Ulduar has burst onto the scene and continues Blizzard’s new plan of ‘easy mode/hardmode’ fights. Almost all of the fights can be done multiple ways - some like Sarth with ‘adds’ which can be left alive and some like the Bug Trio where the order you kill them increases the complexity of the fight.

The first week has been a flurry of activity with new bosses coming out of the woodwork and the guild progressing through them. Of course the temptation is to burn through on easy modes but we have taken some efforts to ensure that we lay the groundwork for the more challenging achievements. While killing things in their “basic” level is nothing to be mocked Blizzard have clearly designed these fights to allow raid guilds the option of challenging themselves and not settling for a basic or zerg kill. Over the coming weeks and months you will see us tackle and defeat these obstacles.

Flame Leviathan is a very nice opening boss, the Sarth of Ulduar. Utterly puggable and totally zergable without any towers up the encounter promises more with the added defenses still working and should in time provide a worthy encounter for those looking to test themselves. Vehicle encounters seem to be one way the game will be kept alive in the future and this fight shows that it can work and also provides a nice break from having X tanks and X healers. Still drunk from the the heady combination of zooming round on bikes and incinerating dwarfs in patches of burning oil we ran headlong into a (towerless) Flame Leviathan and, well, squashed him. We are sure next week with when we allow him to keep some of his defenses he’ll be a bigger challenge.

As we progressed deeper in we turned left (possibly for nostalgia reasons and the sight of Molten Giants or possibly because I wanted to come up against an encounter which would challenge us). Ignis had retained an annoying bug from his testing leading to him occasionally meleeing people while charging (with terminal effects) and some teething problems with his overall damage and stacks meant this encounter was a massive challenge after poor little Flamey. The temptation to hope he was nerfed in order to kill him was present but instead we decided to perservere and see where that got us. After getting battered about a bit and watching the tanks take consequtive 40k hits we retired for the night determined to return the following day and see what we could do about that. With some planning and raid rejigging we arrived refreshed and set about dispatching him. It was refreshing to come up against a hard boss, and one which requires a little tuning to make it accessible for others. I understand hotfixes took place over the weekend so next week we are hoping he is a little friendlier.

Along the way we picked up our first serious achievement of the new instance. EU 9th!

The decision was made to make a pull of Razorscale to see how the fight went and hone our tactics before killing him, unfortunately he accidently died in the process. Blizzard seem to have given a number of entertaining options for this fight in order to keep it interesting so we will see how that works out in the future. Again an innovative design for the fight keeps things interesting but he could certainly do with a tighter enrage or some more tricks. Of course the amusement of having the melee whirlwinded to death keeps things fresh.

Happy Robot was next and provided the first example of a movement fight which was clearly a wake up call for us. Excelling at these fights as we always do we spent a few tries sucking people with light bomb into the raid to give the healers a good workout as the people with lightbomb ran 3 yards and the people with gravity bomb didn’t move at all. Given the entertainment given by his voice a few wipes were not altogether demoralizing and despite our ability to allow him to heal with his scrapbots he collapsed into a heap of junk. Again a deliberate hard mode has been made available ensuring the fight remains challenging for some time to come.

One thing which is immediately noticeable about the trash in Ulduar is that it is thankfully sparse but that they seem to have made attempts to remove unavoidable deaths. The trash is a little tough and on the first pulls almost certainly causes a few wipes here and there but once learnt it is easy to pull and dispatch. The trash to Ignis is fast becoming a favourite due to the ability to pull the flame cones over afk/slacking people. After Happy Robot another choice awaited us (after the few trash pulls) and we again headed left towards the Council. These type of fights are my favourite, while never the hardest I have always enjoyed the multiple mob encounters - working out the pull the placement and the kill order. Over the years a few have been made starting with Sully in MC and peaking with the Bug Trio in AQ40. While Maulgar and Fathom Lord also had multiple mobs they never reached the level of interest the bugs had due to the potentially different difficulties and kill orders. The council continues this trend - giving a multitude of choices within the same fight. A throughly enjoyable encounter we enjoyed the growth of their abilities and look forward to defeating the harder combinations. Sadly the encounter was marred by nothing exciting happening when you click on the control panel - most people were secretly hoping lazer beams would spawn above the mages and char grill them.

Onwards and upwards we went towards ‘Arm Dude’. After a brief debate about which was the right arm and which was the left arm (our class channels are so full of win) it was time to progress beyond him. The Stone Grip presented some issues but all in all the fight simply relied on people being awake and learning not to kill others with the eye beams. Owner of one of the best kill phrases about, it took only a few moments for people to find (and overuse) the audio file. His corpse broke apart to make the bridge our ret paladins (I have been told calling them retardins is unfair) decided that they wanted to see what was at the bottom if the chasm and one promptly left into mid air triggering bubble as he went his death was met with much mirth but not nearly as much as the second one who launched himself off the second the first one died and followed him down into the depths (am i allowed to refer to them as retardins now?). A few trash mobs and then Crazy Cat Lady stood before us.

This fight was an excellent example of having to learn how to cope with the first 10 seconds of the fight. After some ideas we tried some more, some less sane and some more sane. We died a few times and then a few more, each time learning a bit more about the encounter and how to optimise our chances of success. While to some a few hours of dying on this might seem bad it was actually very enjoyable, watching people come up with suggestions, investigating their classes abilities and potential and then carrying some of them through to fruition. While we were credited with the achievement for this kill it was a bug and not something we deserved.

A four night adventure into Ulduar has left a good feeling, a feeling that with their hard modes these encounters will provide a decent challenge and that player skill will once again matter. A raid instance is not something you should be able to walk into in a pug with a character that dinged 80 a few hours ago and have a vague inkling of how to play. Unfortunately Naxx is that place and 3 wings have almost no gear or skill requirement. While Flamey may be easily puggable it is doubtful that any more than the first 3 are killable without people having gear and a brain. Once the raiding guilds start to work on the hard modes we will see how challenging they are - but at the moment it is alooking hopeful.

While some people are achiving goals through raiding it is important to note that others are looking for validation in other ways and aiming to fulfil other goals.

Now Ulduar has come out the once proud AQ40 will once again be left in peace after being 5 manned, Skeram providing the largest challenge in the instance, although the twins made an effort to be tricky as well. It was also an excellent place to  make a giant bug train………..

A shocking secret was discovered on the last day in March about our so called main tank. Seems like someone was slacking……….

And finally after a night out the ultimate prize was achieved by one lucky guild member….

Recruitment remains open primarily for a dps deathknight, a hunter and a healer (resto druid/paladin preferred). Please see the recruitment forums for other opportunties. You must be ready to intergrate into a raiding guild which will raid 5 days a week until the hard mode bosses have been vanquished. You will be expected to know your class and it’s ablities when asked about them and have a good understanding of good raiding practice. Your application is partially based on your talents, gear and achievements so please ensure you give a link to your character in the relevant spec/gear.