New Site

Thank you for being so patient. Our new guild website and forum is up.

To go to the new site, click this link: www.WQguild.com

Raiding

To my fellow guild mates:

Here is our current Raid Groups and Schedules:

• Group 1 = Tues & Thurs 10:30 pm to 1:30 am. This group is currently full (meatmarket, ruehlem, steercrazy, zohan, clueless or yeti, mysticspirit, lukaz, synestra, ricebound and babecake) = 11 of 12 bosses down
• Group 2 = Friday & Monday 10:30 pm to 1:30 am. This group may be full (maigrey, krysiis or muuph, mitties, cantdotme, kavat, rogued, yeti or clueless, fitch, annorexia or geebus and noobskin) = 7 of 12 bosses down.
• Group 3 = Sundays 10:00 pm to 1:00 am. This group has several openings and will focus only on the first and second wings until we get a consistent group. Once the group is established and progression is being made, I will add a second raid day for this group. (ahrianrod, lesborc and .... 8 spots open)

If you are interested in participating in the group 3 group, PLEASE send in game mail to BABECAKE.

REMEMBER: If you are part of the raid group, we are counting on you to attend so our groups are consistent. However we understand that sometimes things come up and that is understandable, but please help out your fellow group members by sending in game mail to BABECAKE so we can adjust accordingly.

I will try to post progression fight strategies here until we get a formal forum created. Please take a moment each week to review fights that your group may be working on so that each group can progress rapidly. This will give you a better understanding of the fight mechanics without having to rely on the raid leader to explain it all. Not to mention it will save you gold by learning the fights so you won't wipe as much. :) he he

Furthermore, the guild will have flasks and feasts available for every raid. HOWEVER, I ask that each raid member bring at least 2 of their own flasks to each raid so that the guild bank isn't depleted. If you need more than 2 flasks during a raid time, the guild will supply it. There are several members of the guild who can make flasks if needed.

Thank you and many congrats for the progress being made in ICC. Currently 11 of the 12 bosses have been defeated and hopefully the last boss, the Lich King, be down in the weeks to come. Keep up the great work!!!

P.S. There are times that my 5 year old son plays my characters or my husbands. If you send me an in game whisper and I do not respond, it may be because my son is playing my character. So to guarantee that I will hear your questions, concerns or requests, send me in game mail. Thank you!

Our quest...

We have finally reached the Lich King in ICC 10 man! We anticipate in the next week or two to have completely cleared ICC. Here most of our group 1 raid group was able to snap a shot around the Lich King. Way to go everyone!!!

Videos for Lich King Fight

Here are the videos for the Lich King fight in ICC. There aren't a lot of videos covering the lich king, esp in a description style (versus only music running in the background). If you find anything else let me know!

VIDEO 1 (Tankspot's video part 1)

VIDEO 2 (Tankspot's video part 2)

VIDEO 3 (Learn how to play video - 25 man info)

Lich King Strategy

This is the last boss in ICC and in the next week or 2 will fall to the guild!!! :)

Strategy

Phase 1

In the early stages of the fight, you can tank the Lich King anywhere along the edge of the platform. Harmless ghouls and very dangerous Shambling Horrors spawn during this phase. Horrors have a frontal cleave and an extremely dangerous enrage—this can be tranquilized, or you can stun them for its duration. Do not attack the Shambling Horrors or Ghouls directly; instead, use the Lich King's Necrotic Plague ability to kill them. He applies Necrotic Plague on a random player, who will die if it is not dispelled within 5 seconds. Because a dispelled Necrotic Plague jumps to the nearest unit—including Shambling Horrors—a player who becomes infected should immediately run towards the adds so that the plague, when dispelled, jump to them. This lets you focus DPS on the Lich King. If any Horrors are up entering the phase transition, kill them just before phasing the Lich King. Ghouls may be left alive to die to incidental damage in the transition.

The Lich King also periodically casts Infest, which requires the raid's HP to be topped off quickly to remove the dot. A Discipline-specced priest can proactively shield the raid between Infest casts, helping to minimize the amount the raid needs to be healed.

