We ventured into Zul'Aman tonight with 10 of the best geared and found out that ZA is extremely difficult. With at least 10 full raid wipes and 19 deaths for penguin, we quickly learned that those trolls aren't messing around!

The first boss (bear) is mainly a gear check. We downed him on the 2nd try after getting the taunts down. The bear requires two tanks, and each tank must taunt off the other at the start of every phase change. Pretty much a tank 'n spank withstanding you can survive a series of 6k hits within 5 sec.

The second boss (bird) is going to take a lot of coordination and attempts to down. I think our best attempt was around 82%. The thing thats hard about him is keeping the tank alive while trying to kill a flock of flying birds all the time running to and from a electrical storm that deals 6k+ chain lightning to everyone in the raid. I think the key here will be to dot the birds and move focus back to the boss while avoiding chain lightning.

The third boss (lynx) is one we'll probably kill next. Our best attempt was 50% tonight. You MUST have a druid tank the main boss as he furries a plate wearer for 6-12k normal attacks and has a special cleave which deals 18-20k damage spread across the two tanks in front of him (or all the damage to 1 tank if there isn't another tank in front). Every 25% he summons a spirit lynx and aoe totems which must be killed ASAP. The two main problems we had was keeping the MT alive from huge hits and gaining aggro on the summoned lynx before killing healers.

We only tried the first three bosses tonight, but can all say this is a very fun, but extremely challenging instance. Even the trash pulls have a high chance of wiping the raid if not managed properly. (We wiped at least 3 times on trash) Even with 17k health I got 1 shotted twice.

Overall, its very helpful to have a druid tank, paly aoe tank, mage, lock, hots, direct heals, stuns, and a hunter (especially for 3rd boss - tranq shot).