Raid Recovery: Flame Leviathon exploits and ethics for raid solutions

Most of you should have spent substantial time on raid recovery from wipes on Flame leviathan, be it on 2 towers, 3 towers, or even 4 towers. Well, you've watched how 2 players can take down a 10man FL and how 4 players can do that with a 25 man FL.

But today is not about that.

Today is about a bug with Flame Leviathan, that will allow even 1 single player to solo FL-25 with 4 towers, even though it will take forever.

Its an exploit that I've seen quite a bit of places using, and I have mixed feelings about it. Being so widespread, I'm still unsure why blizzard hasn't nerfed it yet considering how quickly they did the Freya nerf. Well, I suppose it is because this time a video wasn't posted that made it to wow.com or mmochampion.

Perhaps if I write about it here, Blizzard will finally do something...

Basically if you've done flame leviathan on 4 towers, you know that is no joke, and is harder than quite a bit of other hard mode bosses. For example XT-Deconstructor is a joke compared to 4 up. However, with the bug, a 25 man team can effortlessly kill a 4 towered Flame Leviathan in 2 to 3 wipe recoveries.

Step 1) Clear trash all the way to the last pack, with people moving back right after the last pull of adds have been killed. You will engage flame leviathan, and the raid group will kite the truck all the way back until the truck exits the boxed up zone.

Step 2) Dps normally, including doing shutdowns and effectively fighting him as normal while ignoring all other adds and laser beams and whatever.

Step 3) Eventually you'll all wipe, and Flame Leviathan will slowly roll back towards his spawn point. At this point you must graveyard zerg all the way to the vehicles, board it and engage quickly, following step 1.

I found out about this after joining a pug (on my alt) that turned out to be raid led by chinese gold farmers, who promptly got their ilvl 239 loot on their own alts.

I personally think that this way of doing this boss isnt ethical as it really defeats the point of the particular game. A problem is presented and there is a solution, but this way of doing it is akin to just typing an instant win code and grabbing the loot.

I'm not sure about other people however, as the other pugs were just happy to get their 2 EoC and a chance at 226 loot, what do you all think of this raid solution?

Also, I would like to give a shoutout to Bosskillers for adding me to their resource page for flame leviathan!

Project: Emblem of Conquest source tables

This particular post will be consistently updated, so feel free to email me or post a comment if you've downed a particular boss and received some information.

Update: More info on Iron Council
Update: Iron Council is also optional
And I also forgot to mention, IC is the only place you can start Algalon unlock quest chain, you must do it on any hard mode for a chance of the quest item dropping.

As some people have asked, so shall you receive!

I've compiled the following Conquest badges table from just about everywhere, but its sort of incomplete. Its goal is to give you a guide to roughly the minimum and maximum conquest emblems you're likely to feasibly get each week!

We'll start off with the easy ones.

In ulduar, there are 14 bosses, one of which is Algalon which I shall totally ignore, since the 10 man version has only been killed once, and No One not even ensida has been able to take out the 25 man Algalon yet. I don't see us mortals accomplishing that feat anytime soon! :D

Of the others, there are 9 hard modes.
The bosses without hard modes are Auriaya, Razorscale, Kologarn and Ignis, of which they drop 1 Emblem of Conquest each on Heroic-25 and 1 Emblem of Valor each on Normal-10

25 hard modes:

In general, each boss will drop 1 EoC on normal mode

Flame Leviathan: 1 EoC
1 up = 2 EoC
3 up = 3 EoC (suspected)

the 1 tower up hard mode is probably the easy 2 conquest badges you won't want to lose. If you need a guide, you can check mine for how to deal with flame leviathan here.

XT: 1 EoC
Hard mode: 2 EoC

Iron Council: 1 EoC
Doing hard modes will bump EoC drops to 2

Freya: 1 EoC
3 adds each give 1 EoC for a total of 4 EoC
If your guild is just starting out but have managed to clear this far, this is another boss to take note of. Its a pretty easy 4 EoC for a normal boss fight.
The hard mode is Sartharion-esque and as far as I know does not give any more EoC. If you're hitting sunday or monday and are stuck on the other keepers, just do a +0 Freya for the easy 4 badges.

The other 3 keepers will drop an EoC each, their hard modes are probably the more challenging ones.

Followed by Vezax and Yogg Saron, who also have hard modes, but also drop 1 EoC each. I've not tried their hard modes.

Thus for a normal guild, you'll want to do both Flame Leviathan and Freya for an easy 2+4 Emblems of Conquest.

Following which you'll get an extra
3 EoC: XT, Kolo, IC,
5 EoC: XT, Kolo, IC, Razor(optional), Ignis(optional)
7 EoC: XT, Kolo, IC, Razor(opt), Ignis(opt), Hodir, Thorim

10 EoC: the above + Mimi, Vezax and Yogg

so the range would be about 5 to 13 EoC from hard mode 25s a week.
If your guild has progressed well, it would get 16 EoC + a week.

Then you'll want to do Emalon for the freebie 2 Conquests

You probably won't be able to break 20 EoC a week with just the above however, so you'll probably have to do the Normal-10 modes for more EoC

Its pretty good to do the hard modes since they are the only way you'll see runed orbs and EoC drop in the 10 man versions.

Flame Leviathan 1 Tower Up
You simply must do this one, its the easiest 2 EoC you'll ever see.
Don't waste your Ulduar 10 save without getting this down.

XT hard
Drops 1 EoC I believe, its easier now

IC hard
Never tried it, but should drop at least 1 EoC

Freya Hard
Just do with 1 up, my friend told me there was either a bug or intention, that when you do with 3 up, you'll still only get 1 EoC and 3 EoV.

Thorim, Hodir, Mimi, Vezax, Yogg
Very likely 1 EoC each

With the 10 man modes, you'll probably one to rush out a FL-1up clear before tuesdays to get that 2 EoC out, if you're running with a good team though you'll probably pick up about 5-8 extra EoC for a total range of 7-10 extra EoCs on top of your 25 man ones.

Feel free to correct me wherever I have wrong information or a typo elsewhere.

For those with Alts, if you play it right, you can end up with 6-9 emblems for an undergeared lvl 80 toon. Just do Emalon, FL 10 and 25, as well as buy a slot from any guild/pug that reaches Freya for the 3 Adds.

If you're looking to purchase stuff with EoCs:
18 - Runed Orb
(they'll be the only way to liquidate EoC a few months down the road)
16 - Necks
23 - Waist, Gloves
32 - Legs
58 - Conquest Heads and Chest

Pvp Gear:
46 - Shoulders and Gloves
58 - Chest Legs and Head