Flame Leviathan

Flame Leviathan

Introduction

Flame Leviathan is the first boss in Ulduar. In order to progress to the other bosses you must take him down. Lucky for you, you have some help in the form of siege vehicles. May the siege of Ulduar commence!

Contents

• Raid Setup
• Difficulty
• Map
• Vehicles
  • Siege Engine
  • Demolisher
  • Chopper
• Trash
• Flame Leviathan
• The Fight
• Drops
• Achievements

Raid Setup

For this fight you can have any raid setup that you like, it does not matter about the numbers of DPS, healers or tanks. The reason for this is that you will be controlling vehicles to take down the trash and the boss. Still you will need 10/25 people.

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Difficulty

This boss is regarded as the easiest in Ulduar, and rightly so. However like every other fight, the better geared you are, the easier it is. When you get in a vehicle, the better your gear is, the more health your vehicle will have, this will make the fights slightly easier.

You can also get hardmode on this boss. There are 4 towers that you take down on the way to the boss. If you leave them standing they will make the fight harder in different ways. I will exaplain more about them later on.

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Map

This map shows the location of everything you will need for the first boss. All parts will be explained further on in the guide.

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Vehicles

There are 3 types of vehicle you can control, and they are all found here:

Each of the vehicles benefits from the drivers average item level, so you should put your best geared people in as drivers. Other than that you should make sure you have 2 DPS in the Demolishers passenger seat as they will need to take down the Turrets (on 10man), and several good DPS and a Healer in the Demolishers passenger seat (on 25man).

Siege Engine

These can carry a driver, a turret controller and can pick up up to 2 more passengers who cannot attack.

Driver’s Abilities:

Ram (40 Steam Pressure) – Rams any enemies in front of the demolisher, dealing 22501 to 27501 Damage and knocking them back. Also deals 2850 to 3150 siege damage to buildings.

Electroshock (38 Steam Pressure) – Shocks all targets within a 25 yard cone in front of the caster. It also interrupts spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 4 sec. (10 sec cooldown)

Steam Rush (40 Steam Pressure) – Put the steam engine into overdrive for a short duration, rushing forward, dealing siege damage and knocking back enemies. (15 sec cooldown)

Note: You should never use Steam Rush when you are on a ramp, this will result in you falling through the world and an untimely death!

Passenger’s Abilities:

Anti-Air Rocket (10 Steam Pressure) – Fires an explosive missile that explodes on contact with air targets. (0.25 sec cooldown)

Fire Cannon (20 Steam Pressure) – Fires a cannon blast. An indirect hit can do as little as 5,000 damage, while a direct hit will do upwards of 20,000 damage. Does approximately 2,300 damage to buildings.

Shield Generator: Activates the shield generator on the Siege Engine, absorbing a limited amount of Physical, Fire, Frost and Arcane damage taken for 5 sec. (1 min cooldown)

Demolisher

These can carry a driver and a passenger also.

Driver’s Abilities:

Hurl Boulder – Hurls a massive boulder into the distance, dealing 27000 to 33000 damage to enemies within 8 yards of the explosion.

Hurl Pyrite Barrel (5 pyrite) – Hurls an orb of blue pyrite into the distance, dealing damage, but consumes ammo. Also places a debuff that does damage per second for 10 seconds and can be stacked up to 10 times.

Ram – Rams any enemies in front of the demolisher, dealing 19000 to 21000 Damage and knocking them back. Also deals 2160 to 2640 siege damage to buildings. (4 sec cooldown)

Throw Passenger – Launch a passenger into the distance. (2 sec cooldown)

Passenger’s Abilities:

Mortar – Fires a miniature explosive blast, dealing Fire damage to all enemies in the target area. (1 sec cooldown) An indirect hit can do as little as 5,000 damage, while a direct hit will do upwards of 20,000 damage. Does approximately 2,300 damage to buildings.

