Ulduar Clear Videos - Closure of EU-Stormscale

Here are 3 videos of a full clear of Ulduar, thanks to Closure of EU-Stormscale.  This is a perfect time to check them out, while the servers are down for 3.1.1 today.  If you want to download everything, you can find it on Warcraft Movies.

Ulduar - Part 1

Ulduar - Part 2

Ulduar - Part 3

3.1.1 on April 21st, 2009

Patch 3.1.1 will be going live tomorrow.  The patch includes the below listed "recently fixed" additions that require a client patch, as well as bugfixes for talent issues.

Quote from: Zechthal (Source)

We will be performing maintenance for all realms on Tuesday, April 21st. The downtime will begin at 3:00AM PDT and end at approximately 11:00AM PDT.

Thank you.

Talent Reset - 3.1.1

When 3.1.1 goes live tomorrow, all talents will be reset to take care of display and spending issues.

Quote from: Eyonix (Source)

In the next upcoming minor content patch, we will be wiping all talents which should fix a majority of talent issues that players have been experiencing. This talent wipe will not affect glyphs, but when reapplying your talent points, please be careful to match them up to the glyphs that you currently have placed.

Recent In-Game Fixes

Quote from: Bornakk (Source)

Keep in mind that some of these changes may not be active until after the server has been restarted.

• The Saronite Animus in the heroic General Vezax encounter has had its health increased.
• The Mimiron hard mode has received the following changes: increased damage from Flames, increased damage from Frost Bomb (in heroic), increased damage from Water Spray, and increased the health bonus he receives from Emergency Mode.
• The damage bonus of the Frozen Power talent should no longer affect boss creatures.
• The buff players receive from Tenacity in Wintergrasp is now stronger.
• Stoneclaw Totem should no longer put a shield on hostile targets.
• The damage from a Clockwork Sapper’s Energy Sap ability has been decreased.
• General Vezax’s abilities, Mark of the Faceless and Shadow Crash, may hit players in melee range depending on the situation and player setup.
• Players should no longer be able to quench the Unquenchable Flames debuff from a Molten Colossus by using spells like Cloak of Shadows or Divine Protection. The Molten damage from when Iron Constructs turn molten has been reduced, the ground damage from Scorch has been reduced, and the total health of Ignis himself has been reduced.
• For Ignis the Furnace master, Strength of the Creator will now only affect physical damage and he will have to wait for a short time to charge after casting Flame Jets.
• Katherine Lee should no longer be attackable in Dalaran, meanies.
• Shattering Throw will no longer consume an extra 25 rage.
• The heirloom item, Discerning Eye of the Beast, will now return mana at any level.
• The item Gauntlets of the Wretched can now be sold or disenchanted.
• All of the additional creatures spawned during the XT-002 Deconstructor encounter can now be snared in either difficulty.
• It will be slightly more difficult to skip Tympanic Tantrum on XT-002 Deconstructor.
• For the Hodir encounter, the damage from Champion of Hodir’s Freezing Breath has been reduced, the haste effect from Starlight has been decreased, and the timer for the hard mode has been decreased.
• For the Thorim encounter, the Runic Colossus should stop channeling Runic Smash once engaged in combat, the Dark Rune Champion should no longer whirlwind after being disarmed, and the Runic Colossus should no longer melee when it charges.

Death Strike healing nerf

Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)

UPDATE: We have since made another hotfix to just change the way the healing works completely. It now heals 5% of the death knight's health per disease on the target, up to a max of 15%. This should allow Frost and Unholy to benefit from Death Strike healing while letting Blood benefit from extra Death Strike damage. The tooltip will not reflect this change until we can patch the client.

Blue Posts

Where did Kalgan go? (Source)

Kalgan is still here watching over things in Tigole's absence and his new responsibilities keep him pretty busy every day. I'm sure you'll still see him on the boards from time to time. :)

Argent Squire and Grooming Kit / Pet Leash (Source)

This is not a bug. You cannot douse your squire in pet shampoo or tie a leash to him.

This message brought to you by the ASPCNCP (Azerothian Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Non-Combat Pets).

