On a roll in ICC

Last night we ran out of bubblegum in Icecrown and posted our best night yet, speed-wise. Invites went out at 6:28 server time, first pull was at about 6:40, and Saurfang was down by 7:30. This was probably the fastest we ever made it into the Upper Spire. Things were looking good.

We easily one-shot Festergut and Rotface and then rolled into Putricide. Unfortunately it took five goes to drop him (one day we’ll get him on the first go), thanks to some awesome RNG-arrific attempts. However, at least when we did kill him everyone was up.

Once the Plague Wing was cleared it was about 9:15. 45 minutes left in the raid.

So we headed over to Dreamwalker and easily one-shot her. Er, one-saved her. Something like that. Honestly, I’m disappointed with how long we put off this fight. Once you get the hang of it and your dps internalize the kill order (and the healers get the hang of the orbs), it’s total cake. With Dreamwalker down, we had about 20 minutes left, so we went and banged out the Blood Council.

This now sets us up for tonight with Blood Queen (which should be doable within an hour) and then we’ll have on Sindragosa for the better part of the night. I’m expecting a good two hours to learn the encounter, get everyone some experience on it, and teach them the fear of magic betrayals.

Personally, I am very excited to have so much time for progression tonight. A month ago we were terrified of Putricide (confession: I still kinda am), completely unable to do the BQL fight, and seemingly hopeless against the future challenges of Icecrown. What a difference a month makes. I think it’s reasonable to say that within a few weeks we’ll be working on the Lich King.

I’m especially happy with the fact that we took two new raiders with us last night, and both did pretty well. We’ve been recruiting a little lately, just to keep the “buffer” up (my goal is at least 35-37 capable raiders to make up for people not showing or not signing up, which seems to be working well so far). These last two pick ups were already 245 geared, and with the core already pretty much decked out in off-set drops, they should be gearing up pretty quickly soon enough.

It feels so good to be optimistic about 25man raids.

I picked up my last 264 tier piece last night, giving me the 4pc bonus. I like the idea of an extra “cooldown,” especially now that we’re doing ICC-10 hardmodes where it’ll be a boon on some fights. However, I am not liking the fact that I have to somehow balance my gear around a tier chest with no defense, the Pillars of Might with no defense, and the Boots of Kingly Upheaval with no defense.

And not to mention I like to sport the Bloodvenom Blade on farm content… I’m suffering a major crisis here. I’m going to just make a special set just for the 4pc for specific fights and stick to the Cataclysmic Chestguard for the rest. The CC is still better than the tier chest until 277, anyway.

But, I digress. On a different note: I’m going to leave you with why I hate Gearscore.

Gotta love that reasoning.

What #BlizzChat has told us about Cataclysm

1. Ret Paladins (at least) will be getting an interrupt.

Q. What information/ideas can you share on PvP utility in the Retribution tree? Mandatory gap closer/interrupt question. Not having a cleanse will hurt. :\
A. Retribution paladins will be getting an interrupt.

It’s disappointing they side-stepped the gap closer portion of the question. That’s a pretty serious concern for Ret that they’re losing a lot from their defensive bag of tricks, without much offense-oriented to make up for it. An interrupt is nice, a gap closer is near-mandatory I would say.

2. What goes in our Libram slot will be homogenized, in that we’ll be sharing more generic relics with Death Knights and maybe Druids.

Q: Will relics and wands be getting any new attention in Cataclysm?
A: With relics, the plan is to make them class agnostic. In other words, there might be a +strength relic that a death knight or paladin might want to equip. We think that will let us add more of them to the game without them being so specialized. They will feel more like wands.

This is interesting and unexpected. While lore-wise it doesn’t make much sense for a Paladin and DK to share a relic, in a design sense it seems prudent.

3. Vengeance is being designed with off tanks in mind.

Q: Can you go into more detail on Vengeance? As it stands it sounds like off tanks will be at a significant disadvantage.
A: We want Vengeance to have a long enough duration that off tanks won’t lose their damage bonus. In most situations, the off tank is doing some tanking along the way. The worst case scenario would be say a fight where the off tank needs to tank in phase 3 but not phase 1. Remember, even in that case though you have tools to generate high threat. Vengeance is there to keep DPS from pulling off you late in the fight.

As an oft-off tank, I feel assuaged. As long as the duration is long and even little ticks of AOE set off Vengeance, it’ll be good for us tanking wingmen too. And, finally, an excuse to stand in void zones.

