Can we skip Grull and begin zul'aman?

[palouf]

Hi all,

I'm raid leader of a casual raiding guild. We just cleared kara last week and players need new challenge.
We have a second group running kara too but they are still in part 1 ( learning maiden fight ).
We can not pretend to do 25 mans now because we have only 3 reliable healers in the guild ...
My group is now enough well geared to do all kara but i don't have any clue for zul'aman...
The whole groups (with alts) is compound like that ( kara loots + badges mainly and some heroic and normal blues):
3 healers : (1 priest + 2 palas ) 1400, 1600 and 1800 + h, unbuffed
2 melee dps : 1600/1700 ap unbuffed
2 hunters : 1700 ap unbuffed
2 mage : 900/1000 sd unbuffed
1 warlock : 900 sd unbuffed
1 Spriest : 900 sd unbuffed
2 tanks : palatank ( 4% over crush ,13,350 hp unbuffed ) + warrior OT

Do you think that we can begin zul'aman ? And if so, which boss order can we do ?

[Invisusira]

You might want to get a few more full clears of Kara under your belt to gear everyone up, but the general consensus is that once you can kill Prince and Nightbane, you're ready to at least start ZA.

The bear boss is usually considered the "first" boss in the instance as he is the easiest; however, he is also a tank check. Eagle boss is a bit more of a DPS check and a more challenging fight to learn, however, he's not so harsh on the tank.

You could also go to the Lynx boss first, but you'll probably want a bit more gear for him. He hits like a truck.

[Lore]

Honestly I'm not sure why anyone does Gruul/Mag anymore except for the novelty factor.

If you didn't need Kael/Vashj for attunement (2.4 inc) you could go from badge/ZA gear into BT.

[ulushnar]

Honestly I'm not sure why anyone does Gruul/Mag anymore except for the novelty factor.

We've pretty much dropped them as well. I'm still tempted by going back for a laugh in 2.4 if the rumors about them buffing the gold they drop is true.

[inthedrops]

Our guild doesn't even do Mag, we went there once that I'm aware of. Gruul we kill in 10 grows or something these days.

palouf,

I think if you are confident in your players that you should go with the mindset of killing bear boss for a couple weeks then move on to the eagle once the bear is farmed. Plan on spending 2 hours in there the first night leearning the fight.

Even the trash hits hard just before the bear boss so don't get discouraged if you have issues. If you can pull and kill the group of 4 on top of the platform right before the bear boss then you guys have the ability to kill bear boss imho.

The healers may be in for a surprise. Your DPS should be fine as long as they know how to play.

Best of luck!

[plisken451]

Our first kill of Bear last night, and we took 4 healers. That last trash pull is brutal. I've read it here before, but the boss really is a bit of a let-down after surviving that pull. Eagle boss, we were definitely slow on the dps, but got him down with about a minute before the enrage. Take group healers on eagle, he damages wide, not deep. Bear is deep, not wide.

[Mortehl]

Wow. So many people are missing so much content

Mag was a great brain check for guilds.
SSC was just flat out fun.
TK was a guild check.

/cry

[ulushnar]

Wow. So many people are missing so much content

Mag was a great brain check for guilds.
SSC was just flat out fun.
TK was a guild check.

/cry

Yeah, still hoping to kill Vashj/Kael before 2.4 kicks in. Unlikely but a guy can dream.

[Loganb1104]

You should be good to start ZA and get bear boss down. Honestly, with a paladin MT (assuming he's well-geared), you should be able to get eagle and dragonhawk down as well.

The nice thing about ZA is it has something for every gearing level. Tier 4 content guilds can hope to down 1-3 of the 4 "easier" bosses and maybe get a piece of timed loot. Tier 5 content guilds should be able to full clear and get 3 timed loot. Tier 6 guilds are the only ones I've seen rocking the bear mounts so far...

As far as "skipping" content goes, I can really only say this: don't!
Gruul's, though easy, still drops a couple solid pieces of loot that won't be replaced until Hyjal/BT. Magtheridon is, in my opinion, a must-do for guilds that want to work on their raid coordination and communication before trying much more difficult co-ord fights like Vashj and Kael.

My two cents.

[inthedrops]

Wow. So many people are missing so much content

Mag was a great brain check for guilds.
SSC was just flat out fun.
TK was a guild check.

/cry

Yeah, still hoping to kill Vashj/Kael before 2.4 kicks in. Unlikely but a guy can dream.

We're working on Vashj at the moment and are 3/5 TK. We don't do Mag because we have too much raiding in a week as it is. There simply isn't time.

[Invisusira]

SSC was just flat out fun.
TK was a guild check.

I think you got those two mixed up.

[Dorvan]

SSC was just flat out fun.
TK was a guild check.

I think you got those two mixed up.

QFT...SSC trash ftl

[Jhereg]

I much preferred ssc trash. I'm not sure we've ever made it thru a VR trash pull without someone dying, ever, and we're on RoS in BT.

And the trash to kael is a nightmare (any fight where your mages are best put to use spamming sheep on the burndown is a bad fight)

[Ana]

Wow. So many people are missing so much content

Mag was a great brain check for guilds.
SSC was just flat out fun.
TK was a guild check.

/cry

Because finding 25 reliable people without huge epeens is such a huge pain in the arse. Im lucky if I have 15 people in my guild who know how to play and are reliable enough for a 4 hour stint raiding. But we have fun, we see what we can and so on.

[NarfJones]

Honestly I'm not sure why anyone does Gruul/Mag anymore except for the novelty factor.

That, and the guild who have influential tanks tat want Gruul's shield. That's the only reason we run it. There are some people that want to gear up alts with the t4 shoulders and pants, but mostly it's just because us tanks want the ALD.