Icecrown Citadel: The Lower Spire Part I

It was finally time to enter Icecrown Citadel, the Lich King's cosy little home. During our visit, we will meet some of the King's friendly house mates, but instead of shaking their hands and small talk about the weather and the financial crisis, we will bash their heads in and rob them of shiny purples. That's the price you have to pay when you chose to hang out with the wrong people.

The first thing everybody does when zoning in is probably to run around and check the Ashen Verdict quartermaster and the armor vendor of your class. Or maybe you are one of those who prefer to /dance with Tirion Fordring while waiting for the rest of the raid to show up.

You can see the first boss of the instance, Lord Marrowgar, all the way from the entrance, but there are some trash to handle before you reach him.

Most of this trash can be aoed down. Things to look out for is that the skeleton casters should be faced away from the raid since they cast an ice spike spell that hits everybody in its way. The big insect mobs web wraps people, which can be annoying. And a couple of BIG skeletons will wake up when people step on hidden traps on the floor. Those big guys need to be tanked faced away from the raid, since they have a nasty cleave. They also have an aoe spell interrupt that especially healers need to be aware of.

It's pretty likely that raids will wipe on this trash once or twice the first time they enter the instance. Don't despair. It's the hardest trash in the entire wing.

Lord Marrowgar

Lord Marrowgar is the first boss in Icecrown Citadel. He's a big boney guy who likes to take a spin on the dance floor. He also impales people.

This is a pretty easy fight. The general rules of raiding apply: Don't stand in fire, don't stand close to a mob that is whirlwinding, and free people who are impaled. We have all done this kind of fight before.

Things to look out for:

• Bone Storm - this is his whirlwind. When he starts whirlwinding, just run away to make the healers' job easier.
• Bone Spike Graveyard - impales people, and damage them for 10% of their health every second for 5 seconds or until the bone spike is killed. Make sure to kill these spikes as soon as possible.
• Coldflame - a line of fire on the floor. Move out of it, please.
• Saber lash - stack the tanks on top of eachother to split the damage of this attack, because it hurts.

Our first experience: It took some time to get the tanks coordinated, and we had a couple of tank deaths due to this. The first week, Marrowgar wasn't tauntable, so a few eager dps got killed as well. When tanks are coordinated, the bone spikes killed fast, and people don't stand in fires, this fight is cake.

Lady Deathwhisper

The second boss in The Lower Spire is Lady Deathwhisper. She has several male admirers who will spawn in the first phase of the fight, when your raid is trying to break down her defenses.

The challenge in this fight is to control the adds. In the first phase she is protected by a mana shield that would make any mage green of envy. This shield needs to be burned down. Seven adds will spawn and needs to be taken care of. During the fight, they might change form, to be more powerful, and also immune to either physical or magical damage. As a tank, make sure to pick up the fanatics before they kill a healer.

Things to look out for in phase 1:

• Death and Decay - it's green and it's big. Don't stand in it.
• Dominate Mind - she mind controls raid members. Make sure to CC them before they kill a healer.
• Empowered Adherents do aoe damage and should be killed fast.
• Deformed Fanatics hurt a lot and should be kited. Do not try to tank these guys.

When her mana shield is destroyed, phase 2 starts.

Things to look out for in phase 2:

• Frostbolt - hurts a lot and needs to be interrupted.
• Vengeful Shades - adds that hunt a player. If the player is reached, the shade will explode and do loads of aoe damage.
• Touch of Insignificance - stacking debuff that reduces threat generation by 20% per stack. Due to this, two tanks need to switch tanking her when the stacks are starting to hurt the current tank's threat.

Our first experience: We wiped many times on this encounter since we didn't handle the adds well enough at the same time as burning down her shield. We hit the enrage timer a couple of times. The tanks (we use three tanks) have their jobs cut out for them, picking up the seven adds before they do damage to the raid. The dps need to be on their top game as well, since the longer it takes to kill the adds, the shorter time is spent on burning down the shield. Also, the longer the adds live, the bigger chance that they will be empowered or deformed.

There are two more encounters in The Lower Spire. I'll get to them in my next post.