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Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Raid Guides

Icecrown Cathedral

  • Icecrown Putricide

  • Icecrown Rotface

  • Icecrown Festergut

  • Icecrown Deathbringer Saurfang

  • Icecrown Gunship Battle

  • Icecrown Lady Deathwhisper

  • Icecrown Lord Marrowgar


  • Trial of the Crusader

  • ToC - Anub'arak

  • ToC - Twin Valkyrs

  • ToC - Faction Champions

  • ToC - Lord Jaraxxus

  • ToC - Northrend Beats
  • Icecrown Putricide









    Source: Darksend
    Welcome back to the icecrown raid guide, my name is darksend and in this video I will be showing you our strategy for the 25 man version of professor putricide, the final boss in the plaugeworks.

    If you'd like more information about this encounter or would like to learn more about downloading this movie, click "more info" on the movie information box on YouTube to head directly to TankSpot! Also, be sure to subscribe by clicking the Subscribe button to the right to be automatically notified as we release movies. Finally, TankSpot Donors can download all of these movies in High Definition directly from our servers -- click the second link in the movie information box to learn more about this service!

    This is the first of 4 encounters in the instance which will share attempts as later gates become unlocked. As of right now however, you are limited to only 10 attempts.

    Professor putricide is a three phase fight. Three tanks will be required required for this strategy in phase 3. We also used 6 healers for this encounter.

    Phase 1 will last until 80%.

    The first ability he will use is slime puddle, which will spawn a growing green puddle under 2 random raid members. One player, preferably one of the offtanks as they have very little to do until phase 3, will run to the table and drink a potion to become an abom. The abom will deal constant aoe raid damage but is also the only way to prevent the puddles from completely filling the room, as the abombs primary ability is to drink the puddles. Be careful not to drink them to fast, as you need to let them get big enough to get at least 13 drinks off in order to help counter putricides next ability.

    Putricide will cast unstable experiment right before he is about to spawn one of two types of adds. They always alternate and the first one will always be the green one, also know as a volatile ooze. These adds will target a random raid member and immobilize them. It will then move towards that player at great speed. The abom's second ability is to slow the ooze by 50% for 20 seconds. These adds must be killed, because if they reach the played they will explode for significant damage as well as do a knockaway. Should this happen, right before it is about to hit stack up on that person as the damage is split between the people it hits and pick a new target to immobilize. You can still cast and perform all your normal abilities while targeted. This includes vanish, divine shield, iceblock, and fiegn death, all of which will cause the ooze to cast on a new target. The way we counter this is by moving to the left side, or the orange side, of the room as the green will always spawn on the right. As soon as it becomes targetable we have all of our walocks, mages, and hunters move to max range and begin killing it. When it picks a target we then have everyone else assist also. Should it target one of those hunters mages or warlocks they will blink, use a portal, or feign to not get blown up.

    The second time he casts unstable experiment he will spawn a gas cloud. This not actually a cloud however it is simply another type of ooze, also know as the orange slime.The abom must also slow these adds as well. Gas clouds will debuff a random raid member with a 10 stack of gaseous bloat. The stack will tick down every 2 seconds and when it ticks off it will stop and target a new player. Should it reach the player it will explode and deal raid damage based on how many stacks were left on the person. Since you can move while being chased by this add we have all ranged immediatly begin attack with melee following as soon as it picks a target. Melee should be ready to switch off around 2 stacks remaining as to not get targeted if it does not die in time. The person being chased needs heavy heals during this time the debuff deals pretty significant damage.

    Also because you can move while being chased by the gas cloud, notice we do not move nearly as far to the right side of the room as we do the left. This makes the aboms job noticably easier as they have less ground to cover as well as keeping the puddles closer together if not always almost on top of each other.

    Neither of these adds can target putricides main agro target and both persist into phase 2, but not phase 3.

    at 80 and 35%, putricide will cast tear gas, stunning everything in the room, including gas clouds and volatile oozes, for 20 seconds. Because of this, it is much more important to push when there are no slime puddles up as opposed to waiting till just after one of the adds is killed. Comminucate if you are close to a transition and have dps stop around 83%, have the abom eat the clouds, and push phase 2. Simply have the person hold off on the slow until tear gas ends.

    He will gain 2 new abilities in this phase. The first is the choking gas trap. He will drop 2 traps in melee range that look like orange flasks. They will give anyone who walks over them a 75% hit reduction debuff for 15 seconds. After 15-20 seconds they will explode for about 15K damage, knocking back anyone within 10 yards as well as giving them another 75% hit reduction debuff this time for 20 seconds.

    The second is malleable goo, this is the ranged equivilent to the choking traps. As long as there are enough people at ranged, putricide will pick 2 random people at range and hurl 2 bouncey balls at them. They have a decent travel time and they always travel in a straight line so they are decently easy to avoid. When it lands, anyone in the area will get hit for about 15K damage and have attack and casting speeds slowed by 200%.

    Phase two just continues the back and forth killing of the different types off adds while avoiding the two new traps, while the abom continues to drink up all the green puddles until 35%.

    Melee, do not try to milk extra boss damage after a green add has spawned. If it targets you, most likely you will be in the middle of the orange traps, and when the add explodes combined with the trap it will likely kill everyone nearby. Likewise do not kite the boss through the ranged because there is the change that malleable goo will target the melee, having the same effect.

    At 35 as I said before another tear gas will go out. The adds will stop but the puddles, traps, and goo will all still need to be avoided. He will also being hitting much harder and faster, as he gains a buff called mutated strength. The tank should run to the door as far away from the table as possible, giving as much dps time before the first debuff is applied.

    The reason you use three tanks is because mutated plauge will heal putricide when it falls off for 1.7 million per stack the tank had. This is for any reason, tank death, bubbling it off, and also surprisingly when it just falls off naturally. not only Because at 5 stacks the tank will be aoeing the raid for about 12-15K damage a second but also to make sure each tank had a debuff refreshed to make sure he would not heal, we decided to let each tank get 2 stacks before the next one would taunt, then again on the next one for a total of 3, then hopefully having the boss dead before all tanks had 4.

    Thanks for watching this movie! As always, feel free to ask questions or add suggestions either on YouTube or in the strategy thread on TankSpot.com. Good luck.

    Source: Aliena (10-man)
    Hello and welcome to the TankSpot Icecrown Citadel Raid Guide! My name is Aliena and in this video I'll cover everything you need to know about the normal mode 10-man version of the Professor Putricide encounter. Currently you only get 10 attempts per raid lockout period to kill this boss.

    A raid setup of 2 tanks, 2-3 healers and 5-6 dps is recommended.

    This is a three-phase encounter and In its 10-man version, Putricide has 9.76 million combined health. The first phase change occurs around 80% and the second phase change occurs at 35%. On each phase change you get a debuff called "Tear Gas" that stuns you for the duration of Putricide running towards his table and guzzling potions.

    This fight is by and large kited in all three phases and there's a lot of movement and raid awareness required from each raid member. Before the fight starts, assign one person in your raid group (preferably the Offtank) to possess an abombination to help you throughout the first two phases of the fight. Having an abomination active will make your raid take constant AoE damage, but you need them to counteract Putricide's various mechanics. To become an abomination, you need to click on the table behind Putricide.

    The most obvious mechanic and a constant throughout all three phases are the ooze piles that Putricide will toss at random players. He will toss out two of those at a time that land at the selected raid member's feet and deal around 4k damage per second to anyone standing in them. The main task of the person controlling the abomination is to eat those slime puddles to reduce their size and keep the ground free of ooze. Eating an ooze pile gives the abomination 4 energy for another very important ability that I'll cover in a minute.

    During the first two phases, Putricide will alternately summon two types of adds - Volatile Oozes and Gas Clouds. When this happens, the emote "Professor Putricide begins to cast Unstable Experiment!" will show up on your screen, and, depending on which type of add he's summoning, you'll either see a brown steam or a green stream of slime appear from one of the tubes in his lab. The first add he summons in every fight will be a slime. Oozes always appear on the north side of the room, gas clouds from the south.

    Volatile oozes will, after spawning, fixate on a target and root it in place while moving towards it at pretty quick pace. Should an ooze not be defeated before reaching its target, it will explode, dealing 70k damage shared between all targets within 10 yards of the originally targetted player and knocking them back. Here's where another ability of the abomination comes in handy - oozes as well as gas clouds can have their movement speed slowed by 50%, which gives you substantially more time to defeat the ooze before it detonates.

    Gas clouds will also fixate on a player after spawning, but instead of rooting it in place, it will place a debuff on the selected player that gives him or her 10 stacks of gaseous bloat. Every 2 seconds, some minor damage will be inflicted to the player and one stack of the debuff will drop off. If the cloud has not reached its target within 20 seconds, the debuff will disappear and it will pick a new target to apply the debuff to and chase until killed. Should it reach its target before all stacks are dropped off, it will inflict raidwide damage depending on the amount of debuff stacks left. It hurts, it really really does.

