Fendryl

We finally put forth a pretty solid attempt & finished last week with a success.

The main difference that really bought us a lot of time was changing our Dragonhawk hatching to match Gurgthock's video. I also think the video did a great job reinforcing the notion that things can go wrong & you can still complete it successfully. Thanks much!

 

Cybelirrae

Good to know. Do you use 2 primary healers with a dps person that can offheal as well, or go with 3 dedicated healers?

 

Regen

Elemental shaman knows when to help out on heals, which for the most part only means a couple chain heals on dragonhawk.

 

• Leica

It seems the chests have been fixed in the latest maintenance. After completing our timed run we zoned in alts and buyers as usual and found that the gear was only accessible to members who were in the raid at the time of the boss kill. Opening the chest brought up a roll box like normal, but only for the members a gear was visible to. Additionally, the range on the roll box has been greatly increased, members were able to roll on the eagle chest from the stairs before Hex Lord.

Vis Maior - Bonechewer - http://www.vismaior.org - Bonechewer Alliance PVP

 

Jebraltar

The bear chest is also now a rolling affair, just like the others.

Killed Dragonhawk with twelve minutes to go and three healers on our last attempt before we turned into ludicrously bad players and ended up biting it about five times on our way to / as we fought Zul'jin and called it a night without even killing him. Would twelve minutes likely be enough to do Dragonhawk->Lynx?

 

• Vandemar

We tried to bring in alts for the opening of the timed chests tonight, and the replacements all didn't get roll boxes for the items, and couldn't see anything on mouseover of the chests. It was on Group Loot, and did wait for people who were out of raid and offline to pass (when the timer ran out on their roll box) before the items could be looted.

That's enough evidence for me that it's been fixed, and the items are only available to those who cleared the zone in the first place.

 

Jalhar

In our last successful attempt, we killed the Lynx between 2 and 3 minutes before the end of the timer, and we had 14 min left when Jan'alai died. So 12 minutes is enough if you don't screw up, 15 is a lot safer though.

 

Kromjin

We have been doing ZA since it came out and are now pushing for Bear Mounts. We are able to consistently get the first 3 bosses down easily within the time limit (Eagle --> Bear --> Dragonhawk).

However, everytime we kill a boss within the timer we do not get "additional" time, but our timer is only replaced.

For example last night we killed the Bear with 8 minutes or such left and then our timer went to 15 instead of the projected 23. I'm wondering if we're somehow not doing something correctly or is it just a raid-wide display bug?

--Krom

 

• Leica

You have 45 minutes total from the time the timer appears on your screen to the time you must free the 4th prisoner.

Basically, you zone in and start with 20 minutes on your timer. When you kill the eagle, typically, 10 minutes is added, then, killing the bear adds an additional 15 minutes. However, if you're a bit slow on the eagle, more than 10 may be added, in which case the bear adds 25 - EagleTime to your timer.

If you gained 7 minutes after killing the bear, I'm going to assume when you killed the eagle you gained 18 minutes after killing the eagle?

Really, the best way of looking at it is 45 minutes from the timer appearing to the time you must free the gnome.

You'll want to kill the Dragonhawk with at least 12 minutes on your timer, but realistically, you probably want more like 15-18 on your timer.

We typically complete the run with at least 8 minutes on our timer. Typically we engage Eagle with 17-18 on timer, kill him around 14-15, gain 10 minutes. Engage bear with 16-18 on the timer, gain 15 more. Once the 25 is gained, no more time is ever gained. Move to dragonhawk, comlplete him with 18-20 on the timer. Kill Lynx about 8-10 minutes later.

Those are rough numbers with about 8 minutes to spare, so, you're safe adding a bit to those times in terms of what you should shoot for.

Vis Maior - Bonechewer - http://www.vismaior.org - Bonechewer Alliance PVP

 

Cranch

Any suggestions on clearing the Dragonhawk trash faster? We typically wipe once or twice, primarily because something goes wrong (flamecaster MC gets resisted, we don't notice a patrolling scout in time, the phase of the moon was wrong.) That trash just seems a lot harder than the other trash (which we have no problems with.)

 

xyruul

Did you free prisoners immediately after killing bosses and try to open then with alts later or free them with alts in the raid near them?
I wonder if people need to be in the zone or actually tag the boss to get looting rights.