You should aim to end this phase with around 15 stacks of Plague Siphon on the Lich King. You should dispel any remaining plagues off the shambler tank when he is standing off by himself so the plague will disappear and Plague Siphon will drop off the Lich King before the second phase begins.

Phase 1.5 – Remorseless Winter

At 70% health, the Lich King moves to the center of the arena, away from the tank, and begins casting Remorseless Winter. When he moves away from the tank, the raid must flee to the far side of the platform (opposite the Frozen Throne). Tanking the Lich King near the edge gives him a greater distance to travel before casting Remorseless Winter, giving the raid more time to react and a shorter distance to run.

During the transition, the Lich King summons a Raging Spirit on random players, and after five seconds a Raging Spirit will spawn on top of them. These melee very hard and possess a frontal cone-area silence ability. One will spawn every 20 seconds including one spawning at the end of the transition for three total. These should be killed as quickly as possible to ensure that only one is up in phase two. Frost orbs will head towards the raid and explode if they reach it. They have few HP and can be killed by ranged DPS. Pain and Suffering is a stacking DOT that will be applied to random raid members in this phase. It spreads to nearby players so you can't be too close to each other.

When the Lich King kneels and lights up the ground around him, the raid must return to the center area of the platform before the edges of the platform falls (The area that is about to fall becomes very obvious). Continue to kill any remaining Raging Spirits, but the tank should pick up the Lich King again as quickly as possible.

Phase 2

Take the Lich King to the centre of the room. You will want the Val'kyr in this phase to have as far to fly as possible.

He will begin to summon Val'kyr Shadowguards (450,000 health on 10 Man Normal). These Shadowguards can grab a single raid member, lifting them into the air dragging them over the edge of the platform followed by dropping them to their deaths. The Val'kyr, therefore, should be killed as fast as possible. Val'kyrs can be snared and stunned but not rooted. Defile and Val'kyrs will often line up and you will need to deal with both at the same time.

The area in which the Val'kyr drops the player happens to be right over where the outer ring that dropped use to be. If a Val'kyr is summoned while the Lich King is close to the transition phase, it might be more valuable to push him to the next phase instead of killing the Val'kyr. When the Lich King resurfaces the outer ring, the player being carried will be dropped safely on the edge, outside of Remorseless Winter.

The Lich King will periodically cast Defile, which produces a pool of darkness over an area of the arena. Defile is incredibly dangerous because it grows in both size and damage every time it ticks on a player, quickly covering the entire room and killing the raid.

Soul Reaper is a monstrously damaging debuff applied on the Lich King's current tank every 30 seconds. It can be helpful to taunt off your current tank with another tank when Soul Reaper is applied, otherwise there is the possibility of the Lich King melee-ing at the same time the Soul Reaper dot ticks which will instantly kill your tank.

Phase 2.5 – Remorseless Winter

When the Lich King falls below 40%, he will cast Remorseless Winter again, forcing the raid to the edge of the platform. This should be fought exactly like the first Remorseless Winter. Four Raging Spirits this time spawning every 15 seconds. When this attack ends, Phase 3 begins.

Phase 3

The Lich King begins expelling numerous Vile Spirits (10-man normal: 66,000 health; 25-man normal: 200,000) from Frostmourne, which move toward the raid and explode. The most obvious way to deal with them is to kill them before they begin moving—fire mages, shadow priests, affliction warlocks and moonkins are very effective at this. The Spirits move extremely quickly at the start but slow down over time, thus snares such as Earthbind Totem also function on them. An effective strategy is to drag the Lich King to the edge of the room and then drag him all the way to the opposite side after he spawns Vile Spirits, and kite them through Earthbind Totems and frost traps. Vile Spirits gain a small amount of threat on a random player when they begin moving but they can be both taunted and outthreated. The tank who is not tanking can taunt the Spirits onto him and absorb their damage.

You will assuredly have 1-2 Raging Spirits up as phase 3 begins so you will need to have melee DPS kill these as the ranged deal with the Vile Spirits.

During phase 3, the Lich King continues to periodically cast Defile and Soul Reaper but no longer cast Infest nor summon Val'kyr Shadowguards. Instead, he now casts a new spell called Harvest Soul every 70 seconds on a random raid member, which causes 45,000 (25-man 90,000) damage over six seconds. Victims who survive are sucked into Frostmourne and must fight their way out. You will likely need to use a damage reduction cooldown such as pain suppression on the target on 25-player difficulty.