Raids & Dungeons

Future 5-player Content (Source)

We are looking to add some new 5-player content. Patch 3.1 was already one of the biggest patches we've ever released content-wise though, and adding a 5-player dungeon into the patch would've only further delayed it.

10-player Ulduar's Difficulty (Source)

As much as some of the top guilds in the world have cleared all the normal modes, remember these are the top guilds for a reason, they are very good. It is good to see that the dungeon is challenging a lot of players to complete fights and progress through the instance.

Will we make adjustments to the challenge factor? We continue to make changes as we feel they are needed.

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Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week, our author pretends to know more about Ulduar than she actually does, which makes a refreshing change from pretending to know more than she actually does about things that are already in the game.

Hail and well met, Druids. For the next three Shifting Perspectives columns, I'm going to take a look at Druid class roles on Ulduar fights. If patch 3.1 hits earlier than expected (I'm currently betting that it hits in late April/early May), I'll try to squeeze these in a little bit faster than once per week. But with luck (and, I hope, a parade of annoying bugs for Blizzard to hunt down and squash before they let the patch go live), we should have some information to chew on before we set foot in a live Ulduar.

Now watch Blizzard deploy the frickin' patch next week.

I have not gotten the opportunity to test all of these fights personally because I'm only on the North American PTR, and some fights -- like Yogg-Saron -- haven't been available for testing at all. What I write here is going to be a compilation of personal experience, details concerning boss abilities available on the PTR version of Wowhead, information I've gotten from pestering various people on both PTR's, and news available around the web, principally from WoW Insider's previous PTR testing, Wowwiki, MMO Champion, and World of Raids. Bear in mind that some things here may wind up being very different when Ulduar actually goes live, so take numbers and conjecture here with a grain of salt. I'm going to assume that basic boss mechanics are likely to remain the same or similar, so let's get started with the first three encounters.


As a general note concerning this instance, Blizzard knocked it out of the park design-wise. A lot of time went into Ulduar and it shows; it's a gorgeous raid. I was so enthralled by the scenery that I spent a good hour just running around the place while my poor guild leader was occupied trying to track down which guildie had what name on the PTR. Unfortunately, my opportunities for screenshots during actual fights were few and far between (my computer lags a little while screenshotting, which isn't a good idea while trying to learn a fight), so most of the pictures you'll see in this series were not taken during boss encounters.

FLAME LEVIATHAN

This isn't a fight where class abilities will really wind up playing a serious role. Most of your time will be spent in vehicles blasting the living snot out of everything that moves, or looks like it's thinking about moving, or even if it's not moving anymore and you just need more explosions in your life.

If you're a DPS or a healer in a Salvaged Demolisher, however, at some point you'll probably need to get your ass into a catapult for the Throw Passenger ability (side note: best ability name ever, and I think Blizzard should use that instead of the mealymouthed "ask (passenger) to leave" option you get on the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth, because sales would triple) to go destroy one of the Leviathan's four turrets. Once the turret is down, you can Overload Circuit to stun the Leviathan, causing it to take extra damage from player vehicles, so just be aware of this if you're a Cat/Boomkin/Tree.

A lot of the current difficulty of the fight lies with people learning how to use the different vehicles and their abilities on the fly, but it's not too difficult to figure out with a bit of practice. My guild was able to 15-man the 25-man version down to about 60% health with a lot of people completely new to the fight in the single attempt we got before Ulduar was shut down that night.



Regardless of spec, root around your inventory and bank for the highest i-level gear you've got in order to improve your vehicles' health (which is currently how item level affects vehicular "scaling" -- we haven't observed a damage bonus from better i-level gear, but the extra health helps a lot). Are you Balance but you've got, say, a Journey's End sitting in your bank? Pack it.

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03/24 - Flame Leviathan Testing
The testing of Flame Leviathan will be active on EU PTRs, starting at 19:00 CET and on US PTRs at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT.

Streams
Riven
Webcam chat at Ustream
Fight Information
Flame Leviathan Health - 20M (10-Man) / 62M (25-Man)

Every 30 seconds he will switch targets to another siege vehicle, mark them, and follow them around. If you do not have two siege vehicles active then he will pick a different unit.

