Saturday, May 2, 2009

Curse Client: Premium Version, Spyware & Addon-Policy



Premium Version

At 29th April 2009, Curse gaming enabled the “Premium”-Mode of their Curse Updater Tool for World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online.

Many people are pissed, because the free really sucks for the following reasons.

  • You can’t update all your addons with one click anymore. This is especially annoying for people with many addons (more than 30) and it’s very easy to get this amount of addons. For example if you use Cartographer, it has ~10 addons + a hand full of Ace-Libraries (each one counting as own addon)
  • You download speed gets throttled down
  • And there is some nasty banners everywhere which are really annoying

Besides that, Curse Gaming also violates against the new Blizzard Addon Policy which clearly states that it’s forbidden to charge money for addons, or any services connected to this addons, not even ask for donations or advertisement (at least in-game).

Add-ons must be free of charge

All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create "premium" versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on.

Dugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling GuideI’ve marked the most important part of this policy. The change took a few weeks ago on 19th March 2009 giving all addon developers and publishers 2 months of time (until 19th May 2009) to adapt this and made necessary changes to their addons to make them freely available and free of charge until this date, before Blizzard start to taking actions against it (may it be legal actions or disabling addons in question).

However, Curse decided to offend against this policy and exploit their users of the client by charging them for services and addons which are (and should be) free for all, instead of asking for donations or only limit themselves to advertising to cover the traffic costs.

Dugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling GuideThe money gained through advertising is more then enough to cover ALL traffic and server costs as well as to get some really nice profit, if you do your the calculations!

From experience i can tell you that from 1000 visitors on your website, there will be 0.5-1% who click on the advertisement. That’s 5-10 clicks per 1000 page views. The income of this 5-10 clicks can vary between $0.50 (~10 cent/click) up to $2.50 (~50 cent per click). Multiply this with 30 and you got $15-$75 per month, with only 1000 visitors daily.

Curse however is much more popular than my blog here (i have approximately 1500 visitors daily, more if there are some special events or new instances released, like Ulduar which lead ~100.000 visitors since 14. April 2009).

According to TrafficEstimate, Curse had little over 2.000.000 (2 million!) visitors in the last 30 days. That’s approximately 10.000-20.000 clicks per month (if you assume 0.5-1% click-through rate, which is very realistically, probably more. Always depends on the side and your visitors). Which turns in into $1000-$2000 (worst case of $0.1/click) up to $5.000$-$10.000 or more (assuming $0.50/click). Sometimes there are clicks worth even more (my highest was around $3.00, but are quite rare). According to Alexa Ranking, every visitor views ~10 pages. So take the numbers from above and multiply it with 10. That’s up to $50.000-$100.000 monthly! More than enough to pay of 10 people working on the page and this only by advertising!

CurseWoWHeadThottbot-AlexaRanking-ViewsPerVisit
This is by far much more than you’d ever need to pay traffic/server costs, pay 10 people for full-time working on the website and still have a profit margin of up to $50.000.

And this only through advertising (i.e. Google Adsense). However, for such high traffic websites, advertisers can directly by advertisement spots on this pages, which year a much higher income or PPC (Pay-Per-Click) rate. Even PPM (Pay-Per-Mile/Thousand of Impressions) which pay ~1-2$ per 1000 impressions (with 20.000.000 pageviews per months that’s $20.000-$40.000).

And that’s nothing compared to affiliate programs, where you get a fixed percentage of the sales. For example from a $50.00 Leveling Guide you refer, you get 50% ($25.00). This has a much better conversion rate than any other form of Advertisement. Don’t believe it? I’ve earned $295.93 with this blog by having only an average of 1.500 visitors per day!

ClickBank-Stats-April

What I am trying to say with this? The thing i want to say, is that this greed really annoys me, as there is much more ways to make money from a website without having to exploit your visitors and charge money for a free service (and to violate against any policies).

Curse Updater & Spyware

Additionally to that above, there is some weird behavior of the new 3.0.0.4 version of the Curse Updater. Since the update a few days ago before they switched to Premium, there are some warnings from my Personal Firewall, that the Curse Updater tries to access private data. It’s accessing some of the values of the Internet Explorer which are declared as private data.