    Both add types should be slowed down as soon as they pop and since you already know that the very first experiment will be an ooze spawning at the north side of the room, you should position your raid accordingly at the south side of the room. Ranged can start burning it as soon as it pops, and once it picks a target melee should also join. As you can see well in this video, if you fail to kill the ooze before it reaches its target, it will pick another one and repeat the process, so burning adds always has utmost priority.

    The last mechanic you get introduced to in the first phase is gas bombs. Putricide will throw those out in sets of two, and standing on them will - how novel - make you explode. They look like brown little flasks on the ground, so avoid them at all costs.

    Once he reaches 80% health, Putricide will stun the raid, run to his desk and grow two tentacles. Those basically translate to another ability he gains in phase two - malleable goo. This basically hurls a portable slime teddy bear through the air at the area a randomly targetted player stands in and will, after travel time, land and anyone still remaining in the area will take around 15k damage and have their casting and attack speed slowed by 200% for 15 seconds. Malleable Goo prefers ranged targets, but will target melee if no one is at a range.

    All mechanics from phase 1 still continue on along with malleable goo until you hit phase three at 35%. Once again Putricide will run to his table and guzzle down a potion, becoming even more mutated and this time gaining a buff called Mutated Strength, which gives him a 50% damage and attack speed bonus. Attacks made against him will also cause him to stack up Mutated Plague on your tank, which inflicts raidwide damage depending on the number of stacks. We found 6 stacks to be an instant raid wipe, so to counteract that we had our main tank and offtank taunt off of each other so neither of them reached more than 4 stacks, which was still a very healable dot.

    You lose the abomination once you trigger phase three, which is why it's an excellent idea to have your offtank control it since he'd just be useless up until that point. There will be no more oozes or gas clouds spawning either, but malleable goo and gas bombs still happen. Also, since you lose the abomination to eat slime off the ground, this phase needs to go fast or you'll get overrun by expanding slime. This kind of acts like soft enrage timer similiar to the Lady Vashj encounter in Serpentshrine Cavern. Make sure to save all your cooldowns for this last part and keep moving, paying attention to the stuff Putricide will throw at you and you have yourselves a kill!

    Good luck!

    Thank you for watching this movie. As always, feel free to ask questions or add suggestions either on YouTube or in the strategy thread on TankSpot.com. Also, TankSpot Donors can download all of these movies in High Definition directly from our servers -- so if you'd like to learn more about that, just click the second link in the movie information box!

    (Information provided by http://www.tankspot.com)

    Icecrown Rotface









    Source: Aliena (25-man)
    Hello and welcome to the TankSpot Icecrown Citadel Raid Guide! My name is Aliena and in this video I'll cover everything you need to know about the normal mode 25-man version of the Rotface encounter that's unlocked after defeating Deathbringer Saurfang.

    Rotface has 36 million health and is located in a circular chamber with pipes going all around the outsides of the room. He is pretty much a tank and spank fight with three twists to him that give him a bit of a Grobbulus-Heigan Naxxramas flavor. A setup of 2 tanks, 6-7 healers and 16-17 dps is recommended for this encounter.

    To start out the fight, your main tank should run into the middle of the room and turn the boss 180 degrees with the rest of your raid staying close behind Rotface's back. Once he is turned, the raid should spread out in the area right behind and next to Rotface, ideally leaving the area right around your main tank open. This is because Rotface uses an ability called Slime Spray, which is a 1.5 second cast and then a 5 second channeled AoE nature damage spell. He will pick a random raid member to cast it on, turn towards that person and then channel Slime Spray which hits for about 7k damage per second in a frontal cone.

    While he doesn't hit particularly hard, you do want to avoid that extra damage on your tank if at all possible. It's incredibly easy to predict what area is going to be affected by Slime Spray since Rotface turns before he even starts channeling. Everyone in the affected area simply needs to move out of it.

    Now secondly, what I'd like to explain is the environmental twist and the reason you're all stacked up in the very middle of this large room. The room is actually split into four quarters. At any given time during this encounter, one quarter of the room is going to be covered by green slime that deals around 5k nature damage every second and reduces movement speed by 25% for 5 seconds to anyone standing in it. The slime will randomly cover all four areas one after another, but never the same one twice until all four have been covered once. That pattern repeats throughout the entire fight. It's easy to see where the next ooze flood will take place since the pipes open a little prior to that. The majority of your raid will never have to worry about this, unless they get hit with a debuff called Mutated Infection.

    Mutated Infection is a disease that lasts 12 seconds, deals around 4000 damage every second and will reduce all healing received by the target by 50%. This is approximately cast every 15 seconds but seems to speed up as the fight progresses. When the debuff runs out or is cleansed, a small mutant slime baby will pop out at the affected target's feet, which is where your offtank comes into play. People that get the debuff always need to run to the Offtank, so he can pick up the slime offspring. Once two of these little slimes come together, ie. after two infections, they will merge into a big slime that hits exceptionally hard and it is advised to kite it along the outsides of the room, but keeping the ooze flood pattern in mind.

    Every person that gets a debuff after the big ooze has emerged needs to move into the kiting path between the offtank and the big slime to ensure that the big slime is close enough to absorb the little one.

    The big slime continues absorbing little player slimes to power himself up, and once it absorbs 5 little oozes, it will cast a spell called Unstable Ooze Explosion. This ability has a slow cast and air travel time, but basically launches around 10 missiles into the air that are aimed at random players, or rather the ground they stand on. They also deal considerable damage in a 6 yard range when they hit anyone and the damage stacks, so once you see the emote, every raid member needs to move out of the middle of the room to keep it free before the bombs land.

    Once it explodes, the whole game starts over. Merge 2 slimes, power them up 5 times, move out of the middle, rinse repeat. The pace of debuffs and oozes spawning seems to pick up during the battle, so ideally you want to assign someone to dispel it when the raid member is close to your offtank so the affected person does not have to stand around the whole 12 seconds.

    Key to this fight is your kiter, sufficient DPS, and relying on people with the debuff to move to the right spot at the right time without getting irritated by Ooze Flood. Good luck!

    Thank you for watching this movie. As always, feel free to ask questions or add suggestions either on YouTube or in the strategy thread on TankSpot.com. Also, TankSpot Donors can download all of these movies in High Definition directly from our servers -- so if you'd like to learn more about that, just click the second link in the movie information box!

    Source: Splug (10-man)
    Welcome back to the Icecrown Citadel raid guide! I am Splug, and in this video I'll be going over our strategy for the Rotface encounter.

    If you'd like more information or would like to learn more about downloading this movie, click "more info" on the movie information box on YouTube to head directly to TankSpot! Also, be sure to subscribe by clicking the Subscribe button to the right so you will be automatically notified as we release movies.

    There are two major mechanics the raid needs to be aware of and react to. Every few seconds, Rotface will turn toward a random player and begin to channel a slime cone attack. To counter this, we split our raid into two groups, with each stationed behind one of Rotface’s legs. Whenever the boss turns to face a group, everyone in that pile rotates around to the other group’s position for the duration of the slime spew. When it ends, they shift back to their native position.

    The other major mechanic the raid needs to be aware of is the mutated infection. This disease effect causes a moderate amount of damage, but more importantly causes a Small Ooze to spawn when removed. Small Oozes cannot be taunted, and will slowly pursue the player who they spawned from until they are destroyed. Once the player afflicted by Mutated Infection is outside of the raid, they can be cleansed safely.

    When a Small Ooze contacts another ooze, the two will merge to form a Big Ooze. The Big Oozes have a normal threat table, and can be taunted.

    The first player with the infection gets clear of the raid, is dispelled, and has to kite his Ooze until a second player is infected. When the second player is infected, he needs to get clear of the raid (preferably in the direction of the other kiter), be dispelled, and kite his Ooze into the other Ooze. From there, the offtank will taunt, tank, and kite the Big Ooze, while subsequent infections run out of the raid to drag their Small Oozes into the Big Ooze until it explodes. Remember: damage never has to attack anything other than Rotface himself. The Oozes will all be consumed by proper execution of the kiting.

    Both sizes of Ooze will occasionally fire globs of Sticky Ooze near the player who is kiting them. These globs spawn patches of slime on the floor which reduce movement speed by 50%. They are tossed out inaccurately, and as such are fairly simple to avoid.

    Periodically, Professor Putricide will flood a corner of the room with slime. The slime causes a relatively low amount of damage, and a minor snare. This is actually a fairly insignificant mechanic; the kiting tank can still outrun the Big Ooze, the damage ticks are not significant enough to be threatening, and the rest of the raid has no reason to be anywhere near the flooded areas.

