Breaking news
- May 28, 2023
After Blizzard's announcement that phase 4 of WoW Classic with the four dragon world bosses Emeriss, Lethon, Taerar and Ysondre as well as the 20-player instance Zul'Gurub will start in April, we not only gave you a comprehensive preview of all upcoming content of the vanilla relaunch, but also summarized a lot of important information about Zul'Gurub (including numerous screenshots) in an extra article.
Nevertheless, we feel that we haven't really worked out yet which special position Zul'Gurub holds in the WoW (buy now 14,99 € ) history and how much the home of the Gurubashi trolls has shaped the raids of the following expansions. Zul'Gurub wasn't just a steamed-down version of the two predecessors Molten Core and Pitchwing Lair for small communities, which has a comparatively low difficulty level, can be entered without a pre-quest, and doesn't require any resistance equipment - in other words, it's a great way to get a taste of the WoW raid area for the first time. In addition, the design and systems of Zul'Gurub at the time included many new things that would have a noticeable impact on future raiding in WoW.
The first open-air raid in WoW history: Zul'Gurub.
Source: Blizzard
If you're looking for differences between the first two raids of WoW on the one hand and Zul'Gurub on the other, the visuals will of course immediately catch your eye. After the omnipresent gray-black of the dark Blackrock, a colorful open-air jungle awaited us in the troll homeland, with waterfalls, all kinds of creatures and varied troll bosses instead of dragons and elementals, which you can explore on the back of your mounts.
Zul'Gurub was also much more openly designed than the two predecessor raids in other respects
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Multiple paths lead through the instance, and not only can you decide which order you want to tackle the bosses in, you can skip enemies altogether, summon multiple optional nasties, and even challenge the boss Hakkar first if you wish (but he'll be much stronger).
Lastly, of course, one of the differences is that Zul'Gurub was only geared towards 20-player raids
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There are good reasons why the developers have already significantly reduced the size of the raid groups with the first expansion, The Burning Crusade. The challenge of getting 40 motivated players together night after night to have fun and farm the available raid content for weeks or months was simply too big for many communities - read more in the article The biggest challenge in Classic is currently not BWL, but ... Zul'Gurub showed in an impressive manner for the first time that it can be done differently, smaller. The impact of this successful attempt is still felt today - Blizzard never returned to 40-player raids.
If you wanted to, you could challenge Zul'Gurub's final boss, Hakkar, first and foremost.However, he was then quite a bit stronger.
Source: Buffed
Zul'Gurub's small raid size, low barrier to entry, and easy difficulty were aimed at newcomers, casual players, and stragglers who wanted to gear up for the harder challenges. Nevertheless, the developers at the time managed to provide enough reasons for a regular visit even for communities that have already mastered Molten Core as well as the Pitchwing Hoard half asleep.
Let's just take the strong enchantments for head, shoulder and leg parts linked to Zul'Gurub Call, which are significantly better than the options available until then. Then there are the class-specific trinkets that are very strong in certain situations, such as Renataki's Amulet of Roguery for rogues, or the Blood Vine Robe, which, despite its rare (blue) quality, is an important upgrade even for very well-equipped raid spellcasters, thanks to the spell-hit chance bonus. Here are the three parts of the craftable set:
And even once you've earned all of that, Zul'Gurub lures players of all stripes into the jungle with two more very rare drops: the two mounts Swift Zulian Tiger and Swift Razzashiraptor, which should pave the way for a variety of coveted raid drop mounts. Another reward system that the developers have adopted over and over again in subsequent raids are the class-specific tokens that you can snag from some of the bosses, which can then be traded in at an NPC merchant for parts of the corresponding class sets.
For our part, we're really looking forward to the release of Zul'Gurub in WoW Classic. You too?
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