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Note: Kologarn testing has been canceled. A new build is being deployed later today!

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Join us on IRC to discuss XT-002 Deconstructor, Ulduar, or anything about WoW.  You can also use our new Webchat if you don't want to download an IRC program.

Streams

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Conquest

Mens Wearhouse

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Update (2:30PM PDT): Added a bunch of boss videos below the new schedule.

Updated Ulduar Testing Schedule - March 10th, 2009

Quote from: Daelodev (Source)

Here's the current schedule for Ulduar PTR testing starting today:

On the North American test realms:

Hodir - Tuesday Night, March 10 at 7pm EDT/4PM PDT.
Mimiron - Wednesday Night, March 11, starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT.
Ignis the Furnace Master - Thursday Night, March 12, starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT.
XT-002 Deconstructor - Friday Night, March 13, starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT.
Kologarn - Saturday Night, March 14, starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT.
Flame Leviathan - Sunday, March 15, starting at 2pm EDT/11am PDT.

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Intrepid 3.1 PTR reporter Michael Sacco here, reporting for duty and giving you the skinny on all that Ulduar has to offer you. The developers have allowed players into Ulduar to test some encounters, usually one at a time, and they've been steadily gathering feedback each night. Prior to this engagement, the boss that was up was Flame Leviathan, but we've seen him a few times already. I was ready for something new.

Flame Leviathan may give me guns, but I want to go to the gun show. What do you say, Blizzard? How about you give me a boss who exercises his right to bear arms?

Kologarn? Why yes. This will do. This will do nicely. Let me grab Matt "Matticus" Low and my other, less important coworker Alex Ziebart.

This writeup will be spoiler-heavy. If you don't wish to know anything about this or any Ulduar boss, don't click the link below. You've been warned.

We knew going in where Kologarn would be, which is the Antechamber of Ulduar. He popped up during a different night, having been accidentally spawned, so we knew what we were getting into.

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Update: Testing is pretty much over.  Ensidia defeated Thorim on Hard Mode (with Sif up) and received Cosmos Vestments from the loot chest!

Don't forget to join us on irc to chat about the testing.

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Coming back to my post as official 3.1 PTR raid reporter after an offensive usurping by my dubiously sentient coworker Alex Ziebart, it's time for a new roundup of tonight's PTR Ulduar testing events. Last night we got a taste of the Flame Leviathan fight, which brought us motorcycles and tanks and floating pyrite containers, but tonight ... tonight we got a taste of a good, old-fashion player vs. comically gigantic dude raid encounter with Ignis, the Furnace Master.

Matt "Matticus" Low, the aforementioned plantlike Mr. Ziebart, and I formed a 10-man raid. As usual, Lead Encounter Designer Scott Mercer, a.k.a. Daelo, was around for the fun. Making travel considerably easier was last night's addition of a teleporter to different areas of the dungeon. Our trip past the large gate guarding the end of the Iron Concourse to the Colossal Forge was instant and uneventful. Then we waited for our barrel-chested braid-bearded friend to spawn.

This writeup will be spoiler-heavy. If you don't wish to know anything about this fight, don't click below. You've been warned.

Ignis spawned in a timely manner, thankfully. Behind him stood the Colossal Forge, and to his left and right stood rows of deactivated Iron Constructs and two waterfalls cascading into large pools. I had read up on some portions of the fight, thanks to datamined information from StratFu, so I had an idea of what to expect, but as usual, I couldn't take for granted anything in the fight until I had experienced it myself.

Ignis' abilities used in the 10-man fight are below:

• Activate Construct: Fires a bolt of magma at a random deactivated Iron Construct, activating it and causing it to defend the caster.
• Flame Jets: Stomps the ground causing geysers of flame to errupt under all enemies. These geysers deal 5655 to 6345 Fire damage, knocking the targets into the air and interrupting any spells being cast for 8 sec. In addition, the targets take 1000 Fire damage per second for 8 sec.
• Scorch: Fires a jet of flame, burning all enemies in front of the caster within 30 yards, dealing 2357 to 2643 Fire damage every half-second for 3 sec. Additionally, the ground is scorched by this effect causing it to catch on fire, dealing 1885 to 2115 Fire damage every second too all enemies within 13 yards. Iron Constructs within this radius will begin to heat up, eventually becoming molten.

