Second look at Seal of Command!

So a couple of months ago, when SoComm was first changed to its current Holy Cleavin’ incarnation in 3.2, I recommended against speccing into it. Well, the situation has changed somewhat and so has my position on SoComm.

Now, what changed was Shield of Righteousness (as mentioned earlier this week) had a mechanic tweak which made it parriable/dodgeable. Not only did this make expertise a very worthy threat stat under softcap, but it also had the side effect of making ShoR able to proc SoComm’s cleave proc. This suddenly makes SoComm viable for trash pulls (provided trash doesn’t survive more than 30 seconds) if you’re looking for a threat boost in that arena, or the joy of many yellow numbers.

Does this make SoComm mandatory? No. Does it make it useful and fun? Oh yes.

The cleave effect of Command will now proc from three of our attacks (please correct me, readers, if I missed one/others): ShoR, white melee attacks, and Judgements. However, Judgements will only proc the cleave (and this is also true for the additional proc of Seal of Vengeance) if you are specced into Judgements of the Just. Don’t ask why. Just keep that in mind for later in this post.

But how to pick up SoComm?

Well, you’ve got two options: one being just swap the lone point from Conviction into Seal of Command. The main downside to this is a single-target threat loss, and if you have Seal of Vengeance (which you likely do), you’re looking at a “wasted” glyph slot when SoV isn’t active.

The other way to get SoComm–and hell, the crazier way–is to make a separate spec for trash/heroics.

Wrathy inspired me with his epic tales of pulling crazy dps numbers in heroics with his specialized Heroic Anub’arak spec, the crux of which was Seal of Command. I, sick of ret and never using that offspec, followed Wrathy’s lead … though I find now I need to make a few tweaks to it since I’m using it on heroics trash and not Nerubian Burrowers.

The results otherwise were pretty impressive–I easily did most overall damage done in a UK run, and that was with frequent mana issues. Not the best metric, admittedly, but there is definitely potential here.

Putting a few tweaks in the new trash spec I’m going to adopt tonight, I placed a point in Spiritual Attunement, one in Judgements of the Just (so judging will proc the seal), leaving 3 in Reckoning, and skipping Vindication to put 3 overall in Conviction. Considering this is, as I said, a spec for heroics and trash (where survivability is not an issue), I’d rather max threat talents.

As for glyphs, I’m going to go with Holy Wrath, Hammer of the Righteous, and Judgement. Again, for threat maximizing. I won’t be using SoV in this trash spec

So overall, like I said, SoComm is not mandatory. It will not help you generate more threat on a boss or live longer. Rather it is for putting out some obscene numbers in heroics, farm content, or large packs of trash in raids (though there is something to be said for the cleave’s snap aggro potential).

I wish I had a screenshot of a cloud of yellow numbers to illustrate my point. Nonetheless, with all the heroics running we’ll be doing into the foreseeable future, SoComm has the bonus of making slogging through a heroic dungeon fun again.

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.

Shoring up expertise

This is what happens when I don’t look at Maintankadin for a few days–and thanks to Honors for alerting me to this–an unannounced change in 3.3 was discovered that apparently ShoR is now on the melee table. This means that an enemy can now parry or dodge Shield of Righteousness. Which in turn makes expertise a much, much more attractive stat for us. But how attractive, you ask?

Under soft cap, expertise is now our best threat stat.

In addition to previous findings that expertise was “about 80% as good as dodge” for damage avoidance, now more than ever, being soft capped in expertise is mandatory.

Thankfully, we gain 6 expertise from talents and 10 from the SoV glyph, so we only need 81 rating to soft cap, a relatively easy goal.

Other side effects of the ShoR change: that’s another melee attack that will be proc’ing Mongoose or similar enchants.

Nonetheless! Tankadins, act accordingly.

Thought of the day: Situational Awareness

With 3.3 and the recent wave of alt-mania that’s been sweeping the guild, a few buddies have been asking me for pointers when it comes to tanking.on their paladins. I’ve told them all the cookie cutter stuff, along with a few hints on how to pull, etc. But the one thing I’d like to impart that’s basically impossible to teach is good, old situational awareness.

To demonstrate the concept, please first watch this super quick video and count how many times the kids pass the basketball.

