First time ZG advice

[Steamboat]

I know all you seasoned raiders look down on ZG as a joke, but there are still those of us who have never been.

I'm in a small close-knit guild of mature players. After about 9 months of slowly building a good group, we now have 20 members at 60, and Saturday we are running ZG for the first time.

For awhile we have been running UBRS to gear all of our various alts. We use TS, we work very well as a team, and at no point is UBRS a challenge.

Should we expect to do well in ZG? None of us have more than 1 or 2 epics. What advice do you have?

[Dutchgrass]

Take your time, don't expect to breeze through the place. Pull carefully, and know and use your CC capabilities as much as possible.
You don't need epics to progress here (helps of course), as long as you have a balanced raid and people grasp their basic class roles, only a few bosses will prove to be very difficult. However, as your group will gradually learn encounters you will steadily gear up and eventually should be able to handle the entire zone.

After countless runs I somewhat lost my taste for the place, but the first few weeks/months were great fun. Some trash mobs have interesting abilities to deal with, and a lot of bossfights are quite nicely designed, proving a new refreshing playing experience you won't often encounter in the 5-10 man places.

Start off with Venoxis (snake aspect), you'll reach him relatively quickly when going straight ahead. Then aim for the Bat aspect Priest which you can reach by taking the right road after the first bridge. These are relatively easy bosses but should get you used to the scripted nature of the bossfights.

Oh, and try to enjoy the place, even when you end up wiping a lot at first.

[bpaige]

Yes....read the strats so it gives you an idea of what to expect.....ZG is deffinetly a step up in the difficulty meter from UBRS, but it's not that bad at all. Patience and communication will get you through. Snake boss is all about the crowd control, tanking the boss off to the side with some mana drain getting down the adds then burning down the boss. It takes a little bit of tank coordination as your going to need to move him around a little bit to stay out of a poison cloud. Fairly straigt forward. Bat boss, also straight forward, you just need to be awares of when she is trying to heal herself and stop it. You also need to deal with some adds with some aoe and also you need to reposition her as batbombs drop.

I would suggest using CTRaid with boss mods as it will tell you when she is trying to heal and needs to be interupted as well as when bat bombs are incoming...useful tools imo.

You should be able to get them down easily...the other bosses all have their little quirks to them...read the strats and pwn. ZG is an awesome instance as far as looks and playabilty....you'll get the feeling that it is huge! and it really is compared to anything else you've instanced.

Have Fun!

[AeroJonesy]

ZG involves lots more crowd control than UBRS, but the rewards are way better. You definitely don't need epics going in there. My guild was farming ZG before we set foot in Molten Core, if that helps at all. My first non-crafted epic actually came from ZG. You'll do fine in blues.

[Dark Matter]

Take it slowly and don't panic.

Read the tactics before hand.

Be prepared to wipe and few times on each boss and for it to take a few weeks before you are able to clear ZG in one night.

Don't get discouraged.

Take a repair bot or two.

Designate a miner for the entire run and have the Soulderite sent to guild bank.

Be aware that opening the Voodoo piles may result in the opener being mind controlled. That person will have to be killed or sheeped. As well as the Dolls, there is also a chance that Blood Scythe Can drop (bop). Give that to a herber and make sure (s)he is the only one to herb in ZG from then on. Herbing in ZGH with the Scythe gives you a chance of Bloodvine which again should be sent to your bank.

Class tasks for fast trash clearing:
Warriors - there should be only one Tank for trash, the others are DPS.
Mages: Primary task Sheeping adds, Secondary DPS the MT Target, Thirdly AOE some trash mobs (Bats etc.) They also need to decurse occasionally.
Druids: Primary task Hibernating Adds, Secondary curing Poison, Thirdly Healing. May need to go feral for some fights if you don't have enough Tanks. Unlikely though.
Rogues: DPS (as usual) Will need to kick many mobs to interupt them. Some mobs they have to shoot at - Blood Drinkers for example.
Warlocks: Primary task DPS MT Target, Secondary AOE (as with mages). Shards are 10 a penny in ZG so Healthstones all round and constant SS on MT and Priests as needed.
Shaman: Anti Poison totems, cleaning, Healing, DPS if needed.
Paladins: No idea - dopn't play Alliance. I assume Blessings all round + Heal and Cleanse Poison.
Hunters: Nature res Aura + DPS
Priests: Heal and cure magic (random polymorphs into toads and silences from some mobs) Will also need to shield AOEers.

When you first enter ZG you will see two humanoid mobs almost in front of you. There are also two more to your right and a Patrol of 2 Snakes that will come up the path. It's tempting to think you can tank both inital mobs at once, and you probably could.

However, they are axe throwers and do a hefty aoe whirling axe throwing wossname that hits clothies for a lot of damage. They also knock back. If it goes wring you end up with 6 elites and a lot of damges dealt.

Whilst learning ZG it's much better to sheep/sleep everything execpt the MT Target. With 12+ DPSers all hitting the same mob that go down like the proverbial sack of .... Having 2 or 3 (or more) of them running about leads to long messy fights and more down time for your mana users.

OK, I mentioned the axe whirlers. You'll also see a lot of snakes. They have a voley poison spit that hits for intial soso damage + a nasty DOT. This DOT need to be removed asap - Druids and Shammys (Pallys??) do this. These are the mobs that the Druids need to Hibernate if they add - Most pats in the early pasrt are Snakes.

You'll also get troll preists. These need to be silenced - shield slam and Kicked etc. or they put up a shield to prevent themselves taking Magic damage. They also heal themselves and others and randonly poly a member of the group.

Berserker Patrols. Big Buggers that fear and thunderclap and charge (knockback) Try to fight these in a cleared area or you could get adds from the fearing.

