by Fox Van Allen

If you got left behind in the last patch or even if you’re a newly minted level 80, don’t worry — you can catch up quick. Here’s how.The release of every major patch coincides with a soft gear reset. Every random heroic dungeon you run earns you a slew of Emblems of Triumph, redeemable for level 245 epic gear, the same quality of items that drop from the 25-man version of Trial of the Crusader. You can also buy tier 9 armor, which come with desirable multi-piece bonuses.

If you’re starting from scratch, your first order of business should be to put together a two-piece tier set. The easiest and quickest route is to pick up Velen’s Handwraps of Conquest and Velen’s Mantle of Conquest, each of which cost 30 emblems. The two-piece tier 9 bonus, a longer lasting Vampiric Touch, is especially friendly to newer players who have trouble juggling their DoTs.

When putting together the rest of your Icecrown-ready gear set, keep the basics in mind. The shadow priest hit cap is 289, so aim to get your hit rating as close to that number as possible (for Draenei, the hit cap is 263). Spellpower is the best stat for shadow priests, but haste is very close behind. Critical strike rating is our third best stat, making gear with all three ideal. Continue enchanting for spellpower if you can.

Head
Those who need a new, “grindable” helmet should take a look at the Helm of Clouded Sight, available for 75 emblems. Fill that yellow gem slot with a Reckless Ametrine, which is the new yellow gem slot filler of choice for shadow priests. The meta gem of choice remains the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond — make sure you have at least two Purified Dreadstones on hand to activate the meta bonus.
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by Amanda Miller

If you’re like me, you have a lot of excess emblems sitting around. Maybe you never got around to spending them before the next tier came out, or maybe the badge gear just never quite compared to your raid drops. Whatever the case, there is no sense letting them go to waste when you could put them to work and earn some gold!

First, here is a quick breakdown of the current badge system, from most recent and difficult to acquire on down:

1. Emblem of Frost: These can be acquired primarily by raiding Icecrown, completing the Raid Boss Per Week “weekly,” or by completing one WotLK heroic dungeon per day using the Random tool.
2. Emblem of Triumph: Most raids now drop these badges, as well as heroics. You will also be awarded these for doing any number of WotLK heroic dungeons past your first one per day using the Random tool. You will also get some by completing your first normal WotLK dungeon per day using the Random tool, as well as completing the Raid Boss Per Week “weekly.” Also of note: If you get Heroic Oculus using the random tool, don’t drop group! Not only has it been nerfed like crazy, but when you defeat the end boss, every player will receive a loot bag that will contain these badges and more, plus a chance at getting the super rare Reigns of the Blue Drake, which used to be available only by killing Malygos, who now drops his 25-man version (Azure) in both 10 and 25-man.
3. Emblem of Conquest: Originally, these were acquired by running 10-man Coliseum, or 25-man Ulduar.
4. Emblem of Valor: Originally these dropped from Ulduar 10-man and Naxxramas 25-man.
5. Emblem of Heroism: These were among the first WotLK badges, and dropped from Naxxramas 10-man and heroic dungeons.

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by Amanda Miller

The new Dungeon Finder that was added in Patch 3.3 has been garnering a lot of attention lately – and for good reason! But did you know that you could use it to make money?

Step One: Maximizing your speed.
If you spend too much time in each instance, or waiting in the queues, the amount of gold that you make per hour will decline significantly. Fortunately, there are a few things that you can do to to help ensure that your dungeon runs go as smoothly as possible.

• You can queue from anywhere, so choose a location that will allow you to do some farming on the side should you need to wait in a queue. Why not try a favorite fishing locale? Don’t wander too far away from a vendor, though, unless you have peculiarly empty bags.
• Don’t be choosy. Sign up for a random dungeon, because you are more likely to find a match more quickly.
• To avoid queues almost entirely, sign up as a healer or tank if you can. Don’t do this to trick your group mates, however. Many people are selecting tank or healer and then showing up in green sets expecting someone else to agree to switch specs. This is not only idiotic, it will take more time in the end.
• Queue prepared. This means snacks, drinks, in-game buff food and water, glyphs, enchants, scrolls, flasks, reagents, and whatever else you might spontaneously want.
• Use the teleport feature! On the way into or out of each dungeon, simply click on the little green eye around your mini-map and select teleport. This is also handy if you do have to go back to town in the middle of the dungeon.
• Sell and restock! Between groups, hit up a vendor.
• Keep a good group member! Once you meet up with a good group member, remember that you can keep them! Ask them if they would like to continue playing with you, and make sure that no one degroups between queues. Polite, competent, geared group members will not only make the experience more enjoyable, it will also speed it up significantly, and minimize dying.That last part is important because, aside from the lost time, repairs will cut into your profits.

