by Michael Gray

The Blood Princes can be a difficult fight for many raids, forcing a ranged DPS to tank and for your entire raid to pitch in with handling adds. The challenge is that the Council is actuallythree different fights that swap phases according to which of the San’layn are empowered at the time.

The three Princes share a single health pool, but it doesn’t show up on all three characters at the same time. Instead, two of the vampires will be at 1 health point at any given time. Try and ignore that, even though you’ll be tempted to blow your nukiest of nukes and finish them off. The two Princes at 1 health point can not be killed or damaged — your raid will have to focus on the vampire that has the full health pool. The Darkfallen Orb is what determines which of the Princes are currently empowered; which also grants them special power boosts. The buff the Princes gain while under the effects of the Orb is titled Invocation of Blood.

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by Michael Gray

Professor Putricide is the final boss in the Plagueworks. He’s kind of the R&D guy for the Lich King’s slime armies. If you recall from fighting Rotface, Putricide is the guy who’s constantly screaming about what good news it is that the slime is working again. Frankly, I’m mostly motivated to kill the guy to get him to shut up about the slime.

Putricide is a movement fight. There’s a lot of mechanics that will require your raid to rapidly swap targets (to kill adds), and then not-stand-in-stuff. (Most of the stuff you’ll not be standing in is one variety of slime or another.) It’s not really much of a coordination fight, per se, because your tanks are probably pretty well-versed in swapping aggro back and forth. However, Putricide is going to put to the test your raid’s ability to get on an add quickly. And not stand in stuff.

Let’s take a look behind the jump and talk about the fight in more detail.

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by Michael Gray

Rotface probably has the best name in World of Warcraft. Can’t you just see a pair of elementary school kids standing out in the playground, yelling at each other? “Well, you’re a Rotface!” “Well, you’re just a Festergut!” The comparison’s pretty apt when you hear Rotface’s voice, too. And then that voice gets even better when Professor Putricide yelling, “Good news, everyone! The slime is working again!”

Rotface is the mirror twin of Festergut. I usually raid Festergut first, and then go to visit Rotface. Rotface manages to be both a DPS check and a coordination check in a single fight. This is because Rotface does things to your raid. The longer you let Rotface stack up these things, the more difficult Rotface becomes. It’s not necessarily that the damage increases as much as you’re increasing the likelihood that something will go wrong. It’s therefore best to burn him down as quickly as possible, even while trying to handle the coordination elements of the fight.

Jump behind the cut and let’s check out the fight.

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?by Michael Gray

Now that you’ve conquered the tragic hero-turned-evil Deathbringer Saurfang, the path is clear for you to go into the Plagueworks. This is where some of the slimy, funky, icky creatures serving Arthas keep their truly hideous and nasty creatures.”Slimy” really is the word here, as the whole area just seems… moist.

In a small break from normal operating procedure, I want to talk a little about the trash on the way to your first boss. The trash in Icecrown Citadel is fairly awesome, and worth a little bit of description. As soon as you enter the main spire, you’re going to find these jets of blue smoke shooting from the walls. It’s worth noting that you shouldn’t stand in them, or you’ll die. Rogues can disarm these traps fairly handily.

Jump behind the cut and let’s start looking at Festergut and his wonderful array of friends.

As you enter the spire past the green jets of death, the first mobs you’ll see flying around the central spire are the Val’kyr Heralds. The Heralds themselves aren’t so bad to kill, but they have a trick that can send your groups into apoplexy. As the fight against each Herald proceeds, they will drop a Severed Essence on members of the raid. That ability creates a Severed Essence mob — a duplicate of one of your raid members. The longer the fight against each Herald continues, the more Severed Essences you’ll have to fight. It’s probably best to have your off-tank pick up these additional mobs, while you focus on burning down the Herald. Then go back and clean up the Essences at your leisure. The jets and the val’kyr are not actually Plagueworks trash, but you’ll have to deal with them on your way there.

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by Michael Gray

Deathbringer Saurfang is the final boss of The Lower Spire of Icecrown Citadel. This is the orc you once knew as Dranosh Saurfang. It turns out that the orc affectionately known as “Little Cleave” didn’t simply die at Wrathgate. Instead, while we weren’t looking, some ill-mannered Scourge grabbed the body of Dranosh Saurfang and spirited away. We probably assumed that his body had been burned to ash when the red dragons torched the place. Still, however it happened, you’ve now ascended to the opening of the Plagueworks, and now have to show down with Deathbringer Saurfang.