You have 15 minutes from the beginning of phase one to push him into phase four or he will enrage. His enrage gives him an enormous buff to his damage output, but he does not one-shot the raid when he enrages like some other major bosses; therefore it is still possible to push him into phase four (and thus defeat him) after he enrages.^[1]

Inside Frostmourne

Healers can heal King Terenas' spirit while he kills the Spirit Warden within Frostmourne, while DPS classes must kill the Spirit Warden before it kills King Terenas. When the Spirit Warden dies you will escape Frostmourne. The Spirit Warden will channel an interruptable magic dispellable debuff called Soul Rip on King Terenas that does increasing damage every second for 8 seconds, to the point where Terenas will die at the end of the cast. The Spirit Warden also heals for 50% of damage it does meaning stunning it is very helpful.

The Spirit Warden is vulnerable to most forms of CC and interrupts that affect Undead creatures.

You will gain a debuff in Frostmourne called Harvest Soul that increases your damage by 100% and kills you after 60 seconds if you do not escape Frostmourne. Should you die inside Frostmourne or to harvest soul the Lich King will gain 200% damage for 15 seconds.

Phase 4

At 10% health, the Lich King casts Fury of Frostmourne and kills all members of the raid. THIS IS INTENDED - this is not a wipe, so do not release! The Lich King and Tirion will have an exchange during which Tirion destroys Frostmourne using the Ashbringer. The ghost of Terenas Menethil II will appear and resurrect the raid while holding the Lich King in place. Even if you died from being carried off the platform by a Val'kyr, as long as you did not release, YOU WILL BE REZZED at this point. Players must use this opportunity to finish off the Lich King.

Once at 10%, the fight is essentially over; the Lich King will be immobilized as long as the fight is not reset. Should your raid decide not to accept Terenas Menethil's resurrection, Tirion Fordring will melee the Lich King to death; bringing down the remaining 10% in this fashion takes approximately one hour. You will still receive the achievement and loot if he dies in this fashion.

Videos for Sindragosa Fight

These videos are for Sindragosa fight in ICC 10 man:

VIDEO 1 (Kripparrian's How-to Video)

VIDEO 2 (Tankspot's Video)

VIDEO 3 (Ladies of Destiny Video)

VIDEO 4 (The Lazy Raider's Video)

Sindragosa Strategy

Preparation

Sindragosa immediately aggros when both Rimefang and Spinestalker are dead. While learning the encounter, it's a good idea to initially reset her, this is accomplished by running back to the teleporter pad or the last room right after the second frost wyrm dies. Sindragosa lands and creates an ice wall in front of where the raid should be. She despawns when she makes it up to that ice wall.

This encounter requires one tank, a second one is a good idea (for Phase 3). Tanks should have a decent amount of frost resistance, the paladin aura or shaman totem should also be used. Low stamina raid members can also consider wearing a few pieces of FR gear.

Like most dragons Sindragosa deals a rear tail swipe and a frontal cleave, thus only the tank stands in front of her. The raid should stand at her side, between tail swipe and cleave. Melee should set up at the outer edge of her (rather large) hitbox, ranged a little further out, but not at maximum range. Players who stand too close may miss an Icy Grip (because they don't fly through the air), those too far out loose too much time airborne and thus may not be fast enough in running away. In preparation of Phase 3, it's a good idea if the raid generally keeps close together, either near her front or hind legs.

Phase 1

During the whole fight she deals stacking debuffs to the whole raid. When melee attacks her, there's a 20% chance per hit on the boss to gain the Permeating Chill stacking debuff which inflicts 1,000 Frost damage every 2 seconds for 8 seconds, per stack. For casters, she periodically debuffs mana users with Unchained Magic, which in turn for 15 seconds causes its victim to gain a stack of Instability every time it casts a spell (including things like Healthstones or Trinkets). Instability expires after 5 sec (unless refreshed by casting another spell). Expiration is unavoidable after Unchained Magic fades. Upon expiration, Instability deals 2k damage per stack.