Bat Packs. One or two mounted Bat riders + 4/6 Bats. Both the Mounted Bat Riders have to be tanked apart from each other and the BATS AOEed. Not hard BUT at about 20% HP your tank has to stop tanking and run away from them - as do any melee class that may be close. When they die the Bat Riders explode doing 6K+ damage. Your tank MAY survive, no one else will. running away at the right time takes a bit of practice. Remember to tank them away from the group and away from each other.

Spider packs - " big red" Brood mothers + a human (shadow Priest) and a pack of little spiders. Sheep/sleep the brrod mothers and the Humanoid. AOE the littles. Then DPS one brood mother. When she dies she spawns a lot of Little spiders - aoe these. rince and repeat.

That's enough to be going on with :D

[Gainon]

For the first several runs: Bring extra healers, and make sure they're more concerned with keeping their groups alive than finishing tops in the Healing Meter Contest. A healer that's run out of mana because they're cross-group healing everyone (redundantly) is utterly worthless. And pallies should never die with full mana, no matter what their spec. I hate when they pull that crap. "But I was helping OT!" "And I was busy healing everyone else who can't self-heal, ya noob."

Establish responsibilities for crowd control: Which mages need to Sheep (AND re-Sheep), what druids need to Hibernate (and re-Hibernate), and get them to commit to focusing on maintaining CC until their target is being attacked (i.e., they don't switch targets to DPS unless they're well-skilled at getting their target re-CCed). Make sure that everyone knows not to break CC. Nothing more aggravating than having the same person breaking a sheep over and over again: "Gee, that snake was loose so I attacked it." Uh... ya gotta give the CC people time to re-cast, duh.

Bring protection potions for first couple boss fights: Nature protection (for the melee folks at least) on the snake boss. Fire protection (for everyone, ideally) for the bat boss.

Make sure your rogues are well-versed on kicking to stop bosses from healing themselves. Can't stress that enough.

Know the little tricks: Sheep the spinning axe throwers to stop their spinning. Run away from bat riders when they hit around 45%. Kill the tiger cubs before they run off and draw more aggro. Don't engage the Berzerkers too close to other mobs. And by all means watch out for the wandering imps near the Edge of Madness. God I hate them.

Mostly, be patient. Know that it'll be a long time before you get to Hakkar, so enjoy the ride. There's plenty of reward in ZG in just doing the first couple bosses for a while. You'll need to build rep anyway, so don't get too discouraged if you're not getting much progress at first.

[Dark Matter]

Sheeping and Hibernating.

Don't forget that new Raid Icon Toy that the leader and assistants can use to mark adds.

This will enable you to have mages/druids change target, dps for a bit then reaquire their target easily in order to re-sheep it. IE mage one has Diamond, Mage 2 has Club Mage 3 has Skull etc.

[Steamboat]

Thanks for all the advice!

I love the new raid icons btw. Our guild assigned permanent signs for each role, and it's just second nature now....the skull gets dps'd, the wheel gets sapped, the moon gets sleeped, etc. We do this for every run no matter who is in it. I love the addition.

I'll let you know how it goes!

[OrpheusDeus]

I love ZG, I don't see it as a joke at all. There are many nice gems among the generally sub-par loot table that covers the place. However, there are two major road-blocks you should be prepared for:

The Snake, Bat, and Bloodlord bosses are vary easy. Many guilds get these down first try, there are even blue-gear pug's on my server that do these bosses with no issue and little communication skills.. Anyhow, after these three, the difficulty ramps up dramatically.

Spider is a good bit harder and the panther and tiger are much MUCH harder. Learn these encounters via guides as others have said. Make sure for the first run you have a lot of potions to chug. I've got epic gear and I still sometimes need to use mana potions on the tiger just due to a screw up in the phase transition (one gets loose, reses the others, ack).

Once you are past this road-block, hakkar is simple tank and spank. Then comes the jin-do roadblock. Jindo is a nasty encounter indeed. Be ready to spend a while making this encounter work for your guild I know a lot of diffirent methods, you just have to find what works for your team make-up.

Good luck to you in ZG.

[Twoflower]

Originally Posted by Dark Matter

1) However, they are axe throwers and do a hefty aoe whirling axe throwing wossname that hits clothies for a lot of damage. They also knock back. If it goes wring you end up with 6 elites and a lot of damges dealt.

2) OK, I mentioned the axe whirlers. You'll also see a lot of snakes. They have a voley poison spit that hits for intial soso damage + a nasty DOT. This DOT need to be removed asap - Druids and Shammys (Pallys??) do this. These are the mobs that the Druids need to Hibernate if they add - Most pats in the early pasrt are Snakes.

3) Bat Packs. One or two mounted Bat riders + 4/6 Bats. Both the Mounted Bat Riders have to be tanked apart from each other and the BATS AOEed. Not hard BUT at about 20% HP your tank has to stop tanking and run away from them - as do any melee class that may be close. When they die the Bat Riders explode doing 6K+ damage. Your tank MAY survive, no one else will. running away at the right time takes a bit of practice. Remember to tank them away from the group and away from each other.

1 - you can sheep the axe thrower while he is whirling. since the whole group is doing damage on him it will not regen his life, but it will break the whirling.

2 - To avoid the DOT completely just have the tank turn the snakes away from the raid.

3 - For batpacks and alot of other casting mobs, in and outside of zul gurub, get the mod "spellalert". It will alert you when a mob is casting a heal, exploding, enraging, whatever. very useful mod.

yeah, and read the boss tactics befor you try them, and go trough them on Teamspeak. But dont overdo the mana draining, we dont drain mana on any boss, just have the rogues kick and the warriors shieldslam and the mages counterspelling etc, saves alot of time.