It’s been done. Your main tank is dead. Your healing corps is decimated. It seems as though your stealthers continue to be found and shredded. Plate armor is sundered and scattered across the battlefield. The clothwearers torn apart with nothing left aside from their robes.
It’s a wipe.
What’s the best course of action you can take to assist your raid?
Suiciding yourself and wiping along with them.
Don’t give me the rallying cries of “Mimiron will never take me alive!†either. You can’t solo a boss unless he’s within one or two spell casts of death. How many times have I witnessed a player single handedly declare victory against a raid boss? I can count that number on one hand.
So don’t be a hero unless you can actually do it. Here’s how you can make yourself useful when a wipe’s called. Ever wondered what the fastest way to die on each boss was in Ulduar?
Oh and a special note to healers. When a wipe is called, there is thing that you have to actually do that can help hasten the process.
Stop fracking healing!
Flame Leviathan
Wipes when: You’re down to 3 choppers, no tanks, and maybe a few demolishers. Unless the bucket of bolts is at a ridiculously low level, you’re done.
Methods: Jump out and close within melee range of the boss. If the Flame Vent doesn’t get you, the rockets will.
Ignis
Wipes when: Main tank is dead with no other alternatives or when a Construct gets pulled into the raid and gets stupidly detonated taking out the entire crew.
Methods: Jump into a scorch. Cast a spell before Flame Jets connects. Hug a Brittle construct before blowing it up.
Razorscale
Wipes when: No tanks are alive and that big honkin’ Titan guy does what Right Said Fred sings by doing more than a little turn on the catwalk. Yes, I’ve seen pickup raids demolished by that one trash mob. Also consider a bailout when an off tank isn’t able to tank quick enough and the debuffs continue to stack too high on the main tank.
Methods: Go die in a fire. Literally. The blue fire will do the trick. Give big honkin’ Titan guy a hug. If it’s phase 2, the plan is to try to pop a breath mint into Razor’s mouth by getting in front of him. I’m sure he’d appreciate some juicy fruit when you’re being blasted with his Flame Breath.
Deconstructor
Wipes when: Completely pounds the crap out of your main tank. Or when Joe Paladin forgets to run out of the raid with a light bomb. Also happens when Deconstructor wolfs down some grilled repair bot burgers. Oh yes, and if your raid forgot to eat their wheaties this morning and managed to close in on the enrage timer.
Methods: See that guy that’s glowing white? Give him a big hug. Let’s not forget the guy in black and purple either. Run to him! Tantrums, when they occur, will auto-slaughter the raid.
Iron Council
Wipes when: One of the tanks gets Falcon (Fusion) Punched. Raid eats a green rune and is too slow getting out of it. Anytime those Iron Council folks are basking in blues of glory. There’s a multitude of causational factors that could lead to a wipe.
Methods: Do everything I mentioned in the last paragraph. Oh, and hug the small Iron Dwarf. He’s the lonely one of the bunch. Gets frequently picked on all the time. When he’s doing that Overload thing, he’s just trying to unload his problems. It doesn’t hurt.
Much.
Kologarn
Wipes when: Eyebeam fail. Stone grip fail. Tank-falls-off-ledge fail. No one in melee range of Kologarn fail.
Methods: Just repeat everything above. Stand in beams or jump off the ledge or run far away from him.
Auriaya
Wipes when: Not enough players absorb a sonic screech. Alternatively, difficulty with the pull. If you can master the pull you can master the boss. But the pull is what gets to raids.
Methods: Just get eaten up by the various cats. Stand in the void zone.
Hodir
Wipes when: Frozen blows dominates your entire raid. Tank dies. Raid doesn’t know how to either keep moving or watch for camp fires.
Methods: Stop moving. Avoid the big snow drifts and get flash frozen. Stand under falling icicles.
Thorim
Wipes when: Either the arena team doesn’t hold out long enough or the gauntlet team is too slow. In phase 3, it happens because a taunt’s not quick enough.
Methods: During the second phase, if you’re gauntlet, do run into the line of fire. Do stand next to the guy with the fire shield icon above him. If you’re in the arena, make some friends. During the third phase, dive into the lightning streams.
