Zul'Aman!
2.3 is here and I got my first taste of Zul'Aman. 
The zone is very nice looking, very reminiscent of Zul'Farrak, and Zul'Gurub.
Those bears destroyed me like nothing else has recently. 5k Cleave, 5k normals. I'd try to pop the Dawnstone Crab whenever I got shrunk. I didn't feel too bad as Tralic and Brindall were getting owned pretty hard as well.
The last pulls before the boss are two 4 mob packs with 2 Bear Riders, a Shaman with an Invincibility Totem, and one other mob. I can't remember what it was, because about a half second after the pull it looked like a pig and stayed that way most of the fight. These pack were just brutal.
(thanks to Raydz for the pic)
What we ended up doing was this:
Me on one Bear Rider, Prot Warrior on the Shaman, Trap/Sheep the other add, and have the 2nd Bear Rider misdirected to a travel form druid at the bottom the stairs.
The actual Boss fight seemed a bit anticlimactic after that pull. It took us two attempts to kill the Bear Boss. I was tanking the Bear form. He has two bleeds, a short one which lasts maybe 3 or 4 seconds and a long one which lasts about 15 seconds. I'd Stoneform out of the long bleed the first time I tanked him. The next time he switched to Bear, Stoneform was on cooldown. I'd have to wait for my Righteous Defense to come off cooldown since I used it to pick him up when he changed forms. Once it was up, I hit my Flash Divine Shield macro. This cleared the bleed again and I'd taunt him back until he went to Human again.
The zone is very nice looking, very reminiscent of Zul'Farrak, and Zul'Gurub.
Mal Katai sent 2 groups in Zul'Aman. I was given the privilege to run with the old Kara Group#1.
It was Brindall (Prot Warrior), Me (Prot Paladin), Tralic (Feral Druid), Raistalian (Fire Mage), Getdempurps (Warlock), Stdbkrhawk (Hunter), Sneakyfeet (Rogue), Celoria (Resto Druid), Doraellian (Priest), and Mowbray (Holy Paladin).
We moved through the early trash pretty well until we got to the Bear Riders. They do a move called Demoralizing Roar which increases the damage you take by 50%. There are two of them, and the debuff can stack if they are not tanked away from each other.
Those bears destroyed me like nothing else has recently. 5k Cleave, 5k normals. I'd try to pop the Dawnstone Crab whenever I got shrunk. I didn't feel too bad as Tralic and Brindall were getting owned pretty hard as well.
The last pulls before the boss are two 4 mob packs with 2 Bear Riders, a Shaman with an Invincibility Totem, and one other mob. I can't remember what it was, because about a half second after the pull it looked like a pig and stayed that way most of the fight. These pack were just brutal.(thanks to Raydz for the pic)
What we ended up doing was this:
Me on one Bear Rider, Prot Warrior on the Shaman, Trap/Sheep the other add, and have the 2nd Bear Rider misdirected to a travel form druid at the bottom the stairs.
The Warrior spell reflect the Shaman's Lightningbolts and goes to town on the invincibility totem when it spawns.
I tank the Bear Rider. Healers heal through the first Demo Roar, I pop Dawnstone Crab for the 2nd. Consecrate catches the Bear when the Rider dismounts, or taunt. Having a 40 yard ranged taunt is really nice.
The first Bear Rider was down just as our Druid was coming back. I taunted off and tanked the 2nd Bear Rider. The Crab was on cooldown so I got owned by the 2nd rider. The Druid picked him up long enough for DPS to finish him. Our Warlock soloed the final add down with Chain Fear + DoTs.
I tank the Bear Rider. Healers heal through the first Demo Roar, I pop Dawnstone Crab for the 2nd. Consecrate catches the Bear when the Rider dismounts, or taunt. Having a 40 yard ranged taunt is really nice.
The first Bear Rider was down just as our Druid was coming back. I taunted off and tanked the 2nd Bear Rider. The Crab was on cooldown so I got owned by the 2nd rider. The Druid picked him up long enough for DPS to finish him. Our Warlock soloed the final add down with Chain Fear + DoTs.
The actual Boss fight seemed a bit anticlimactic after that pull. It took us two attempts to kill the Bear Boss. I was tanking the Bear form. He has two bleeds, a short one which lasts maybe 3 or 4 seconds and a long one which lasts about 15 seconds. I'd Stoneform out of the long bleed the first time I tanked him. The next time he switched to Bear, Stoneform was on cooldown. I'd have to wait for my Righteous Defense to come off cooldown since I used it to pick him up when he changed forms. Once it was up, I hit my Flash Divine Shield macro. This cleared the bleed again and I'd taunt him back until he went to Human again.
He dropped some Healing cloth that wound up being DE'ed, and a Badge of Justice.
Tralic and Brindall and I are starting to learn how to work together. I'd advise them when I was getting ready to taunt and them they'd taunt their mobs right back.
Tralic and Brindall and I are starting to learn how to work together. I'd advise them when I was getting ready to taunt and them they'd taunt their mobs right back.
After getting Bear Boss down, we decided to try our luck at Dragonhawk. We thought this guy was the 2nd boss in the instance, but most of the articles I've found on Zul'Aman place him third.
His trash has non elite mobs called Scouts, whose sole goal in life is to run to a drum and start banging on it. This causes Elites to spawn and come attack your party. The scouts are pretty easy. Our mage and Warlock burned them down pretty quick. The problem is they pat around and we don't know the instance yet, so they'd aggro and run off. One time, we had one run through about 8 mobs to get to his drum.
We watched some of the trash mobs playing "Monkey In the Middle" while they waited for us. It was a silly little thing but it was cool nonetheless.
The Dragonhawk boss looks very cool. I'm not sure if my screen shot does him justice. 
We made one attempt at him. He calls two adds to go hatch eggs (maybe like the Father Flame event in UBRS). I was to AoE tank one side and we were going to kill the Hatcher on the other. The birds started to really stack up. I'm going to have to call for AoE to burn them down and we may need to actually kill both Hatchers at some point. Then the boss blew up. I don't know how else to explain it. There was fire everywhere and we wiped.
We made one attempt at him. He calls two adds to go hatch eggs (maybe like the Father Flame event in UBRS). I was to AoE tank one side and we were going to kill the Hatcher on the other. The birds started to really stack up. I'm going to have to call for AoE to burn them down and we may need to actually kill both Hatchers at some point. Then the boss blew up. I don't know how else to explain it. There was fire everywhere and we wiped.
At this point, we called it a night.
One of the most fun things about ZA is it's so new there aren't dozen of sites with perfect strats and videos and raid layout diagrams. Each pull we had to think and strategize our way through not really knowing what was coming at us. That was fun. The 60g repair bill was a bit tough to swallow, but man I haven't had fun like that in a long time.
One of the most fun things about ZA is it's so new there aren't dozen of sites with perfect strats and videos and raid layout diagrams. Each pull we had to think and strategize our way through not really knowing what was coming at us. That was fun. The 60g repair bill was a bit tough to swallow, but man I haven't had fun like that in a long time.
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