Look at my stupid luck

We had probably our best farm night in, well, forever in ICC-25 last night. Thanks to the 15% buff we steamrolled through the Lower Spire, then knocked over (or picked back up, however you want to term it) Dreamwalker, then smashed through the Blood Wing, then finally demolished the Plague Wing. Three hours are the first pull we had 10/12 bosses down, killing everything we have on farm. This completely frees up tonight for three hours of Progression Fun Time. I’m very happy.

Perhaps one of the best parts of the night was our third, and last, attempt on BQL. By all accounts we should have wiped on this attempt. Towards the end one of the dps died and one bite was put on the offtank, another on a healer in the last wave because the biters were going to get MC’d. We missed the enrage timer at the end, so Lana’thel turns gigantic, angry and red.

Seconds earlier I popped an armor pot, then as the timer hit zero I popped both my trinkets (Glyph and Key) for extra dodge and some damage absorption. Stupidly, I had Forbearance on me from popping Divine Shield when someone got feared right next to me during the second air phase. Locked out of my bubble, I basically prayed. This is what happened:

Somehow, I avoided every melee hit (except for the one that killed me and proc’d AD). I took some heavy hits from Shroud of Sorrow, but that wasn’t so bad for me. For everyone else, it pretty much blew them up immediately.

Anyway, the point being: behold(!) the improbable power of avoidance. It doesn’t always know you exist, but can be amazing when its golden countenance doth shine down upon thee.

Tanking the adds in the Dreamwalker encounter

I remember this being really messy the first time we tried. It was a pain to figure out which adds you wanted to pay the most attention to, and when. Er, except for the Blazing Skeletons. Those bastards make it quite clear early on how deserving of attention they are.

The key to this fight is standing in the right place and tanking the right mobs. Let’s talk about the room first:

Ideally you’ll be assigned a specific side while another tank gets the other. This side that you’re placed in is your world. Everything that enters it is now your domain. And that includes every undead creature that exits the doors on your side.

Pan your camera out enough that you can reasonably see both doors at just about all times. This is going to be key because the Blazing Skeletons are as sneaky as a Fel Reaver. You do not want them surprising your raid. As soon as one of those guys enters your domain, shout out in vent your side and if it’s the front or back door. If it’s coming from the back door, let it move far enough to clear the central pillar between the doors. If you attack it prematurely, it’ll stop moving, and place itself out of LoS for your ranged.

You want that Blazing Skeleton dead before it gets a tick of Lay Waste off, ideally. I’ve heard whispers of how the Lay Waste mechanic works, in that the Blazing Skeleton will only cast when in melee range of its target, and I’ve seen it get “confused” and delay the channel of Lay Waste. But we’ve never been able to purposefully replicate this effect. I’m not going to say having someone out of melee range taunting will delay the Lay Waste cast, but something seems to be happening. I just don’t know what.

What not to tank

Ignore the suppressors. They have no aggro, they will just run up and start channeling their healing debuff on Dreamwalker. The best way for you to help kill these is to tank mobs on top of them so the cleaves and AOEs of your dps will drop them down significantly, and usually kill them. Likewise, Holy Wrath is excellent for a quick stun on them all at once.

Moreover, avoid the Blistering Zombies. Everytime they melee you they will stack Corrosion on you. Goes up to five stacks, for a total debuff of 50% armor. Combine that with an Abom increasing your Physical damage taken by 25%, and you have an issue. Let the hunters kite these.

The Risen Archmages are kind of a gray area. They don’t hurt that much, but they can be a major threat to healers if they sneak past you and start wreaking havoc in the middle of your healing corps. I usually just throw a Hand of Reckoning on these guys when they spawn, bring them close, and then let the dps burn them down. If one of the melee dps grabs aggro, it’s not a big deal.

About face

When tanking the Aboms you want to park them on top of where Suppressors spawn and face them southward, away from Dreamwalker. Gut Spray (along with many other attacks) will hurt Dreamwalker, so let’s not make the healers’ job harder, eh?

The Gut Spray will also do some heavy damage to your melee, so make sure none of them are mouth breathing and standing in front of the Abom with you.

Swap seals

Keep Seal of Vengeance up for most of the fight, except for when the Abom dies. It’ll erupt into a pack of Rot Worm mobs that you want to pick up asap. Switch to Seal of Command, drop a Consecrate, and then HotR as they come up. Try to pick them all up and burn them down as fast as possible.

Ultimately, Dreamwalker (like all add fights) seems initially tough because there’s so much to keep track of. Once you get the hang of the adds and how to control them, and your healers get the hang of their all-too-important role, the fight quickly becomes a cake walk.

