Strategy Highlights

[abinning]

Ulduar Strategy Highlights Thread

This is intended to be a quick list of the important points of a fight a raid leader needs to mention.
It will also serve the average raider by telling you what you need to pay the most attention to. I will update this as I progress, and as this awesome community directs me. So if you think I should add a critical point, or remove one, or re-word one, tell me. I just might do it.

Most of what I currently have looked at is from wowwiki.com, wowraid.com, tankspot.com and here.

#1 Northrend Beasts

• Gormok the Impaler:
  
  1. Spread out (8-10yds). Ranged/Healers stay 20yds away from him.
     
  2. 2 tanks rotate taunts after 3 Impales (watch your debuffs)
     
  3. DPS on the snobolds (melee only get if its on a melee)
     
  4. Stay out of fire.
     
  5. Disarm Gormok.
     
• Dreadscale & Acidmaw:
  
  1. Assign a tank to stick with each Jormungar.
     
  2. Spread out.
     
  3. Kite the mobile worm to avoid poison cloud.
     
  4. Burn Acidmaw first
     
  5. If you get Paralytic toxin run to someone with Burning Bile (Dreadscale tank)
     
  6. If Acid maw is stationary a raid member must run to the tank to remove his toxin.
     
• Icehowl:
  
  1. Spread out.
     
  2. Ranged/Healers stay 20yds away.
     
  3. After a massive crash (knocks you to the wall) Look which direction he is facing (or who he is targeting). RUN AWAY.
     
  4. DO NOT GET HIT BY THE CHARGE. (you will have a speed buff)
     
  5. A Ret paladin with Divine Purpose may Cast hand of freedom (remove the stun) on the Breath target to end the breath.( or mageblink out of it)
     

#2 Lord JaraxxusHeroic/hard mode info by Belloc

1. Dispel/Steal Nether Power often
2. Interrupt Fel Fireball
3. Spread out . (fel lightning, curse of the nether)
4. Incinerate Flesh Must be healed off QUICKLY (60,000).
5. Legion Flame, Do not stand in it. But move slowy, and don't run over other people. (imps & fire come out your butt)
6. Portals & Volcanos do AoE damage, Stay away.
7. OT pick up any adds (mistress/infernal)
8. Ranged DPS focus adds
9. If a floating green ball comes after you, RUN AWAY

#3 Faction Champions

1. Get your PvP skills (and trinket) ready =P
2. Focus Healers, purge dispel like crazy on focus. (priest>druid>shaman>paladin banish druid?)
3. CC as many as you can while burning healers (distraction works:disarm,hamstring,stun,etc )
4. BL/Heroism as soon as people start doing damage.
5. You do not need a tank, but they may be useful.

#4 Twin Val'kyr

1. Split in 2 groups (melee/ranged&healers), click the portal/well to acquire essence(light/dark)
2. Dark Group on Lightbane, Light Group on Darkbane.
3. Tank them between 2 portals (nearer a light portal).
4. Ranged healers stand next to a dark portal if you are light. (spread out a little)
5. Vortex: Change color to match the val'kyr casting it to absorb the damage.
6. Twin's Pact: Burn the shield, Interrupt the heal after the shield is down
7. Orbs: (6yds AoE) Grab same colored, dodge opposite colored (buff or damage)
8. Do not go chasing orbs, stay near your groups.

#5 Anub'Arak

Above Ground

1. Shoot down frost spheres to drop permafrost.
   
2. Burn adds on Permafrost to keep them from burrowing and healing full. (stunnable)
3. Burn one add while he is up, burn the other when he goes down
Burrowed

1. Drop more permafrost
2. AoE/Burn the adds.
3. Spread out, Stay behind/near permafrost. (spikes can not go through it, but will destroy it)
4. Kite his spikes through permafrost when he targets you. (5 hits on permafrost will end the burrow phase)
5. FoK with anesthetic poison for the swarm enrage.
Below 30%

1. Leaching Swarm: cast @ 30% health, leaches 10-20% health from entire raid (based on current health).
2. Keep raid at 30-40% to minimize leach, keep tanks topped.
3. Blow ALL CDs and Bloodlust/Heroism

[Joanadark]

Anub'Arak info is completely wrong.

[Kelaan]

Would you be so kind as to give an improved six or eight line synopsis of Anub'Arak, in the same bullet-point style?