Click the pictures to enlarge:

Curse-Spyware-1

Curse-Spyware-2

Curse-Spyware-3

Looks like more ways from them to exploit the users and make money by collecting personal data (like which website you’re visiting and sell it to marketing companies).

Dugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide

Friday, May 1, 2009

Ulduar: Freya Boss Strategy Guide



Freya is the 9th boss encounter of Ulduar. She’s located in the center of the valley in Ulduar.

Freya Boss Abilities

  • Health Points: 4,200,000 (heroic), 1,400,000 (normal)
  • Sunbeam: Deals 10,638-12,362 nature damage to all enemies within an 8 yard radius of the target. 1.5 second cast time.
  • Nature’s Fury: Applied to an enemy target for 10 seconds. Deals 4,625-5,375 nature damage to all nearby players everyone 1 second.
  • Touch of Eonar: Heals Freya 24,000 health every 1 second
  • Attuned to Nature: Fight starts with 150 stacks of this buff. Each stack increases healing on Freya by 4%.

Freya Boss Strategy Dugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide

Upon engaging Freya she will begin spawning adds. These adds heal Freya through a self buff system. At the beginning of the fight Freya will have 150 stacks of a buff, each stack increases healing done on her by 4% (600% total). Each time you kill an add one of these buffs is removed.

Phase 1

Adds spawn every minute.Dugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide

  • Wave Type 1
    • Storm Lasher: Casts area effect lightning damage in a 15 yard radius. Also casts chain lightning that hits up to 4 targets.
    • Snaplasher: Stacking debuff upon dealing damage, increases damage by 1% and reduces speed by 1%, stacks up to 99 times. As this reaches a critical mass stack you’ll need to kite these.
    • Ancient Water Elemental: Frontal cone tidal burst, deals 8,000 damage. Face these away from the main raid body.
  • Wave Type 2
    • Detonating Lasher: Spawn around Freya in a circle in packs of 12. Reduces Freya’s healing buff by 2 stacks per mob.
  • Wave Type 3
    • Ancient Protector: 1,900,000 health points, removes 25 stacks of Freya’s buff.  Also cast conservator’s grip, which prevents attacking and casting spells.
    • Stand under the healthy mushrooms to remove conservator’s grip.

Phase 2

During phase 2 no more adds will spawn. At this point it’s essentially just a tank and spank fight. Freya has the same abilities as in phase one. In addition, she also had lifebinder’s gift…trees spawn around Freya every 30 seconds, kill all of these within 15 second duration or they will heal Freya for 15%.

Freya Hard Mode Strategy

To complete Freya on hard mode you must leave the Elders up. Each elder provides an additional buff, similar to the way Sartharion’s drakes worked.

  • Elder Brightleaf: increases magic damage dealt by Freya and her adds by 50%
  • Elder Stonebark: increases physical damage dealt by Freya by 50%
  • Elder Ironbranch: increases physical damage dealt by Freya’s adds by 50%

Phase 1

Phase 1 is basically the same in Hard mode as it’s in easy mode. With the difference that the Snaplasher has to be kited (it’s next to impossible to tank without tank getting 1-shot).

Phase 2

Phase two is similar. In Phase 2 the Freya needs to be kited too every time she drops heir seeds on the ground to avoid AoE damage. Besides that, it’s tank & spank against the enrage timer.

Freya 10 man Video

Freya 10 man Video (Hard Mode)

Freya 25 man Video

Freya 25 man Video (Hard mode)

Dugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Ulduar: Razorscale Boss Strategy Guide - World of Warcraft



General Information

Razorscale is the 3rd Boss of the newest World of Warcraft raid instance Ulduar. Unlike the past Boss, Ignis the Furnace Master, his HP is much lower. He only has 12.500.000 Health Points on Heroic and 3.900.000 Health Points in normal mode.

Abilities

Phase 1 Abilities (Air phase)Dugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide

  • Devouring Flame: Spits a Lava Bomb at an enemy, inflicting 8788 to 10212 Fire damage and deals 8788 to 10212 fire damage every 1 second to anyone staying within 6 yards of the impact, lasts 25 seconds. 1.5 sec cast
  • Fireball: Inflicts 12025 to 13975 Fire damage to an enemy.

