Flame Leviathan Flame Leviathan is the first boss encounter in Ulduar , found in the Formation Grounds . Most of the players in this encounter do not use their regular class abilities , but instead use vehicles ( similar to drakes in Malygos ' third phase ) . The rest of Ulduar is not accessible until this boss is destroyed . Vehicle info . At Expedition Base Camp at the very beginning of the instance , players are granted access to salvaged vehicles : five of each type in 25 player , and two of each in 10 player . The choppers only have a driver , while the Siege Engines and Demolishers have a driver and a gunner / passenger each . The individual roles are : After a wipe , the vehicles respawn at full health near the arena where the fight takes place . Player gear and vehicle stats . Every vehicle has a baseline health value as well as baseline damage values for its various abilities . When a player mounts a vehicle , the baseline values are modified according to the item levels and gear quality the player has equipped at the moment the vehicle is mounted . If a player wants to swap gear ( to increase the modifier ) , the player needs to eject and remount before the new modifier takes effect . Players sometimes wear rather meaningless sets with the highest Item level gear in each slot regardless of stats to maximize the vehicle capabilities . The driver ' s gear affects vehicle health and damage output from driver abilities . The gunner ' s gear affects damage output fom gunner abilities but has no effect on vehicle health . For this reason , better geared players usually are assigned as drivers , and those with lower gear item level are assigned as gunners or get choppers . The basline stats of the vehicle are multiplied by a modifier which is obtained from the players gear . The following 15 item slots are included in the calculation , all others are not : To be clear : Each slot contributes to the total modifier equally . The baseline values are reached when the average of these 15 items yields Item level 200 . Empty slots contribute a low value close to zero , or gear yields lower , epic gear of higher item level than 200 yields higher stats than the baseline . When a Demolisher driver wears all epics with an average item level of 245 , the vehicle has over 1 . 4 million HP ( more than twice the baseline amount ) . Important : A vehicle driver must NOT attempt to jump into the passenger seat him / herself more than once during the fight ( in order to use passenger abilities ) . After the boss is pulled , the health of the vehicles is not fixed and every switch halves the Maximum HP of the vehicle . Trash info . Between the Expedition Base Camp and the area Flame Leviathan is staging there is a large number of trash mobs and structures . Many of the structures start spawning Steelforge Defenders when a player comes within range until they are destroyed . Destroying certain structures ( most notably the Hard - Mode towers ) sometimes spawns additional enemies which may attack from behind . Steelforge Defender - 8 , 316 HP Runeforged Sentry - 269 , 620 HP ( heroic ) Ulduar Colossus - 315 , 000 HP Mechanostriker 54 - A 50 , 400 HP ( normal ) - 151 , 200 HP ( heroic ) Mechagnome Battletank 1 , 575 , 000 HP ( normal ) - 5 , 040 , 000 HP ( heroic ) Starting the event . The encounter is started by either talking to the Lore Keeper of Norgannon or Brann Bronzebeard . When talking to Brann , all Defense Towers are inactive and hard mode cannot be invoked . After talking to the Keeper , all four towers are active which is the most difficult form of hard mode . The towers can be individually switched off by destroying them . If all four are destroyed , the encounter is equivalent to normal mode . More loot is gained if more towers are up when the Flame Leviathan is defeated . The extra hard mode loot is gained only with all four towers up . Hard mode . Each tower not destroyed increases Flame Leviathan ' s health by 40 % ( multiplicative ) . Additionally each tower has an individual ability which is activated shortly after the fight starts in addition to buffs and debuffs per individual tower : Strategy . Normal Mode . After the last row of Storm Beacons there is a row of normal pillars . Beyond this is a roughly square room clear of all obstacles which contains a group of mobs guarding a gate . After this group is killed , the gate opens and Flame Leviathan enters . It is a good idea to kill the mobs from range , so that player vehicles are in a safe distance from Flame Leviathan when it enters . While mobile , the boss always targets one Siege Engine or Demolisher and tries to ram it ( which causes very high damage if successful ) . The targeted player must kite the boss , preferably using one of the speed boost abilities . The normal kite path is a wide circle along the outer edges of the area . Every 30 seconds , the boss switches to a different target , it also switches when its current target is destroyed . Roles by vehicle type : Flame Leviathan is a very easy fight in normal mode . It is doable without the need to stun the boss ( which will be explained in the next section ) . There is also no role / class requirement of the players and the gear requirement of the players is not strict . Therefore , it is possible to pug it . Normal Mode Pyrite Strategy . The simplest way to defeat Flame Leviathan ( and most common in ten - man pugs ) is to spam him with Pyrite barrels . Before pulling the last group of trash in front of the gate , the raid should sit at the entrance to the courtyard while Demolisher and Siege Engine gunners shoot down as much Pyrite as they can . After about a minute the area should be littered with enough barrels that Demolishers can attack solely with Pyrite without having to worry about running out of ammunition . Demolisher gunners should concentrate on keeping Pyrite stocks up , Choppers and Siege Engines should attack