Zul'Aman 5, Apanthrope 1

I got into Zul'Aman for the first time last night, with Origin as my host. Long story short: 5 boss wipes, 1 boss kill.

Frankly, we didn't have the DPS, the heals, the know-how, or the organization to tackle ZA. Several of us had never been there, and several were also undergeared. (Some, significantly.) We had heart, though, so we tried. And tried again. And again.

But it wasn't enough.

We did manage to down Nalorakk, the Bear, on our third attempt.

In the end, it was a long night and we walked away thoroughly beaten. But I did get to learn a few things and get a feel for the place, so it wasn't a total waste.

And yes, I am still walking around with my name and title visible to me. Give me a few days — I'm sure it will wear off eventually.

Raid and Heroic timers

One of those things that they never officially explain to you is how timers work for the 10-man-and-larger raids and Heroic dungeons. The problem is compounded by the fact that many people that have been doing those types of things for a while and seem to have forgotten that not everyone knows it.

Long story short: raids and Heroics are on lockout timers. Once you have downed a boss, any boss, you are "saved" to that instance of that dungeon.

Being saved, in this sense, means this: until the timer resets, you will enter the dungeon in the exact state in which you left it. (This is true as far as bosses are concerned. Different instances have different rates at which trash respawns.)

You can check your saved instances by opening up the Social window and going over to the Raid tab:



The 5-man Heroics are on a 24-hour cycle and reset at the same time each day. The 10- and 25-man raids are on a 7-day cycle and reset the same time each week, except Zul'Aman which is on a 3-day cycle.

Saved instance timers can be both good and bad. For Heroics, they mean that you can run a particular dungeon every night of the week if you want to. Or, if you need a quest item from a dungeon, which presumably doesn't involve downing a boss, then you can have someone from a cleared instance invite you into the raid to get just that item. On the other hand, if you happen to be in the dungeon as the timer is resetting, you get kicked out and the instance resets.

Implications

When you get to the 10- and 25-man content, however, the implications get a bit more insidious. Remember that the rule is that once you down a boss you are saved to the instance. It doesn't have to be the first boss, nor does it have to be the last, just any boss will do. You have to be careful when PUGging the larger raids then, as you need to communicate with the group as to which bosses have been downed, which they will be doing that night, and what the schedule is going forward.

Let's say, for example, that you get in a PUG for Kara that starts with the Curator. If you down the Curator, then you will be saved to that instance. You will have to wait until the following week if you want to go back and hit up Attumen or Moroes or any of the other bosses that had already been downed.

Worse yet, if the group breaks up right after downing the Curator, then you are pretty much up a creek for the rest of the bosses. If you are smart, you will take down the names of the others that were saved to the same instance and try to get as many of them back the following night to continue the raid. You'll probably have holes to fill, at which point you are going to have a harder time as there are now even fewer bosses that other non-saved players can down, and thus fewer loot drops.

What does "Heroic Geared" mean?

I see this spam in /LookingForGroup all night long:

LF1M DPS/CC for H SP - MUST BE GEARED!!!

And yet, try as I might, I found it was nigh impossible to figure out what that meant. What is “Heroic Geared”? What is "Kara Geared"? How do I know if I am correctly geared? I'm not in a raiding guild, so it's not like I can just ask on /guild and get an answer.

So, instead, I send out a whole lot of messages like this:

I know I don't qualify, but for my future reference, what is the spell damage or DPS requirement for that?

Whenever I see spam for a dungeon or raid, I ask. I don't always get useful answers, but most of the time it is worth it.

To that end, I've started this page on the Shadowpriest.com Wiki: Dungeon Expectations. But that's a huge page with a bunch of tables, so let me give it to you straight.

For a PUGging Shadowpriest ...

You are ready to start on Kara when you have replaced most or all of your greens with blues. If you have greens then you should have at least as many purples to compensate. You may or may not be hit-capped, but you should be a large way towards it. Your unbuffed spell damage should be close to or above 700. You can pull off 650 if your group is very good. You're going to have trouble pumping out the pure DPS and MP5 that the group needs for the big bosses (Nightbane and the Prince) until you are hit-capped and greenless, so make sure you have as many buff foods, elixirs, and oils as you can afford.

You are “Kara-geared” when you are greenless and hit-capped. You should be standing on 750-800 unbuffed spell damage. At this level you can feel comfortable doing full Kara runs, knowing that you're definitely pulling your weight.

The range for “Heroic-geared” overlaps a bit. You can start doing the easy ones (Slave Pens, Ramparts) around 750 as long as you have a decent group. You're going to want to be closer to 850 if you want to start doing ninja-farming runs that don't take two hours. The Heroic bosses take roughly the same effort as the Kara bosses, but there's a bit less wiggle-room for error as you are running a 5-man instead of a 10-man.

Your goal in Kara and Heroics should be to replace as many of your blues with purples as you can.

The next step at 850 is Gruul, then Magtheridon at 900.

At that point it starts over again for Zul'Aman. If you have an experienced group, you can start running ZA as early as 950. But you'll want to be 1000+ if you're going to farm it efficiently and feel like you are really contributing. You should be almost completely in purples for ZA.