10-man raid night last night, and we’re a couple hours into raiding when I have a realization: Ulduar is hard.
Now, don’t get me wrong, obviously it’s harder than Naxx, and obviously Naxx was crazy easy for a raid. But in the course of slowly progressing through Ulduar it’s easy to forget how much of a jump there is between Naxx and Ulduar.
Now, we have the first chunk of Ulduar sufficiently on farm that when we didn’t have a full group when the raid started we replaced the missing dpser with a very, very undergeared friend. I mean, we’re talking lots of lvl 70 gear. However, we don’t need 10 people for the first few bosses so we figured we’d gear him up a bit.
Alas, we were having one of our days, our tarded like a fox days. Sure, we were killing bosses, but we were struggling with what should have been a breeze. I mean, we wiped on FL+1 — seriously. And continued to wipe our way through the entrance of Ulduar.
Finally after Kologarn we lost a healer and we decided that tonight just wasn’t the night for Ulduar. Instead we figured we’d finish off our raid time slot by popping over to Naxx to get some gear for our undergeared friend and alts. Most people voted in favor of doing so, though we lost another dpser.
So here are the salient points:
- 2 healers
- 1 dpser in mostly low 70s gear
- 1 dpser an alt in poor gear who’s main spec is tanking
- 1 dps is a BM spec hunter, along for the ride
- Take note – replace one person with a geared healer and another with a geared dpser and with that this group was struggling to move at all in Ulduar.
We get in Naxx and we go to Plague wing. I’m paying pretty close attention to the gargoyle fights as a way to evaluate how our overall dps is. And it seems good. Really good. We get to Noth and tear through him. Heigan and Loatheb are equally a breeze.
I push for Construct next, mostly because I really want to see what my dps is on Patchwerk 10-man these days, with the new gear and MM spec. With our various low, low dpsers, we still take Patchwerk down in under 3 minutes. Not only that, but I score my highest 10-man patchwerk dps yet, by a significant margin:
And that’s when it hit me. Ulduar is hard.
We have one dpser below tanks, another dpser darned close to tank dps, and we slaughtered this. Ulduar bosses with their high armor, untrackable-ness, and complicated dances of tactics is just plain difficult.
I read on Greedy Goblin that just 2% of players have actually beat XT-002 Deconstructor in Ulduar. I get it now.
So rocking through a bit of Naxx to gear up some alts and new 80s actually made me feel better about our Ulduar progress. It let me appreciate that Ulduar is not just a small step up, but a very significant step upward in difficulty and complexity.
And for a little bit, it made me feel like a Death Dealer again.
5780 on Patchwerk?
Wow. Just…WOW! /bow
yeah no kidding. I’m impressed with your patch dps. You’re running MM? I’ve always thought that SV was the best DPS spec at this point. Whats your secret, oh wise one?
Apparently you need to read the raiding guide again after frost updated it for 3.1. Also, he practices on his main for hours and hours. Frost is a finely honed machine of destruction.
Anyways, yeah I totally know the feeling on Uld. I didn’t realize how hard it was until one day we went in and wiped on hodir for an hour and a half. I was like we were one-two shotting this guy a week or two ago, wtf? And I realized that the instance just doesn’t forgive you any mistakes.
@Kraigus….MM has past SV since 3.1 come out. IF you are in full NAxx gear you will still get more out of SV than MM, but once you get into Ulduar gear with high damage ranged weapons, along with the stacking ArP on most all hunter pieces MM greatly surpasses SV in DPS. IF your not in “mostly” ulduar gear then it is suggested that you stay SV but once later on its best to spec MM.
I’m impressed with your dps on patch, i was like 2 points under 5k once on patch and i was impressed with myself… well now knowing a hunter can do over 5k is just well…… Impressive as all get out and makes me want to try harder cause it can be done
oh and
i totally agree………. Ulduar is hard
MM gets more DPS than SV once you’re in about half 25 man Ulduar gear. Armor pen, however, does not make MM better than SV. ArP is a little bit overstated actually- it doesn’t help us much when we have to move.
I swear they buffed us overnight.. I was hitting 10man ema yesterday in a pug (missed the guild run) and I was pulling almost 3k above the next dps, 5.8k on the first trash pull and 5.3k overall by the end. I was feeling so proud of myself :3
Thanks a million for convincing me to make the change to MM in 3.1
According to my guild’s track record, Maly is harder than Mimiron. Go figure. One of those tarded like a fox realizations.
That Patch dps is entirely possible for Hunters who are fairly well geared, but I’m actually more impressed with the dps with that group. It’s far from an ideal group for buffs. Hand pick a group for max dps and Frost (or others) could probably push 6K.
i thought i was doing well(for my gear) to hit 3700 on patch, /wrist
MM surpasses SV during some level of Ulduar gear — the exact point is vague. Two pieces of T8 are certainly a big boost (though I still don’t have that).
Note on armor pen: it does help MM more than SV. Theorycraft suggests that once you get over 600 ArP it actually becomes better than agility on a point for point basis — of course you need basically all Ulduar gear to make that happen, and gemming for it, and consumables.
Hey Frost, What consumables do you use anyway? Food? Scroll? Flask? Elixir? etc….
