Icecrown Citadel 12 - Lich King

[Starwind]

Tankspot's 10-man guide
Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er2uUCcbP38
Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNLRDuEMT-Q

StratFu Guide
http://www.stratfu.com/strats/lich-king ... live-strat

[Karast]

Yesterday night we set foot on Arthas throne room for the first time...that felt very very epic.
The fight both in length and in complexity is definitely worth of an end game boss.

We made several attempts of the fight, with the best one getting the boss down to 67%.
The tactics as explained in tankspot seems very viable to us but whatever you do, don't try to digest all of them at the same time...there's way too much to remember like this. What we did (and will keep doing in next week's attempts) was to split the fight to it's 3 phases(P) + transition(T) phases and tackle one at a time. We covered P1 and tried it. Then covered the transition and tried it. We then attempted P2 but didn't get far into it yet.
All in all, I will say that the fight is not as daunting as it initially looks. Breaking it into phases makes it very manageable.

Comments from last nights P1+T1 attempts:
P1:
1 tank on the boss, 1 OT on the adds that will spawn. OT will tank the adds a little further from the boss but not too far away from the raid. Adds must be faced away. The ghouls that spawn will come from underneath the boss - like army of the dead - and as the fight progresses will be tricky to pull by the OT due to all the AoE abilities used around the boss. It is crucial that these will be either MD or ToT to the OT (or when the OT has a spare CD taunt them). The ghouls don't do much damage and can't really endanger anyone but they are the key for controlling the disease the LK puts, which is the key to taking down the big adds - the shamblers.
Shamblers are the second type of adds that will spawn during this phase - they are big and very nasty - priority 1 to get them the hell away from the raid! their frontal cone attack has a huge range and will one-shot everything except a tank.
The only to take the Shamblers down quickly enough (they have over 2M hp) is by using the disease.
This disease is placed randomly on a player and must be dispelled ASAP! you have 5 sec to do so - if it is allowed to tick it will kill it's target. Once dispelled it will jump to the nearest target - be it another player or one of the adds.
In order to control the adds have all the raid stay relatively close to the MT and not too far from the OT, once someone gets the disease, have that person dash to the OT and be quickly dispelled. This will ensure that the disease will be transmitted to the add group where it will start bouncing between them and the OT. whenever its on the OT - dispel it. The disease will become stronger as it will kill the adds and will actually produce huge DPS on the shamblers when landing on them.

When the boss is at 72% watch DBM for the CD on calling shambler and monitor any shamblers still up - make sure there will be none when the boss reaches 70%.
slowly move backwards towards the edge of the platform.

T1:
the boss will move to the center of the platform and will start channeling a very heavy DoT that will hurt anyone still on the platform, so have everyone run to the frozen edges of it and spread out (the disease may still be out there so be quick with dispelling it).
The boss will use some sort of lightening arc - on 10 men it wasn't too bad.
Note the floating orbs that come towards you - DPS them quickly (they have very low health) as they knock back when they reach you that will throw you off the platform.
kill any remaining adds and be ready for new type of adds - spirit ones - that will spawn. Tank those away from the raid as they have frontal cone attack that silences. Kill them quickly and be ready for the end of the transition.
When the boss starts channeling "Quake" run for your life! to the center of the platform as the frozen edges will fall off killing anything on them.
It is possible, using a very careful positioning, to place the adds on the ledge while the tanks move inwards during the quake and thus have the adds fall off with the ledge. I believe I've actually manage to kill 1-2 adds that way, but don't make it a habit - its safer to just kill them.

I'll post more when we we have more experience.

[Luxaflex]

With regards to that disease - are you 100% sure it needs to be dispelled asap? I did so yesterday a few times because some ppl died when I did not. When I dispelled, I rarely seen it jump to another player - only one, maybe two times. 5 seconds is a very long time to dispel something. If the solution is just dispelling asap, the disease is a non-issue. However, the attempts I did dispel within 0.2 seconds :p, someone was 'complaining' the disease didnt spread well enough on the adds. So I'm a bit confused with regards to this.

I see why a disc priest is so trivial for this fight: keep raid shielded, cure diseases on sight, keep inspiration on tanks and PoM going round. All very effective and efficient in this fight.

Although there's a lot going on in this fight, it's very well doable. Movement and focussed fire. For healers this isn't a hard fight, just a busy one, which we like. Considering we had no replenishment last night which removes 40% of our mana gains, I had to hold back a bit. Should we have replenishment next time, the continuous absorbtion of shields (our biggest mana source) somewhat guarantees a disc priest can chainheal/spam for 20 minutes without any mana issues. That means diseases and the raidwide 7k aoe are a total non-issue, and thus effectively removing 2 'killers' in this encounter.

[Flexie]

As for disease: it's vital for killing the shambling horrors as they have 2 million hp on their own and spawn rather often. I'd really advocate dispelling it as late as possible so we can get stacks on the adds. From what I understand at some point the disease should be powerful enough to kill a shambling horror without any help from our dpsers.