During Phase 1 these debuff stacks don't hurt a lot (it's safe to take up to 8 stacks), but in Phase 3 they become dangerous (players should try to stay below 4 stacks). For this reason it's a good idea to practise keeping them low even in Phase 1. Managing these debuffs (and the additional one in Phase 3) is the heart of the fight. Players must get used to stop attacking/casting when their stacks get high.

In regular intervals, she pulls the whole raid on top of herself (Icy Grip) and then starts a 5 sec cast of Blistering Cold, which deals 35k Frost damage to everyone within 25 yards of her (with enough HP or resistance this is survivable). This means that the raid has 5 seconds to get 25 yards away from her. Players should mouse-turn while flying through the air and immediately run away on touchdown. Hunters can use Aspect of the Pack, the frost aura does not cause the daze effect. After everyone is out of range, it must be switched off immediately. As a last resort it is possible to slow her cast time (Curse of Tongues or maybe Mind Numbing Poison), but this may decrease Melee's DPS output because they have to wait longer before running back.

Phase 2

At 85% and every 1:50 minutes thereafter, Sindragosa takes off, freezes 2/5 (10/25 player) raid members with Ice Tomb and drops four Frost Bombs (one after the other, on random spots). Players who are in line of sight of one of the bomb explosions take ~24k damage, therefore the raid should hide behind the Ice Tombs. After the fourth Bomb she lands and continues with another Phase 1.

Sindragosa puts a Frost Beacon on the Ice Tomb targets about 5 seconds before they get entombed. Since Ice Tombs not only damage their targets, but also everyone else in a 10 yard radius, it's important for the ice tomb targets to move away from all non-targets and from each other. After 20 seconds, she's dropped all her bombs, lands and resumes Phase 1. At this point, the entombed players start to take damage from asphyxiation. Players are freed from the Ice Tombs by destroying them (~450k HP). They should be damaged to about 10% while she drops the bombs, and quickly destroyed after the fourth bomb has exploded.

10 player

In 10 player, the raid can stay on the stairs at all times, tanking her right in front of the stairs. The raid initially groups on her hind legs. The players with Frost Beacon run to where her front legs were (one higher up the other lower down the stairs). When she Frost Beacons the next set of players, they again run to the other side (where her hind legs were), after the Tombs have materialized the raid follows. This movement pattern closely resembles the one used in Phase 3.

25 player

The 10 player technique cannot be used with 25, because it requires very high precision in positioning with 5 frost tombs plus the raid on the stairs. It's simpler to tank her some distance (about 20") away from the stairs. When the Frost Beacons come up, only the beaconed players run up the stairs and distribute, using the whole space on the stairs. As soon as the tombs start to materialize, the raid follows and hides. In 25 player, the rear tombs (furthest up the stairs) can be destroyed even before she lands (but be careful not to destroy a tomb just before a bomb lands).

Phase 3

At 35% health, Phase 3 starts. Phases 1 and 2 don't take place anymore. She retains all her Phase 1 abilities, and also continues to cast Frost Beacons and Ice Tombs, but no Frost Bombs. Instead the Ice Tombs must be used to control her new ability, Mystic Buffet. One stack of this debuff is gained by all players in her line of sight every 6 seconds. Each stack increases magical damage taken by 10%/15% (10/25 player).

Control of Mystic buffet and the other debuffs is crucial, Phase 3 is not a DPS race. Mystic Buffet expires after 8 seconds, she refeshes it after 6 (that is with 2 seconds left on the debuff). In effect it's enough to hide behind the Ice Block for just the crucial few seconds when she refeshes it.

The 10 player Ice Block routine (from Phase 2) can be used for both raid sizes in this phase - Frost Beaconed players run to the other side, raid follows, hides and destroys the Ice Blocks after they have materialized. With two tanks, it's a good idea to switch tanks at this moment too.

Tips and Tricks

§ In normal mode, up to 8 stacks of Mystic Buffet can be tolerated. Therefore, it's safe to ignore every other Ice Block. It's still important to nuke the Ice Blocks to free the entombed players. Don't try this on heroic difficulty where even a few stacks are already dangerous.

