Flame Leviathan - Boss strat

Flame Leviathan

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Flame Leviathan is the first boss encounter in Ulduar, found in the Formation Grounds. Most of the players in this encounter will not be using their regular class abilities, but instead work with siege vehicles to destroy this machine (similar to drakes in Malygos' third phase). It cannot be skipped, and must be destroyed in order to pursue the rest of Ulduar.

The Hard Mode of this encounter is when you destroy the towers in the Area prior to the fight. Each tower destroyed will give the Flame Leviathan an unique ability based on which tower you destroyed.

General Information
Before the Flame Leviathan fight, your raid will choose one of three vehicles: a Salvaged Chopper, Salvaged Demolisher, or Salvaged Siege Engine. Players must fight through a large Iron dwarf army to finally reach Flame Leviathan, and defeat him with the vehicles. Unlike other vehicles, the effectiveness and base health points of your vehicle depends on the average ilvl of your gear. (tip: stop DE'ing trash epics with high ilevels and save them for Ulduar!) Mimiron built the Flame Leviathan as part of the V0-L7R-0N weapons platform, and as a result, this tank packs quite a punch.
How FL Vehicle Gear Scaling works
This section is thanks to the hard work of Ferrante, a Death Knight in The Goon Squad on Kel'Thuzad. It's noted that 25-man scaling looks to be the same as 10-man.

After doing half an hour of equipment swaps and jumping in and out of the motorbike, I have determined with reasonable confidence how the vehicles scale with increasing quality of gear for the current implementation of the vehicle based fight in Ulduar. Here are my observations in the 10 man version:

- Shirt, tabard, offhand, and ranged/relic slots do not affect vehicle scaling.
- This does mean an ilvl 226 1 hand weapon is better than an ilvl 213 2 hander.
- Enchants and gems do not affect it either, it is based solely off item level.
- An ilvl 200 blue is equivalent to an ilvl 187 epic. Experimenting with other combos of blue/epic gear gave me reasonable confidence that a blue item is equivalent to an epic 13 levels lower.
- An empty slot is equivalent to an ilvl 0 epic
- This does mean equipping an ilvl 0 blue such as [ITEM]Insignia of the Scourge[/ITEM]

Empirically, taking the average ilvl of your gear (subtract 13 for each blue, 26 for each green) and dividing by 15 (total number of applicable slots), then subtracting 170 will give you the percent increase of the health points of your vehicle compared to base - it cannot be decreased though (naked is a 0% increase).

Thus: All ilvl 200 epic gear => 200-170 => 30% increase in vehicle hp. All 226 would be a 56% increase,

I did some limited testing of vehicle damage:
Naked: 2148 average attack with 171 attacks Avg 213 gear: 3038 average attack with 160 attacks 3038/2148 = 41.4% so that seems to be within the margin of error for the expected value of 43%
Flame Leviathan also has different hard modes. In the Flame Leviathan fight, there are four towers. If these towers are not destroyed, the fight will be more difficult. However, keeping a number of towers up rewards more loot and achievements, similar to Sartharion in Obsidian Sanctum.

At the very beginning of the instance, at Expedition Base Camp, players will be granted a limited number of each salvaged vehicle. There are five of each vehicle in heroic difficulty, and two of each vehicle in normal difficulty. Everyone in the raid gets divided into five roles:

Siege Engine Driver - Able to ram down buildings, knock back enemies with a silence, and boost speed to ram in or out of harm's way.

Siege Engine Passenger/Gunner - Brings down pyrite ammo in the air, and assists in shooting targets on the ground.

Demolisher Driver - Launches long-range fireballs and special pyrite barrels that deal massive damage.

Demolisher Passenger/Gunner - Salvages pyrite ammo and refills the demolisher, can also load the player into the demolisher to be launched.

Chopper Driver - Plants inflammable oil slicks and can quickly pick up any players on foot to protect them from danger.

