Zul'Aman Sunday Raid

[Guest]

The developers made the choice of allowing PLAYERS of the game to be able to use game mechanics/code to create addons to HELP players in their experiences within the game. Many of the addons that have come out since the game began have been picked up by the developers and incorporated into the backbone of the game as things you can choose to enable through the interface.

They are PART of the game. No, you don't have to use them.

But if you're going to be part of a difficult game encounter that using such addons or 'mods' would help you succeed, then why NOT use them? Boss timers of some kind are usually the biggest thing one needs to have. When a group's survival depends on playing around the different timers a boss has (which, really, is what most boss fights really boil down to), not knowing when something is going to happen, and how to respond to what's coming, can mean success or failure.

You can choose to use them or not, that is your choice, yes, but it is also the choice of the group whether or not to play with someone who can potentially contribute to or cause disaster because they're not prepared for part of the encounter.

I, personally, use addons because they enhance gameplay, and help me become a better player. They don't MAKE me play the game better, but they sure as hell make sure i don't get people killed. Well, often at least =P.

[Logros]

Wow. Just... wow.

You guys win. I'm done being proactive about trying to help people get ready for raiding. For every person that asks for help, there's five more that think I'm an egotistical jerk trying to tell them how they should play. If someone else wants to step up and push for every phyrric victory they can get, great, go for it. I'm tired of being the bad cop.

[Guest]

Amato and I won't be coming, unfortunately.

[Mahiah]

Lending leafy love. I'll go

[jabadue]

We are going in at 600p Server tonight (3/9):

This is the current lineup that I have:

Tanks:
Kosath
Daichallar
Nahr

Healers:
Jabadue
Mahiah
Erudan

DPS:
Eonah
Grazak
Dispaya
Sreng
Bloodbound

This is all that I had commit to coming tonight. If I missed someone, let me know. We got one extra tank. I will try to work that out by raid time.

-Jaba

[jabadue]

Zul'Aman After Action Report:

Overall, I think the raid went very well and I commend you all on a job well done. These are just a few of my observations, and I encourage you to give your input as well.

Positives:
1. Teamwork was outstanding. My impression was that BigWigs helped more than hindered?
2. Everyone seemed to learn the encounters very quickly.
3. Tanks did an excellent job, and nobody pulled agro. I am guessing part of the reason for this was Omen, and just good tanks.
4. DPS was solid.

Things to work on:
1. It would be good if we could ratchet up the DPS. Our DPS was solid throughout, but with tanks taking so much damage on Bear and Lynx, bringing them down quicker would make things easier. This should improve with gear, and experience. This is also why we encourage the use of Omen. DPS should ride Kosath's agro like a wave, just enough not pull mobs off of him. That being said it is also important to keep the DPS alive. I have less experience as a DPSer, so if someone else wants to comment, please do.
2. Lynx boss. He hits awfully hard. Maybe a healing rotation on tank and off-tank, regening mana when off rotation. DPS needs to bandage and drink potions so healing can focus on tanks. Thoughts?

Ok, now it's your turn.

-Jaba

[Guest]

I'm glad to hear it went well!

The Lynx is a serious PITA to heal. Having a shaman/hunter use their nature resist totem/aspect cuts down on the damage done to non-tank raid members tremendously, which of course helps with healer mana. Bandaging, health stones, and health potions all = win as well.

The best advice I can give for healing the tanks is keeping all the HoTs available stacked on the MT, spamming heals as you must, stacking mana regeneration gear and consumables, and chain drinking mana potions. I've never found it possible to do a true healing rotation on that encounter, but if you figure out a way, let me know.

[Eruadan]

I did find the fights rather lengthy. That said its just a matter of learning to conserve mana, heal when necessary, and that will potentially get better with gear but its a learning curve since I am still learning the ropes of raid healing.

Agro never seemed to be an issue which was awsome.

-Bear, lengthy fight, but went pretty well considering it was a first for a few of us and downed him first try. I dont know about damage or what not but Troll forms "Surge" attack where he randomly charges...maybe spred out a bit more (if possible) so more than one target isnt getting hit by that. Drag on Mana for me personally but dont know about others.

