Ulduar, from A Sneaky Viewpoint

My guild’s been rocking Ulduar on the 25-man front, giving everything from Flame Leviathan up to General Vezax a damn good rollicking in the process. We usually run with 3 rogues, on occasion 4, with 3 various iterations of combat rogues (at time of writing, 2 fist/daggers and 1 pure swords) and myself with Mutilate. This means we keep our synergy to the max (we don’t have a retadin so Master Poisoner works a charm) and I have no competition on all those lovely daggers that never seem to drop.

First impressions on the fights in Ulduar for me were fantastic – speaking in general, they seemed far more varied, interesting and demanding than those fights in Naxxramas, and whilst not quite up to Sunwell level, at least provides a much steeper learning curve than anything in WOTLK so far. I often found myself just auto-attacking whilst marveling at all the crazy lazerous explosions and colossal stone-and-metal-built constructs smacking on our tank.

As with anything, spending 20 hours+ on it a week quickly diminishes the wow factor sadly. What’s becoming increasingly clear is that at the heart of the “bread and butter” encounters in Ulduar (and indeed seemingly every instance) is that melee have one function: stand behind the boss, avoid death-filled things, and perhaps interrupt when the mood takes you. Oh, and DPS, that can help. Whilst there are the odd encounters that spice up this mechanic, Thorim with his insane buffs that should make any true rogue giggle with glee, or Deconstructor with his adds, heart and bombs, for the most part they are at heart the same basic encounter for the melee, or at any rate for rogues. Although disappointing, this is hardly a new problem with WoW’s encounter design.

The fight that I see, however, as a melee’s moment to shine (or at least, complete an Olympian gauntlet of “not fucking up”) is Mimiron. This guy has every possible death-trap known to roguedom – proximity mines, coned auto-attacks that rip you to pieces, nasty, slippery adds, and bombs which explode on stabbing. If Illidari Council was “the Superbowl of not standing in things”, this is “the Superbowl of not standing next to things”. Oddly, although it catches me out the most, this fight is my favourite so far. The ramp up in difficulty for Mimiron is coherent throughout the raid, requiring some of the most throughput healing in Ulduar, efficient tanking and on-the-ball and proficient DPS. The melee, however, appear to have the best and worst time of it. That, in World of Warcraft, is what stimulates me the most – having to perform perfectly in a hectic environment. Whilst we haven’t quite got it running absolutely smoothly, my guild is learning this and the glow from those who execute it perfectly is amazing.

As far as specs go, mutilate for the most part keeps up with most other classes, but can’t touch that which comes out from our geared up Fury Warriors and my fellow combat rogues. Mostly this seems due to the fact that most fights don’t let you stand still and DPS, allowing for the ~30 second rotation I use to come into play, and the constant moving and rejigging means that poisons, rupture and SnD tend drop off. As soon as I pick up a decent mainhand (still rolling with a blue fist, whey) I’ll give combat a decent go on the fights that are particularly bad and compare. My fellow rogues say that it’s a far easier rotation that’s easier to pick up again once you’ve left it off, and the DPS results speak for themselves. Maybe it’s time I stopped being the outsider…

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