Just curious
I switch between MM and SV, so I still gem for Agility. ArP does not increase magic damage (which ignores armor by definition). In my current gear (4pc 8.25, Giant’s Bane), ArP is my 4th highest rated stat according to the spreadsheet–in order: Agi, AP, crit, ArP–even with gems and consumables. Of course, I don’t have Grim Toll or Mjonir Runestone, which would make a difference. MM is still the higher dps spec, I just prefer to play SV. ExS crits on Hodir ftw!
And ya, Ulduar is hard, by far the hardest instance at the gear level I’ve ever seen. Just a killer instance.
now, im not one of those elitist that say “AMAGAD ULDUAR IS EASYMODE, I CAN SOLO YOGG +0 IN HEROIC BLUES” but to hear that only 5% have cleared XT, that honestly surprised me. maybe i need a frame of reference, but i didnt think XT was tough. Ignis, rough on the add guys, and ive wiped more times on razor than i care to recall, but that XT statistic surprised me.
and your patchwork dps just goes to show that its about the player and not just the gear. sure gear and talents matter, but the player makes or breaks performance. i am geared id say comparably with frost, and ive not hit that yet. im close to the numbers you put up, but you still dance around me. /bow
Also had one of those days today, first we wiped on FL + 4 alot of times, because people failed of course, then we gave it up and took 2 towers. We took down XT with no problem but the tank died on both trashgroups before. When we hit iron council we didnt barely get past molegain before we died (molegain – brundir – steelbreker hardmode) so we decided to quit it. I hate those days, they make me angry :<
Frost i think Nax is easy for you due to the massive amount of DPS you have but if you ever try to run it with a group around the 1000 -2000 dps each it can start to get diffcult. But yes we use it for more a farming instance these days we get a good tank , 2 healers, 2 dpsers and the rest are low geared 80′s. !. Our guild trys to run the lowest geared 80s we have on at the time just to help them out and introduce them to raiding and try to get them ready for uldar.I know uldar is hard so far from the little i have seen but since our guid has been gearing people up with nax gear so much we are heading back of to Uldar this weekend horay !!
Great entry Frost!
@Arthemystia
We have that problem, although it’s with Thorim 25. We spend a good half of a raid wiping on him usually and can do Mimiron in 1-2 tries. Never understand it.
@quivering
I remember XT the first night of Ulduar on patch release. Now THAT was a fight only 2-5% should pass. Since then it’s been nerfed to hell and back and is really easy. Even the hardmode is easy. I can’t see why that many people have trouble with it.
I agree, Ulduar IS hard. The other night when I was in there I thought I must have missed putting on my raiding gear cuz my DPS was so low, but no, alas, it was just that Ulduar is hard.
My group normally has no problem with FL and XT and then we wipe a few times on Razorscale before calling it.
A few nights ago, however, we couldn’t get past XT
. But I didn’t care, because I got this drop from the trash mobs before him: Golemheart Longbow. Woot!
Just a note in regards to FL. Make sure your undergeared buddy isn’t the first to hop into the vehicle, have him wait til someone with a higher average ilvl gets in first.
Ulduar is not only hard on one aspect, this instance has done so much damage in guilds is unbelievable. I have seen good tanks, dps and healers leave guilds because of this instance. Money spent crazy on repairs and potions or buffs and a sour taste in the mouth on players that don’t want to recognize that Ulduar is made to make you spent gold and keep you hooked in WOW trying to get to the next level. I was suggesting in my guild that in order to go to Ulduar, you must have the right mentality for it. There is no sense in raiding knowing that your raid will get wipes and then quit trying. Also Blizz need to tweak this instance in a way that is not easy but not that hard to the point that is almost hopeless.
I don’t follow, all raiding content is meant to be like that. It’s meant to make you die until you learn the encounters but when you do, all the content is easily puggable just like all content before was. It’s not that Ulduar is any harder than say Black Temple (aside from the inflated damage, DPS and healing). I find Ulduar actually rather easy until you reach Vezax.
@Euripides
ArP affects Aimed and Chim Shot so it does help, even if you have to move as those are both instant shots. And I’m sure you’ve seen the theorycrafting regarding ArP being better than Agi when you reach 600+ ArP and the trinket as well.
It’s not overstated, but it is still under dispute.
We too have sometimes problems concentrating after 3 month of ulduar. Nice post, didn’t realize it yet, that it was the same with Naxx, but it didn’t hurt so much back then.
I would of had to take second on you to patchy <3.
But an actual constructive post. I think Ulduar ( the first half at least) isn’t as hard as…inconsistent. First time i raid led there, 3 bosses down. Happy days
Next time dropped flame levi then called it. We left ulduar for a while to finish off grabbing some naxx 10 bits (still don’t have a 213 ranged…) No-one really got anything from Naxx 10 it was more a tank saying “gief deaths bite for offspec” and me “gief gun that doesnt embarrass me”. A few weeks later after much sitting around another raid leader hit ulduar up. And went in up to kolo (skipping ignis). I joined the next night when someone didn’t show and ignis went down. No significant gear changes, just chilled out with that place for a while then came back. I seriously think we were just unlucky before. The week after /wave iron council and auriya and didn’t even try anything after that.
I don’t know whether it was luck or an altered mindset. But we went from 3/14 to 7/14 with only minor gear and lineup changes. I’d love to say Ulduar is hard. But to progress heavily with no practice seems a little bent to me.