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Zul'Aman guide :
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Zul'Aman, located in the southeastern Ghostlands, is the second Level 70 instance for a 10 man raid. It is designed for those who mastered Karazhan, but lack the manpower to tackle 25 man instances. The loot, dropped by the six bosses, is at least compareable to, sometimes even better, than the items you get in Serpentshrine Cavern or Tempest Keep. In addition, the bosses drop Badges of Justice, which can be turned in for epic rewards in Shattrath. The best part: No attunement is needed. But be warned, Zul'Aman loot is far from welfare gear.
You will have to earn your epics, and especially the last two bosses are very challenging. If your raid is equiped with Karazhan loot only, it might take quite some time untill you see Zul'Jin go down. So you better bring your consumables! To make the instance challenging, even for raids that do Black Temple and Mount Hyjial, there is some kind of heroic mode. This doesn' mean stronger foes, but a timer to kill the bosses, compareable to the (in)famous Baron run. If you manage to kill the first boss in a set time, you get an additional epic item and the timer resets. Then you have to kill the next boss before the timer runs out, and so on. If Zul'Jin dies with the timer still running, the reward is an epic ring that is on par with Black Temple loot.
You can only have 10 people in your raid, so you should give the composition some thought. If you aim to beat the timer, you need a perfectly balanced raid. Two tanks are mandatory for 4 out of the 6 bosses. One should be a Protection Warrior. In the best case you get a feral druid as second tank. Since 2 of the bosses only need one tank, the druid can switch to catform to add some dps. Don't even think about using an offensive specced warrior as second tank, as things will only get a lot harder that way. You will also need 3 healers to keep the raid alive.
Fill the last 5 spots with dps classes, including at least one doing melee damage and two beeing able to AoE. Before moving to the instance, visit Griftah, who is back in Shattrath now. He offers the quest "Oooh, Shinies!", which you should pick up. Horde players, who travel to Silvermoon, go to Tranquillien from there (pick up the flightpath if you don't have it already!). Then move southeast to reach the instance. Alliance players fly from Ironforge to Light's Hope Chapel in the Eastern Plaquelands and ride north from there. There is a flightmaster in Hatchet Hills just outside Zul'Aman that gives you the opportunity to fly there directly after you visited him once. Look for the NPC Budd Nedreck as well to complete the quest given by Griftah and get another one that leads you into Zul'Aman and can be completed after killing the first boss, Nalorakk. Now you are ready to go!
Against the clock
After entering Zul’Aman, you will find yourself in a big room. Buff the raid and get ready to go, then talk to the NPC called Harrison Jones (Hello Indy!). To open the gate 5 group members have to hit the gong. After that, Harrison will open the gate and will get killed immediately after that. This starts the 20 minute timer that gives additional loot for killing the first boss. Two Amani'shi Guardians will attack now, which can’t be crowd controlled and should be picked up by the tanks immediatly. In addition, you will have to deal with loads of Amani'shi Savages, which can be killed with AoE. After all the mobs are dead, head down the stairs to the right, but watch out for the patrol. Quite a few of the trolls you meet can be CC’ed, for example by POLYMORPH or FEAR. You will go south first, where the first Boss, Nalorakk, is already waiting, while sending packs of enemies against you. Pay attention to the Amani'shi Medicine Men, they will put down totems that heal all the mobs or even make them completely immune to damage. These totems must be destroyed as fast as possible.
Bear on!
Once the first pack of trolls is dealt with, you engage two Amani Bears. They should not be a problem and can be killed quickly. After that, follow Nalorakk, who then sends 4 more trolls after you. Crowd Control the two Tribesmen, while killing the Medicine Man first and the Axe Thrower next. Remember: Watch out for the totems and get rid of them fast! Next you face two Amani'shi Warbringers riding on bears. Players near them get debuffed with FURIOUS ROAR and take 25% more damage, so tank them apart from each other to avoid the tanks getting debuffed by both of them. It is important that you focus your damage on one of the Warbringers, because they dismount before they die and you have to deal with both the rider and the bear separately. Kill the rider first, then the bear before taking on the other Warbringer. The last group before the boss consists of two Warbringers, a Medicine Man and an Axe Thrower. CC both trolls and kill the Warbringers first. After this pack, it is time to engage the first boss.