    Once the Big Ooze absorbs five other oozes, it will begin to explode. The whole raid will need to be aware of the explosion, as a series of ooze droplets will rain down on locations which players were standing at when the explosion occurred. All the raid has to do to counter this is move to an area no one had been standing at. Any of the corner sections that isn’t flooded by slime should be safe. When the slime has finished raining down, the raid resumes their normal positions and starts with the first Small Ooze kite again.

    Thanks for watching this movie! As per usual, feel free to ask questions or add suggestions either on YouTube or in the strategy thread on TankSpot.com. Also, TankSpot Donors can download all of these movies in High Definition directly from our servers -- click the second link in the movie information box to learn more!

    TANKING FOOTNOTE:
    While the Big Ooze’s initial damage is still manageable, the damage dealt quickly reaches unhealable levels as other oozes are absorbed. We found the Big Ooze was best handled by taunting it free from the raid, then generating a small amount of threat by tanking the Big Ooze through a defensive cooldown for about ten seconds. From that point on, the offtank should kite the ooze around the edge of the room, being careful to keep it away from the raid as it has a point blank AE pulse.

    (Information provided by http://www.tankspot.com)

    Icecrown Festergut







    Source: Thegreatme (25-man)
    Welcome back to the icecrown raid guide, my name is Thegreatme and in this video I will be discussing our strategy for Festergut, which is the fifth boss in the icecrown citadel raid instance.

    The festergut encounter is relatively simple in terms of the complexity of the mechanics, however because of the short 5 minute enrage timer, and the large amounts of damage the raid and tanks take, the encounter is essentially a gear check.

    Once you initiate the pull the room will be filled with a gas cloud that will do around 4500 damage to everyone in the raid every two seconds. your ranged should be spread out in a semicircle around the boss making sure that they are at least 8 yards away from each so multiple people aren't hit by vile gas, which is basically a conflagerate type debuff that causes the player targeted and anyone within 8 yards of them to become disoriented and do damage to everyone around them for 6 seconds

    Approximately every 30 seconds festergut will cast inhale blight, this will reduce the damage done by the gas cloud by 1/3, but it will also cause him to gain a stacking buff that increases his damage done, and his attack speed by 30%. as festerguts stacks increase it may be advisable to rotate cooldowns on the tanks as needed because festergut will hit very hard by the time he does his third inhale blight cast.

    Approximately every 35 seconds festergut will give 3 random raid members a debuff called Gas spore. After 12 seconds the spore detonates doing about 2000 damage every second for 6 seconds to everyone within 8 yards, anyone who survives this debuff will become inoculated, which reduces shadow damage taken by 25% stacking 3 times. who ever gets the gas spore debuff will have an animation that looks exactly like the spores from loatheb floating over their head. It is imperative that everyone gets under one of these spores before they detonate, and then immediately moves back to their position the moment it has detonated. It is imperative that everyone gets inoculated, including the tanks. because you have 12 seconds to get under a spore, under normal circumstances people with gas spores should never have to move, but if there is no spore in the melee, or if two spores are right next to each other then one of them should move so people do not get multiple stacks of the initial detonation debuff, because even if you have two or even three stacks of the damage overtime debuff, you will only get one stack of inoculated.

    About 20 seconds after the 3rd inhale festergut will use pungent blight, which does 50,000 shadow damage to everyone in the raid. This ability removes all stacks of innoculated. it also resets festergut's stacks of inhale, and releases the gaseous blight back in to the room. By the time pungent blight is cast everyone in the raid should have 3 stacks of innoculated and therefore only take around 13000 damage when it is cast, if a player does not have 3 stacks of inoculated they should use their own defensive cooldowns, or have healers use a cooldown on them if one is available.

    Finally, every 10 seconds festergut will put a debuff on the tank called gastric bloat, which increases their damage by 10% for 100 seconds, stacking up to 10 times. If the tank reaches 10 stacks they will explode doing 50,000 nature damage to everyone nearby, if this happens your raid will wipe. to prevent this you need to have at least two tanks for this encounter. Your second tank should taunt the boss once your first tank has 9 stacks. the first tank tank should then switch to a DPS stance or turn off righteous fury because otherwise they might pull agro. This tank should immediately taunt the moment that their debuff wears off because by that time the other tank will be only a few seconds away from getting hit with a 10th stack.

    Source: Darksend (10-man)
    Welcome back to the Icecrown raid guide. My name is darksend and in this video I will cover the 10 man version of Festergut, one of the two abominations in the plaugeworks.

    If you'd like more information about this encounter or would like to learn more about downloading this movie, click "more info" on the movie information box on YouTube to head directly to TankSpot! Also, be sure to subscribe by clicking the Subscribe button to the right to be automatically notified as we release movies. Finally, TankSpot Donors can download all of these movies in High Definition directly from our servers -- click the second link in the movie information box to learn more about this service!

    Festergut and Rotface are the first two encounters in the plaugeworks and can be done in either order. After you defeat stinky and precious, the two mini-bosses with mechanics similar to that of gluth in naxxramas, head left down the hall to reach festergut.

    Almost imediatly after starting the encounter an orange gaseous blight will fill the room and deal periodic shadow damage to everyone in the raid. Every 34 seconds festergut wil inhale some of that gas. While This will decrease the amount of periodic damage being done to the raid, it will aslo cause him to gain a stacking buff called inhaled blight. This buff increases Festergut's physical damage as well as increasing his attack speed both by 30%. He will do this 3 times until all the gas is inhaled, gaining a stack each time. When he reaches three stacks, the tank needs to begin rotating his or her own cooldowns as well as any external cooldowns to survive until the next ability 34 seconds later. This ability will be Pungent blight.

    Pungent blight deals massive shadow damage to the entire raid by releasing all the inhaled gas back into the room. This will resume the raid damage but it will also completely remove festerguts buff. This cycle repeats until the 5 minute enrage timer. In order to counter the pungent blight, every 40-50 seconds 2 random raid memebers will get a debuff called gas spore. When the spore explodes, it will hit everyone nearby with a dot called blighted spores. When this dot runs out however you become inoculated, which is a stacking debuff that actually helps you, decreasing shadow damage recieved by 25% per stack. However the counter works both ways, pungent blight will also completely remove your inoculated stacks.


    While this is going on there are also two other abilities he does. The first is only on the target he is attacking. Bastric bloat is another helpful debuff. It does about 10K damage when the stack is applied but each stack inceases the tanks damage by 10%. The down side is if the stack reaches 10 the tank will instantly explode killing himself and dealing about 30K damage to all raid members in range. This is actually a good thing because by forcing tank transitions you get a second full set of tank cooldowns to use during the time when he has 3 stacks of inhaled blight. We found taunting at 8 stacks to be the best way to handle the transitions. On the plus side, the tank can now go cat form, blood pressence, click off righteous fury, or do battle or berserker stance and do some decent damage for the minute and a half or so with that 80% increased damage buff before taunting back, just dont forget to swap back.

    The final ability is vile gas, which inflicts moderate shadow damage every 2 seconds for 6 seconds and additional damage to nearby players. It will also disorient anyone hit by it so it is very important for ranged to stay spread out.

    As long as you can ensure that you have enough ranged for this to never hit a melee, your tank healers should always be stacked with the melee. This also has the advantadge of that healer never having to move to get a spore.

    We did this with 2 ranged dps and 3 healers, one of which standing in melee range. We worked out on vent before hand which dps would run into melee if they both got a spore. obviously if one healer and one dps got it the dps would move allowing the healer to keep casting, and if both healers got it the resto druid would have moved into melee due to the ability to cast while moving.

    (Information provided by http://www.tankspot.com)

    Icecrown Deathbringer Saurfang





    Source: TheGreatMe (25-man)

    Welcome back to the Icecrown raid guide, My name is Thegreatme and in this video I will be discussing our strategy for Deathbringer Saurfang, the fourth boss in the Ice crown citadel raid instance.

    the Deathbringer Saurfang encounter is a burndown fight that gets progressively harder as the fight goes on. This encounter relies of good execution, and being able to focus your healing and DPS as needed.

    One of the most important mechanics of the fight is a buff Saurfang has which is called "blood link. When ever Saurfang, or one of his summoned creatures damages a player it will cause him to gain blood power. For every point of blood power Saurfang has he will grow 1% larger, and do 1% more damage.

    Your raid needs to have ranged spread out so they are all at least 12 yards away from each other. This is because of blood nova, which will hit a random player, as well as anyone with in 12 yards of them for 9500 to 10500 damage. for every player hit by Blood nova Deathbringer saurfang will gain two blood power. It is advised that your ranged have a boss mod installed with a proximity detector and that they use it in order to make sure they are always far enough away from each other

    Saurfang will also use an ability called Boiling blood, which is a damage over time debuff that does 5000 damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. this debuff is usually placed on 4 raid members at a time, but some times it may be applied to more people . Deathbringer Saurfang will gain 1 blood power for each tick of boiling blood.

