Zao, son of the enormous ox Niuzao, appears in the Celestial Tournament as one of the final challengers to defeat before being declared the new champion.
*This strategy was originally seen in this guide. I have never made any claims that I created this strategy.*
Pet and Ability Lineup:
Your Squad:
Sunreaver Micro-Sentry with Fel Immolate, Extra Plating, and Call Lightning. (Mechanical)
Zandalari Anklerender with Hunting Party, Leap, and Black Claw. (Beast)
Zandalari Kneebiter with Hunting Party, Black Claw, and Bloodfang. (Beast)
Enemy Team:
Zao, Calfling of Niuzao, with Trample, Niuzao’s Charge, and Wish. (Beast)
The Action:
Your Sunreaver Micro-Sentry is up first. I open with Fel Immolate to get that damage ticking. Next, cast Call Lightning. Keep applying Fel Immolate until your Sunreaver Micro-Sentry drops dead. Zao will kill him within a few rounds with his hard-hitting Niuzao’s Charge ability plus Trample. Zao will also attempt to Wish, which is the bane of this fight. As you can see in my video, my timing was off* and Wish ended up healing Zao for quite a bit, but I was still soundly victorious, so do not worry if Wish ends up landing successfully; you can still win.
Your second pet, the Zandalari Anklerender, will lead off with Black Claw. At this point, on Zao, you will have Fel Immolate, Black Claw and Call Lightning stacked up; Cast Hunting Party; successful hits from Hunting Party apply Shattered Defenses, even further increasing the devastating amount of incoming damage on Zao. As Hunting Party rolls in, Zao casts Niuzao’s Charge which has a one round “charging” penalty before real damage is done, so you get a freebie round of no incoming damage in order to finish him off neatly.
If things go wrong and your Zandalari Anklerender dies, simply bring out your third pet, the Zandalari Kneebiter, with the same set of abilities. Cast Black Claw and then Hunting Party and Zao should be finished.
*I should have switched the Sunreaver Micro-Sentry out when he died initially and used his Mechanical pop-up ability. This move might have scored a kill before Wish went off.
More Details:
Call Lightning is key to this strategy; Call Lightning will do damage every time on each attack. This counts for damage over time effects like our Fel Immolate, and “multiple hit” abilities like our Hunting Party and the similar Moth Balls. You can use any pet with Call Lightning in this slot but a lot of strategies like to make use of the Sunreaver Micro-Sentry because it is easily obtainable and of course has the Fel Immolate damage over time ability augmented by Call Lightning. You can obtain a Sunreaver Micro-Sentry as a drop off of the rare elite Haywire Sunreaver Construct who is located patrolling here on the Isle of Thunder. The Sunreaver Micro-Sentry is also cageable and able to be sold on the auction house. TUJ lists Sunreaver Micro-Sentry at around 500g-600g on my low-med population server, so it is quite affordable. Sunreaver Micro-Sentry is learned as rare and is available exclusively in Breed#4, or P/P.
The Zandalari Anklerender and Zandalari Kneebiter are both obtained via a drop from Zandalari Dinomancers, which are located in these areas on the Isle of Giants. Their brothers, the Zandalari Footslasher and Zandalari Toenibbler drop from the same mobs. They are all cageable and available on the auction house if you do not wish to farm them. TUJ lists both pets between about 200g and 500g on my low-med population server. These pets come in a few different breeds, so if you are after a particular breed it may take some trial and error in either farming or buying. In this video I used the Breed#4, or P/P version of my Zandalari Anklerender and the Breed#8, or P/S version of the Zandalari Kneebiter. Any breed works here; it is up to your preference or interest as to which one you use. The Zandalari Anklerender and Zandalari Kneebiter are both learned as rare and both available in Breed#4, or P/P, Breed#5, or S/S, Breed#8, or P/S, and Breed#10, or P/B.