Apr 14, 2009

Patch 3.1: Ulduar Overview

Posted by Aenorn



ULDUAR

Ulduar is a new raid instance in Northrend that is being released with patch 3.1. It features Tier 8 armor sets, a new Legendary spell caster mace, new epic non-set items, new instance specific achievements, and 14 new bosses including both Normal (10), and Heroic (25) settings and a new Hard Mode which you can choose to activate on each boss. Players will start in the outer part of the instance and work their way inside by killing trash mobs and bosses.

It serves as the prison of the Old God Yogg-Saron as well as the current residence of most of the titanic watchers who have fallen under his influence

"Beneath ancient Ulduar, the Old God of death lies, whispering.... Tread carefully, or its prison will become your tomb."

Flame Leviathan

Flame Leviathan is an incredibly unique fight, as it requires you to use vehicles. At the beginning players will be able to choose from a number of vehicles, each with different abilities. The Health of these vehicles depends not on your stamina, but on your average item level. In retrospect a Priest could possibly tank better than a Warrior on this fight, depending on what gear they have.

Destroying the towers in the area prior to the fight will issue Flame Leviathan be set on Hard Mode. Each tower that is destroyed will give the Flame Leviathan an ability, this ability depends on which tower is destroyed.


Ignis the Furnace Master

The Ignis encounter begins as a general tank and spank. He uses an ability called Flame Jets, which will lock anyone casting out of that spell school for 8 seconds so casters should pay close attention. He will periodically charge random players and place them in the slag pot connected to his stomach, whoever this is should be paid attention to, as it causes a mean DoT.

Throughout the fight, Ignis will begin to activate Iron Constructs. He will gain a 20% damage increase for each of these that are alive. The strategy is to drag them through the Scorch areas until they are Molten. They can be rooted. Once they're molten you should then drag them to one of the water pools. Once there, they will begin to turn Brittle, this causes them to have a 50% higher chance of being critically hit and they will be shattered (killed) if they're hit for over 5000 with a single ability.


Razorscale


Razorscale is the third boss encounter in Ulduar, and is an Ironbound Proto Drake that flies over the Razorscale's Aerie, across from the Colossal Forge. It seems Razorscale is the product of Loken's plans with Veranus.

Razorscale is in the most part a typical old school Dragon fight, an air phase and a ground phase. You must speak with the Expedition Commander to begin the encounter. The fight begins with Razorscale in the air, you'll be protecting the Expedition Dwarfs as they repair the harpoons, it's pretty straight forward: Kill the adds, and stay out of the fire. The harpoons will be repaired one at a time, and once they are they become usable. You'll need to fire all of them to bring her to the ground.

Once she is out of the air she will be stunned for a several seconds, your raid should be DPSing her at this point. After the stun wears off she will return to the air and begin the air phase again.

At 50% Razorscale will land permanently and should be tanked facing away from the group. She will do an AoE knock back during the fight and inflict the Flame Buffet debuff. The DPS should be going all out to defeat her before Flame Buffet causes the tank to be slaughtered.


XT-002 Deconstructor


XT-002 Deconstructor is the fourth encounter in Ulduar. He directly blocks the entrance into the lower level of Ulduar in the Scrapyard.

This fight is mostly a tank and spank encounter. XT-002 should be tanked at the bottom of the stairs in his area. All Ranged classes and Healers should stay together in a tight group, when someone gets hit with Gravity Well or Light Bomb, that person should immediately move away from the group to minimize damage, especially in the case of Gravity Well. Healers need to watch out for Tympanic Tantrum and make sure everyone in the raid is decently healed.

Once XT-200 reaches 75% he will stop attacking and spawn adds. XS-013 will heal him if they reach him, so these are top priority. XE-321 Boombots explode upon reaching 50% health, dealing damage to any players or NPCs in range. This can be an effective method for taking out Scrapbots but take care to make sure that none slip past and heal XT-002.XM-024 Pummelers are standard adds which should be off tanked and DPSed down once Scrapbots and Boombots have been taken care of. Simply rinse and repeat until dead. He will repeat this phase at both 50 and 25%.

To activate XT-200 Hard Mode, during the add phase you can click on XT-200 to expose his heart, which can be killed. Once the heart is killed his health and damage will be increased by 25% and he will be fully healed.


This guide will be continued with the inner bosses of Ulduar in time. Until then, good luck! You can find me swimming on my mount in Stormwind ~_^

~Aenorn

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