icecrown-citadel-raid
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Ra-den encounter features a return of limited attempts
The Throne of Thunder has been compared to Ulduar in more ways than one -- the size and scope of the dungeon, the multitude of boss encounters, and even the thematic elements of the dungeon itself. But it looks like there is one more comparison to add to the pile. Ra-den, the bonus boss unlocked only upon defeating Lei-Shen on heroic mode, has a mechanic to limit the number of times he can be engaged in any given week. Those that remember Algalon remember the one hour limit on attempting the boss. One careless pull, one wipe, one disconnect could potentially ruin a guild's chances for downing the boss in a lockout period. But Ra-den isn't limited by a time clock; instead, he's simply limited by the number of attempts a guild can make. Screenshots have shown that number to be 30, however keep in mind that the number of attempts, and even the limited nature of the encounter, can be changed at any time. Patch 5.2 is still on the PTR, after all. Blue poster and Game Designer Watcher had some words of wisdom to share following the unplanned discovery of Ra-den's limited attempts on the PTR.
"The Raid" movie documentary examines WoW raiding
If there's anything I've learned over the years as a gamer, it's to approach films and TV shows about games or gaming with extreme caution. Be it cinematic game-to-film monstrosities like the Street Fighter movie or sensationalist "documentary" garbage like the fifth estate's Top Gun, there always seems to be a disconnect between the people operating the camera and the subjects they're trying to portray. World of Warcraft in particular has received plenty of positive and negative attention, but in recent years, there has been an increasing movement among geeky creatives to try their hand at explaining the game and the phenomenon of its popularity through all sorts of projects. The Raid is one of those projects. The Raid is a short, 20-minute documentary that sets out to understand not World of Warcraft itself but raiding in the game. What raiding is, how it's different than in other single- or multi-player games, and what makes it so compelling are all touched on by the documentary. Some of the topics might seem rudimentary to actual raiders, but that's because the target audience of the film isn't raiders but rather their friends, family, and any other outsiders who struggle to understand what it is that we're doing within the game. That doesn't mean actual players won't have a reason to watch the documentary, though; raiders will easily be able to connect with the narrative of the film and the players featured in it.
Shifting Perspectives: Heroic ICC for balance druids -- Plagueworks and Frostwing Halls
Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week, we are exploring two of the four wings in Heroic ICC. Be prepared to face some of the most challenging content the game has to offer, folks -- it only gets real from here on out. Here we are -- it's another week and another great time at the office. Well, the office is merely an internet myth, but my room is comfortable enough as is; it even has a sweet "Life's a Beach" coffee mug and everything. Last week, we talked about the first two wings of heroic ICC, the Lower Spire and the Crimson Hall; this week, we'll continue with the next two wings. Unfortunately, I won't be able to cover heroic Lich King since, well, I haven't yet been able to complete the encounter, and I think it would be remiss of me to try and give out information on an encounter that I'm still working on. If you have any questions on the Lich King encounter, I'd be more than happy to talk shop about it, so just send an email or leave a comment and we can get to it; otherwise, it won't be something that's likely to appear in this article. Last week, I forgot to issue a fair warning, and for that I do apologize. Everything that I discuss here is my opinion based upon how my guild has completed these encounters and the things that I have experienced while doing them. There are multiple ways to complete every encounter, and your guild may have a completely different strategy depending on group composition that works for you. This doesn't make either you or me any less wrong, just different. That's the beautiful thing about WoW; even in the rigid isolation of PvE encounters, there are always multiple methods to deal with every encounter or boss ability depending on the resources that a guild has available to them. I cannot promise that the methods I describe will work for your guild, but I will try and offer as many different options as I possible can and allow you to make the best choice for yourself.
Icecrown raid buff now at 30%
Good news, everyone! Your faction specific Icecrown Citadel buff is now 30%, meaning things just got a little more lenient in ICC. Now's your chance to capitalize on the content in there to get alts ready for Cataclysm, finish off those drakes you've been lusting after, or just proudly wear that Kingslayer title.
Totem Talk: Cooldown management in ICC part 2
Rich Maloy lives and loves enhancement. Enhance is his main spec, his off spec, and his off-off spec. The other trees are there purely for his amusement. Whatever your shaman's spec, get your questions ready for the Totem Recall shaman roundtable on Raid Warning coming July 13. Send your questions in now to be answered by the top shaman from around Azeroth. Last week we covered the Lower Spire of ICC and how enhancement shaman (or any damage-dealing class, for that matter) can maximize their cooldown usage. This week we'll use the 25% buff and power-clear the rest of the instance. Rotface Regular and Heroic Another fight where Heroism off the start is the best way to go. The oozes come out faster the lower his health gets, so my theory is to get as much damage on target early on. At the end, things are hectic and too much damage is lost as too many people are running around or dead. You can pre-pot here to have another Potion of Speed available to use later on in combat. An early Hero makes cooldown management easy; use at the beginning and then again at every opportunity.
