Normally, the best gear drops in the hardest instances, or from final bosses. However, every now and then you get a real surprise that drops from an easier opponent.
As everyone should know by now, Flame Leviathan is the first boss in Ulduar. Despite the higher difficulty of Ulduar, Flame Leviathan by itself is not too bad, and kind of fun. If at all possible, you should try and get into a 10-man run of him every week. He drops a surprisingly good trinket for rogues – the Pyrite Infuser.
Its another AP proc, much like Mirror of Truth, but with a higher number (1234 AP for 10 seconds). In addition the trinket gives an enormous amount of hit raitng (95) on equip. Hit rating is never a bad thing. In particular, if you have been gemming for +hit to get you to the poison cap, then this item will allow you to re-gem for other stats.
The various loot ranking systems (Loot Rank, Shadowpanther, Gear Wish List) rank this trinket higher than all of the pre-Ulduar trinkets except DMC:G and Bandit’s Insignia, and right around or slightly higher than Grim Toll and FFF. That’s not bad for a drop from the first boss in a 10-man raid.
I don’t know if Flame Leviathan is reliably puggable yet. It may take a month or so before enough people know the fight to make it something I’d pug. But even if your guild isn’t ready for the whole of Ulduar yet, try to get them to go in just for 10-man Flame Leviathan and see if you can’t get this great item.
i really want that trinket , it would give me a chance to get rid of the Grim Toll
Any plans to do a “Rogues How-to” series for Ulduar?
The Naxx guide was fantastic. My guild is purely casual, so I pug a lot. My first ever H Naxx pug I simply read your guides and cruised through, no avoidable deaths or wipes caused. Also picked up Murder and Calamity’s Grasp
Mmm, do want. The boss also drops a really nice fast offhand fist, which is likely to be a good upgrade for CQC if you didn’t get a Webbed Death.
@Kryssa – I’ll do one once my guild starts progressing in Ulduar. Right now we’re not quite ready.
Saithir at Angry Dwarfs is starting an Ulduar guide. He may get it done before I do.
http://www.angrydwarfs.com/2009/04/25/a-dwarfs-guide-to-ulduar-introduction/
Thanks for the link Dinaer. :] I might actually be faster, as we started progressing more in 25-man this week, and we’ve done half of the instance on 10-man.
I don’t want to rush it though, as I prefer to do the fights at least a few times first, so I know what I’m writing about
First two or three should be ready this week or at the start of the next one. 