We were informed that Ignis has no Hard Mode setting, which was a surprise.

With that in mind, we pulled him and it was a fairly simple endeavor for a while. He only had a little over six million health, which isn't an enormous amount for a 10-man boss. He'd use his Flame Jet ability every so often, which became a silence if you were casting when hit by it. We resolved that, of course, by simply not casting when the notice appeared on the screen. He also used his Scorch move in whatever direction he was aimed, scarring the ground in front of him and causing anyone in the radius to take damage. It was very easily avoidable.

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The developers sent us for a bit of a loop today, putting an Ulduar boss up for testing with very little notice immediately after PTR maintenance. Matticus, ever reliable, threw together a quick 10-man raid and welcomed me along to try out the Flame Leviathan. Unfortunately, Michael Sacco (who walked you through Hodir and the Iron Council) wasn't able to go with us this time around. I think he did it on purpose so I couldn't make any jokes about his inability to perform, if you know what I mean.

The Flame Leviathan is the boss (or one of the bosses) that uses siege vehicles in its encounter in the outdoors portion of Ulduar. For the safety of those that do not wish to be spoiled on anything Ulduar related, I'll put all information on the encounter beneath the cut below.

Again, if you do not want to be spoiled, do not click the link below.

When you first enter Ulduar, the entrance of the zone is filled with NPCs from a few different organizations. The Kirin Tor, various militaries, a Goblin from K3, and of course, Brann Bronzebeard and his expedition. A lot of that stuff is just flavor, and I think you're more interested in the fight itself for the moment so we'll move on.

You have the option of three different vehicles: Siege Engines, Demolishers, and Choppers. In the 10-man version, the only version of the fight currently available, there are two of each available to use. I assume there will be at least twice that for the 25-man version of the encounter. The vehicles do scale with you gear. Note that I said gear and not stats. The scaling seems to be based off of the iLevel of your gear, and not how much of what stat you have.

Matticus, a Discipline Priest in epic PvE gear, would have a Siege Engine with more HP than a Protection Warrior in blues, even if he had dramatically less HP than the Warrior outside of the tanks. Matt's gear has a higher iLevel, thus his vehicle is better.

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Stay tuned for more updates!

Update (16:32 PST): Added link to the Ulduar voiceovers.  They contain tons of spoilers, so only download if you want to spoil everything ahead of time!

Flame Leviathan Event

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Ulduar Preview Videos

Note: These videos are NOT from a private server, they were captured during the raid testing sessions on the PTR, so you'll see some stuff you won't see in other exploration videos available on the internet.  I've also used YouTube's "Annotations" feature to add notes about the encounters that take place in the areas seen.  Thanks to Elgurki for creating these!

Outside Ulduar Preview

Inside Ulduar Preview

A Look At Yogg-Saron's Prison

Algalon the Observer

If you've been following things and watched the video, you no doubt have some basic knowledge of Algalon the Observer and that he's only tuned as Hard Mode.  This fellow is essentially the conduit between the Titans (who have left Azeroth) and the Watchers (Freya, Mimiron, Hodir, etc.).  It turns out -- thanks to some data on Wowhead from the 3.1 PTR -- that Algalon is preparing to alert the Titans of what's happening in Ulduar, and there's an urgency to stop this.  If the Titans discover how dire the situation is, they may decide the only course of action is to wipe the slate clean by "sterilizing" the planet.

This information also makes it clear that you'll only be able to access Algalon after redeeming the Watchers; there are a set of quests involved in it and turning in each of the sigils of the Watchers will grant you access to the Celestial Planetarium -- Algalon's chamber.

Algalon-related Quests

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The first quest in the chain looks to be Archivum Data Disc (Heroic: Archivum Data Disc).  Where this comes from is still to be determined.  Since Algalon himself is only available in a Hard Mode version, it can be assumed these quests may only be completable from the Hard Modes of encounters in Ulduar.

The Celestial Planetarium (Heroic: The Celestial Planetarium)

Brann Bronzebeard has discovered that Algalon the Observer is going to be arriving in Ulduar soon and will likely send back information on what's going on.