The Daily Quest: Summertime and the raiding is easy
Here at WoW.com, we're on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment and you may see it here tomorrow! Take a look at the links below, and be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites. Well, summertime raiding may not be easy, however it'll definitely get easier as the buff from Icecrown Citadel slowly inches its way up to the 30% mark -- but I'm a sucker for a Gershwin reference. While some will invariably be outside living it up in the sunshine, others like myself will be avoiding the evil daystar at all costs in an effort to remain blister-free from its threatening rays. Seriously, I turn a shade of red eerily reminiscent of the sparkling pony pictured above. What's left for us sun-sensitive people to do? Why raid, of course -- and there are plenty of blogs that have something to say about raiding: Bible of Dreams would like to politely remind everyone that when your raid leader says everyone, this means YOU. World of Warcraft Philosophized has some raiding advice for people who raid infrequently. Addicted to WoW posted an interesting piece on WoW raiding and motor learning. Blessing of Fish gives us a short guide to raiding standards. The Healz Squad has some advice on how to be a good raider. Tree of Life hands out some raid detention slips.
Icecrown Citadel raid buff to 20%
The Icecrown Citadel raid buffs, Hellscream's Warsong and Strength of Wrynn, just went from 15% to 20% with today's maintenance. As always, this means a bunch of raid groups will be able to progress a lot farther in Icecrown Citadel, and we're two thirds of the way to the final 30%. Assuming the schedule remains constant, the last Tuesday in June, the 29th, is when we can expect to see the next 5%. Adam Holisky: I'm doing 10k single target dps right now on my huntard in ICC. today I'll magically do 10.5k. that just doesn't seem right. Basil Berntsen: It's better than suddenly reducing the health of the bosses by 30% like they did in BC While this might cheapen raiding rewards for many hard core players, I'll take a slowly increasing, optional buff against a flat out 30% HP reduction any day. Also, I suspect we might see some new achievements or rewards for players choosing to not use the buff once it finishes hitting 30%.
Breakfast Topic: We get bored
Sometimes everyone on my server simultaneously gets bored, or antsy or just a little bit more wired then normal, and things happen like the screenshot pictured above -- that's about half of the mammoth train that was walking slowly around the perimeter of Dalaran. Why was it formed? Where was it going? No idea, but as I watched them slowly shuffle by, I obligingly hopped on my Black War Mammoth and joined the train. Because it was late, I'd just finished a solid run of ICC-25, and it was something to do while I chatted with guild members. This sort of thing happens just before the raids, too. One guild member will pull out a D.I.S.C.O. ball, another will start throwing around Party G.R.E.N.A.D.E.s. Before you know it, the dank corridor that leads into the depths of Icecrown Citadel has suddenly been turned into a happening place to be, the ground littered with "Spectral Tiger" mounts, Ogre Pinatas and kettles of Goblin Gumbo. Sometimes Archmage Vargoth puts in an appearance. He can't help it; there are usually four or five flaming draenei dancers congregated around a Brazier of Dancing Flames, and the girls just drive him crazy. Does stuff like this happen on your server? Spontaneous dance parties, mammoth trains, stacks of flying mounts hovering above the Dalaran well? What happens when your server gets bored? Trade chat aside, mind you -- we all know how /2 gets when people are feeling feisty.
Offspec gear and Cataclysm raiding
One of the things I haven't seen discussed much concerning the 10-man/25-man split in Cataclysm is how hybrid players are going to gear offspecs. This is the situation I'm in, and I suspect it's one that a lot of other hybrid players would recognize; I play restoration in most guild 25-man and 10-man raids, but I tank just about everything else. On easier content, or on nights when we have too many healers show up, it's not unusual for a few people to haul out their DPS sets and go DPS for the evening. As such, hybrid players (and particularly hybrids who have dual-specced into a role requiring a completely different set of gear) have an interest in keeping their offspec set up to date, and the best way to do this has typically been through 10-man raids where there's not much gear competition. I got 3 Sanctified feral pieces from heroic 10-man ICC, and I'm still using a few ToGC-10 pieces to tank as well. When you only have 10 players in a raid, the number of players angling for a given piece is necessarily small, and items go to offspec quickly.