Anti-Air Rocket – Fires an explosive missile that explodes on contact with air targets. (0.25 sec cooldown)

Grab Crate – Use your hook and chain to grab the targeted crate. Grab the targeted crate to pick up Liquid Pyrite off the ground, which reloads the demolisher by 25 Pyrite

Increased Speed (25 pyrite) – Injects liquid pyrite into the engines, increasing movement speed by 100%. Lasts 20 sec.

Load into Catapult – Load yourself into the catapult arm, using yourself as ammunition. (30 sec cooldown)

Chopper

These have a driver, and can pick up a passenger who cannot then attack.

Driver’s Abilities:

Sonic Horn (20 energy) – Sends a wave of force in front of the motorcycle, causing 6300 to 7700 damage to all enemy targets within 35 yards in a frontal cone.

Tar – Drops a pool of tar for 45 sec that slows the movement speed of enemies within 10 yards. Tar can be ignited. Lasts for 45 sec. (15 sec cooldown)

Speed Boost (50 energy) – Fires the fuel injectors on the bike, increasing its speed by 100% for 5 sec.

First Aid Kit – Heals your passenger fully over 4 sec. (1 min cooldown)

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Trash

The trash will begin when you talk to Brann Bronzebeard or the Lore-Keeper of Norgannon and say that you are ready. Then you hop in the vehicles. It is generally best if you sort out who is in which vehicle before you talk to Brann Bronzebeard or the Lore-Keeper of Norgannon. If you talk to Brann Bronzebeard then the fight is set to ‘easy mode’. If you talk to the Lore-Keeper of Norgannon then the fight is set to ‘hard mode’; this means when you destroy towers during the trash fight it will remove buffs from Flame Leviathan. In easy mode he does not have any buffs and destroying the towers only stops the mobs from spawning.

Once you have started it and are in the vehicles head north. There will be many small mobs, then should be easy to take down, just use your various attack abilities. The small mobs will die fast (Steelforge Defenders and Titanium Stormlords). The larger ones (Ulduar Colossi) will cast Ground Slam periodically, this does a lot of damage and it will be easier if you get the Siege Engine drivers to use Electroshock, which will interupt the cast.

Get the Siege Engine and Demolisher passengers to use their Anti-Air Rockets to take down the Flying Crates, which will drop Liquid Pyrite, which the demolishers passengers need to pick up using Grab Crate (it is the demolishers ‘ammo’ for their abilities). They will also need to use Anti-Air Rockets to take down the Helicopter mobs which can be a pain.

If you are on easy mode then destroy the towers to stop the mobs from spawning, if you are on hard mode then destroy any towers that you do not want up (you will make the fight easier the more towers you take down, it is a bit like Obsidian Sanctum in this respect). Each tower increases Flame Leviathans health by 25% (2 Towers = +50%, 3 Towers = +75% etc.). However the more towers you leave up the better the loot (you need all 4 up to get any of the special ‘hard mode’ items).

Map of Towers:

I do not recommend leaving a tower up for your first attempt at this boss, you need a couple of ‘easy mode’ attempts to get the hang of it. Each tower as well as the health bonus also increase his damage by 15%, and have the following effects:

• Storm Tower (+ Physical Damage) – lightning balls come down from the sky, these are quite easy to dodge.
• Flame Tower (+ Fire Damage) – beam moves across the ground leaving fires behind, these are slightly harder to dodge. This also increases the damage of Flame Vents.
• Frost Tower (+ Frost Damage) – freezes players and siege engines, this is not too hard to dodge, but if you fail it can have dire consequences, the ‘ice tomb’ will last for 1 minute and acts as a DOT, it can be taken down early using fire (Flame Vents, Hurl Pyrite Barrel or Tar when it is ignited). Also you will be slowed by 20%.
• Nature Tower (+ Nature Damage) – spawns adds that must be killed, these adds are a pain if you get too many, and it takes more co-ordination than the other towers effects.