Phase 2 Abilities (Ground Phase)

  • Flame Buffet: Increases the Fire damage an enemy takes by 1500 for 1 min. Stacks up to 99 times.
  • Wing Buffet: Knocks back enemies in a radius around the caster. 1.5 sec cast
  • Flame Breath: Inflicts 17500 to 22500 Fire damage to enemies in a cone in front of the caster. 50 yd range, 2.5 sec cast
  • Devouring Flame: Spits a Lava Bomb at an enemy, inflicting 8788 to 10212 Fire damage and deals 8788 to 10212 fire damage every 1 second to anyone staying within 6 yards of the impact, lasts 25 seconds. 1.5 sec cast

Achievements

As Ignis the Furnace Master, the Razorscale encounter is also tied to some Achievements.

Heroic

Normal

  • A Quick Shave - Defeat Razorscale without allowing her to fly into the air more than once on Normal Difficulty.
  • Iron Dwarf, Medium Rare - Defeat 25 Dark Rune Guardian Dwarves with Razorscale's Flame Breath on Normal Difficulty.

The Encounter

The Razorscale encounter is split up in to two phases.

Phase 1Dugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide

In the first Phase, Razorscale will be in the air. While flying, she will bomb the raid with Devouring Flame and Fireball. During this phase, the friendly Dwarf NPCs will collect mechanical parts on the ground and repair the nearby turrets.

After the repairs are done, the NPCs will chain Razorscale and stun her for a few seconds. This repeats until she’s at 50% of her HP

Phase 2

Once Razorscale is on 50%, Phase 2 will emerge. Razorscale will land and you have to beat her on the ground. She will keep Devouring Flame and get 3 new abilities: Flame Buffet, Flame Breath and Wing Buffet.

Tactic and Setup

Setup (25)

  • It's recommended to use 4 tanks for this encounter, as there are 4 zones where the adds spawns.
  • 6 Healers are absolute minimum, if you're in full T7 gear. Probably 7, if you're guild isn't top equipped
  • Take a good balance of Melee and Range damage dealers. While melees can't do good on the boss but they do good on the add spawns. Having ranged damage dealers is good too for the Dark Rune Sentinels, as they can pretty one-shot anything that's no tank.

Setup (10)

  • 2 Tanks
  • 2 Healers
  • 2 Melees DDs
  • 4 Ranged DDs
  • 1 Shaman for Heroism (either as Healer, melee or Ranged DD)

Phase 1 (Air)

Start the encounter by talking to the expedition commander. Your task is to defend the NPCs while they are repairing the turrets. Your focus lies on killing all the adds and avoiding the devouring flames from Razorscale. You have to move immediately out of it, if you got hit to avoid to getting to much damage.

There are 4 zones (on normal only two) where adds spawn and you need tanks in any of them.

The Dark Rune Sentinels (390.600 HP) hit for 9.000 on Plate and 30.000 on Cloth. So it's vital to tank them as far as away from the raid as possible and nuke them from range.

The Dark Rune Watchers ( 221.800 HP) are casting Chain Lightenings on the raid which hit for 10.000 damage. They have a very high range, but can be interrupted. This being said, it's obviously that you should interrupt them whenever possible. Best is to make a rotation, so no interrupts are wasted.

One very often reason for players dying is the combo of Fireball and Lightening Chain, where each hits for approx. 10.000 damage. So they need to be keep up at least at 80% Health Points.

The Dark Rune Guardians (277.200 HP) doesn't seem to have anything special, just tank and spank them.

All adds also get additonal damage if they are inside the Devouring Flame area of effect, so if you place them good (so the adds are inside the AoE and your DDs outside), it can quicken up this phase pretty much. Dark Rune Watchers are somewhat harder to get in, as they often stop for casting. 

As the turrets get repaired you can start using them. They will fire a harpoon and chaining Razorscale. Once all 4 are repaired and fired, Razorscale will come to the ground. Once on ground, she will be stunned shortly. At this time, blow up all your cooldowns for maximum dps. The ground phase last ~30 seconds, so it's perfect time for Heroism/Bloodlust + blowing up all cooldowns.

If you don't get her to 50% before she flies up again, repeat the process.

