minimum requirements for Zul Aman

[Ariashley]

Hmm.

netherspite and nightbane are our troublespots

Nightbane is a pain in the ass without a warrior tank with a reliable fear break or 2 priests + a good bubble macro or more DPS than should be in a Kara raid. It's possible, but with me tanking him and the DPS we usually have in this particular guild, we're rarely, if ever, going to one shot him.

Netherspite should be easy unless people are retarded and can't stand in the beams when they're supposed to. A raid can live through quite a few banish phases and get him down if that one thing happens. I quiz people on which beam they're standing in when before I pull him. Even the first time I tanked him, he died. Had 2 attempts. The first we wiped with him at 99% (after like 9 minutes) because one dude couldn't figure out exactly how to get in that green beam. We usually have one person for each beam in each phase.

I have pretty similar stats to yours on my paladin and go on timed ZA runs on my rogue. I wouldn't go to ZA on my paladin in my current gear, at all (have been asked probably 4 times in the last week). ZA is harder than Gruul's, definitely, and I don't even think I'm quite ready to tank Gruul without the risk of being killed too early.

If you pick up mostly badge gear (75 badge chest, 100 badge legs, crafted blacksmith belt, badge feet, badge/kara/heroic MgT trinkets, Maiden gloves), you could do ZA without ever having been in a 25 man raid, probably. It's really intended to be done in conjunction with T5 gear and I'd say it's similar in difficulty/gear requirements to early Hyjal. You can get a proxy of that gear level with badges, but not sure it prepares you for the complexity of the fights or prepares your healers for the spike damage. Prince is, perhaps, a decent proxy on spike dmg.

[Ariashley]

Our first ZA run the other night this was me unbuffed (MT'ing)...

Hp: 12807
Mana: 4-5k i forget. doesnt matter much
Def: 491
Dodge: 18.73%
Parry: 16.55%
Block: 25.99%
Spell dam: 221 Spell Damage.

Don't need much. I think I have two badge pieces Libram and Belt. And two kara pieces. Bracers from Attumen and T4 hat. Other than that full blues/kara ring. Don't need a ton. I would link armory but I logged off in my lolhealing gear.

You have the most amazing healers ever...

What bosses did you kill in that gear? I've seen tank in my main's guild killed by the bear during unlucky silences and we do have pretty amazing healers most of the time. And that tank has at least 20k health buffed.

[Frickit]

Our first ZA run the other night this was me unbuffed (MT'ing)...

Hp: 12807
Mana: 4-5k i forget. doesnt matter much
Def: 491
Dodge: 18.73%
Parry: 16.55%
Block: 25.99%
Spell dam: 221 Spell Damage.

Don't need much. I think I have two badge pieces Libram and Belt. And two kara pieces. Bracers from Attumen and T4 hat. Other than that full blues/kara ring. Don't need a ton. I would link armory but I logged off in my lolhealing gear.

You have the most amazing healers ever...

What bosses did you kill in that gear? I've seen tank in my main's guild killed by the bear during unlucky silences and we do have pretty amazing healers most of the time. And that tank has at least 20k health buffed.

HoTs ftw and that gear should be alright except the spell damage.

[Ariashley]

Guild my paladin is in doesn't have any druid healers. I haven't really had an issue with my spell damage, but we also have an asston of hunters in my guild with misdirects. I really haven't had an issue in heroics with the spell damage either, but I pop spell damage food and wizard oil and often have an elemental shaman in my party.

Working on getting the gavel, but since the Horde nerf to AV, we get an average of 180 honor per loss in my battlegroup (and they're pretty much all losses, probably 90%) in about 15 min with few to no player kills for extra honor. The combination of the horde nerf AND the change to group queuing has made honor grind much more of a grind than it used to be.

Either way, it's about 1 hour per 750-1000 rep now (with a bonus if you can get the daily completed) and I've only managed to get in about 9 hours of honor grinding. In about 20 more hours, I'll get that gavel... May very well get the cudgel first.

We killed the bear boss and the eagle yesterday (I was at nearly 17k health buffed, 16907). No issues on trash to the bear. Three shot the bear when half the people in the group had never stepped foot in ZA and one shot the eagle and the gauntlet leading up to him. Got through the trash to the dragonhawk without trouble. Made three attempts on him, but I had a rough time convincing the rogue to let the hatchers open a good number of the eggs and when dragonhawk hit 30%, boom, like 40 little dragonhawks on me - then dead, then wipe.

Honestly, given the inexperience of the people in the group, I expected it to go a lot less smoothly.

[Merlaina]

We're about to start ZA this week. Been looking at peoples posts and I should be good to start.

Unbuffed Stats:

14747HP
4788 Mana
15800 Armor
Def 503
49.87% avoidance
uncritable/uncrushable with holy shield up
312 Holy Dmg

My healers are amazing too, so even if I'm a little low on the gear side of things, they should be able to keep me up.

[mazater]

Def 503

You have a fair amount of defence rating there.

Personally, I would change your +def. rating & stamina gems to 12stamina gems to gain a bit more health. (490 def. rating is what you need, anything over that is more or less wasted)

[kensanity]

za has been the new craze for me as of late. After healing on my priest through t5 content, two weeks ago was the first time i EVER step foot into ZA with either my priest or my pally tank.