Freya
Wipes when: Have you heard the phrase:
“Oh what the frack. Who killed the Stormlasher/Snaplasher/Water elemental before the others were down?â€Â
Yeah. Happens to us. Too anxious on the trigger finger. AoEing detonators is also a very bad idea…
Methods: …But AoEing detonators leads to a speedy death. If it’s on ‘shrooms, look for the player who is flashing lightning and stand next to them. Lashers are a bit of a pain to die to however. Freya’s one of the worse bosses to wipe on because it can take a while for everyone to die.
Mimiron
Wipes when: I don’t even know where to start. Missing tanks? Nuked healers? Not enough DPS? It could be any number or combination.
Methods: Here’s a quick list.
- Phase 1: Run into land mines
- Phase 2: Get up close to the boss. Let the fires engulf you or have the entire raid stand in one direction and simply eat the arcane guns.
- Phase 3: Run into any bots you see. Bomb bots are great for this.
- Phase 4: Run into land mines.
General Vezax
Wipes when: Healers run out of juice with no Saronite vapors around. Lack of interrupts on Vezax. Tank faces a super saiyan General Vezax who dishes out 50000 damage. Yeah. Happened to us before too. Not pretty.
Methods: Stand in a Saronite vapos for more than 7 ticks. Hug Vezax without interrupting anything. Let him warm you up some.
Yogg-Saron
Wipes when: Anything bad that can happen will happen. Players become magically blind to the color green. It happens.
Method: Run into clouds and run into the green beams emanating from Yogg-Saron.
I find myself grinning while reading this. Definitely one of the more fun guides I’ve read in a while. I doubt my guild would heed its advice much though. We tend to be rather tenacious. I’ve personally been the last standing when Malygos fell in a 25 man, and just last night we downed the crazy cat lady with over half the raid dead around 30-40%. It’s also good to see someone else remembers Right Said Fred.
Additionally, my favorite form of suicide on Razorscale is to switch to travel form and hurl myself of the cliff. I love how the camera sinks a bit before it levels out and just looks down as you plummet into oblivion.
As a holy pally, my favorite methods of wiping the raid (after its been called) are taunting the boss, or BoP/DI the tank.
Nice tips. I wish people would learn to die more quickly. Wiping sucks, but have fun doing it! 🙂
One thing I wish people would learn… when a wipe is called, do not run towards the door! That’s where us hunters and other people who can drop combat like to position ourselves. If you come over here, so does the boss, then he drops a nasty AoE and kills everyone.
And don’t give me that “If I have to repair, you have to repair” crap! 😛
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Regarding “Stop fracking healing!” once a wipe is called…
Normally this is a fantastic idea. Two comments on that though.
Officers/RL: Can we have one designated person calling wipes. And something nice and official, “OK, WIPE THIS” works. Don’t just say “It’s a Wipe”. Be clear. Be concise. Use your words.
Others: STFU. Seriously. Unless you’ve been told by the RL, you cannot call a wipe. S . T . F . U . If you’re yammering on because you think it’s a wipe, and it’s not, the healers may stop healing … and it’s a wipe. Congratulations on making yourself right by being a tool. And you dress funny.
Let’s not forget “Disconnect on every boss fight multiple times per attempt, leaving your character to die to hazards and/or become a bomb and kill other people”.
Use to have someone with that problem in my guild. *Use to*. 😉
Remember, folks… a good PC and a stable connection are just as important to being a top end raider as gear for your character.
Regarding Freya … our quotes are generally longer.
“Stop attacking the snaplasher … Stop attacking the snaplasher … Stop attacking the snaplasher … Seriously … ok … no … Stop … STOP …. Stop attacking the snaplasher … WIPE … HOW HARD IS IT TO STOP ATTACKING???”
No wonder I die.
Linking to this from my raid forums – this should be required reading for any Ulduar raid.
Great post, Matt <3!
Actually you can reset Freya on the door to her room. Even though this is a 20 seconds run it’s still faster then trying to wipe.
“I can count that number on one hand” I count 1 and it’s using my middle finger 😛
nice guide buddy made me giggle 🙂
On Yogg I play a little game where I try to beat my best number of spawns by cat+dash’ing through green crap before I die, so far 12 is my best, definately helps the DK’s die in the raid too which is good
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