 

Vaeys

Read a few posts up - it looks like they've fixed it, and only the people who killed the boss have the looting rights to the chest now. Though there's no point to freeing them while you're on the timer regardless - just wastes time.

 

Mideci

We have proved unequivocally that the Dragonhawk boss is the hardest in the instance as we 1-shotted everything yesterday (5 of the 6 bosses), while screwing up Dragonhawk a couple times.

I'm being a bit cheeky in case that didn't come through with the smiley but there is a point here. We've been going bear, eagle, lynx because honestly our group has no chance of finishing all four timers at this juncture, routinely does finish two and would really really like to start getting rings.

We'd had enough issues on the trash to the dragonhawk boss and then on the kills to figure that we were better off doing lynx which had easier trash and is a ridiculously easy boss but -- as many of you know -- has comparatively more to kill to get there. Thus it's almost certainly a harder 3rd chest for groups like ours that can only barely make 3. Harder in the sense of time.

Using the "hut window" shortcut and the "dps troll form" tricks -- both of which I believe were learned here at EJ (certainly the latter was) we came ridiculously close to the lynx boss on the timer yesterday. We keep making a few mistakes on the trash to the eagle and the lynx that we hadn't made before while not seeking the third timer so it's well within the doable. Honestly, I don't comprehend where the time comes from to get the fourth timer completed, but again for the time being our goal is the rings. Thanks for the tips, and I'll share if we learn anything useful.

 

Shadram

Tier 4 guild on my server cleared the 4 bosses in the timer this week.
WoW-Europe.com Forums -> Moonglade Burning Crusade Raid Progress V2 - Post 165 in there.

Pretty amazing I think, has anybody else done it with that level of gear?

 

Krazen

We just got our first bear mount, very comfortably, with 5-6 minutes left on the timer.

We were partially t6 geared (I have 2 pc t6, for example), flasked, and with 2 healers (holy priest and paladin).

The way we do eagle boss is to pull him to the corner, separate into 3 groups (ranged dps, melee dps, healers) and nuke him, but this puts a lot of stress on the single raid healer. You need to plow through him quickly.

It is simply not that difficult, as people have pointed out. Calm down, execute, and don't rush into bosses. We took a minute break right before lynx to catch our breaths.

 

Rithny

Got 10 minutes on our fourth bear with no deaths.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c1.../10minbear.jpg

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/1...minutesif0.jpg

We can still do better since our warlock was pvp spec'd but it does get much easier the more familiar your group gets with the timed event. Easiest reasoning behind this is how we were at a maximum a minute ahead of our average at after bear boss, (14-15 minutes in) but not having to stop for anything on the dragonhawk sent us through that area in seconds.

Make up as said before is:

Holy Pally
Resto Shaman (switched for heroism and w/f)
Lock (pvp spec in this run)
Spriest
BM Hunter

Prot War
MS War
Rogue
Rogue
Feral Druid

Because of the high dps, neither healer ever really had to drink. I never even sat down the entire course, although our shaman did a few times. However, by the lynx trash he volunteered to stay in the melee group for windfury, so we're going to try to have him in there much more next run. Although we didn't drink, we were slamming pots and dark runes which make a HUGE difference for groups missing by a minute or so.

I've found that using mana pots and runes during trash or even immediately before a boss is much more time efficient because you should never really need a pot that badly two minutes into any of the four fights, and it saves drinking time.

For Eagle we pull the first two packs immediately, and only kill the healers of each pack until we pull the Tempest. Healing is tight for a moment but it such a small moment you should not be pressed for mana in anyway. This week we got two bird spawns but only the first pair of reinforcements. We use the a three camp strategy so no one has to move for clouds aside from the melee which move 2 feet to the left/right (the cloud is wider than it seems, the range camp can stand ~10 yards behind the Eagle). Killed him a few seconds before the third storm, swapping the shammy for heroism after the first. I swap him with the tank of course making sure aggro's fine. <3 vanish.

When the boss dies everyone runs immediately to the Bear, jumping over the ledge at a pretty obvious spot (be careful not to get demounted). We use group loot and I need it unless it's an upgrade, (usually off-spec if so) mount up, talk to the prisoner, and get over there. After each boss there's never an immediate difficult pack, so it's best to have one of your healers be the one who is behind as they aren't needed, while the dps will help to maintain the speed.

Bear's pretty basic, we always killed the prot warrior's first and when it died he would pull the next pack. Our shaman didn't heal besides the charge the humanoid does, which isn't really needed anyways. It's very easily solo-healable and it's smart to take advantage of that to save time on simple things, so you can use it on the complex.

