by Chris Noll on Jul 13, 2009
The first Boss that you will reach in Ulduar is the Flame Leviathan,
however before discussing his abilities, and how to defeat him, it is
important to understand how to use the various vehicles that you will
be riding in. It is important that every player knows what each of the
vehicles can do, and how they are required to be used to defeat
him. Each vehicle has several abilities that can be used, and
has a base amount of health.
An important thing to note is that the amount of health the vehicle has
changes depending on the gear level of the player driving
it. For this reason it is important that you equip your
highest item level
items for this fight. This could mean equipping a mix of
tank/DPS gear or Healing/DPS gear or any other combination.
If you have the choice between a level 213 and 219 or 226 piece of gear
you should always choose the higher level. Just remember to
change back to your proper gear after this fight.
[video]http://video.tentonhammer.com/WoW/FlameLeviathan_BossGuide.flv[/video]
The Salvaged chopper is primarily a 1 person vehicle, however it can
carry a passenger.
First
Aid Kit – Heals your passenger to full
health. This ability has a 1 minute cooldown.
Sonic
Horn – This sends a wave of sound in front of
the
chopper hitting everything in its cone of effect for roughly 6,000 to
8,000 damage. Uses 20 energy.
Speed
Boost – Increases speed by 100% for 5 seconds.
Uses 50
energy.
Tar
– This ability drops a pool of tar on the ground that
lasts for 45 seconds and slows all enemies within 10 yards of
it. This ability has a 15 second cooldown.
The Chopper's primary purpose is to use its tar to slow the boss and
provide players more time to get away from it. It is also
used as a recovery vehicle for players that are launched onto the boss
to destroy towers (more on this later).
The Salvaged Demolisher is a two person vehicle that’s crew
consists of a driver and a gunner. This vehicle is the
primary DPS vehicle for the fight.
[protip]If you are going to be attempting to shut down Flame
Leviathan with Overloads (described later in this guide), then the best
passengers are Shadow Priests, Boomkins, and Warlocks. This
is so that they can DPS turrets and self heal as required.[/protip]
The Siege Engine is a two person vehicle that’s crew consists
of a driver and a gunner. This vehicle is essentially the
fight's tank as it has the most health and has interrupts to shut down
the Flame Leviathan's abilities.
Electroshock
(Driver) – This ability electrically shocks all
enemies within 25 yards of the front of the siege engine. It
causes light damage and interrupts spell casting. In addition
it prevents any spells from the same school of magic from being cast
for 4 seconds. This ability has a 10 second cooldown and uses
40 steam pressure.
Ram
(Driver) - This attack rams all enemies in front of the
siege
engine causing approximately 25,000 damage and pushing them
back. It also deals additional damage to buildings.
This attack uses 40 steam pressure.
Steam
Rush (Driver) - Increases speed by 100% and charges
forward until
complete.
Anything in the siege Engines path takes damage and suffers knock back
as if hit from a ram attack. This ability uses 40 steam pressure.
Anti-Air
Rockets (Passenger) - This attack launches anti-air
rockets
that explode on contact. This is useful for taking out
helicopters and flying Pyrite canisters. This attack uses 10 steam
pressure.
Fire
Cannon (Passenger) - This attack launches a shell that
explodes,
causing fire damage to everything in its area of effect. The
damage caused depends on the targets proximity to the impact point but
can be quite high. This attack uses 20 steam pressure.
Shield
Generator (Passenger) – This ability activates
the
siege engines shields which absorb a small amount of damage before
dissipating. This ability has a 1 minute cooldown.
The siege engine's main task is to stay close enough to Flame Leviathan
to use its interrupt ability on it whenever required. In
addition it can cause substantial damage by ramming, charging, and
shooting at the Flame Leviathan. The tricky part of the siege
engine's job is staying close, then clearing away from the Flame
Leviathan just before a target change, then getting back in range if
they were not selected as a target.
