Breakfast Topic: The Zul'Aman speed bump
by Heath Milo 
Feb 6th 2008 at 8:00AM
A number of guilds have graduated from Karazhan in the last month or so, but instead of moving into 25-man content, the majority are turning to our new favorite troll town. Of course some of them are dabbling in Gruul's Lair but I dare say Lady Vashj isn't getting as much company as she used to.
There is definitely something to be said about the fact that ZA is 10-man content. If you have a great Kara guild but not enough numbers to move up, ZA is a blessing to say the least. But is that a good thing? Ultimately, if you want to see Black Temple, you're running out of time, and postponing 25-man content is not helping your cause. The expansion will arrive sooner or later and when it does, people will not be interested in killing Illidan anymore. They'll want to see Northrend. If you've tried to put together a Naxx run lately, you know what I'm talking about.
So what do you think? Is ZA helping people get the gear they need to succeed? Or is it keeping them away from the prize?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Kaylek Feb 6th 2008 8:20AM
A good point considering what we saw in the BC change over, but maybe we shouldn't be too quick to expect the same. Naxx is getting retooled for the Wrath expansion, we've been told the old 40 man content could turn into new instances, so who's to say for sure and so soon that BC 25 man content will go the way of the dodo.
KateJaneway Feb 6th 2008 8:43AM
That's a good point. Blizzard now has experience with designing game content that is going to, at one point or another, become "obsolete". With this in mind, they might be designing with the intention of "downsizing" in the future.
Maybe the big tbc 25-man endgame raids will become very challenging 10-man level 80 raids.
Eternalpayn Feb 6th 2008 4:20PM
Naxx is only going level 40 because it fits in with WOTLK lore.
Brian Feb 6th 2008 8:21AM
I don't think of ZA as gearing up for 25 man stuff. I see it as just the latest 10 man. Believe it or not there are players who have no intention of doing 25 man content, but they still want to do 10 man stuff. The only problem I have with ZA is that its quite hard to start in there. My current Kara team is very capable of clearing Kara but we keep getting pwned by the bear boss.
I think the key with the 10 man stuff is to continue with what you can comfortably do until every one is geared up well then move on.
Regarding the lore Zul 'Jin is a bigger deal for me then Illidan so it would be just as cool for me to face off against him. And while he isn't directly involved Karazan was Medivh's base for a long time. Loot comes and goes (and it's been confirmed that loot will be levelled out in Northrend), so most people raid for content. Also one of the big draws in ZA for me is the mount not being a random drop. It's down to the raid.
I fully expect to be coming back to ZA once WotLK hits just for that mount.
I see 10 man stuff as separate to the 25 man stuff. The big mistake with Kara for me was that the tier 4 gear was split between 10 and 25man raids. As far as guilds go it tends to be that if they can do 25 man stuff 10 man stuff gets ignored very quickly. While those that can scrape together 10 people for Kara can never finish their tier 4 gear. I'm glad we can fill spaces with PvP welfare epics but I'd prefer better planning of loot drops. Hopefully the Sunwell 5 man instance will fill in some of the Kara gaps and help those of us struggling with ZA.
matt.millermd Feb 6th 2008 9:35AM
This is EXACTLY how I feel. I will not be doing any 25 mans in the near future, we simply don't have the numbers, and we are a closed guild. We will run ZA when we have run Kara ragged. But I hate that you can't complete a tiered set at your level. The top tier set should be 100% in 25 mans, but there should be one 100% available to 10-man raid guilds.
rafe.brox Feb 6th 2008 8:23AM
The best summary I've heard of the ZA experience as far as getting new gear is, "If you need it, you can't get it; and if you can get it, you don't need it."
After a couple of weeks of banging part of our head against the bear and eagle (rather than raid Gruul 3 nights a week, we've given a Kara/ZA split a go), I'm personally looking forward to going back into Kara to beat the last bits of loot (T4 helm, off-spec itemization) out of it to help take down Gruul and make progress in that regard.