4. Holy Shock will still have a damage component despite being baseline and available for Ret/Prot.

Q: Now that paladin’s Holy Shock is baseline is there any plans to change the Art of War talent?
A: We like Art of War, so we don’t expect it will go away. We understand the concern that Holy Shock might compete with Art of War a little bit in terms of role (an instant damage spell) and that’s something we’re going to have to address.

Just don’t screw it up for us! I want that ranged goodness to stay intact, more or less.

Heroic baby steps

Last night we took our first cracks at heroic ICC-10. Personally, I was not in the best condition for the venture, sporting a pounding headache and a fuse about three sizes too small. Despite my condition, everyone put up with my shenanigans and we made some good progress into the hard modes.

I’m going to spend this post talking about the four hard modes we did: Marrowgar, Gunship, Saurfang (though we didn’t down this), and Festergut and impart anything we learned.

Lord Marrowgar

What’s different?

• Bone Spikes happen during Bonestorm
• Coldflame hurts more, stays up longer
• Bonestorm will probably kill you if you are in his hitbox

The first time we tried this fight we lost six people on the first Bonestorm. It was then I realized we weren’t in Kansas anymore. I think it woke everyone else up, as well. This isn’t your father’s pug’s Marrowgar.

Mark the tanks up so people are *especially* careful not to stand on them over the course of the fight. I’m not certain (thanks to borking the combatlogs) but it looked like a Rogue ate a Saberlash at one point. So make sure no one gets too close.

When you pull try to keep him in the center of the room and have melee and ranged (minus hunters) stand inside Marrowgar’s hitbox. Coldflames start outside the hitbox and spread from there, so there’s a safety zone within. The only caveat is to watch the timers, because once you hit 5 seconds til the Bonestorm you want people to scatter so they don’t get taken out right off the bat.

Bonestorm can be painful, and will be the most dangerous part of the entire fight. You’ll have about five of them. Just make sure everyone stays generally in the same circular area, but spreads out. If two people are next to each other you might get a delicious RNG sandwich where one person gets Spiked and the person next to them is targeted for Bonestorm/a Coldflame drop. Basically, guaranteeing the Spiked person is a goner. For that reason don’t pile up on each other.

The fight is pretty straight forward but there is a serious RNG element. Everytime a healer gets Bone Spiked (especially during a Bone Storm) you’ll find yourself short for breath. Save Divine Sacrifice for those times when you only have two healers.

Basically hold it together through each Bonestorm and you should be fine.

The SS Lolship

What’s different?

• Rockets have a knockback
• Mages have more health
• Enemy ship has more health

There’s really not much to say about this fight. You might at the end find yourself questioning whether this was on Heroic or not. I suppose the only thing you need to watch out for is people on the side of the boat getting knocked off after eating a rocket.

Two words: Loot. Piñata.

Deathbringer Saurfang

What’s different?

• Blood Beasts will one-shot your kiters
• Blood Beasts will gain Scent of Blood, fun for the kiters
• Blood Power stacks faster
• Saurfang hits harder (thus, more damaged on the Marks)

On the bright side

• Still only two Blood Beasts

We only did three attempts on this, getting to 41% our last go. I wanted to keep going and see how far we could get in ICC-10 that night, but in hindsight we totally could have downed Saurfang if we spent the last hour of the raid on this guy, rather than moving on. The fight isn’t that rough for the tanks. It’s your healers that are going to be pulling their hair out by the end of this. You think they were white knuckle healing the Frenzy phase before?

We had a hunter kiting on one side, an Ele Shaman on another, with an Arcane Mage assisting both. When Beasts came up, a DK would Chains of Ice the one heading for the Hunter, giving Cendra extra time to pump damage into the Beast before it reached him. Then, when the Beast was closing in, I would taunt and before it could get to me Cendra would finish it off. On the other side the Ele Shaman/Mage pair didn’t have much trouble with theirs.

I found that playing taunt tag with the Blood Beasts to be crazy helpful in keeping them away from your kiters. If those creatures reach their target, you’re going to be down a kiter and they probably end up finishing off a healer in the ensuing chaos.

I’ll report more on this fight when we actually down it.

Festergut

What’s different?

• Oh god, three stacks, it hurts
• Malleable Goos away!
• Much tighter enrage timer

This fight is very easy once you get the hang of it. For one thing, don’t want your healers in melee anymore. If they get hit by Malleable Goo they suffer a 250% casting speed debuff, and that’s murder with so much AOE and tank damage, so keep them out with ranged.