The Saurfang fight is pretty interesting, actually. There’s a lot of moving parts and abilities to try and monitor, but the actual flow of the fight isn’t too bad. From a tank’s perspective, you stand there and taunt every so often. From a healer’s perspective, you’re healing . . . and then healing some more. It’s the DPS players who really need to be on their game. There’s adds that show up which they have to kite and kill in short order, or really horrible things start happening to the raid.

Let’s take a look behind the cut and start talking about all the horrible things that could happen.

Like I said, the basic flow of the fight is pretty simple. You’ll want your tanks to stand up by the dais where Saurfang starts out. He’ll chat and blab for a little while, giving your raid ample time to stand there. And stand there. And stand there some more. Maybe knit a scarf or something while the two Saurfangs chat it out.

If you’ve got some Death Knights who’re jonesing to bust out an Army of the Dead at the opening, have them do it when Saurfang unleashes his Force Choke — using that a timing point, the Army ghouls will probably die before Blood Beasts start showing up. You definitely want them gone before the Blood Beasts, but we’ll explain why in a moment.

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by Michael Gray

While you might choose your profession based on its character bonuses, it’s still best to know what items will sell on the AH from each.

Gathering Professions: Herbalism, Mining, Skinning

All three gathering professions are very powerful for producing saleable product for the Auction House. Selling the raw materials gathered with these skills will fuel the items required for raiders to punch down Icecrown Citadel, or even casual players who want to make sure their characters are at the pinnacle of their personal progression.

Herbalism’s big-sell item is the Frost Lotus. The Frost Lotus is the cornerstone reagent for creating Flasks of Endless Rage and Flasks of the Frost Wyrm, two of the most popular items on the Auction House. Even Herbalist/Alchemists will probably buy the occasional Frost Lotus stacks if they find themselves without time to farm. Your Frost Lotus should sell fairly quickly from the Auction House, assuming you’ve got them reasonably priced. The down side of the Frost Lotus is that it drops at random from any Northrend herb. It’s hard to farm these on purpose.

The other benefit to Herbalism is that there are two crafting professions which are fed by the skill. Both Alchemists and practitioners of Inscription will need herbs to produce their final product. You’ll not only pick up cash from people who need flasks, but you’ll also sell to people who are trying to advance these skills.

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by Michael Gray

Easily one of the most creative and distinctive fights in Icecrown Citadel, the Gunship Battle is something many raiders have been looking forward to since BlizzCon 2009. As a little bonus, this fight is also the source of a certain cloak that’s white and longer than your average cloak.

Here’s the basic story. As you’ve just managed to lay waste to Lady Deathwhisper, you ride the elevator up to where you’ll see the Horde and Alliance doing battle. The fight happens almost identically the same whether you’re Horde or Alliance. The only difference is which faction leader you’re attacking and which faction leader you’re following.

You pick fights with small parties of the enemy faction as you fight your way to get to your gunship. This is the same ship that’s been circling Icecrown for all of Wrath, so you’ll probably recognize Orgrim’s Hammer and Skybreaker. You’ll want to be sure to grab a jetpack as soon as you get onboard, and spend a little time shooting around and getting used to the rocket jump. Even if you’re not going to be part of the raiding party attacking the enemy ship, the jetpacks are too much fun to completely ignore. Also, as has been mentioned before, these jetpacks gave rise to the infamous Rocket Bear.

Once the encounter starts in earnest, you’ll quickly find yourself fighting the enemy in ship-to-ship combat. Let’s take a look behind the jump and talk about how this is going to work.

The basic flow of the gunship battle works like this. You’ll have a series of guns with which you damage the enemy ship. The enemy will be returning fire, but they also have a plan for how to deal with your guns. A mage will come out and attempt to freeze your guns in ice. In order to prevent that from happening, a group of raiders will use their jetpacks to rocket jump to the opposite ship and kill the mage. At the same time, a portal will open on your ship, with an enemy boarding party trying to lay waste to the rest of your team.

