Spooncraft

I really can’t get a solid stance on this. Frankly I think it was an awesome instance and I love the fact that there is little to no trash, whereas Karazhan and the 25-man dungeons (barring Magtheridon and Gruul) have hours upon hours of trash. I know it’s a pacing mechanic but it’s fucking annoying. You can make trash hard and not have 45 pulls in between bosses that tally up to an hour of just pissing around a bunch of wooden planks.

I think ZA was a failure in that the curve was extremely steep and Blizzard marketed the instance as something T4 Karazhan groups could take on so they would have gear that helped take some of the edge off SSC and TK. In that respect they failed miserably because the bosses are very unforgiving for anybody not geared in T5 or higher, and don’t expect to do the timed event unless you do indeed outgear the instance.

Zul’Aman does have a fairly steep curve in difficulty, but having only two 10-person dungeons makes it so having a challenge like this in clearing it makes sense. This can also be seen as an example of why having separate progression paths for 10 and 25 person dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King will likely work out better.

This dungeon can also be a pretty clear example of how Badge of Justice gear that you gather from running Karazhan and Zul’Aman can help get a group prepared to take things on. (src)

I agree whole heartedly with Bornakk though on this in that ZA wasn’t so much a failure but an evolution and example. It’s a test instance that Blizzard nerfed slightly but decided to spend their resources on other things instead of retuning the entire place. This late in the game I could care less about it because you aren’t missing much in the way of lore encounters (which pisses me off since Zul’jin was a pretty big deal for a long time) and better looking and itemized gear can be obtained through heroic badges and obviously, higher raids.