-Hawk fight...after two wipes, a late storm we learned the dance I felt that went rather well...To me it seems pretty straigh forward once we defeated him...but again its a drag on healing with mana issues...learning curve.

-Learned Tamers Mind control is dispelable even though mod doesnt flag it as a dispelable...glad I tried to dispel it anyways.

-Lynx, that one was a toughy. I found that our first couple tries I would end up healing the same target as everyone else did, Leaving the other with less than 50% health. We tried it again with me focusing on one tank, that one went better. I think a rotation of sorts would work, I have read that if two healers focus on a tank each and have the third support the other two might work. Could warrant an attempt in the future. Tank(s) was taking major damage which is a new experience for me, almost need to treat it as a Gruul fight (without half a dozen healers) with the uber damage by spamming large heals just to keep him alive. Also dispelling the Flame Shock takes a toll on my mana...have to weigh dispelling it vs healing through it, not sure if there are other means to dispel them more efficiently or if I should just bring lots of potions.

I had alot of fun though, I got to see what its like in ZA, and its nice to experience a serious challenge. Would like to go again sometime.

Thank you Jaba!

[Logros]

Nicely done, downing Akil'zon is a good indication of a solid raid attempt.

2. Lynx boss. He hits awfully hard. Maybe a healing rotation on tank and off-tank, regening mana when off rotation. DPS needs to bandage and drink potions so healing can focus on tanks. Thoughts?

Not really possible, even for very well-geared raids, the damage dealt is just too steady and too high. DPS shouldn't actually be bandaging, they're better off DPSing. Every bit of time away from DPS makes the fight longer, and a bandage isn't going to outpace the extra time needed to heal the tanks. Healthstones, potions, and Crystal Focuses are all a big help.

To keep raid-wide damage down, as Nar said, it's helpful to have at least one nature-resist ability in each group (hunter/shaman). Totems need to be killed immediately (using a macro for /target corrupted), and Flame Shock needs to be dispelled before it can tick. FS + CL is what kills healers/DPSers.

Agro never seemed to be an issue which was awsome.

Healer aggro isn't an issue until you get to Jan'alai, at which point it gets tricky. For any fight without adds, aggro from healers will almost never be an issue at all.

Troll forms "Surge" attack where he randomly charges...maybe spred out a bit more

It's actually better to stand right behind the tanks, so that the charge doesn't happen at all (like Attumen). This means melee DPS can keep attacking him, instead of having to wait for him to jog back. If folks are having aggro issues due to proximity (110% instead of 130% cap), then yeah, spread out as much as possible. No charge should hit more than one person in that case.

Learned Tamers Mind control is dispelable even though mod doesnt flag it as a dispelable...glad I tried to dispel it anyways

It won't show as dispellable because the target is no longer friendly. You're actually casting Dispel Magic on a hostile target. Shamans can Purge the MC as well, but paladins can't Cleanse it (since it doesn't affect hostiles).

Tank(s) was taking major damage which is a new experience for me, almost need to treat it as a Gruul fight (without half a dozen healers) with the uber damage by spamming large heals just to keep him alive

That's pretty much raiding from ZA on out. Kara's like that early on, before a new raid has geared up, but everything else is like that all the time

Also dispelling the Flame Shock takes a toll on my mana...have to weigh dispelling it vs healing through it,

Needs to be dispelled, it just does too much damage, and makes it very likely that the target will die to a Chain Lightning totem. Healing through it would take multiple casts as well, whereas a dispel only takes one. Good idea to be thinking like that though - weighing options

or if I should just bring lots of potions.

Until the raid is geared up, you'll go through potions like water. After the raid is geared up, you'll only go through potions like water sometimes (Jan'alai+ in ZA).

[Kosath]

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more it seems like those 3 fights are pretty heavily healing reliant. The lynx boss is the first time in a while I've really fealt undergeared as a tank, and sadly, I can't really improve much at this tier. What is also sad is that the only tanking upgrades in there are beyond him.

