Normal Mode Ulduar cleared too soon?
April 17, 2009 by Angelo Fernandez
Filed under General WoW News
The Ulduar raid dungeon was probably the most anticipated feature of the recently released patch 3.1, which also released the dual specs feature and the permanent in game event Argent Tournament. When a lot of people were complaining about the tier 7 content like Naxxramas and Obsidian Sanctum, Blizzard has always pointed out that they were really supposed to be easy and that Ulduar is way harder.
ulduar portal
Since the patch came out I still have yet to step foot inside Ulduar so I don’t really know first hand how hard it really is. The past few days was about fixing up my main character and getting the right addons. That and a lack of raid time the past few days prevented me from joining my guild on our runs. As I complain about not being able to step inside Ulduar just yet, we already have a world first kill for Yogg-Saron in normal Ulduar 25 done by the guild Ensidia from Magtheridon-EU. We also have reports of a US first kill done by the guild Vodka from the Alterac Mountains realm. Yogg-Saron is the last boss in Ulduar, not counting Algalon who is only available in hard mode.
Sure we’re not talking about hard modes just yet so Ulduar still has a lot to offer even the most hardcore raiders. But how do you feel about Ulduar being cleared (as far as normal mode is concerned) so soon after the release of the patch? Do you think this happened too soon?
I have not stepped foot in Ulduar either but I do think it is being cleared way to fast. I think the biggest problem is all the testing that happens on the ptr these days. With the resources Blizzard has I don’t see why they cannot do all internal testing of instances so when it is released it is new to everyone and actually takes a little longer to clear. I mean they still do final tweaking after it is released anyways. That and the fact that they have made it so much easier than pre-wrath. Oh how I miss vanilla wow when raiding was raiding and killing bosses meant something. Don’t get me wrong, killing a boss for the first time is exciting and an accomplishment but it just doesn’t feel the same as it used to.
We’re already starting to see hard mode kills of the other bosses. I wonder if that’s a bad sign.
I assure you, the bosses are not pushover’s. Well, Flame Leviathan is, but the rest are not.
I’m going to venture to guess that the guilds that have cleared Ulduar, or are doing hard modes, are the serious hard core raiding guilds. People that spend 6 hours a day 5 days a week in Ulduar perfecting everything they can to get them down. Is it sad that the instance was cleared that fast? Yes. I don’t agree with allowing public testing to the extent that blizzard does, but what you have to consider is that these guilds that cleared it so quickly, tested it. They spent months on the test realm, fighting these bosses and perfecting strategies for them. They really only had to learn two or three new boss fights. Imagine you had cleared naxx for two months, then it went live and you had to clear it again, how hard would it be for you? About the only thing that would limit your ability to clear it, would be gear.
If you had a brand new untested (by the public) raid, these same guilds, would not have cleared it already. Some of them might be getting close, simply because that is what they do, they raid, and some of them get paid to do it. But Ulduar was not cleared in two days really when you think about it, because you have to take into account the months they spent learning the strats, CREATING the strats, and wiping to these bosses.
I don’t like the public testing, but there really are things that you can’t always think of yourself. Take the super speed kills of Sarth +3, I doubt anyone at blizzard even thought of that, let alone that it would be possible. That is the problem with only internal testing, you can’t account for everything players might try, to get the boss down. I played vanilla WoW, I do miss the difficulty of those raids, but Ulduar is definitely a step in the right direction from the lolnaxx that teir 7 is.
Besides, they say the real final boss of Ulduar is Alganon, not Yogg Saron, I have heard him, either jokingly or seriously, I have yet to determine which, called Alganon the raid destroyer.