    Deathbringer saurfang also puts a debuff on the tank called rune of blood. this causes Saurfang's melee attacks to also leach 5100 to 6900 health from the target, and heal Saurfang for 5 times the amount leached and lasts 20 seconds. On normal mode the healing it does to saurfang is not large enough to warrant bringing in a second tank over a DPS. in this video my guild did use two tanks but this is because at the time we were unsure of the mechanic, and wanted to have a back up just in case.

    When ever deathbringer saurfang hits 100 blood power he will place a debuff on a random raid member called Mark of the fallen champion. this debuff causes all of deathbringers saurfang's melee attacks to hit this target, plus an additonal 5700 to 6300 damage per hit. every time this player is hit deathbringer saurfang will gain 1 blood power. if the player with Mark of the fallen champion dies while under the effect of this debuff it will cause Saurfang to be healed for 5% of hit total health.
    Mark has an infinite duration and can not be removed by any abilities , and will persist thru death.

    Because mark gives Saurfang blood power it means that the speed at which he gains blood power throughout the fight increases exponentially as time goes on.

    One way to help negate some of the damage that saurfang does is to disarm or dismantle him whenever he has around 80 blood power. doing this will reduce tank damage but more importantly it will also reduce the damage anyone with mark will take.

    Also because all of the damage in this encounter is physical it is not a bad idea to have your mages buff the raid with amplify magic

    approximately every 30 seconds saurfang will spawn 5 blood beasts in a circle around him. each blood beast has approximately 91 thousand health. all blood beasts have a buff that reduces their AoE damage taken by 95% and disease damage taken by 70%. when ever a blood beast successfully lands a melee attack it will cause Saurfang to gain 1 blood power. for this reason the blood beasts are to be kited rather than tanked.

    Blood beasts are susceptible to all snares and stuns so ideally you want to have hunters make a path of frost traps so the they can be snared the whole time while being kited. moonkin druids are one one of the best classes to do the kiting because they have typhoon which can be used to push the blood beasts back and essentially reset the kite.

    when each pack of blood beasts spawns your moonkin should be channeling hurricane as they spawn so they can get initial agro. hunters should also use misdirect on the moonkin and use multi shot to help get agro on all of the adds. once all of the adds have cleared the melee ranged DPS should all focus down one add at a time. Melee who use an AoE ability in their normal rotation such as fury warriors and paladins need to be aware of the timers for when the next pack of blood beasts are going to spawn and make sure that their AoE doesn't hit the blood beasts when it spawns because it may cause you to get initial agro on them.

    Thank you for watching this movie. As always feel free to ask questions, or add suggestions either in the comments section on youtube, or in the thread dedicated to this guide on the tankspot.com. Also tankspot donors can download all of these movies directly from our servers. click the second link in the movie information box to learn more.

    Source: Lore (10-man)
    Welcome back to the Icecrown Citadel raid guide. I'm Lore and I'll be showing you the 10-Man Normal version of the Deathbringer Saurfang encounter.

    Deathbringer Saurfang has a unique energy system called Blood Power, which is visible on his unit frame in place of a mana bar. He gains 1% damage dealt for every 1 Blood Power he gains, and once he reaches 100, he uses a very powerful debuff called Mark of the Fallen Champion which I'll describe in more detail later. He gains 1 Blood Power every time one of his various abilities or one of his summoned Blood Beast pets deals damage. Thus, the key to the fight lies in controlling the amount of Blood Power he gains as much as possible.

    Notice how we have our raid spread out here. Our two healers are standing on either side of the walkway where the teleporter is located, and our ranged DPS is spread out in about 10 yard increments to the sides from there. This accomplishes two things. First, Saurfang has a targetted ability called Blood Nova which causes an AOE splash around a random raid member. By staying spread out, we can avoid having anyone be hit by the damage from this ability, thereby keeping Saurfang from gaining Blood Power from it.

    Secondly, with the healers positioned in a central location, the Blood Beasts should be drawn down the middle of the room when they spawn. From there, the ranged DPS will burn them down, while our melee stays on the boss. Blood Beasts are vulnerable to just about all slows, stuns, roots, and knockbacks, so we have a Hunter dropping a Frost Trap to slow them down and an Elemental Shaman using Thunderstorm if they happen to get too close. Of course, there are many other ways to deal with this depending on your group composition. Keep in mind however that if the Blood Beasts successfully reach anyone and hit them, Saurfang gains Blood Power, so it's best to avoid having melee DPS on them and they should absolutely not be tanked. Furthermore, tanks and melee DPS will need to be careful to avoid using multi-target abilities when the Blood Beasts first spawn to avoid catching initial aggro.

    Another ability you'll need to be aware of is Boiling Blood. This is a damage over time effect placed on a random raid member that deals a significant but perfectly healable amount of physical damage every 3 seconds for 24 seconds. More important than the damage it deals is the amount of Blood Power it gives. Each tick will give Saurfang 1 Blood Power, for a total of 8 Blood Power per use. This can and should be removed with immunity effects like Divine Shield or Ice Block, though he casts it frequently enough that he will be gaining Blood Power from it fairly consistently. If the rest of his abilities are being dealt with properly, however, this should be the vast majority of the Blood Power he gains over the course of the fight.

    The last ability you'll need to watch out for to limit his Blood Power gain is a debuff he places on the tank called Rune of Blood. This causes his melee attacks to proc an extra 6000 or so damage on that tank, and heal him for 5 times that amount. This counts as an ability dealing damage, so he gains 1 Blood Power per melee swing while he's hitting a tank with Rune of Blood active. There are two ways to deal with this ability. It's possible to use one tank, offsetting the healing by having another DPS in the party, and simply dealing with the extra Blood Power he gains. However, this can be risky, and isn't likely to work later on when the encounter's Heroic Mode becomes available. It's much safer to have two tanks taunting off of each other when Saurfang applies the debuff.

    By this point in the fight, Saurfang will most likely have collected a large amount of Blood Power and will be hitting fairly hard because of it. Remember that he deals 1% more damage for every Blood Power, so your tank healer will need to be aware of this increased damage.

    As I mentioned earlier, once Saurfang reaches 100 Blood Power, he casts a debuff called Mark of the Fallen Champion. This consumes all of his Blood Power, setting him back to 0 and causing him to lose the damage buff, but also makes every one of his melee attacks also deal around 5000 damage to the marked raid member. Not only does this count as dealing damage with an ability, thereby rewarding him with additional Blood Power, it also lasts for the rest of the fight, and cannot be removed by immunity effects. Even if the marked player dies and is resurrected, they will still be marked for the duration of the encounter. Furthermore, if the player does die, Saurfang immediately heals for 5% of his total health. It will simply have to be healed through. In the 10 man version, it's usually possible to limit him to only casting this once or twice even with relatively low DPS, but keep in mind that for each active mark, he will be gaining Blood Power much more rapidly, and thus be able to cast another one sooner. This is why it's so important to limit the amount of Blood Power he gains, as the extra damage will quickly overwhelm your healers if he is allowed to cast it too many times.

    Ultimately, with a good understanding of the fight's mechanics and strategy, Deathbringer Saurfang is simply a matter of execution. If everyone's doing what they're supposed to, he can be defeated somewhat easily. If not, well, things can go sour pretty quickly. If you'd like more information on this or any other encounter, including the 25-man version, just check the Project Marmot forums at Tankspot.com. If you're watching this on YouTube, just follow the link in the movie details. Thanks for watching, and good luck!

    (Information provided by http://www.tankspot.com)

    Icecrown Gunship Battle







    Source: Darksend (25-man)
    Welcome to the Tankspot Icecrown citadel Raid Guide. My name is Darksend and in this video I will show you our strategy for the Gunship Battle, The third encounter in the lower spire.

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    Depending on your faction, you will take control of one of the ships that normally float around icecrown that act as quest hubs. After taking the elevator up, horde you will go right and take control of Orgrim's Hammer and alliance you will go left and take control of The Skybreaker.

    Make sure everyone has a jet-pack equipped, even if they are not assigned to go over to the other ship, as it is a good idea to have a contingency in case someone who is going over dies. Once that is done you start the fight by talking to either Saurfang if you are horde and Bronzebeard if you are alliance.

    The goal of the encounter is to destroy the other ship through use of the guns located on the side of the ship. We assigned 4 ranged DPS to control the guns. The goal of the gunners is to build up "heat" using the normal cannon blast in order to maximize the secondary cannon blast, which converts all the heat into extra damage. The trick is to make sure you do not overheat your gun while still maximizing the secondary weapon. if you overheat you will render your gun useless for several seconds.

    Periodically, a Battle mage will spawn on the enemy ship and the guns will get frozen. When this happens the melee, one tank, and a healer or two jump over to the other ship and kill the mage. While over there the opposing leader gains a stacking buff which increases his damage done. If the tank starts getting into trouble simply have everyone jump back onto your own ship and the leaders buff will reset. Ideally, you want the leader to have 0 stacks when the gets get frozen so you can go over and break the channel immediately, as the guns are the only way to win the encounter.