Lord of the Bears
Nalorakk is the easiest boss you will encounter in Zul'Aman. Apart from his massive amount of 1,700,000 hitpoints, resulting in a very long fight, the only critical point is that you need two tanks, tanking one of the two phases each. The first tank can just engage the boss, who starts in his troll form, and fight him right where he stands. Both tanks should stand next to each other because of Nalorakks BRUTAL SWIPE, which hits for around 9,000 damage. This damage, however, is devided up evenly among the players in front of him, so have your tanks share the pain. As usual, melee DPS stands behind the boss, while the rest of the raid spreads out in a semicircle formation. This minimizes the number of players affected by SURGE, during which Nalorakk charges a random player and cleaves everyone nearby, hitting cloth wearers for around 3,500 damage. He returns to the tank after the SURGE, and he only uses this ability in his troll phase. His other ability in troll form is the MANGLE debuff he puts on the tank, doubling the amount of damage taken from bleed effects. After 45 seconds, Nalorakk switches to bear form and goes into phase 2.
Bloodshed
When phase 2 starts, the second tank has to take over immediatley by using TAUNT as a warrior or GROWL as a druid. Paladin tanks can cast BLESSING OF PROTECTION on the first tank to make sure the boss targets them long enough to get on top of the aggro-list. In bear form, Nalorakk hits the tank with REND FLESH, bleeding him for 11,500 damage over 5 seconds and LACERATING SLASH, another bleed effect that does 15,500 damage over 18 seconds. The tank from phase one, who has the MANGLE debuff, would take twice as much damage and die to the bleed effects, so a clean switch to the second tank is crucial.
Also, healers have to be prepared to change their target to the second tank to keep him alive. It is important that the tanks health is topped off as much as possible and he has all available HoTs on him. From time to time, the boss hits the whole raid with DEAFENING ROAR, doing up to 1,200 points of damage to each player and silencing the whole raid for 2 seconds, so make sure your tank won't die during that time. The tank should be ready to use a healthstone, a healing pot or even SHIELD WALL to make sure he survives the silence. A dead tank equals a failed attempt if you can't nuke the boss down within the next few seconds. After 30 seconds in bear form, Nalorakk goes back to phase one and switches to troll form, meaning that the first tank has to take over again. This is repeated until he dies. One word of warning: Nalorakk can resist taunts, so warriors should be ready to stance dance and use a secondary taunt. (This shouldn't be necessary too often anymore, since in the new build of 2.3, hit rating affects taunt as well.) A failed tank switch most likely results in a failed try. If you realize you won't beat Nalorakk for any reason (dead tank, failed switch, healers OOM), run down the stairs leading to him. This will reset the boss and you can try again without wiping.
After Nalorakk is dead, you can pick up a map on his terrace, which you need to complete the quest you got outside. If you beat Nalorakk within the timer, you should hurry up to the next boss. You find Akil’Zon in the northwest, opposite of Nalorakk. Buff and regain mana, the following trash phase will be tough. You should mount up and enter the area close to each other. Ignore the Amani'shi Lookout, he can't be stopped anyway, instead go up the ramp untill you reach the first two trolls. Take down the Amani'shi Wind Walker first, then the Amani'shi Protector.
There are three more identical groups on your way up that you deal with in the same way. The problem is that in short intervals, you will have groups of two trolls coming for you from down the ramp. One should be sheeped, the other one is picked up by the tank who is on the Wind Walker. As if that wasn't enough, groups of 5 eagles come from up the hill, attacking you as well. Kill them with AoE, while a tank makes sure to grab the sheeped mob beforehand so it doesn't kill the AoE-ing player. Move to the next pack as soon as you have killed most of the mobs. The key here is massive and focused damage so you get up the hill before being overrun or healers go out of mana. When you have reached the top, you see an Amani'shi Tempest. As soon as you engage him, the mobs will stop spawning. Kill off the rest of the enemies and move on to the boss.