[Belloc]

-Tank adds on permafrost -- it prevents THEM from burrowing
-Leeching Swarm drains 20% of current health every second for a short period. Counter this by not healing your raiders past 40% and giving them power word shields. Bam, no damage taken at all. This should be a late phase ability.
-When Anub is burrowed, spread out and avoid his spikes. He'll unburrow if he doesn't hit anybody (I believe).

I have to leave work, so I'm going to stop there.

[Mogget]

-Keep enough permafrost down
-Tank adds on the permafrost
-Kite the Pursuing spikes over the permafrost
-Don't try to heal through the leeching swarm, only heal the tanks

[abinning]

Yeah, i spent about 2 minutes on anub'arak, figured it would be all wrong.
I'll update tomorrow with info.

Thanks for the help guys.

[abinning]

Ok, I spent some time on Anub'Arak. He should be done.

[Belloc]

I haven't heard anyone confirm that permafrost can ever prevent Anub from burrowing, even if he's perfectly positioned. Where did you get that info, and is there evidence?

[Joanadark]

unless they changed it from PTR i can 100% confirm permafrost does NOT stop him burrowing. It would be stupid if it did.

I did a detailed write up on AnubArak a while back. The thread is somewhere in the general forum.
edit:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=24683&hilit=Anub&start=30

[abinning]

@Belloc
I pulled it from tankspot. I do not yet know if it is accurate, but we will soon find out =P
Unfortunately I will be too busy to raid this week, but I am sure someone here will try it and let us know.

[Belloc]

Since I don't want to make a full thread, here is some Jaraxxus hard mode info (10-man).

Nether Portals and Infernal Volcanoes are NPCs now. They will continue spawning adds until they are killed. They have about 150k health in 10-man. You will want to cycle your dps cooldowns to handle these. Start with personal cooldowns (trinkets) for the first nether portal. With enough DPS, one add will come out. If you get two, you're not ready for this fight. Use heroism on the first infernal volcano. I'll explain why in a bit. Use personal cooldowns again on the second nether portal. Use whatever you have on the 2nd infernal volcano.

Infernals can no longer be stunned or interrupted, and that sucks. Most of our deaths resulted from the infernals channeling their AOE. Get the eff away from them and kill them fast. Better yet, kill the volcano fast so that you don't get 3-4 adds. Shoot for two adds, but 3 can be manageable if you don't eat too much AOE. And, yes, everyone has to kill infernal adds.

Maiden's interrupt debuff sucks, so pay attention to it. Paladins, bubble it off. Priest healers, I hope you have a shadow spell with a cast bar so that you won't lock out your holy school. Alternatively, only cast instants. Shaman healers, cast lava burst. Druids, cast starfire (or just cast nothing but your instant HoTs).

The AOE DoT that was mentioned in the other thread... I never saw. Either we were spread well, or it doesn't happen on 10 man. Watch out, just in case.

Interrupts are important, but not all that much. Even with a 5 stack of nether power buffs, a fel fireball didn't scare me. Just cleanse the dot and hope your interrupter gets back soon. Do make sure to purge and dispel the stacks, though, because fel lightning SUCKS with everything else going on.


Best of luck!

[Nemi]

Any info on how much more you need to heal the person with the incenerate flesh debuff? I think this is why we failed this week on jaraxxus.

[Belloc]

Any info on how much more you need to heal the person with the incenerate flesh debuff? I think this is why we failed this week on jaraxxus.

According to Wowwiki.com:

10-man normal: 30,000
10-man heroic : 40,000

25-man normal: 60,000
25-man heroic : 85,000

[Nemi]

good stuff thanks belloc

[Arcia]

Just some small tips for Icehowl.

Mark your healers so they can be 100% sure that his breath attack wont hit more then 1 of them.
We used 3 healers for our 10 man kill and if 2 healers got hit by the breath people died, so make sure they spread out.
Also, in the heroic version you wont get the speed buff when he charges so you really have to move fast.
Just run straight to either side and you'll make it, just make sure you dont run into one of the pillars in the wall.

Edit: Also, the individual bosses in the northrend beasts encounter will come into the arena on a certain time.
This means that if your dps is to low the jormungars will enter the arena before gormok is dead and that icehowl may enter the arena before the jormungars are dead.
If your having problems beating the timer it may be needed to use bloodlust on gormok just to get a head start.