Icecrown Lady Deathwhisper Hard

[Ciderhelm]

You can find a guide to the normal version of this encounter here!

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 heroic mode 10-man version of the Lady Deathwhisper encounter. I will assume that you're familiar with the normal version of this encounter. If you're not, I suggest first watching our guide to the 10-man normal mode to learn about Deathwhisper's base abilities.

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In her heroic version, Deathwhisper has double the health and mana that she has in her normal incarnation, so both phases are going to take you a lot longer to down than you're used to. All adds also have more health and their abilities deal significantly more damage than you're used to from the normal version, so handle them with caution and try to never be near an add casting Dark Martyrdom.

If you're used to the 25-man version, you won't be too surprised by Deathwhisper's occasional mind control. She uses this throughout both phases on one player at a time. Dominate Mind lasts 12 seconds and will increase the affected player's damage by 200% and healing by 500%, so you'll want to use crowd control on them - especially if it's targeted at a high DPS class.

As soon as you burn her mana barrier down and phase 2 starts, you'll notice that Deathwhisper will continuously summon adds throughout phase 2 approximately every 45 seconds. They'll only spawn at the entrance to the room though, so you should pull her towards the entrance stairs when the phase starts.

Also note that Deathwhisper is not tauntable in phase 2, so in combination with Touch of Insignificance this means both your tanks will need to be highest on threat at all times. Whoever is not currently affected by 5 stacks of the Touch will need to pick up any new adds that spawn. They can be single targeted or AoEd down, whichever you prefer.

Lastly, the Vengeful Shades that spawn in phase 2 do significantly more AoE damage when they reach their chosen target and hit it, so every single raid member needs to stay spread out and keep an eye out for the shades. Getting hit by one results in a 20k damage AoE explosion, and coupled with Frostbolt Volley it can easily mean one or even several deaths. Only one will spawn at a time and they despawn within just a couple seconds, so just kite them if you notice one following you.

No other changes have been made to this encounter, so if your tanks are good at picking up multiple adds and your raid's awareness is good, this encounter should be one of the easier heroic modes. Good luck!

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[Ion]

Not mentioned in the video, but worth noting: being MC'd wipes your threat. As a DPS, it lets you go full out, post-MC, without having to worry about threat for a bit...which will probably be sketchy because of the debuff, the inability to taunt and the need to pick up melee adds for the tanks.

[Trexokor]

Notably, the threat wipe, after a bit into phase 2, will generally let one tank sit on Lady Deathwhisper despite having five stacks of the debuff and continue to tank her until the end. This is helpful because the off-tank seems to be able to get MC'd still and if that happens it can be very difficult to get threat back, because of the no taunt thing.

The fight is easily 2-healed on 10 man, which we found to be a relief. I expected it to be much more difficult than it was though.

[Belicia]

We downed her last week in 25man Heroic but had significant troubles this week. Our general strategy is to have 3-4 DPS stay on the boss throughout phase 1, while all the other DPS kill adds. We're usually able to push her cleanly into phase 2 at around 3:30-4:00 into the fight; sometimes we use Heroism so we can transition her without new adds spawning. We have 6 or 7 ranged DPS watching for MC's. During Phase 2, we have 4 melee DPS kill adds the entire time, while everyone else kills the boss. Range spread out around the boss; everyone uses DPS cooldowns whenever they're off CD (to avoid MC'd players one-shotting others). At some point during Phase 2 though, we just fall apart and get overrun as attrition from Vengeful Shades knocks out raid members.

Does anyone else try any other strategies? Is it possible to have everyone attack the boss and burn her into phase 2, and then just AoE/cleave adds down?

[shamira]

can someone please tell me what kind of ui or mod is aliena using i really like hers , please can someone help me out

[Kazeyonoma]

....

UI Compilation forum. Use the search function. Like seriously, if you search "Aliena UI" you'll find her thread.

[Palêrider]

Do you have a 25 man version for this fight on video?

[Ajire]

Hello

We had our first attempt at the heroic version of this encourter tonight and we had some troubles handling the adds. Basically, next wave spawned before the first wave was downed.

Our setup:

Two tanks (Prot Paladin, prot Warrior)
Three healers (Disc priest, holy priest, resto druid)
two melee dps (Retri paladin, Combat Rogue)
three ranged dps (Balance druid, Demo warlock and Shadow Priest)

It must at this point be mentioned that we have dedicated the melee and ranged dps to deal with adherents and fanatics, respectively, at all times, not only their reanimated versions - SHould we have all dps help with both types of living adds, and save the dedication for when they become reanimated?

The point where we especially got into trouble was if one of our melees got mind-controlled, leaving only one melee to deal with the (reanimated) adherents (I noticed that the adds become reanimated at a much more anoying rate in the heroic version). This had me wondering if it would be an idea to swap a healer for a melee dps?

Our trouble with the adds meant that we would get through the mana shield after the fourth or fifth wave which did not leave much time to spare on the enrage timer.

Another issue we had once we hit phase two: Our paladin tank taunted and started generating threat as we pushed the phase, but our warrior tank was way at the bottom of the threat meter and with nothing hitting him, hit rage - and aggro - generation was very slow, putting us well above the enrage timer if our dps would simply had to wait for him to catch up with the paladin. Should both tanks throw in a taunt before the phase transition to make sure they both are on or near top of the threat meter for phase 2? Or could the issue be solved simply by having the warrior take the first round as the paladin doesn't need melee damage for threat generation?

