Tensions arise as Tif completes ZG…without Dae! A quarrel in lover’s paradise occurs when Mograin catches Lubu with DR! Rathren returns from his big-game hunt in Nagrand…with no sign of Meukee, dead or alive! Mins’s evil twin Competent Healer crashes the raid! Riot comes back from the dead, only to find himself deep-fried again! Will Liberi Fatali survive? Can Hachi continue to write terrible jokes and still expect readers or is he resigned to working for SNL? Will his attempts to catch the eye of Demon’s daughter end miserably? Find out next week on All Hachi’s Children!

So occasionally I do run into roadblocks trying to write for the blog. Meaning, every week I swear I’ll start writing on Monday, and then come Sunday morning, have no idea what to write still. So, out of curiosity’s sake, I decided to see how much I’ve written so far. Close to 35 pages, not including this one. That’s more than the novel I keep promising to myself I’d start. One day, I’ll get the story of the egotistical wizard Ciorn, the dead prince Ruase, and the young adventurer Halsevin committed to paper.

So what do I do to get the old writing chops going? Depends on the week, but today, I rediscovered the reimagined Battlestar Galactica’s soundtack. Folks, Bear McCreary is a genius. Here are a couple of my favorites, be sure to listen to a few (bunch of different links there)! Leave me comments, I really am liking having a fair bit of discussion going on! Also, if we can manage, there may be polls added to the blogs in the near future, cause everyone seems to not want to offer their input. It’s not like I asked what I should have for breakfast!

Liberi Fatali News

-Group 2 got Maloriak down after two attempts. For science? Those monsters.

-Guild PvP was weird this week. We actually won some arena matches! If we win a RBG, I’ll post a pic of myself. Seriously.

Hachi’s List

-Looking for more people to die horrible deaths in PvP while I run the flag. Contact Tif or Gina for approximate times.

-Recruiting a ranged DPS, with preference for the cloth variety. Please forward any potential recruits to an officer or to our shiny new apply now button at the top of the page!

-Achievement runs in Uld, ICC, and RS will be picking back up shortly. Let’s get OTHER PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT HACHI legendaries.

Hachi Taught Me Everything I Know: I Heard if You Cut Off an Extremity, it Grows Back a Little Bigger, Don’t Believe it: Zul’Again

You know what I like about the new troll heroics? They’re difficult, require a degree of creativity, and no one in the group can be outright carried. You know what I hate about the new troll heroics? They’re difficult, require a degree of creativity, and no one in the group can be outright carried. At times, it feels like if I were given the choice of trying to find Lubu a girlfriend or PUG one of these, the first option would be easier. That’s where this guide comes in. I’ve successfully DPS’ed, tanked, and healed both new heroics and can direct you in your journey to find the perfect summer wardrobe to troll Stormwind trade chat in…I mean leaving you lying dead on the floor in front of the first boss for two hours before disbanding. Today, I’m covering Zul’Aman.

Considered the easier of the two dungeons, the trash here requires more coordination however. I’m going to walk you through my recommended path through the troll city of Zul’Doesn’t’-Drop-My-Loot. Use the above map as a reference. I’ll cover the trash here as well, but the bosses will be labeled if you feel you know the trash well enough (I guarantee most of you don’t, however).

The first pull consists of two elites with a flood of minor mobs. The non-elites are not much of a danger so pulling threat off these isn’t too much of a concern. Just make sure the two elites stay on the tank. Hook left here. You can tackle the patrol at the bottom of the stairs now or after the first boss but here’s a quick and dirty rundown of watch to watch for. The melee has a buff that should be dispelled or purged, or else the melee will have to do a lot of dancing to avoid quakes. The caster mob has a guardian spirit effect that can be placed on either target, be sure to ignore whichever mob it’s on until it falls off. There’s also a healing circle that the mobs need to be moved out of. At low health, the mobs will go immune for a second then become stronger. Debuffs will have to be reapplied. Keep going up north to reach the gauntlet.

The gauntlet starts when you reach the first mob. Ignore him, just like you would Mograin, because he runs away like a pansy. There are several pulls of two medium strength melee mobs on the way up. These are about as dangerous as Cal being around your daughter. The problem lies with the reinforcements constantly streaming toward your group. Two adds of slightly weak strength come from the bottom of the ramp, eagles swarm down from the top. Tanks, pull at a steady rate but don’t pull too quickly. If you go too fast, you’ll leave your healer frustrated and unsatisfied – mostly because you died, you perv. The second you pull the tempest at very top, adds stop spawning, any in transit will still arrive.