Phase 2 (Ground)

When you get her below 50%, she will land permanently. Let the tank her away from the raid (she shouldn't be facing the raid) to avoid her breathing in the raid (we already know this from other dragons, don't we?). From now on it's a simple tank and spank fight and just avoid devouring flame.

Only important thing here is: DPS. The more dps you have, the less Flame Buffet your tank has, the less damage he takes, so high dps is very important here.

She has an enrage timer of 10 minutes.

Hard Mode

Hard Mode consits by getting her to 50% in only one grounding/stun phase in Phase 1. So you need to stack dps, max dps and blow the shit out of her before he flies up again.

Dugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide

Ulduar: Mimiron Boss Strategy Guide - World of Warcraft



General Information

Mimiron is the 8th Ulduar Boss. He is a multi-boss fight, read: You fight several bosses. In every phase, you fight one different appearance of Mimiron.

  • Leviathan MKII: ~6.900.000 Health Points (1.740.000 HP on Normal)
  • VX-001: ~6,900,000 Health Points (1.740.000 HP on Normal)
  • Aerial Command Unit: ~4,700,000 Health Points (1.600.000 HP on Normal)
  • Assault Bot
  • Bomb Bot
  • Trash Bot
  • V0-L7R-0N (MKII) 3,450,000 HP (870,000 HP on normal)
  • V0-L7R-0N (VX-001) 3,450,000 HP (870,000 HP on normal)
  • V0-L7R-0N (ACU) 2,300,000 HP (800,000 HP on normal)

As last, you have to beat all of the 3 previous forms once again, at the same time (with 50% of their original health). That’s basically 18.500.000 Health Points (3.340.000 HP on normal) for the units plus half that in his Phase 4 to 27.750.000 Health Points to beat him completely.

Abilities (Phase 1-3)

Leviathan MKIIDugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide

  • Proximity Mines: Drops about 10 mines next to the Leviathan, walking over them will make them explode for 20,000 fire damage.
  • Napalm Shell: Fires a shell filled with napalm at a random enemy target. The shell explodes upon impact, dealing 7540 to 8460 Fire damage instantly and an additional 32000 over 8 sec. This effect attempts to target enemies over 15 yards away if possible.
  • Plasma Blast: A stream of plasma errupts from the cannon, dealing 30000 Spellfire damage per second for 6 sec. This effect cannot be resisted. 100 yd range, 3 sec cast / Channeled, 7 sec cooldown
  • Shock Blast: Deals 100000 Nature damage to all enemies within 15 yards. 4 sec cast
  • Rocket Strike: Launches a rocket towards a random enemy. Once the rocket reaches the destination, it deals 5000000 Fire damage to all enemies within 3 yards.

VX-001

  • Rapid Burst: Unleashes a series of short plasma bursts towards a random enemy, dealing 1885 to 2115 Spellfire damage per burst for a total of 6 bursts over 3 sec.
  • P3Wx2 Laser Barrage: Spins up the dual cannons for 4 sec before unleashing a spray of lasers in a random direction, dealing 20000 Spellfire damage every 0.25 sec to all enemies caught inside. Lasts 10 sec. (This is a rotating beam using the same mechanics as C'thun Eye Beam or Lurker Below Spout)
  • Rocket Strike: Launches a rocket towards a random enemy. Once the rocket reaches the destination, it deals 5000000 Fire damage to all enemies within 3 yards.
  • Heat Wave: Fires out a blast of heat, dealing 1885 to 2115 Fire damage instantly and an additional 10000 Fire damage over 5 sec to all enemies.

Aerial Command Unit

  • Plasma Ball: Builds up a ball of plasma and fires it at a target, dealing 14138 to 15862 Spellfire damage. 30 yd range, 2 sec cast
  • Add - Assault Bot: Uses Magnetic Field - Projects a magnetic field towards the target, locking them in place. In addition, the target will take an extra 30% damage from all sources. Lasts 6 sec. 30 yd range. They drop a Magnetic Core when they die, Deploying this magnet under the Aerial Command Unit will temporarily bring it to the ground and disable it. While it remains disabled, it will take an additional 50% damage from all sources.
  • Add - Bomb Bot: These bots will walk through the raid for a moment and eventually explode for 9425 to 10575 fire damage in a 5 yards radius, run away from them!
  • Add - Junk Bot: Very weak adds, just DPS them down.