When you pull Festergut, run him over to the left, far away from Putricide’s balcony. This will give you maximum viewing range to watch the Malleable Goos get tossed down and to predict who they’re heading for. Likewise, a small green puddle will appear on the floor to presage where the Goo is going to hit. Ranged and Heals can adjust accordingly, though melee has a somewhat harder job with it.

Because Festergut is so big it’s going to be hard for melee to see the puddle if they’re directly on top of the boss. Instead they should stand to the left or right of the boss (next to his leg) so they can see under themselves when a green puddle appears. If ones does appear, melee should immediately shuffle over to the other leg. This should put them out of the range of the Goo.

Being hit by the Goo will also give you a movement debuff. Watch for this to happen when Gas Spores are up, in case someone needs a Hand of Freedom to help get them over to the ranged Spore in time for the debuff.

The three-inhale period for Festergut is going to be a test for your tanks. He hits like a truck then (again, I wish I had logs) and you’ll want to use everything in your arsenal to mitigate the damage. Use bubblewall, pop an armor pot, pop trinkets. External cooldowns. Whatever you need to do! Moreover, don’t be afraid to put a Hand of Sacrifice on the other tank during their turn at a three-inhale phase.

Pop Divine Sacrifice during the Pungent Blight.

Like I said, the fight is generally pretty easy (in the sense it’s not hard to adapt to the mechanics). Don’t get hit by Malleable Goo, get your three spores, don’t die to anything stupid. Use your cooldowns to not get gibbed by Festergut during his soft enrages.

Addons I Love: AVR

When I set out to write this post I didn’t realize how behind the times I was with this addon. While AVR (short for Augmented Virtual Reality), in the version I have downloaded and setup, works with BigWigs for Icecrown boss encounters, apparently there’s been a shuffle with the mod making it so BigWigs is not longer needed. So, I’m thankfully spared detailing the dance you need to do to make this addon work with BigWigs while not clash with your bossmods of choice.

Instead, just grab the base AVR pack, and then AVR Encounters.

Now, I’m sure the functionality has remained the same, so let’s talk a bit about the Encounters side of this glorious piece of work. While you can use to the mod to put custom textures down on the ground for everyone in your raid to see (provided they have the mod), the really amazing part of this addon is how it streamlines (perhaps “dumbs-down” is a better word) certain boss mechanics.

For example, on Festergut, the mod will put a massive red circle under the spores.

This will show everyone the range of the spore so they can be sure to stand in its fungus-y embrace. For myself, as the tank and raid leader, it especially facilitates my job by making it take a split second to see if there are two spores in melee so I can order one to run out.

In the Rotface fight, AVR is a lifesaver. When a Big Ooze explodes and fires its slime rockets into the air, AVR will put red circles on the ground under where everyone was standing so you can guess where a rocket might hit the ground, making dodging them a cakewalk.

Once I get everyone in the raid to get set up with this addon, this will finally kill the much-maligned “Leg Shuffle” strategy. Rather than “everyone move to the other leg,” I can just say “don’t stand in the red circle, ya idjits.”

On Putricide, AVR is unfortunately a little buggy, but still a world of help. It will put a red circle under where a Malleable Goo is going to land.

Unfortunately, AVR only tracks one of three goos. But, at least it will mitigate some of the damage and help melee know in P3 if they’re about to get murdered by a goo falling on their heads. Alternatively, there’s an option for Putricide where you can have AVR put a red circle under everyone when Malleable Goo is cast, so people just need to not stand in a red circle to avoid getting it. That would work well, but I can see it being a headache for melee.

Lastly, we only saw a little bit of Sindragosa on Wednesday night (sidenote: first time we got to her, woo) but AVR demonstrated its effectiveness in all its glory for this fight. It puts a circle under every Frost Beacon so they can space themselves out and hopefully people won’t go into their circle and get frozen as well. We only got two tries in, but I can see this mod making the learning curve a lot more forgiving on this fight.

According to the AVRE page, they cover Marrowgar, Lady D, Blood Queen, and Lich King as well now. I can’t wait to try out these fights with the new version.

If you are using this mod I’d like to hear your impressions of it.

GC clarifies Prot concerns from the preview

Ghostcrawler hit the tank forums with a vengeance last night, clarifying not just his philosophy of class balance in this epic thread, but also issuing some dictums on some lingering concerns we had from our class preview.

First, on blessings:

Kings and Might can just be raid wide. There should be no need to target individuals. We’re trying to make sure there isn’t a circumstance where one dude would prefer the opposite buff to everyone else.

