About 3 weeks ago, due to boredom, a group of 10 of us in my guild on Cenarius, decided to try the ZA bear mount timed trial. It went so well, we missed our first attempt by 2 minutes, that we decided we would do it again. The next attempt we beat the timer by 30 seconds. It was so much fun for us that we agreed that we would do 10 runs to get a bear mount for each of us in the group. So far we are 5/10 with our most recent one we had 6 minutes to spare.

Just curious to see if anyone has tried the ZA bear mount time trial?
What route do you normally take?
What is your best time?
Any tips and hints for those who want to attempt this

This really has been one of the more fun things i have done in the game and hope Blizzard has more events like this planned.

We have been trying for it lately. We are tier 5, ZA and heroic geared, and have been getting 3 chests with 2-3 minutes to spare.

We have been trying the Eagle->Bear->Hawk->Lynx route.

I know we are losing time at various points along the way (obviously). This is what we are trying to improve. It is pretty fun even now though - losing someone on eagle trash or missing a scout and trying to recover fast enough to stay under the timer is a nice challenge.

My group typically runs:

prot paladin (me)
bear off-tank
healadin
resto shaman
tree
elemental shaman
mage
shadowpriest (or warlock or another mage)
melee x2 (dps warrior or enh shaman, sometimes hunter in one of the slots)

Unfortunately we don't have exactly the same crew every week, as well.

I would say your doing pretty well. OUr group does outgear you by a large margin, we are almost all full Tier 6 and that certainly helps DPS wise.

Group make up

Prot Warrior MT
Bear Druid OT
Holy Pally
Resto Shammy
Holy Pally
Mage (me)
Rogue
Hunter
Shadow Priest
Warlock

Hey Sword, out of curiosity, which route do you take?

We've tried 3 times, and our best attempt was about 3 minutes short. Which considering the 5 deaths on Dragonhawk, would have been a mount if we had failed a little less.

We take the eagle, bear, dragonhawk, lynx route.

Few things that have really helped us.
-Don't wait for mage mana. No matter how much they cry, they really don't need a full mana pool for every pull.
-Tab dotting or AoE. If the tanks can hold aggro there is no faster way to kill things. Protadins make this really easy.
-Mind control. The flame casters before dragonhawk can destroy a trash pull.

The mind control is a great idea. I have run ZA so many times with no priest present that I forget about this tool.

Double flame casters in the trash pull by the last scout hut has prevented a third chest several times.

Double flame casters on the last pull, which is always the case, is very easy to deal with even without it because you have room to work and no fear of scouts walking up (sheep pull on a flame caster. Bring the guardians and kill-target back a good 40 yards to the stairs and kill them there - the sheep is out of range of the guardian's dispels from there).

Eagle > Bear > Dragonhawk > Lynx

Some tips.

For the Eagle run we kill the Caster and pull the protectors and warriors in a big pack until we get to the Tempest. Kill Tempest then AE down the pack.

Dragonhawk we allow the hatcher to unhatch a whole side have our Bear Druid AE taunt and we AE down the whole side. Repeat for other side. That fight literally takes 3 minutes or so that way.

Eagle-Bear-Hawk-Lynx is the one that's worked for us. Some people chatter about going from Eagle to Lynx and hopping through a hut window, but my general feeling is that you lose time in transit equal to or greater than the trash packs you skip.

You can basically do this run with any ten people so long as there's general group synergy, and you don't need T6 gear to do it (you can compensate with consumables). Our group setup changes every week and we tend to end around the same time, 7ish minutes left.

Our most successful runs (which are only 3 chests in timer) have had 2 priests and no mages. So MC was our primary CC

On this 2nd to last pull by d-hawk, the tank runs them around to the stairs where we are relatively free of scouts, then we MC and blow it up.

I'm doing one of my 2-hour ZA blitzes tonight, in fact, with Shadowpriest in tow.

I'm not a MC pro. If she MC's one flame caster, won't the other one's AOE push back her MC channel and make it end early (if we don't interrupt the flame caster effectively)? I'd hate to wipe because our SP gets gobbled by a broken MC before we can react.

Yeah, every time you get hit while MC-ing it takes a big chunk off the channeling bar, just like drain life or whatever.

Everytime I've been we've had me and Xarhud + 2 additional healers, so we MC both. I don't know how dangerous it is to have just one MC'd. They don't one-shot me, but I try to have around 10k buffed health in my healing gear because I don't like dying to random damage. But re-application isn't generally a problem. It can cause some close calls, but we've been able to handle them, Tiga is generally very good with intervene on an early break.

