Storming the Citadel

Ah, finally, a proper raid recap that doesn’t have to be two paragraphs long because we’re doing a raid that’s 45 minutes. And trash! Sweet, glorious trash, how I missed you, you squishy jerks. ICC seems to have gone the Naxx route with lots of AOE-able trash. Except for some specific mobs that should be focused, the trash packs up to Lady Deathwhisper were pretty cut and dry.

The server last night was a different matter. I logged on initially when Lightninghoof came up at like 5 or so. Didn’t have much trouble getting in, poked around a little, and flew off to do some dailies. I went to open my inventory to get my Mote Extractor when I realized Bagnon was busted. Whatevs, I confidently said to myself, just log out, download the latest version and go back in.

Of course at that point the server decided it wasn’t going to let any more people in. I didn’t get back onto the Hoof until 7:30.

Once the server was brought back up it was clear things weren’t entirely settled. Guildies were routinely DCing. So, we postponed raid an hour waiting for folks to get their stuff in order and their addons set to go. Apparently the delay wasn’t completely helpful as some raiders spent most of the night disconnecting.

At 8:45 server (T-15 til raid) I ran off for ICC to battle door boss and snag us a Raid ID (oh, memories of a few months ago). After two tries I managed to sneak in, and poked around at the different npcs battling the random mobs that would occasionally rush the barricades. One I accidentally aggroed onto me, so I ran over to Tirion, screaming like a girl, to get him to pull it off me.

Lucky for me, he came to my aid.

Oncemore into the breach

Once invites went out it took about twenty minutes for the other 24 folks to assemble in the raid instance. Most of the delays were due to people not being able to find the raid entrance (hey guys, how about the front door?!) and, of course, a wave of DCs. Finally, finally, at 9:30 server we did the first trash pull of ICC.

Trash was pretty easy, and like I said, very Naxxesque. Each pack was generally AOE-down-able, so we didn’t have much trouble with it. As for Chill of the Throne, I noticed being hit more, but my health bar seems overall pretty stable. The trash was definitely not hitting like Ulduar trash on the first night, which was just constant yo-yoing.

When we pulled the last pack before Marrowgar, we got mobbed by four giant skeletons. I’m assumed they spawned in the previous room and we just didn’t notice them, but by the time we did it was too late. Never saw that wipe coming!

We’re boned

Once we regrouped and dispatched those four (now wandering in the previous room) skeletons and the last trash pack, we gathered up for Marrowgar. I read out my crummy little strat and we charged in. I’m sad to say we wiped twice getting the strategy down, but now we have a pretty good handle of it.

Basically, everyone spreads out around Marrowgar in a 180 degree arc, to avoid to many folks getting impaled or caught in a coldflame trail. When someone is impaled, melee kill it if they’re next to it, and ranged switch no matter what. Marrowgar has a gigantic hit box, so your dps can really exploit that to spread out far enough. Eventually Marrowgar will whirlwind, which people should spend running away from the boss (while still in range of healers) and out of any coldflame patches.

Once he stops spinning, he drops aggro, so dps needs to halt until tanks pick the boss back up. Marrowgar is, sadly, taunt immune so we need to just tps our way back to the top. Though, I think he retains some threat, as generally we were able to quickly shoot back up to the top.

As for the Sabre Lash, it wasn’t too bad. Healers seemed a little stretched so we did three tanks on the last (successful) attempt, and that really helped avoid tank death.

Marrowgar dropped pretty quickly on that third attempt once it snapped for everyone what they had to do. He spilled his purples and yours truly nabbed the Bracers of Dark Reckoning. Not too shabby.

I love the dungeon design in what I’ve seen so far. You fight Marrowgar at the base of the Icecrown Spire. Look up!

She was always a quiet one

After Marrowgar was downed we ran up the ramp and immediately found the next boss room with Lady Deathwhisper in it. Her room is a little chapel and has two huge groups of worshipping cultists and two Nerubians in the back. We initially pulled one group of cultists but accidentally got the second as well. At first I was worried, but then noticed they were easily AOEd down. Good, I suppose, but somewhat anticlimactic.

The Nerubians in the back were a little more difficult. They put a debuff on someone who will get life drained, and life drain anyone around them. The first time we did one of these we didn’t know what the debuff meant so a chunk of folks died unnecessarily. The second time we made that debuffed person run out and the mob died cleanly with no friendly fire.

When we finally got ready for Deathwhisper (at about 10:15 server) we had some confusion on how to handle adds. All the way bad to Thorim, fights where you need to split the raid up for adds has not been our strong suit. Last night was no different. We tried it a few different ways: one where we split the raid directly in half, each side killing adds and then the boss when no adds were up (which was fine but after about 8 minutes the boss was at half health), then we sort of drifted to range staying on the boss while melee deals with adds.

Generally that idea was working but we need to work on ranged switching to empowered fanatics/adherents and killing them asap so we don’t lose people to those souped-up adds. We got a few attempts in, each time rejiggering the strat but to no avail. Finally 11 server hit, about an hour past our normal quitting time, and we had to call it.

But we’ll be back

I did some reading today and one thing I’m certain I’ve been doing wrong is trying to pick up the caster adds. From the looks of it they stay at ranged and just try to cast stuff, so if melee targets them first and the casters not being dealt with are shackled, we shouldn’t have to worry about shadowbolt spam. I can just fret about picking up the melee adds.

I think knowing that the fight seems a lot easier. Tonight Lady D shouldn’t be too much issue.

Annoyed as I am that we didn’t get farther in ICC, there wasn’t much we could have done about server stability. Hopefully tonight will be smoother and we can knock out Lady D and get up to Saurfang. I know next week we can bang out Marrowgar in much less time than we did last night, so we’ll probably be able to get what bosses are available down in two nights starting next week. Considering we have four weeks with just this first wing, we’ll get lots of undivided practice on them.

All in all a great night, and I’m hoping for much more success tonight!