A frosty reception

We got Sindragosa to 25% last night, for the first real night of attempts on her.

Had a solid hour and a half to work on her and we made some serious progress. People learned the ice blocks, towards the end I don’t think we were losing anyone to Blistering Cold, and the idea of Phase 3 was starting to form itself in everyone’s heads. Good ol’ fashioned progression. I love it.

Next week we’re basically dedicating Wednesday to Sindragosa. I expect the following day I’ll be gracing this blog with a kill shot.

As for the fight itself, it didn’t seem too rough from a tanking perspective. The hardest part, I guess, was positioning. Picking up Sindra initially and turning her in a way that her side is perpendicular to the stairs, and avoiding cleaves right off the bat.

I also decided to go with wearing 2 pieces of Frost Resist gear, which in hindsight seemed a bit overkill. Having 313 FR was great for neutering the Frost Breaths, but I don’t think I needed that much. I wish I had run a log of the fight (I accidentally turned it off after BQL) last night so I could check damage from breaths vs melees and see if I was taking more physical damage than necessary to mitigate the frost damage. More dataz are needed!

I’m curious how much, if any, FR you all run for Sindragosa-25?

Overall I’m very optimistic about our chances in this fight. I think ES will be seeing Arthas sooner than later.

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.

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.

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.)

Dreamwalker, et al.

Long overdue, but we finally took some time out of our busy schedules to put serious tries on Dreamwalker. Now that BQL was dead and that notch added to our progression belts, we wanted to fall back and do an easier encounter we could have done a while ago. It took us a few tries to get Dreamwalker down (well, up) because we had to figure out the optimal places for tanks, the dps spread, healer roles, etc. The last attempt went pretty went, and I’m happy with the efficacy of our kill.

One thing that stood out to me was how fast the fight goes towards the end. That is, it’s slow going from start to 75%, but after that the healers are accumulating more and more stacks, and one second you notice it’s at 90% and people are yelling for the Pallies to throw on LoHs, then suddenly it’s at 100%. Dreamwalker then stands up and melts all the Scourge. I don’t know why we waited this long to kill her.

And the biggest hurdle we probably had was communication. The Blazing Skeleton would sneak up on one side, get five ticks off and it would be game over. The last few attempts we got really good at knowing when they were coming (a mage would call out right before they spawned) and then people would screech when they made an appearance on their side. People would rush over and drop it with one or less ticks of waste being laid.

I gotta say, I’m pretty psyched that we went from being unable to kill Putricide–or any other wing boss for that matter–to convincingly being able to farm Putricide, and having the option of saying “we know we can kill BQL, but do we want to go try out Sindragosa?” Options! I love ‘em.

Lastly, this goes without saying. My guild’s healers are pretty awesome. They had a great system down, handled their own assignments in their own channel, and I knew I didn’t have to give a second thought to if they needed guidance assigning people to a role.

Oh, holy grip

For months now Zilga, one of the healing priests, has been saying the only thing she wanted in Cataclysm was a holy grip so she could “pull the dumbasses out of the fire.” While driving to work today I got caught in a traffic jam so I whipped out my phone and hit up twitter to see if the priest preview was ever released. I then saw they actually did add a holy grip, the Leap of Faith, and could not stop laughing. Zilga, got the lotto numbers?

Hints of Pally changes in the so-far released previews?

I’m going to issue the following predictions based on what we’ve seen in the previews for Shamans, Priests, etc.

1. There’s going to be an early attack like the “Primal Strike” that shammies are getting. Some kind of baby Crusader Strike, if they don’t just move that attack earlier in the Ret tree.

2. We’re getting something like the Warrior’s Vengeance Mastery:

Vengeance: This is a mechanic to ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesn’t fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give them a stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character’s un-buffed health. For boss encounters, we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Protection tree. These values will be smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Protection tree, so you won’t see Arms or Fury warriors running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to make tank gear more or less the way we do today – there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so their Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is for all four tanks do about the same damage when tanking.

We’re so getting that too.

3. Warriors get Critical Block as their third-tier Mastery ability. Likewise, I think we’re getting a Redoubt like effect where a proc will give us extra block chance. The proc rate will make it over time reduce damage as much as Critical Block would.

4. I’m still holding out hope for some kind of gap closer. I strongly hoped that we’d be given Heroic Leap as our lvl 85 spell, but I guess Warriors are getting that (the jerks), foiling my initial prediction. Still, Ret suffers in pvp from having no gap closer, and we remain the only tank that can’t immediately zip to a mob or bring it to us. I think that’s going to change.

