Icecrown Gunship Battle

[Ciderhelm]

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.

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!

Hi i'm darksend from tankspot and this will be a short addendum video to our gunship battle encounter strategy. In this video I will show it from an alliance point of view as well the point of view of the tank jet packing across to tank the opposing ships captain, in this case I will be tanking saurfang.

In the previous video some of you noticed and commented on the fact that people are jumping accross as soon as the fight starts, this was because of a change to the timing at which the mage spawns that happened since we had last done the encounter on the test realm. As such in this video we wait until the guns are frozen to ensure saurfang has 0 stacks when this occurs.

We also no longer send healers over. Instead the saurfang or bronzebeard tank picks him up and moves him back to the edge of the ship. This makes the innitial pickup slightly more challenging as you have to ensure he stays in melee range as you back up or he will start throwing you leaving a stacking bleed. Also be careful to avoid the several line of sight obstacles. If you are alliance, the pillars of the horde ship, and if you are horde there is a smaller boat docked on the deck of the skybreaker.

The cannons not only damage the ship, but also the units on the deck. Since both the rocketeers and the axe throwers gain the same experienced buff as the units which board your ship gunners should be targeting the ships deck directly under enemy units. Ideally you should be focusing on the rocketeers as the ranged shooting across will be killing the axe throwers and keeping there numbers down.

As always, for more information follow the link in the movie information box the the project marmot forums over at tankspot dot com. Good luck.

[Cronaldo]

Wow seems a really complicated fight I will try it today with my guild


Thanks again for the videos

[Holyprincess]

Can't wait to tank this fight, i would love to see a Lady Deathwhisper video.
Keep up the great work

[webmage]

am I the only one who cannnot find this video in donors' download section ?

[Wani]

Best thing about this fight: Bear tanks with rocket packs.

Oh, and, after having done it on 10 man, we found it actually the easiest we tried. It sounds more complicated than it really is, what we basically did was had two healers jump over to the boat because, let's face it, Saurfang's cleave is what causes the split in the Barrens we've all seen in the Cataclysm screenshots, and the two DPSers that were in the boat. I tanked Saurfang by the edge of the boat, DPSers killed the mage, they hopped back followed by us.

[Mr.Winkle]

In the video you seem to suggest that the only reason melee jetpack over to the opposing ship is to take down the frost mage. Are there no other mobs to deal with on the enemy ship that need DPS actually on the ship?

Also in the video, the melee dps actually seem to jetpack back to your own ship when the cannons are initially frozen, is this because the boss debuff/buff had got to high?

[Ciderhelm]

am I the only one who cannnot find this video in donors' download section ?

Very sorry! Check now!

[drae]

In the video you seem to suggest that the only reason melee jetpack over to the opposing ship is to take down the frost mage. Are there no other mobs to deal with on the enemy ship that need DPS actually on the ship?

Also in the video, the melee dps actually seem to jetpack back to your own ship when the cannons are initially frozen, is this because the boss debuff/buff had got to high?

Additionally there are rocketeers at the far side of the opposing ship. They must be contolled to avoid excessive damage to your ship.

Also I agree with the bears with rocket packs sticking outta their butts.

[Darksend]

Also in the video, the melee dps actually seem to jetpack back to your own ship when the cannons are initially frozen, is this because the boss debuff/buff had got to high?

On ptr the time before the guns are frozen for the first time was much much longer, so we would go over and have the melee help kill the rifleman and come back with enough time to let the stack reset. Next week we already plan on not going over until the guns are frozen the first time.

[Thundershort]

This 10-man fight is easy and it's a lot of fun, you only have to dps the mage on the other ship while the tank occupies the leader. We wiped once because people didn't have a clue and cleared the next try. Probably the highest fun rating of a fight for me.

[Fledern]

Bug warning!

If you're left on the horde ship when it goes down, you dont get badges/loot.

[manicus]

This fight has it all, dwarves, goblins, axethrowers, rocketpacks and death by plummeting. Did it last night on 10-man.

Remember to go left to the correct boat when you have grabbed the elevator. We went right at first, to an empty docking pad

We had our ranged man the guns, Theres two in 10-man.

Our paladin healer, paladin tank and melee dps was the boarding team. they would rocket jump over, kill the mage, and mew mew some axethrowers until the damage got too much for the paladin tank. Then they would return to safety.

I stayed behind with the two ranged dps, and picked up whatever adds that would pop. 3 adds came in each wave. I made sure that I dragged them back to Muradin for help. Ranged dps helped to clear adds when their guns were frozen, focusing on the sergeant first.

Boat health can be watched to on the right side of your screen similar to arenas.

Make sure to call your boarding team back in time so they don't plummet to their death. After the fight the boat bugged and we couldn't get down, but the port to the next boss was open. So no biggie, just die, release and port back.

Our raid setup was:
Warrior Tank, Paladin Tank
2x DK dps, Ret pally
Balance druid, Arcane mage
Holy pally, Disc priest, Holy priest.

[Fluxx]

Was a close call, but it was not so hard. We had 2 dps die in the beginning duo bad luck of lag / dc but we downed him in 1 try

[Bomcash]

My guild did this on 10 man very easily...

The setup was:

2 Tanks:
Pala - War
3 Healers
Hpriest - Pala - Shaman
5 DPS
2 Frostmages - 1 Hunter - 1 W-lock - 1 DK

We had the frostmages using the cannons, and once a Frostmage turned up on the opposite ship, and froze our cannons, our Pala tank jumped across as the first one (he had beacon of light from our healing pala btw), followed by me (Resto-shammy) and our DK. In addition, our 2 mages exited their cannons once frozen and made the jump with us...

The damage from the boss was easily healable for me when the tank also had beacon on him, and with 3 DPS's, the Freezers went down extremely quickly, and our mages returned to their cannons to continue the shooting...

[Turelliax]

We did the same thing on 10 man. Our pally tank boarded and i stayed picking up adds on the defending ship. depending on where you stand you can actually pewpew the mage down from the boarding ship.

[zaubade]

Best thing about this fight: Bear tanks with rocket packs.

This. In deciding who tanked the other ship this was my sole decision point to telling my bear buddy he was going to do it. I wanted to see a bear with a rocket pack jumping around. Fun fight.

[manicus]

Nailed the "I'm on a boat" achieve last thursday. Pretty easy, just make sure you go full out nuke on the other boat. This means that gunners have to be very aware.

Kite the boss with the jetpack. :-)

[Ciderhelm]

10-man movie available for download, short addendum from Darksend going up as well.

[Artazoth]

What addon is Darksend using for the enemy health bars in the addendum video? It's just perfect.

I went to the UI compilation but none of the addons in Darksend's thread is right.

[Darksend]

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.