Liebestod

So seeing that the quest rewards for killing Algalon are ilvl 239, and that Val'anyr is ilvl 239, I'd be surprised if Algalon (or YS hard mode) drop ilvl 239+ loot... which is somewhat disappointing, unless the loot that is dropped is itemized incredibly well, or they drop vanity items which nobody has discovered yet (unlikely.) I don't understand why Blizzard didn't strictly divide the 3 levels of Ulduar loot... 226 from normal mode bosses (excluding YS), 232 from hard mode bosses and Yogg-Saron, 239 from Algalon and hard-mode Yogg-Saron. Maybe they didn't want to make 239 loot too hard to attain (the Tier 9 raid will be balanced around raiders having that ilvl of loot), but not having clearly better rewards for the greatest challenges is kind of a drag (but I guess it's better than the Viscidus-dropping-NR-gear case... presumably.)

 

• Falk

No, Tier 9 will be balanced around 226. Hard modes are supposed to be completely optional, unless Blizzard does a complete 180' on their stance of raid accessibility so far. (Not that I'm agreeing with them, but yeah)

What that means in context of Algalon-farming guilds having a tier higher in loot on average when 3.2 ships remains to be seen.

 

Mideci

Several of the questions point to something I've found a bit vexing for raid planning... Is there a comprehensive list that looks like this:

Boss Name
* Hard modes
--- Mode A provides achievement
--- Mode B provides achievement and addtional loot; needed for meta
--- Mode C provides achievement, but no more loot than mode B

Other boss name
* Hard mode
--- Mode A, provides loot and achievement
--- Mode B, provides no more loot than A; needed for meta

In short, has anyone compiled -- or is willing to start to compile -- a boss-by-boss list of what constitutes the loot-granting hard modes, what is needed for meta, what is above and beyond that that is epeen only, etc.?

 

Axl_Stukov

The meta for Glory of the Uldaur Raider itself: Heroic: Glory of the Ulduar Raider - Achievement - World of Warcraft answers all of these questions, the meta is basically to kill each boss in it's hard mode, with the exception of Yogg-Saron who only needs hard mode level 3 of 4. As for loot changes we messed around with some hard modes in 10man today and had some pleasant results. 2 Tower Flame Leviathan didn't give us extra loot, but did give us 2 Conquest badges, as did doing Runemaster last on Iron Council. I'm presuming for Flame Leviathan each tower only adds an extra badge unless you do all 4, in which case you get the higher ilevel bonus loot. As for Yogg-Saron, we'll have to wait and see until someone does one of his hard modes.

 

Zurai

No, it doesn't. The meta includes several non-Hard Mode achievements (Crazy Cat Lady, Iron Dwarf Medium Rare, etc) and offers no information about the partial hard mode achievements and loot.

 

Skulli

Those encounters do not have a "hard mode" for extra loot.
The hard modes that exist are part of the meta, for the other bosses they added just an achievement to it.

 

Kalisia

My guild is currently having some difficulty with getting past Razor, XT, and Ignis on Heroic . We've downed FL on hard mode ( 1 tower) , and our " core " is atleast 90% BIS from 25 Naxx/Maly/OS. Our dps is showing a major gap with the players on the top of the meter over 6k, and those at the bottom at around 3k-ish. Similar problems exist with healing. I've been thinking of taking us back down a notch and concentrating on 10man Ulduar to get gear up for my raiders. What should we be looking for as a minimum requirement on dps and healing meters in order to advance in heroic Ulduar ? I was thinking 4k for dps, not sure for healing .

 

Starfire

Healing meters are bad. Don't trust them. Seriously. Healing meters only reveal very little about a healers performance without fully understanding their class and their roles.

Also, it sounds like your problem is bad players/execution, not gear. 90% BoS gear should be able to demolish everything in there quite easily. Maybe your strats are flawed though, but I doubt that with all the sites out there having readymade strats for those fights.

 

Wizeowel

Except for hard modes, dps isn't usually the issue with progression. If you are having trouble with enrage timers on the bosses you mentioned it can also be due to people not dpsing the right mob at the right time. For example, on Razorscale, all dps should have the boss targetted and be ready to start damage as soon as he's pulled with the harpoons - i.e. the adds are not important at that moment.

 

Verator

In regards to ignis, we haven't been able to down him, because our MT keeps getting spiked with two melee hits within less than 1 second and explodes. I'm starting to think we need to get his HP above 45k, because 40k still is letting him be insta-killed by that double melee. Should we really just be praying to RNG that he dodges one of those hits, or do we need more HP on our tank so he can survive them? (We either use a DK or a warrior, lately we've been resorting to the DK because of the cooldowns.) Healers on the tank are typically 2 paladins, and then either a druid or a priest.

 

Teez

Sounds a lot like your tank is standing in the flame patches, Ignis really isn't particularly hard to heal through anymore after the several nerfs to him recently. Having taken a quick look at the warriors in your guild, they seem to be absolutely sufficiently geared. A little bit more stam would probably be nice but is hardly gamebreaking.

Additionally, you might not be killing constructs fast enough. If you have more than two up at a time things can indeed get a bit hairy in terms of tank healing.

Warrior - Shaman - Priest

 

Renew

There is a 'bug' with him where he can attack twice in under a second which can lead to a gib of a tank with low hp. In this case, stam is gamebreaking because you are sending your raid into a fight throwing dice on something that is resolvable.

--

Get your tank to max his hp, buy a flask and make sure he has all the buffs he can get. Throwing a Disc Priest on him would not hurt either.