The curse, reversed

The revitalization of the guild continues apace! Last night we swore revenge on the epic beatdowns the Blood Queen had inflicted upon us. We, along with our trusted friend the 10% buff, were going to get our pound of flesh from her sparkling hide.

The first pull was around 7:00 or so, after quickly doing the raid weekly and then shuffling over to Icecrown. Once we were through the trash I gave a rundown of the fight to the four or so people who had never done it before. After rambling for ten minutes, I then gave the cliff notes version:

Swarming shadows, run to the walls, don’t drop it in melee. Pact of the darkfallen, get to the middle. Air phase, spread out six yards apart. Bites, do them.

And then we were off to the races. We had an epically awful first go attempt that failed at around 45%. No matter, those four people saw the mechanics of the fight. The next attempt we got her to 12% or so before she enraged. That filled me with hope. I told everyone I believed in them, and then we proceeded to wipe for the next two hours.

Sigh. You people just can’t make things easy, can you?

By the end I was starting to despair, as I’m sure people could tell by the lack of enthusiasm in my voice. I knew we were capable of the kill but we needed to overcome those stupid little mistakes that would get someone killed. People dying in airphase. Not getting bites off and getting mindcontrolled. And so on. There are a hundred ways to mess up, and just one death usually meant falling behind the enrage timer.

What I think eventually turned the tide was making the first biter wait as long as he could before biting the second person. This would then push the second wave of bites to after the air phase, rather than right before it. Once we started doing that, we stopped losing people during the first airphase. The only downside being that this reduced how much time we had at the end with all vampires up, but thanks to Mr. 10% Buff we had the wiggle room.

After the two hours of wipes some off us were rezzed up at the boss, others released and started to run back in, only to find the Valks back up and circling the Upper Spire. I started to run down the hallway to meet them, but all the packs there had already respawned. Those of us left behind wiped ourselves and then met everyone at the teleporter to reclear back up to BQL.

It was already 9:30, basically thirty minutes before the raid would end and it was starting to look like we weren’t going to get her.

I knew, despite any despair I might be feeling, we couldn’t use the respawn as an excuse to quit early. That attitude was fatal to the guild and we had to break it, or it would break us. So, reclear we did, and made our way back up. Some folks took a quick break and we readychecked, flasked, and were off.

I pulled and we all started to pour in the hurt. 65% before the first air phase, ahead of the timer. Bites occurring after she came down, so we were safe for that.

To help this crucial point along, I popped Divine Sacrifice/Guardian to shave off some damage. I also bubbled because someone got awfully close and I didn’t want to accidentally kill them. Thankfully, no one died during the airphase. Everything was going well, people just needed to hold it together.

More bites go out and the second airphase happens. Again, no deaths. Then the last wave of bite assigns go out and I watch the window for the addon to report back successful bites. I watch Vampires 9-13 get created quickly, then with sweat dripping down my brow, the last few trickle in. Vampire #14. “Two more guys!” Vampire #15. “One more, get that bite off!” Vampire #16. Everyone was bit.

“Pop bloodlust, burn cooldowns, NUKE HER!”

I pop wings and immediately start laying as much dps in as I can. It’s about 40 seconds left on the enrage, 25% to go. I’m watching both her health bar and the enrage timer with equal parts dread and hope. Shouting encouragement into vent, both tick down to the inevitable. Finally, with about 1% to go we had only a few seconds to live. Finally, with her hp in the decimal points, it was obvious she was about to enrage. I quickly popped bubblewall, both trinks, and an armor pot, bracing myself for the burst.

It was all for naught, though.

With a screech she then collapsed to the floor, never getting a hit off. We killed her the millisecond she enraged.

It took a second for the kill to sink in, and then I quickly clicked on her body to see the loot. And there it was. The shield. The Icecrown Glacial Wall. The bulwark I had been drooling over since it was first revealed. (Yes, yes, I know, the heroic 10man shield is better, let me have my moment, damn you.)

Taking up the IGW, I put to rest the ghosts of all the shields I had lusted over before, but been thwarted in my attempts to obtain. The ALD, Bulwark of the Amani Empire, Bulwark of Azzinoth. All had escaped my ambitions. Finally, I had broken the curse.

More importantly (far more importantly), this was a huge victory for the guild. We went from weeks of early exits, no new kills, endless demoralizations. It looked like ES was on the way out. This week we bucked the trend though, we refused to leave, we didn’t let excuses prevent us from continuing to try fights.