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by Messiah @ tentonhammer

The Dungeon Finder launched in patch 3.3 and has become an instant success.  It allows players from several servers to all queue together for instances making wait times for groups significantly shorter for many players.  It also allows players to earn additional badges that can be spent on items and a cool little Pug Puppy for those that collect pets.  It has some ups and downs though and requires a little bit of knowledge to get the most out of it.

What should you know and how can you get the best experience when using the Dungeon Finder is what this guide looks at.

Expect a wait, unless you’re a Tank

The first thing to know when you sign up for a group with the dungeon finder is to expect a wait.  How long the wait is really depends on a couple of things.  For example if you are looking for a random heroic I have experienced the following on my realm:

• Tank – Instant
• Healer – 1-2 minutes
• DPS – 10+ minutes

If you are looking for a lower level random or a specific instance at any level, expect longer waits.  I have seen waits up to 25 minutes for non-80 instances, but have also seen instant groups even when joining as DPS in a sub-80 group.  So while anything can happen, be prepared for a wait and have something to do in the mean time, be it crafting, farming, etc.  Expect longer waits on DPS and almost no wait when tanking.

Be Prepared and be Respectful

When you go into an instance, be prepared for your role and the instance itself.

If you sign up as a healer, make sure you have your healing gear with you and that you have mana potions and water.  If you are a class that requires reagents for buffs, make sure you have some.  No mater your class make sure you have some food / water with you so that you can replenish your own health and mana in between fights.  Know that not everyone is going to be prepared, so it may be worth while carrying an extra stack of each, even if you do not use water, to hand out as needed.  When you do though, explain to players that they now owe someone in a future group and should pass on the food / water and a reminder to bring their own in the future.

As for the instances themselves, make sure you have a basic understanding of the instance, or if you don’t be sure to ask what you need to know before you start.  Most importunately make sure you have time for an instance.  Do not sign up for a run if you only have 10 minutes, you are not going to get anything done. When you leave you will make it harder on the other players to finish.

Remember when you enter a group in any game you are committing not only your time but other players’ time as well.  Do your best to make sure you are ready and prepared to go and survive.  If you are not sure you can stick around for a whole instance, don’t join.  If you are not sure you are geared for an instance, ask around before joining.  If you get into a hard heroic or instance that you know you are not ready for, leave the group and allow someone else to join in.
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by Xerin @ tentonhammer

The new five man quests in patch 3.3 are confusing, but don’t worry. The following guide should explain things so you don’t have to embarrass yourself asking or have to figure things out as a group wants to run as fast as possible through the instances.

Essentially, there are three instances in Icecrown Citadel that are to be completed one after another with a series of attunement quests that allow you to move on to the next instance. The quests are very easy to do and the hardest thing in the series is picking the quests up. There is no special interaction with ANY bosses in order to get the quest done. The boss kills are simple kill tasks that are completed on the boss’s death. Furthermore, there is only one part where you have to interact with something. That something is the Alliance/Horde slaves and by interact I mean kill the guys standing around them.

WHERE IS SYLVANAS AND JAINA?

They are located inside the instance. The instances are located at Icecrown Citadel in, well, Icecrown. You fly in through one of the side entrances. The Forge of Souls will be on your right facing the three portals. There is a meeting stone there too. You have to be level 80 in order to do the quests.

The Forge of Souls

The first part of the quest starts in The Forge of Souls. Jaina or Sylvanas will be sitting at the entrance and will give you a quest to kill Bronjahm and the Devourer of Souls. This quest is straightforward.

To kill Bronjahm you’ll want to DPS him down. He’ll cast a spell to separate someone’s soul from their body which will create a soul shard. This shard will heal him if he’s nearby. You can kite him away and kill the shard, kill the shard with him nearby, or ignore it if you have enough DPS and feel especially lazy. At 30% he’ll cast a soulstorm spell. Step into it and you’ll take massive damage. He’ll fear you into it too. Just DPS him down.

The Devourer of Souls is rather easy as well, but can end up with your DPS dead if they’re not careful. He’ll put up a Well of Souls on the ground that does intense damage. He also will cast Mirror Soul which mirrors a percentage of your damage back at you. STOP DPS during that unless you have a super healer. He’ll do an “Unleashed Souls” attack that spawns tormented souls that do joke DPS but can get pretty tough if too many stack on you.