Listen, <lad/lass>! Azeroth's fate is at stake here.

Our only chance is to get to the Celestial Planetarium in time to find this Algalon and stop him from beaming back any messages to his Titan masters.

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We've been wondering for a while how exactly the Ulduar storyline plays out in 3.1; this may seem a bit silly or lorelol, given how much time is going to be spent running the instance itself or its myriad of raid bosses and hard modes, but I like to know what's driving me to complete an instance beyond phatty purpz.

You can obviously infer a lot from the instance itself and the names of each respective room, but for those seeking a little more information, Wowhead's PTR page has you covered. There were a few quests added in this most recent PTR build that give us tantalizing bits of Ulduar storyline and show Blizzard's intention to create clear progressions -- not only in the 10- and 25-man versions of Ulduar, but a reward and progression path for those blazing a trail in the hard mode versions of each instance. A fine notion indeed.

Oh, and if you wanted to know just how to forge that new legendary mace...

This writeup will be spoiler-heavy! If you don't wish to know anything about the secrets that lie within Ulduar, don't click the link below. You've been warned.

The questline begins with the Archivum Data Disc, a quest item that drops off of one of the bosses before you enter Ulduar proper (Flame Leviathan, XT-002 Destroyer, Ignis). It instructs you to bring the disc to a "device capable of reading it."

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Patchwerk DPS Tests

Quote from: Daelodev (Source)

So we have a version of Patchwerk at the entrance of Ulduar to be used for DPS testing. We'll turn it on during various times of testing. Please post links to parsed combat logs here. This will be of great help to us!

Freya PTR Testing Freya Redeemed!

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Last night was round 2 of the Ulduar encounter testing on the 3.1 PTR, and after last night's attempts at Hodir, my guildies and waste-of-a-raid-spot coworker were excited to get back into the beautiful Titan dinner party and sink our teeth into another new encounter.

And if we wanted a snack, we got ourselves a three-course meal: The Iron Council, a veritable Three's Company of dudes made of metal. Except Three's Company really had one dude in it regularly, and the other two were women. And none of the Iron Councilmen are Councilwomen. Clearly Iron society is not as progressive as ours.

As expected, the server couldn't be convinced to just let us get in and do what we needed to do, so we spent an inordinately long time logging in, stalling at the loading screen, getting in, crashing out, getting stuck in queue, swearing loudly in Ventrilo, and getting alcohol to ease the pain.

But we did manage to try the fight a few times.

This writeup is spoiler-heavy! If you don't wish to know anything about the strategy for this or any Ulduar boss, don't click below. You've been warned.

After finally zoning into the instance, which took far, far longer than it should've -- but I'll save the harsh words for another day -- we trekked through the Iron Concourse again, past the Colossal Forge, past Dead Man's Curve, and came to an old fence, called The Devil's Fence. From there, we went on foot till we came to a valley known as The Cathedral Of Lost Soap. Smack in the center is what they call Forgetful Milkman's Quadrangle. We stayed right on The Path Of Staring Skulls and we come to a place called...

The Iron Assembly!

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Last night was an exciting night -- the first night of Ulduar encounter testing on the 3.1 PTR. Lead Encounter Designer Daelo, a.k.a. Scott Mercer, was on hand to open up the instance portal and guide us to our intended boss (the only boss in the instance for that night) -- Hodir.

I've talked about Hodir a few times; he was featured in my Ulduar boss speculation post (and I was right), and I went through some of his datamined abilities a few days ago. Getting to finally test the encounter was exhilarating, and getting back into the process of learning a strat by hitting the ground running was something to which I've been looking forward for a long time.

I brought my Elune guildies and a deadweight coworker with me for a 10-man attempt.

This writeup will be spoiler-heavy. If you don't wish to know anything about this fight, don't click below. You've been warned.

When finally able to zone in (the Broxigar world server was, to be kind, a piece of crap), we ran through what appeared to be the staging area for the Flame Leviathan fight. It was staggeringly enormous, dwarfing even Ahn'Qiraj. Unfortunately, we also had to run past it, since it was empty and no teleporter existed.