If the 2nd flamecaster isn't controlled, it gets very painful for me. Ideally, that mob is also MC'ed, because then you can use the awesome haste + AOE they have. Next best is a sheep, because at least then I can hold the mob, but I can't use the AOE. In that example, I let him melee the mob (they hit pretty hard, actually) and use their flameshock whenever it comes up (this is a single-target spell).

Alternately, you can try to pull the Razuvious trick - keep the other flamecaster out of LOS of the MCing priest. I'm not sure if that's possible in this case.

We did a 2 hour run last night. We were in experiment mode, even knowing it might mean losing chests, which was fun.

First, with my pally and a bear off-tank, we pulled pretty much the entire Eagle gauntlet on up and killed Tempest before much else. I think we got one wave of eagles, maybe two. That saved some time, just stopping to nuke any casters that refused to be trained up the hill.

I tanked eagle while the druid dps'd in cat, as usual.

We lost about 6 minutes to a freak wipe on Bear boss, but oh well. Had like 16m left on the timer after Bear died on 2nd pull.

When we got to the last scout hut, with the 4-pull near the stairs, we had double-flame caster, of course.

We tried sheeping/MC'ing one and running the rest of them to the far wall (a safe spot where scouts don't roam), but underestimated the decimation the 2nd flame caster would put out as we moved him. Was worth a shot though.

After we ran back in (no wipe protection up, ankhs down, etc), we chain pulled up to chicken-hawk (as we call him) and pulled him with maybe 5 minutes on the clock. He died about (not kidding) 3 seconds after the timer expired.

Anyway, not wiping on bear boss and killing the 4-pull by the last scout hut efficiently would have left us around 11-12 minutes on the timer after Dragonhawk died, I believe.

We then took a break, looted chests, and timed our push through Lynx trash.

Took us just over 12 minutes to get to Lynx and pull him. Yikes. Looks like we need to improve there before we even worry about trying to make bear timers.

Missed

This may seem like a bizarre idea and against most tank's philosophy but I actually like to execute tank if there is some kind of timer and its getting cut close. Do it in battle stance you only take 10% more damage than you would have which really isn't bad but you add another heavy dps to the group, name me a class that hits harder than a warrior with a full rage bar spamming execute. I've done this on bosses from Murmur to Archimonde with success.

Ehh.

There's a huge risk involved. You can't Shield Block. You take 10% extra damage. Die, and even if the boss is on 1%, you can take your entire raid down with you.

In order to do it to minimize risk, you have to cut it close to the point where he dies, at which point it's debatable if it actually adds anything other than a few seconds. If the boss doesn't crush, naturally that's different.

AFAIK, bosses in ZA don't crush, do they? I think all the ZA WWS reports from us with Druid tanking have expired. I know Nalorakk doesn't crush, but I thought all the bosses didn't.

Nalorakk and Halazzi don't crush, the rest do.

I thought one of Nalorakk's forms does crush and the other does not (seem to recall bear form crushes, thus the reason a lot of people use Warrior or Paladin for the bear form).

Its a risk of course, but it really isn't that much more damage incoming. Obviously avoid doing it versus bosses that 2 shot you but adding another solid dps to small groups can be a huge help, especially if you're trying to kill something 3 seconds faster.

Nope. No crushes at all from him. He uses bleeds in bear form, however, and bleeds ignore armor -- which makes a druid a poor choice for the bear form.

SDA, I just don't see the point in trying to kill something 3 seconds faster when you risk corpse-running.

You seriously lose so little when you shift stances. Besides the threat gen, it is so so so very little. Most of your mitigation comes from your parry, dodge, and armor. Not the measly 10% from defensive stance. Also things like shield block and shield wall remain effective after you leave defensive stance, you just need to BE in defensive stance to cast them. If healing is good and healers are good on mana, but you have lost dps or need to squeeze a precious little extra out you might be surprised how often this wins it for you.

It's about making good decisions as a tank. This is not something for every fight but a good way to pull a win from a situation that looks to be losing.

Ugh, just did my first ZA run in like a month or two. Did a 2 hour run to do the timed event and try to get a shield upgrade for one of our tanks.

I forgot how much I hate the double-flame caster pull by the hut before chicken hawk. With no way to separate the sheeped flame casters from the guardian, they ate us alive as he spam cleansed them, resulting in a wipe that cost us a 3rd chest. The double-flame caster pull just by the steps leading up to him is so much nicer, where we can sheep pull and the guardians will be out of cleanse range.