Bo Sanc could just be Kings with an extra mana component (for the paladin). We’re also considering making it a passive that gives the paladin mana and provides the 3% damage reduction buff raid-wide which is currently brought by Renewed Hope (the Disc talent).

The best design, I would think, would be to make two blessings. One is Blessing of Kings, the other is Blessing of Might. Clicking either will automatically buff everyone in the raid, ala Arcane Intellect. And, for Sanc, do exactly what GC suggested: roll the mana return into a talent and make Blessing of Sanctuary similar to the other buff except all it gives is the damage reduction.

That way it won’t be mandatory for dungeons like the mana-spring Sanc was (which lead to the ridiculous parade of tweaks and retweaks so we wouldn’t be gimped for having it up as our only blessing), and it’ll be a steady buff that we as Prot can bring to the raid.

Lastly, regarding Blinding Shield and AOE:

That attack could have a 10 min cooldown. I’m pretty sure we didn’t specify in the preview, so I’m not sure how you’d decide it’s better or worse in any situation. Maybe it has a 5 sec cooldown but we nerfed the threat generation from Holy damage so severely that paladins are utterly dependent on it now. I just don’t think we gave you the information necessary to draw that conclusion, and this is partially why we didn’t provide that information. :)

This is a good point by GC. People (myself included) often make the mistake of viewing any future plans through the lens of our current abilities and numbers. There’s no guarantee our AOE toolbox will be exactly the same as it is now, and frankly, I’d be shocked if it were. Adding Blinding Shield to our spellbook right now would make our AOE repertoire even more overpowered than it currently is. But, in the future, a lot will be changing that will probably make BS (ugh, worst acronym ever) a natural fit.

Say what you want about the crab, at least he lets us peek into his brain from time to time. And takes the effort to keep us in the loop on his design intents and appears to be assuaged by any concerns we bring up.

First look at Guardian of Ancient Kings, sorta

Like Blizz said, Guardian of Ancient Kings will have a “visual … similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by Paladins in Warcraft III.” After that was announced, a call went out for someone to find an example of that spell (I know I spent some time on google images trying to dredge one up).

On Twitter this morning, I saw that @ninjasuperspy had spotted a YouTube video of the W3 spell. Here it is:

Pretty cool! I’m getting more excited about this spell.

Cataclysm Paladin preview

My comments below in the blockquotes!

Blinding Shield (level 81): Causes damage and blinds all nearby targets. This effect might end up only damaging those facing the paladin’s shield, in a manner similar to Eadric the Pure’s ability Radiance in Trial of the Champion. The Holy tree will have a talent to increase the damage and critical strike chance, while the Protection tree will have a talent to make this spell instant cast. 2-second base cast time. Requires a shield.

I’m torn by this spell. On the one hand, we’ve been told for month now that our aoe is too good and it needed to be toned down (and hell, it very well might), but adding another aoe spell to our toolbox seems counterintuitive. However, Blinding Shield does fill a much needed niche for us: a snap aggro aoe spell, like Warriors’ Shockwave.

Healing Hands (level 83): Healing Hands is a new healing spell. The paladin radiates heals from him or herself, almost like a Healing Stream Totem. It has a short range, but a long enough duration that the paladin can cast other heals while Healing Hands remains active. 15-second cooldown. 6-second duration.

Healing spell, meh. I guess it will be nice for crazy crunch times like Putricide Phase 3 where damage is just flying everywhere and every little bit helps. I’m sure it’ll be pretty weak baseline.

Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by the paladin in Warcraft III. The guardian has a different effect depending on the talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian absorbs some incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an enemy, similar to the death knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff. 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on which guardian appears).

Another damage reduction cooldown? Ok, I like it, and it’s a much better max-level spell than what Sacred Shield was at 80. Here’s hoping it doesn’t pop Forbearance, cause that would just be ridiculous. That mechanic needs to die a fiery death… but, I digress. I’ll always take new cooldowns, though this suggests to me a retooling of Ardent Defender, maybe, so we don’t have *too many* cooldowns.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

Crusader Strike will be a core ability for all paladins, gained at level 1. We think the paladin leveling experience is hurt by not having an instant attack. Retribution will be getting a new talent in its place that either modifies Crusader Strike or replaces it completely.

I like it. Makes sense. Probably will be part of our single-target toolbox.

Cleanse is being rebalanced to work with the new dispel system. It will dispel defensive magic (debuffs on friendly targets), diseases, and poisons.

