Irae AoD kills Yogg-Saron with one Keeper
Irae AoD (EU-Mug'thol) managed to kill Yogg-saron with the assistance of only one keeper (Heroic: One Light in the Darkness), it definitely looks like the the hard mode kill without any keeper is possible. They also got a hard mode loot (ilvl 239) from Yogg-Saron for this kill.

• Ulduar Hard Mode Gear List


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We first received a tip on a mysterious guild that was blowing through Ulduar's hardest achievements one after the other, all in one day, about a day or two ago. Their gear and raid experience stated very well that they were in no position to do any of those achievements, but we sort of shrugged and let it pass by. It was odd that these players were barely in Naxxramas gear, and their first recorded Kel'thuzad kill was only two weeks prior to their explosion of Ulduar achievements, but we initially ignored these reports because surely, nobody could be hacking the game. On top of that, the forum threads submitted to us all had so many posts deleted from them that they were completely incomprehensible. There was nothing solid about any of it.

Tips on it are still flooding our mailboxes today and a bit more information has surfaced, so let's look into it a little, shall we? The guild is The Marvel Family of US-Vek'nilash. The character Karatechop is the one that has attracted the most attention, and you'll see why in just a moment. If you look over his gear, it's not that bad, really. Epic tank gear, a lot of it from Naxxramas, so it's feasible that he could make some progress through Ulduar. It gets weird when you go to his Statistics and/or Achievements panels. Let's go to his statistics first.
If you can't make out the numbers there, his largest recorded hit is 353,892,967 damage. That's just shy of 354 million damage. There are a lot of solo quests in the world that let you put out insane damage (The Battle for the Undercity for example) but there are none that cause you to do damage in the hundreds of millions. However, there is something in the game that gives this number some significance. It's the total health pool of Flame Leviathan's hardest hard mode, leaving all four preceeding towers standing. Let's go take a look at his achievements...

Yep, there she is! Orbit-uary, leaving all four towers up on Flame Leviathan. Even more absurdly suspiscious is that they apparently did Shutout at the same time. How were they able to do both? Well, they didn't. Not legitimately. Somehow, Karatechop managed to 1-shot Flame Leviathan.

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We’ve now had two weeks to assess the impact of patch 3.1 on the WoW economy. The general consensus has been that, while there were a few areas of opportunity, the Northrend economy overall is in a state of continued decline. We are certainly no fans of assumption here at WoWenomics so we chose a few items, specifically those items we based our own pre-patch predictions upon, to track with standard financial analytics. It is this analysis we share with you now.

When looking at the statistics below you may notice that there are three weeks of listed tests. The purpose of conducing three weeks of testing was to establish a baseline in the week prior to the release of the patch. Bear in mind that the day the patch was released to the (US) public was Tuesday, April 14th. The data listed below reflects the week of prices leading up to this date and the two-week period following.

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Strand of the Ancients is a battleground that's gotten relatively short shrift lately -- it came along into the game with the crown jewel of Wrath PvP so far, Wintergrasp, and while it's still frequented on honor weekends (it's one of the best ways to farm honor, actually) and for achievements, lots of players, specifically those on the Horde, aren't happy with it. Why? Because right now, Alliance always starts the battle on offense first. The battle is a regular attack-and-defend map, and Alliance reportedly has a "significant advantage" by beginning on the attack side: they only have to play offense for a few minutes, and then defend for the same amount of time, while Horde have to defend the whole first round and then attack if they want to win. Plus, the battleground doesn't always start full, which means whoever attacks first usually is fighting fewer defenders.

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As you will have noticed by now if you've entered an instance in progress since patch 3.1, Blizzard's new binding notification system is in effect. Whenever you join an instance in which bosses have already been killed, you get a warning that staying in there will bind you to that instance -- thus hopefully preventing you from accidentally sticking to an instance you don't like.

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Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss some of the logic behind a few of the popular Rogue mantras.

While I was on the WoW Insider show last weekend, a question came up regarding weapon speeds and poison selection for a Combat Rogue. I answered the question in detail, and after finishing my explanation, I realized that I sounded more like an algebra teacher than a gamer. There is a lot of math involved in mastering the Rogue class.

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X-Cross has been building a new machinima series, titled FI5VE. As an author works on this kind of thing, there are myriads of outtakes. These aren't always mistakes. Some of the scenes they build, film, make all pretty, and then simply decide that the final product doesn't work our for them. This deleted opening is exactly such an out take. X-Cross ultimately decided that it was too long to open each episode.

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The specific changes that they just announced for Ulduar:

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TOO SOON! YOU HAVE AWAKENED ME TOO SOON, EXECUTUS! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF ... wait a minute. You're not my Majordomo. You're a small orcish child wearing a rather garish hat. Why am I sitting atop a mound of collapsed cake? And why are there sparkles everywhere? By Sargeras, did I finally agree to do one of those kid's birthday parties that Hakkar is always pestering me about? Sure, I'm hard up for work these days, but there's something undignified about an elemental lord popping out of a mound of cake. I must have been plastered when I took this job. Oh well. Might as well play it up and give the kid her two pairs of pants so I can go home and sink into a six-pack of the finest Dark Iron Reserve. YOU, INSECT! TASTE THE FROSTING OF SULFURON!

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My favorite MotoGP rider Sete Gibernau is back for the 2009 MotoGP after coming out of his retirement in 2006. Although I'm ecstatic that Sete's back, he's obviously lost a step, clocking 13th in Qatar and a DNF in Motegi. We've got a whole season to go, though, so things can definitely get better. This whole business of coming back to the sport reminded me of players who have quit the game for one reason or the other. I mean, we've got pretty notable players like Phaelia and BigRedKitty who have put away their staves and guns in order to pursue other endeavors. It happens.

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*Sniff sniff*. Smell that? It's the smell of desperation -- the smell of a ninja who knows he's been caught. Zlickrick above found a piece of loot in his mailbox that was supposed to go to someone who won a raid roll, but instead he put it on. And now, confronted, you can almost see the desperation in his text. Unfortunately, once an item is soulbound, it's pretty much lost. But still, he knows he's been caught. And GW knows it, too.

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Good morrow, my European companions, it's Wednesday which means only one thing. Yes it's maintenance time once more.

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