When we reached the end of the Flame Leviathan area, it was clear that there would be more bosses before you even got into Ulduar proper. Ignis' area, or so I assumed, was to the left right before the Ulduar interior portal.

Entering Ulduar itself was an experience. The instance is, as Blizzard promised, absolutely beautiful (and you can see as much in our gallery of our trip there). Yogg-Saron's prison lay smack-dab in the center of the room, huge broken chains and shattered glass suspended in the air above it. The center hub connected to a number of different wings, but we were obviously after Hodir, whose wing was coated in ice. We walked in and saw the big man himself!

Hodir was in the back of the room. To his left and right were two ice-covered chests -- more on that later. In front of him were four friendly NPCs encased in ice blocks, which were breakable.

Here's a rundown of Hodir's abilities:

• Biting Cold: This is identical to Keristrasza's Biting Cold, but the stack isn't immediately removed when you move around -- it still takes time for the stacks to fall off while you're moving. The damage increases exponentially as it stacks.
• Freeze: Hodir does an AOE freeze, rooting players in place for a few seconds. This can be dispelled.
• Summon Icicles: Basically a Gruul-style falling ceiling spell. If you're under it, you get damaged and knocked back.
• Flash Freeze: Hodir freezes everyone in ice blocks like what the NPCs were in. These can be broken, but they have 20k health in normal mode. If you get hit by Flash Freeze again while already frozen, you die.
• Frozen Blows: Hodir will gain this ability periodically. It decreases his melee damage by 70% but increases his frost damage by a large amount.

We engaged Hodir and decided to free the NPCs, which turned out to be a good decision, as each had some benefit for our group. Horde and Alliance groups will each have their own NPCs. All of them use normal DPS spam moves in addition to their benefits below:

• Field Medic Penny: A dwarf priest. She'll dispel Freezes on you and the other NPCs.
• Elementalist Avuun: A draenei shaman. Players within jump range of his Chain Lightning will receive a temporary 100% crit buff when it hits Hodir.
• Ellie Nightfeather: A night elf boomkin. Anyone standing within her summoned light circle receives +50% spell and melee haste.
• Missy Flamecuffs: A gnome mage. Missy will drop fires that prevent players from taking frost damage or being Flash Frozen. The fires disappear if hit by Icicles or Flash Freeze.

Hodir engaged our tank, and the NPCs assisted us. Hodir dropped the ceiling on us a few times before beginning to cast Flash Freeze, which is a long cast (something like ten seconds). Some of us were frozen when it was cast, and some weren't. We regrouped after the wipe and tried again.

This time, we noticed that mounds of snow were appearing where Icicles fell while he was casting Flash Freeze, which didn't happen otherwise. We stood on the snow mounds and weren't frozen, thus solidifying our strategy. However, if you entered the area where the mounds would fall before they fell (signified by a large white cloud), you'd get hit and knocked back 30 or so yards, usually making the run back to a mound impossible before Flash Freeze finished casting.

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Stay tuned for updates; possible streams, boss information, etc.  This will also serve as a sticky news to let everyone know what bosses are currently available for testing in which region.

US Stream: Hodir - Fusion-US

This stream is currently of the guild Fusion.  Thanks to Kyth and the guild as a whole for sharing their Ulduar experience; be sure to check their website for their impressions.

Initial Info

• Hodir hitpoints: 10.5 million (Normal) / 35,699,200 (Heroic)
• Melee Damage: 25k+ (Heroic)
• There are 4 (Normal) / 8 (Heroic) NPCs trapped in blocks of ice around his room.  Destroying the blocks of ice will free the NPC and they'll help you by dropping Toasty Fires in random locations of the room.  Each Ice Block has 32,000 (Normal) / 40,000 (Heroic) hit points.
• He has a pulsing aura called Biting Cold that stacks over time, dealing additional damage.  Moving will reset its stack.
• He casts Icicle which creates Ice Shards every 1.7 seconds.  This is especially dangerous for anyone that gets hit by Flash Freeze.  This also spawns Snowdrift on the ground where the Ice Shard hits.
• He will emote and then cast Flash Freeze, freezing everyone in ice blocks.  Run to the Toasty Fire to avoid it, and if anyone is hit by it, kill their ice block immediately (32,000hp N / 40,000hp H).  You can also avoid Flash Freeze by standing on the Snowdrifts.
• You can also prevent the effects of Flash Freeze with Toasty Fire (cast by the NPCs in the ice blocks).  The Toasty Fire will be removed on Flash Freeze cast as well as if it's hit by an Ice Shard.
• Hodir gains Frozen Blows (Normal / Heroic) for 20 seconds.  You're likely expected to tank switch to someone in Frost Resist gear during this.  (Blood DKs for the win?)

