First (and Last?) Substantial Step into Ulduar

This past Friday, a few friends and I picked up 2 PUG tanks and headed into Ulduar Normal. We started with 2 healers, 3 melee, and 3 casters. Of the 10 characters, 2 were alts.

How far did we get?

8 bosses down before sleep demands were too insistent to be ignored.

We eventually traded our Warlock buddy for a third healer after the first 4 bosses. Kologarn was just a bit too bursty for just 2 healers to manage. I think we 9 manned Ignis, 8 manned Auriaya (2 died on the pull), and pretty much 1 shot every boss except Freya and Thorim (bad healing assignments).

The funny part of this is that aside from one of the tanks (the alt of a raider in a more progressed guild), none of the rest of us had seen any of these bosses beyond Deconstructor. As such, our pre pull pep talks consisted of "Well, wowhead says ..."

I think part of the success in this impromptu run was due to the fact that nearly all of the boss mechanics we saw have been experienced in other encounters or were easily understandable to allow for quick adaptations. Because of this, Ulduar seemed kind of old. Not old in the sense of "I can't believe I'm still grinding Karazhan for badges", but old in the sense of "I've seen this before." or "What's the gimmick this time?"

I mention in the title of this post that this might be my last serious step into Ulduar, mainly because of this feeling that Ulduar is already 'old'. I've learned alot of boss mechanics in my time spent in Azeroth and in other games, and sadly, they don't wow me any more (pardon the pun). Bosses don't feel like epic battles anymore, because in my mind, they've all been translated into brief sets of instructions like: Control the adds, Run the gauntlet, Don't stand in the lightning. Anything that can be distilled down to it's essence becomes less special.

In a way, I don't quite mind this shift in attitude towards raiding. Does it bother me that I won't have access to the top PvE gear in the game? A little bit. But to be honest, it's a relief, because now I can get to bed before 1 AM on raid nights.

And being awake during the day is truly a good thing.