Well, not necessarily pavement, per se. More like dirt, grass and the other fauna that populate the zone. Last night was my first foray into ZA, it was short and full of…well…death.
In the last couple of weeks I finally met my guild’s minimum requirements to participate in ZA runs. Sadly, they run them Monday and Tuesday nights, and I can almost NEVER make those times. I bowl in a league on Tuesday nights, and I just plain generally can’t play during prime time hours. That’s when I spend time with the family.
Anyhow, as of last night I didn’t know when I’d be able to go. But my wife was quite tired and fell asleep about 8:30 last night, and the baby was already in bed. When I get an opening, I log on immediately. Sure enough, they were losing a DPS and were looking for a replacement just a bit before the Dragonhawk boss. To fit me in they had one of the healers switch over to DPS and I filled the healer slot.
Up until now, I have never been to the zone. I wouldn’t even know how to GET there. I know it’s in the Ghostlands, but I don’t know where the heck the Ghostlands are. Thank god for meeting stones.
I snapped up a flask off the AH, grabbed some food, and got the summons. I must say, it’s a really nice looking zone. I was thinking it might look something like the troll areas I had seen before, but it was far better than that. Many different levels, good design…but I didn’t have time for that, as I was off right away following my guides to the group.
First thing was what I believe they call the “gauntlet.” A bunch of nasty, four mob plus pulls on the way to the Dragonhawk boss. Well, the first pull something went wrong, and it seems everyone in the group knew where to move except me, your friendly neighborhood tree. About 2 seconds later, I was eating dirt.
Well, at least I got that first death out of the way.
So we move on to the next pull, and again a scout got away or something, and again I found myself dirt napping. It was a little embarrassing, to be honest. I’m a better player than that, I have pretty good gear, but I really didn’t have time to prepare. I’ll usually read up on a raid beforehand- analyze maps, chat with people, get an idea on how it works. I really wasn’t expecting to be there, though.
So it’s time to buckle down. One thing with me and healing is sometimes it takes me a few minutes to get “warmed up.” If I’m not expecting to be running a heroic, for instance, we might have an early wipe as I get my game in gear. Once I’ve been healing for a few and start to get my feel, though, it’s smooth sailing. I get in a sort of healing “zone” as I play whack-a-mole with all the little boxes.
Thankfully, that was once again the case. I got nice and focused, tried to stick with one of the other healers, and kept a lookout for stray mobs. (This is where I’m glad I don’t need my heal target in LOS to get off my heals.) I managed to make it through the rest of the trash to the boss without dying again.
If there’s one thing I love about WoW, it’s seeing new bosses. I love to learn new encounters, and figure out how best to help in tough situations. The Dragonhawk boss is the perfect example of this. There’s a few things you have to keep in mind during the fight, and it makes for a very interesting encounter. The bombs are easy enough to deal with when you get a good idea of their range. Once you realize random hawks may be flying around, they’re easy enough to avoid as well. Overall he was very tough, but also very fair.
I only died one time on the 4-5 times we tried that boss. (I’m not counting the 2 extra “run away and try to reset” deaths. 
) It was a lot of fun, but sadly we weren’t able to take him down. I feel like we were really close, but the raid was only scheduled to 10 and we lost a couple people at that point and called it a night.
THIS is what I’ve been looking for. Kara, almost from the start, was flat out too easy. (Part of this is due to being a healer, which is a pretty easy job in Kara with a decent group.) Sure, there’s a thing or two you have to learn, but nothing like what I saw last night in ZA. Now I can’t wait to get in again. I’m just disappointed that I don’t know when that will be. 
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