Zul'Aman - Akil'zon Guide & Tips

Akil'zon is the second boss you should reach in Zul'Aman, especially if you are attempting the timed event. To reach Akil'zon you must first run the gauntlet, which requires you to run up the hill defeating the mass of mobs in your way. To complete this it is best to have a paladin tank up front and another tank behind your group. Two AoErs are advised for this and keep your DPS on their toes when looking for the elites that will come towards you.

Akil'zon himself is the Eagle formed boss of Zul'aman (ZA) and will call forth the powers of the birds and the air against you, the birds he calls are a nightmare to control, but they can fortunately be taken down with relative easy by affliction locks, hunters or shamans. The electrical storms are what will really get you!

But down to business, Akil'zon is regarded as one of ZA's easiest bosses if your raid is on their toes. He sits at a rather meagre 660,000 health but does have high armour, mitigating physical damage and making it preferable to keep warlocks as boss dps and hunters on bird control. He has a fair number of spells at his disposal and it is essential you know these and how to avoid them as much as possible.

Summon Amani Eagle - Summons Soaring Eagles which hit for around 1.5k damage with their Eagle Swoop attack. They can only be hit by ranged DPS.
Static Disruption - Deals 3.5k damage to Akil'zon's target and those arouns it. Also debuffs players, increasing nature damage taken by 25% for 20 seconds.
Call Lightning - Deals around 3.5k - 4.5k nature damage to the target.
Gust of Wind - Throws a player up into the air, the player will lose around 50% health when they hit the ground. For this reason it is important to keep players above 50% hp at all times"
Electrical Storm - Channeled spell that raises a player into the air and forms a cloud around him. Anyonenot underneath the palyer will receive an increasing amount of nature damage, first hit for aroun 1k, second 2k, third 3k and so forth. This lasts for around 7 or 8 seconds.
Enrage - He will enrage after 8 minutes increasing damage dealt by 50%, this will meana wipe.

Tactics

Positioning is key for the Akil'zon fight, spread out to avoid the AoE from static disruption. Melee should all strive to stay as far as possible away from each other, this is hard to do in such a mall space but hte further you get the less jumps the spell will make!

The main reason for wiping in this fight is electrical storm. During this spell a player will be lifted into the air and electricity will fire out and damage all players not directly underneath him. To achieve this all players should gather at Akil'zon (So melee DPS cans till attack) approximately 7 seconds before the storm starts, addons such as deadly boss mods are useful for predicting when the storm will happen. Even then a raid leader should shout out for everyone to group up at the boss, since one person not moving can wipe the raid!

You should wait till 7 seconds before hand to avoid Static Disruption causing mass damage to your raid group. The only problem with this is that the timer used by addons like deadly boss mods only times the cooldown, Akil'zon may cast this any time after the cooldown has finished. For this reason your healers must be on the ball incase he casts a static discharge before electrical storm.

After the first Electrical Storm is first cast Akil'zon will cast his summon soaring eagles spell. These cannot be attacked by melee classes and will dive about causing around 1.5k damage a hit. While these can be succesfully ignored by a good group I would not recommend it as it can put a huge strain on the healers if too many spawn at once.

Instead warlocks, hunters and shamans should use instant cast spells to take down these pesky feathered fighters. Due to the difficulty of casting a spell while the birds are still in range it is suggested that mages continue to DPS on the boss.

Once you have mastered surviving the Electrical Storm you will have mastered this boss. Good Luck!