    While this is happening, a portal will appear above your own ship and spawn several marines and 2 sergeants periodically. Skybreaker Sergeants do a wounding strike which reduces healing taken by 25%. They also have a bladestorm.

    After a while both the sergeants and the marines will gain a permanent stacking buff called experienced, this increases their damage by 30% and attack and casting speed by 20% per stack. They also periodically gain a buff called desperate resolve, which increases armor by 60% and attack speed by 60%, the buff lasts 30 seconds. These waves are killed by ranged classes with strong aoe abilities and aoed down by the melee when they are on your own ship letting the other leaders stack reset. If they are not tanked they will use an ability called burning pitch, this deals siege damage to your ship.the skybreaker does not have guns the same way orgrims hammer does, instead they have skybreaker rifleman. your ranged without strong aoe abilities should be lined up along the edge of your ship shooting across killing these rifleman. It should be noted however that if the adds coming out of the portal being to overwhelm the tank these ranged should switch and begin single targeting them down immediately.

    Finally, Throughout the entire fight the enemy will constantly be shooting rockets over, they are very easy to avoid as it takes several seconds for them to land after the graphic appears.

    It should be noted that this is the horde version of this fight, the names of the ships are reveresed as well as the names of the individual units will be different on the alliance side.

    Thanks for watching this movie! As always, feel free to ask questions or add suggestions either on YouTube or in the strategy thread on TankSpot.com.

    Source: Lore (10-man)
    Welcome back to the Icecrown Citadel raid guide. I'm Lore, and in this video I'll show you the 10-man Normal version of the Icecrown Gunship Battle.

    The Gunship Battle is a fairly easy encounter that's a lot of fun. First, before the encounter begins, make sure to get a jetpack from the NPC on the deck. This is equipped in your shirt slot, so make sure to equip it and put it someplace handy on your action bar. Not everyone needs to use the jetpacks normally, but it's not a bad idea to have them available just in case.

    You'll also need to designate two players to man the cannons, preferably players of DPS specs as the tanks and healers have other obligations. The cannons have two abilities. The first simply fires a cannonball, but also generates a small amount of heat, which is visible in the cannon's energy bar. The second ability unleashes all of this heat, dealing higher damage depending on how much heat was available. However, if the cannon reaches 100 heat, it will shut down momentarily and all of that heat will be lost. Therefore, the best strategy for your cannoneers to use is to build up heat until the cannon passes 90, and then fire the second ability.

    The object of the encounter is to use the cannons to shoot down the enemy ship. However, from time to time the enemy will call out a sorceror to freeze the cannons, which kicks anyone manning the cannons out and renders them unusable until the sorceror is killed. This is what the jetpacks are for. All of your DPS and one tank will need to use them to jump over to the other ship. The tank will need to pick up the enemy leader and hold onto him while the DPS kills the sorceror. The leader, who is Muradin Bronzebeard if you're a Horde player and High Warlord Saurfang if you're Alliance, will gain a stacking buff as they continue to attack that steadily increases the amount of damage they deal. Once the sorceror is killed, everyone should jump back to their own ship to let this buff reset.

    Note that if the tank holds the enemy leader near the close edge of the enemy ship, they can be reached by healers standing on edge of their own ship, so having healers jump over isn't really necessary.

    Meanwhile, as you've probably noticed already, enemy NPC's will be appearing through a portal on your ship. These need to be picked up, tanked, and killed by DPS when they're not working on killing a sorceror. Although they don't hit very hard at first, these NPCs become stronger the longer they're alive, so killing them is important.

    You've also probably noticed the targetting reticles that are appearing occasionally on the ship's deck. These indicate where a mortar, fired by an NPC on the other ship, is about to land. Obviously, getting hit by things is bad, so move out of these as they appear. You can kill the mortar teams on the far side of the enemy ship if you like to stop them from firing. However, this means more time spent tanking the enemy leader, which means he's dealing more damage to the tank, and more mortar teams will come out anyway. We found it easiest to simply ignore them and just avoid the mortars on our own ship, but the option is there should you find yourselves being overrun by mortars.

    There will also be a team of Riflemen, or Axe Throwers if you're Alliance, firing at players on your ship. The damage is easily healed through, but like the rest of the enemy NPC's, they will become stronger the longer they're alive. Fortunately, they take damage from cannon fire, so as long as your cannons are firing at an angle that will also hit the Riflemen, they shouldn't be alive for long.

    It's important to remember that as long as the enemy leader is attacking, he will continue to stack up his damage buff. Who or what he's attacking is ultimately unimportant. He also has a ranged attack that can reach to the other ship if a player is standing too close to the edge. Therefore, be very careful about using things like totems or temporary pets when on the other ship. Totems especially can keep the enemy leader in combat for quite some time, so if you're going to drop them while you're over there, be sure to recall them when you leave. Also, make sure once you're back on your own boat that everyone moves away from the edge to make sure the enemy leader resets.

    Once you've got the basic rhythm of the fight down, it's really very simple. DPS alternates between killing enemies on your ship and sorcerors on the other. The two cannoneers simply fire at the enemy riflemen until the sorceror comes out, jump over to help kill it, then get back into their cannon. One tank stays on your ship to keep the enemy NPC's under control, while the other jumps over to tank the enemy leader when needed. Aside from that, just stay away from the mortars, and you should have no problems with this encounter.

    Thanks for watching this video. As always, if you'd like more information on this or any other encounter, including the 25-man version, just check the Project Marmot forums at Tankspot.com. If you're watching this on YouTube, just follow the link in the movie details. Good luck!

    (Information provided by http://tankspot.com)

    Icecrown Lady Deathwhisper





    Source: Lore (25-man)
    Hi, I'm Lore from Tankspot, and welcome to the 25-Man Normal video guide for the Lady Deathwhisper encounter.

    Lady Deathwhisper is fought in two phases, of which the first is by far the most complex. She'll shield herself with a mana barrier that causes any damage she takes to drain her mana instead. In order to get to phase 2, you'll need to empty out her entire mana pool. Deathwhisper herself has no aggro table during this phase, and will stand still chaincasting Shadow Bolts at random raid members, along with a handful of other abilities I'll cover shortly. Meanwhile, waves of adds will be spawning from the edges of the room -- 3 from each side, and 1 from the stairs at the entrance.

    Two types of adds can spawn: Cult Fanatics and Cult Adherents. Cult Fanatics are fairly straightforward melee attackers, although they do have a very powerful cleave that will need to be avoided by melee DPS. Adherents are casters who will spend most of their time casting some fairly inconsequential DPS abilities. However, they do have a very dangerous Curse called Curse of Torpor that increases ability cooldowns by 15 seconds. This should be dispelled immediately.

    The key to this phase is putting just enough DPS on the adds to kill them before another wave spawns, and letting the rest of your DPS focus on killing the boss. Ideally, you should have melee DPS split between the two sides, with one tank for each group, and a third tank picking up the single add that spawns from the entryway. Although the type of add that spawns from the entrance appears to be random, the two side groups are always the same. As you're facing the boss, the group on the left will always be two Fanatics and one Adherent, and the group on the right will always be two Adherents and one Fanatic. The Adherents should be quickly burned down by melee DPS while the tank focuses on picking up the Fanatics. Once all three adds on a side have been killed, melee should run over to kill the entryway add.

    Meanwhile, your ranged and caster DPS will be focusing on the boss while also dealing with the rest of Deathwhisper's abilities. She'll be dropping large green Death and Decays on the ground from time to time -- move out of them. She'll also occasionally mind control a single raid member, who will need to be crowd controlled quickly.

    The final tricks up Deathwhisper's sleeves, at least for phase 1, come in the form of spells she casts on her Cultist minions. Deathwhisper can empower a cultist, granting it a couple extra abilities. Empowered Adherents can cast a magic shield and a dangerous AOE, while empowered Fanatics will deal increased damage and heal for 300% of the damage they deal. These are somewhat dangerous, but it appears that they can be purged or possibly even spellstolen. She can also resurrect fallen cultists as Skeletal Adherents or Skeletal Fanatics. Skeletal Adherents have a 99% reduction to magical damage taken, and should simply be picked up and killed by the melee DPS. Skeletal Fanatics, however, have a 99% reduction to physical damage, so the casters will need to swap off of the boss temporarily and burn these down when they appear.

    Phase 1 can take a while to get through, but if you can keep everything under control, it's fairly simple. Melee kills the adds, ranged kills the boss. Healers will need to be on their toes as damage has a tendency to come fairly quickly without warning on random raid members. Crowd control will need to be fast as well.

    Once Deathwhisper's mana has finally been depleted, her mana shield is destroyed and phase 2 begins. Adds will no longer spawn, so it's best to try to time this to happen just after a wave has been killed. At the very least, make sure a tank is available to pick her up once the shield drops.