In the short span, pugs i've lead have been able to hit the two timed chests pretty easily and down all four bosses provided that group make up is synergistic and that MT and OT achieve these goals buffed,

HP: 17.5k at least (halazzi cleave and bear form nalorakk can be rough)
Armor: 15.5k
Spell Damage: 450 (pally tanks obviously, and depends on DPS blessings and gear)
defence: 490
avoidance: not necesarrily uncrushable for all bosses but I do feel that dodge+parry of over 40% is decent

While ZA can be difficult, its hard for me to say that the avatar bosses are tough to do with an undergeared group. What makes making the timed chests difficult is how fast those bosses go down and how fast groups clear trash.

i think, if u are aiming for three-four chests, you are gonna need to get dps that can put out at LEAST 1k tps on a consistent basis.

My group missed the third chest by a few minutes and we were all in kara/badge gear. (granted the 3 heroisms we had in group might have played a role in our success tho)

[Heironeous]

The time you get to make the 3rd chest? You have to make the third AND the 4th chest with that. So remember that's 45 minutes to clear trash and kill the bosses. To do 4th chest you gotta bring 2 healers and basicly be farming Illidan.

Which at that point ZA is just for the pretty mount anyway. But if you down all 4 of those bosses then you'll hate yourself on Hexxlord. When he copies a paladin and pops wings... *shudder*. It tickles to say the least. And dont use concecrate on that rotation. You'll need to see where his is to GET THE HECK OUT!

[Seloei]

you don't need to 2 heal it to get a mount, even at t5 level. It sure does make it a whole lot easier but 3 healing and thinking can shave off more time than one more dps.

The people who can "farm mounts easy" are the ones who are already geared in t6 content and are overgeared for it. They can afford mistakes, you can't at lower levels. (Didn't someone manage to get the mount with just Kara/ZA loots a few months ago?)

[Snake-Aes]

The people who can "farm mounts easy" are the ones who are already geared in t6 content and are overgeared for it. They can afford mistakes, you can't at lower levels. (Didn't someone manage to get the mount with just Kara/ZA loots a few months ago?)

Pretty much.
my first successful bear run was with a t6 guild, and I died on eagle(lol@both healers on air), went rather slow on hawk trash and almost fucked up on lynx. We beat it by about 2 minutes. Next time we did it more "seriously", as in everyone knew what to expect with me tanking(seems they only had one pally tank and it was before za gg hyjal with no tankadin) and beat it by like 9 minutes.

[BigBlueCheese]

Can I run the gauntlet with no CC? What about the rest of the instance?

The goal of this week's run is to get to Jan'alai within 2 hours. First ZA run in weeks and a new introduction of a tankadin (me). Never got downed Jan'alai and killed Spirit Lynx boss twice.

[Boomtank]

with 3 1800+ healers i have no trouble tanking any fight with these stats(unbuffed)
15k health
16.4k armor
501 defence
22 dodge
17 parry
23 block
350 spell damage
425 block value

[Snake-Aes]

Provided t5+ dps i'm fairly sure you don't need any kind of cc. On eagle you'll be low on mana even tanking everything(kililng only healers) till the tempest if the aoe is killing more than the eagles, and on hawk... the important part is killing the scouts fast. If you time your pull do hit them before the dpsers start, they'll all go to you. A mage makes this gauntlet easy with spellsteal + coutnerspell + aoe

[kensanity]

The time you get to make the 3rd chest? You have to make the third AND the 4th chest with that. So remember that's 45 minutes to clear trash and kill the bosses. To do 4th chest you gotta bring 2 healers and basicly be farming Illidan.

Which at that point ZA is just for the pretty mount anyway. But if you down all 4 of those bosses then you'll hate yourself on Hexxlord. When he copies a paladin and pops wings... *shudder*. It tickles to say the least. And dont use concecrate on that rotation. You'll need to see where his is to GET THE HECK OUT!

I was trying to make the point that even when PUGGING groups with t4/badge gear, achieving some of the chests are easy, thus if you had better gear and a set group dedicated and committed to trying to attain the bear mount, i'm sure it isn't that difficult ( i find myself in the pugs taking more time to mark and distribute loot and if i had a set group i'm sure i wouldn't have to mark at all.)

and yeah, also, hexlord sucks.

My total time progression wise in ZA was maybe. MAYBE. 4 total hours. Thats how long over the course of two-three runs it took for me to learn the 4 bosses and start getting them cleared with pugs.

On my last ZA run, we cleared the 4 avatars in 1 hour and 15 minutes which, for me gear considered and experience, was ok.

Then we proceeded to spend 3 hours on hex lord and NOT kill him.

that guy truly sucks and is just a ridiculously different fight than the other avatars.

my suggestion? you bring the group in dedicated to get timed chests and loot from avatars. then u bring in the more optimal party dedicated to clear the last two bosses in instance.

[Seloei]

Then we proceeded to spend 3 hours on hex lord and NOT kill him.

that guy truly sucks and is just a ridiculously different fight than the other avatars.

my suggestion? you bring the group in dedicated to get timed chests and loot from avatars. then u bring in the more optimal party dedicated to clear the last two bosses in instance.

Hex lord is more or less a "retard check" fight, where if people don't know to spam purge/dispel/interupts when needed and GTFO aoe's you will fail and wipe. Wouldn't suggest changing the group setup since the people who have failed killing Hex will need to learn it one day anyway. The only thing you do with changing groups mid run is get people mad at you and make them lose faith in their skills. So what, wiped a few times due to stupid mistakes, he will get it eventually.

Once you have the fight down and noone is making stupid mistakes by standing in the aoe's he is as easy as any of the avatar's. Same for ZJ unless your healers are asleep in lynx phase and dps is stupid in eagle phase.