Calm before the storm
Once you got the hang of the Akil'Zon encounter, it is only about clean execution. Make sure all the players are past the stairs before you start the fight, because the boss will close the passage to the platform. Spread out around the boss, but don't go too far from each other. Akil'Zon casts STATIC DISRUPTION on a random player from time to time, doing 3,500 damage and leaving a debuff that increases the taken nature damage by 25% and can't be dispelled. Since players nearby are affected as well, it is important the raid is spread out well. The boss also casts GUST OF WIND on a random player sometimes, throwing them up in the air and dealing 50% of the targets full health as fall damage. Healers should keep the whole raid topped and players should be ready to use healing potions and health stones to avoid anyone getting killed by an unlucky combination of STATIC DISRUPTION and GUST OF WIND. Akil'Zon hits the tank for around 2,500 damage per hit and uses CALL LIGHTNING on the tank as well, dealing up to 5,000 damage.
Taken by storm
The fundamental point of this fight is the ELECTRICAL STORM Akil'Zon casts on a random player roughly every minute. You will see a dark spot appear under the player and the boss channels a purple beam on him. Every player, including the tank, should collapse back onto the position of that player as fast as possible. The affected player lifts up in the air and becomes the center of a storm that hits everyone badly, who is not directly under it. After the storm is over, the raid spreads out again. After the first storm, eagles appear that fly around uncontrollable and hit players with EAGLE SWOOP for around 1,500 damage. They can be shot by hunters, shamans can hit them with CHAIN LIGHTNING and Warlocks can use SEED OF CORRUPTION on them. But in most cases, your healers should be able to heal through the damage until the next storm. When everyone is gathered up for the next storm, just AoE the birds to death. If you manage a clear execution of collapsing back on one players position and spreading out again, it only depends on your healers being able to keep the raid alive against the high group damage.
Make Haste
Next on your list is Jan’Alai, you find him in the southeastern part of the instance. Even if the countdown ran out, you have to be quick with the next trashpacks. When engaged, the Amani'shi Scouts will run to a nearby hut and summon more trolls. They can be stunned or slowed and don't have a lot of hit-points. Just nuke them down before they call in the reinforcements. Try not to have too many breaks, otherwise you might be surprised by some Scouts coming from behind. The Amani'shi Guardians you encounter can just be tanked and spanked, the Amani'shi Flame Casters on the other hand cast Fireballs, which should be interrupted. They put a powerful HASTE buff on themselves, which can be dispelled by priests or shamans. Or maybe your mages want to SPELLSTEAL the buff to use it themselves! There are also patrols that include dragonhawks. They should be no problem, just kill the hawks first. After a short while, you should be facing Jan'Alai, avatar of the Dragonhawk.
A fiery guy
When the raid is buffed and ready, just have your maintank pull the boss to the middle of the platform. Again, melee dps is positioned behind the boss while the rest of the raid spreads out in a circle around the boss. Jan'Alai shoots a FLAME BREATH towards a random player, hitting for 4,000 to 5,500 fire damage. Everyone else in the path of the FLAME BREATH gets hit as well, so positioning is important. From time to time, the boss teleports all players into his melee range and then scatters dozens of small bombs all over the platform. After ten seconds, all bombs blow up at the same time and hit players standing too close. So everyone should pick a bomb free spot to stand on. Don't try to run through the flame walls surrounding the platform during this, they hurt even more than the bombs! After the bombs detonated, the maintank pulls Jan'Alai back to the middle and the raid spreads out again.
ou have to break some eggs ...
You may have noticed the two smaller platforms left and right of the big one. They are covered with eggs, which are very important to the fight. Every minute, two Hatchers appear and run towards the eggs, releasing one Dragonhawk Hatchling from the first egg, two from the second egg and three from any additional egg they hatch. Since the boss will hatch all of the remaining eggs at once when he hits 35% health, you want the hatchers to get rid of some of the eggs. Kill one of the hatchers immediately after they appear, and then let the other one hatch 3 or maybe 4 eggs before killing him as well.
A second tank should tank the dragonhawks as good as possible, then you can just AoE them down. Be aware that the hatching of the eggs doesn't stop the bombs or the FLAME BREATH, so be careful. It is important that you find the right balance between damage to the boss and getting rid of eggs. If you nuke down the boss too fast, you get too many adds when he hatches the remaining eggs at 35%. On the other hand, Jin'Alai enrages after 5 minutes, increasing attack speed by 50 % and damage by 50%, and goes in a frenzy after 10 minutes, killing the raid. So you can't only concentrate on the eggs either. It might take a few tries to get the feel of this fight, but at least you can reset the boss by running down the stairs if something goes wrong.