I’d like to take credit for it, but I honestly can’t. I’m a terrible guild leader and an even worse raid leader. Sure, I can explain the fights, I can diagnose wipes somewhat efficiently. But, I am just as susceptible to despair as any rank and file, and after those numerous wipes I was all but giving up on the inside. It was only by the light of the optimism of my officers and the happy warriors of the healing corps that the mood of the raid stayed afloat and we were able to muster the will to down this blood-sucking bitch.

This victory belongs to the entire guild. You guys earned it!

Back on track

Last week was a particularly low point for the guild. We had a bad Tuesday with multiple dumb wipes, and the night ended early when we fled ICC before we could suffer further humiliations. The determination was “well, we don’t have the group for stuff past farm, so nothing left to do.”

Then, to follow it up, Demo announced later that night he was going on extended hiatus and stepping down as guild leader. And, as if that wasn’t enough, Wednesday the raid didn’t even happen due to various attendance issues, my own included.

The question became, was this a TKO for ES?

In the interregnum period between last Tuesday and last night, I did a lot of thinking about what I was going to do to right the ship of state, so to speak. My main priorities were first and foremost to get us back on track for ICC-25 progression and get the latest Thorim, Blood Queen, good n’ dead. Concurrently, I also wanted to expand ES, make it more than just a raiding guild–that is, give people reasons to log on other than ICC on Tues/Wed. Promote some good ol’ fashioned esprit du corps that would make for higher morale in the trenches of Icecrown.

So last night I had a brief meeting, just to inform everyone of my coup and talk about my goals for the guild, not the least of which was a new emphasis on optimism. That is, no more of this “we don’t have the group for this” BS. Nothing kills morale faster than hopelessness, and we weren’t going to play that game anymore. I gave a dopey little pep talk about how we’ve accomplished great things as a guild, how we were the only 25man guild on the server in the first week of Icecrown to down Saurfang in 245 gear (ie, the only guild that killed Saurfang but was not doing ToGC25).

Not to say that’s some huge, earth-shaking achievement, but it proves we can play with the big dogs when we set out mind to something, buckle down, and don’t get bogged down in dumb mistakes.

Anyway, what I basically said was we weren’t living up to our potential, and we were going to fix that.

Post-meeting we shuffled off to ICC and started the run. The plan was bee-lining for the Plague Wing and putting some serious work on Putricide, who at that point we had only killed once, and after some serious effort and two weeks of attempts. Following that, we tried to shift focus to Blood Queen and neglected the good doctor, but that didn’t bear much fruit.

Last week, as I said, the “don’t have the group for this” card was played and we didn’t even try him.

But not this week, things were differently baby! We stormed into Putricide’s lab, wiped spectacularly the first time in one of those “shaking the rust off” wipes where everything that can go wrong, does. The second time we stomped Putri (well, “stomped” maybe isn’t the word, but we got him nonetheless).

I am filled with hope and other warm, squishy emotions. If we could down the sucker with three new people last night (and what could be described as “not having the group”) then, dammit, we can farm him.

After Putri, we took a quick breather and steamed over to VOA to rock Toravon and decompress a bit. Afterwards we jumped Koralon in the off chance that something would drop that one of the newer folks could use. Luckily, the WoW gods smiled on us and Ghrayrynn, a feral druid, scored the 245 tier gloves. So my insistence that we do big smokey had some payoff. Statistically, it was bound to happen.

Back to ICC we went just to clear out the Blood Princes and set up a straight shot for us to Blood Queen the following night. After the pull there was a huge lag spike and it kind of went to hell very fast. A few melee got ‘sploded by the Empowered Vortex, and then on the Keleseth phase, some one managed to kill all of the orbs protecting Slyke (the spriest ranged tank) which then led to him getting squished.

We wiped it and ran back, and while we were setting up for the next attempt I admonished everyone to be careful with Slyke’s balls. This, of course, set off a wave of laughter and a torrent of jokes involving Slyke’s balls. One of the officers whispered me about what a great sign that was–when was the last time we had a good laugh in ICC25? Probably not for a month or two. It seemed a weight came off people’s shoulders with that Putricide kill. Everyone was getting more optimistic.

Now lets parlay that into another great night in ICC. Blood Queen is long overdue for a stomping.

Lastly, I want to congratulate on of my guildees, Ulkjen, for finally getting his epic flying. Ulk isn’t very good with his gold, and for the longest time didn’t even have cold weather flying (until someone loaned him the 1000g). I remember back in Naxx having to go outside to summon him because he couldn’t fly back up from Venomspite.

To help him save, over the last few months he’s been sending me random deposits of 100 to 200 gold and I’ve been keeping them in my pile. Last night he finally hit the magic number and bought the epic training. Like Jgalt said, “if there was ever a ‘SS or it didn’t happen’ moment, this is it.” Grats to him.