Ulduar - Strategies for the first few fights. Spoilers probably (part 1)

Incoming wall o' text.

Ripped these from Wowwiki. The general feeling is that most, if not all of us, want to get to running the new content since Naxx does not have much to offer at this point. My personal opinion is that I would rather wipe a few times on new content then spend 3 hours in Naxx and get nothing to show for it.

Anywho, I am not expecting a full clear of Ulduar this weekend but checking it out for sure. That being said, here are just the strategies for the first few fights...enjoy. Check out wowwiki for the various abilities of the bosses.

FLAME LEVIATHIAN
A good pre-fight idea is to establish a kiting path and make sure that the Choppers keep tar down on that path at all times.

When the encounter begins, Flame Leviathan will target a random siege engine or demolisher. (Confirmed as working as intended from a blue) and must be kited around the area. He will steadily speed up as time goes on so it will become harder to stay away from his battering ram. After 30 seconds, Flame Leviathan will target another vehicle and chase it instead. Siege Engine(s) that are not kiting can follow up on its tail and should immediately interrupt Flame Jets using Electroshock. Siege Engines can also use the melee Ram ability between Jets, but should be prepared to turn and kite as soon as, if not slightly before, the target switch. Use Steam Rush as necessary to gain extra ground as needed.
Passengers of siege engines must shoot incoming pyrite ammo hovering in the air. When none are available to destroy, they can focus on Flame Leviathan with a ranged cannon.
Demolishers must stay at a large distance from Flame Leviathan at all times and should DPS the boss using Hurl Boulder (Hurl Pyrite Barrel should be saved for stuns). Once a passenger has loaded themselves into the catapult, Demolisher drivers should launch them onto the Leviathan as quickly as possible. Be careful not to miss or that passenger may eat a Flame Jet and die. When Overload Circuit is activated and Flame Leviathan becomes stunned, use Hurl Pyrite Barrel as often as possible for massive damage.

A single damage dealer and healer should be loaded into the Demolisher catapult and launched to the back of the Leviathan as soon as the previous stun wears off. Once on the back of the boss, they will be facing one of 4 turrets. Once the turret is killed a button will appear that will, after a 10-second channel, stun the boss, increase its damage taken by 50%, and reset his speed. The players on the back of the tank will be launched off and parachuted down and should be picked up by a chopper as soon as possible and brought back to a Demolisher. Timing should be exercised in order to ensure that Flame Leviathan gets stunned while on a Tar area.

Remaining Demolisher passengers should work on picking up downed pyrite ammunition and loading it up into the Demolisher.

Choppers should move around quickly and plant oil slicks on the ground in Flame Leviathan's path to slow him down and deal extra damage (if ignited). The longer you go without causing the stun, the more diligent Chopper drivers need to be about keeping tar down in the boss's path. Choppers should also be ready to rush in and pick up stray players that are launched off Leviathan's back or were fired incorrectly by the Demolisher driver. If no one is in need of picking up and tar is on cooldown, use Sonic Horn for extra damage.

10 Man Turrets
This fight is about 2 things. Keeping the boss away from it's target, and killing the turrets at the correct time. Do NOT send a healer and dps up using the demolishers. There are only 2 turrets. Both need to die in order for the boss to be stunned and his buff to be removed. There are no buttons or any need to channel anything. The players are punted up and land on a turret each. They cannot move, use pots, bandage, but can use all their normal abilities. Players with range attacks can target and range the turret across from them. The best would be 2 dpsers with at least 1 able to cast a little bit of heals. Landing on the machine will take your health down a lot. The turrets will not hit you, but landing on the machine hurts. Do not jump off before both turrets die, if you jump off early you will die. Once you kill both turrets, the boss will be stunned, buffs will be reset on the boss, and you will automatically get a parachute and fall off. Choppers must be assigned to pick these 2 players up and heal them as they bring them back to their respective demolishers. Choppers can move right inside the demolishers so the passangers can jump in the demolishers without having to get out of their choppers.
If you have a ranged DPS you can launch him with a healer, so he can simply target the turrets separately and take out both.

Ignis the Furnace Master
The Ignis encounter begins as a simple tank and spank fight (Naxx geared tanks can take upwards of 25000-30000 damage per hit, so healers need to be on the ball). Casters, particularly healers, should take care to stop casting before Ignis uses Flame Jets, otherwise they will be locked out of their spells for 8 seconds. All players should make sure to move out of Scorch areas. Random players will periodically be charged and placed in the Slag Pot attached to Ignis' stomach. Whichever player is charged should be healed through the DoT.

Iron Constructs
The fight gets slightly more complicated when Ignis activates an Iron Construct. For every active Iron Construct, Ignis gains a 15% damage bonus. No more than a couple of these should be kept up at any time. Iron Constructs should be dragged through a Scorch area until they turn Molten. Alternately, if you have root or snare capability, the Construct can be kited into the Scorch and rooted until molten. Once molten, they need to be dragged immediately to one of the water pools so that they turn Brittle. Brittle Iron Constructs are stunned for 20 seconds, have a 50% increased chance to be critically hit, and will shatter if 5000 damage is done in a single hit. Shattering a Construct will remove one stack of Ignis' damage buff.