Passengers of the Demoloishers can pick up explosives to throw at enemies, and once you engage the boss, can be thrown by demolishers on top of him. In case of a wipe, the boss will take a few minutes to despawn after which the vehicles will respawn as well at full health in front of the boss. When you come into the instance after a wipe, there is a portal platform near the steps, right click and choose the Formation Grounds. There you will find your vehicles.

Salvaged Chopper - 504, 000 HP, 1 driver and 1 passenger
This motorcycle model is very fast and moves very adroitly (it can strafe, for example.) It can carry a passenger.

Abilities

Sonic Horn - Sends a wave of force in front of the motorcycle, causing 6300 to 7700 damage to all enemy targets within 35 yards in a frontal cone.
Tar - Drops a pool of tar for 45 sec that slows the movement speed of enemies within 10 yards. Tar can be ignited. Lasts for 45 sec. 15 sec cooldown
Speed Boost - Fires the fuel injectors on the bike, increasing its speed by 100% for 5 sec.
First Aid Kit - Heals your passenger fully over 4 sec. 1 min cooldown

Salvaged Demolisher - 428, 000 HP, 1 driver and 2 passengers
This vehicle moves slowly but has ranged attacks and can even catapult its passengers. It can carry a passenger, who can grapple the pyrites from the ground and loads them one by one as abilities that deplete them are used.

Drivers Abilities

Hurl Boulder - Hurls a massive boulder into the distance, dealing 27000 to 33000 damage to enemies within 8 yards of the explosion. 10-70 yd range
Hurl Pyrite Barrel - Hurls an orb of blue pyrite into the distance, dealing damage, but consumes ammo. 10-70 yd range
Ram - Rams any enemies in front of the demolisher, dealing 19000 to 21000 Damage and knocking them back. Also deals 2160 to 2640 siege damage to buildings. 4 sec cooldown
Launch Passenger - Launches the Demolisher's passenger into the air

Passenger's Abilities

Mortar - Fires a miniature explosive blast, dealing Fire damage to all enemies in the target area. 1 sec cooldown
Anti-Air Rocket - Fires an explosive missile directly forward, detonating when it has travelled 90 yards, hitting any enemies within 10 yards.
Grab Crate - Use your hook and chain to grab the targeted crate. This allows you to pick up Liquid Pyrite off the ground, which reloads the demolisher.
Increased Speed - Injects liquid pyrite into the engines, increasing movement speed by 100%. Lasts 20 sec.
Load into Catapult - Load yourself into the catapult arm, using yourself as ammunition. 30 sec cooldown

Salvaged Siege Engine - 1,451,000 HP, 1 driver + 1 turret controller + 2 passengers
This vehicle demolishes towers as you clear the gauntlet and kites the Flame Leviathan. It can carry a passenger.

Driver's Abilities (Front Center Seat)

Ram - Rams any enemies in front of the demolisher, dealing 22501 to 27501 Damage and knocking them back. Also deals 2850 to 3150 siege damage to buildings. 40 Energy.
Electroshock - Shocks all targets within a 25 yard cone in front of the caster. It also interrupts spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 4 sec. 20 Energ18% of base mana, Instant cast, 10 sec cooldown
Steam Rush - Put the steam engine into overdrive for a short duration, rushing forward, dealing siege damage and knocking back enemies. 40 Energy, 70 yd range, Instant, 15 sec cooldown

Turret Controller's Abilities (Back Center Seat)

Anti-Air Rocket - Fires an explosive missile directly forward, detonating when it has travelled 100 yards, hitting any enemies within 10 yards. 0.25 sec cooldown
Cannon - Fires a cannon blast. 20 Energy, 10-70 yd range, Instant
Shield Generator - Activates the shield generator on the Siege Engine, absorbing a limited amount of Physical, Fire, Frost and Arcane damage taken for 5 sec. 1 min cooldown

Flame Leviathan

This is a vehicle fight, and he is a mechanical boss. He has about 15.5 million HP on 10-man and about 70 million on 25-man. The "hard modes" increase Flame Leviathan's HP as well as increasing his damage and giving him other abilities. You never tank him. Instead, you kite him around using your vehicle abilities to kill him. There are repair platforms on the side of the area preceding Flame Leviathan that vehicles can use to heal to full before starting the encounter. If you are trying after a wipe, your vehicles will already be full health.