Abilities (Phase 4)

Leviathan MKIIDugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide

  • Shock Blast: Deals 100000 Nature damage to all enemies within 15 yards. 4 sec cast
  • Proximity Mines: Drops about 10 mines next to the Leviathan, walking over them will make them explode for 20,000 fire damage.

VX-001

  • Hand Pulse: Fires a pulse of energy towards a random enemy, causing 6598 to 7402 Spellfire damage to all enemies in a cone facing the target enemy. 50000 yd range, 0.85 sec cast
  • P3Wx2 Laser Barrage: Spins up the dual cannons for 4 sec before unleashing a spray of lasers in a random direction, dealing 20000 Spellfire damage every 0.25 sec to all enemies caught inside. Lasts 10 sec. (This is a rotating beam using the same mechanics as C'thun Eye Beam or Lurker Below Spout)
  • Rocket Strike: Launches a rocket towards a random enemy. Once the rocket reaches the destination, it deals 5000000 Fire damage to all enemies within 3 yards.

Aerial Command Unit

  • Plasma Ball: Builds up a ball of plasma and fires it at a target, dealing 14138 to 15862 Spellfire damage. 30 yd range, 2 sec cast

Achievements

Heroic

Normal

  • Set Up Us the Bomb - Defeat Mimiron without anyone in the raid being hit by the following on Normal Difficulty.
  • Not-So-Friendly Fire - Force Mimiron to kill a Assault Bot with a Rocket Strike on Normal Difficulty.
  • Firefighter - Defeat Mimiron after activating his Self-Destruct mechanism on Normal Difficulty.

The Encounter

There are 4 phases. In the first 3 Phases you fight Mimiron in his vehicles. In the last phase, all 3 vehicles will join together to a single enemy (but still all 3 previous vehicles are targetable) called V0-L7R-0N. Just like in Transformers!

The goal: Kill all 3 parts of Mimiron at the same time (or very close to each other)

Tactic and Setup

Phase 1 (Leviathan MKII)

Standard spank and tank fight. Best way to do him is to tank him in the middle of the room and have the damage dealers spread around him.

One think to take care is, that the ranged damage dealers are at least 15 yards away from each other to prevent Shock Blast hitting more than 1 person. From time to time some mines will spawn. Simply ignore them/avoid them and don’t waste your time disarming them.

Phase 2 (VX-001 Antipersonnel Assault Cannon)

In this phase your raid has to spread out and fill out the whole room. It’s important that the healers are placed good so they can heal everyone and that there are no players out of range of their healers.

You also have to watch out for the rockets. The rockets are targeting an area on the ground. However, you don’t see a mark on the ground. So if you see a rocket flying in your direction: MOVE OUT! 5-10 yards is enough, the AoE range is quite low!

Sometimes he may also use P3Wx2 Laser Barrage. He will start spinning. When this happens, move behind the boss, to avoid the damage from this attack.

Update: Currently there seems to be a little bug/exploit you can use, to cancel P3Wx2 Laser Barrage. However, it doesn't work always. The trick is, if he target's someone (he will look in that's persons direction) and prepare for P3Wx2 Laser Barrage, you can do Feign Death, Invisible, Vanish, Shadowmeld and similar Skills, which will cause them to cancel the attack. Also if he targets temporary NPCs (like Shadowfiend, Elemental etc) with it and they die before the preparation is done, the attack will be canceled too.

Phase 3 (Aerial Command Unit)

Requirements: Ranged Tank and someone to kite him

An soul-link warlock would be perfect for this task. Let him build up some agro before the ranged damage dealers start attacking. Good measure is to wait until the first adds were spawned.

The adds spawn randomly inside the room and are marked by a spotlight. The color of the spotlight indicate which mob will spawn there.

Orange = Assault Bot

Orange bots need to be kited by an ranged damage dealer (Hunters and Mage are good for it). Mage is much more preferred in this case, with specced frost bolt so he can keep him slowed down without assistance of others. Once the person who kite him has enough agro, open fire and shoot it down. 

