Project Lore

It's amazing how time flies! With a new dungeon on the horizon and boss testing already underway, I figured I better get my ass in gear on these second looks! It's been a few weeks since the first article, which covered the Siege area of the dungeon, and I feel like I've gotten a lot more experience with the three fights that make up the Antechamber: Iron Council, Kologarn, and Auriaya. Though the Algalon encounter is technically in this area, it cannot be accessed until after Yogg-Saron, so it will be included in a later second look. Let's move right along, shall we? The Iron Council - I won't lie. I wasn't exactly happy when we made a detour from Kologarn in a raid earlier this week to go pick a fight with the Iron Council first. It's not that it's an especially tough encounter, at least not if you follow the prescribed sequence of Steelbreaker -> Molgeim -> Brundir, but there are just so many easy ways for it to spin out of control. Tanks get their face smashed in by a Fusion Punch, or forget to move Steelbreaker out of the Rune of Power quick enough. People forget to remove the debuff from the tank. Or, maybe, the group in the back lacks the means or forgets to interrupt Brundir's Lightning Whirl. The Iron Council - Steelbreaker, Molgeim, and Brundir A second's misjudgement on the part of the tank, or those that are directly supporting him, can lead to sudden and plentiful wipes, quickly wearing down the raid's morale. And so it is, that whenever we attempt this fight, we almost always get through it, but not before racking up a few losses. One-shots of the Iron Council have been rare for my guild, no matter how experienced with the encounter the players involved may be. As a rogue, there's damage to avoid, but not a whole lot to contribute until interrupts are needed for Brundir in the final phase. Typically, at that point, the fight is already won. The hardest part of the Iron Council is the first third, when resources are spread thin and you have to account for all three generals at once. So how does this fight measure up to my expectations? Honestly, they were pretty spot on. Adds are one thing, but any encounter where you have to control several boss characters at once is going to have consistent challenges to meet (see: High King Maulgar or Fathom-Lord Karathress, both from Burning Crusade). Just as well, it seems that very few guilds have completed this encounter on the hardest difficulty (by killing Steelbreaker last). Why don't we move on to something a little more palatable? Kologarn - Oh, man. Kologarn looked so imposing when we first saw him. He's even the guy that Brann Bronzebeard is running away from the Ulduar preview video. A colossal golem, and a gatekeeper mob at that. He's got to be a pain in the rear, right? Nope. Kologarn in all of his massive glory. This. Guy. Is. A. Pushover. He gets points for looking cool, and he can push some heavy, periodic damage with his Shockwave ability, but other than that, Kologarn is a total piece of cake. Especially on 10-man, where you don't really have to rotate tanks, just keep one on the sidelines to pick up the rubble that spawns when you kill his arm. It's been quite awhile since my guild has wiped on Kologarn and its rare that anyone dies during the fight (only when they idle in the eye beams too long or accidentally fall into the gap). It's not really an issue for ranged attackers, but the only problem I've encountered as a melee dps is that the Rubble that spawns from a smashed arm can dish out a really nasty AoE. Avoid the beams, kill the right arm (four times should be enough), keep your healing steady, and this fight is a piece of cake. Auriaya - We've nicknamed her the Crazy Cat Lady. This fight is painfully simple, perhaps even more so than Kologarn, if (and this is a big if) you can handle the pull. It's dependent on having some really skilled tanks, and even though my guild does, we've still had trouble with engagement. The most typical strategy I've seen is to have most of your raid sit around the corner (down the stairs from Kologarn), and let the tanks stand just out of the line of sight until she gets into melee range. It may be prudent to have a Shaman drop a totem further up to actually pull Auriaya and give your meat shields a little bit more time to react. Her panther adds will immediately pounce the closest aggro targets, which (if we do it wrong) seem to be healers most of the time. The Crazy Cat Lady! To reduce this, I've found it a good idea to have the tanks time their damage reduction cooldowns just right so that they can survive the initial assault presumably without the help of healers. If you get past that point, the encounter is terribly facile. Train everyone to stand in front of her (as opposed to far away or behind her) and dish out the damage. If you're doing this fight on 10-man, you may not even kill the Feral Defender that she summons. Should that happen, simply avoid the large (and very obvious) void zone it leaves behind. AoEs are handy for the smaller adds, but they are not a primary concern. Conclusion - The Antechamber is heavy on quick tank kills, but if your guild has the chops to survive those, it's arguably the easiest section of Ulduar. What may slow you down is exhaustion more than anything. By the time we get to Auriaya, it's usually the end of our first night in the dungeon, people are tired and not nearly as focused as they were in the beginning. This makes managing the pull even tougher than normal because people aren't on their "A-game." It makes a good stopping point, though, because even if you have the energy after killing the Cat Lady, this is where things get real. Ulduar up until this point, believe it or not, has been a cakewalk. The four Guardians, and what lay beyond them, require deeper, more pointed strategies, so its better to tackle them after a good night's rest! I'll be covering the Guardians (Hodir, Thorim, Freya, and Mimiron) in the next edition of the Second Look, and I have to admit that it's my favorite part of the dungeon. There's some good eye candy and dynamic fights to look forward to, not to mention it's the most lore-centric section of Ulduar. All four of these bosses you've met or been involved with while leveling up in Northrend! Meanwhile, I want to hear what the rest of you thought about these fights and the Antechamber in general. Too easy, too hard? Has your guild also been thwarted by the tough pulls or is it smooth sailing all the way through? If Ulduar was an epic trilogy, would this be your Empire Strikes Back? Please let me know in the comments section!