Totem Talk: Restoration in The Frostwing Halls
Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration will show you how, brought to you by Joe Perez, otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and the For The Lore podcast. You have broken down the front door, taken out the Lich King's chief physician and beaten down his vampire cadre into a sparkling pulp. Now it is time to take out the Lich King's aerial core by heading into The Frostwing Halls and taking out some Frost Wyrms. You've seen them everywhere in this expansion and with good reason. The Lich King has been raising an army of these former dragons to do his bidding. They range everywhere from Icecrown, as you would expect, but are also everywhere from the Howling Fjord to Sholozar Basin. These creatures are raised from the bodies of dragons from both the Blue Dragonflight that have been defeated by the scourge as well as any dragon remains found in the Dragonblight. These twisted forms have no memories of their previous lives nor of the world beyond death. They are intelligent beings capable of strategy, tactics and deception, but their lack of memories of their former life, combined with their unwavering desire to serve their dark master with all the power available to them, makes them very difficult opponents. The goal here is to take out their queen and the last obstacle between you and the leader of the scourge.
When to call a heroic raid
Like most raiders, my guildies and I occasionally stare down a raid night where we know several people can't make it. Schedules change, real life beckons and we find ourselves with a raid that's down two to five people and wondering: a.) whether it's worth it to cancel, and b.) at what point you should throw in the towel. For better or worse, the normal/heroic mechanic in Icecrown Citadel has added a new wrinkle to the issue, too. It's easy to cancel when you know for sure that there's no way it's going to happen (e.g., if you're looking at a half-empty raid, or the heal team has decided to play hooky en masse), but for us the trouble is usually in that ill-defined area between what an undermanned raid can do and what everyone would rather be doing. If you're missing a few DPS for a normal ICC clear, that's not a big deal, particularly if you're using the 10% damage/healing/health buff. However, not having those DPS for heroic attempts (especially for tougher heroic bosses like Sindragosa and Putricide) is basically a death sentence at this point. The question then becomes, is it worth it to clear the content on normal so the night's not a total waste, or do you cancel the raid, bank on better attendance the following night and hold out for a kill that may not even happen?
Icecrown Citadel raid buff has been buffed to 10%
Raiders rejoice (or despair depending on how you feel about it)! The Icecrown raid wide buff has been increased by an additional 5% to 10%. Anyway, if your raid has been on the brink of taking down some bosses but could not muster enough firepower, then the improved Strength of Wrynn or Hellscream's Warsong could be that extra push you need! For more information and resources, check out WoW.com's Icecrown Citadel raid strategy and information page!
Shifting Perspectives: Tree 1, Arthas 0
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we save the world (of Warcraft). Originally this week's article was going to concern stomping Karazhan from top-to-bottom as a feral/resto druid, and then I got Big Bad Wolf for the opera event. Suffice it to say that the stomping took an abrupt U-turn, and I never got pictures or video of the other Kara fights that I've successfully solo'd on dozens of other occasions (though I grant they were all occasions that did not include humiliating wipes to an overgrown dog). If I weren't in the middle of a time crunch it probably would've been doable, but regrettably I will have to run a feature on how to make 1,000 gold soloing Karazhan on a later date. In the meantime, Alaron's managed to solo Big Bad Wolf successfully, but my main is in the somewhat sticky situation of not being a night elf. With the upcoming Icecrown raid buffs going all the way to 30% damage/healing/health/absorbs eventually, more and more raids are going to find their way to Arthas. Buffs aside, a lot of Arthas' difficulty lies in execution, and I started jotting down a few notes that I hope might be helpful to other druids likely to attempt the fight. We were fortunate to get both the 10- and 25-man version down, and I got astoundingly lucky on one 10-man attempt with back-to-back selections as a Harvest Soul target while I was running a video capture. I've seen a lot of comments online that caster druids aren't well-suited to dealing with this, and that's just not true at all.
Ready Check: To Warsong or not to Warsong
For the first time this week, the Icecrown Citadel raid saw the addition of the "tugboat" buff known as Hellscream's Warsong and the Strength of Wrynn. Essentially, this buff will provide a 5% increase to raiders' damage, healing, and health. Over time, that percentage increase will eventually reach a 30% buff. For the purposes of this discussion, I'm going to call the buff "the Warsong," because "the Wrynn" just doesn't have the same ring to it. While I won't make the fallacy of trying to guess what the developers were thinking when they created this raiding buff, the Warsong will definitely have the effect of helping every person who wants to see Arthas die get the chance. That's a fantastic goal, and I think this buff is a pretty good way to do it. But it does have a few challenges. If you caught our initial post about these Icecrown Citadel buffs going live, you may have caught some of the argument that instantly sprouted in the comments. Is the Warsong tugboat "fair" for guilds that had been working on content previously? Will we be able to tell if a guild completed content using (or ignoring) the buff? Is there additional loot or Emblems of Frost for people who do the Icecrown content without using the buff? Ultimately, all these questions tend to boil down to pride. Many guilds are now struggling with the question of whether to take advantage of the buff, or whether they should skip it. One can easily consider it a blow to their pride if the cascading buff eventually enables you to conquer content with which you previously struggled. Is it your skill improving, or is it simply the spectre of Warsong hanging over your head? Take a look behind the jump, and let's talk about the dynamics of the Warsong a little further.