Wait, is this baseline or just for holy? Cause it already dispelled magic debuffs on friendly targets. The wording confuses me.

Blessing of Might will provide the benefit of Wisdom as well. If you have two paladins in your group, one will do Kings on everyone and the other will do Might on everyone. There should be much less need, and ideally no need, to provide specific buffs to specific classes.

Finally, the death of Pally Power!

Holy Shock will be a core healing spell available to all paladins.

Will the damage component be baseline too, or will only Holy get to use it for damage? Having another ranged attack (RIP Exorcism) would be nice.

New Talents and Talent Changes (chopping this up –ed.)

One change we’re considering is lowering Divine Shield’s duration by a couple of seconds.

I don’t really care if they do this, aside from bubble hearthing, I seldom use Divine Shield for anything other than a fear break or debuff clear (eg, Impale).

[W]e want to add to this spec more PvP utility.

So give them an interrupt or gap closer guys. In Cataclysm, as far as we know, Ret will be the only melee dps class without an off-GCD interrupt. That doesn’t make any sense. Pass that to Prot while you’re at it. I’ll keep a candle lit for a gap closer as well.

We want to increase the duration of Sacred Shield to 30 minutes and keep the limit to one target.

As long as the remember to update Sacred Shield to proc more than once per duration, this will be a nice change. I wonder if it’ll be Holy only, though.

Protection paladins need a different rotation between single-target and multi-target tanking. Likewise, we’re looking to add the necessity to use an additional cooldown in each rotation.

So for single target we’re adding Crusader Strike, and for aoe we’re adding Blinding Shield. This probably implies they’re gutting HotR and Consecrate still, making you not wanting to use them on bosses/single target. Rotations would turn into:

Single – Holy Shield, Judgement, ShoR, Crusader Strike, (maybe Holy Shock?).

Multi – Holy Shield, Avenger’s Shield, Blinding Shield, HotR, Consecrate, with some single-target stuff thrown in the holes.

Holy Shield will no longer have charges. It will be designed to improve block chance while active, and will continue to provide a small amount of damage and threat.

Not having charges anymore would be nice, I approve. I wonder how they’ll balance this with our Mastery (see below).

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Protection

• Damage Reduction
• Vengeance
• Block Amount

Vengeance: This is the damage-received-to-attack-power conversion that all tanks share.

Obvi.

Critical Healing Effect: When the paladin gets a crit on a heal, it will heal for more.

I know this is Holy, but this was so poorly written I had to highlight it. Heal for more, orly?!

Block Amount: We want to keep the kit of the paladin as a tank who blocks a lot. So by contrast, the warrior tank will sometimes get critical blocks, but the paladin will absorb more damage with normal blocks.

Again: obviously. Not much to say about this. I like our flavor of being the oft-blocking tank, so I approve.

My preview predictions

I think before the end of the day today we’re going to know what Cataclysm holds for us. Because of this I wanted to get my guesses out on paper, so to speak, so I can engage in some vigorous toldjasoing tomorrow–or, you know, emphasize I was just guessing and you really can predict this stuff.

The obvious stuff

Early strike – Shamans got their primal strike with the reasoning of making it easier to level as Enhance. This is great (though a bit late for my alt) and points to a design intent to bend the leveling difficulty curve so it’s not such a boring auto-attack-fest early on. Pallies among other classes definitely need more buttons to push at the beginning. A baseline Crusader Strike, trainable at level 1, would be great.

Indeed, Zarhym teased us with this post:

Here’s something:

…will be a core ability for all paladins, gained at level 1…

I think that will be Crusader Strike.

An honest-to-goodness interrupt – Now that we cannot self-cleanse magic, having a short cooldown, off-GCD interrupt will be critical. I think it will happen. Also, name prediction: Rebuke.

Divine Storm nerf – They slapped down Whirlwind for Warriors, saying they didn’t want it used for single-target damage. DS will probably get the same treatment, 50% damage for all mobs.

A middle heal – Priests got a middle heal between Flash and Greater. I expect Holy will get the same to sit between FoL and HL.

Masteries

Damage reduction
Vengeance
Redoubt

Every other tank got the first two, so those are gimmes. For the third one, the design philosophy for the longest time has been Warriors block more damage, Paladins block more often. With the former getting Critical Block as their third mastery effect, I’m expecting the trend to continue with us getting an old talent redesigned to let us block more often. Personally, I expect that to be Redoubt, an effect that will proc for a set amount of more block chance, with the Redoubt proc to be affected by your Mastery stat. Money’s on the table!