Wailing Souls is an attack that will either attack clockwise or counterclockwise in about a 90 degree arc. You can try to avoid it or just take the 5k~ damage and laugh it off.

When that is done Jaina or Sylvanas will open the portal to the Pit of Saron

The Pit of Saron

Here you’ll discover a ton of Alliance/Horde slaves are working in the pit. You need to free 15 slaves and Garfrost dead to advance.

Kill the enemies near the slaves to release them. You’ll get 15 in no time. Then head up to Garfrost for a fun battle.

Garfrost is a three phase battle where he doesn’t like you and it shows. He can throw boulders and comes with a room packed with baddies. Kill all of the baddies in his room and then focus on him. In the first phase he’ll throw rocks and beat on the tank. His attacks do apply Permafrost which increases frost damage done by 10%.

When phase 2 starts he’ll stomp the group and run off to a forge. Let any debuffs tick off and meet him again. This time he’ll do 50/100% more frost damage. Keep dodging boulders and avoid his Chilling Wave which is an AoE cone effect in front of him. In phase three he’ll boost his frost damage to 100/200% and cast Deep Freeze which snares a target.

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by Daniel Whitcomb

By now, I assume a good portion of you have managed to get on your daily heroics at least a couple times a week, maybe even have an ICC raid or three under your belt. If so, you’re starting to amass enough Emblems of Frost to maybe possibly think about buying a piece of gear. Of course, the problem with Emblem of Frost gear is that it’s a little bit more expensive than, say, Emblem of Triumph gear. You’re not going to get away with gearing up quite as fast, at least not until all of ICC is open and you have a good group for the place. No 25-emblem tier gear here. So that also makes it important, especially for the more casual player, to pick what you buy carefully.

Let’s take a look at the various options.

Tier Gear

Basic tier gear is, once again, purchasable via badges. Not only that, but if you want higher level heroic tier gear, you want to buy these since you’ll need to turn in the lower ilevel stuff with a drop from the proper instance to get the higher ilevel version.

If you’re DPS, it’s probably a good idea to start buying and get to the 2-piece DPS bonus as soon as possible. The damage boost to your main strike is considerable. For Unholy, it’s even better, since it pretty much makes Reaping worth taking as a talent again and Haste a decent stat to grab again after the hot fix weakened Scourge Strike pretty considerably at lower gear levels.

For tanks, it probably isn’t a horrible idea to grab some tier 10 to start either. For 5-man tanks, that 2 piece bonus should prove pretty helpful in establishing aggro over PuG DPS with no concept of threat, especially if you’re throwing down Death and Decay first like you pretty much always should be on pulls of more than 2. For raiding tanks, and even for 5-man tanks beyond the first 2 pieces, there is a pretty decent alternative to gathering more tier 10, but read on for that.

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by Messiah @ tentonhammer

The Forge of Souls is the first instance in the group of three that make up the Frozen Halls in Icecrown Citadel.  It was added in the 3.3 patch that added all of the Icecrown Citadel content to the game.  Until it has been completed you will not be able to enter the other instances that make up the Frozen Halls.  This is so that you can see and follow the storyline involved in the three instances as it evolves.

The Forge of Souls is a relatively straight forward instance that has a single path through it and two bosses.  The bosses are anything but simple for a five man instance though, as Blizzard puts you through some challenge to make your way through, especially on Heroic Mode.

When you enter the instance Jaina Proudmoore (Alliance) or Sylvanas Windrunner (Horde) will meet you and direct you through the instance.  If it is your first time in the instance she will give you the quest “Echoes of Tortured Souls”.  The objective of the quest is to simply kill both bosses located in the instance.

Your first objective is to reach Bronjahm, found in the center of the instance across a set of walkways.

Bronjahm, the Godfather of Souls

The first boss that you come to is Bronjahm, the Godfather of Souls.  The fight is a two phase fight, a first phase that involves kiting specific adds and a second phase that starts once he has been dropped to 30% health. 

Abilities

Corrupt Soul – (Phase 1 only) This spell targets a random player and places a 4 second debuff on them.  Once the debuff expires it pulls a Corrupted Soul Fragment out of the player.  The Corrupted Soul Fragment does not have much health and should be killed quickly.  If it reaches Bronjahm then he will be healed for a significant amount of health.