In-Game Fixes for March 4th, 2010
Bornakk has announced a handful of in-game hot fixes on the official forums today. They're pretty much all Icecrown Citadel boss ability nerfs and tweaks, and should fixes a few annoyances with some battles, stretching from Marrowgar to Sindragosa. The full list is after the break.
Icecrown Citadel raid buffs live
If your guild has been struggling throughout the various bosses in Icecrown Citadel, then struggle no more! Icecrown Citadel raid buffs are now live. For the Alliance, it is called Strength of Wrynn and the Horde version of the buff is Hellscream's Warsong. For now, your health, healing done, and damage done are increased by 5%. It looks like it'll eventually cap out and end at 30% but who knows when that will be. All in all, the buffs will definitely help progression raids out. If your raid doesn't need the buffs, you can simply talk to your faction guy and tell him to go away. He'll ask you once just to confirm, but if you are sure, he'll disappear. We've known that the raid wide buffs would appear at some point but not exactly when. Be sure to check out WoW.com's Icecrown Citadel raid strategy and information page!
Officers' Quarters: Verge of collapse
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press. If ever there were a time for guild-leader or raid-leader burnout to set in, we are living in it. We are at the end of perhaps the most challenging six months of raiding content in WoW's history -- not in terms of its difficulty, but in its sheer potential for drama and member loss. First we had the half-hearted tier that consisted entirely of Trial of the Crusader, a one-room raid that took all of an hour to clear, and Onyxia, a well-loved but well-worn raid boss that was also a quick, and often boring, clear. Keeping raiders motivated during what felt like an endless four months wasn't easy. Many raid leaders were pulling out their hair trying to fill slots. For the most serious guilds, ToC was an absolute nightmare. Not because the content was itself difficult, but because of the rewards offered for clearing the zone without a single wipe, or even a single player death. Some very good players cracked under this kind of pressure. In a situation where one person's mistake -- not to mention disconnects, lag, or other external factors -- can quickly cause a death or a wipe and cost the entire raid access to loot, offering these achievements seemed to me like Blizzard was going out of their way to cause drama. Icecrown Citadel was supposed to be our savior, but instead it brought new and unanticipated problems.
Spiritual Guidance: Raiding Icecrown Citadel (Part 1), Page 2
The gunship encounter is unlike any other in Icecrown Citadel. Before the battle begins, be sure to talk to the goblin on your ship and pick up a rocket pack. Your main attack is the Cannon Blast (the "1" key), which does siege damage to the enemy ship and that ship's defenders, if you have good aim.
Lichborne: Frostwing and Lich King loot for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly death knight discussion center. This week, your host is playing it cool in more ways than one, what with the test server shakeups to frost DPS. Before we start into this week's column, I do want to assure any prospective frost DPSers that I fully plan to write a frost DPS 101 guide. In fact, up until a few days ago, I had every intention of writing that as today's column. Then I sat down at the computer on Friday, and we had a nice shiny new PTR with a whole mess of frost DPS buffs. It's probably going to take a bit for us to sort through those buffs, see how they affect speccing and gearing, and whether or not they'll make it live, so for now, we're going to focus on some other topics. This week, the subject is the loot in the final section of Icecrown Citadel, the Frostwing Halls. There's only a few bosses here, but you'll find some great off-spec pieces, a few best in slots items, and some interesting weapon choices. I'll offer my usual disclaimer here and recommend that you go back and review the opening paragraphs of our Lower Spire loot guide, since it lists some basic stat rundowns and philosophies that you should keep in mind as you read these guides. You may also want to review the stat weights discussed in blood DPS 101 and unholy DPS 101 as you pick out your DPS gear from these pages.
Phat Loot Phriday: Abracadaver
Abracadaver isn't just phat loot. It's awesome loot. Not only does Abracadaver have the best name ever, it's got an ability that delivers on that name the way Pizza Hut deliver Pizza. That's because Abracadaver lets you pull a corpse out of your hat. The name isn't just a clever pun -- it's a clever pun with abilities. My favorite use of Abracadaver involves logging into the middle of Dalaran. Pop the Cadaver, and then run around screaming, "I'm a death knight! I'm a death knight!" Noone's fallen for it yet that I know of, but any second now that's going to happen. It could be that the Summoned Cadaver created by the staff doesn't have any kind of special name. Admittedly, the Cadaver doesn't actually do much damage. He swipes for about 200 damage per hit on unarmored characters. While that's not a lot, you may decide his clever animations make up for his low damage. Or you may not. In any case, check out more information about Abracadaver behind the cut.