    Deathwhisper gains a few abilities during Phase 2. The first is a single target Frostbolt that she casts on the tank. This hits for around 50k and cannot be resisted, so you'll need to set up an interrupt rotation to make sure none get through. She also casts an AOE Frostbolt Volley that appears to be unavoidable and simply needs to be healed through. Probably the most dangerous ability gained in Phase 2 however is her Vengeful Spirits. She'll spawn a large number of these around the room, which will move to nearby raid members and explode for a very large amount of damage. These are unfortunately very small and somewhat hard to see, especially in the melee, so be watching carefully for them. Of course, she'll still be casting Death and Decay and mind controlling raid members during this phase, so be sure to keep moving out of green circles and crowd controlling.

    Her last ability is called Touch of Insignificance. It's a debuff that reduces threat caused by 20% per stack, with up to 5 stacks. She casts this on the tank, so your tanks will need to taunt off of each other every so often to keep from having threat issues.

    Ultimately, the key to Lady Deathwhisper is getting Phase 1 under control and getting through it cleanly for the transition into Phase 2. Once you've got that down, the hardest part is just keeping an eye out for the tiny blue ghosts that are coming to kill you. After all, you don't want to be the guy who dies at 12% and then uploads the video to YouTube.

    If you'd like more information on this or any other encounter, check the Project Marmot forums at TankSpot.com. If you're watching this on YouTube, just follow the link in the movie details. Thanks for watching, and good luck!


    Source: Aliena (10-man)

    Hello and welcome to the TankSpot Icecrown Citadel Raid Guide! My name is Aliena and in this video I'll cover everything you need to know about the normal mode 10-man version of the Lady Deathwhisper encounter.

    This is a 2-phase encounter slightly reminiscent of the Kel'Thuzad fight in Naxxramas. In the first phase, Lady Deathwhisper is surrounded by a Mana Shield that prevents her from taking any damage whatsoever until her mana reaches 0, at which point phase 2 is triggered. In the 10 man version, Deathwhisper has 3.3 million mana, which means you need to deal the equivalent of 3.3 million damage to her to break her shield. Two tanks are recommended for this encounter and 2-3 healers as well as a mix of ranged and melee DPS.

    In this phase, she will attack the raid with shadowbolts that deal about 8000 damage and will also cast green clouds of Death and Decay that deal 4500 shadow damage per second and last for 10. What makes this phase challenging however are the waves of adds she spawns. There are two types of adds, Cult Adherents and Cult Fanatics. Adherents are a caster type that deal shadowfrost damage, have a magic shield and randomly cast an ability called Curse of Torpor that increases the target's ability cooldowns by 15 seconds and hence should preferably be handled by melee. Fanatics are a melee type that deal physical damage and cleave.

    Both add types have an ability called Dark Transformation which make them deal 100% more damage, and both can also be empowered by Lady Deathwhisper, granting them new abilities, most notably turning their damaging abilities into AoE abilities and preventing them from being interrupted. This appears to be dispel- and purgeable and should be handled quickly.

    Every once in a while, Deathwhisper will revive a fallen add and turn them into reanimated adherents or fanatics. Reanimated adherents are 99% immune to magical damage and reanimated fanatics are 99% immune to physical damage, so they need to be handled by melee and ranged dps as appropriate. Reanimated fanatics have a self-buff called Vampiric Might that increases their damage dealt by 25% and also heals them for 300% of the damage they deal, so they should preferably be kited.

    To handle this phase, have your tank and melee DPS take care of the adds. They will alternately spawn on the left and right side in sets of three, so make sure your tank is always ready to pick up a new set. The left side will always spawn two fanatics and one adherent and the right side will always spawn two adherents and one fanatic. Should a reanimated adherent pop up, have your casters handle it. Most times however caster DPS should be available to damage Deathwhisper herself to deplete her mana shield. Making sure you keep up with adds while continuously draining Deathwhisper's mana is the whole trick to phase 1.

    In her 10-man version, she does not mind control players like she does in the 25-man, so the only real dangers you face is Deathwhisper's Empowerment ability and not being able to keep up with add spawns. Once you figure out a good distribution of DPS though, you shouldn't have any trouble of depleting Deathwhisper's mana and triggering phase 2.

    Lady Deathwhisper will break free and actively attack your raid. Similar to Kel'thuzad, her main attacks are Frost Spells - a single target Frostbolt that, unresisted, hits for around 40000 damage but can and should be interrupted and an AoE Frostbolt Volley that hits your entire raid for about 10000 damage. She also gains an ability called Touch of Insignificance which is cast on the main threat target and reduces its threat gain by 20% per application. This stacks up to 5 times and, without an off-tank, will result in your tank's absolute loss of threat generation. Kinda like what you see happening in this video. Waiting until your offtank reconnects from his internet failure is definitely recommended.

    She will also frequently summon Vengeful Shades in this phase that act much like the ghosts in Sethekk Halls in that they will follow a player, except when they reach said player they will die in a 15-yard AoE explosion that deals around 18000 damage. Make sure to watch out for them and move away from them if you're anywhere near one. They disappear by themselves after a few seconds but are highly dangerous when they reach a raid member before then.

    Deathwhisper will still cast Death and Decay, so make sure not to stand in bad stuff on the ground. Groundbreaking thought, I know. Other than that, phase 2 is much like KT's phase two if you exchange void zones with death and decay and large beetles with small blue ghosts that everybody has to look out for.

    This covers the 10-man Deathwhisper encounter! Thank you for watching this movie. As always, feel free to ask questions or add suggestions either on YouTube or in the strategy thread on TankSpot.com. Also, TankSpot Donors can download all of these movies in High Definition directly from our servers -- so if you'd like to learn more about that, just click the second link in the movie information box!

    (Information provided by http://www.tankspot.com)

    Icecrown Lord Marrowgar






    Source: Kanzer (25-man)

    Welcome to the Icecrown Citadel raid guide, my name is Kanzer. In this video I will be going over our 25 man strategy for Lord Marrowgar, the first encounter in Icecrown Citadel.

    If you'd like more information or would like to learn more about downloading this movie, click "more info" on the movie information box on YouTube to head directly to TankSpot! Also, be sure to subscribe by clicking the Subscribe button to the right so you will be automatically notified as we release movies.

    Lord Marrowgar serves his purpose well as an introductory boss into Icecrown Citadel, and is pretty straight forward and requires simple coordination from everyone in order to down him. For this fight we used 3 tanks, and 7 healers.

    Lord Marrowgar will need to be tanked in the middle of the room about where he stands, and the raid needs to spread out evenly all around him, but not enough they they are out of range of healers. Healers should spread themselves out accordingly to reach everyone and not all be clumped up in one spot. Melee should take advantage of the bosses huge hit box and spread themselves out in a semi circle behind the boss to avoid multiple people getting hit by flames.

    There are three distinct abilities to keep in mind during this phase.

    First off, Lord Marrowgar does an attack called Saber Lash, this does 300% of his normal melee attack damage and spreads it between the tank, and the 2 closest people to him and prevents them from being impaled by Bone Spike Graveyard. This is the reason for having three tanks, as you don't want a single tank taking the full on attack, nor a dps taking any part of this attack. For this reason, all of the tanks should stand within five yards of eachother, and should do their best to stay that way throughout the fight's entirety.

    The second ability to be aware of is called Cold Flame, Marrowgar will occasionally spit out lines of fire that target a particular player, and move in a straight line toward that player until gone. While in the fire a player will take 7000 frost damage every second for three seconds. This is very simple to avoid as all you need to do is side step out of the way and let it go by you. Melee should pay particular attention to this as they can find a fire right on top of them at any given time. Despite being flames, they do frost damage so it is a good idea to run frost protection aura or a totem.

    Finally, Lord Marrowgar performs an attack called Bone Spike graveyard. What this does is impales three random raid members and traps them into one of these graveyards. These graveyards deal 10% health per sec in damage, as well as immobilizes whoever gets hit, so they need to be broken out of it immediately before a flame overwhelms them or they die from the tick in general. Its not fun having to heal someone getting hit by both. Range DPS should be divided into two groups on the left and right side of the boss, and their priority is to break people out of the graveyards before resuming DPS on the boss, starting from the outside in. Melee should assist with any that appear near them, otherwise just keep DPSing Marrowgar.

    Eventually you will get an emote that says "Lord Marrowgar falls apart and his bones begin to spin!" this signals Marrowgar is about to go into a whirlwind which is phase 2. DPS should continue as normal. When Marrowgar goes into his whirlwind he will begin targetting random people and moving very fast back and forth between them. The whirlwind itself does an insignificant amount of damage and can easily be healed through, however while he is doing this he will shoot out cold flames at four different angles at an accelerated rate, so it is important that everyone is paying attention and moving to avoid these fires. The whirlwind last for 30 seconds and the tanks need to be right there when he wears off to pick him up, because his aggro will reset once its finished. DPS should allow the tank a couple of seconds to restablish aggro and position before resuming DPS.

