Hard Mode Strategy

Introduction

Hard Mode requires players to defeat Flame Leviathan with at least one—and up to all four—towers active. Flame Leviathan in Ulduar has 4 different hard modes. There are 4 towers, with loot and badges increasing for each tower NOT destroyed, similar to Obsidian Sanctum.

Several achievements are also given out depending on the number of towers destroyed. They are Orbital Bombardment (3 towers destroyed), Orbital Devastation (2 towers destroyed), Nuked from Orbit (1 tower destroyed), and Orbit-uary (All towers left up).

After talking to the Lore Keeper of Norgannon, each tower you destroy on your way to Flame Leviathan makes him easier.

You can talk to Brann and ignore all the towers and get easy mode, or you can talk to Norgannon and destroy all the towers and get easy mode. You can only get hard mode by talking to Norgannon and leaving the towers up.

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The Towers

Raid groups attempting to defeat Flame Leviathan on hard mode will need to leave at least one tower up. These towers place a pillar of light on the ground (associated colors below) that deal their respective abilities. Note that these beams can be avoided.

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.

Tower of Nature (Freya’s Ward) - Deals 15,000 nature damage and summons guardians of nature that must be killed. Flame Leviathan gains 25% more HP and decreases his fire damage taken by 10%. GREEN.

Tower of Frost (Hodir’s Fury) - Deals 15,000 frost damage, freezes siege engines in blocks of ice. Deals 1% hp damage per sec. for 1 minute. Can be broken by flames. Flame Leviathan gains 25% more HP and slows vehicle movement by 20%. BLUE.

Tower of Flames (Mimiron’s Inferno) - Deals 15,000 fire damage as a beam that moves across the ground, leaving a fires behind. (Flaming blaze deals 10% of your vehicle's hp per sec. if you stay in it; persists for 30 sec.) Flame Leviathan gains 25% more HP and does 50% more Fire damage. RED.

Tower of Storms (Thorim’s Hammer) - Deals 15,000 Stormstrike damage in the form of lightning balls that come down from the sky. Additional damage is taken if directly under the impact location. Flame Leviathan gains 25% more HP and does 25% more Physical damage. PURPLE.

Storm Beacon - Each beacon summons ads in a small radius.

Sorry guys, no real strategy. Learn what the beams do - they seem manageable (Netherspite, anyone?) - and we'll just have to play around with it. In my opinion we should start with leaving the purple tower up, but it looks like many guilds go for the red one. See ya tonight! -Munch