US Ulduar Testing: Hodir

Hodir is currently available for testing for US players.  Check this thread to provide official feedback.

If you want to share anything you've learned, feel free to head over to our Raids & Dungeons forum.

EU Ulduar Testing: None

EU Ulduar testing hasn't started yet.  It won't begin until Friday evening.

Ulduar PTR Testing Schedule

Quote from: Daelo (Source)

Ok, we're going to attempt to have some playtest sessions for Ulduar starting tonight and through this weekend.

The following is the tentative schedule for this weekend:

On the North American test realms:
Hodir - Thursday night, February 26, starting at 7pm EST/4pm PST.
Iron Council - Friday night, February 27, starting at 7pm EST/4pm PST

On the European test realms
Thorim - Friday night, February 27, starting at 7pm CET.
Freya - Friday night, February 28, starting at 7pm CET.

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Video of the legendary mace coming in patch 3.1, Val'anyr, the Gavel of Ancient Kings, is already making the rounds. The animation is pretty cool, but I remain unconvinced of its overall awesomeness. We can't see any of the particle effects this weapon may have, because none of that stuff is ever built into the model. We won't know what it really looks like until we see it in-game somewhere, or someone digs out the other bits and pieces it all together.

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Luckily, ever-resourceful players and dataminers have acquired information about spells and abilities related to bosses in Ulduar from the 3.1 PTR files. There's a lot of of stuff in here -- some of it may make it into the live game, some may not, and some may be related to vehicles or other sundries involved with encounters. I'm going to go into detailed analysis of those encounters for which detailed spells exist.

It goes without saying that these will be huge spoilers to anyone who doesn't want their Ulduar experience to be anything but pure, so don't read past the jump if you don't want to know!

The datamined information comes from this thread on the official forums, with links to the appropriate spells on Thottbot.

Yogg-Saron

Dominate Mind - Mind controls a target temporarily and reduces Sanity by 20.
Low Sanity Screen Effect - Just a visual.
Psychosis - 20000 Shadow damage and reduces 20 Sanity.
Sanity - 100 stacked buff, if it reaches 0 you are permanently mind controlled. One Sanity regenerates per 3 seconds.
Touch of Dominion - Subjugates the target to the will of Yogg-Saron, weakening it (-10% HP and damage), yet "conferring a subtle control". Appears to stack every 180 sec.

Preliminary analysis:
Yogg-Saron's fight appears to be a sanity-based encounter, and if you're not already thinking of Eternal Darkness, we're not friends. There's a sanity meter, a mind control/reduced effectiveness debuff, even a low sanity visual effect. Your sanity regenerates by one point every three seconds, and it ticks down as you engage him, take damage from him, or are temporarily mind-controlled. If it reaches zero, you're permanently under the thrall of Ol' Yoggy.

Hodir

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Ulduar is here, and Blizzard has released a new video you can watch above. We see new mobs and animations, get a look at Freya and some vehicle combat, and see some absolutely stunning interiors of the new raid zone.

The video lasts just under 2 minutes, and is worth your time to take a look. There is also some Blizzard music along with it, so be sure to have your sound turned up a bit. You can download high resolution versions of the video from Blizzard.

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Here's a little consolation to those of you, like Eliah, concerned about the Ulduar vehicle fights: Unlike some of the other vehicle fights in the game already, Daelo says on the forums that the vehicles in the next raid will actually scale with gear. He says someone in blues will have a much harder time in the vehicles than someone kitted out in Naxx gear.