Abilities
On the pull, and every 30 seconds thereafter, he will switch targets to a siege vehicle or demolisher, mark them, and follow them around. He has a soft enrange due to Gathering Speed. You have to kite him, thanks to Battering Ram, and it becomes harder and harder to get away from him even with help from Steam Rush.

Flame Vents - Inflicts 3000 Fire damage each second to enemies around the caster. Lasts 10 seconds. 50 yd range
Battering Ram - Rams the target, dealing damage and knocking it forward. Deals 100% Weapon damage and causes the target to take 50% more damage for 20 seconds.
Gathering Speed - Increases movement speed. This buffs increases the speed of the Flame Leviathan by 5% for 10 minutes and stacks up to 20 times. Causing a Circuit Overload will reset the stack count to 0.
Turrets - The Flame Leviathan has 4 turrets. Passengers in the demolisher can be launched at him where they can destroy the turrets and then hit the Overload Circuit which stuns Flame Leviathan and causes him to take 50% more damage for 10 seconds.
Missile Barrage - All machines and players not in one will take 700 damage every 1–2 seconds.

Hard Mode
Flame Leviathan's Hard Mode is activated by speaking to the Lore Keeper of Norgannon in the staging area. x Doing so will activate all four orbital defense weapons, named for the Keepers of Ulduar. You can then turn off individual systems by destroying their corresponding tower. Talking to Brann and starting the event without speaking to the Lore Keeper will keep all defense systems inactive and disable the hard mode.

Tower of Storms (purple) - Leaving this tower up gives Thorim's Hammer to the Flame Leviathan. Thorim's Hammer deals Stormstrike damage to all enemies nearby. Additional damage is taken if directly under the impact location.
Tower of Flames (red/orange) - Leaving this tower up gives Mimiron's Inferno to the Flame Leviathan. Mimiron's Inferno deals 150,000 Fire damage to all nearby enemies and leaves a flaming blaze behind.
Tower of Frost (sky blue) - Leaving this tower up gives Hodir's Fury to the Flame Leviathan. Hodir's Fury deals 150,000 Frost damage to all nearby enemies and entombs them in ice.
Tower of Life (green) - Leaving this tower up gives Freya's Ward to the Flame Leviathan. Freya's Ward 13,500 to 16,500 Nature damage to all nearby enemies, and summons Guardians of Nature to surround the enemy.

Strategy

Suggested Raid Composition:

Normal Mode:

2 Salvaged Siege Engines - Both have passenger to do some damage and shoot down flying crates.
2 Salvaged Demolishers - Of which both have passengers (one dps and one healer), to be thrown onto the Leviathan.
2 Salvaged Choppers - No passengers except when having to ferry passengers back from the Leviathan to the Demolishers after an Overload.

Heroic Mode (pure speculation):

4 Salvaged Siege Engines - Two of which have passengers to do some damage and shoot down flying crates. Multiple ones incase one dies (if testing shows we only need two even on Heroic Mode, then we will put that change here).
9 Salvaged Demolishers - Five of which have passengers (3 dps and two healers), to be thrown onto the Leviathan.
5 Salvaged Choppers - No passengers except when having to ferry passengers back from the Leviathan to the Demolishers after an Overload.

The trash portion of the fight begins when you tell either Brann Bronzebeard or the Lore-Keeper of Norgannon that you're ready. This makes the vehicles usable, although no mobs will attack you until you leave the starting area. If you speak to Brann Bronzebeard, the fight is automatically set to "easy mode." If you talk to the Lore-Keeper of Norgannon, the fight is set to hard mode by default, and destroying individual towers will remove those powers/benefits from the Flame Leviathan fight. At any time, you can see which powers/benefits Flame Leviathan has by looking at the gemstones in his fight area; those that are lit are activated, with green representing Freya, blue Hodir, yellow Thorim, and red Mimiron.