Other than the effects and health/damage increases the fight is exactly the same with the towers up, albeit harder.

If you get low on health then there is a repair pad which is marked on the map here (it is just before the boss). Do not attack the 2 Colossi that are guarding the gate until you are all full on health (unless you are going for the achievement) and all the demolishers have as much Liquid Pyrite as they can carry, killing them summons the boss.

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Flame Leviathan

Abilities:

Flame Vents – Inflicts 3,000 Fire damage every 1 second to enemies within 50 yards of the caster. Lasts 10 seconds.

Battering Ram – Inflicts 100% weapon damage to the target, and applies a stackable debuff that increases damage taken by 50% for 20 seconds.

Gathering Speed – Increases the Flame Leviathan’s movement speed by 5% for 10 minutes, stacking up to 20 times. Overload Circuit resets the number of stacks back to 0.

Turrets – The Flame Leviathan has 2 Turrets (4 on 25man) that can be destroyed by passengers launched by the Salvaged Demolisher’s catapult. Each time you destroy all the Turrets it causes Overload Circuit to happen, which stuns the Flame Leviathan (Systems Shutdown).

Rockets – Inflicts ~700 damage to the whole raid every 1-2 seconds.

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The Fight

Outline

When you are ready you should kill the Colossi. The boss will come through the gate and wait just in front of it. When you engage all move forward together or the barrier will prevent you from joining your comrades, and if he targets you and chases you through the barrier he will reset to full health. Not good.

When you attack him he will randomly target a Demolisher or Siege Engine and chase them. Make sure he does not catch you. Use Steam Rush or Increased Speed and run around the edge of the arena, thats right, you have to kite him. In that respect this fight is just like Big Bad Wolf in Kara. In just about every other respect it is different! Every 30 seconds he will target a random Demolisher or Siege Engine and chase them.

He will gradually get faster the longer he is up thanks to Gathering Speed. If he catches you he will use Battering Ram, this will really hurt if you get a couple of stacks of it on you. Every so often he will use Flame Vents which means you cannot run around on top of him. I would suggest that you all move in a pack behind him (except for the Choppers and the machine is kiting him). That way you can all dps him without getting hit by Flame Vents and if/when he changes to a different machine you have time to run!

When possible you should launch the 2 DPS (on 10man) or several DPS and a Healer (on 25man) onto Flame Leviathan (using Load into Catapult and Throw Passenger. Once up there they should take down the Turrets (there are 2 Turrets in 10man and 4 Turrets in 25man), once they are down Flame Leviathan will become stunned (Systems Shutdown) and take 50% more damage, this is the time to nuke! The stun will also reset the stacks of Gathering Speed.

From there it is a case of rinse and repeat. If you have no towers up you should only have to cause Systems Shutdown once, and he will die before you trigger the next one.

Note: If you are going for the Shutout achievement then you have to do this without causing a Systems Shutdown, this means he will keep getting faster and faster, so you really do have to nuke him down are hard as possible. This is not too hard to do without any towers up. In fact quite a lot of first time groups do not realise they can launch people up onto him to stun him, and get this achievement by accident!

Siege Engine Tactics – Driver

Your job is to keep away from him when he is chasing you (Steam Rush is your friend), and follow him when he is not. You should also use Electroshock to interupt Flame Vents, which will take a toll on any vehicles in range.

Siege Engine Tactics – Passenger

It is your job to use Shield Generator when your vehicle is kiting him and he gets uncomfortably close. For the rest of the time you should be using Fire Cannon to dps him down. After a while the demolishers will get low on Liquid Pyrite, so you should shoot down some of the Flying Crates using your Anti-Air Rockets. You should also be using Anti-Air Rockets to ignite the Tar that the Choppers will be laying in front of the boss.