I wish there was something at a challenge level between Kara and ZA, to be honest.
Matt Feb 6th 2008 6:01PM
I dunno, my guild is doing SSC and TK, and I sure would like that robe off Halazzi, because there are no good alternatives for me until we kill Vash'j.
dan Feb 6th 2008 4:16PM
Matt's nailed it. The itemization in there is limited to say the least. That's intentional too. It's a way to stutter step endbosses like Vashj and Kael. It's another sign that they'll lift the Hyjal attunement soon.
The biggest problem is blizz needs to accommodate two progression paths: 10 man and 25 man. They need to stop treat 10 man progression as an afterthought.
jaxson_bateman Feb 6th 2008 8:30AM
Another good thing about ZA is that players who are currently in 10 man guilds, but would like to progress into a 25 man guild, can gear up via ZA and thus hopefully get into a guild that is further ahead - thus increasing their chances of seeing at least early T6 content.
For example, my guild has just started T6, and we could do with a few healers. Would much rather an applicant in mostly ZA and badge gear than in Kara gear, or no application at all as they feel they're undergeared (we have Vashj vial as a minimum requirement, but that's beside the point).
In any case, gearing up is always a good thing, and having a 10 man option to do it in is great. If people choose to do it instead of, as opposed to alongside, 25 mans, that's their perogative.
Yada Blah Feb 6th 2008 11:00AM
We've been trying ZA and so far are just not making any headway. We're large enough to run 2 Kara groups with only a couple of puggers, but just don't have the manpower to do 25-mans yet.
Having been thru Gruul and Mag with a hunter in another guild, I can definitely understand wanting to skip those fights. Gear aside, there's not much interesting there. It seems Blizzard was asleep at the wheel when coming up with something new and unique for the 25-man starter raids.
Khanmora Feb 6th 2008 8:49AM
I think ZA was Blizz testing the waters to see how they would do with a 10 man progression. My guild had Kara on farm for about 6 months when ZA was released. We had tried to scrape up the people to do Gruul by borrowing from other guilds and it sucked. Waiting for who knows how long to try and fill out a raid that had been on the calendar for a couple of weeks sucked.
Now, at least, if we don't have enough for Gruul we can split up and hit ZA since it's on such a short timer. We can get the first two to three bosses and one to two of the timers in a mix of Kara, badge, ZA, and PvP gear. Yeah it's tough but we would rather beat it now before it gets nerfed than after :)
Lancetfluke Feb 6th 2008 8:52AM
WTB 15- and 20- man raids, at the right difficulty & gear level, to ease guild growth & progression.
rafe.brox Feb 6th 2008 10:31AM
Quoted for great wisdom.
Zhalseran Feb 6th 2008 9:03AM
The thing about ZA is that it isn't a bridge between Karazhan and 25-mans like its supposed to be. They tried to please everyone I think, because only those nearer to the end-game are able to get down all 6 bosses. Sure the bear boss is a joke, but thats it. The Eagle can be hell incarnate if your not prepared and don't have heavy heavy healing, the lynx isn't super hard but he can really push you to perform at your best, its easy to slip up on him. The Dragonhawk is just plain hard, and Malacrass is worse, and I can only imagine so is Zul'jin.
Personally, my guild clears Gruul regularly, and with ease (ie. no wipes, 1/2 hour clears) and while we aren't in ZA regularly, we have had trouble with the dragonhawk and have yet to actually down Malacrass (3%).
As for the gear, I think that ZA does a pretty good job filling in some gear gaps, and gaping ones at that. However the itemization on a lot of the gear there is really weird, and while thats cool, a lot of the gear feels like it could be so much better if it's item budget wasn't wasted on gimmick stats. Not to mention that a lot of it is sooooo ugly.
