Uldaman conquered

Okay, big deal, i'm level 65, the mobs are 40ish. But still. Some guildies wanted me to run instances for them, and I did. Rikku and I did Ulda for the first time on Tuesday, it took a few hours i guess. Rikku died a few times.

What was memorable is that since we were both first-timers we had to figure out how to open that secret vault area (pretty simple, you need a medallion from a dwarf NPC and a staff from a boss in the map room). Further, we had to figure out how to get to the last boss (Archaedas), finally I did research and figured out you need 3 people to summon at the altar in the room below him, and again 3 people in the altar room with the final boss. Of course poor Rikku didn't last long in that last boss fight.

It start with your party around the altar, in a circular room full of 50 non-elite mobs plus Archaedas himself, a level 47 boss. You summon him, and immediately he starts pummelling you with melee attacks. But that's not bad. Every few seconds, he activates another of his goons, so you have multiple mobs on everyone real quick. However, if you take him down, all the other mobs disappear!

I found this encounter very tough, I don't see how a 5 man party at the appropriate level could handle this. I one-shotted him when rikku and I went through, and i wiped the first time, but got him the second time when Rikku, Ela, and I went through last night.