Correct answer after the jump. [...]

A very productive weekend

Thanks to the new random dungeon system, some bored guildees, and the free-flowing emblems of triumph, I managed to run about 25 heroics this weekend and pick up a little more than a hundred badges, which I think parlayed into t9 shoulders and gloves and the godly dps sigil for my DK. Finally he is free from the BoA shoulders! I have a few 232/245 pieces on him now, but the majority of his gear is sitting in the 200-219 range. Something must be done… ah yes, need moar badges.

On my main I’m currently sitting at 39 emblems of frost, which is awesome. I should be able to score my t10 shoulders (I always go for shoulders first) after the two raids this week and the raid weekly quest. As for the DK’s emblem generation, I think I’m going to use him to buy Primordial Saronite for Rhidach’s crafted tanking gear. My alt will always be a workhorse for my main, be it working the mines for Rhidach’s JCing, or forgoing tier 10. Sacrifices must be made.

And speaking of frost, last night we went in to do ICC-10, but first a few of us ran over to Naxx to bang out the raid weekly quest before raid. Unfortunately, just about every character in the guild was saved except for a smattering of alts (including Demo’s resto shammy). We had myself solo tanking, one healer, and four dps. And we wiped on Anub’Rekhan… four times. Each at 2% when Locust Swarm would hit and Demo refused to let the dps die so I eventually bought it, or the second crypt fiend would spawn after swarm so I couldn’t pick it up. It sucked.

The last guildee we were waiting on for ICC finally woke up and logged on (damn you Gandy) and with his non-alt dps we were able to push it over the finish line. Still, the shame endures.

Once we finally got into the Citadel I had a preconceived notion (based on the accounts of other bloggers) that the 10man was going to be pretty easy. And indeed, I was not wrong. The whole place is one massive faceroll. Aside from some initial trash wipes, we one shot every boss. Wasn’t even a contest.

Deathwhisper especially, which was nightmare-inducing for us in 25man was a total cake walk. And Saurfang I was too busy admiring the kiting being done on the Beasts to really pay attention to the fight. Hell, we only had one Mark that fight, and it went on a healer who died and we still one shot the fight.

We steamrolled the whole place in the duration of one flask.

I can’t wait for tomorrow when we have a wealth of experience on all the bosses and should be able to seriously speed up our progress in there. Tuesday night can’t come soon enough!

How to tank Heroic Halls of Reflection

I’ve seen a deluge of folks on the WoW forums complaining about how hard Heroic Halls of Reflection is, how it needs to be nerfed, how it killed their father, etc. My buddy Palehoof apparently had three different tanks quit on him in one H HoR run yesterday. Eep. Personally–and I don’t mean this in a elitist jerkish sort of way–I didn’t find the place that difficult at all.

Honestly, the first gauntlet portion (which I suppose is the part most are having trouble with) is very easy to tank!

Park your party in Falric’s alcove (see image) around the corner in that tight spot. Mobs will instinctively aggro onto your healer and, because they can’t see her, run into the alcove. Then, just pick them up one by one. Keep consecrates down to nab everyone as they flood in. For those pesky casters use Avenger’s Shield to silence and force them to get closer.

The escape portion of the dungeon isn’t much more difficult, just use Holy Wrath liberally and consecrate once you’re got large packs settled in one spot. HotR like your life depends on it.

Anyone here having trouble with this place?

The uphill climb

If I’m going to take away something from last night, it’s that ICC is somewhat buggy right now. Invites went out at 7 server like usual and two people got in and ported up to the trash before the Gunship Battle. Not knowing any better, they pulled the Alliance trash and wiped, which then bugged that pull. Suddenly the Alliance was standing on top of the teleporter, fighting unkillable Horde mobs. Whenever someone used the teleporter they would get warped up into the middle of the Alliance pack and quickly killed.

It took us about 20 minutes of people running in, rebuffing, repairing, and then some dope would try to teleport and that would cause everyone, one by one, to auto-port up there and be killed. Once the bleeding in my ulcer subdued, we told everyone to wait just inside the entrance, don’t touch the teleporter, and we’d walk to the elevator in Deathwhisper’s room and take that up together.

So we all run over there, and just screwing around someone sits in the pit the elevator settles in. That puts everyone in combat and, again, ports everyone up one by one and kills them.