Long story short, I think ZA is worth doing for anyone progressing through late T4 (ie. Gruul/Mag) or progressing into T5. Thats what it seems to be tuned to in my eyes. I don't really see it as a road bump, it's designed to be short and simple, wether its simple or not depends on your group
Matthew Rossi Feb 6th 2008 9:43AM
My alliance guild, which is all Kara gear, nothing from 25 mans yet (well, one or two pieces on a few players) is downing Dragonhawk pretty regularly.
Charlie Feb 6th 2008 9:52AM
I dont think blizzard intended it to fill the gap between 10 mans and 25 mans. It was supposed to run along side. With gear slightly better than t4 (gruul/mag), and early 25, but not quite as good as late bosses like leo/vashj/solarion/kael.
I do agree about the gear gaps. There are a bunch of peices in there that fill in gaps for hybrid classes, and theres a bunch of spell haste gear, which you dont see much of till bt/hyjal.
I also LOVE the difficulty of ZA. It gives what people have been asking for for a long time: Epic encounters on a small scale. Only those with at least vashj down have cleared ZA (for those that are in 25mans), and the only guild to be able to do all 4 bosses in the timer is the first guild to down illdian (about 2 months ago).
It gives alot of stuff for those who arent in the 25mans to do, and lasts people a long time. I don't know of anyone who isnt in 25mans that has cleared it yet, but its still possible. It is hard, but with full kara gear it is entirely possible.
Alkahn Feb 6th 2008 1:52PM
Thing is, people need to stop thinking about progress solely in terms of raiding. A properly-geared caster is already in partly T5-T6 just by virtue of getting the BoE/BoP epics from tailoring. An enterprising tank can be in gear very much on par with T5 with many of the new badge rewards. My alt warrior (leftover Kara loot, tons of badge gear) has successfully tanked Lynx in ZA.
My guild who hadn't set foot in SSC/TK cleared ZA a few weeks after it was released (we have since gone into SSC & TK). It's demanding on your coordination when you're at that outer-edge of the gear requirements for it and a whole lot of fun if you're in that kind of guild. Also, the rewards for my main (shadow priest) are BETTER in general than all of SSC/TK. Moreso in 2.4 with the spell haste change.
So I'll be making time to hit ZA as often as I can between 25 man raids because frankly the bang for my buck is higher, and the challenge and cozy feeling of a hard 10-man is tough to beat. But progression is still very much a 25-man game.
The timed events were a great idea for giving overgeared players something to care about from the instance. We've gotten 2 chests a few times but 3 is hard at our gear level, and gives us something to strive for.
BillDoor Feb 6th 2008 9:02AM
Heh, funny this should be posted today. I only do 10-man raids with a group of friends anymore, due to family and other time constraints. We've had the first half of Kara (Attumen to Curator) on farm for months, and for the last few weeks have been clearing through the back half with remarkable ease. Last night we decided to try ZA for the first time. Some of us are in all-purples, but most are in a mix of blues and purples from Kara and PVP. We had no problem on the trash to the bear boss, and got the bear boss down after two wipes (a bad pull, and a bad taunt). It took us awhile to figure out how best to do the gauntlet leading up to the eagle, but we got it done. Got the eagle boss to 45% before we wiped and had to call it a night.
Still, we had a ton of fun. I think we need a few more weeks in Kara to get a few more purples on some of the undergeared people, but otherwise, I really like where ZA is positioned. As another poster said, I can also see coming back when I'm level 80 and doing the timed run for a Bear mount.
I hope Blizzard has a clear path of 10-man progression in Lich King, I really enjoy the small group dynamic.
JPN Feb 6th 2008 9:06AM
From this post:
"Of course some of them are dabbling in Gruul's Lair but I dare say Lady Vashj isn't getting as much company as she used to."
From the Guildwatch post right before this one:
"I don't know what Vashj did to you guys, but there must have been something, because she is getting dropped more and more often lately."
Matthew Rossi Feb 6th 2008 9:44AM
Imagine, two different writers don't have the same opinion! Gasp! Perhaps brute anarchy is loosed upon the world?