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by Michael Gray

Lady Deathwhisper – Phase 1

• Mana Barrier – Absorbs all damage done to Lady Deathwhisper, draining her mana instead. This is the key ability to phase one. Once you’ve destroyed the Mana Barrier, you go into phase two.
• Shadow Bolt – Inflicts Shadow damage to the current target.
• Death and Decay – Inflicts Shadow damage every 1 second to enemies within the area of the spell. The spell lasts 10 seconds. You can tell it by a bubbling green area on the ground.
• Dominate Mind – Mind Controls 1 player, increasing their damage by 200% and healing by 500%. Lasts 12 seconds. (This is another call back to old Kel’Thuzad.) This effect only occurs in 25 man.
• Dark Empowerment – Empowers a random Adherent or Fanatic, causing them to deal area damage with spells. Also makes the target immune to interrupts.

Lady Deathwhisper – Phase 2
Many of the abilities are the same as in Phase 1, but get turned up a notch.

• Frostbolt – Inflicts Frost damage to the current target. Can be interrupted. This spell is a tank killer, and should absolutely be interrupted.
• Death and Decay – Inflicts Shadow damage every 1 second to enemies within the area of the spell. The entire spell lasts 10 seconds. Again, this is the bubbling green color on the ground. This is fire that you shouldn’t stand in.
• Dominate Mind – Mind Controls 3 players, increasing their damage by 200% and healing by 500%. Lasts 12 seconds. The effect is the same as in phase one, except now it can grab up to three players. It’s best to crowd control them, so that you don’t lose allies by killing them.
• Touch of Insignificance – Reduces the target’s threat generation by 20% per application. Stacks up to 5 times. This is the big gimmick of the second phase, which we’ll discuss in depth later. Suffice it to say that the Touch of Insignificance insures you’ll need two tanks.
• Summon Vengeful Shade – Summons a Vengeful Shade from the body of a dead Adherent or Fanatic. There are angry angry ghosts! If they catch up to their target, they explode in a Vengeful Blast!

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by Michael Gray

If ever there were a boss just begging to be turned into a totally Camaro-awesome tattoo, it’s Lord Marrowgar. Like an epic, multi-skulled skeleton made of bone and skulls and spikes, Marrowgar is hands down one of the coolest looking mobs in the game.
While the sophomoric “Dude, he’s a bone guy with a bone axe!” revelation has me only a little ashamed, I nonetheless get a certain thrill up my spine each time I see him.

Lord Marrowgar is not a complex fight, although there’s a few things about it that are going to be counter-intuitive. I think that slight change-up in normalized behavior is probably the biggest challenge of this fight. It’s kind of a clever design that way, but otherwise, you should expect Marrowgar to be your first, solid gear check in Icecrown Citadel.

The fight with Lord Marrowgar seems incredibly straightforward, since he really only has four or five abilities. Basically, two tanks start the fight. He shoots lines of fire, which your raid should not stand in. (You’ve got the “don’t stand in fire” trick down at this point, right?)

Periodically, Lord Marrowgar will impale a member of your raid on a bone spike. Kill that spike to free your raid member before that member dies. Lastly, Marrowgar does a whirlwind. That’s where the counter-intuitive piece comes in, since you really don’t need to run around like a herd of panicked cats to avoid the damage.

I mean, not taking the damage is great if you can avoid it, but the whirlwind doesn’t hurt so bad that you should range your healers. But, ultimately, the whirlwind damage isn’t all that deadly if you’ve got a potion, or if your healers are on their game. I’ve seen more raids die trying to get back together after the whirlwind than raids that die during the whirlwind itself.

Okay, all that being said, let’s take a look at Marrowgar’s actual abilities.

Abilities

Saber Lash: Saber Lash is one of Marrowgar’s more iconic abilities. It is a massive hit that is split evenly between the tank (technically, Marrowgar’s target) and the target’s two closest allies. This is, therefore, also the ability that requires you to have two or three tanks. (Two in 10-man, three in 25-man.) If you don’t have someone else to help soak the damage, this ability will make pretty quick work of your tank.

Coldflame: Coldflame will target a random member of your raid, and then draw a blue, burning line of fire on the ground between Marrowgar and that raid member. Your raid should simply sidestep out of the flame.

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