Ulduar Strategy Notepad

[Kulldam]

Need somewhere to jot my ideas and notes down and figured here as good as any before I forget.

I Choose You, Runemaster Molgeim

• Big Guy first, little guy second
• Four large circular patterns on floor look about the right size to use for positions vs. Molgeim
• One caster+healer at each of four tips, melee in center with Molgeim. Rune of Death spawn should be small enough to only affect the one point out of the five. The other four points can stay in-place and continue DPS/healing. Players in the targeted point simply move to the side to join an adjacent point.
• Elemental Spawn portals spawn at a player-marked point, just like Rune of Death. Upon spawn, five seconds or so until elems pop. If elem portal spawns under point, those players move and AE begins on elem spawn point. May need frost trap or Blizzard-specced mage for snare, as explode on impact with another player (and death?)

Dwarfaggedon

• Tested earlier this morning on Druid, took a few minutes to solo. ANYONE READING THIS -- PLEASE DO NOT GO SOLO THIS, WAIT FOR OUR RAID WEDNESDAY SO WE GET GUILD CREDIT

Firefighter

• Utilize the walls and the space -- the raid should act like they're playing Snake, where you're dragging your tail behind you and want to utilize as much of the space as possible.
• Stick against walls whenever possible, especially between phases. Bunch up raid and rotate together as each set of flame spawns occur.
• Three spawns between phase 1/2 (three between 2/3 and 3/4?)
• Flames have a 'head' just like Snake and chase nearest player. Can be led if player nearest moves every couple seconds.
• Most of fight is similar to normal otherwise

Rubble and Roll

• Kill arms in back and forth manner, never DPS the body until at least five arms and adds have been killed.

Lumberjacked

• 2 tanks/3 healers
• Send entire raid to first Elder (probably front guy first). Stop DPS at 10-15% and let the tank and one healer stay behind.
• Rest of raid engages second Elder (stunning guy, back-right). Stop at 10-15% as well.
• Lastly, first tank/healer team move with raid to back-left elder and engage with raid (8 total). Once 10% health, second-elder team brings Elder into melee range and raid AEs them down.
• May require 3 tank/3 healer setup if damage is too high on first/third tank, though will have two healers when tanking two elders.

Orbital Bombardment and the like

• Tower of Storms seems easiest, as the buff to Flame Leviathan is only 25% physical damage which should never be a factor.
• Tower of Flames second, increases flame damage from his AE so interrupts must be quick.
• Unknown between Frost and Nature. Depends on adds from Nature, will have to test.

Heartbreaker

• Ranged/Healers all stack up ~15-20 yards from XT.
• Tank XT perpendicular to the ranged/healer group with melee stacked in back. One druid healer in each group (one ranged and one melee) for Wild Growth during Tantrum.
• Member targetted with Light Bomb immediately runs out of assigned position and goes behind the MT ~10-15 yards (i.e. West) and waits at smoke-marked position. As soon as their Light Bomb expires, member runs back to position as the Life Spark spawns and agroes the raid (generally a healer).
• Ranged DPS immediately attack the Spark (/target Life Spark on primary nuke/attack macro). Earthbind totem/frost trap placed just behind the tank to slow the Spark as it runs toward the ranged/healer group.
• If DPS is too low and it threatens to get close, MT taunts the Spark back toward him to allow extra time to finish it off.
• Repeat for each Light Bomb.
• Member Targetted with Gravity Bomb immediately runs to assigned area to the East, ~25-30 yards away from the ranged group and waits for debuff to expire, causing an explosion. Deals decent damage to targetted player but won't hit anyone else. Leaves a void zone upon detonation, therefore players should stand near the edge of an existing void zone when waiting for expiration of their Gravity Bomb debuff.

Stokin' the Furnace

• Best recorded kill time for Ignis is 4:22, thus 22 seconds short.
• May try tanking him in water, removing the need to move him at all. Should increase DPS a fair amount.
• Can also try single-tanking, having Ignis tank pickup adds and giving us either 7 DPS/2 Healer
• Lastly, can single-tank with 7 DPS/2 healer but have MT stand in the fire with each golem spawn. Upon going molten, golem resets agro and runs toward healers, who are standing in water, forcing a molten golem to freeze before engaging anyone.