Magic’s Bane – (Phase 1) This attack hits players in his front arc for both physical and magical damage.  The more mana you have the more magic damage it does to you.  Therefore, mana-based classes should be careful to not be too close to his front.

Shadow Bolt – Anytime the tank is not in melee range of Bronjahm he will hurl Shadow Bolts at whoever has the most threat.

Teleport – (Phase 2) At 30% health left Bronjahm teleports to the middle of the room and casts Soul Storm.

Soul Storm – (Phase 2)  This is a magical storm that fills the outside of the room.  Anyone caught in it takes significant damage and is slowed by 50%.

Fear – (Phase 2) Throughout phase two Bronjahm will fear players out of the center and through the Soul Storm.

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by Messiah @ tentonhammer

The Pit of Saron is the second of three instances that make up the Frozen Halls in Icecrown Citadel.  It was added in patch 3.3 which added all of the Icecrown Citadel content to the game.  Until it has been completed you will not be able to enter the third and final instance of the Frozen Halls called the Halls of Reflection.  This is so that you can see and follow the storyline involved in the three instances as it evolves.

The Pit of Saron is a very story line heavy instance that walks you through finding out where the Lich King is in the Citadel.  When you enter you face the Scourgelord Tyrannus right away, however, he leaves the area as soon as you engage his minions. 

Jaina Proudmoore (if you are Alliance) or Sylvanas Windrunner (if you are Horde) meet you at this point and ask you to rescue the prisoners held in the mine and defeat the Forgemaster of the Pit.  There are three bosses that inhabit the instance and each must be defeated to complete the storyline.

Once Tyrannus flys away you should make your way along the right path of the pit freeing prisoners along the way.  If you follow the right edge you will come to Forgemaster Garfrost who will be your first big fight in the instance.

Forgemaster Garfrost

The first boss that you come to is The Forgemaster Garfrost who is a Giant that walks around carrying a load of Saronite on his back.  The fight has three different phases as he makes his way from forge to forge.  It can also be fairly healing intensive due to the AOE damage inflicted, especially if DPS is light and the fight drags on. 

Abilities

Permafrost – This is a stacking debuff that does two things: it inflicts a small amount of damage per tick and increases frost damage taken.  While the damage starts off small it ramps up fairly quickly due to the stacking increase to frost damage taken. 

Thundering Stomp – This is an AOE stun to everything in the area.  He does this when he leaps to one of his two anvils.  He does this at 2/3 and 1/3 health remaining.

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by Messiah @tentonhammer

The Halls of Reflection is the third of the three new instances that make up the Frozen Halls in Icecrown Citadel.  The Halls were added in patch 3.3 which added all of the Icecrown Citadel content to the game.  You can only enter the Halls of Reflection once you have completed the other two instances: The Forge of Souls and The Pit of Saron.  This is so that you see and follow the whole storyline involved with finding the Lich King himself.

When you enter the Halls of Reflection you get to see a conversation between the spirits and Jaina Proudmoore (if you are Alliance) or Sylvanas Windrunner (if you are Horde), before the Lich King comes out to confront them.  Your faction’s champion chases after Arthas leaving you to deal with a gauntlet type event while fighting two bosses.

Falric

The first boss that you have to fight is Falric, one of Arthas’ old captains.  Before Falric activates and enters the fight you need to defeat four waves in the gauntlet.  The gauntlet consists of several different enemies.  The priority needs to be the Priests which heal, and the mages and riflemen who attack from range.  The others can easily be tanked.

To deal with controlling the enemies as they come in, you can fight in the hallway or behind one of the bosses.  This ensures that the enemies can not see the whole group and funnel into a choke point where the tank can pick them up.

Abilities

Defiling Horror – Falric yells out occasionally during the fight causing players to run in horror.  It also deals shadow damage to all players for 4 seconds that will take most players to below half health.

Hopelessness – This is a stacking debuff that Falric places on players that reduces the damage and healing dealt by 20% (25% on heroic).  It will stack up to three times on players as sort of a soft enrage.

Impending Despair – This attack hits a random part member and stuns them for several seconds.

Quivering Strike – This strike deals damage and lowers the target’s dodge by 20% for 5 seconds.<

Strategy

The fight is fairly simple, with the only real complication being the fear and soft enrage.  As time goes by his fear and DOT will be harder and harder to heal through after due to his debuff.  After a fear players that can prevent damage or heal some of the damage against themselves should, especially once hopelessness starts to stack to higher numbers.

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