Ulduar

the KRIS · 04/14/09, 11:16 AM

With 3.1 going live today, it's time to have a real discussion thread on Ulduar. Post your general experiences related to the instance here.

Looks like a likely kill order (based on location per http://www.stratfu.com/tools/ulduar-map/ ) will be:

Flame Leviathan
Ignis
Razorscale
XT-002
Iron Council
Kologarn

And then it becomes a bit more nonlinear, with the option to take down the Watchers in virtually any order, excepting Auriaya before Freya.

Hodir
Thorim
Auriaya
Freya
Mimiron

Then finally:

Vezax
Yogg-Saron
Algalon

It's hard to really have an impression on difficulty level, since there's no way to know whether our experiences on the PTRs reflect the final tuning. I suppose we find out, for the earliest-raiding guilds, in 3-6 hours.

• Snowy · 04/14/09, 11:33 AM

This is being closed for the moment, pending an internal discussion. In the meantime, people can find strategy stuff on StratFu or whatever you want to go to. I recognize the initial bosses aren't really a big deal, but my first thought is people should be trying them out for a reasonable amount of time before coming here asking for help.

• Snowy · 04/15/09, 4:20 PM

I posted this under the "Ulduar Posting Guildlines" sticky:

Originally Posted by Snowy

Now that Ulduar is live, it's time to revisit the posting guidelines. We're going to largely continue the guidelines that Gurgthock outlined for the PTR. No discussion about hard modes until they've been widely beaten. (If you think it's time to broach a topic and you're not sure, send one of us a PM and ask.) Absolutely no discussion about Algalon and Yogg-Saron until they've been widely beaten. Since people's definition of "widely" may vary, lets arbitrarily define it as 50 US kills OR 3 weeks after the first US kill, whichever one is later.

Feel free to start discussion on normal difficulty bosses (except Algalon/YS of course) immediately, but please don't start a topic unless you actually have a pertinent question to ask. This isn't Bosskillers or StratFu, you can get your basic rundown/overview of a boss elsewhere.

This thread is getting unlocked, but please don't turn this into a "Hey guys, we zoned into Ulduar tonight and cleared 3 bosses." Nor should it be a thread for discussion about specific bosses. Those belong in their own threads. Thanks!

[e] Updated to clarify the date, since Yogg's definitely been killed by more than 50 guilds. Discussion on Yogg can open up on May 5th.

Torrential · 04/15/09, 4:23 PM

Razorscale and Ignis are entirely optional.

I recall on the PTR when we killed Iron Council a door opened behind them. What's back there? Thorim?

• Vykromond · 04/15/09, 4:38 PM

No, it's the Archivum- interior quest hub for Algalon and Val'anyr related stuff.

Bonemage · 04/15/09, 5:23 PM

Has anyone figured out what triggers the bug of Ignis running off to grab someone for the slag pot and instead meleeing them? Least I assume its going to grab them for the slag pot since looking at the logs there was nothing about slag pot just swing tank, swing random healer or ranged dps, swing tank all of these happening while the tank had a nice threat lead on any of those effected. Out of 6 times 5 times it was a healer(2xPally, 1xDisc, 1 Shammy and 1 Druid) and once it was a S. Hunter. Would be nice to know if there was a way to reduce this risk.Amazed this made it to live when it happened 6 times in 8 attempts and twice in the same attempt.

Nakari · 04/15/09, 6:04 PM

Originally Posted by Bonemage

Has anyone figured out what triggers the bug of Ignis running off to grab someone for the slag pot and instead meleeing them? Least I assume its going to grab them for the slag pot since looking at the logs there was nothing about slag pot just swing tank, swing random healer or ranged dps, swing tank all of these happening while the tank had a nice threat lead on any of those effected. Out of 6 times 5 times it was a healer(2xPally, 1xDisc, 1 Shammy and 1 Druid) and once it was a S. Hunter. Would be nice to know if there was a way to reduce this risk.Amazed this made it to live when it happened 6 times in 8 attempts and twice in the same attempt.

From my experience, it's completely random... reminds of the good old days of Al'ar's charge-bug. It's a bit disapointing they can't seem to get the charge mechanic working right. Until there's a hotfix, praying his swing timer doesn't line up with the charge is your best bet.

Szynszyla · 04/15/09, 6:24 PM

@ Flame levathian, maybe stupid question couse we might understood this boss wrong.
Does this boss on 'harder' modes work like Sartharion with 1-2 and 3 drakes? We tried to kill only tower of frost and the second one and when we tried Levathian we had all his 4 new abilities present.

I have some questions how people deal with razorscale, we practised quite a lot but due to not perfect raid setup we weren't able to kill him only in 25man. We definatly lacked some aoe power and i wonder about the enrage timer couse at the moment it's really hard to predict the enrage and we have yet to find it out.