[Karast]

Necrotic Plague 50,000 yd range — Infects the target with a deadly plague, causing 50,000 Shadow damage every 5 seconds for 15 seconds. If the target dies while afflicted or the effect ends, this effect will gain an additional stack and jump to a nearby unit. If this effect is dispelled, it will lose a stack and jump to a nearby unit. Whenever this effect jumps, the Lich King's power will increase. Instant. Disease. 100,000/5 on 25-player.

when dispelled it will jump to the nearest target, if will die away after several dispels unless it lands on a ghoul/shambler in which case it will tick heavily.

We just need to make sure that people are fast enough to spot disease on themselves and move to the adds before it is dispelled.

[Luxaflex]

OK - in that case the safest way to go is to dispel after 3 seconds - regardless if the infected person is moving or not. It must be dispelled or we loose someone. Now - what (I think) would increase the effect is focussed fire on the mob which currently has the disease. That would empower the disease and push it to the next mob. Focussed fire on the mob with the disease would cause the disease to built stacks very fast right? Or will there be multiple diseases up and bouncing at some point?

I think it's safe to insta-dispel on melee, since they will be hammering adds anyways. If ranged gets it - run towards the mobs and dispel when the person is close?

Sorry for all the questions - just figuring out the most optimal usage of that disease.

- one extra thing I noticed> Marcuscole's Felguard stayed on the edge when the raid was running towards the center. The Felguard, but also the mob he was on with 600k health, both died because they dropped into the depths. Now, I don;t know how comfortable our warlocks are with their demons BUT a voidwalker is usually very healable. If you, warlock, can use the VW's aoe taunt 3-4 seconds before we have to collapse to the center, this might kill all adds up instantly. Make sure the aoe taunt is not on auto but on a keybind. It would work best with a demo lock with an improved VW me thinks. One healer should focus on the VW to keep it up for those 4 seconds. The raid must make sure it's not in los with the VW to avoid a silence and dmg. It might be too complicated tho and require too precise execution. But if you can get rid of 1 million hitpoints of adds, it's worth considering imo. That's a nice chunk of LK's health to burn instead.

[Karast]

Doing some reading today (rather quite day at work which is a rare thing...)
I'll try to answer Lux questions with things I've read so far, any comments will be appreciated as I won't know how reliable the info is until we will test it.

OK - in that case the safest way to go is to dispel after 3 seconds - regardless if the infected person is moving or not. It must be dispelled or we loose someone.

yes, BUT (bear size but) if we dispel and it jumps to another player because he is closer then the adds, the disease is weakened.
Our aim is to be able to get the disease to the shamblers ASAP and leave it there. This will enable us to ignore shamblers (according to some) and just DPS the boss quicker, while the disease will burn down the shambler.
A Shambler mustn't die before the other one spawns and is positioned near him so that the disease will be transmitted to him.
As for the ghouls, from what I've read - OT only need to pick up the first wave and in case all ghouls around him are dead pick an additional 1-2; the others can just be burned with cleave-style abilities.

Now - what (I think) would increase the effect is focused fire on the mob which currently has the disease. That would empower the disease and push it to the next mob. Focused fire on the mob with the disease would cause the disease to built stacks very fast right? Or will there be multiple diseases up and bouncing at some point?

DPS doesn't seems to increase it directly - but when a mob dies to the disease it will jump to another target and become stronger. So again, wait with the shamblers until another one stands nearby, ready to receive the empowered disease.

I think it's safe to insta-dispel on melee, since they will be hammering adds anyways. If ranged gets it - run towards the mobs and dispel when the person is close?

No, it will be pure loss of DPS on the shamblers. Everyone that has the disease must run to the OT to get dispelled there.
Ideal positioning is a triangle: ranged at one point, MT and melee on the boss in the second, OT with the adds at the third.

Sorry for all the questions - just figuring out the most optimal usage of that disease.

Don't stop, the more questions we raise now the less guessing we will have to do on the boss fight itself

one extra thing I noticed...

I'm pondering the same idea - it's very appealing but it may also be possible to do so with correct positioning on the OT side if a little risky. Lets save this as a last resort - its safer to learn how to burn the adds ourselves quickly.

[Erian]

For dispelling the plague, I (with my beady eye on grid) will wait 3-4 seconds before dispelling. You can't wait the full 5 seconds. If the person with plague isn't moving near the OT handling the horrors, then the plague will jump to another ranged. Wait 3-4 seconds and then dispel that one, and hope that he/she has moved to the OT. The dangers are that you dispel the second one too fast and panic, as then you'll have plague leaping about until you calm down. We tend not to use Shaman totems for cleansing. The key really is people noticing that they have plague and moving quickly, and the dispeller being calm about it. When ppl run to the OT, don't move in front of a shambling horror. They do 25k+ on a clothie. Make sure you have one person responsible for dispelling, and have a backup ready if the first goes down. This is the easy part of the fight though

[Karast]

This is the easy part of the fight though

Yep...P2 is the hellish part

[Luxaflex]

[quote="Erian"]The dangers are that you dispel the second one too fast and panic, as then you'll have plague leaping about until you calm down./quote]

I just checked combat logs, and I never gained the aura 'Panic'. 'Calm' however, had a 100% uptime.

OK - I think disease is clear now, thanks a lot.

Phase 2 is with the Valkyr? Doesnt seem too hard. All in all this is a great designed fight from what I've seen so far.