The Lich King Never Took Advantage of Ulduar. Why?

[Duravian]

Ulduar is quite literally the prime control station of Azeroth put in place by the Titans. It also happened to be the Lich King's next door neighbor. Yet throughout Wrath we see, if I can recall, absolutely 0 Scourge intrusions on the land. Why would he not wish to take advantage of such a powerful place?

Well, I get that mountains are hard for armies to traverse, but he had a legion of flying gargoyles, frostwyrms, vrykul, etc. that could easily help muster a sizable force. Ulduar itself was indeed guarded by non flesh afflicted guardians, taking away the Scourge's major advantage of turning killed enemies to their side, but i think sheer numbers alone would be enough. Not to mention their were plenty of flesh races living among the mountains to convert. Regardless of technicalities however, the Lich King never seemed to give even a single thought to the entirety of the Storm Peaks, when he more than likely knew of the vast power residing within them.

So what do you think? Maybe Yogg-Saron purposefully didn't want him coming near and manipulated him through all the saronite that ICC was made out of? Anything crazier? Or perhaps just a lack of development time?

[Apanonar]

It probably has protection mechanisms similar to Sholazar Basin

[zubaja]

Maybe having two voices control his mind was a bit too much, so he abandoned the idea?

[Deleted]

Or he didn't know about it. We only found out when Brann fuked up the prison. And we promtly kicked the resident Old God's ass and reinstated the Keepers.

[Wildmoon]

He may not have known about it.

[Deleted]

It was pretty well defended...

[Leih]

I would imagine the Lich King probably didn't want to wage a direct war on Yogg'Saron when he believed he could deal with us without such power.

[Arrashi]

Non-organics are great counter to necromancy. And most blight/death based weaponry.

[Deleted]

Plothole.

/10char

[Deleted]

Non-organics are great counter to necromancy. And most blight/death based weaponry.

This. The great bulk of the scourge is entirely based around wars of attrition, where enemy casualties become your assets. When you are fighting the titanforged there's nothing to replenish yourself with. It would be an incredibly costly endeavor which would have swallowed up a ton of the Scourge forces far better used to pacify the Drakkari and bust into Scholazar.

We all saw how much havoc the Etymidian wreaked on Arthas forces on the border between Scholazar basin and Icecrown, and he was just one single Titanforged countermeasure.

[FlemmMinis]

Non-organics are great counter to necromancy. And most blight/death based weaponry.

This and you don't fuck with old gods.

[Super Kami Dende]

Yogg-saron probably guided him away from it.

[Sorrior]

From what I recall wasn't Arthas holding the scourge back with his last shred of humanity?

[Deleted]

Arthas sending his sentient/living forces into Ulduar would probably have had catastrophical consequences. Those men and women who served the cult of the damned willingly all had a bit of a screw loose, and Yogg-Saron had managed to crush the wills of his jailors under his oppressive mental manipulations already.

With nothing to replenish his forces (no living things to raise) and very possible mutiny from the his cultists, there's literally nothing for him to gain by challenging Ulduar. He'd come back once Northrend was entirely secure though, with his new minions to do the dirty-work (us, post necro).

PS:

That and opening himself up to possibly being flanked by Alextrasza the dragon-queen herself, possibly responding to the Titan's work being attacked.. considering how she was able to fight toe-to-toe with Deathwing in the Cataclysm and hold her own, I don't think the Lich King would want to risk it.

[Niroshi]

I'm going to guess it was because he probably wasn't quite up to the task of taking on an Old God. He was the end boss of the expansion, but in the power ladder Arthas probably would rank far below Yogg-Saron.

[Thrif]

So what do you think? Maybe Yogg-Saron purposefully didn't want him coming near and manipulated him through all the saronite that ICC was made out of? Anything crazier? Or perhaps just a lack of development time?

Well, Arthas death scene has his father Terenas stating that "No king rules forever," which is an identical line to what Yogg-Saron claims when we fight him. Moreso, Yogg-Saron really has no reason to speak that line while we fight him... he isn't a king, we aren't kings, there are no kings anywhere in the vicinity. If it's a throwaway, unimportant line and merely a coincidence, it a highly suspicious one.

Most likely it's just a plothole. But I like to entertain the fantasy that Blizzard actually did some sneaky and subtle writing for once.

[rosebull]

I know MMO champ has a thing for the Lich King, but honestly i dont think he would have ANY luck invading ulduar. There was limitless mecha gnomes for the armory, insane defense mechanisms and titan keepers.

In the new lore book, they make titan keepers seem way stronger than i originally thought. They didnt have a problem whooping the elementals and most of the old gods. I think the lich king would be in serious trouble invading there.

[Deleted]

As everyone has said, the disadvantages of such an assault greatly overvalued the advantages.
Even assuming that the LK knew how much power was hidden in those mountains (which we only discovered by exploring the mountains ourselves together with Brann) there was very little for him, the titan machines cannot be controlled by necromancy and the largest part of the scourge was made up by non sentient undeads that would be unable to use whichever weapons they could find there.
On the other side, the terrain was difficult to traverse, the titanforged would have been difficult enemies for the scourge and it was already locked in fight on all other fronts, would have been a very bad move to move towards Ulduar, kinda like when you try to invade Russia before having gained control of all Europe.

[Leyre]

One simple reason, have you tried rushing Flame Leviathan without the vehicles and the 4 towers up?? yeah, good luck with that

[Deleted]

He knew it existed, but not what lay within. His focus was to make as much soldiers and undead as possible. And his agents and scout eyes probably never even managed to get past the courtyard before the Flame leviathan.