Finally, after I got some healthy tweaks in, instructions went out over raid warnings and vent: go inside, stand next to the elevator but don’t touch it. Wait for everyone to get there. So everyone gathers, we get on as a raid, and we all go up. So far so good. Elevator reaches the top, Demo and I run off and charge into the breach, some healers and dps follow and some folks hesitate and stay on the elevator. And, of course, the elevator descends, and suddenly the raid was cut in half.

Normally this would have been hilarious, but we just burned 35 minutes on this nonsense. Exasperated, I asked “you guys have used elevators before, right?!” Yeesh. Anyway, no wipes, the elevator came back up and the Alliance dogs were put to heel.

I’m on a boat

We fought our way over to the zeppelin and boarded. Groups were split up with all ranged on D with me, all melee save four on O with Demo, the four lowest dps melee were put on cannons, and three healers were send to O and two stayed on D. Everyone grabbed their rocket packs (which are AWESOME) and we started up the encounter.

We really didn’t know what to expect aside from what we’ve read from the ptr and elsewhere, but generally we stumbled around in the dark and go the Alliance boat to 40% the first time. Smelling blood in the water, we regathered and on the second attempt easily pushed it to the end.

Hilariously enough, O forgot to jump back right before the Alliance ship crashed, so they went down with it. Again, this would be funny if it didn’t cause a giant bug. Our Master Looter went down with the ship and we couldn’t get the purples in the chest. Not only that, but the zeppelin declined to dock at Saurfang’s balcony, so we all had to commit suicide and port up to the next boss. The loot was ticketed, so hopefully the winners will get their spoils soon.

Overall though the Gunship fight was amazing, such an awesome piece of work by Blizzard. Basically free loot and the Chess of ICC, but whatever, the break was nice.

Saurfang

This is how I spend a good chunk of last night: standing behind a recently summoned Saurfang and mashing the Q key to get that first shield slam in.

I made the mistake of using the “loot pinata” invective for Saurfang, and oh boy was I wrong. I don’t think it was ingrained properly to folks how important it was to keep the Blood Beasts away and forstall the applications of new Marks of the Fallen Champion. In our experiences last night, once you hit five Marks the fight is generally over very shortly, especially in the sub-35% range when Saurfang frenzies and starts attacking faster. We had many, many wipes where we’d get it down to 15% and the healers got overwhelmed.

We were, though, making serious progress on the fight, we just needed to get the best execution and get lucky with Marks. After about two hours of attempts it was 11 server and people were jonesing to finish this and go. An hour past our usual stop time, but people stuck around to put this fight to rest. On the last attempt it was again declared that this would be the last try, and sure enough, we dropped the sucker.

As the dkp leader in the Conqueror category of tier tokens I eagerly sprinted to the chest, but alas it was double Vanq. Not totally alas, any tier tokens in the raid is a good thing. I’m glad we managed to score a pair in the first week. Falowin also scored the Deathbringer’s Will trinket which looks to be BiS right now for ArP-using melee dps. Mega grats to him for that.

About the Blood Beasts

They suck. What we did was tell melee to stay on Saurfang and stick to single attacks (ie, no AOE or splash damage) until Beasts were spawned and safely far away. That way, no adds would aggro into melee when they first spawned. The hunters laid down various frost traps and shamans had earthbind totems down and thunderstorms shooting across the terrace constantly.

For myself, I stuck to ShoR, Judging, and Holy Wrath mostly until the Beasts were far enough away or there was enough time on the Beasts cooldown that I could sneak in a HotR. When I never consecrated except for that first 30 second window at the start of the fight before the first Beasts wave. Also, I’d occasionally toss an Avenger’s Shield at a random Beast that was chasing someone to do some damage and snare the little bastard. I like to think that helped.

For benchmarks, try to get through the first two waves without a single Mark of the Fallen Champion going out (though, obviously, the more waves before a Mark, the better). I think on the last attempt we go a Mark on the third wave, the second on the fifth wave, and then one on every wave after that. I believe we killed Saurfang just as the fifth Mark went up.

And that’s the week that was

What an amazing week though! I’m so pumped we managed to get 4/4 in ICC the first week and before the inevitable nerfs. Next week will only be easier, for sure, and then we have some steady farming to do before the next wing opens up.