Crazy Cat Lady

• High avoidance required for both tanks.
• One cat per tank, if bleeds continue to stack, have to swap both cats back and forth. Splitting is ideal, as removes 50% damage bonus.

Who Needs Bloodlust?

• Requires some form of Mind Control - anything other than Priest?

I Could Say That This Cache Is Rare

• Three healers wastes too much DPS; need to practice with two
• Ranged should be in Toasty Fire as much as possible to proc Singed quickly. Ranged DPS should never move out of Toasty Fire except if it despawns or to get onto large rune for freeze.
• We need a fast way to recognize who gets buffed with Storm Power and have that player move to the caster/tasty group if needed.
• Don't break out the Druid or Priest initially, get the Mage and Shaman and let the NPC break the other two.
• Healers should always be in a Starlight beam whenever possible, but especially during Frozen Blows for the 100% haste to allow enough throughput to heal the raid. Ideally we should only see 2 or 3 Frozen Blows phases so mana shouldn't be the issue.

Lose Your Illusion

• Same basic setup for final phase as Sif is not attackable.
• Start with Thorim on Kulldam so Khrashdin can dispel Frost Nova until Taunt/tank is needed. By then, threat from Taunt should be well over DPS and can continue dispelling Frost Nova without worrying about using tank ability every GCD.
• Blizzard roams around room similar to Mage dude in Karazhan. As before, raid should be spread and avoiding lightning bursts from Thorim but also avoid blizzard.
• Thorim's damage is a great deal higher than normal so healing will be very difficult, may require a DPS to help heal during phase (Ugra, Huggey, etc.).
• As phase 3 goes on as Thorim's buff gets higher, cooldown rotation may be helpful. Can Shield Wall > Divine Sacrifice a two-string set of Unbalancing Strikes near the end if needed.

Knock, Knock, Knock on Wood

• The Elders don't attack during the fight, but give Freya an ability and increase damage/health of Freya and her adds.
• In total, with all three Elders, all damage (physical and magic) increased by 50-75% from all sources.
• Freya will cast the single-target root that is attackable and must be quickly killed (/target Iron Roots for DPS)
• Freya casts Ground Tremor, raid-wide interrupt similar to Ignis so casters must use a focus to watch for the cast.
• Freya casts Solar Flare, a beam that deals damage over time to anyone inside. Best to constantly move positions anytime that graphic appears.
• Otherwise, fight remains the same. Due to increased damage, important to interrupt the three-spawn adds and not get meleed by the kited add.

General Vezax

• Try stacking ranged at single point. Everyone runs out on crash and mark target runs out alone mark always right, crash always left or something.
• All ranged can use crash.
• Hard mode have healers out of melee range and move General on top of Shadow Crash cloud so all casters and melee can use black puddle.

[Khrash]

On "Knock, Knock, Knock on Wood"

"Freya casts Ground Tremor, raid-wide interrupt similar to Ignis so casters must use a focus to watch for the cast."

I have Aura Mastery which removes/prevents all interupts/silences. I just need a 2 second warning so I use it.

[Rofldat]

My thoughts(post here mostly for future self-reference):

Orbitals:
Since I've read contradicting posts of whether leaving towers up actually activate the obital defense or deactivate them, but I've seen what they'd look like when they're up in videos, I'd like the group to clear up to Flame Levi area, at which point I can see if we'll need to destroy or not destroy the towers to get it
and I think we can do 2/4 with Thorim/Mimiron up

Stokin' the Furnace
Whichever tank generate better threat on the move should pull, and DPS should start hitting him as soon as possible, while not going over cap while the tank slowly move Ignis into position

Siffed(and possibly Lose Your Illusion)
On first boss have the DPS keep attacking through the shield if the healer's comfortable healing them and tank(I should be able to heal some back with Death Strike, but will need 1-2 heal overall)
Probably have Kinzie start to run to Thorim as soon as the second boss reach 1-2%, with Sprint(which means Khrash or Kull will have to call 2nd phase incoming as soon as the second boss drop)

