On Raid Design Part 7 – Zul Gurub
In the seventh part of my raid-ranking-series (up to Ulduar) we’re going back to vanilla again. Molten Core was tier 1,and to spice things up a little when you had that MC gear there came the first troll-lore raid: Zul Gurub. This place rocks, and claims my personal rank 2.
Setting
Zul’Gurub is a troll city in one of the most famous areas of the whole game: Stranglethorne Vale. The Zandalar tribe would send brave adventurers into the city, to cleanse it from Hakkar’s evil influence.
Storywise the raid was pretty much “thrown in” for the regular WoW player, however those of you fond of warcraft-lore will disagree heavily, as it happens every so often. I guess if you’re knowledgeable about warcraft-lore in general a lot of WoW is more interesting, and makes more sense. But I am simply not, so over here “thrown in” it is.
The change of pace from Molten Core was really welcome. Zul’Gurub was a 20-man raid and thus a 40-man raid could be nicely split into two groups.
Flair
The ambience was a lot nicer than anything before it – a revivified version of Zul’Farrak, one could say. With grass, plants, animals and a lot of gorgous scenery. The raid was outdoor, everything looked nice, it was pleasant. There’s a fun-bonus if you feel comfortable in the place. Plus you could mount, which is always cool.
For the inhabitants of Zul’Gurub similar rules applied. It was full of trolls, obviously, who stood under the influence of the blood god, Hakkar. There were various sorts of trolls and their pets, covering the whole spectrum from tigers over bats to snakes and elementals.
There were a few amazing things about Zul’Gurub.
First, to me it always felt like really invading a troll city, contrary to other raids that used to feel more like “there’s a bunch of baddies gathered in there, might as well go kill them before they go all evil on us!” – we were defending Azeroth against an upcoming threat. But around here the initiative was on our side. We decided that it was worth fighting Hakkar for the Zandalar (probably the very tempting rewards they offered were part of the reasons why).
Second, the boss fights were extremely challenging and fun.
Third, this instance has the absolute best trash mobs. Ever.
By all means, if you’ve never been to Zul’Gurub get to good ol’ STV and just peek into it. It’s awesome, beautiful and just plain nice.
Trash
Hooray for Zul’Gurub trash. Seriously, this is history and it is awesome. No newer raid has ever managed to get trash just exactly right again. You had to know the trash groups, CC was imperative and kill order nothing short of essential. They got it all, from blood-draining to poison-spilling, and damn you if your raid didn’t have it’s sheeps and sleeps down. Not even an outgearing group could ignore all CC.
Not only the packs themselves were challenging, the pulls were something important too. Lots of pats, close stationary packs, fears – it was very unpredictable, and a group that was up to it’s feet and could react fast would more often than not make the difference between an embarassing trash wipe and an awesome victory over accidental multi-group pulls.
On top of that the variety not only between, but also within trash groups was huge. There were the critical packs you had to CC, offtank and kill-in-order, there were AoE groups, there were strong single trashmobs, and all perfectly tuned in difficulty. You knew that if a group was able to deal with the trash it would also be able to kill bosses. This trash was fun!
Encounters
The most interesting thing about boss fights in Zul’Gurub was the many ways they could be attempted. Again, this was before wowwiki and the likes, so there most likely was an optimal way of doing those fights, but you wouldn’t know, because once your group had found their way you would stick to it.
Theme-wise we’re seeing a very similar thing going on as we did in Zul’Aman: Bosses tied to an animal aspect. You had Jeklik (bat aspect, better you mana drained her), Venoxis (snake aspect), Mar’Li (spider aspect), Mandokir (optional, with his raptor-pet), Thekal (with simultaneous killing of three only to have him ressurect as a tiger), Arlokk (panther aspect, with an ugly stealth/high-dmg-opener combo), Gahz’raka (optional summoning boss we never did as far as I remember), Jin’Do the hexxer (optional, crazy dps-focus intense fight with a lot of target switching and stuff going on) and, last but not least, Hakkar the Soulflayer.
Especially Mandokir, Jin’Do and Hakkar were always spectacular. Mandokir would get stronger with every dying raid member and had an ugly ability where he would “be watching you”. If he was, you better stopped everything you did (like, absolutely everything), or he’d charge and most likely kill you – thus buffing himself. More than 3-5 stacks of his “I killed one”-buff and it was a programmed wipe. Good times!
Oh, and there was always the funny corrupted blood exploit – very good times, indeed!
On a side note: Even Zul’Aman still dropped mostly blue items. That’s just how different blue & purple were back in the days compared to now.
Summary
You were never bored in Zul’Gurub. While usually wipes would to a certain degree be discouraging, Zul’Gurub just was different. The overall atmosphere made up for almost any bad performance, and I remember more than one evening in there doing nothing but wiping on Jeklik. Curse you, bats. Curse you, mana drain issues. It’s fascinating how this raid was always something I would be looking forward to – motivated not by the loot, just by the instance itself. Big heads-up for Zul’Gurub, Blizzard!