Stretch...
The last challenging ZA run is over. Yesterday we were just short of three chests. We took a conservative route and engaged the lynx with two minutes on the timer, so he sacrificed the prisoner during the fight. We'd probably have got three if we really pushed it. We're not a guild or any kind of organized raid group, just a den of late-night old-timers who play 2-3 characters each. So decent performance, well, we think.
Tonight (the patch hits EU realms a day later) we cleared Malacrass on the *cough* third go after I *cough* pulled the second one with my *cough* mage (I thought I'd stand where the rogue was). Our DPS has gone up nicely and he went down smoothly. For a mage this boss provides an interesting timing puzzle to use various abilities to survive, regain mana, or do damage around/during the spirit bolts. He dropped the Battleworn Tuskguard so the other warrior tank is happy. He raids T6 and I don't need it to clear ZA so it's a nice-to-have for me.
Onto Zul-Jin, whom I tank in the hope of getting the nice axe. Rend FTW! The cat form spectacularly mangles our raid, while I try in vain to run after it and put on some threat. Another wipe at 3% due to a mostly dead raid. Note to self not to waste Shield Wall unless the boss is really going down. Note to self torn up
. But he went down smoothly the second try with just two deaths. Predictably he dropped the caster blade.
I like ZA being on a short reset so I can bring each character to different bosses, and having a 10-man raid where many people do this provides an interesting amount of fun and flexibility (even when the bosses drop the wrong loot).
Here's a thought about loot, which might be obvious but it only occurred to me recently: I don't care about the armor that drops in ZA, because although it's a handsome upgrade I can already tank ZA fairly reliably and I'm not going to tank anything else until we're leveling again. But I really want the axe because more threat is always good. You can never have too much threat or too much DPS, but you can have enough damage reduction for your progression cap.
Tonight (the patch hits EU realms a day later) we cleared Malacrass on the *cough* third go after I *cough* pulled the second one with my *cough* mage (I thought I'd stand where the rogue was). Our DPS has gone up nicely and he went down smoothly. For a mage this boss provides an interesting timing puzzle to use various abilities to survive, regain mana, or do damage around/during the spirit bolts. He dropped the Battleworn Tuskguard so the other warrior tank is happy. He raids T6 and I don't need it to clear ZA so it's a nice-to-have for me.
Onto Zul-Jin, whom I tank in the hope of getting the nice axe. Rend FTW! The cat form spectacularly mangles our raid, while I try in vain to run after it and put on some threat. Another wipe at 3% due to a mostly dead raid. Note to self not to waste Shield Wall unless the boss is really going down. Note to self torn up
. But he went down smoothly the second try with just two deaths. Predictably he dropped the caster blade. I like ZA being on a short reset so I can bring each character to different bosses, and having a 10-man raid where many people do this provides an interesting amount of fun and flexibility (even when the bosses drop the wrong loot).
Here's a thought about loot, which might be obvious but it only occurred to me recently: I don't care about the armor that drops in ZA, because although it's a handsome upgrade I can already tank ZA fairly reliably and I'm not going to tank anything else until we're leveling again. But I really want the axe because more threat is always good. You can never have too much threat or too much DPS, but you can have enough damage reduction for your progression cap.
Total Comments 3
Comments
 |  I've always thought it was a little strange that ZA bosses drop 1 epic item (the first 4, at least) but in Kara, each boss drops 2. I mean, I lucked out and got the Jungle Stompers on the first kill I was in on but everything else.....Dragonhawk had dropped the f-ing mail chest 2 weeks in a row after dropping the caster dagger. Bottom line is, not that it matters as I am a mage for that raid, ain't seen the shield yet. Mathmatically, the odds aren't good. Just strange to me. I like ZA and I like the times event challenge but the rewards could be a little better or at least more forgiving to weaker groups that can actually kill the bosses. Not expecting something for nothing but I would submit that killing Halazzi is more difficult than killing Moroes or the Curator, timer or not. As an aside, I run about 1100 on recount and 1000 on WWS for that raid, overall, on average. But, we roll with 3 healers and the other DPS is in the 700 range :/ |
Posted 10-15-2008 at 09:48 AM by Horacio  |
| | I think the design is based on "loot per person per week". So 25-mans drop five items or whatever it is, Kara drops two items, and ZA drops one item since it's a 10-man on a 3-day reset. The sum is fair, but the probability of getting a needed item (or an item finding a worthy owner) is highest in 25-mans and worst in ZA just because of combinatorials. It could use some form of "Mote of Mojo" to exchange the items |
| Posted 10-15-2008 at 11:03 AM by Machus |
| | "Mote of Mojo" would indeed be very valuable. |
| Posted 10-15-2008 at 07:21 PM by Arideni |
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