The speculation

Close that gap! — This is my hail mary. It’s obvious that Blizzard is trending towards homogenizing tank toolboxes–the latest step being DKs eventually getting a Demoralizing Shout effect. One of the last differences between the tank classes is a gap closer. Warriors and Druids can charge, DKs can Death Grip, and we can… face pull. Or toss a shield and then face pull. Point being, I think this will change. Here’s my hope and dream for the lvl 85 spell:

Crusader’s Charge (level 85): The Paladin hurls themselves toward a targeted spot, discharging a burst of holy energy when they land. Each tree will tack on an extra effect to the spell. Holy will convert that holy damage into heals. Ret will silence up to three enemies when they land, in addition to holy damage. Prot will daze up to three enemies when they land, in addition to holy damage. Will share a cooldown with Avenger’s Shield.

This might be a little pie in the sky, but with the greater emphasis on movement, I think a gap closer is in the cards. Even one not as ridiculous as the ability I just outlined.

Seal of Command – With Crusader Strike (probably) going baseline, this will jump up to being Ret’s 41-point ability to keep it out of reach of Prot Pallies.

Heavy bubble nerf for Ret – The trend in Wrath has been make Ret less of a defensive dps (quote GC: “A defensive dps spec just doesn’t work”) and more of a straight and narrow, offensive dps. That means gutting their abilities to manage debuffs (aka, the Cleanse nerf), self-heal, and reduce incoming damage. I fully expect to see Divine Shield to either be removed entirely, or put out of reach of Ret Paladins.

Major revamp of Prot abilities – 969 will be taken out back and murdered. Our rotation will become something more of a priority system, with either a dot to manage or a proc to watch.

I have absolutely no idea what our 81/83 spells will be. And, I can’t even begin to guess. I’m sure one will be something healing oriented, and one damage oriented. I doubt we’ll see a damage reduction spell, especially with Sacred Shield at 80.

Now that I’ve ventured out into the great unknown, it’s Blizz’s turn. Come on guys, wow me.

Our preview bumped up

News from across the pond:

We are thankful for all the paladins and their patience in having to wait just a bit longer than others to get their Cataclysm class preview. While we had initially announced that we were planning to post the Paladin preview on Friday, April 16, we can now reveal that it will instead be posted on Wednesday, April 14!

I was going to do a post Friday morning with my predictions but I guess my schedule’s just been bumped up.

Update: Someone in that thread is saying the Taiwanese forums were indicating the US was getting their preview today… I am overflowing with doubt, but I’ll take the bait. I’ll be watching the Cataclysm forum.

The Dethroning

Well, we did it. The king is dead, long live the king. I want to talk a little bit about our kill, but also how we did the fight.

NB: We’ve only done 10man, so when reading this, please keep in mind this is from the ICC-10 difficulty.

Now, the Lich King as a fight isn’t that hard, especially in this, the age of the 10% pity buff. At it’s very core, the fight is all about movement and not standing where you shouldn’t be when you shouldn’t be there. Once everyone gets the hand of dropping Defiles and not giving the Valkyrs a head start on killing them, you’re pretty much golden. Phase 3, compared to Phase 2, is a joke. Once you find yourself blowing through Phase 2 with minimal difficulty you’re not going to be far away from a kill.

Phase 1

This phase is pretty straightforward. The maintank stands at the bottom of the stairs when Arthas runs down to give his little speech, positioning himself so the Lich King will be facing up the stairs. The OT (I did this) stands off to the side, next to the stairs. Throughout the phase, Drudge Ghouls will spawn around Arthas, three at a time. If you’re OTing you want to pick these up and bring them to you. The first batch is easy, have Seal of Command up, use HotR to grab their attention, drag them out. Later Ghouls, though, you’ll be standing too far away to easily pick up. A well timed Avenger’s Shield as they’re spawning can usually grab 2-3 (depending on if a bounce hits Arthas), but the most sure-fire way to handle the spawns is to have a Rogue tricks you and send them over.

On a set timer a Shambling Horror will spawn. These guys are nasty, they hit hard and do a pretty painful shockwave, so they need to be faced away from the raid. Like I said, I would stand next to the stairs, and then face the Horrors southward. These guys will also periodically enrage, so either have a Hunter tranq them, or use a Holy Wrath for the stun to slow the damage intake a bit.