I can make a couple minor tweaks here and there, but the deaths each time came from just raw damage. No special spikes or abilities. The bear came pretty close to doing the same a couple times.

Patch 2.4 will certainly help. In the mean time I'll finish up getting a couple enchants I've been neglecting and switch out breastplates.

[Guest]

Re: Flame shock. Dispel it. Full stop. If allowed to run its full course, the DoT alone will deal 9992-11608 damage. It would take 2-3 greater heals or 1400-2000 mana to cover that amount of damage, whereas Dispel Magic is a fraction of that (I want to say around 300, though I can't recall the exact number). Most people can't survive the initial hit of damage plus the first couple ticks of the DoT, not to mention the chain lightning, so dispelling this is in everyone's best interest, and certainly that of your mana pool.

[Guest]

Grats on killing the bear and eagle! Thought I might add some advice here on Halazzi.

Healing Rotations: I don't think a healing rotation is advisable, on this fight. Healers just have to chug those blue potions on every cooldown, if they don't have the mana regeneration to last through it. Saving innervates for your spirit-based healers is a good idea here, too.

Mana regeneration: The best thing to do is to expect fights to last 6+ minutes. This means that mana regeneration tools that are on a 5 min or shorter cooldown will be used 2 or more times during a fight. As a priest, for example, using shadowfiend when your mana first hits 50% means that you'll have it up again before the end of the fight (when mana is REALLY hard to come by). Use your mana potion next to start its cooldown going. Use inner focus during lulls in healing (its more important for the "no mana" effect, because this keeps you outside the 5 second rule for a longer period of time).

Dispelling: must be done. Preferable to have a paladin to this, as their dispel is far more mana efficient than priest dispels and they don't often have to worry about their mana regeneration. But even as a priest, I always dispel the shock because it does WAY too much damage to be allowed up. Think like Maiden, the dot must be cleansed if the target is going to live.

Tanking: This may or may not be possible for your group, but this is one of those fights that benefits from a feral druid tank, as opposed to a warrior tank. Halazzi is a "thrasher" like Prince phase 2 and Morogrim, in that he eats up shield blocks fast in his joined phase. This leaves warrior tanks vulnerable as their major source of mitigation is depleted. Druids don't have shield block, but they are well-suited to absorbing huge amounts of damage in short periods of time, without giving your healers a heart-attack.

DPS: Zul'Aman is an instance that needs solid DPS. The encounters are tuned to put a "soft" limit on the amount of time it takes to down them, rather than being sustainable like many Kara fights are. Halazzi is difficult to heal through if it lasts more than 7 minutes. Healers should expect to heal for 6.5-7 minutes (that's 3 potion cooldowns, 2 shadowfiends, from a priest's perspective). If DPS isn't doing enough damage and the fight is extending to 8-9 minutes, that's where the problem is and it really needs to be cranked up. 3 healers just don't survive that long, unless they or their tanks are superbly overgeared.

[Jivundus]

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more it seems like those 3 fights are pretty heavily healing reliant. The lynx boss is the first time in a while I've really fealt undergeared as a tank, and sadly, I can't really improve much at this tier. What is also sad is that the only tanking upgrades in there are beyond him.

I can make a couple minor tweaks here and there, but the deaths each time came from just raw damage. No special spikes or abilities. The bear came pretty close to doing the same a couple times.

Patch 2.4 will certainly help. In the mean time I'll finish up getting a couple enchants I've been neglecting and switch out breastplates.

Your not Kosath, there's a trick about the Lynx. He doesn't crush, at all. Which means a bear tank will take less damage, MUCH less. Still quite doable without a MT bear, but it does make that fight rougher.
Now Jan'alai.. He crushes so much you'll wonder if your even shield blocking. He's the biggest tank killer in the entire place.

[Logros]

Yeah, without a bear/paladin, Jan'alai is a real pain. Literally.

[Eruadan]

Alot of useful information everyone...thank you!