Zul'Aman - First Thoughts

So I had the chance to mess around in ZA this weekend.

Before I get into that, about my group: the majority of the group was Karazhan/Gruul's Lair level gear; some on the low end of that, some only looking for 1-2 drops, with 1-2 higher-geared (a t5ish healer, and a shadowpriest with BT/Hyjal gear). I was on both days MT.

First off: Scripted events, nice. The boss voices are good, and I imagine if you were trying to keep up with the timers the effect would be neat.

Secondly: Blizzard will never, ever learn regarding trash. No one liked the supression room in BWL. No one liked the supression room I MEAN bug tunnel before Fankriss in AQ40. No one liked the supression room I MEAN hallway of grubs and bats in Naxxramas. So why the hell is there another gauntlet where shit spawns at you in ZA?

Similarly, the trash respawn time for Eagle is very short, something like 45 minutes, an hour tops. We managed to screw around with it to remove the gauntlet part of it (kill the tempest on the stairs, very doable if they spawn when you're about to do an attempt), and given that it's a very short clear (5ish 2-pulls) that makes it not so bad, but regardless - enough people have complained about "we hate having to clear trash over and over" that they shouldn't be doing that any more.

There's also a lot of repetition in the trash - several times you have the same or very similar pulls right in a row. Frankly, I'm of the opinion that if a group can handle a given encounter twice, the only purpose of trying to use that same encounter on them again is either to kill time or try to catch them with their pants down/making a mistake.

That said, the trash isn't horrible like some of the Karazhan trash was. Everything seems to be tauntable, there's a lot less aggro-drop lameness (though, a lot more multi-elite tanking), hell, most trash is even stunnable.

As for the rest:
-Boss design is interesting; doing the Eagle fight after reading it was quite different than I thought it'd be. That in particular was a fight I could not see happening without counting how long before big special ability uses you have. The bear was well done, though I'm *still* not sure how fond I am of fights hinging on one ability not being resisted. Lynx is BUGGER HARD on healing, and requires two competent tanks (well, one at a minimum, but he'll have to handle the add, not the boss). I've yet to try dragonhawk/warlock/captain planet (seriously - imagine each boss calling out their avatar, with Warlock holding up a bloody heart, and tell me that you can't see Zul'jin showing up saying "I AM CAPTAIN TROLL PLANET!").
-Loot seems generally good, though scanning the loot tables makes me think that DPS casters (particularly affliction warlocks) get the short end of the stick.
-Forest frog shenanigans are fun; why are the little trinket dealies rolled on if you had to roll on the sticks first and they're not BoP? Also, very easy to not get money from that.
-Nice, "easy" quests with decent rewards (well...you get a 20-slot bag, anyway). There seems to be some plot there but I'm only partway through.

More to come as I run it more...