During this phase the Lich King will put a disease on a random raid member. That person needs to then immediately run over and stand just about on top of a Drudge Ghoul, and then get cleansed, passing the disease off. We had a priest dedicated to this. She would go disc and basically spend the first phase bubbling people (Disc is OP for Infest) and watching for diseases.

Now, the way the disease works is it is first applied to a raid member with a set number of stacks. When it is cleansed off a player it immediately jumps to the closest person–another raid member maybe, or a Ghoul or Horror–and loses one stack. When the disease kills someone or something, it gains a stack. So, as OT, you need to keep an ever-increasing number of Ghouls in your pile, and your raid need to keep the disease bouncing among the Ghouls so it kills them, gains a stack (and potency), and then eventually infects a Horror and then kills them. No one should be dpsing the Horrors, just let the diseases eventually kill them.

Timing-wise, if your dps is good, you should be hitting the transition before the third Horror spawns. Getting the LK to 70% starts the next “phase”.

Transition 1

At this point Arthas will dash to the middle and everyone should take this as their chance to run for edge of the platform. We usually use the south edge of the map.

DPS will continue to ignore the Horrors as the disease finishes bouncing around and finally kills them off. A new mob will spawn in this phase, a Raging Spirit that will pop up next to the raider they copying, and if not picked up quickly probably two shot someone. Grab them quickly. Likewise, face them away from the raid, cause they do a “Soul Shriek” that will silence anyone caught in the path of the effect in addition to a lot of damage.

There will be frost orbs spawning from Arthas, pointing a beam at a random target, and then moving towards that person. Have a dedicated range to kill them before they reach their target. If they hit that person they will blow them clear off the Frozen Throne. There ain’t no battle rezzes where they’re going.

After three Raging Spirits, the transition will come to a close. Make sure nobody falls off the map when the outside edge of the platform collapses.

Phase 2

At this point, Nordic (the maintank in phase 1) and I switched jobs. He pulled any Raging Spirits off me and I ran to pick up Arthas. And yes, there will be a Spirit up at this point probably, so dps needs to get it down as soon as possible.

Now for the hard stuff.

Two biggest headaches this phase are Defiles and Val’kyrs. Defiles are like voidzones on crack. Standing in them makes them bigger, and an ill-placed Defile can easily break an otherwise flawless attempt. Val’kyrs, likewise, will spawn on a set timer, and swoop down to grab a raider. They will then move towards the outside edge of the platform and drop that unlucky soul off, unless killed first.

The key to this phase is making sure everyone is watch the counters. If a Defile is coming, ranged wants to spread out along the ring of the inner circle. Melee and the tank should move towards the circle as well. That way, when you know who is targeted, that person can run as far as they can to the outside edge of the platform and hopefully drop the Defile as far away as they can. Defile will not appear until the end of Arthas’ cast, so you generally have a second or two to get somewhere safe and deposit the Defile in a place where it won’t wreak havoc.

(If it isn’t evident by this point, this whole fight is very ranged friendly.)

For the Valks, you really, really want to be at close to the middle as you can when they are going to spawn. The more time they have to spend getting to the edge, the better for whoever is trapped in their grips. Work out a stuns rotation, so when the Valk spawns everyone doesn’t blow their stuns all at once (not to mention these guys have steep diminishing returns for stuns). The system we worked out last night was the warrior OT would stun the Valk first, then the Rogue would stun her. I’d follow up with Holy Wrath if needed, and if worse came to worse, I had Hammer of Justice as a backup. Chains of Ice is also terribly effective for these guys, a constant snare.

Where it gets interesting is sometimes you’ll have Defiles and Valks hitting at the same time (this will probably happen twice in Phase 2). These can b messy and everyone needs to be smart about where they’re standing at this point. Ideally you’ll have about a second between when someone gets picked up and when you find out who the Defile is targetting. In that split second, everyone needs to be ready to run for it when/if their name is announced while everyone else focuses on getting the Valk down.

The last thing I want to mention is Soul Reaper, which is something that hits like a truck but generally is not an issue on 10man. I honestly never popped a cooldown for it, nor did I even feel in danger from the effect. Then again, I did this fight in my hitcapped set (with about 1k less hp and 2k less armor than my EH set), so I really can’t be a good judge of how this might hit a person more geared just from 10mans. I apologize for not being able to speak to this better.