Note that this usually happens when he uses Slag Pot, so you can time shields etc to 'give the tank extra hp'.

Confidence is not Arrogance.

 

Pyros

40k is definitely low for most ulduar encounters though, even easy modes. Not impossible, but a lot of stuff can 2round you, which isn't all that fun when you're not having luck on avoidance and your healers have to move, or you get some parry haste(assuming some bosses still have it, not sure). I'm sitting at 45k raid buffed, and some bosses still drop my healthbar like I'm tanking naxx in quest blues. Get more, even if that involves using a feral tank instead(ferals are actually nice for ignis, ~50k hp gives you a breather for double hits and big hits while in the air after a jet).

With that said, they nerfed Ignis A LOT, and he shouldn't be too hard now even with the double hits, as long as you break the golems in a timely fashion(should never have more than 2 up at the same time if you're doing it well). If you have issues with tank deaths, really the best way to fix them is simply to have more tank healers. A lot of Ulduar encounters have one, maybe 2 raid healers, and then everyone else is on the tank+mimick of the fight, and you shouldn't run with less than 7healers unless you're comfortable with it. Most fights just go fine with 8 healers. That's one of the biggest thing that changed from naxx, when you could pretty much 3-4heal all of it, and it makes a big difference even if you were taking 6-7 if they were slacking before. You have to heal, and heal hard.

 

Vasthoof

We spent a few hours yesterday doing General Vezax on normal difficulty. As a healer, I personally think that this is an incredibly boring fight once you and your group find a suitable strategy to ensure the MT gets enough healing and all casters get enough mana back from those saronite clouds.

But the one thing that really puzzles me is Vezax's behaviour during Surge Of Darkness. When we downed him yesterday, we still thought that his not slowing during SoD was simply a mere bug, introducing some RNG into the fight. With a night of sleep, I realized that the number of SoD transitions where he was not slowed never, in no single try, exceeded the number of cooldowns the MT (SW, LS) or our group (HoS, PS, NS+TF, LoH) could blow.

Obviously, I can only report my personal experiences, and as such, this might just have been a lucky coincidence. What did other groups experience in terms of Vezax's behaviour during SoD? Did he not slow down when all your CDs were already blown? Do you think this is a bug or inteded mechanics? And if it is intended, what are the CDs which will prevent him from slowing down during SoD?

 

• Tauftamir

He slowed down just fine. His melee range is rather large, however, so if your tank is slow moving out even for a second he'll probably still be in range of at least one melee hit. (I just intervene out to a player positioned behind me, but running as soon as the cast comes and making sure your on the edge of his hit box works fine).

 

vorda

We had some times yesterday in 10 man where he defenily didn't slow down (I was tanking him, easy to notice as pala tank).

Making sure you're on max melee range before he does the surge usually gave me enough time to run out though, even with the slow bug.

 

Jebraltar

He runs at close to double normal run speed when he doesn't have the debuff. When we were pretending I could tank him, I only got hit if I was slower running out than usual. When we switched to our Death Knight, same thing.

 

wykedtron

Just last night we had the same problem. He was not slow at all and hit like a truck. The only way we could get around it was having the tank run as soon as he started casting as well as getting lucky with a searing flames cast which stops him in place. Overall it seems bugged.

 

Drolz

Our warrior MT intervenes out of it. There are definitely times when he is unslowed. The Freya Elder who uses Fists of Stone also behaves this way on occasion, although it is hardly a problem there.

I have heard of DKs tanking Vezax through all of his surges with IBF, which would be fine if its cooldown is over a minute.

 

Pyros

I think I've seen him cast slightly faster, but usually I IBF after kiting(when I'm out of range of healers) and it fits everytime so yeah, could probably avoid the kiting, it still a lot of unneeded damage though, considering running isn't particularly hard. If he doesn't stop to cast though, I often get hit once, sometimes twice. Never had him not run slowed, but his first steps seem bigger especially due to his large hitbox and the fact moving mobs seem to hit from a bit longer range.

 

◊ Praetorian

I've never seen Vezax not snare himself on a Surge. Are you expecting him to move really "slowly"? Because he seems to move at right about a normal player's runspeed during Surge -- you need to use the cast time of the ability to get away such that he won't be able to catch you once he starts moving.

 

◊ Repeek

A well timed Body and Soul - Spell - World of Warcraft can facilitate the kiting process.

 

Mikari

We killed Vezax tonight with a DK tank just continuing to tank and not bothering to kite, it may be unnecessary damage, but it worked okay for us.

 

seul

I actually prefer that approach to what we've seen in the past raid instances, most recently Naxxramas. Like most progression-orientated raiding guilds we have spent the last 2 month farming Naxxramas solely for a handful of drops off KT, which were more desirable due to the fact that they had a higher ilvl than "ordinary boss loot". You can see the potential of that happening again in a few months if they'd itemize Ulduar in a similar manner, putting the really desirable BiS drops onto the loot table of the last 2 encounters in the instance. By spreading them out amongst more than 2 bosses (practically half the instance) they're probably going to achieve that those encounters feel less redundant at the end of Ulduar's lifecycle.

 

Inaiwae

10 or 25man?

I saw him runing at normal speed (which i consider not-slowed) and also very very slowly (like 50% of normal speed). Sometimes he was fast during whole darkness, sometimes he was slow during whole darkness, sometimes mix of those.

As a druid i simply switch to cat (15% increased movement speed), i didnt get hit once. But if you have no way to speed up (like intervene for example) then avoiding the hits can be tricky sometimes, depending on latency.