The battle for Hyjal is over, Illidan vanquished in the Black Temple. Slowly but surely we are approaching the finale of WoW: Burning Crusade Classic. But before we can challenge Kil’jaeden, a stopover in the ghost lands is on the agenda. There, in phase 4, the troll raid Zul’Aman awaits all brave Azeroth warriors. We remember back.
Friends of cultivated nostalgia, we are slowly approaching the finale of WoW: Burning Crusade Classic! But before we set foot on the island of Quel’Danas and stuff Kil’jaeden back into the hole, a flying visit to the ghost lands is on the agenda. There, the troll raid Zul’Aman opens its doors with the upcoming content phase 4.
More than just Zul’Gurub 2.0
Already in Vanilla-WoW, the Blizzard developers had brought a troll instance to Azeroth with Zul’Gurub, which perfectly managed to appeal to experienced raid guilds and raid newcomers alike. And it was exactly this balancing act that Zul’Aman mastered wonderfully in Burning Crusade.
On the one hand, nine friends and pieces of equipment from Karazhan are enough to celebrate the first successes in the troll raid of the ghost lands. Perfect for twinks and small communities! The rewards are clothes and weapons that are better than comparable loot from the Serpentshrine or Tempest Keep. With such upgrades, twinks can be well prepared for the Black Temple, the Battle of Hyjal or the final content phase. On the other hand, the developers have built in a special time challenge that you can use to earn additional goodies – including a ring at Tier 6 level and the Amani War Bear, which was very coveted at the time.
Unlike the mounts from Zul’Gurub, the latter mount has a 100 percent certainty if you knock out the first four bosses within the time limit. However, only one from the raid can bag the bear. In fact, there were various progress guilds at the time that eventually sold the war bear to interested players, sometimes for a five-figure gold sum, which was still a fortune in the TBC era.
The first arrival
Zul’Aman is located in the southeastern part of the Ghostlands, which is one of the Blood Elf starting regions. Followers of the Horde are best off taking the Silvermoon City route. The fighters under the blue lion banner of the Alliance fly from Ironforge to Light’s Hope Chapel in the Eastern Plaguelands. From there you ride north to get to the Ghostlands.
In front of the instance, both factions each have a flight point that is important for future arrivals. Also bag all the quests here, because the rewards are numerous: in addition to gold, you get a bag with twenty slots and badges of justice that you can never have enough of.
The animal quartet
Just six bosses await you in Zul’Aman, which have spread widely throughout the open-air instance. Four of the meanies rely on animal aspects that grant them special abilities. Nalorakk is the lord of bears. He is very durable, applies bleed effects and strikes with a brutal swipe. He also attacks random players. Akil’zon is in turn an eagle god who relies on lightning and wind attacks and rushes birds on you.
Jan’alai challenges her in third place. Dragonhawk Avatar uses Flame Breath and Fire Bombs. In addition, brood guardians appear from time to time, running to the dragonhawk eggs in the side areas to hatch them. Then it’s on to the lynx god Halazzi, who likes to get into a frenzy and torments tanks with his saber blow. There are also annoying ghosts, dangerous lightning totems and a life-stealing flame shock.
Time Trial Details
You must defeat these four animal gods as quickly as possible in order to earn the war bear. The clock only starts ticking when you speak to Harrison Jones in the entrance area of the instance. From then on you have 20 minutes to knock out the first of the four meanies. If you succeed, you save one of four hostages and thus extend the time window for you: Nalorakk brings 15 minutes, Akil’zon another ten minutes.
In total, you have exactly 45 minutes to free all four prisoners. Sounds like a lot, but November 2007 was challenging even for experienced players. Nice: Even if you don’t save all the hostages, additional loot beckons. Each rescued troll has its own loot box linked to it. However, you can only find the chic bear mount in the fourth box.
Malacrass and Zul’Jin
We have left out the last two bosses for you. After defeating the animal quartet, you may challenge Hexlord Malacrass in the east. Like Moroes from Karazhan, he is flanked by random minions that you control or knock down. There are also shadow salvos from the boss, which is also getting stronger because it drains your powers. In the finale, you’ll face off against Warlord Zul’Jin, who uses warrior skills and is supported by the other animal aspects.
What else is coming with phase 4?
Zul’Aman came to the live servers with patch 2.3 and, in addition to the raid, also had the guild banks, PvP – Season 3, faster leveling up to 60, a revision of the paladins’ vengeance talent tree, a renewed redesign of Alterac Valley, fresh items for Insignia of Justice and numerous fine-tuning adjustments in the luggage.
As you can see, most of this content is already live in TBC Classic. As a compensation, we can expect an innovation with phase 4 that did not exist at the time: the Blizzard designers want to introduce the recipes for the big drums of the leather processors with Zul’Aman . Unlike the current drums, the improved versions have a range of 40 instead of 8 meters.
Goods for Badges of Justice
As indicated above, G’eras in Shattrath City has an expanded offering for Insignia of Justice with the upcoming phase. You can find a large part of the new gear in our guide WoW TBC Classic: Farm Badges of Justice for Later Stages .
Also cool: The forged mace Dragonmaw is no longer assigned to the weapon hand in phase 4, but one-handed. In other words: Furor warriors and amplifier shamans in particular can equip the epic peacemaker twice. This will give a whopping DpS boost.
When is phase 4 coming?
As of now, there is no official date for Phase 4 of TBC Classic. But patch 2.5.4 has meanwhile hit the PTR. In the original Burning Crusade, patch 2.3 (corresponds to phase 4) appeared about half a year after patch 2.1 (corresponds to phase 3). Patch 2.2 only brought class adjustments, the voice chat function and changes to the value Tempo to the live servers. Converting that to TBC Classic, Phase 4 would be five months from now, so maybe July.
After all, phase 3 only started on January 17, 2022, the same applies to the new PvP – Season . That same – Season should also run for a few months for Arena fans to enjoy. But: Since most raid groups are already farming Illidan and Archimonde week after week, that would be a very long drought period. Especially since phase 4 apart from Zul’Aman is very unspectacular. We are therefore expecting a release sooner.
Troll recycling with Cataclysm
Not everyone in the WoW community was enthusiastic about it for a long time, but with WoW patch 4.1 it was time on April 26, 2011: Blizzard re-warmed Zul’Gurub and Zul’Aman as heroic 5-player dungeons. That had already worked well with Naxxramas in Wrath of the Lich King. The level of difficulty of the instances was also hotly debated at the time. Some found the bosses too easy, others cursed the trolls’ hard blows. Ultimately, the two nostalgia trips were just a snack somewhere between the big raid challenges and the normal “heros”. Incidentally, the 10-player originals from vanilla and TBC have not been available in retail WoW since Cataclysm.
What is WoW Classic?
World of Warcraft Classic is a true recreation of the original WoW as you know it from 2006. All parts of the game – from combat mechanics and talent trees to character models and zones – have been recreated, contributing to the authentic experience.
Getting Started
All players with an active World of Warcraft subscription or game time on their accounts have access toWoW Classic at no additional cost.
- Open the Blizzard Battle.net Desktop App and select World of Warcraft from the menu.
- Select World of Warcraft Classic from the Version menu. If you have more than one World of Warcraft account, you’ll see a second Account drop-down list. In this column, select the active account you want to play with.
- Click the Install button. The progress bar will tell you when your game is ready to play.
- Click the Play button when the installation is complete.
You will need to select the realm you want to play on from several different realm types. Make sure you choose the same realm as your friends – in World of Warcraft Classic, you can only group with characters that are on the same realm as you!
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