ICC

Into the stronghold of the Litch himself.

Wednesday was My first trip into the new raid instance, charging in with my guild to take down Arathas... or with the schedule of release at least one of his peons....

First thing I have to say is that the encounter rooms somehow felt small. especially the last boss, though I think that may have been on purpose to make the fights more of a challenge. Dont stand in shit that hurts becomes so much more apparent when there is less space not covered by shit that hurts.

Beginning the raid there are some rather narly trash pulls. For the groups with spiders, these take priority, and must die quickly. The pull requries both tanks to each take a spider and for the dps to be watching for Webbed victims, this is similar to the webbing from the last boss of the spider wing in Nax, except it doesnt throw you against the wall. CC in the form of a sheep or 2 is helpful, but rewuires your AOE happy dps to single target.

The other trash pulls leading up to the first boss arent really of note (I cant honestly remember them, so they couldnt have been that bad, The one caviat is that there are large skeletons standing at the sides of the first couple of rooms, they become mobs after certain actions, I have heard conflicting reports that they are either un-avoiadble spawns or a trap rogues can disarm. For now I do not reccommend disarming them if they can be, the rep gain from killing the guards is a nice chunk, though if they are traps, having a rogue to set them off one at a time would be a good thing... too many of them could wipe the group.

First boss: a dragon: Dont stand in shit that hurts... fire really hurts, when he whrilwinds run. when he stops he wipes aggro, so dots can get you killed tank, spank, run rinse repeat, dead dragon... again.

I almoss forgot: his whirlwind will leave a stacking bleed.. so dont stand near shit that hurts, and he will impaile random raid members so the dps has to free them, Just like the first boss in BT, but here you dont do anything with the spikes once you have them.

second boss: This anoying little twit starts with a mana shield it has to be burned by your dps. Just to make things interesting she summons adds in waves from the left and the right ( i hear from the back as well in 25 man). Tanks tank them, and stay out of shit that looks like it might hurt. She will rez some of the Adds when she does they become either melee imune or magic immune. Have the appropriate dps take these adds the F*$( out and be quick about it. Once the shield is broken, no more adds. Tank spank, clear debuffs that look like they might hurt, loot and move on.

Third boss... AIRSHIPS HOO!!! Ever land on the wrong airship in icecrown just to be pwned by one of the NPC's... its time for payback, everyone gets a rocket pack from the guy standing on the ship at the start. Have 2 dps hop in the cannons on the side of the ship after people practice with their rockets. the goal is to, sink the opposing factions battleship =) for the start of the fight everyone stays on their ship and the gunners pound away at the horde. every now and then a mage from the other ship will freaze the canons on your ship, at this point a tank, healer and DPS uses the rocket packs to jump ship and kill that mage, though the point of the Tank is to tank the capton of the other ship. The mage must be taken out quickly as you both need your canons back, and the Capton gets a stacking buff to beat the crap out of your tank. While this is happening a portal opens up above your ship and a landing party hops out, the other tank picks up these guys and tanks them, while the dps kills em. Rinse repeat till the ship be dead maties... ARGG

You face one final boss at this point. Depending on faction you will face one of the leaders that were at the battle in the north west corner of dragonblight... The horde will apparently find Highlord Bolvar Fordragon, For the alliance its orc dude the lesser. Their souls are lost, time to face punt them into the cosmose:

First off, this is a tank and spank, plain and simple, He will at times put a debuff on the tank that heals him, switch tanks at that point (he is tauntable) your melee should have fun pumping max dps for this fight, Tank spank, switch, rinse, repeat, loot.

For those of you who thought I was finished, and that he sounds easy... Here is the caviat to that fight: He is kinda a DK, kinda rogue in his function, He will do certain abilities every now and then that earn him something akin to runic power or combo points. One of these targets a random raid member and damages them, it can chain so stay 12'+ away from everyone if you are at range, thankfully this will not target melee. Each time it chains he gets 6 more combo points. The big problem are the face chewing adds he spawns every now and then, every time they hit someone he gains 3 combo points, these cannot be tanked and must be kited, Reccomended putting at least 2 ranged on either side and slowing them/ burning them as fast as possible.

You should be wondering what he does with those combo points at this point, well, each time he reaches 100 he will put a debuff on a random party member, damaging that person, healing him (if they die) and generally making life difficult. The debuff is not cleared by death unless he is reset (our shaman got picked both times, dmn the man). This is to be avoided at all costs, so Tanks, No AOE, melee dps, no AOE, or chaining abilities. This made life fun for me and my co-tank, both paladins, missing consecrate sucked, and HoR could spell trouble too.

All in all a fun, and rather easy instance. Two shotted the final boss and the rest were oneshot.

Happy hunting people