    Once the whirlwind is done, he goes back to normal and its simple rinse and repeat until hes a pile of bones at your feet.

    All in all, this is a simple encounter that requires basic movement, positioning, and proper placement to get through. As long as everyone performs as they should, you shouldn't have much trouble.

    Thanks for watching this movie! As always, feel free to ask questions or add suggestions either on YouTube or in the strategy thread on TankSpot.com. Also, TankSpot Donors can download all of these movies in High Definition directly from our servers -- click the second link in the movie information box to learn more!


    Source: Kanzer (10-man)

    Welcome to the Icecrown Citadel raid guide, my name is Kanzer. In this video I will be going over our 10 man strategy for Lord Marrowgar, the first encounter in Icecrown Citadel.

    If you'd like more information or would like to learn more about downloading this movie, click "more info" on the movie information box on YouTube to head directly to TankSpot! Also, be sure to subscribe by clicking the Subscribe button to the right so you will be automatically notified as we release movies.

    For this encounter you should have at least two tanks, and two healers.

    Lord Marrowgar is best described as an introductory boss into Icecrown Citadel, and requires basic movement, coordination and placement in order to down him.

    Lord Marrowgar will need to be tanked in the middle of the room about where he stands, and the raid should spread out evenly behind and to the sides of him to all be in range of eachother for healing and bone spikes when they happen. Melee DPS should take advantage of his huge hit box and spread themselves out in a half circle directly behind the boss. It is possible for Melee DPS and healers to stand far within his hitbox to avoid getting hit by the flames altogether, however this runs the risk of them getting Saber Lashed instead of the tanks and so it is not advisable, as dodging the flames is very simple and doesn't leave possible insta gibs to chance. If your raid is having much trouble dodging the flames however, it is something you can try. Range should avoid standing infront of Marrowgar even at a distance, as this also seems to put you at risk of getting hit by Saber Lash.

    There are three distinct abilities to keep in mind during this phase.

    First off, Lord Marrowgar does an attack called Saber Lash, this does 200% of his normal melee attack damage and spreads it between the tank, and the closest ally to him and prevents them from being impaled by Bone Spike Graveyard. This is the reason for having two tanks, as you don't want a single tank taking the full attack, nor a random dps getting hit by this at all. For this reason, both tanks should stand within five yards of eachother infront of the boss, and should do their best to stay that way throughout the entire fight's duration.

    The second ability to be aware of is called Cold Flame, Marrowgar will occasionally spit out lines of fire that target a particular player, and move in a straight line toward them until gone. While in the fire a player will take 6000 frost damage every second for three seconds. This is very simple to avoid as all you need to do is side step out of the way and let it go by you. Melee should pay particular attention to this as they can find a fire right on top of them at any given time. Despite being flames, they do frost damage so it is a good idea to run frost protection aura or a totem.

    Finally, Lord Marrowgar performs an attack called Bone Spike graveyard. What this does is impales a random raid member and traps them into one of these graveyards. These graveyards deal 10% health per sec in damage, as well as immobilize whoever gets hit, so they need to be broken out of it immediately before a flame overwhelms them or they die from the tick in general. Range DPS should be divided between the left, right, and center behind the boss, and their priority is to break people out of the graveyards before resuming DPS on the boss. Melee should assist with any that appear near them, or if your range is having trouble breaking people out on their own, Melee should assist with all of them.

    Eventually you will get an emote that says "Lord Marrowgar creates a whirling storm of bone" this signals Marrowgar is about to go into a whirlwind which is phase 2. DPS should continue as normal. When Marrowgar goes into his whirlwind he will begin targetting random people and moving very fast back and forth between them. The whirlwind itself does an insignificant amount of damage and can easily be healed through, however while he is doing this he will shoot out cold flames at four different angles at an accelerated rate, so it is important that everyone is paying attention and moving to avoid these fires. The whirlwind last for 30 seconds and the tanks need to be right there when he wears off to pick him up, because his aggro will reset once its finished. DPS should allow the tank a couple of seconds to restablish aggro and position before resuming DPS.

    Once the whirlwind is done, he goes back to normal and phase 1 begins again. From this point on its just rinse and repeat until he is dead.

    All in all, this is a simple encounter that requires basic movement, positioning, and proper placement to get through. As long as everyone dodges fires, breaks people out of Bone Spike Graveyards, and performs as they should, you shouldn't have much trouble.

    Thanks for watching this movie! As always, feel free to ask questions or add suggestions either on YouTube or in the strategy thread on TankSpot.com. Also, TankSpot Donors can download all of these movies in High Definition directly from our servers -- click the second link in the movie information box to learn more!

    (Information provided by http://www.tankspot.com)

    ToC - Anub'arak



    Source: Lore
    Hi, this is Lore from TankSpot and welcome back to the Trial of the Crusader raid guide. This video will be discussing our strategy for Anub'arak, the final boss of the Crusader's Coliseum raid instance.

    The Anub'arak encounter is split into three phases. Phase one begins at the pull with Anub'arak on the surface. A few seconds in, he'll spawn two crypt fiend adds, which should each have their own designated tank. These don't do too much damage on their own, but when in close proximity to another crypt fiend they gain a buff that significantly increases their damage output. However, they don't have a terribly large health pool, so we simply had ranged DPS split off temporarily to burn them down while melee stayed on the boss. He'll spawn two waves of these for every surface phase, so they do need to be killed fairly quickly or you risk your tanks getting overwhelmed.

    Notice the blue patches appearing on the ground. This is Permafrost, one of the most important mechanics for phase 1 and 2. It's created by killing the blue orbs floating above. In phase 1, the crypt fiend adds will occasionally try to burrow underground. If they're successful, they'll resurface shortly afterward, usually in line with either the next wave of adds or the beginning of phase 2. However, if a crypt fiend attempting to burrow is standing on a patch of permafrost, the ability will fail, so they need to be kept on top of Permafrost as much as possible. The blue orbs only have 9000 health, so they can and should be brought down quickly and regularly. Note that the Permafrost also slows your movement speed by 80%, but we didn't find that to be particularly troublesome.

    About a minute and a half into the fight, Anub'arak will burrow underground and begin phase 2. He'll start chasing random raid members around underground and shooting spikes up through the floor as he moves. These deal about 3000 damage and knock anyone hit up into the air a short distance. On top of that, if he reaches his target, he'll impale them for around 20,000 damage and knock them very high in the air -- enough to take a good chunk of fall damage. However, if he attempts to launch his spikes through Permafrost, he'll be stunned momentarily and pick a new target. This also destroys the patch of Permafrost, so it's important to keep killing those somewhat regularly during Phase 2.

    As he's chasing people around, several nonelite scarabs will spawn around the room. These have a little over 100,000 health and, although they don't do very much melee damage, they can apply a fairly potent damage over time effect. This effect stacks, so it's best to just have your DPS burn them down as they spawn and not worry too much about tanking them.

    After about a minute, he'll resurface and begin phase 1 again. He doesn't reset aggro, so he should go right back to the main tank at this point. However, both the tank and the raid will need to be mindful of how the boss is positioned, as Anub'arak has a powerful frontal cone AOE attack that deals a heavy amount of damage to anyone caught in front of him. Not only does the tank need to point him away from the raid quickly, but the rest of the raid needs to be sure to move out from in front of him as well.

    The majority of the fight is spent alternating between the surface and burrow phases. Making the most of the time he spends on the surface is crucial, as you'll only be able to go through 3 or 4 rotations before you risk running into his 10 minute enrage timer. To help maximize the amount of time spent DPS'ing Anub'arak, you can offtank one or both crypt fiends from the second wave and wait to finish them off until the boss submerges. If you do need to have melee DPS help out on the first wave of adds, at the very least you'll want to let classes with long ramp-up times on their DPS rotations (such as Feral Druids or Retribution Paladins) stay on the boss full time.

    It's important to note that Anub'arak hits very hard -- around 20 to 25 thousand damage on a decently-geared main tank. On top of that, while he's on the surface he can hit up to three random raid members with an 18-second damage over time effect called Penetrating Cold. On the 25-man normal mode, this does 3,500 Frost damage every 3 seconds for the duration. This is, of course, in addition to the damage that the two offtanks will be taking from the crypt fiends, so healers will need to stay on their toes during the surface phases. Fortunately, healing is much lighter once Anub'arak is underground, so you can and should use that time to regen as much as possible; you'll need your mana for phase 3.

    Also note that some early guides have mentioned that you could avoid the burrow phase entirely by keeping Anub'arak on top of large patches of Permafrost. Although this was possible on the public test realms, Anub'arak can burrow through it on live servers. However, the burrow phases are much more relaxed than they were during public testing, so going through phase 2 isn't as big of a deal and, as I mentioned, provides some valuable regen time.