Demolisher Tactics – Driver

You should be keeping away from Flame Leviathan when he is chasing you, getting your passenger to use Increased Speed will help you do this. You should be using Hurl Boulder extensively, and when Flame Leviathan is incapacitated (Systems Shutdown) you should use Hurl Pyrite Barrel, you can use it during other times but it is best to save it in most circumstances as you will get more damage for your limited ammunition. When your passenger and the raid is ready you should use Throw Passenger to get your man (or woman) on the back of the beast. Your passenger and/or the Siege Engine passengers will be shooting down barrels at some point to replenish your supplies, your part in this is to drive close enough to the barrels that your passenger can pick them up, if you do not it can lead to a very frustrating time for your passenger!

Demolisher Tactics – Passenger

You should be using Increased Speed to keep your vehicle ahead of the Leviathan when you are kiting. Use Mortar to DPS the boss while doing this. You will get low on Liquid Pyrite at some point, then Anti-Air Rockets will let you shoot down Flying Crates, which you can pick up using Grab Crate, Siege Engine passengers can help you by shooting the Flying Crates down. You should also be using Anti-Air Rockets to ignite the Tar that the Choppers will be laying in front of the boss.

When the raid is ready you should use Load into Catapult and get ready to be fired onto the Leviathans back. Once you are up there you should DPS down the Turrets as fast as possible (or heal those up there if you are a healer). Once you have taken them down you will be ejected from the Leviathan.

Chopper Tactics

Once Flame Leviathan has been disabled you will need to pick up the people that were ejected from the top asap. If you do not pick them up they will die, and fast. Once you have them onboard you should use First Aid Kit to heal them up and take them back to the demolishers.

When you are not doing that you should be using Tar in front of Flame Leviathan so that the rest of your team can ignite it doing some damage. Speed Boost will help you get in and out without getting hit.

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Drops

The Hardmode loot is only dropped when there are 4 towers up. However he drops an extra Emblem of Conquest with each additional tower that is up.

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Achievements

• Take Out Those Turrets – Destroy a Turret. Only the player that gets the killing blow will get the achievement, so this could be hard for healers and tanks to get.
• Three Car Garage – Defeat Flame Leviathan in one of each of the vehicles. This just requires your guild to rotate vehicles and kill him 3 times (requires 3 weeks minimum).
• Unbroken – Defeat Flame Leviathan without anyone repairing thier Vehicle. This is highly possible if you manage to get through the trash without taking too much damage, having high ilevel gear helps as you will have more health to play with. If you allow your vehicles to be destroyed after clearing the gauntlet then new ones respawn (as they do if you wipe on him), this makes this achievement much easier (as you have vehicles with full health at the start without having to repair), but I am not sure if this is an exploit or not, and whether it will/has been fixed.
• Orbital Bombardment – Defeat Flame Leviathan with 1 Tower up (I recommend leaving Storm Tower up).
• Orbital Devastation – Defeat Flame Leviathan with 2 Towers up (I would choose Storm Tower and Flame Tower, as long as your team can dodge things that fall from the sky, and interupt Flame Vents quickly).
• Nuked From Orbit – Defeat Flame Leviathan with 3 Towers up (Storm, Flame and Frost Towers might be easiest, the same applies from the previous achievement).
• Orbit-uary – Defeat Flame Leviathan with 4 Towers up (Storm, Flame, Frost and Nature, now you will have things falling from the sky, increased damage all round and adds that you have to take down or you will become swamped).
• Shutout – Defeat Flame Leviathan without causing a Systems Shutdown. This is not too hard to do without having any towers up (i.e. easy mode), just have everyone hit Flame Leviathan with everything they have, including Pyrite in the case of the Demolishers (theres no use saving it for a rainy day!).
• Dwarfageddon – Destroy 100 Steelforged Defenders in 10 seconds on the Ulduar gauntlet. This isnt too hard, just nuke hard as you go down the gauntlet!

Note: If you are having trouble doing it with Towers up, then you can go round after a wipe and take them down to make the fight easier and allow you to progress.

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That concludes the guide, hope this helps!