Ready Check is a twice-a-week column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. Today, we step back a little and look at endgame in the context of sports.

Ulduar. Land of legend. Realm of confused Titans. Raid of epics. Ulduar is home to some of the finest fights available in Azeroth, not to mention leagues of incredible lore. Over the next few weeks, your intrepid Ready Check columnists will be taking a look at what you should expect from Ulduar, in both 10 man and 25 man versions.

Last week, we did a quick run down of that tankiest of bosses, the Flame Leviathan. This week, we're going to do a quick run down of the three remaining bosses in the "Siege" section of Ulduar. These three bosses are:

• Razorscale the armor-plated dragon,
• Ignis the Furnace Master, he who scorches, and
• XT-002 Deconstructor, of the very, very freaky voice.

So take a moment, and join your intrepid WoW.com team on a pleasant stroll through Ulduar. Let's begin behind the cut, with Razorscale.
Razorscale



After defeating Flame Leviathan, you will immediately gain access to the last three bosses of the "Siege of Ulduar." Progressing down the hallway, and down a short stairway to your right, you'll see the staging area known as "Razorscale's Aerie."

As the story goes, Razorscale actually used to be known as Veranus, Hodir's loyal drake mount. After Loken's betrayal, Veranus was hauled inside Ulduar. Therein, Ignis the Furnace Master fused metal plates to her scales. So, not only is she being corrupted by Yogg-Saron, she's had piping hot metal merged with her skin. I don't think we can blame her for being cranky.

The fight itself is actually fairly simple. Razorscale has two phases: the "air/ground phase" and the "ground/ground phase." To summarize, you use "turrets" to bring her down from the air, letting you fight her on the ground. Once you've gotten her down to 50% of her health, she's then permanently on the ground. She also has a 10-minute berzerk timer, after which point she will eat your entire raid. You get the fight started by talking to the Expedition Commander.

Air/Ground Phase -- aka, "The first half of the fight"

The Air/Ground phase actually consists of two mini-phases. Like most dragons, during the first half of the fight, Razorscale has an air portion and a ground portion.

When she's in the air, mole machines (like during the Corin Direbrew fight) will pop up in the courtyard. Your tanks should grab them, while your DPS burns them down. If you see a Dark Rune Sentinel, that should be tanked and killed first. Otherwise, the Sentinel will eat your healers. After that, kill stuff with a mana bar first. Chances are, though, your DPS won't have any trouble burning all these guys down.

Once you get a raid announcement saying your turrets are ready, have one of your ranged DPS go use them. That will drag Razorscale down to the ground. She's stunned during this ground mini-phase, so tear into her with all the cooldowns are your disposal. Once a few seconds have passed, she takes back to the air, and you have to do it all over again. In Normal mode, you only need 2 turrets. In Heroic, you need all 4.

Your goal here is to get her to about 75% during the first "ground" phase in the first half, then get all the way through to 50% during the second half.

Her abilities while in the air aren't too bad, but you should be aware of them:

• Devouring Flame - Inflicts Fire damage to a player, and additional damage every second to anyone within 6 yards of the initial impact, for 25 seconds. Folks often mitigate this by spreading out as much as possible.
  
• Fireball - Inflicts direct Fire damage to a player

Ground/Ground Phase

Once you've inflicted 50% damage to Razorscale, she is now permanently grounded. Let's take a look at her abilities, which will help you understand the strategy to killing her.

• Flame Buffet - Increases the Fire damage an enemy takes by 1,000 (Heroic: 1,500) for 1 minute, stacking up to 99 times.
• Fuse Armor -- Reduces armor, attack speed, and movement speed by 50%, and stacks up to 5 times.
• Flame Breath -- It's not just a clever name. Razorscale breathes fire in front of her, and this is definitely affected by Flame Buffet

As a general rule during this fight, you'll want to "swap" tanks so that the stacks of Fuse Armor will fall off. I usually do it at 2, so that if (forfend) a Taunt is resisted or something, there's ample time to try again. She does still leave patches of flame under her, so you're going to have to keep walking her backwards. (I usually use a big circle.) Make sure you're still switching tanks back and forth, though, so that Fuse Armor doesn't get higher than 3 stacks.

So, that's it. Pretty simple, right? Kill her adds, and when she comes down from the air, kill her a whole bunch, too. When she's on the ground, have your tanks swap her back and forth while walking in a big circle. And voila -- dead Razorscale.

Let's move on, then, and talk about the vile fiend who would fuse molten metal onto a dragon's skin -- Ignis the Furnace Master.

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