    You may have also noticed that I'm spending a large amount of time on top of the permafrost during the burrow phases in this video. This is because we were unsure of the mechanics of his Impale ability and were acting under the impression that it could be used randomly at any time on anyone who wasn't standing on Permafrost. Since he'll only try to use that ability if he reaches the player he's chasing, this is unnecessary and just means I'm running around a lot slower than I need to be.

    Once Anub'arak reaches 30% health, he'll begin phase 3 by activating an ability called Leeching Swarm. This is a zone-wide aura that causes each player to take damage equal to 10% of their current health every second. You'll need very strong AOE healing to keep everyone alive here, but it's important to recognize that the amount of damage taken depends on how much health a player currently has and NOT the size of their health pool -- the less health you have, the less health you take. You may be able to tell from my raid frames in the upper left corner that the healers aren't topping everyone off; they're just keeping everyone but the main tank at about 50%. By doing so, they actually reduce the amount of damage the raid is taking and keep themselves from being overwhelmed.

    Once phase 3 has begun, Anub'arak will no longer burrow underground and no more adds will spawn. The fight becomes a DPS and survival race at this point; you need to kill him before your healers run out of mana. Like with the phase 2 transitions, you can temporarily ignore crypt fiends to push him into phase 3, but they should be killed off immediately afterward to lighten the load on the healers. Once everyone's attention is on the boss, use any available cooldowns including Bloodlust or Heroism to bring him down quickly.

    Although the fight is relatively simple, Anub'arak is a fair step up in difficulty from the previous bosses in the instance and makes a pretty good lead-in to the much harder Heroic mode bosses. As always, you can find more information on Anub'arak or any other encounter by visiting the Project Marmot forums at Tankspot.com. If you're watching this on youtube, just follow the link in the movie details. Thanks for watching, and good luck!

    (Information provided by http://www.tankspot.com)

    ToC - Twin Valkyrs





    Source: Lore (25-man)

    Hi, I'm Lore from Tankspot, and welcome back to the Trial of the Crusader raid guide. In this video I'll be discussing the Twin Val'kyr, the fourth encounter available in the Coliseum raid instance.

    Before the pull, you should separate out your DPS into two roughly equal groups, preferably with a mix of melee and ranged classes in each. One group will be assigned primarily to Edyis Darkbane, and the other to Fjola Lightbane. Once the fight begins, four portals will spawn around the room -- two light, and two dark. Using these portals will give you a buff called either Light or Dark Essence which does two things: absorbs all damage of the same type, and increases your damage done to the Val'kyr of the opposite type. So, at the start of the fight, everyone should click the portal of the opposite type of the Val'kyr they're assigned to -- light portal for Darkbane, and dark portal for Lightbane. Healers should click a portal at the start as well, but the color doesn't really matter.

    Periodically throughout the fight, several small Light and Dark orbs will appear at the edges of the room and begin to float around. These will explode when touched, and deal a moderate amount of the appropriate damage type in a short radius. This damage can be absorbed by players with the same essence as the orbs, so when they spawn, everyone should quickly absorb any nearby same-color orbs. Aside from keeping those orbs from hitting other players, any time Light or Dark damage is absorbed by your essence, you'll recieve a stacking debuff called Powering Up. Once Powering Up reaches 100 stacks, you'll get a short term buff that gives you 100% increased damage to the opposite type.

    About every 45 seconds, one of the two Val'kyr will use one of two random special abilities, one of which is Twin's Pact. This is a very powerful heal that will restore a very large amount of HP to both val'kyr if successfully cast. It needs to be interrupted quickly, but in order to do that you'll have to break through a damage shield that the twin casting the spell will put up beforehand. All ranged DPS who isn't currently attacking that twin should change their essence and switch targets until the shield is broken. Once the shield is down and the heal is interrupted, they can move back to their assigned target.

    The second special ability will be either a Light or Dark vortex, depending on which twin is casting it. This is a raid-wide AOE that deals several pulses of the appropriate damage type. Everyone who is currently using the opposite essence will need to change quickly to absorb the damage. Note that this will increase your Powering Up stacks, so DPS who are close to hitting 100 stacks and need to change essense may want to consider moving over to the other twin temporarily. Otherwise, just change back when the AOE finishes.

    Note that the twins have a shared health pool. Any damage done to one will be taken by both. The reason we spread the raid out between light and dark essence isn't specifically to split DPS, but to make sure there's enough of each to absorb all the orbs that come out, and keep from having the entire raid switching essence at the same time for a Vortex or Twin's Pact.

    It's also important to note that the twins can absorb orbs and will gain the damage buff if they absorb enough of them. This is why we have the raid relatively spread around the room -- to make sure all of the orbs get picked up before they get to one of the Val'kyr.

    In this kill, we have the twins positioned roughly evenly between the two portals on either side. If you prefer, you can tank them near a portal of the same color. This will make it easy for melee and tanks to change colors quickly if needed, but they'll have a longer run to get to the other portal and change back. We found it simpler to keep them in a more central location. Ultimately, the positioning doesn't matter as much as simply understanding the mechanics of the encounter and how to deal with them. Once you've got it all figured out, it's just a matter of execution.

    It's also worth mentioning that the Light and Dark damage is affected by resistances. Dark abilities deal Shadow damage, and Light abilities deal Fire damage. Most of the Dark and Light damage should be getting absorbed by players using the proper essences, but accidents can happen, and Shadow or Fire resistance buffs and auras can help create a little extra margin for error.

    Thanks for watching this video. As always, if you'd like more information on this or any other encounter, check the Project Marmot forums at Tankspot.com. If you're watching this on YouTube, just follow the link in the movie details. Good luck!

    Source: Lore (10-man)
    Hi, this is Lore from Tankspot, and welcome back to the Trial of the Crusader raid guide. This video will be discussing our strategy for the 10-man Normal version of the Twin Valk'yrs encounter.

    The key to the Twin Valk'yrs encounter lies in the effective use of Light and Dark Essence. You can acquire an essence of a particular color by clicking on one of the portals which will spawn around the room shortly before the fight begins. While affected by Light Essence, you will deal extra damage to the Dark Valk'yr, Eydis Darkbane, and absorb all Light-based damage in the encounter. Likewise, when you have Dark Essence, you'll deal extra damage to Fiola Lightbane and absorb all Dark-based damage.

    Absorbing damage is critical to your success, as not only does it make the job much easier for healers, but every absorbed hit will contribute to a stacking debuff called Powering Up. Once Powering Up reaches 100 stacks, you'll get a short term damage buff called either Empowered Light or Empowered Darkness depending on which essence you currently have active.

    Periodically, several orbs of light or dark energy will appear at the edges of the room and begin to float around in random directions. When touched, these will explode for a fair amount of AOE damage. Players need to touch the orbs of the same color as their essence, and carefully avoid orbs of the opposite color. This is one of the primary ways for DPS to stack Powering Up, so ideally healers should be the opposite color of the group they're healing in order to avoid stealing orbs from DPS.

    Roughly every 60 seconds, one of the twins will begin to cast one of two special abilities: Twin's Pact or Vortex. When Vortex is chosen, everyone in the raid needs to immediately switch to that twin's color if they aren't already, as the twin will begin to channel a high damage non-interruptable AOE that hits the entire raid. Both twins should be tanked near the opposite color portal in order to let everyone switch quickly. Keep in mind that when your essence changes, your damage buff will change to the opposite twin. Ranged DPS especially should switch targets during Vortex. Keep an eye on your Powering Up stacks as well -- if you're close to 100, you'll want to make the most of your incoming Empowered Light or Darkness buff.

    When Twin's Pact is chosen, the twin casting it will shield herself and begin channeling a massive heal. All DPS needs to focus on that twin quickly, changing essence if necessary, in order to break the shield and expose the caster to interrupts such as Kick or Pummel. Healers and tanks don't need to change essence for Twin's Pact, and once it's been interrupted, any DPS that had to swap can switch back to their original essence.

    Note that the twins share a health pool -- any damage dealt to one will be taken by the other as well. If you wanted, you could just have all the DPS use the same essence and focus entirely on one twin. However, it's best to split DPS somewhat evenly, for two reasons. First, it allows you to have DPS collecting both color orbs, which means faster Powering Up stacks. It also means you'll always have at least some DPS started already when Twin's Pact is cast, and you don't have to risk a heal getting off because the entire raid didn't swap targets fast enough.

    The Twin Valk'yr encounter uses a very unique mechanic that can be somewhat confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it this is ultimately a very simple encounter. Just remember - Only touch orbs of the same color as your essence, make sure you're hitting the twin of the opposite color of your essence, and watch carefully for the cues to switch essences. If you'd like to know more information on the Twin Valk'yrs or any other encounter, check the Project Marmot forums at TankSpot.com. If you're watching this on YouTube, just follow the link in the movie details. Thanks for watching, and good luck!

    (Information provided by http://www.tankspot.com)
     

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