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My guild took down Mimiron last week, knocking off the last of the Keepers of Ulduar. It was an exciting kill that took a fair amount of coordination and strategy adjustment. Touted as one of the most challenging bosses in the instance, Mimiron is a complicated encounter, but it shouldn't roadblock a well-prepared guild. When bosses have multiple distinct phases, like Mimiron, they tend to develop a reputation for being extremely difficult. Images of Kael'thas or Illidan begin to cross players' minds. Sometimes players can build these bosses up and place them on pedestals to the point that it actually makes them harder. Is this a tough fight? Yes, I would agree that Mimiron is probably more complex than almost anything we've seen in WotLK up until this point. (I haven't had the pleasure to attempt Yogg-Saron, yet.) However, my "medium-core" guild bested the clockwork gnome and his inventions on the third night of attempts and claimed his incredibly yummy trinket, Pandora's Plea. As a raid leader, I have found the best way to combat encounters like this is to treat each phase as a separate mini-boss. Explain the first phase of the fight to the raid, give out assignments and then go. It's better to get an attempt under your belt before you lose your audience to napping and afk runs for Pop Tarts. While running back after a wipe, go over what you observed and tweak your strategy. The more familiar your raid is with the fight, the better you will do, so make sure you are spending more time fighting the boss, than talking about it. When you make it to phase 2, or know you are close, then go over the basic strategy for the next phase. Rinse and repeat. Make sure your raid members have all read the boss strategies and watched movies of the boss in advance of the attempts. Do not underestimate the importance of having a well-prepared raid. Sure you're going to go over the fight, but it's better to have 25 people with ideas, than relying on one raid leader. On the other hand, written strategies and movies are only going to get you so far. On complex encounters it's the adjustments you make to the basic strategy that will determine your success. Every raid is different and will have different strengths and weaknesses that you must cater to in order to succeed. Here are some of the adjustments and tweaks my guild had to make in order to get this boss down. As I mentioned, every raid is different and some suggestions may have value to you and some may not. These are some of the things that worked for us and perhaps they can help you too. If you don't know the basic strategy for this fight, please click here first, as these tips assume you already know the basic strategy. Phase 1: Leviathan MKII