Akil’zon

Brought to you by Alfred Hitchcock

A very simple fight. Extra melee will cause issues for your healers here, so be on the watch for AoE damage being spread out on your melee. Everyone capable should stay 12 yards apart. If you run two melee DPS here, the magic debuff must be dispelled. One melee makes it a little less imperative, but it can still cause spike damage. The small eagles fluttering about really aren’t much of a concern, they move too quickly for much targeted damage. If you have incidental AoE, by all means swing wildly like Lubu and you may take a few down to reduce the healer’s strain. The two big things you have to worry about are the kidnapper and the electrical storm. The kidnapper has to be killed faster than Mins goes AFK at the start of a raid. Snares and stuns WILL work on it, as well as death grip to bring it down. Whoever is targeted can still attack and heal as normal but it will never pick the tank. The electrical storm is easier to handle properly. Just stack underneath the storm. Whoever goes up can act normally (except melee), just like the kidnapper. If you don’t get under quick enough, you’ll die in fairly short order. All aspects of the fight repeat but nothing should give you trouble here. Tanks should roll magic reduction cooldowns.

Head back south to take down the bear boss. There are five trash pulls until the next boss, assuming you took down the first patrol. From this point out, mark a kill order (and CC as necessary). No, stop that. Take the condom off Tif’s head. She’s not a valid CC target. The first pull is several melee/physical mobs. CC if you really want, but it shouldn’t give you any trouble. The next pull is two bears. Make sure enrages get dispelled off these, massive tank damage is usually the cause of all wipes here. The next pull is fairly tricky. You’ll want to CC at least one target if you can, however, getting in CC range triggers the group to aggro. The big problem in this pull is the medicine man. Unlike your doctor, he doesn’t ask you to take your pants off. He just plops down totems that make it impossible to kill the group. One heals and is easily taken out in a single attack; the other makes the group immune and usually takes a few directed attacks (not 100% certain, but I think the latter totem also pulses AoE damage). If you don’t make it to be killed first, it needs to be CC’ed. Remember to watch for quakes.

The next pull is a warm-up for the last group. There are two bear riders here that spawn a bear when brought low. Bring one down, kill the troll and bear before moving onto the next rider. Enrages must be dispelled. At the top of the stairs is the hardest pull in the instance. Two riders, a medicine man, and a nondescript mob. CC is difficult for this pull, get too close and you’ll trigger it. Again. Why do you hate me Lubu? For simplicity’s sake, you should CC the medicine man and work to take down the riders first.

Nalorakk

YOGI!!!!!

Another simple boss fight. Alternates between two phases, troll and bear. Each troll phase, he charges the farthest person at range and applies a debuff increasing damage taken. This occurs three times, so you’ll need three different people to eat the charge unless you have a way to remove the debuff or the ability to massively reduce incoming damage. If you don’t have two ranged, a melee MUST take one of the charges. After all three charges go out, the boss turns into a bear. The only things to worry about here are the massive spikes in damage the tank will get. This is the only point that the tank should be saving cooldowns for. Be aware of the DoT placed on the tank as well. A couple AoE silences occur during this phase as well. As long as your tank doesn’t randomly decide to turn around backwards during the silence, you should have no problems. An average group should only go through two of each phase.

Head back down the ramp to make your way to the third boss. Excluding the scouts, there are four trash pulls before the next boss. Scouts need to die immediately. They can be slowed, snared, stunned, whatever. If you let them reach the drums, extra mobs start spawning. Just keep an eye out as several of these are wandering about and are mixed in trash pulls. The first, third, and fourth pulls have flame-casters. These are particularly dangerous, but not because I MC them and cast AoE volleys that pull additional groups. Either keep these interrupted or CC’ed. Be sure to dispel or purge the buff on them. None of these pulls will give you trouble with proper application of CC. The second pull has one harder-hitting elite and multiple dragonhawks. Nothing dangerous, just keep watching the scouts.

Jan’alai

JA MAKIN ME CRAZY

The boss himself is easy. He’ll randomly point at a player and put down a line of flame that must be avoided. Periodically he will teleport to the middle of the room and throw fire bombs out. The bombs aren’t a threat if they land on top of you, just move to an empty spot before it explodes. At 20% he enrages, but the damage increase is marginal, just like X’s hunter. Oops. Anyways, the big issue here is proper handling of the hatchers and their eggs. Two hatchers spawn at a time and run toward opposite ends of the platform. When they reach the eggs, they start hatching three at a time. Only one hatcher should be allowed to reach the eggs at a time. Kill the other. Now here’s where you determine how quickly to let the adds spawn. Can your tank properly maintain threat on large groups of adds? Does he know how to efficiently roll cooldowns? Is your healer capable of dealing with massive AoE damage going out via firebombs or adds being improperly tanked and running loose on the group? If you’re more or less confident about these factors, let a hatcher release all of one side’s eggs at once. Remember, the spawns stack a magic debuff on whoever they attack. Once all of a platforms adds are down, the hatcher will run to the other side and continue hatching. You can choose to let this one through and then kill the next set of hatchers or kill it and let one of the next set through. At 35%, any remaining eggs will hatch but you should have taken care of them before dropping the boss down.