After back and forth between Valks and Defiles for a while, you’ll eventually get Arthas to around 40%. Watch your timers. Don’t push Arthas over to the next phase (at 40%) until the next Valk is dead. When that last Valk spawns, have everyone (even healers) follow it down to the edge. Even drag Arthas over with you all. As soon as the Valk drops (and hopefully not her cargo as well!), push Arthas over to 40%.

Transition 2

Now: RUN.

The reason you want to be at the edge is because once he hits 40%, Arthas will run to the middle and immediately start casting Remorseless Winter, which this time around will hurt a lot more. The first time we had this transition last night we lost two people in the hustle to the edge. When he first casts Remorseless Winter the outside edge will rebuild itself and give you a safe outer ring, so immediate beat feet to that outer ring and out of the effect. Divine Sacrifice is a great tool for this transition.

This transition generally is the same as the first one, with the biggest difference being you get four Raging Spirits. And you do not want these up during the next phase. Pop Bloodlust when the third one spawns and get those suckers down ASAP. Next phase starts a little after the fourth spawns.

Phase 3

This is it! You made it through Phase 2, everyone’s alive (hopefully). The hardest part is over, now you just need to hold it together and cruise to victory.

The key to this phase is spreading out. No more Valks, thankfully, but Defiles still happen. These though are pretty trivialized now that your healers and ranged can park themselves on those runes on the inner circle and be pre-spread out to drop Defiles. Just make sure your melee is fast on depositing their puddles and you’ll be golden on that account.

Two new things in this phase: every so often Arthas will attempt to Harvest the Soul of a random person, and Vile Spirits will spawn overhead and attempt to blow up people.

For Harvest Soul, the targeted raider will take a lot of damage and need to be kept alive so that they reach the end of the effect. If they die, the Lich King will gain a buff and probably kill your tank. If the target survives, they will be transported within Frostmourne where they’ll find Terenas Menethil doing battle with a Spirit Warden. The person inside Frostmourne has a critical job that can determine if a wipe will occur or not–but no pressure.

Healers need to heal Terenas and keep him alive, DPS need to attempt to kill the Warden. The Warden may channel a spell on Terenas that, if it reaches the end of the channel, kill him. This will give Arthas a huge buff and probably lead to tank death. To deal with this deadly spell, you have two options: either cleanse the effect off Terenas or interrupt the channel. As Paladins we can Cleanse or Hammer of Justice. Priests can cleanse, Shamans can wind shear, Hunters can (I’m told) distracting shot the Warden, Druids can shift to bear and bash the Warden, DKs can interrupt, Mages can counterspell, Rogues can interrupt easily, Warriors the same. Prepare your raiders beforehand so they are ready to do what they need to do to make sure Terenas makes it.

For those of us outside Frostmourne, we have the ever-important job of staying properly spread out. Those Viles Spirits that spawn overhead will do a lot of damage and we don’t want people getting hit by more than of them. Have a ranged that you trust assigned to marking a Vile Spirit to be burnt down and try to kill as many as you can before they descend. This is another good time for Divine Sacrifice: the Spirits do a huge chunk of damage when they explode, and two explosions will kill some of your squishier DPS.

Basically the entire phase is what I’ve outlined: staying spread out, keeping Terenas alive, killing as many spirits as you can and not eating too many explosions, and (of course) not screwing up the Defiles. Compared to Phase 2, this is a walk in the park.

The End of the Line
Spoiler warning if you want to save for yourself how the fight ends don’t read past this point!

You are warned!

When it comes down to 10%, Arthas will give a little taunt and then cast “Fury of Frostmourne,” instantly wiping your raid. Don’t panic, that wasn’t the enrage. And, for the love of pete, don’t release. Make sure no dopey raiders instinctively reach for that release button.

Congrats, you basically just won the encounter. And now for the fun part!

The Lich King will deliver a blathering soliloquy while Tirion presumably rolls his eyes. After he finishes his dissertation, Arthas is silenced by Tirion, who breaks out of his frosty cage (great timing guy) and then does some crazy acrobatics, flipping over Arthas and somehow destroying Frostmourne with the Ashbringer (our lvl 85 spell, Holy Backflip?). Souls then rush out of the sword, lifting Arthas up into the air.

Then, the sweetest words you will ever see in WoW flash on your screen: “Terenas Menethil would like to resurrect you.” Accept and get back up. Basically 10% to 0 is a free for all, just go nuts on Arthas and enjoy the freebie. Once he hits 0, Arthas falls to the floor and the cinematic begins.

Now, quickly ESC out, ninja the loot, and make a break for it while everyone’s enjoying the movie. (But not really.)