§ Wearing some frost resist gear increases survivability and may be very useful for learning the fight.

§ During Phase 3, Healers can try to find a place behind an Ice Tomb where they have no LOS to the boss, but can see and heal the tank.

Videos for Valithria Dreamwalker

Here are some videos for Valithria Dreamwalker:

Video 1 (Tankspot Video)

Video 2 (from a healer point of view but turn up the volume, he talks quietly)

Video 3 (The lazy raider video - careful he talks FAST! but good explanations)

Video 4 (RoaK Video - another video from a healers point of view)

Valithria Dreamwalker

Valithria starts at 50% health and the objective is to heal her up to full. Between half and two-thirds of the healers should concentrate on her, while the other healers keep the raid up. This usually translates to 1/2 (10/25 player) healers on the raid and 1-2/3-4 on Valithria.

Adds spawn from the gates. In 25 player, all four gates spawn adds, in 10 player it's only the front two. The spawn rate increases over time. After 7/? (10/25 player) minutes, Suppressors and Blazing Skeletons start to spawn continuously, which usually leads to a quick wipe.

A basic strategy is to loosely assign one group of tanks and damage dealers per add portal.

Add portal groups

The add portal groups should use the following priority list:

• One raid member per portal should focus on Suppressors (Cat druids are quite effective).
• Everyone else should kill Blazing Skeletons first.
• Zombies should be kited by a predesignated ranged DPS.
• Archmages should be tanked and taken out by melee.
• Abominations should be tanked and taken out by ranged DPS.

Class Specific Tips

• Feral Druids are particularly effective against the Suppressors with Swipe (Cat).
• Paladins are good for tanking the Abominations, as Consecration helps to gather up the worms that spawn, allowing casters to quickly AoE them down. Crusader Aura works inside the dream, increasing movement speed, making a vast difference on heroic modes.
• A Shaman with Cleansing Totem can be useful for the Abomination tank.
• Death Knights are good for tanking the Archmages as Frostbolt Volley can be interrupted.
• Mages should place Amplify Magic on Valithria for an extra healing buff.

Dream Portals

Every 30 seconds, Valithria provides portals to the Dream. These portals initially appear as small green orbs on the floor even before they can be entered. The Valithria healers should move close to these orbs and enter the portals as soon as they appear. Only one person can use each portal.

The Dream is a version of the room where only Valithria, several green orbs, and the players who entered exist. The objective is to float through as many green orbs as possible. When a player touches an orb it explodes (no damage) and provides a stacking buff (Emerald Vigor), which increases mana regeneration and healing done. After a few seconds, the players automatically return from the Dream and rejoin the rest of the raid. Now they should spam heal Valithria until the next portals spawn. As the portals spawn every 30 seconds, and Emerald Vigor's timer is 35 sec, it should never run out and stack sizes should gradually increase.

Since Emerald Vigor also increases damage done, it may be possible to have DPS classes enter the portals. Preferably this should be a class with low ramp-up time, namely Warriors, Combat Rogues, Hunters, Shaman or any other class/spec that takes a short amount of time to do a large amount of damage.

videos for Blood Queen Lana'thel fight

Here are some videos that I found helpful for the Blood Queen Lana'thel fight in ICC:

Video 1 (Kripparrian - how to video)

Video 2 (Tremor's Video)

Video 3 (Tankspot's Video)

Blood Queen Lana'thel

This is boss 9 of 12 in ICC

Preparation

She should be tanked right at her starting position. She requires two tanks, because she links her primary tank to the player standing closest to the tank (Blood Mirror), which means the linked target takes the same amount of damage as the tank. Shamans should use Tremor Totem, and it's a good idea to have all healers in a group with a shaman. If no shamans are available, Priests should Fear Ward healers.

The raid needs to stay distributed throughout the encounter (6" away from everyone else). It's a good idea to keep a circle of about 10" free of players right in the center of the room, and also to have everyone stay away from the walls. Ranged DPS make a semicircle at maximum range.

Strategy

The fight has only one phase. Although every two minutes she performs a very short air phase, the mechanics of the fight remain basically the same at all times.

Every player constantly takes damage from her aura (initially 4.5k per tick, increasing with each vampire in the room).