How do you guys deal with aoe? We are more or less spread around the circle shape, 3 tanks grabing mobs from their drill and moving center with everyone aoe. We found way to kinda abuse the casters mechanics not letting them cast a single thing with using Fan of Knives and specing into throwing specialization and only thing you need to assist are the whirlwind mobs. I wonder if there are certain classes/specs/skills post 3.1 that could make phase1 easier and faster.

Edit: Typo -_-

Buiden · 04/15/09, 6:50 PM

Originally Posted by Szynszyla

I have some questions how people deal with razorgore, we practised quite a lot but due to not perfect raid setup we weren't able to kill him only in 25man. We definatly lacked some aoe power and i wonder about the enrage timer couse at the moment it's really hard to predict the enrage and we have yet to find it out.

Well there's your problem, you should be kiting all of the adds using the ramps on either end of the room as a way to escape your train.

@Ignis - The slag pot charge-gib is completely random.

Axl_Stukov · 04/15/09, 11:35 PM

Just offering a fair warning, Kologarn's bridge currently isn't in the proper place, you need to cross at the shoulder plate otherwise you fall through and down into the pit below.

Edit: They appear to have hotfixed the bridge so it's model is in the right place now.

Muggins · 04/16/09, 2:57 AM

Originally Posted by Buiden

@Ignis - The slag pot charge-gib is completely random.

Finger's crossed this has been fixed.

"Ignis the Furnace Master should no longer melee attack the players he is picking up."

source: MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Recent In-Game Fixes - 4/15/09

We were having a few problems with the first Light Bomb cast after the Tympanic Tantrum on Deconstructor last night, the movement speed reduction causing havoc with getting to a safe distance without carving up people who are already on low health from the tantrum. We tried using HoF to try and remove the movement debuff on the target, but it doesn't appear to work. Is it simply a matter of spreading out better as the tantrum ends (we group up for the tantrum to allow for easier aoe healing) or are we missing something obvious?

Désespoir · 04/16/09, 3:06 AM

Did someone consider using Body and Soul from the Priest Holy Tree ? (+60% move speed for 4s when receiving Power Word: Shield)

It may help to flee the raid while Tympanic Tantrum is channeled.

Elzam · 04/16/09, 3:27 AM

Originally Posted by Muggins

We were having a few problems with the first Light Bomb cast after the Tympanic Tantrum on Deconstructor last night, the movement speed reduction causing havoc with getting to a safe distance without carving up people who are already on low health from the tantrum.

What we were playing with were two ranged groups forming a triangle essentially with the melee at the front point. The intention was for melee to run directly back when they get either bomb and ranged would either dart out slightly to the side or go to the center (if it's not occupied by a melee). I suppose we're a bit unorthodox if everyone else is spreading out as their basic raid setup; we just saw it as a modified extension of Solarian adds.

If you run with a Retribution Paladin (I'm naively assuming you probably do if we're talking 25-man), Divine Guardian + Divine Shield is a great way to mitigate raid healing during tantrums, and less healing needed tends to mean that everyone's going to pay closer attention. A Holy Paladin who doesn't care about timing his wings but is still DG specced can DG/DS the first tantrum and then time it during his cast to HoP/DG the third.

Edited for brevity.

Fugazor · 04/16/09, 6:05 AM

Quick thoughts:
- Flame Leviathan is joke without towers. I suggest 1-2 towers while going for first kill.
- Ignis is (was?) bugged doing random melee swings that one-shotted people every 5% or so. This should be hotfixed today but if you still getting this bug just skip him for later.
- XT-002 enrage timer is too low in normal mode (5min in 25). If with quite good kill (no deaths, no heals from bots, good dps) we hit enrage timer and barely killed him then I cannot see "lesser" guilds killing him at all - unless we did something really wrong in our tactic (and yes we did dps hearth like mad).
- We did Disarmed (which is part of meta) on Kologarn by quite accident. We just switched between right arm and corpus but by the end of fight left arm was on very low HP too so we finished it right after right arm (as it take away boss HP when die) and boss died.
- Auriaya is quite easy after you get rid of initial 4 panters. We just aoed them down with dropping loads of cooldowns on tank tanking them. Interrupting channeled shadow damage cast (forgot name) is pretty important along with tremor totems for tanks and healers.

KamPa · 04/16/09, 7:17 AM

XT-002 enrage is 6 minutes, not 5. It's still suprisingly difficult for such an early boss and was supposedly buffed from PTR. Which actually leads me to a question, at what ratio does heart transfer the damage to XT? Seeing Razorscale timer changed to 10 minutes, XT might be next.