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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast 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 3 of 3)
Todd Feb 6th 2008 12:24PM
As a mage, I'm not overly impressed with ZA. Much of the caster gear seems geared towards healers (which is fine, but not for me). I would like the caster staff from the timed event, however.
Good_Idea Feb 6th 2008 12:52PM
>>Is ZA helping people get the gear they need to succeed? Or is it keeping them away from the prize?
I don't really think that ZA gear would help guilds much with Vashj or Kael (it's all T5 equivalent), all the gear you need to beat those bosses is already in SSC and TK, what you need to do is learn the encounters. By the time you clear to those bosses, you have all the gear you need and will be sharding stuff.
So I think ZA is a bad distraction for 25-man raiding guilds unless you do ZA because you couldn't do a 25-man that night anyway. There is so much content for 25-man raids, there's no need to do ZA.
ZA is good for guilds not intending to do SSC+, it gives them a new challenge and some variety.
Gimblegam Feb 6th 2008 1:48PM
Helping, There are many guilds like mine that are much mor casual and getting a 25 man raid together is just not going to happen. With ZA we are not forced to farm Kara and PVP for gear.
Joeejojo Feb 6th 2008 2:50PM
I still question that ZA is considered 'progression'. If you look at Karazhan, you move through there and if stuck on lets say the Curator, the bosses prior will allow you to gather the gear necessary to drop him and move forward. My guild wiped on him for a few weeks, but during that time we were clearing all before him, getting drops, and upgrading our gear. Isn’t this the definition of progression? I was under the impression that ZA was put in for guilds to continue 10 mans, was I wrong in believing this? My guild’s first attempt in ZA resulted in the bear boss being dropped, cloth bracers dropped (not big upgrades), 1 badge, and 40g repair bill later (not counting elixirs and potions) I’m still scratching my head wondering if this is worth it. The gear in ZA doesn't seem to be major upgrades to all Kara items and the single drop off a boss doesn't help. If this is for 10 people, most of whom will not see BT or otherwise, why is it that only the t6 people, that posted, can clear the place? Yes maybe smaller guilds can do OK in here, but did any smaller guild post about clearing? I read some of you posted that you clear 3 bosses or so, but in that time are you and the other 9 getting really geared up? My toons have all the Kara gear, badge gear, crafted gear that I can get my hands on, in fact many badges are rotting in my bank. The drops in ZA won’t push my toon that much, if any further so it seems this isn’t really progression, but more like filler till WOTLK.
Heleth Feb 6th 2008 3:01PM
People who ask if ZA is progression don't understand progression.
Khanmora Feb 6th 2008 6:16PM
We are gearing up but that's why it is a slower progression rate for the Kara farm guilds. I have gotten the chest, and two helms (one for crit set, one for mp5 set) still waiting for my stupid shield and belt to drop. We actually had several weeks where we sharded nearly all the gear b/c we have no shaman in our raid.
Now we are able with our best geared players to down 2 bosses on timer and 3-4 bosses total. If we bring some of our lesser geared players we may only get 1 timer and 2-3 bosses depending on who we have.
The sticking point for some guilds is that there are not only gear requirements but this instance is hell on your tanks and healers, and you do much better with a good mix of classes. You can certainly do the instance with no mages but since polymorph is spammable in combat you are going to have a much easier time with trash when you have a mage in the group. Not all small guilds have the luxury of being able to stack their raids with 3 well equipped healers, 2 very well equipped tanks, and 5 dps that are spread among the classes as equally as possible (tranq shot, polymorph, cyclone/roots, fear, all come in handy in this instance).
Joeejojo Feb 6th 2008 3:58PM
So explain it then? The dictionary defines it as "the act of moving forward (as toward a goal)". Is that not what some have posted?
Hoggersbud Feb 6th 2008 4:04PM
I dunno. There's some stuff in ZA I'd like better gear-wise than almost anything short of Illidan himself. But I can see how a lot of the bosses can be quite tough. I know my guild has hit a wall on the Lynx god, even though we can get every other boss in there down (Bear and Eagle reliably, Dragonhawk within a few attempts), but Halazzi is still shredding us.
Elsewhere, we've got Karazhan down, it's usually a full clear for one team a night, and the other gets to Prince, though we don't have quite the makeup for optionals on both teams. Gruul took us two weeks to get down, and we're probably going for Mags and then SSC by the end of the month.
Has being able to side-step to ZA helped us? I think so, but it's also caused some heartache with Lynx.
Who knows what the next two will lead to?
darian Feb 6th 2008 5:20PM
The problem with ZA as progression is the timed event, the short reset timer, and the effect these have on loot.
You effectively have to spend twice as much time spread out across two separate days to get the same number of upgrades as the first half of Karazhan. While this speeds up learning encounters (for guilds that can field two ZA runs a week), it slows down progression.
Certainly if you complete the timed event you can get two pieces of loot per boss, but that's a big if. Guilds that can't already complete the timed event, or get the first leg, are stuck behind a large hurdle. They're working just as hard as they once did to progress through Karazhan, but for half as much loot.
The upshot of this is that it will logically take many Karazhan guilds at least twice as long to progress through Zul'Aman as they did through Karazhan. This is only saved by the fact that Zul'Aman is only half as long, but it's still discouraging for the guilds that try.
Ras Gonzo Feb 6th 2008 6:41PM
IMO 10 mans are more fun than 25 mans, mostly because of time. 25 mans take up too much time, where as 10 mans are much quicker and more fun because of that. That being said, there is absoutley no gear at all that I would want out of ZA for my feral tank. I've cleared ZA a few times, but why would I want to go back? Badges? No, I'll get more from Kara. I want more 10 mans but PLEASE Blizzard put some insentive for ferals to enter that place.
theRaptor Feb 6th 2008 8:26PM
You can do Gruul or Magtheridon in an hour. TK has a whole four bosses. What you are saying is that your guild can't do them quickly, not that they can't be done quickly. Some people can waste days in Kara if they are not good enough, and then other people can full clear in four hours or less. There is nothing magic about ten mans that makes them quicker then twenty five.
Furien Feb 6th 2008 6:49PM
My raid group took down Zul'jin this week. We've farmed Kara, rolled Gruul and downed Lurker and Hydross. As best I can tell (wowjutsu) we're the 8th Alliance guild on our server to down Zul'jin and the only one not also in BT. The Zul'jin kill ranks up there with anything I've done in WoW. ZA is hard and I'd have to agree that in many cases if you can complete it then you probably don't need the gear in it but there are a few items our group is chasing, a few minor upgrades but some decent ones too. We'll continue to hit up ZA on non-raid nights.
Wolfstalker Feb 7th 2008 10:27AM
We downed the first 4 bosses in ZA without anything more than Kara and Badge gear.
The people who say they can't just aren't any good.