[Erigon]

For your set up, you might want to actually have one of your three healers go dps. This would give you an additional dps whose job would be to focus solely on getting the mana shield down and alerting people when the shield is about to drop. You can then have this person pull off the mana shield to help if you start to get behind on adds.

As for dealing with the undead versions of adds, you should have them as higher priority than any other adds.

Edit: Also for phase 2 and your threat issues. We found having our rogue put ToT on the tank with lower threat and have the tank with highest threat tanking adds was beneficial. You just have to watch dps's threat and slap them with salv/aggro drops.

[Rennadrel]

Misdirection and Tricks of the Trade are required on this encounter, regardless of what anyone says. You have nothing to kick Frost Bolt Volley and stop it to reduce raid damage, having 3 healers for an easy encounter is not needed, assuming you overgear this fight with 25 man regular level loot at least. There are a few tricks I can suggest for this fight:

Casters on boss full time to bring her shield down, when you get to Phase 2, have your casters keep on adds until they are down while your tank picks up the boss, they can start DPS on the boss once the tank has considerable threat on her. Warrior tanks the boss in phase 2 imo, melee are dealing with adds that might spawn, the rogue can kick the boss and Tricks the tank to build up threat, then resume taking care of the adds. If your warrior knows how to do it, he or she should be able to interrupt most Frost Bolt Volley casts, I remember this happening lots on Kel'thuzad in Naxxaramas in order to reduce raid damage.

Melee adds cleave and should be taken down first, stunning the caster adds before nuking the melee ones also helps to prevent them from popping their bubbles and reducing damage. Ranged DPS also have to deal with certain add revivals that are melee immune, so they may have to switch anyway. In 25 player you have no reason to put melee on the boss unless they are interrupting and/or using Tricks. I would not rely on a warrior tank to do add control on this encounter with the lack of AoE threat generation over a paladin.

[Ajire]

A few comments to Rennadrel:

Misdirection and Tricks of the Trade are required on this encounter, regardless of what anyone says.

Seeing as these mechanics face a removal and a significant change, respectively, within the week, I urge not to stick to such kind of "in the box" thinking

You have nothing to kick Frost Bolt Volley and stop it to reduce raid damage,(...)If your warrior knows how to do it, he or she should be able to interrupt most Frost Bolt Volley casts

Not really sure I understand these tidbits: The Frost Bolt Volley is instant cast and not interuptable in any reagards.

If you mean the single target frost bolt cast on the main threat target on a 12 second interval, yes, our warrior tank is very skilled at shield bashing that one.

assuming you overgear this fight with 25 man regular level loot at least.

We don't.

I would not rely on a warrior tank to do add control on this encounter with the lack of AoE threat generation over a paladin.

Paladins have big trouble with the caster adds. While retribution have gotten much more physical damage over the time, protection threat generation is still entirely magical damage, which means that threat generation drops to zero once they pop their bubble/revive. And with only a single stun/interupt on a 50 sec cooldown, there is no way of preventing that from happening. No, we leave those to the warrior.

[Ajire]

Edit: Also for phase 2 and your threat issues. We found having our rogue put ToT on the tank with lower threat and have the tank with highest threat tanking adds was beneficial. You just have to watch dps's threat and slap them with salv/aggro drops.

I would still remind that with the threat transfer from ToT now being purely temporary, the utility for this ability to maintain tank threat is severely limited and should be used with caution.

I'd still say that the safest bet is to have both tanks in top-3 aggro once phase 2 starts: Have both tanks taunt in sequence, just prior to the phase transition. Now, I'm quite sure there is a flaw in this reasoning. Where is it?

[Martie]

I would still remind that with the threat transfer from ToT now being purely temporary, the utility for this ability to maintain tank threat is severely limited and should be used with caution.

ToT also gives it's recipiënt a considerable damage boost. While not as effective as it used to be, this tactic still has merits.

[Ajire]

Hello again

We attempted this encounter again last night, and got our first kill!

Setup:

Two tanks (Protection Paladin and Protection Warrior)
Two healers (Disc Priest and Restoration Shaman)
Two Melee dps (Retribution Paladin, Unholy Death Knight)
4 Ranged dps (two Shadow priests, Balance Druid, arcane mage)

We had our tanks and melee dps handle the adds (execpt if a fanatic got revived or empowered, in wihch case we had ranged dps switch) and ranged dps focus on burning down the shield.

The shield was down half-way through the fourth wave (we had both tanks taunt the boss between the third and fourth wave) at which point we had our warrior tank pick up the boss and our paladin and all dps finish of the remaining adds. Once the adds were down, the pally tank popped Wrath to get a threat boost and catch up with the warrior tank. From there, we simply used the Touch of insignificance debuff to force a tank transition, worked like a charm. No ToT or Misdirect (may it's soul rest in peace) was needed.

Our warrior tank noted that the changes to Vigilance and the new Sentinel mechanic of the protection tree made it much easier to generate rage and keep up with the paladin on threat, when deathwhisper was on the paladin.