By the time I get to the group from freeing the prisoner they have pulled the first pack with the one flamecaster. Thankfully our MS warrior is addicted to pummeling so they are locked down, however I think it would be faster to just let him cast and kill him faster. One fire volley is nothing with chain heal. The pull with the tamer and his dragonhawks is moved through the left gate after the scout is killed, as that second scout has been a pain for us and it's easier to just avoid it. Our warlock goes crazy on aoe for this pack anticipating a BoP, and it's dead before we reach the next pack, moving the entire time. Next pack's pretty simple, if there's two flamecasters our priest MC's the back left one. After that you skip the dragonhawk pack if it's moving away, but if not it should not cost any time anyways because of how easy it is to lock down the last pack.

For the pack before dragonhawk have your prot warrior on both guardians, your spriest mc the nearest flamecaster, and your dps simply destroys the other. This makes a hard pack very simple, and beause of it you can just drag the previous pat onto it as to barely lose time.

Dragonhawk is again suprisingly simple, since our dps stays ahead the curve of the spawns when we let an entire side hatch, and they are all fairly able to take a beating. Again we coordinate when the warlock should go crazy for a BoP (usually our dps druid aoe taunts the first, and our warlock goes crazy second side). Our setup leads to almost every breath hitting many people however, and we lose time making sure everyone has a healthstone before this. The hatcher accidentally died early on the left side, leaving 5 up, but it ended up speeding things up since 5 can't really do anything when you let them out via soft-enrage.

Our direct damage helps on Lynx trash a lot to speed it up through it's simplicity, although our MS warrior ends up tanking half of the wing usually. We did this wing in ~12.5 minutes counting the middle patrol. We only pull the pat that goes away from Malacrass' room, and then the single elder pull on the near left hill. After that we use our metal gear solid skills to rush the pack next to the hut to the right, and then make it to the side of the lake. Fast priest dispels are a must here, not only because anyone mc'd is much more hazardous than the simple trash, but because it's a large timesink. The packs inside the Lynx's room should not be overestimated, and once the flamecasters in each die, the next should be pulled. We fight them inside the doorway so the pats aggro when they walk by.

For lynx we had our shaman in the melee group the entire time, and our dps would attack the pet lynx the first split for aggro's sake, and then stay on the humanoid the rest of the fight. We burnt heroism after the second split, and sent him into the third split in under 15 seconds =P. Pretty simple fight but make sure your tank healer doesn't stray much aside from flame shock cleansing because the Lynx's burst should not be underestimated.

Hope I helped; the run has many, many factors that come into play, and knowledge of how to perform is the one we can control, so we should control it perfectly. There is some luck with patrols and some packs change their number of flamecasters, but with a group used to moving swiftly and efficiently, there poses no real challenge. Notice the key words used to, as your group will see vast increases in speed simply experiencing it a few times, and realizing the pace they need to keep up.

 

Juli

If there are still any naysayers out there about completing the event with only ZA level gear, its definitely doable.

We completed the timed event and got a bear mount with only ZA/kara/arena/BG/reputation gear with 1 minute to spare; no one in the raid has ever set foot in a 25man instance (on these characters anyway), including gruul/mag/ssc/tk/outdoor bosses. In fact, I was part of the raid and hit 70 last weekend on sunday and still have quest blues in a few slots (gemmed fully with spellhit, and I barely get hit capped even with [Scryer's Bloodgem] and [Starkiller's Bauble]). Most people are in mostly full ZA/pvp gear and still lack a few items from both. For example, our only [Berserker's Call] no longer plays and we got our first [Hex Shrunken Head] from the malacrass just after the timed run, and some people still use season1 gear in a few slots.

Most people flasked, but a few didn't since this was our first attempt at actually completing the event, and we were just testing the waters (I just used a [Brilliant Wizard Oil] that I had left from the quest at stonebreaker hold and 7 super mana pots once it looked like we were on track at dragonhawk).