Have you considered having your mage just spam sheep on a flame caster the whole fight? I can't recall ever having too much trouble with that, assuming purge/spellsteal/CoT/all of the above goes off in a timely fashion and he can't get a flame volley off in between the 1.5 second sheeps.

We had both mages spam-sheeping both flame casters.

Both sheeps broke almost immediately after their application, and flame volleys went off, pushing back the next sheep spellcasts. One of the mages died almost right off.

A useful trick for us on guardian/flamecaster packs is to separate the guardians from the flamecasters being sheeped. A tank will charge and pull them back, a mage sheeps the flamecaster in place. If you have two flamecasters, then CS the skull'd flamecaster to ensure that he comes along with the rest, and kill him first. (we don't normally run more than one mage)

We don't either. We do separate the flame casters from the guardians on the last pull just before dragonhawk, but have never done it by the last hut. Typically we are worried about getting everyone onto the stairs so we might avoid being seen by any of the various scouts that like to wander past that hut.

Perhaps we should worry less about scouts, and focus on getting the first flame casters and guardians separated there too. Only thing I wonder is what exactly the range is on the Guardians' cleanse ability. If we pull the guardians back too far along the wall, we'll be close to the 2nd to last hut, which would have us near 2 huts and be quite bad.

You might be surprised at how often it adds nothing. You can get maybe two Executes off before you have to switch back to Defensive and get Shield Block up, considering that you have only maximum 10 rage when you shift stances (unless for some reason you have points in TM).


And it's not something I'd do except perhaps under extreme circumstances. I can't Shield Wall in Battle Stance, I can't Shield Block -- and I do not have enough confirmation that it actually adds enough that it's worth the risk. On bosses where the risk is less, for instance bosses that do not crush, I might change my mind and do it more often, but not when I risk a parry-gibbed double-crush.

I didn't say I actualy swapped in and out of def stance to SB, I was just pointing out you can leave it with 2 charges.

As I said though you don't want to do this with a boss that can 2 shot you, but most can't. There are really 2 main types of bosses I can discern: gimmick and smashing. The smashing bosses are the ones all the healers go "WTF your health bar just dropped" to when you die, the gimmik ones that require some kind of positioning, kill order, CC, all of the above, whatever. Gimmick bosses are best suited for executes, and then only to pull out the win from something that is starting to crumble. NORMALLY a raid can do without execute spam dps, but for instance you're trying to get a chest in ZA and the clock says you have 10 or fewer seconds left and 3% boss health, that would be a good time in my opinion. This isn't a 20-0% thing you want to do and if I gave you that impression, well... no don't do that.

I take back this advice. By far the best strat we have gone with on double flamecaster pulls is to use zero CC. We assign two interrupts, one to each flamecaster (elemental shaman, enh shaman, rogue, warrior, etc). Our warlock drops CoT on each. Our mage spellsteals their self buff or our shaman purge it.

They die much faster than CC options permit and no one ever comes remotely close to dying anymore.

As long as the players present are solid, I can't recommend this strategy enough.

I hope for a real update to this thread soon, btw. With a less optimal group than we planned (our fury warrior had to end up taking his shadowpriest since the planned one didn't show, and a shadowpriest is ESSENTIAL), we missed the 4th chest by 2 minutes last night. If we hadn't thought "eh, we'll take it easy and not use consumables since our line-up isn't as optimal as planned, so we won't make 4 chests anyway", we would have nailed it.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda...someday.

Just posting to say that when I do get a bear mount for my team, I might hate the damn thing by then.

We missed the 4th chest by 3 seconds last night. Seconds....three. Zul'jin yells that the prisoner will die, then if you count 1-1000, 2-1000, 3-1000, the boss dies.

If we ever suck less, we'll get a first one. We wiped on Dragonhawk and had to run back in, had about 5-7 deaths spread out among the other trash/boss pulls, and still came that close. Oh, and the Eagle fight took about forever because we lost 3 people to random crap and finished about 40% of the fight down 2 of our strongest dps.

Final, happy update for everyone.

7/31/2008 - after countless 2-hour speed runs, led by Keldor, we beat the timer for the first time tonight, by a good 3+ minutes!

Line-up:
Myndle - Main Tankadin
Radiator - Off-tank/DPS

Keldor - Chain Healer
Junahu - Druish Princess Healer

Gargle - DPS (warlock)
Johndoe - DPS (warlock)
Higler - DPS (mage)
Fineillheal - DPS (shadowpriest)
Scyklin - DPS (enh shaman)
Zarianna - DPS (rogue)



I picked it up (Myndle) with a roll of 88. I had to promise that I would keep going back for the rest of The Burning Crusade to get other KotD members bears, though =)

Congratulations!