Razorscale

25 Man
This boss fight consists of three phases, alternating air and ground phases until 50% damage taken, and then a pure ground phase from 50% to 0%.
Recommended Setup: 3 Tanks, 3 Tank Healers, 3 Raid Healers, 0-2 Floating Healers, 14-16 DPS (composition irrelevant).
Talking to the Expedition Commander will begin the event with Razorscale in her air phase.
Razorscale appears to have two separate Beserk timers, the first applies during phase 1 and 2 when rotating the air / ground phases and occurs approximately 5 minutes into the fight, a second longer one is in operation if she is successfully moved into phase 3 before this. This places a limit of roughly 3 ground phases on the raid.
Air Phase
The air phase consists of defending the Expedition dwarves while they repair the harpoon turrets. During this phase, the focus should be on defeating adds (Sentinels are priority, Watchers must be CC'd and killed second, Guardians last), and staying out of Devouring Flame. As the turrets get repaired one at a time, they can be clicked to fire a harpoon at
Razorscale.

The raid should be split into three groups, one near the far side of the circle opposite the harpoons, and two groups positioned slightly round the circle back towards the harpoons. Each group should engage the spawns from a single pod and destroy them, there is no need for crowd control and AoE can be used. If a sentinal spawns all 3 DPS groups should focus fire this target as it presents the greatest and only tank threat amongst the spawned adds.

Floating healers should be assigned behind the three groups to support heal and heal the players assigned to trigger the harpoons.
Harpoons 1-3 should be activated as soon as the third harpoon becomes available, with harpoon four being activated as soon as there is no sentinel present (the sustained damage from this add prevents additional healer and tank dps being focused on the boss). DPS should begin to converge into the circle when the third harpoon becomes available to minimise time lost in the ground phase.

During this phase it is important to ensure that the raid healers keep members of their party above 12,000 health as this prevents losing targets to a single breath, a double breath is possible (and common) so healing must be fast and effective (Paladins are ideal in this role due to Holy Shock). Healers first priority must be to keep themselves alive.

Ground Phase
Once all four turrets have been repaired and fired, Razorscale will be forced to the ground where she will remain stunned for several seconds. Everyone should immediately move behind her, and DPS should focus on bringing her HP down as much as possible while the tanks hold any remaining adds. After the stun wears off, Razorscale will breath then return to the air and begin the air phase again.

For this phase tanks should converge onto the rear of Razorscale allowing their DPS to be added to that available in this phase, with 5s remaining until the stun wears off the tanks should move with any remaining adds towards the furthest point on the circle and allow full raid AoE damage to be applied to the adds. As new pods appear tanks should move their
adds back to their regular tanking positions.

Phase 3
Once Razorscale is brought to 50% health, she will land permanently, at which point she will need to be tanked facing away from the group to avoid breaths. The fight from this point is very simple, she will continue using Devouring Flame, she will do a knock back to everyone within 35 yards, and inflict the Flame Buffet debuff. During this ground phase, the DPS should go all out in order to defeat Razorscale before the Flame Buffet debuffs cause the tank to be one-shot.

There is another debuff that happens during this fight. In phase 2, when you are tanking Razorscale around your tanks will get a debuff called "Fused Armor" which adds a slowing effect to the tank. When this debuff hits 5 stacks the tank can't move or use any abilities, including taunt. You need to change tanks when the debuff gets to 2 stacks in order to finish the fight.

XT-002 Deconstructor
• Note: there is a 6 minute enrage timer.
Positioning
The boss should be tanked at the bottom of the stairs in the middle of his patrol path. Ranged DPS and healers have several choices for positioning:
1. Many groups try to simply stack, however this increases raid damage significantly.
2. Alternatively, some choose to designate two groups that are stacked to the left and to the right of the starting area (within healing distance of one another).
3. Spread the raid out from the boss in a large arc up to maximum distance; everyone should be about 10 yards apart. Healers need to be spread throughout the raid, and the main healers should be closest to melee. If ranged gets hit with Light Bomb, they do not need to move. If ranged gets hit with Gravity Bomb, they need to move 10 yards away from everyone else to avoid causing additional damage (15 yards to avoid the suction). If ranged gets hit with either, they need to run away from the raid towards the north side (the stairs). Make sure you do not suction the Main Tank.
Regardless of where ranged classes stand, everyone should be at least 10 yards away from melee, who should be arranged 360 degrees around XT (since it has no cleave).
Reacting to the debuff

Basically, ranged should only have to deal with ranged characters with the debuffs, and melee should only have to deal with debuffs affecting melee characters. 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