the boss as usual . Drivers will still have to be aware if they are being targeted and run away as necessary , but as Flame Leviathan will only last around a minute in normal mode under sustained Pyrite fire , he won ' t have time to change targets more than once . Hard Mode . With towers up , the encounter gets increasingly difficult . To beat it , two additional elements compared to normal mode need to be considered : Shutdown and Pyrite . The fight can be simplified by just using Pyrite , but ( depending on gear ) it may be neccessary to use Shutdown , and then a rather complex choreography needs to take place . Pyrite . Demolisher drivers can shoot pyrite . This causes a stacking DoT on Flame Leviathan , which at 10 stacks deals about 100 - 150k damage per tick . In hard mode , all other sources of damage can be ignored , as long as the Demolishers keep the pyrite stacks rolling . To make this possible , the Demolisher gunners must supply their drivers with pyrite . They must shoot it from the sky , and collect it with Grab Crate . The drivers must move so that they are close to pyrite on the ground . Shutdown . Demolisher gunners can load themselves into the Demolisher ' s main catapult . The driver can then launch them so that they land on top of Flame Leviathan , near one of the . There are 2 turrets in 10 - player mode , 4 in 25 - player . Once the launched player lands atop the Leviathan he will be unable to move and will only be able to melee the turret closest to him . Ranged classes can reach all turrets , so ranged DPS classes are almost always the ones thrown . The turrets will defend themselves with a flame attack , which while not powerful can be problematic . Having a ranged DPS class that can also heal ( such as an Elemental Shaman or Moonkin Druid ) can help . The players may eject at any time to be parachuted the ground , although doing so before the Leviathan shuts down is often fatal due to the Leviathan ' s constant AoE . Players can then jump back into vehicles . Motorcycles , with their sidecars empty , can easily pick up former gunners and ferry them back to their Demolisher seat . After all turrets are destroyed , and Flame Leviathan goes into an 8 second shutdown , during which it stops moving or dealing damage , uses no abilities , takes 50 % more damage and resets the Gather Speed buff stack . Shutdown is a highly desirable state , but shooting a Demolisher gunner means he no longer gathers pyrite for that Demolisher . A Demolisher can store enough pyrite for 10 shots . If the driver is conservative and shoots only once every 9 seconds just so the debuff stays up , the stock lasts a minute and more , which is in theory ample time for the gunner to destroy the turrets and resume collecting pyrite . In practise , drivers like to have a twitchy trigger finger , and collecting pyrite requires manoeuvering , so it may in effect take longer and the pyrite stack goes down . Double - man Demolisher Guns . Another idea is to assign two gunners to some demolishers . Prior to pulling the boss , one player can preload in the demolisher gun , and a second player can man the gun . In that state , the preloaded player can be launched , while the demolisher retains a gunner to keep up the pyrite supply . After the first shutdown is over , the second player can load himself , and he can be launched as soon as shutdown is over , even before the first player is brought back to the demolisher . In 10 player , one chopper is not used , and that player is used as second gunner in one demolisher . In 25 player , various combinations are possible . If two damage dealers are enough to bring all turrets down fast enough , two choppers can be abandoned and two demolishers get a second gunner . If three damage dealers are needed , one chopper and one Siege Engine are left empty . Bugs . Targeting Demolishers . The Flame Leviathan on live servers targets Demolishers as well as Siege Engines . On PTR builds , it only targeted Siege Engines . This was thought to be a bug , but was confirmed to be working as intended . Changing seats . Currently ( 2009 - 06 - 26 ) drivers of Demolishers can no longer change seats to either hook their own Pyrite or use the Speed Boost . Upon changing seats ( via clicking the open space or change seat key binding ) , the Demolisher sometimes despawns and the player then dies from Flame Leviathan ' s AoE effects . Going through the barrier . It has been reported that if somebody in the raid group pulls the Flame Leviathan while others are left behind the barrier , the boss may go through the barrier and be killed outside anywhere in the instance . After going through the barrier it may attack empty vehicles and players entering the instance while not in combat . Be advised though , that this is considered an exploit and a bannable offense . This may have been repaired through an undocumented fix as the Flame Leviathan will now reset several seconds after being pulled through the barrier that prevents players from leaving / entering the battle zone . The fix may have been to prevent this glitch and to provide a soft reset for this boss should a vehicle be accidentally left behind the barrier . Loot . 10 man Rewards . Leaving towers up for hard mode rewards progressively better loot . 25 man Rewards . Leaving towers up for hard mode rewards progressively better loot . Flame Leviathan also has a standard Heroic Ulduar Boss chance of dropping a runed orb , a crafting recipe , and a Fragment of Val ' anyr . It has been confirmed that you can have multiple recipes and runed orbs . Salvage . Engineers with skill 415 or higher can salvage parts from Flame Leviathan . now with cata the need skill is 470 Items reported salvaged : " The amount and type of salvage obtained at various difficulty levels is uncertain . You can help collecting data . See the Quotes . Sound Files . See " Sound Files of Ulduar : Flame Leviathan "