The Gauntlet: Once you are in your vehicles, you leave the entrance and head north. Steelforge Defenders, Titanium Stormlords and Ulduar Colossi will spawn from towers throughout the whole gauntlet event. Players in Salvaged Siege Engines can destroy the Storm Beacons (towers) to prevent enemies from spawning. The only problem the gauntlet event could pose are the Ulduar Colossi casting Ground Slam - it is a 7 second interruptible cast that deals a lot of damage; use your Salvaged Siege Engines to interrupt it. There are flying copter mobs that need to be dealt with by anti-air abilities like the Siege Tank passengers' Anti-Air rockets, and gnomish Mechanostriders that have large amounts of HP and fire lasers at the raid.

A good pre-fight idea is to establish a kiting path and make sure that the Choppers keep tar down on that path at all times and ensure everyone sticks together.

As well as clearing in the area before the boss, you will want to use the Siege Engine passenger seat to shoot down as many of the flying crate carriers as possible to stock up your Demolishers with Pyrite barrels for the encounter itself. The encounter doesn't begin until you kill the two Collossi at the very end. So, until you have have cleared the trash, destroyed the Hard Mode towers you wanted to, and collected all the Pyrite you might need, don't touch those Collossi.

Repair all your vehicles on the repair pads now, because the circle gets blocked off and cannot be used during the boss fight.

Shortly after the last Iron Colossus dies, Flame Leviathan will come out. Your motorcycles should drop tar in front of the door and your Demolishers should ignite it so he takes damage immediately (this also makes him activate immediately.)

Siege Engine Tactics

You should have your Siege Engines in the middle of the back area ready to kite the Leviathan back to the now blocked entrance barrier and then around to either side. Once he is engaged he will always target a Siege Engine if there is one there and place a pink arrow over them to signify which one has aggro. The other Siege Engines which weren't targeted should then head to behind the Leviathan and stay a few yards behind him at all times and only move in to cast Electroshock when he is casting Flame Jets to interrupt it and maybe to hit him once or twice with the Ram. His aggro reset seems to be 30 seconds, so pay attention to a timer (mod or otherwise) so all the Siege engines behind him are ready to turn around and begin to kite him the opposite direction. Once again, the other Siege engines should drive around to the back of him if they don't have aggro.

Chopper Tactics

The choppers need to run around and every time they can, drop tar in front of the boss. Since the Tar is thrown backwards, they should drive a bit in front of the boss and throw it so it directly lands in his path. Since they are very fast this is fairly easy, and after a Flame Jets has been interrupted they can also hit the boss with Sonic Horn once or twice until their Tar cooldown is up again.

Demolisher Tactics

Ideally you should have the boss kited around the edges of the room so your Demolishers can stay in the middle and not have to move too much. This will also make it easier for them to not need a passener to reload barrels as they can switch seats themselves and reload as they have no reason to need to worry about moving. The Demolishers need to focus fire on him the whole time and help with igniting the Tar which the Choppers will drop.

For the actual Launching of players onto the boss, you should have your preassigned people in the Demolishers and ready to launch whenever, but since there are only four turrets you should only really send your people to kill them at every fifth of the boss's HP.

When they land on the Leviathan they need to all focus on killing one of the four Turrets (refer image to the right) and then after a tank switch it needs to be announced on vent that Overload is being used. Tar has to be setup around the boss for optimal damage during the Overload so the people on the Leviathan should annouce a few seconds before they use it so the Choppers have time to get Tar on the area near him, and then Overload needs to be used when he is ontop of the Tar. During the Overload the increased damage of 50% is huge, so Demolishers should be using their Hurl Pyrite Barrel Ability and all the choppers should be ready to do damage to him then run out again when the Overload is done. Siege Engines can attempt to get some damage in, but they should all back off to their original positions before the Overload so that when it wears off kiting can resume unaffected.

Warlock Role
Your role will depend entirely on which vehicle you choose... http://wowmb.net http://wowmb.net http://wowmb.net http://wowmb.net http://wowmb.net http://wowmb.net