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/71127">
Health:
10 Person Raid: 23,000,000
25 Person Raid: 70,000,000
The Flame Leviathan is the first boss that you reach in Ulduar and can
be found at the end of a gauntlet that you must fight your way through
in vehicles. He is different than other bosses in that you do
not fight him yourselves, instead you must use three different siege
vehicles to destroy him. The vehicles to choose from are the
Salvaged Chopper, Salvaged Demolisher, and Salvaged Siege Engine.
Abilities:
Battering
Ram – Flame Leviathan's front battering ram
knocks
back everyone in front of it and applies a debuff that increases damage
taken by 100%.
Flame
Vents – This is a channeled ability that the
Flame
Leviathan uses occasionally that lasts 10 seconds and does 2,000 damage
to everyone and everything around it.
Gather
Speed – This is a stacking buff that Flame
Leviathan
gains as the fight goes on that grants a 5% boost to movement per
stack. It can stack up to 20 times.
Missile
Barrage – This attack hits everything in the
combat
zone for approximately 700 damage every second.
Overload
– This is a negative effect that can cripple the
Flame Leviathan for a short period of time. It is triggered
by destroying all four turrets on the Flame Leviathan (2 in 10 player
raids). When overload is triggered several things happen.
First, any players on the Flame Leviathan are launched off and will
float down to the room's floor. Additionally, Flame Leviathan
stops in place for roughly 15 seconds, suffers 50% additional damage
during this time, and has its gathered speed stack reset to zero.
Random
Target – Flame Leviathan has no threat table,
instead
it randomly selects a Siege Engine or Demolisher to chase every 30
seconds.
Start Methods:
You can start the fight in either normal mode or hard mode, depending
who you talk to to start it. To start the fight in normal
mode you speak to Brann. To start the fight in hard mode you
speak to Lore Keeper of Norgannon.
If started in hard mode you must destroy some of, or all of, the four
towers that are found in the gauntlet leading up to Flame Leviathan or
he will have certain extra abilities. These abilities and how
to deal with them can be found in the achievements section of the guide.
Strategy:
Once the fight is started the Flame Leviathan will randomly select a
siege engine or demolisher to target for 30 seconds. The
target will change every 30 seconds until the fight ends. The key
strategy here is that whoever is targeted must kite the Flame Leviathan
around the room away from other players.
There are several possible kiting methods, and even a random kite
method can work. However, generally an organized kiting
method works best, especially when learning the fight. The
most common kiting methods are either kiting across to diagonally
opposite corners, or kiting in a clockwise/counterclockwise direction
around the room. When kiting diagonally all players always head to the
opposite corner that the tank is travelling towards. When
kiting in a clockwise direction, all players follow one corner behind
the kiting player, when the Flame Leviathan switches targets, the new
target simply turns around and switches direction.
Kiting is fairly simple and once everyone understands it, the fight
becomes simple. The only difficulty in kiting comes by way of
the gathered speed buff. Initially Flame Leviathan is
extremely easy to kite, however as the buffs stack it becomes
progressively harder to stay away from the boss. Eventually
even with the speed boosts that the player vehicles are capable of you
will not be able to stay away.
No matter which kiting method you use, the choppers should be driving
around in front of the Flame Leviathan and dropping tar to slow it
down. Also the Siege Engines must be following Flame
Leviathan close enough to use electroshock to interrupt flame vent as
soon as it is used.
While the boss is being kited, other players simply focus on DPSing him
down. To do this there are two choices, simply DPS him and
try
to stack pyrite as much as possible, or launch players onto
the boss
to destroy the turrets located there and force an overload. Both
strategies work equally well for the basic version of the fight, and it
is really up to the group to decide which to use. The preferred method,
at least for learning, should be to destroy the turrets on Flame
Leviathan to force a shutdown. This is simply so that players
know how, and become comfortable with it so that they are ready for
hard
mode later where it becomes a necessity.
[protip]Once you know the fight it is easier to simply stack
pyrite when doing 2 or less towers on hard mode, rather than launching
players and attempting to get overloads.[/protip]
[protip]Calling out a landing location or pinging the map is
extremely helpful to arrange pickup. Also the chopper driver
should remember to use the first aid kit as soon as he picks up a
passenger so that they are back at full health once returned to their
vehicle.[/protip]