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Quite big news from Daelo, the lead encounter designer concerning the release and testing of Ulduar. First and foremost, Daelo says that we're getting close to the point where Ulduar will be available for testing on the PTR. That means that PTR is soon, and given the maintenance today and other major announcements, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it tonight.

Secondly, Ulduar will not be tested like a normal instance. The testing will in phases and only happen according to the schedule Blizzard lays out. They'll announce times when certain bosses will be available for testing, and that means that only during those times will those bosses be open for play. This also means that Ulduar will initially be closed on the PTR.

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Ulduar PTR Testing Information
This is starting to look good ... PTR Tonight?

• Earlier tonight an Official preview of Ulduar was published.
• Also today, Blizzard announced plans for its 4th Blizzcon to be held on August 21 and 22 in Anaheim.
• You can also check the existing Patch 3.1 information compilation

Quote from: Daelo (Source)Ok, we're getting close to the point where we will need testing of Ulduar boss encounters on PTR, so let's talk about Ulduar testing!

We're going to be performing testing differently than in the past. We're looking for much more targeted feedback, and we don't want to just have the zone freely open and allow extended, unsupervised testing to take place. So, when the PTR servers come up with 3.1.0, by default Ulduar will be turned completely off. We'll instead enable Ulduar and specific bosses during times where the encounter team can observe testing.

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Ulduar - Official Preview
A short preview of Ulduar has been posted on the official site.

• Also today, Blizzard announced plans for its 4th Blizzcon to be held on August 21 and 22 in Anaheim.
• You can also check the existing Patch 3.1 information compilation

Quote from: Blizzard (Source)For countless millennia, Ulduar has remained undisturbed by mortals, far away from their concerns and their struggles. But since its recent discovery, many have wondered what the structure's original purpose may have been. Some thought it a city, built to herald the glory of its makers; some thought it a vault containing innumerable treasures, perhaps even relics of the mighty Titans themselves. They were wrong. Beyond its gates lies no city, no treasure vault, no final answer to the Titan's mysteries. All that awaits those who dare set foot in Ulduar is a horror even the Titans could not, would not destroy, an evil they merely... contained.

Beneath ancient Ulduar, the Old God of death lies, whispering.... Tread carefully, or his prison will become your tomb.

As the next step in tiered raid progression in Wrath of the Lich King, Ulduar is set to blow players away with gorgeous setpieces, sprawling battlefields, and innovative boss encounters. Ulduar's design aims to provide a fun, unique, and innovative raid experience, but it also includes additional challenges - and rewards - for seasoned raiders. In this sneak-peek at World of Warcraft's newest raid dungeon, we'll take a look at some of the new content that makes Ulduar rise above the crop of amazing dungeons already available in World of Warcraft.

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Our intrepid YouTube adventurer Dan O'Halloran found this video posted back on the 5th of January this year detailing the Ulduar raid zone thus far. It was made using private server technology, and contains heavy spoilers. You've been warned.

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Happy New Year! Tier 8 and Ulduar Weapons preview!
News have been slow lately, Blizzard posters are taking a break for the end of the year and I don't have much to write about. Hopefully there are still a bunch of interesting things to post and Tier 8 sets and Ulduar gear were at the top of my list.

Please note that these models aren't really new, most of them have been sitting here since the beta of Wrath of the Lich King. I just didn't have the time to news them before (because it actually takes some work to get everything nice and organized), that's pretty much the same with Ulduar weapons, I probably already posted some of them in the past actually but this time you've got the extra-nice high resolution screenshots.

These items will be released with Patch 3.1, it means that everything below is still in beta phase and could be changed (Reminder: This is not the next patch, the next one is 3.0.8 and will most likely be deployed on live servers in the first weeks of January). Don't jump to conclusions because something doesn't look as nice as you wanted it to be, it could even be an error from my side in some case. (Wrong glows on armors or weapons, I don't think it really happened here but you can never be sure)

Druids / Paladins / Shamans / Warrior sets are not in the game files for the moment, it also seems that there isn't any texture for the male version of the rogue set. Just wait a few more weeks and we'll probably see everything on 3.1 PTRs.

See you in 2009!

Tier 8 Armor Sets
Death Knight



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