Rare Cache:
Tank in a corner, because this way the NPCs will have to get near that corner to hit Hodir(so they'll be close to each other)
ranged DPSs should stack up within Toaty Fire and Starlight aura, but such that even if Icicle fall on them, it won't hit Toatsy Fire
-healer should try to get a different Starlight, due to Stormcloud
(alternatively, the ranged DPSs could stand closes to melee, so if mage NPC drop the fire near them it might helps the melee as well)
the person with Stormcloud should run into the stacked range DPS to maximize its benefit

Unbroken
If Kull 'accidently' do normal mode again, we can try it :P

Nine Lives
Doesn't look like anything complicated, similar to Kolo's 25 Rubble and Roll achievement, we'll just have take it slow

Not-So-Friendly Fire
Everyone stack up in one spot(the body's hand blast will hurts like hell) and step back slightly when rocket fires
since it doesn't require Mimiron kill...well, the thought of Mimiron doing a raid wipe with 1 rocket sounds like an amusing experience to laugh about

Smell of Saronite
Have healers stand at range instead of DPSs, every DPSs stay close to Genera
On Shadow Crash, the healer call or it and Tank move General to the position of puddle, the healer who was targeted(and others, if needed) reposition while tank is moving General
AVOID going near Saronite Vapor, Heart Strike cleave accidently killing a vapor will make me sad

Getting Back to Nature
Hope the last 'wave' to spawn is the giant tree guy, then burn Freya down(I'll just have to use Blood Strike to avoid killing the tree)

They're Comin Out The Walls
everyone spawn em as we run in, massive AoEs before they AoEs us to death(any melee in range can expect to get ice block

[Kulldam]

Orbitals:
Since I've read contradicting posts of whether leaving towers up actually activate the obital defense or deactivate them, but I've seen what they'd look like when they're up in videos, I'd like the group to clear up to Flame Levi area, at which point I can see if we'll need to destroy or not destroy the towers to get it
and I think we can do 2/4 with Thorim/Mimiron up

If you talk to the non-dwarf dude to start Hard Mode, it activates all four towers and killing a tower then removes that effect for Flame Leviathan.

Stokin' the Furnace
Whichever tank generate better threat on the move should pull, and DPS should start hitting him as soon as possible, while not going over cap while the tank slowly move Ignis into position

Very good idea as I think he's tauntable so we can swap when needed.

Not-So-Friendly Fire
Everyone stack up in one spot(the body's hand blast will hurts like hell) and step back slightly when rocket fires
since it doesn't require Mimiron kill...well, the thought of Mimiron doing a raid wipe with 1 rocket sounds like an amusing experience to laugh about

There are a few things we can try for this one and see what works. One that is probably the easiest without requiring a "wasted" attempt by using two full-time tanks or what not, is to have you, Rofl, tank the Bot as we enter phase 4 in Frost Presence and wait for a rocket strike on or nearby you, then Chains it as it enters the strike zone which should give you time to get out.

Another possibility is if the Bot is CCable, we could have Bondok trap it frozen and stand on top of the trap and wait for a rocket.

They're Comin Out The Walls
everyone spawn em as we run in, massive AoEs before they AoEs us to death(any melee in range can expect to get ice block

This one is going to require some testing I think, but my guess is we'll want to use 2 or 3 tanks and at least 3 healers so we can handle the damage while we're gathering up the spawns. The volleys are going to be a bitch but maybe if we have Kinzie spec for 3 sec interrupt on Fan of Knives we can interrupt the majority of the volley damage.

[Kulldam]

