going for the ellusive <insert random drop here>) we had a sort of undergeared prot pally alt on ~16k hp fully buffed on eagle so I said I'll tank on my druid (T4/ZA/Badge gear), as usual. The moment I positioned the boss ... I had done entire gauntlet in kitty gear so, fun tanking eagle boss with pug-ish healers that don't get that the storm actually has a huge safety range and me getting nice bursts of nature damage on pre-storm with 14k hp, crittable but at least 25-26k armor, 55-60% dodge. Done but was the squishiest I've ever felt. Made for some very nice sustained threat though (dps is enough that we do 3 chests regularly on the alt runs) with 130 hit, 5 exp, loads more AP and infinite rage almost.

On the same note, the paladin usually tanks the human phase of the bear boss and I normally use agi/fort elixirs with mudfish (leftovers from the horrible grind for spell damage food) with around 18k hp, 31k armor and close to 50% dodge I think.

So you don't need extreme tanking gear, just mobility and prot pally(if you use)/healer staying power and oh, of course, good dps-ers, no matter what gear they're in. That means they will use consumables, can get out of fires all fight long while still doing good dps and shame some T6 players sometimes (not the one mentioned previously since the kitty did manage to beat the alts but have seen plenty in all the half/semi/mid pugs our alt core goes to).

 

rudyrocky

With the new 2.4 badge loot being roughly equivalent to tier 5 will there be any reason besides the bear mount to attempt the timed trial? Will this upcoming patch bring to ZA the same fate BC brought to Molten Core?

I ask because my guild has been attempting the time trial over the last few months, and people are beginning to ask what is the point of ZA with 2.4 coming out.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...helm&n=Haganah

 

• goss

There already exists better loot in T6 than in ZA, outside of a few slots (which, along with bears, justify T6 guilds continuing to farm it as needed). The trinkets (and to a lesser extent rings) that people farm it for now, will continue to be good in many cases (particularly Hex