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.