• When the melee and tank run away from the boss to avoid shock blast, don't run too far. There are three stripes on the ground with circles in them, which divide the room. If the boss is positioned in the center of the room, you only need to run to the second circle on the ground. If the tank is running too far, the boss will get out of position and possibly lay a set of proximity mines too close to the casters and healers.
• The plasma blasts deal an insane amount of damage. Even with a proper cooldown rotation established, all of the healers need to be focused on keeping the tank alive. Every healer that is assigned to use cooldowns on the tank, such as pain suppression, guardian spirit or hand of sacrifice should have another healer near them in case they get hit with a napalm shell at an inopportune moment.
• Your raid members should know their jobs and what to do, however, having someone diligently calling out things over ventrilo can help your raid stay alive. Giving your group a few second warning on shock blast and plasma blast, can make a difference when you're learning the fight.

Phase 2: VX-001 Anti-personnel Assault Cannon

• We tried having the melee constantly rotating around the boss to avoid rapid bursts, but it didn't work well for us. So we assigned everyone a specific place to stand. The room has three stripes on the floor, which divide the rest of the room into wedges. The positioning we ended up with was dividing the ranged and healers into three groups and assigning each a wedge to stand in. The melee was also divided into three groups and each group was assigned a stripe to stand on. The rapid bursts would then have six distinct targets to choose from and each time the damage would only be hitting 3-4 raid members at a time.
• Have someone watch the back of the VX-001 and call out when they see the rockets launching, so the ranged classes can avoid them. They do five million damage to those that get hit! Fortunately, as of patch 3.1.3, the rockets don't seem to target the melee anymore. Someone should also call out when they see the boss casting spinning up, which will lead to laser barrage. Everyone needs to run around clockwise to avoid getting hit by this.

Phase 3: Aerial Command Unit (ACU)

• Everyone should group up on one side and be as close to the outer walls as possible. The ranged DPS tank for the Aerial Command Unit needs to make sure it is positioned well away from the raid, but it also cannot be directly in the center of the room. We found that the magnetic cores had trouble rooting the ACU when he was positioned in the center. If the ACU gets too close to the raid, it will drop bomb bots directly on top of them.
• The bomb bots can be dealt with by having one death knight using the following macro:

/target bomb bot /cast chains of ice

• When a bomb bot spawns, call for ranged DPS to kill it and the death knight can keep it place by hitting the macro. If a bomb ever gets to close to the raid, the death knight can Death Grip it away from them.
• The raids in our guild usually have a lot of melee DPS in them. We found that saving two magnetic cores and using them in immediate succession allowed for more DPS on the ACU and less running back and forth. You have to be cautious with this strategy, however. After you loot a magnetic core, it only lasts in your inventory for one minute. So I recommend leaving the cores on the assault bots' corpses until you are ready to root the ACU.

Phase 4: V-07-TR-0N

• Phase 4 can be a chaotic mess and all three parts of the gnomish Voltron need to be killed within 10 seconds of each other, otherwise they respawn. We had everyone go back to their assigned positions from phase 2. We asked all of our ranged DPS to focus on the ACU (head) and the melee DPS to focus on the Leviathan MKII (feet). We had them DPS those parts down to around 12% health and then focus on the VX-001 (middle). Once all three sections were around 12% health, we had folks assigned to DPS all three pieces and we coordinated their death over vent.
• The shock blast in phase 4 can be interrupted by the Laser Barrage spin. The shock blast graphic will flicker for a moment and then stop while the laser barrage spin is cast. Be careful! If this happens, as soon as the laser barrage is over, the shock blast will cast and blow up anyone in melee range. If you see this, call it out on vent and have your melee and tanks stay away until after the shock blast goes off.

I hope some of this information proves useful to you and your guilds, as you attempt this unique encounter. Feel free to post your own suggestions for this encounter or ask any questions you may have as well. If these suggestions help you make progress, please come back and let us know!

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