There needs to be at least two characters focused on main healing. Raid healers need to use AOE and direct healing spells whenever Light Bomb appears, or Tympanic Tantrum begins. Dots are very ineffective at all times unless used on the Main Tank or a healer during Tympanic Tantrum. When Tympanic Tantrum begins, healers need to throw something on themselves quickly, and then begin healing others (preferably AOE heals on themselves and anyone nearby). With enough healers (8 on Heroic), non-smart AOE spells tend to be wasted. Single target, direct healing spells and instant cast non-DoTs are the best (Power Word: Shield especially). need to keep an eye out for Tympanic Tantrum and make sure that everyone in the raid gets at least some moderate heals.
Holy Priests should be throwing Circle of Healing on the melee and ranged groups where needed. Prayer of Healing tends to be too slow, but with enough haste can be very effective as well. You should use Power Word: Shield on debuff targets, and Flash Heal should be ready to keep victims of Light Bomb alive.
Druids should HoT themselves and the Main Tank, and use Regrowth.
Shamans should use Chain Heal on the Main Tank during Tympanic Tantrum.

Tympanic Tantrum
During tantrum players will have a daze effect which slows their movement speed by almost half, and both Light Bomb and Gravity Bomb will still be cast. This means that if a player gets the Gravity Bomb debuff and does not start moving from the group immediately, the group will have to move away from the afflicted raid member. In most cases, this will end up with someone dying. Communication is vital if anyone gets Gravity Bomb during this ability. This ability can be avoided with enough DPS, by revealing the heart before the Tantrum.
Phase 2: Adds
This occurs at 75%, 50%, and 25% health.

Adds
XT-002 will stop attacking and become untargettable, and begin spawning 3 different types of adds from the junk piles in the 4 corners of the Scrapyard. In addition, he drops his heart which takes 2x damage from players, and the damage is done to the boss as well. Note that there won't be a constant stream of robots.
• XS-013 Scrapbots: heals XT-002 if they reach him. They need to be AoE'd down and cannot reach the boss for any reason. They can be stunned, frost nova'd, and knocked back.
• XE-321 Boombots: explode upon getting killed, dealing damage to any players or NPCs in range. These have priority and should be single targeted and nuked by ranged. It is best if they are surrounded by scrapbots or near the Heart.
• XM-024 Pummelers: standard adds which should be off tanked and DPSed down once Scrapbots and Boombots have been taken care of.
Off tanks need to be watching for the first Pummelers to appear, which should be picked up and tanked wherever is convenient (near other bots or the boss so that off tanks can help deal damage to either). Pummelers should never be targetted for DPS as the tight enrage timer does not allow for it. Have the offtank(s) hold aggro on them to the sides of the raid. Scrapbots will spawn in small groups of about 5-8. Have people keep an eye out and call out where and when they are coming. When scrapbots get closer to the raid, they need to be AOE'd down immediately. Mages are valuable in that they can nova any of the bots during this phase. Boombots need to be DPS'd when they are near the Heart or scrapbots (or when not near anyone). Melee should stay on the Heart.
When the heart goes back up into the boss and XT becomes targettable again, unkilled adds will still be alive. Pummelers will need to be offtanked throughout the duration of the fight.

The Heart
• Health: ?M (Heroic), 1.5M (Normal)
Because of the double damage, everyone should be focused on DPSing the boss's heart during this phase (even healers; although priority goes to off tanks and anyone hit by Boombot blasts) as any damage done to the heart is passed along to XT. The raid has a bit of time after the heart drops and before the adds actually start spawning to do so. Healers, if they can spare the mana, should be helping out too because no one in this phase but the off tank (on the pummelers) should be taking any damage at all. Unless you want to try hard mode, make sure you do not kill the heart. Some raids are able to take the heart down without a bloodlust, in which case everyone has to show restraint to avoid starting Hard Mode. It is possible to defeat XT without having the ability to kill the heart (lack of DPS); however you will still need to average about 1.5M damage per DPS player (4000-6000+ DPS). Bloodlust and all DPS cooldowns should be used on the first adds phase (75% health).

Hard mode
Hard mode can be activated during any of the add phases. During this phase XT-002 will expose his heart, which can, in turn, be killed. When his heart is destroyed, XT-002's damage and health are increased by 25% and he heals back to full health. There is no difference in activating hard mode during the different add phases in terms of achievements or loot. However, remember that the boss heals back to full no matter when you activate hard mode. Therefore, the later you activate hard mode, the more likely you are to run into longevity issues with mana-using classes, healers especially. Also note that activating hard mode does not reset the 6 minute enrage timer.

Flame leviathan will be cake unless we attempt a hard mode, wayne and I 2 manned him to 64%. He is likely 4 mannable with the right setup. I recommend everyone who hasn't seen the fight goes into ulduar with 1 or 2 other people and checks out the fight and gets used to the vehicles abilities, it really does help. You could practically solo clear to leviathan.

tldr

Too loud didn't rape?

SexyTractor wrote:

Too loud didn't rape?

bound and gag them foo

Gorgonite wrote:

tldr

Too Long Didn't Read...

Learn to internet Corey.

XT-002 Deconstructor will no longer cast Light Bomb or Gravity Bomb while channeling Tympanic Tantrum.

You better thank jesus you didn't fight her when she did that.