The definitive Divine Sacrifice/Guardian macro

Ok, so the macros I’ve posted previously do work but they have the inconvenient requirement of being activated twice to remove Divine Sacrifice. With this new macro from Theck at Maintankadin (which I am shamelessly reproducing in this space) you can apply and remove Divine Sacrifice in one button push.

/cast Divine Sacrifice
/in 0.5 /script CancelUnitBuff(“player”,”Divine Sacrifice”)

The “/in 0.5″ depends on your personal latency. As Theck says, .5 should cover most folks, but if you’re lagging really hard you might want to up that number.

I’ll go back and edit previous macro mentions to have the optimal wording now.

The lady whispers her last

Last night was probably one of the most intense raiding nights I’ve had in months. After months of slogging through ToC, I knew ICC was going to be a little higher tuned, but I suppose I was not truly prepared. Lady Deathwhisper is no Jaraxxus, this much is true.

As I wrote in my last post, we tried Deathwhisper a few times but it was clear we didn’t really know the strategy and since it was so late, Demo and I called it so we could come back fresh the next day with a better idea of what to do. I did a lot of research yesterday and settled on a Hail Mary strategy which, unfortunately, didn’t work and just ended up wasting time. We blew about an hour and a half on that nonsense.

Finally we decided just to go with the tried-and-true split-the-raid strategy and after a series of wipes, each getting more progressed than the last, we were starting to run out of time. 11 server, our usual stop time, was looming fast. I admit, I was getting worried, but most of the raiders were optimistic. In fact, I was very impressed and my blackened raisin of a heart was warmed by how gung-ho everyone was.

We lost a healer at around our 9th or so attempt (without explanation, probably an escape maneuver, and perhaps that fellow’s last raid invite). We had 6 healers initially, and just decided to wing it and bring in another dps instead of scraping up another healer. That turned out to be a turning point for the attempts.

Much more than earlier, we were on fire. Our fourth to last attempt we finally pushed it to phase 2 for the first time, the third to last we got her to 75%. The second to last attempt was an enrage wipe, with about 11% of her health remaining. When that happened, there was consternation, sure, but dammit we could do this. Just need to tighten up and bring her down.

It was past 11 and people were getting tired, so we declared this the last attempt of the night, kill or not. Armies of Dead beckoned and the boss was pulled. I picked up my adds and went through the excruciating motions of the first phase. Just casually when I had a moment of respite I clicked on Deathwhisper to see where her shield was and was stunned to see it very low, almost at phase 2. The timer was inquired, and with a healthy stretch of time to the next add spawn we called for dps to bring the boss to phase 2.

She was pushed over the line and Demo collapsed in to grab the boss while I picked up the remaining adds. Melee washed over the Adherents and ranged picked off the Melee and everyone turned their attention to the boss, fully.

Excited panic was in the air (although that might have just been me) because we still had 3 minutes on the enrage timer… plenty of time to bring her down. Just need to stay alive!

Everyone went to town, pushing as hard as they could on Deathwhisper. We had a few missteps, mostly someone in melee getting MCd and then immediately dying to the splash damage. We lost a few dps that way, which was frustrating, but that was more a tanking issue since we should have dragged the boss away from them to avoid splash.

Finally, we were getting down to the wire. Hit execute range with a minute left on the clock, and I was swearing up a symphony of profanity just wishing for this awful bitch to bite the dust.

10% left, and steadily dwindling. Then, 5, 4, etc. With a gasp she fell to the floor and coughed up her purple. A shout of elation rang out in vent, the kind of which I haven’t heard since we killed Thorim for the first time months and months ago.

Say what you want about the easiness of ToC, it never gave us those moments of pure joy when we killed a boss for the first time.

Just for the hell of it we followed up by taking the elevator up to the Gunship area and killing the Alliance npcs. The night was over though, and thankfully we have a much easier night ahead of us tonight.

As a sidenote, only six other guilds on our server have killed Deathwhisper, and all six of those guilds were 4/5 TotGC. Contrawise, we’ve (shamefully) never killed a single boss in the heroic 25, which means we were operating at a serious handicap compared to those other guilds. I take that as a point of pride for Enveloping Shadows, that we were able to overcome a steeper gear barrier. Sure, it took us 15 wipes, but now we know how to do it, and we can down it much, much more easily next week.

