Here’s what you need to know to raid Uldir

Are you excited? After three weeks of going everywhere and doing everything, Uldir, the first raid of Battle for Azeroth, opens today. Below is information you need to step through the portal into a brand spanking new raid.

Raid release schedule schedule

• Normal and Heroic versions open on September 4
• Mythic and LFR wing 1 (Taloc, MOTHER, Zek’voz) open September 11
• LFR wing 2 (Fetid Devourer, Vectis, Zul) opens September 25
• Final LFR wing (Mythrax, G’huun) opens October 9

Any thoughts on when we’ll see the first Mythic clear?

Item levels and you

What about ilevel to get in? To answer this question, let’s look at the ilevel of the gear that drops from each raid version:

• LFR drops ilevel 340 gear
• Normal drops ilevel 355 gear
• Heroic drops ilevel 370 gear
• Mythic drops ilevel 380 gear

You can run into Normal, Heroic, or Mythic as long as you’re level 120 (and someone will invite you along), but guild leaders posting to the forums are asking for raiders to have 340 for normal. Blizzard has not announced the minimum ilevel to queue for LFR. The community is suggesting a minimum of 330, which sounds reasonable: a 10 ilevel difference between what you get and what you have to start.

Gearing up for Uldir

We covered how to gear up for Heroics, and the same applies for Uldir — you just have to do more of it. It is worth the mention that professions can craft armor and weapons at ilevel 300, which is a start. Check the Auction House or make friends with a crafter to pick up a few pieces. If you have a crafting profession yourself, you can make yourself some ilevel 355 gear, but you’ll need Hydrocores, which drop at the end of every Mythic dungeon. Once you learn the dungeon, running these should make obtaining this item much easier, but it will still take a lot of runs to pick up a piece of gear.

Reputations will help, too. At Honored reputation, you can get a 320 cloak from any Battle for Azeroth reputation vendor, and you should be able to get to Honored questing through the zone. At Revered, you can pick up a 335 piece and at Exalted a 350 piece. Honored, at least, shouldn’t be hard to get.

Right now, one of the big issues is the state of trinkets. (Is it just me, or have trinkets always been problematic?) Darkmoon Decks are, for now, the best trinkets at ilevel 355. Because of this, expect to drop a lot of gold on one in the Auction House.

Actual gear guides are plentiful. Search for your class and up pop a number of places where you can find where particular gear drops which flesh out your set. And you can also farm for gear out in the world. Here are the ilevels you’ll find:

• World Quests: ilevel 290-330
• Regular dungeons: 310-340
• Reputation: ilevel 320-355
• Warfronts: ilevel 340-370
• Mythic and Mythic+ dungeons: ilevel 340-385
• World Bosses: ilevel 355-370

Raiding supplies

You’ll want to have the following available to yourself and/or to your raiders. We discussed getting ready for Warfronts and many of the suggested items to farm are also good for raiding.

• Alchemy Flasks or the mystical cauldron.
• Weapon and ring enchants. There are the only two kinds of enchantments in BfA.
• Cut gems
• Engineering scopes. There’s also ammo but the two do not stack, so you’ll need to decide which is more valuable to your raid.
• Inscription has Vantus Runes
• Cooking has Bountiful Captain’s Feast for groups or +55 stat food for individuals

Getting to Uldir

The next issue is getting there. The raid entrance is located in Nazmir, in the bottom of the Heart of Darkness. (I love the Joseph Conrad reference.) Horde already know where it is as they have had the dungeon, the Underrot, open to them from the beginning. For Alliance players, it’s a bit more complicated.

Once you have unlocked your War Campaign, you have the option of following Brann Bronzebeard (heavy sigh) to Fort Victory in Nazmir. From that point, you run west to the Heart of Darkness. Stay on the path and it takes you there. Enter at the lower right of the area and follow the walkway to the bottom.

How to bring down Uldir’s bosses

You’ve got all of this. It’s time to run in. The first two bosses must be killed in order before you can progress:

• Taloc
• MOTHER

Next, you have three bosses from which to choose:

• Fetid Devourer
• Zek’voz
• Vectis

All three must be killed to move on. The three final bosses must be killed in order:

• Zul, Reborn
• Mythrax
• G’huun

There you have it: a quick guide to what you need to know for this first raid. With the wide variety of places to get gear, you should be able to feel somewhat comfortable walking in. For those looking toward the LFR versions, you have one more week to farm, craft, or wander. Good luck.