At random intervals, a random raid member gets Swarming Shadows, which makes them drop Shadow Fire on the ground until the debuff expires. Affected players can avoid taking any damage by running. It's a good idea to keep the walls free of other players, so that players with Swarming Shadows can simply run along the walls.

Another ability which she randomly uses is Pact of the Darkfallen. This links three players to each other, they take increasing amounts of damage until they stand on top of each other. Linked players should meet in the center of the room.

Every two minutes she takes off, fears the whole raid and launches three extra Blood Bolts at every player. When she takes off, ranged DPS should run to the walls of the room while melee spread out in the middle. Healers should be in a circle between melee and ranged. After the fear is over, players must spread out again very quickly, else the Blood Bolts can be lethal. Healers should move only minimally after the fear and instead start a massive spam of AoE heals right away.

Vampire debuff

The Blood Queen has an extreme amount of hitpoints and a 5:30 minute enrage timer. An average of 9.8k/7.8k (25/10 player) DPS is required to beat it (assuming 2 tanks and 5/3 healers). Virtually all raids use the Vampire debuff to boost their DPS (although it's theoretically possible to beat her without using it).

15 seconds after the start of the encounter Blood-Queen Lana'thel bites the highest threat player which is not tanking, dealing the Vampire debuff. Becoming a Vampire has the following effects:

• Targets deal 100% more damage while also creating no more threat
• Targets heal themselves for 10% of the damage they deal
• After 75 seconds, targets must bite other non-Vampiric players or become mind controlled after 15 sec

The Blood Queen bites only one player throughout the whole fight. After 60 seconds, this person must bite another raid member. After 60 more seconds, both need to bite two more players, next four, and so on. It's extremely important that damage dealers get bitten first (starting with the highest DPS first), and healers last. DPS cooldowns should only be used after all damage dealers are bitten.

Some raids establish a fixed bite order. One damage dealer can use all cooldowns while the others hold back a little, making sure who gets bitten first. Assuming 8 melee and 8 ranged DPS, everyone biting within 3 seconds after the Vampire debuff expires, an example bite order can go as follows:

0'15"

• Bite 1
  • Melee 1 gets bitten

1'18"

• Bite 2
  • Melee 1 bites Ranged 1 who comes into melee to get bitten then moves back to range

2'21"

• Bite 3 melee
  • Melee 1 bites melee 2
• Bite 3 ranged
  • Ranged 1 bites ranged 2

3'24"

• Bite 4 melee
  • Melee 1 bites melee 3
  • Melee 2 bites melee 4
• Bite 4 ranged
  • Ranged 1 bites ranged 3
  • Ranged 2 bites ranged 4

4'27"

• Bite 5 melee
  • Melee 1 bites melee 5
  • Melee 2 bites melee 6
  • Melee 3 bites melee 7
  • Melee 4 bites melee 8
• Bite 5 ranged
  • Ranged 1 bites ranged 5
  • Ranged 2 bites ranged 6
  • Ranged 3 bites ranged 7
  • Ranged 4 bites ranged 8

16 vampires are out, Bloodlust or Heroism now.

After the 5th round of bites, there's no need to bite anyone anymore, because she enrages at 5:30. With this organization no one should ever get mind controlled as long as they memorize their targets before the encounter begins. Healers should keep in mind that when a bite round is occuring, especially the final bite round people absolutely have to bite their targets even if they have Pact of the Darkfallen or Swarming Shadows. Divine Sacrifice or Aura Mastery Shadow can mitigate this if used at the right time, assuming they're available since they're also highly useful in the air phase.

Tips

• Hunters may use Deterrence during Lana'thel's air phase to mitigate damage done to the raid.
• Use Fear Ward on ranged DPS or a priest before she fears the raid to put in some extra damage or to dispel fear.
• For 10-man at least, it is possible to have a holy pally OT and heal by beaconing himself if your MT is over geared for the fight.a

videos for Blood Princes Fight

Here are some links to videos I think are helpful for the Blood Princes encounter in ICC:

Video #1 (Kripparrian's - How to video)

Video #2 (learn to play video)

Video #3 (Tremor's Video)

Video #4 (Tankspots video)