Our raid was composed of (linked to armory, although some respec to pvp):
Group1: Feral Druid(bear recipient), Protection Paladin, Arms Warrior, Enhancement Shaman, Retribution Paladin
Group2: Holy Priest, Holy Paladin, Resto Druid, Frost Mage, Shadow Priest
(Note: 3 healers is perfectly fine, even with lower quality gear)

We used the eagle->bear->dhawk->lynx route and completed dragonhawk with 15 mins remaining.
As far as variations go:
We killed both pathing sets between eagle/bear and dhawk/lynx.
We didn't mind control flame casters, but killed them first instead (I managed to spellsteal the buff before they died on about 2/3 of the pulls with them)
We took the left path through the dhawk area.
We spawned 1 set of reinforcements due to scout-killing failure.
We AE'd dragonhawk adds down in 4 equal-sized waves (2 per side, with the boss hitting the health threshold to spawn the final wave just after the 3rd wave caused by hatchers was killed).

 

Hegen

This is very encouraging to know, especially since you are running with 3 healers (same healing setup actually) as we do. We are currently at a stage where we have a solid 4 minutes left after chest 3, with a number of small mistakes that make up perhaps another 3 minutes.

Knowing it's possible always helps getting it done. Could you give some rough information on how the damage done is distributed among your classes during the run?

 

Juli

I don't run meters or WWS personally, but someone linked meters after lynx and I believe it was something like 18-19% total damage for the enh/war/ret pld each, me at about 14% (this should be much higher if your mage is similarly geared to the rest of your raid), shadow priest at about 12%? (this should increase with liberal potting, as spriest mana tends to be the most limited and requires the most drinking time), prot paladin at 8-9% (I remember noting specifically that this was very high - lots of AE pulls and great synergy with sanc aura). I don't recall where the feral druid was, but I believe it was fairly high, probably above me; he tanked on all but the eagle boss fight. Keep in mind that this is all from memory so I wouldn't put too much stock in it. The 3 blessings from the paladins help a good deal. I don't have any more specific information or dps breakdowns by boss or anything.

For reference, on prior runs they'd often end with 6-8 minutes remaining (I just hit 70 recently so I haven't done a ton of runs on this character) after dragonhawk with mistakes from deaths/scout failure. Last week we had 11 minutes remaining unflasked and without consumables, which encouraged us to give it a real shot.

 

Foucault

Hello everyone

This thread is incredibly informative, I'm only sad we didn't stumble apon it sooner ^^. I wanted to contribute my guilds internal tactics that we used on our ZA speed run. Hopefully it will help any other pre-25man guild overcome this awesome challenge.

We were planning to fraps our run for everyone to see, but we made a bubu and the fraps didn't work. We'll fraps our next speed runs and show it to the community. To all of you pre-25man guilds out there take heart, It is indeed possible! (though your 2 healers will be forever traumatized with stress haha)

Zul'Aman Speed Run Tactics

Cheers,

 

littleq

I still dont understand the shortcut from Dargonhawk boss to the Lynx Boss
1. How does a rogue in your party help you skip a pack..he picks lock to which door?
2. This week, after the Dragon Hawk boss is down, we jump off the platform (opp where we enter to fight the dragonhawk boss) and move towards the Lynx boss area. The Door to Hex lord is on our right, and there is a hut on the left. The static pack of lynx is pulled, then we move into the hut on the left, jump thru that window and out the hut through the opposite window, then hug left all the way. I can see the back door of the Lynx lord but its lock. We pass that and walk on the edge of the buildiing and jump down to reach the water. I think this only skip like 1-2 packs and it seems such a long route.

Cna someone detail the short route to lynx bos from dragonhawk..i have problem downloading the video to watch it.

Thanks~

 

Amonra

No rogues are involved, other than that is is maybe slightly helpful if they scout ahead to make sure the roamers are out of the way.

Sounds like you have the route about right, and it only takes 10ish seconds longer to run than to go in a straight line. 10 seconds vs 2 packs is a pretty good time saver.

 

Tuhalu

Seems like there is a little confusion amongst some people. You do not need to talk to any prisoners until the time trial is done. If a prisoner is saved, they will remain saved even if you fail the time trial. Talking to the prisoners after you finish your time trial attempt is fine and works (we've done so every time and had no problems).

As far as the quick path through the Lynx boss trash goes, what was said is correct. 1 small lynx pack instead of the patrol outside of Malacrass' area (can be difficult to skip going this way), a small lynx pack and a large lynx pack with handlers. The hidden bonus here is that because you only fight 1 pack of mobs for a long distance, you can mount up at Dragonhawk, ride a long distance, fight, jump through the windows and then mount up again until you reach the Crocodile patrol. The longer