Nerub'ar Palace

Ulgrax the Devourer Heroic Boss Guide

Ulgrax the Devourer
Purke
Last Updated: 8th Aug, 2024

Raid Setup

Introduction

Welcome to our Heroic Ulgrax the Devourer boss guide, the first boss in Nerub'ar Palace, and the first raid boss in The War Within expansion. Learn about Ulgrax’s mechanics and the strategy we recommend to deal with this boss on Heroic!

Prepare yourselves, adventurers, for the formidable (and slightly comical) Ulgrax, the beetle boss! Imagine a beetle with a glint in its many eyes and a penchant for all-you-can-eat buffets. Ulgrax is here to remind you that there's no such thing as eating too much at an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant, though in his case, it's the McBugsly Menu.

As you face Ulgrax, let this be a gentle nudge to clear out those spider webs at home. After all, you wouldn't want a bug as dedicated to feasting as Ulgrax finding a cozy spot in your living room!

Fight Style: Single Target fight (and some bugs)

Recommended Setup: 2x Tank / 4x Healer / 14x DPS

Required utilities: None

Hero/Lust usage: On Pull

PTR Notes

This is a very underwhelming fight currently. Most of the abilities feel meaningless and boring, at least until you reach the very end and get to feed the boss which is somewhat interesting.

The webs on the ground also do not really play a role in the fight and can be fully ignored for the most part. The only time you might feel like it does something is if you get rooted just as Ulgrax spawns a large purple circle under you, but then again, this ability just does not happen that often to create issues.

If the Health tuning of Ulgrax is done right and energy depletion gets faster, then the fight might feel better simply because you will have to deal with harder and more interesting abilities more often (charge, feeding etc).

Method Boss Rating: (1/5)

Easy Mode

Mechanics

Carnivorous Contest Mechanic Icon

Carnivorous Contest

Lashes onto a player, dealing massive damage split evenly between everyone standing within the circle, then after a few seconds, all players get pulled towards Ulgrax. The strength of the pull is based on the amount of players that soaked the circle, so make sure enough players are in the soak.

You get devoured if Ulgrax pulls you all the way in. Run away from the boss during this mechanic (run against the pull).

Stalkers Webbing Mechanic Icon

Stalkers Webbing

Creates puddles on the ground that first need to be dodge and then become webs on the ground. Standing in one web, roots you for 8 seconds and deals a small amount of damage per second.

Being rooted prevents you from being pulled by the boss, so you can use it to your advantage during Carnivorous Contest.

Venomous Lash Mechanic Icon

Venomous Lash

Raid wide damage over time that is unavoidable and deals moderate raid damage.

Digestive Acid Mechanic Icon

Digestive Acid

Several players get a Digestive Acid debuff that creates a green circle around the player that can be used to clear webs on the ground when they get removed or expire. Anyone inside the circle when it is removed also takes damage.

Move away from others before removing the debuff.

Brutal Crush Mechanic Icon

Brutal Crush

Frontal cone that deals physical damage and reduces your healing by 10% per stack. You get 18 stacks on hit, but it gets reduced by 1 stack every second.

Ravenous Spawn Mechanic Icon

Ravenous Spawn

When Ulgrax is doing his charge, a number of small adds will spawn all over the room.

They put a bleed on players that they hit (Disembowel), but have a small health pool. Killing a Ravenous Spawn will drop food (Chunky Viscera) on the ground that you can pick up and hold for up to 2 minutes to feed Ulgrax later.

Juggernaut Charge Mechanic Icon

Juggernaut Charge

Ulgrax opens up a large portal and charges across the room out of it and into another portal, dealing heavy damage to anyone getting hit.

Swallowing Darkness Mechanic Icon

Swallowing Darkness

A large purple circle (on the ground) is created on one random player's location. It needs to be dodged as it deals massive damage, but also clears all webs that are within the circle.

Hungering Bellows Mechanic Icon

Hungering Bellows

After a short cast, Ulgrax deals damage to the entire raid and starts to glow (Ready to Feed). Each additional cast will increase Ulgrax’s damage done by 10%.

To prevent this, players have to pick up food (Chunky Viscera) from the ground from when Ravenous Spawn were killed, and throw it at the boss using the extra action button; you need to be within 8 yards of the boss.

Strategy

Fight Positioning

This fight does not really have any positional requirements, as long as you are not standing in front of the boss.

ulgrax the devourer positioning

Phase 1

As you pull the boss, Ulgrax will cover most of the area around him with spider webs. Shortly after this, the entire raid will be affected by a Venomous Lash damage over time and several players will get the Digestive Acid (green) circles. Players can use these Digestive Acid circles to remove some webs. Other players should not get hit by this as it deals damage.

One player will be affected by Carnivorous Contest (white circle), and you should send several ranged players (4-6) to help split the damage and reduce the strength of the pull; the more players in the soak, the weaker the pull is.

Ranged players without good mobility can stand in a spider web while soaking or as they get gripped towards Ulgrax to get rooted in place, this way they can simply damage the boss without having to run against the pull.

NOTE: When this is happening, there is a small circle under the boss that serves as his Devour area, even non lashed (Carnivorous Contest) players will get devoured if they move inside of it.

Ulgrax will repeat this until he reaches 0 energy (he starts at 100 energy).

Phase 2

At 0 energy, you will get hit by a mini knock-back, and take some unavoidable raid damage.

The boss will then submerge into a purple circle at a random player's location, Swallowing Darkness, this purple circle needs to be dodged; this mechanic will consume some spider webs caught within the mechanic.

ulgrax the devourer swallowing darkness

The boss will not be targetable and a number of small adds will then start spawning, applying bleed stacks to players that they hit (Disembowel). Tanks should pick them up, and DPS should kill them. These adds will drop Chunky Viscera on the floor, players can pick these up and need to feed them to Ulgrax to deal with a mechanic when the boss is active again.

As this is happening, the boss will be charging through the area, this is clearly indicated by a large portal and needs to be avoided.

ulgrax the devourer charge portal

After a few charges across the room, the boss will reappear with the large purple circle and at this point he will start casting Hungering Bellows. This deals raid-wide damage and will increase the damage done by Ulgrax by 10% for each cast; it will recast until fed enough.

Pick up the food (Chunky Viscera) from the ground that dropped from the small adds you killed whilst the boss was charging around the room, then get close to the boss (8 yards) and use the extra action button. Keep doing this until Ulgrax reaches 100 energy at which point the fight restarts from the beginning.