Edited in response to your comment:
while not(all(n==0))
n = max(0,n-1)
end
Wanted to keep this all in one answer. I have edited my response again, but left the old one. In the code below, I have inserted an if statement that will be entered only when an element of n has just been decremented to zero, as you mentioned you wanted in a comment on andrei's answer.
(I also implemented Jan's simpler syntax for the while loop.)
n0 = [8 5 9 3 6 11];
n = n0;
iter = 0;
while any(n)
iter = iter+1;
n = max(0,n-1)
if any(iter==n0);
end
end