So what if you aren’t all that confident in your group? There’s more options available to you than McDonald’s value menu (Mograin you fatass). You can let one through then kill it after a few eggs have hatched. You can let a side completely spawn, kill the hatcher, then kill the next set for a breather. You can mix the two to give yourself a variable speed on the boss kill. Just keep an eye on the enrage timer. You may actually run up against it on this boss. Also remember to be VERY clear on the hatcher kill order. If someone gives confusing or conflicting instructions (*cough* Mak *cough*), you may end up with two dead hatchers or no hatchers dead and a flood of adds. As long as you don’t bring the boss down below 35% before the adds are dead, you should encounter no problems. This is easily the second most difficult boss in here, first if you get an easy combo on the last boss.

Jump off the back end of the platform to continue. A patrol identical to the very second pull in the instance is first. After that, there’s six more pulls, one of which can be skipped. That one consists of two crocs and a troll that can MC. Interrupt or CC it. Personally, I wouldn’t advise skipping it (you swim through the lake and head north to do it), especially if you have a habitual “oops, where’d that come from” type in your group. The group immediately after the patrol but before the skippable group is just a bunch of lynxes. Spray some dirty ol’ AoE on them and you’re done. After the MC pull are three groups of stealthed lynxes. Give the tank a second for threat and go wild, rinse and repeat two more times. The last group is two crocs and two MC mobs. Again, like everything before the bear boss this pull will trigger before you can get in CC range. Best way is to have the tank pull, CC at least one of the MC’ers and pull the rest away.

Halazzi

Here kitty, kitty…

Two phase fight, you like cat? We finish, let’s go get Chinese! Phase one, he do totem, you no kill totem. Healer stand in totem, totem make mana go BOOM. No let boss stay in totem or he lick wounds just like cat! Phase two, he do more totem, but totem make LIGHTNING now. Kill bad totem. He bring kitty friend too, kitty no like control. Kitty hit you like you got catnip even when tank covered in sweet and sour chicken! Hurt boss, make kitty go away (I no cook kitty!). Phase one come back, you hurt boss some more he go phase two! He rude. Let bad kitty go again. Kitty go bye-bye, boss get MAD! Now he do two totem! You kill bad totem, we cool? Kill boss, everyone get happy ending!

Alright, who the hell let Lubu write my blog? Now I’m hungry…er…yeah let’s get back to the trash. Head down the south door while avoiding trash. Head left up the stairs and you’ll find yet another carbon copy of the very first patrol here. Once inside the room, there are (I don’t remember 100%) two mobs to worry about in the next pull: a flame-caster and a medicine man. The flame-caster may not actually be there, could be an archon (drops healing circles, guardian spirit buff). CC and mark a kill order. Last pack left before the boss is two berserkers. Kill burn one before focusing on the other as they enrage at low health.

Hex Lord Malacrass

How very droll…

At first glance, this might seem like a difficult and complex, multifaceted fight…it’s not. I can distill this rather simply for you. CC one add, burn the other. Release the other add, burn it down. What do all the different adds do? Doesn’t matter, they constantly switch. A few heal but they’re down so fast its completely irrelevant that they do anything other than eat damage. Back onto the boss, he channels an AoE spell in regular intervals that is the largest source of unavoidable damage in the fight. Usually following this is a soul siphon, mimicking some abilities of whatever class he siphons. Again, you’d think this would make the fight complex. Again, Hachi shines light onto how wrong you are. Basically, you dodge the AoE, interrupt any heals, and kill any of the meager adds up. Seriously, that’s all there is to the fight. Enjoy your easy loot.

There’s one remaining trash pack before the last boss. Just a bunch of non-elites that swarm you.

Dakaara

What is this, Stargate?

A pack of non-elites sit at the bottom of stairs and pull with the boss. These respawn if you happen to wipe. 100-80%, he remains in troll form and mostly just randomly starts whirlwinding. The damage is low enough that it’s not even worth dodging. At 80%, he picks an animal form to assume and will switch into yet another at 40%. WARNING: INCOMING CONJECTURE. I haven’t done this boss enough times to confirm scientifically (seriously, I am NOT doing this boss thousands of times to be able to scientifically confirm) but it appears that there are only two possible combinations: lynx to dragonhawk or bear to eagle. If you’ve encountered anything else, let me know.

Each aspect is a rehash or slight twist on the previous bosses. The lynx will spawn two adds that can only loosely be controlled and have to be killed first. The boss himself will randomly drop aggro on the tank and start pummeling a random player. Tank needs to taunt it off quick or…oops. Sorry, no BRes available bro. The dragonhawk is hell on earth for healers. AoE fire whirls, combined with the same flame trail from the previous boss. If you can make it through those two parts, you’re golden. The bear is a mix of both phases from the earlier boss. Charges need to be eaten by a rotating member of the party and heavy tank damage will go out. I’d advise leaving the healer off from eating charges due to the sheer amount of damage here, but otherwise its tank and spank. The last aspect is the eagle AKA Hachi soloed it cause he’s that awesome (OK, I admit it might have just been that easy). The boss gets centered, drops threat, and only has a couple whirlwinds that attempt to follow you. Dodge that and heal through the lightning damage and there’s nothing to worry about.

So there’s my full rundown on ZA! Hope it was useful for anyone who was confused, leave any comments, tips, or questions below. Or I might have Lubu tank for you.