More notes on I Could Say That This Cache Is Rare

• Paladin/Druid is ideal for healing
• Break out Mage/Shaman/Druid immediately for most up-time on buffs at start and after every Flash Freeze.
• Don't break out the Priest initially, let the Mage do it with her 10-second DoT.
• All ranged DPS should start fight in Toasty Fire to stack Singed quickly (Note: May only apply from spell attacks, need to confirm), then leave one assigned ranged DPS to stay in fire the entire fight to keep the buff going. Important that this person has large debuff indicators for Hodir to see countdown on Singed stack. Usually constantly casting will keep refreshing the stack for assigned Singed player, but it's important to refresh the stack before Flash Freeze so during movement to large rune and getting back into a fire after doesn't allow the stack to drop. Singed lasts 25 seconds, so assume 5 seconds of movement to a large rune before Flash, then 10-15 seconds to break the Mage NPC from block, that should give 5-10 seconds for Singed player to get back into the new Toasty Fire and reapply the stack duration.
• Have assigned "meet up" players when someone gains the Storm Cloud buff. We will raid mark two players (Kilwenn and Kinzie likely). When any particular player gains Storm Cloud, they are to immediately run to one of the two marked players' positions to let others gain Storm Power. If a melee or tank gets Storm Cloud, they move immediately to Kinzie's position and wait for all other melee to get the buff (Storm Cloud will leave the initial target once all four charges are passed on). Likewise, if a ranged DPS or healer gets Storm Cloud, they move immediately to Kilwenn's position as do all other ranged DPS to grab the buff. We'll call out in Vent who gets Storm Cloud so as long as people remember the icon of the player to move to, it should be a quick process to transfer the buff and get back to positions.
• After looking at tons of videos to confirm, Frozen Blows occurs about once every 60 seconds (cooldown must be 60 seconds), so we should see two casts only during the 3 minute achievement since the first is delayed for a while into the fight. The first one we'll have Khrash use Aura Mastery which will give the raid 260 Frost Resist for half the duration, which should cut down on the raid damage a great deal (and give me near 500 Frost Resist, making my incoming damage near-negligable for the first Frozen Blows). We'll also put Wildhide in a group with 3 ranged DPS and the tank (most of the ranged if possible), so on the second Frozen Blows, after 3-6 seconds into it (therefore getting Wild Growth off on melee and a Rejuv or two), he can Barkskin and Tranquility his group, which will let Khrash concentrate on his own group (mostly melee). Since Khrash will have Beacon on me, I'll get most of the healing required from that + the Tranquility. Assuming these two things work, that should make Frozen Blows a great deal more manageable.
• Every Ranged DPS should be in a Starlight beam at all times. The only exceptions are: 1) At the start of the fight when we're breaking the Mage/Shaman/Druid and all casters are in Toasty Fire to get Singed stacked quickly and 2) When moving to a large rune for Flash Freeze or sidestepping a small rune cast on top of them. Otherwise, it's crucial to be using that Starlight haste at all times. Note that Starlight beams last 60 seconds, so when an Icicle is about to drop on your current beam, simply side step it as it lands and step back into the same beam. You should only find a new beam if your current one drops or a fresh one has spawned close enough that moving to it will only take a second.
• Although it goes against what we've practiced on this fight up until last night, I think we need to ignore the Biting Cold debuff for the most part in order to get our DPS high enough. This doesn't apply to melees or the tank as they can do normal stuff while jumping/moving, but healers and especially ranged DPS will probably find a huge DPS increase by only dropping Biting Cold stacks after 4 or 5 stacks or when Frozen Blows starts (that seemed to work well and I think it's a good practice to help healers out a bit). Otherwise, staying still in your Starlight seems the best course of action to maximize DPS.
• We should ideally use Bloodlust approximately 10-20 seconds after the first Flash Freeze. If possible, we'll wait for the first Storm Cloud buff to be cast on a ranged DPS or healer then immediately lust, which will give our casters Beam Haste + Bloodlust Haste + 135% crit for nearly the full duration (assuming Beam and Lust haste stack).

[Kulldam]

More notes on I Could Say That This Cache Is Rare

• One thing I'd like to try that could potentially really boost our DPS but would require a great deal of attention by all DPS to avoid Icicles is to have the entire raid (except the two healers) stack on top of the tank. While tanking, once we got Singed up as needed, I'd run to the nearest Beam and stand in it, and all DPS stack on top of me in the same beam. Obviously this would require DPS to move out of the beam fairly frequently to avoid Icicles, but DPS would still be able to attack while side-stepping out to avoid the icicle, save a GCD casters would lose when moving. The obvious advantage is we'd have 7 DPS + tank getting 100% haste most of the fight and we'd always get the crit buff passed immediately (or within a couple seconds if either healer was targetted, as the healers would be positioned behind Hodir to either side, in a triangle formation familiar to melee DPS. Further, there'd be a 50% chance I, as the tank, would get the Crit buff on any given cast which should nearly remove the threat issues of the fight (my crit rate is not great, but Heroic Strike is around 25% crit due to talents, and with haste that'd be going off once every 0.8 seconds or so, which would be a huge threat boost). ...dunno, might work...