But it will be mighty tempting, whenever someone else wants to try for one, to just say "too busy riding my awesome bear" and run away at full speed.



-Jester

With Crusader Aura on. Zooooom

Congrats!

Congratulations.

A few tips I haven't seen mentioned here yet...

1. The flamecasters are the easiest mobs in the instance, with an appropriate group setup. Their fireball volley may be damaging, but it's only got a 25 yard range... And they have ~4k mana. With three or four mana burner classes (Warlocks, Hunters, Shadow Priests), they can drain their mana down within ~10 seconds - only leaving them enough time to cast one volley, that can easily be interrupted. Once their mana is drained, they are completely inconsequential - kill the other mobs.

2. Mind Soothe is amazing for handling scouts in the Dragonhawk gauntlet.

3. You can skip three pulls on the way to Lynx. At the start of his trash, head left, kill the cat pack, then wait for the 2 cat, 2 tamer pat to move away... And jump through the window into the leftmost hut. Jump out of the window to its left - this will take you to the area in front of the temple. Move past the front when the pat moves away, and you've saved yourself 2 pulls.

Immediately after this, have shamans buff Water Walking, and instead of going along the coast of the lake, run over the water - this lets you skip the other 2-tamer, 2-cat pack.

For the record, my guild does this with a prot paladin, another tank, two warlocks, a mage, a hunter, an enhancement shaman, a resto shaman, a shadow priest, and a holy paladin. The shadow priest goes in the prot paladin's group, to speed up trash pulls.

That's exactly what we do with a similar comp. One of our warlocks swaps himself out of the SP group during trash pulls so I can get mana, then swaps himself back in when I pull a boss.

I've always heard about skipping through the hut window like that. I had thought it was something more natural for groups that did eagle first then lynx 2nd, but sounds like we could be doing that now if we wanted.

We beat the timer by over 7 minutes last night though, so I guess we won't mess with a winning formula for now, though. If I ever tank a ZA that isn't going for bear, I'll play with the hut window strategy to see how it fits. Thanks!

We just managed 4-timer last week even with Blizzard handing us a lag-spike wipe on the first boss. Woohoo! We had tried the hut window strategy before, but it seemed prone to error. This was the second week we tried just cutting across the front lynx area, fighting just the lynx pack and the 2-tamer bunch-of-cubs pack, avoiding the patrol that goes through the middle.

Group was 2 feral druids (one healing for Dragonhawk), CoH priest, resto shaman, fury warrior, enhance shaman, combat rogue, destro warlock, fire mage, and elemental shaman.

Grats!

I'm curious, how do you handle Dragonhawk without a prot pally on a speed run? I know plenty of groups do it, but since I only raid my prot pally, I obviously haven't seen it up close =)

We always let an entire side spawn and I AOE tank them all, with some messiness as we get ported mid-killing, but still super fast.

Normally the strategy is:

MT tanking DH in center (move him north until after the hatchlings are completely dealt with), OT (me) healing.

Left side had the melee DPS and one of the healers (the resto shaman). Right side had the caster DPS and the other healer (the CoH priest). This makes buffs more efficient since those were their parties anyway.

Each side kills 3 waves of hatchlings before finishing off the hatcher. Well, that was the theory. In this case, the caster side forgot to kill the hatcher until all but 5 eggs had hatched on the right side, but we held it up and I rezzed the mage. It worked out all right, and led me to think about just having the AOE killing all of one side if two healers might be enough to keep the mage/warlock alive.

Anyway, this strategy does work if you don't have a prot paladin tank to make it 'ez-mode'.

Makes sense. We've forgotten to kill a hatcher even when clearing one side at a time. Once we ended up killing one side, and then the other side because we never killed the 2nd hatcher and he went and hatched the entire other side.

Was a big hairy.

Yup. I'm sure it can be done several ways. The trouble with hatching a side all at once without a paladin tank is how easy it is for the caster DPS to die between heals, especially if the aggro weight shifts from one (mage) to another (warlock) because of a bunch of SoCs going off at once. Might be easier with two healers if one is a resto shaman so chain heal would automatically help the second caster anyway.

So I made my first post on the main WoW boards in the past 2+ years to suggest that the 4th chest drop an Amani Warbear vanity pet in the future

It has a certain sense of fun irony, and I'd definitely go back at 80 or sooner to grab one as well.

I think currently, on the PTR, the 4th chest just drops one of the rings that the 3rd chest also drops