I really am very, very proud of my guild after this hard-wrought kill.

How we did it

Looking at the room from the stairs, to the right of the boss two Adherents (casters) and one Fanatic (melee) spawn. On the left, two Fanatics and one Adherent. On the stairs it’s random what spawns (Adherent or Fanatic).

We split the raid into two melee “pain trains,” 5 in one and 3 in the other. The 5 melee group was assigned to the side with two Adherent spawns, and the 3 went on the other. On each side two ranged were assigned to help the tank with Fanatics so we wouldn’t get backed up, and then when the Fanatics were dead they’d switch to the boss. Three melee were on the boss at all time and ranged by default were on the boss (if not assigned to Fanatics duty).

I was on the side with one Fanatic spawn, so when adds would appear, I’d Reck and shield toss the Fanatic and then check out the stairs. If it was a Fanatic I’d pick him up, and if not I’d save Recks for pulling the Adherents on my side onto me.

Adherents generally do not *need* to be tanked, per se, but if they’re not shadowbolting the healers, that’s a good thing. Melee on my side would wash over the casters then jump to my Fanatics if they were still alive. When the side was cleared they’d go to the boss.

For tanking one serious thing to watch out for: Fanatics cleave, and their cleave hurts. Try to kill them facing away from the melee, and as far away from the healers as possible.

Now, the part where the fight gets interesting is occasionally the boss will reanimate a Fanatic or Adherent, who will then be immune to physical or magical attempts, respectively. When that happens, melee or ranged need to quickly drop what they’re doing and burn it down before it slows down add kills too much. Demo and I would toss marks on these when they appeared.

And where the fight gets REALLY interesting is ocassionally Deathwhisper will turn an add into a Deformed Fanatic or Empowered Adherent. Deformed Fanatics are incredibly dangerous and, if not one shot, will easily two shot you. The only way to deal with them is run away. A DK on the other side of the room from me would taunt the Deformed guy, who would then lumber towards him. I’d then, in my most frantic voice, call out for all ranged to drop him. The mob would be marked and ranged would burn it.

Likewise the Empowered Adherent would need to be nuked by whatever melee was on the side is spawned on. No crossover from the other side was needed.

The mind controls the boss would toss out were a huge annoyance and required immediate crowd control. I’d make a point of taunting them when they first turned gigantic and red so they would pick off a healer before getting CCd. As long as your dps are smart enough not to kill your raiders, this shouldn’t be too much trouble.

The Death & Decays were an annoyance, but not the end of the world. I saw people stay in them and eat 2-3 ticks without dying. These aren’t Kel’Thuzad voidzones.

Now, as for phase 2, you need to make a serious judgement call based on the progress toward the enrage timer and how long until the adds spawn. If you have 5 seconds left before more adds come in and Deathwhisper is almost at phase 2, you should burn the adds then push her over. Our second to last attempt we had the worst combo possible and pushed her over just after the adds spawned, so we lost a lot of people in the ensuing confusion. Hopefully the timing will work out in your favor.

Be careful when tanking that if someone in melee gets mind controlled, immediately pull the boss away so that person doesn’t get bladestormed to death. Make sure your raiders are aware of the little ghosts that’ll explode, and that they continue to avoid D&Ds. Phase 2 is over pretty quickly, and is generally straightforward.

That said, I can’t imagine this fight is any easier for other guilds in our position. It’ll be interesting to watch wowprogress and see how many people kill her this week. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the first fight that gets tuned down in the usual round of post-patch difficulty hotfixes.

Stand STILL, dammitall

One other thing I wanted to bring up (oh, and enjoy the random screenshot of my hero in Halls of Reflection–everyone’s done this by now I assume, so I wash my hands of any spoilers); that thing being mob pathing has been seriously broken in this patch. Especially in ICC and the new 5 mans I cannot for the life of me keep mobs from doing an endless dance with me. This was a killer on Deathwhisper where our avoidance is already heavily neutered and now we have adds whacking us in the back like hunter pets on crack.

Something to watch out for in there, friends. And, Blizz, please, fix that!

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!