Raiders Rejoice, Ulduar Is Hard!
Bastosa on Friday, April 17, 2009 - 35 Comments Tags: Ulduar, difficulty, hard, hard mode, ignis, raiding, razorscale, xt-002, yogg-saron 
Yes, I know it’s popular for everyone to want to get easy loot off of easy bosses, but not everyone feels that way. I personally love a challenge, and I know I am far from alone.
It is for this reason that Naxx was somewhat disappointing to me, I know it was their plan to make the first tier of raiding accessible, but after farming for months on end, I feel it got somewhat mind-numbing.
It is for that reason I was fairly nervous going into Ulduar the first time yesterday. While I knew it would be harder, I was concerned that it too would quickly become another boring farm grind. I was really hoping they would give a challenge.
Man, did I get my wish! Ladies and gentleman, I am happy to report the bosses in Ulduar are SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult that those in tier 7, and even harder than I had ever expected. Now I’m sure there are those among you that will disagree, no doubt some of you crazies out there went in and demolished the place, I even saw that Ensidia has downed Yogg-Saron. But for me, I’m pretty confident this content will keep me busy for a while.
My guild was able to make quick work of Flame Leviathan (one shot, dare I say he was easy? :p), but man did things take a turn after that. Ingis was incredibly challenging, and after a few hours of diligently wiping we moved on the both of the other bosses that are available after Leviathan goes down. While both Razorscale and XT-002 seemed much more manageable, we were unable to down either of them. I’m feeling pretty good that at least one of these guys will be going down tonight, but I am just thrilled at the new mindset this has put me in.
No longer do I expect to clear half the instance in a day, I don’t even know if we can clear half the instance in a month! Ulduar is a challenge, and we haven’t even hit the hard modes yet. I couldn’t be more excited for the level of difficulty lying ahead of us.
How are you guys doing in there? More importantly, how do you find the difficulty? Are you guys knocking down bosses because it is too easy, or are you hitting your head against a wall because it is too hard? I’d love to hear your experiences.
Reader Comments (35)
By kstroud89 on Friday, April 17th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
"I don’t expect to ever see this content for myself. I’m a casual player and have raided Kara only once and AQ40 only once. I hope that maybe when I get to 80 and do a couple heroics, I’ll be able to join a Naxx pug and hit a few bosses. Does anyone think I’ll be easy to do once everyone is in Uldaur gear?"
This poster echoes my words almost exactly. I am still doing my best to gear up for 10-mans via heroics. By the time I am geared enough to actually attempt something like Ulduar, I have a feeling that Blizz will screw over us casual players by throwing in yet ANOTHER new raid that outstrips Ulduar.
It almost seems that Blizzard hates the casual players. They are constantly adding new content (or so it seems sometimes) and the casual players just can't keep up with it. The only reason I got to see all of the dungeons is because at 70 I went back and cleared all of the ones I missed in classic, then did the same for Outland just yesterday.
IMO, there should be an achievement for getting all the dungeonmaster quests. Some sort of meta-achievement or something.
@Xian
Are you kidding me?
They nerfed the levelling process. They made sure that every WotLK raid has a 10 and 25 man version so that smaller, more casual guilds can experience the content.
They made Naxx extremely easy in order to introduce raiding to many people. They also brought out hard modes with extra loot and achievements for those that deem themselves more "hardcore".
If anything, Blizzard are catering for the casual player.
Just because they release new content, doesn't mean they wipe the old content away.
Hell, you can still raid Onyxia if you so wish.
There's nothing stopping you running Naxx 25 and 10 man when the top raiding guilds are running Ulduar or whatever follows.
Quit your whining and stop blaming Blizzard for you, or your guilds dedication in the game. If anything, they're making it far easier for you to experience the content.
First off, I have to give props to Blizzard; Ulduar is truly an amazing raid. It is quite difficult, especially on Heroic, but it's frustratingly fun.
I do not believe that Ulduar will be puggable, seeing as it takes quite a bit of coordination among members, and you MUST know what is going on around you.
i beat dorkins yesterday in one of those mounted duels.
was cool to beat a celebrity.
Our guild mainly focuses on 25 man content. We 2-shotted Flame Leviahtan (1st try was hard mode by accident xD)
Wiped on Ignis cos of the bugs, moved to razorscale, closest we got him was 57% before enrage, day after we went back and 1 shotted Razorscale for the Horde first (our server isn't THAT heavy on progress ;p )
Moved on to Deconstructor, wiped again and got hm the day after. Got in a few tries on Kologarn, but since it was getting late and ppl were getting tired we called it. Next raid is monday, so Kolo will go down this time :D
I am also glad that Ulduar isn't a loot pinata like naxx was. I've actually tanked fights with my eyes closed, got up while tanking and grabbed a drink, etc. With Ulduar we've only gotten Flame Leviathan down and only took two attempts (played my wife's mage not my paly since I needed a new game card) but went in with a pug on my paly and they couldn't get him down.
Last night I went in to tank Razorscale and that was the most fun I have had raiding since wrath came out. It was an extremely fun fight and not easy in the least. We hit the enrage timer, which was progress since we were able to heal through it all. Our issue was only one ranged DPS so it took so long to get DPS moved around, but still did very well imo. A few more ranged rather than some of the melee and we'd have him.
I know a lot of people are seeing that top ranked guilds are already beating Yogg, but as Blizzard has stated, though Yogg is the "last boss" in the instance, it's not considered fully cleared till Algalon is down which will take multiple clears to Yogg to unlock. There have been ppl saying that Ulduar is too easy since guilds are downing Yogg, but the people getting these kills aren't the ones saying it. They seem to love the encounters and are having fun fighting them.
i am glad ulduar is hard, it will be nice to make a split again between raiders and everyone else
Yeah Flame Leviathan and the vehicle combat up to it are fun and easy once people know what they are doing. He's pretty much a loot pinata. After that though all but the hardcore raiding guilds are going to have a rough time. We haven't even looked at Razorscale or Ignus yet because we knew they were tougher encounters than XT-002. We've gotten XT-002 down in 10-man, it's just organizing 25 people that's turning out to be rougher. I for one am glad that it's not a cakewalk, but I know a lot of more casual raiders aren't going to like it... It's certainly a nice change from auto-piloting through Naxx, Sarth, Arch and Maly every week.
Im soo happy that the trash has tacts again :D so far on 25-man were up to XT but on 10man where i have made most of my progress we have go upto Freya her trash is THE!! most challengeing trash in Wrath to-date and such great trash it is allso must fo spent at least 1 hour clearing out the trash and the elders to get to Freya would maybe like to try Hordi tonight tho
my guild keeps wiping on deconstructor 25 man about 33 wipes according to DBM but im still having fun XD