Amazing turnaround in ICC!
Last week, as you may recall, it took us three nights to “clear” ICC-25. The first night was the usual lag-fest filled with trash wipes, a three-shot of Marrowgar, and then some initial attempts on Deathwhisper. Night two was entirely spent in Deathwhisper’s room, to the point where we got trash respawns, finally offing the lichess on the last attempt. Night three was the Gunship and then hours of Saurfang, again killing the boss on the declared last attempt of the night.
Yeah, we cleared ICC last week, but it was uphill both ways. We had to claw and scratch our way to the top.
This week? Um, we cleared the place in two and a half hours last night.
The whole thing. So to speak.
We walked in and started generally on time (listen, if we don’t start 30 minutes late, it’s on time, dammit). Demo announced 5 dkp if we didn’t wipe on trash and 10 dkp if no one dies in a trash pull. And, by anyone, that generally means Falowin, the rogue who could find a way to freeze to death from Chill of the Throne.
We marched our way to Marrowgar, disarming the giant skeletons to save time. Marrowgar generally put up no resistance and we dropped him pretty hard.
Then on to Deathwhisper, who I was a bit worried about because of the complexity of her fight. We wiped once to–as Demo put it–shake the rust off. Then, we came back and easily smoked her.
Onto Gunship which as always is no contest. The ship even docked this time after we took out the Alliance boat, miracles of miracles. Inside the loot chest was the Corpse Tongue Coin which I got for a song. I’m pretty enamored with the trinket, especially for fights like Saurfang which is high physical damage. And considering Chill, any avoidance is good avoidance right now.
And speaking of Saurfang, we then rocketed up to his terrace and put in three attempts trying to work out some tweaks to the strategy. The fourth try we basically did it like we did last week (though, this time we let the first Mark die) and dropped him. It was pretty hard fought, however, with several marks dying at the end periodically and dealing with Saurfang constantly yo-yoing up and down in the 10% range. Our healers are pro, however, and once we hit that final 5% they kept all the Marks up and we had a white knuckle finish.
Great, great week all and all, though it’s kind of anti-climactic. Right now we’re stuck in the same situation we were with ToC where we’d bang out the current raid content in one night and sit on our hands for the rest of the week. After ICC last night we ducked into Ulduar and killed Ignis for the weekly quest. I guess tonight we’re going back to the Coliseum to farm off-spec pieces, fill some gear gaps, and give some alts some love.
I’m also pumped that I’m sitting at 56 emblems right now (thanks to doing the random heroic every day and basically anything else that could net me and Emblem of Frost), which means my first purchase is on Thursday.
I know initially I stated I’d be going for the Corroded Skeleton Key, but I’ve changed my mind. If ICC-25 has taught me anything it’s that, at the moment, I have enough stamina. At the moment. The next wing could change that, but for now, I’m comfortable with my time-to-live.
Damage intake is pretty steady and I’ve yet to be in a situation where I’ve felt “I don’t have the health bar for this!”
In any case, I’m going to swing around and shore up my avoidance (hence the Coin) and bee-line right for the 4pc bonus. The Key will have to be my fifth purchase, after I score the fourth piece of tier.
Armory Feed
@honorshammer
16 December 2009 at 11:19 am #
I’d love to hear your impressions once you have the 4pc. It’s not a real high priority for me because I think the bonus is really lackluster.
@Rhidach
16 December 2009 at 11:38 am #
It’s no damage reduction, granted, but in ICC-25 you really feel that loss of dodge. Anyway we can mitigate that loss is a huge plus.
Wait, Saurfang is a heavy hitter? I stacked avoidance there this week (57% post-chill raidbuffed avoidance) because he hits like a small child, but avoidance makes for slower Mark buildup.
Heavy hitters in ICC will still reward Stamina/EH, I can almost guarantee it. The Brutallus “win at RNG or wipe” fight is gone, given the prevalence of accessible raid cooldowns, and the massive healing throughput available.
That said, I’m happy to have some form of avoidance-reward fight. It makes me feel justified for spending all those thousands of gold on gems and enchants, and all those hours on keeping the set lovingly polished in the closet. Even if it isn’t for survival, at least it finally paid a raid benefit.
@Rhidach
16 December 2009 at 1:03 pm #
Hey now, are you accusing me of saying that? I can’t find me saying Saurfang was a heavy hitter. The only thing close to that is “high physical damage” but that means the proportion of physical to magical damage… in this case, physical being 100% of the damage.
I agree, it’s nice to finally have a gearing strategy other “stack stam” being reward. I’m not completely forgoing EH (i.e., I’m not regemming/enchanting anything), but at the moment, with the bosses we have, I can dial it back a bit on stam and tune up the avoidance.
Oh how I love when I am included in your posts Rhidach….
For the record:
Claims of abnormally frequent deaths, or deaths coming at odd times or in odd places, have been greatly exaggerated by my guild. The issue is exacerbated by the fact that when you are as critical to a raid’s success as Falowin is, it is only appropriate to announce your death when it occurs to save the rest of the raid the embarrassment of trying to continue in your absence.
@Rhidach
16 December 2009 at 2:06 pm #
I wouldn’t do it unless I knew you found it funny, Fal.
Grats on your clearing of the instance in a night. Too bad it’s what you will be stuck too for some time waiting for the next wing however good time to know you can sit back and re-tune some of those avoidance pieces for other fights.
I’m still trying to build a solid main set as we had discussed. However I will let you know we did an ony 25 last night I scored up the trinket which for now was an upgrade to hold onto until something better comes along and I got those triumphs needed for my libram.
The dodge hit in that place we take is kind of funny in a way. When I walked in there with the 10 man last night and dropped to a 6% dodge I was happy I went and got that libram after all. But at least in the 10 man my gear held up just fine for the first fight.
Ohh you have one of those rogues too! Ours has been given the title official floor inspector. We had some problems with marrorgar this week with healers getting spiked early and often leading to tank deaths. We were two healing it. When all of our dps made a target macro to switch to the spikes, we beat the encounter and got the Boned achievement.
@Rhidach
16 December 2009 at 4:38 pm #
@Tijeras: Grats! Very nice.
@Senet: Thanks man, and grats on the trinkets. I’m glad the new libram worked out so well for you.
My sincere apologies, Rhidach. I misinterpreted “high physical damage” as “boss hurts”. I evidently understood a different implied proportionality than you intended.
Congratulations on your one-night clear. Regarding content starvation, which you mentioned, though: I’ve thought to myself that I think I might have preferred it in general, disregarding any lore reasons Blizzard felt for gating, if they’d just held the patch until Jan 5, and then released everything at once. I don’t want to feel content starved 2 hours after a new content patch.
Yeah, the last two fights of the lower spire are real good for avoidance tanks. That trinket will serve you well there.
I don’t mind the gating. It gives us time to learn the first handful of fights before even having access to the next.
When the new stuff is available the older stuff is easy, instead of having an overwhelming amount of stuff you can do… This way with 4/12 bosses finished we can feel a sense of immediate accomplishment rather than being upset we haven’t gotten to the Lich King yet.