[Kinzie]

They're coming out of the walls:

I'm guessing it would be pointless to have an addon keep track of each mobs cast bar since with that many Faceless so i'd just spam constantly?

In that case, zomgFoKspam!!!

[Rofldat]

On Rare Cache:
-Toasty Fire work off Spells and Ranged Attack, by what I saw from the buff icon when I was dead(the icon was on my buff bar, very warm fire indeed, even the dead can feel it)
-Healers(and everyone else, for that matter) can ignore Biting Cold if they have Toasty Fire buffs, since it prevent the frozen effect of Freeze(not Flash Freeze, it's the frost nova thing) and biting cold
-The Melt Ice casted by the mage will melt the ice in 10 seconds, since the mage cast this very much instantly after she's freed, it might be better for overall DPS to let the spell do the melting(if we have full 30 stack of Singed up before 1st flash, that's a lot of DPS we lost from people turning around to target the ice) and all DPSs(especially melees, since we lose more DPS running back and forth) stay on Hodir
-if we go with "everyone stacks up" idea, I'd say we can do it similar to how we do Maly phase 3, where everytime an Icicle aim for the group, everyone go 'right'(and then 'left' into the light again, if possible.) This should keep the icicle from spreading out and catch some people on accident when they're getting back into position

Also, for progressing toward 4 towers Levi, I would suggest:
-Confirm the time it'll take for us to do Mimiron + Thorim tower(then expect about double that time for 4 tower, since Levi will have more HP and take reduced damage)
-Attempt either Freya alone or Freya + Hodir(since Hodir's beam work like Thorim, we're basicly observing Freya's beams in action)
-Revise strategy by what we learn at that point(I have a clue about how Freya's tower might work, but I want to see it in action to confirm)

[Bondok]

On General Vezax:

Utilization of Shadowcrash will need to be extended to more then 2 people, especially during HardMode Attempts. The Buffs are invaluable and will help retain mana and increase damage output.

[buff]Shadow Crash[/buff]
Magical damage dealt increased by 100%.
Casting speed increased by 100%.
Healing done reduced by 75%.
Spell and ability costs reduced by 75%

Something to consider, is every healer/ranged DPS useing Shadow Crash will need to split up like Kulldam suggests but stacked in two groups on the far edges. Once a Shadow Crash is cast (hopefully everyone is using BigWigs for the Raid or Say Annoucement) the group moves left or right. As well tanking will need to stay in range of the Shadow Crash puddles so healers don't LOS and Ranged can stay on GV during the encounter.

During a Life Leach, a toon should move back out of the groups, not left or right which will help keep DPS/Healers from running into a Life Leech/Shadow Crash situation. If there is a case of LL and SC together the raid will have to adjust accordingly after LL is done, most likely moving to the new SC location.

This is mostly for HardMode, but can be used for Normal as well.

[Rofldat]

A possible setup on Flame Levi hard mode:
2 Siege Engine
2 Demolisher
1 Chopper + passenger

one passenger of Demo is the turret killer, and the chopper passenger is the secondary turret killer

plan:
as soon as Flame Levi break the door open, every passengers should be firing at it(you have 4-5 seconds from Levi charging in to it starting to chase someone, and you can probably do 200-400k damage from passenger shots alone during this time)
the 2 Demo shoud be on different side on the area, so if Levi turn to one the other can keep firing
the Demo with turret killer should launch him right away, and the Chopper should drive up to Demo so the second turret person can jump on the demo and start refilling pyrite
after Shutdown, bike pick up the turret killer, and once Levi start moving again, launch the 2nd turret killer, and 1st turret killer jump in the demo again to refill pyrite
this should give both demolisher the option to use pyrite constantly(instead of one keeping its pyrite only for shutdown)

the damage from the missing chopper should be neglegible compare to it

this is assuming the turrets retain 64k HP, if they get bonus from hard mode as well then using 2 person to kill turrets(so one demo will have to go without passenger)

also, the damage scale with gear level, so ideally the 2 person with highest gear level should be demo driver(or the 2 highest person who know what to do)
--the demo without passenger to refill pyrite could use Pyrite only to refresh the stacks, the debuff have 12k dmg/sec/stack so at 10 stack so keeping the DoT up will definitely be more crucial(the impact is about 60k base damage)