It's very important to focus him down as soon as possible (before next one spawns). Don't root him, as this can cause the Assault Bots to attack your melees. The Assaults Bot immoblizing spell (prevents his current target from moving, is channeled and lasts 4 seconds) can be interrupted, kicked, dispelled etc. If nothing ready, use Deathknights Freeze skill to slow him down.

Update: There are also some other ways to avoid/remove his channeled "root" skill. For example Feign Death, Cloak of Shadows, Vanish. Problably works with PvP Trinket and Invisible too. Remind this, as it can save your (or your raidmates) life and for this encounter, you need every piece of damage dealer and healer.

Green = Junk Bot or Bomb Bot

This is the task for the “regular” tanks. You only need to tank the Junk Bots. The Bomb bots will just run around and blow up after a while and make sure that you don’t get hit by the explosion!

Update: Seems like the Bomb bots doesn't explode by themselves. But there is a very nice tactic on how to avoid your raid to be blow up by them. Usually there should only one Bomb bot active. So all you need to is to slow it down or root it (i.e. roots from Druid, Frostnova from Mage or with Hunter traps) and wait until the damage on the raid/tanks is moderately. Then have a tank move to the Bomb bot and taunt/hit it (be sure that before you let the bomb explode, no one other than the tank is in it's explosion raidus).

This way only the tank takes damage and all others can concentrate on the Boss/Assault Bots. If done correctly, there won't me much damage on the raid as Assault Bots only do melee damage and 1 hit everything that's to close. So only damage is on the Warlock tank and the tank who tanks the Junk Bots.

After the Assault bot dies, it will drop an magnetic core. This core has to be used below the boss. It will get him down to the ground and your melee damage dealers can finally hit the boss. It lasts only 6 seconds, so make sure to blow up your cooldowns at that moment, to shorten the phase as much as possible. One reason to blow up the cooldowns there is, that the damage is increased while he’s on the ground.

You have to time this phse correctly. Best pot to trigger it, when the Assault Bot is down (if you lack on DPS, do it when the Assault Bot is at 10% or so). Another good tip is, if you trigger this, let your ranged dps do a few hits on him (DoTs or some instants like Explosive Shot) for some extra damage and then fire at the Assault Bot again.

Note: It’s helpful to set the loot to Free-For-All, so everyone can loot the core and speed up the process (same as the core with Lady Vahsj in Serpentshrine Caverns).

Repeat this steps, until the boss is down.

Phase 4 (V0-L7R-0N)

In this phase, the boss turns all the previous “mini-bosses” into one big mecha: V0-L7R-0N (Transformers inc!). The 3 V0-L7R-0N components will have half the Health Points they had in the phases 1-3.

One thing to notice is, that in this phase no adds will be spawned.

  • The Aerial Combat Unit from Phase 3 still needs to be tanked by the ranged tank (the Soulink-Warlock is still the best choice).
  • The Leviathan MKII has to be tanked too by a tank (preferably the one who tanked him in Phase 1 too)
  • V0-L7R-0N will cast P3Wx2 Laser Barrage more often than in Phase 2
  • Avoid the rockets (same as Phase 2 too)
  • You have to avoid the mines

This alone sounds easy, but the trick is to kill all 3 components at the same time, otherwise they will repair themselves. So in order to achieve this, do damage to all parts until they are somewhere close to 5-6% and then split the damage dealers in your raid.

Let the Melees focus on the Leviathan MKII and the VX-001, while the ranged damage dealers focus on the Aerial Combat Unit.

Most cooldowns should be ready again. Once all are at 5-6%, start damage them equally and fire up the cooldowns (which should be ready again, at least some of the shorter ones). It’s unlikely the fight will last long enough to use Heroism for a second time.

Hard Mode

Hard Mode is quite similar to the normal way to beat him. To start the Hard Mode, you have to press a red switch on the back side of the room to start the “emergency mode”. The boss will get 25% more Health Points and deal 25% more damage.

Additional to that, you have to beat him in less than 8 minutes!

Dugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide

Ulduar: Kologarn Boss Strategy Guide - World of Warcraft



General Information

Sixth Boss in World of Warcraft’s latest raid instance Ulduar. The main difference to all normal bosses is, Kologarn has 3 attackable parts. Kologarn himself and his left/right arms. Kologarn has 15.000.000 Health Points on heroic and his arms have 5.000.000 Health Points each for a total of 25.000.000 Health Points.

AbilitiesDugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide

  • Focused Eyebeam: Inflicts 4163 to 4837 Nature damage to enemies within 3 yards.
  • Shockwave: The shockwave from the massive arm sweep inflicts 13875 to 16125 Nature damage.
  • Petrifying Breath: Inflicts 18750 to 21250 Nature damage every 1 sec and increases damage taken by 20% for 8 sec. (Brittle Skin - Increases damage taken by 20% for 8 sec.)
  • Stone Grip: Squeezes the life out of the target, stunning it and inflicting 5363 to 5637 Physical damage every 1 sec until Kologarn's Arm sustains 480,000 damage.
  • Overhead Smash: The not so massive attack Inflicts Physical damage and decreases armor by 25% for 45 sec. 5 yd range, Next melee
  • Overhead Smash Tremor: The massive Overhead Smash causes a tremor which Inflicts 6338 to 6662 Physical damage and interrupts casting for 8 sec.
  • Arm Sweep: A massive arm sweep that causes a shockwave that inflicts 8788 to 10212 damage to anyone in it's path. 10 sec cooldown

Achievements

Heroic

Normal

  • With Open Arms - Defeat Kologarn without destroying either of his arms on Normal Difficulty.
  • Disarmed - Destroy both of Kologarn's arms within 12 seconds and then defeat Kologarn on Normal Difficulty.
  • If Looks Could Kill - Defeat Kologarn without any raid member being hit by Focused Eyebeams on Normal Difficulty.
  • Rubble and Roll - Defeat Kologarn with 25 Rubble creatures alive on Normal Difficulty.

The Encounter Dugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide

Kologarn is a so-called stationary boss. He can’t be moved, positioned or turned around. Similar to Rangaros, when there are no melee attackers in his range, he will cast Petrifying Breath into the raid.

As mentioned above, he also has two arms, which are “mini-bosses” on their own and they do damage to the raid. The left arm will hit the whole raid for 12.000 periodically and the right arm will periodically take a random player and do damage to them until the raid does 450.000 damage to this arm.

Tactic and Setup

You will need 3 good equipped tanks for this encounter. Once a tank gets 2 stacks of Overhead Smash, one of the other two tanks should taunt the boss. So basically you have to do a tank rotation until the first tanks lose his debuffs.

It’s crucial for the success that all three tanks survive and none of them dies! During the fight, his both arms will do some serious damage to the raid. Make sure, that you have enough group healers within your ranks to heal up (left arm does 12.000 damage to the whole raid). If one player is picked up by Kologarn’s right hand, it’s important to focus heal on this player.

The raid should redirect all their damage to the right arm, so the player in Kologarn’s right arm will be freed again.

When one of the arms is killed/destroyed, a few elementals will spawn. They need to be killed quickly. However, the arms are not gone forever. They will respawn 60 seconds after they have been destroyed. The good news: The Health of the Arms is taken from the Kologarn’s Health Point pool. So killing an arm can hurt him too, when the arm respawns again. 

Update: It’s a good strategy if you only focus and kill the right arm. The damage of the left arm is healable and not as dangerous as a raid member dying if you don’t free him out of the right arm. So simply focus the right arm at beginning of the fight. If he pick up someone, there is no DPS loss on switching targets and as all the DoTs and debuffs are up, he will lose the 500k HP very quickly.

Once the Arm is destroyed, focus the boss for a few seconds until Tanks got enough agro on the elementals and bomb them away. Continue to dps the Boss himself until his right arm respawns. When the right arm respawns, focus it again until it’s dead and repeat until the boss dies.

Hard Mode

Coming soon…

Dugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide

Ulduar: Ignis the Furnace Master Boss Strategy Guide - World of Warcraft



General Information

Ignis the Furnace Master is one of the earlier Bosses in World of Warcraft latest Raid instance Ulduar. He has approximate 24.000.000 Health Points on Heroic. The Iron Constructs have 3.810.000 Health Points on Heroic.

