Leaf-head

Bear runs

My guild ran several ZA bear runs yesterday, with a variety of compositions. Two of the runs were successful. A couple more ended with the timer expiring in the middle of the lynx boss fight. One ended in an ignominious wipe on the trash before the bear boss. I healed a few of those, including one of the successes and the wipe. Here are my notes.

Your goal is to kill the 4 high priest bosses, the animal bosses, before the sacrifice timer expires. You don’t need to do anything else. Just kill bosses. Do not loot. Do not open cages. Just mount up and start speeding toward the next boss. The viable order is Eagle, Bear, Dragonhawk, Lynx. One bear drops per run, so you can expect to have to do this a bunch before you get yours.

High dps matters. AOE dps also matters. We did this in guild groups, without the benefit of the luck of the draw buff to dps, on our raid-geared mains. If you can stack ranged, do so. I don’t think 3 melee dps could do it right now.

Familiarity with each of the pulls in ZA is required. The entire group needs to know which pulls can be skipped, so you can route around them. The group should also know which pulls can benefit from a little CC to lower the damage intake when needed. The pulls before the bear boss are an example of where taking out one mob will make the pull less healer-intensive and not slow down the kill rate. Have an idea ahead of time which mob you’ll take out as the pull start; there’s no time to mark & discuss.

Most of the responsibility for driving the run forward lies on the tank. The tank needs to be in constant motion, chain-pulling and even double-pulling. If the mobs are below 1/3rd health, the tank needs to be thinking about the next pull.

Heroism/Bloodlust on the eagle boss, then use it again on dragonhawk if it’s up.

The two archon/juggernaut patrols can be skipped entirely.

Run all the way up the ramp on the approach to the eagle boss. The party should move past the tank to let him/her pick up the adds coming from on top of the ramp. Watch your healing aggro! Be prepared to pop survivability cooldowns if you get a swarm of little adds on you.

The entire group needs to be on top of the scouts on the approach to the dragonhawk boss. I was moonfiring them even though I was healing.

Use water walking, path of frost, or waterwalking elixirs to skip the crocolisk pulls on the way to the lynx boss. If all else fails, swim. It’s still faster than killing the pull on the path.

If you’re healing it, prepare to enjoy some of the most intense healing you’ll experience outside heroic raiding. Plan your big cooldowns for pulls you know will be difficult. (For instance, those pulls before the bear boss.) Plan your mana consumption and your methods for regaining it. Run ahead of the group and drink as they catch up. Drink for a few seconds then get up and move.

For instance, I’d give the tank a full set of hots as the last mobs were dying, run ahead, and pre-position for the next pull. Lifebloom would take care of topping off my tank after the pull, and I could start drinking instantly. Innervate was always on cooldown, of course. And tree form is both a throughput cooldown and a mana efficiency cooldown. Use it constantly. Use Tranquility any time the whole group is below 50%. But if you can get away with just spamming Nourish on the tank in a well-controlled pull, do it. Don’t waste mana. More often I was spamming Healing Touch on the tank even in well-controlled pulls. You shouldn’t try to heal this if you aren’t geared to use your big heal in bursts.

Don’t be dismayed by failures. Practice smooths out the runs. You’ll find all the ways you can move more efficiently. And once you’ve memorized all the pulls it’ll be easier.