Abilities

  • Flame Jets: Stomps the ground causing geysers of flame to erupt under all enemies. These geysers deal 8483 to 9517 Fire damage, knocking the targets into the air and interrupting any spells being cast for 8 sec. In addition, the targets take 2000 Fire damage per second for 8 sec. 2.7 sec cast Dugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide
  • Scorch: Fires a jet of flame, burning all enemies in front of the caster within 30 yards, dealing 3770 to 4230 Fire damage every half-second for 3 sec. Additionally, the ground is scorched by this effect causing it to catch on fire, dealing 7540 to 8460 Fire damage every second to all enemies within 13 yards. Iron Constructs within this radius will begin to heat up, eventually becoming molten.
  • Slag Pot: Charges and grabs a random enemy target, tossing them into the caster's slag pot. The target is unable to attack the caster and takes 7500 Fire damage every second for 10 sec. If the target survives, they are imbued with the magical slag, increasing their haste by 150% for until cancelled.
  • Strength of the Creator: Increases Ignis' damage by 15% each time an Iron Construct spawns. Stacks up to 99 times.

During this encounter, the boss will spawn several adds. Task of the raid is to deal with them by heating with Scorch Ground AoE and kite them into the water while they are melting. Below you can see the abilities of the adds:

  • Heat: Blasts all nearby Iron Constructs with intense heat, increasing their movement speed by 5 and haste by 5. This effect stacks up to 20 times. If this effect stacks to 20, the affected Iron Construct will become Molten.
  • Molten: The Iron Construct becomes Molten, increasing haste by 100%. In addition, Flames erupt out from the caster every second, dealing 4713 to 5287 Fire damage to enemies within 7 yards. Drag the Construct in the water and it will become Brittle.
  • Brittle: The cold water causes molten Iron Constructs to rapidly solidify, rendering them unable to act. In addition, if they are dealt more than 5000 damage during this state, they will shatter, dealing 18850 to 21150 damage to all enemies in a 10 yard radius.
  • Shatter: Deals 18850 to 21150 Physical damage to all enemies within 10 yards. Damage from this effect ignores armor.

Achievements

As with most bosses in Wrath of the Lich King, there are also Achievements tied to Ignis the Furnace Master!

Heroic:Dugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide

  • Heroic: Shattered - Defeat Ignis the Furnace Master after shattering 2 Iron Constructs within 5 seconds on Heroic Difficulty.
  • Heroic: Hot Pocket - Survive being thrown into Ignis the Furnace Master's Slag Pot on Heroic Difficulty.
  • Heroic: Stokin' the Furnace - Defeat Ignis the Furnace Master in 4 minutes on Heroic Difficulty.

Normal:

  • Shattered - Defeat Ignis the Furnace Master after shattering 2 Iron Constructs within 5 seconds on Normal Difficulty.
  • Hot Pocket - Survive being thrown into Ignis the Furnace Master's Slag Pot on Normal Difficulty.
  • Stokin' the Furnace - Defeat Ignis the Furnace Master in 4 minutes on Normal Difficulty.

The Encounter

Ignis the Furnace Master is a standard tank and spank encounter with the only difference of the iron constructs which need to be heated until they melt and cooled down in water.

Tactic and Setup

He will cast Scorch from time to time, which leaves an ground area of effect. Now your task is to kite the iron constructs into this ground area effect. As long the iron constructs are in this aoe effect, they will get a heating buff. Once the buff stacks up to 20, they will be melting.

When they are melting, they will do damage in a 7 yard area (~5.000 damage every second). So make sure no one stays to close to them. If there are more Iron Constructs active, tank them away from each other.

Now you have to pull/kite them into the water, which turns them brittle. This will stun the iron constructs and increase the critical chance against them by 50% and they will shatter, if they are hit for more than 5.000 damage with a single ability.

Be aware: When the Iron Construct shatters, it will deal around 20.000 damage in 10 yard radius. So no melees should be around it, after they got brittled! Only ranged Damage dealers (preferrably Mage, Warlock or Moonkin who have High-hitting spells)

For every shattered construct, one buff stack will be removed from Ignis, reducing his damage.

Caster should watch for Flame Jets and avoid being hit as it will cause a school lock for 8 seconds (same as counterspell).  That's basically all

Hard Mode

Hard mode not available for this bossDugi's Ultimate World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP and Leveling Guide