Icecrown Lich King Hard

[hacki]

If you kill all wicked spirits (e.g. with starfall) they will respawn slowly after ~10sec (at least that's what i observed)

[Shodowz]

Just a clarification, While tanking the shambling horrors, the ghouls are staying on LK tank and necrotic plague is only going to the shambling horrors and not bouncing to the ghouls ?

It looks like in the vid that plague is only being given to the shambling and nothing to the ghouls as they burn them down on Phase 1.5/2 is this correct ?

My guild have just gotten GotIR and are starting HM LK on sunday, Phase 1 seems to be the hardest part of the fight imo, every other phase looks to be more communication than anything.

Phase 1 is the only thing im unsure about as to what i stated above.

I am a prot warrior and i am going to take the shambling horrors myself, we are only a 10 man guild in near full 264 gear, we dont run a hunter in our comp (not that we need one) enrages i should manage ok but more the fact of the mini enrages that i just have to eat is whats worrying me.

Any tips on P1 or anything other part of the phases that guilds are struggling with would be great.

Shodowz.

[Darksend]

Don't know how they did it in the video, or what tanks they used, but as a feral druid LK tank it would have been impossible for me to keep agro on adds off the ret paladin and fury warrior in our group who have AOE in their normal rotation and the ghouls would have broken the shields making infest harder to heal up on those 2. However, that aside, we would have given all the ghouls to the off tank anyway as it builds up the stack faster as well as killing the ghouls faster. They do have a rouge in the video so I am not sure why they are not tricks-ing the ghouls to the offtank.

[Shodowz]

Yeh thats what im unsure of mate, in normal mode i tank shambling with vig on pally tank and spam taunt the ghouls to me, but in this video im not sure why the tank is only tanking shamblings by himself and the MT has LK and all the ghouls, im just a little confused.

[Knails]

My guild is about ready to finally take him down on both 25 & 10 Heroic mode, as me being a Protection Warrior is there anything I should take note in this fight that may be bad for me, such as us being a horrid Heroic Sindragosa tank.

Raid Comp:
Prot Warrior
Feral Druid
Ret Paladin
Warlock
Assassination Rogue
Arcane or Fire Mage
Marksman Hunter
Enhance Shaman
Disc Priest
Holy Paladin

All raid members are basically 277 geared with our Ret equipped with Shadowmourne.

In our normal 25-Man kills I tank Arthas and our Feral tanks the Shambling Horrors - should this be reversed for this encounter? Also, would you suggest any different class combination for optimizing a down?

[Kazeyonoma]

probably just an early strat, the best way we've encountered is have the OT take all of the adds including ghouls so it can stack the plague faster, if you have a rogue foktricks the OT it shouldn't be a problem. Handle enrages, and you're set.

Also for HM LK, phase 1 after you figure out a strategy to control the shadow traps, it's no different from regular phase 1. the biggest part of the fight really boils down to the transition phases. That's where you'll probably wipe a lot, either going in or going out. because the constant damage that goes off from being near people does require management. You'll also likely have a shambling or ghoul still up on your OT so he needs to be on the side until they die on their own and he gets a dispel. the raging spirits have a LOT more health, first transition we normally enter the 2nd phase with 1 spirit up around 75-50%, and careful management of his conal silence/nuke is important to prevent death of clothies or silencing of healers. Once that's down phase 2 operates almost exactly the same as phase 2 normal, valk has more health but you only need to get em to ~50% then they fly up and begin nuking, but they do have a threat table, so your OT needs to taunt them and hit em with an attack or two to hold aggro, then it's just avoid defiles, stack for new valk(s), and burn valk->LK and keep taunting/keeping aggro on the floating valks. Transition 2 is the real killer, because of the extra add, even with bloodlust we find it's very difficult to keep up with their spawning, and right as transition 2 ends, you get sucked into frostmourne, you do the kiting thing, then you come out, DEFILE instantly, AND you still have the extra add that is STILL alive outside that sometimes will run across the map to get on your Tank and thus conal attack your raid, AND you have vile spirits to kite/absorb. Once you finish off that remaining raging spirit, THEN the fight smooths out and it's just rinse repeat constantly, but while that add is up, your survival chances are basically on thin ice. At least that's the experience I've had, phase 1 and phase 2 we got past on our first night of attempts, but we constantly wiped at 35-39% because of that damned raging.

[Blacksen]

In our normal 25-Man kills I tank Arthas and our Feral tanks the Shambling Horrors - should this be reversed for this encounter? Also, would you suggest any different class combination for optimizing a down?

We use a prot warrior in both the 10man and 25man to tank the Shambling Horrors, though this is really just personal preference. We use a prot warrior because you can put vigilance on a tank or DPS and get all the ghouls over in addition to the Horrors. Warriors also have a wide range of cooldowns to use whenever a Horror becomes frenzied in addition to two long-duration stuns.

You should get rid of the rogue and enhance shaman and pickup an elemental shaman and another caster DPS.

[Knails]

We changed up our comp a little bit and went with 2 Boomers instead, also with me OTing the Horrors, our best attempt was our last attempt for the night reaching a 53% and only getting 2 Shambling Horrors by the end of P1 - which I think is really solid for a night of tries - we only did about 5-6 tries on him total as we had to clear all of ICC. I know a majority of the wipes happen between 35-39% because of the Harvest Soul & immediate defile afterwards, but again I think we did pretty awesome & we're going back in Friday & Sunday night.

[Blacksen]

I know a majority of the wipes happen between 35-39% because of the Harvest Soul & immediate defile afterwards, but again I think we did pretty awesome & we're going back in Friday & Sunday night.

Those two mechanics specifically are arguably the easiest points in the entire heroic Lich King encounter. When you come back up for Harvest Soul, your entire raid should just immediately start running away from Lich King.

More challenging is that the first melee swing Lich King does will apply Soul Reaper. after coming up from the Frostmourne room. There's a 3-4 second delay before that happens, however, as LK goes through his 2-second Defile cast and you can kite the Lich King for a bit. Just make sure your tanks are ready for cooldowns.

[Oriana]

Hello everyone!

In your guide you say that "any spirits you did not kill in the throne room will also become active outside on top of the new ones the Lich King will summon." Can somebody confirm or disapprove this? Is it really worth to clean the throne room or is it just enough to kill the spirits which are trying to approach the raid?

Added: Oops, I just saw that this was answered on the previous page.

[Blacksen]

In your guide you say that "any spirits you did not kill in the throne room will also become active outside on top of the new ones the Lich King will summon." Can somebody confirm or disapprove this? Is it really worth to clean the throne room or is it just enough to kill the spirits which are trying to approach the raid?

That is not the case. The spirits down in the Frostmourne room are called "Wicked Spirits."

However, it is definitely worth killing all wicked spirits. A single explosion will almost surely wipe the raid. Luckily, this isn't a problem. Wicked Spirits have 4k health in the 10man and 8k health in the 25man. A single seed of corruption will easily kill all wicked spirits in the 10man and almost kill them all in the 25man. Most of the time, you'll kill every wicked spirit in the room and wait for respawns. If you have a balance druid, this is definitely the case, as the first Starfall will clear out the entire room. Wicked Spirits respawn about 4-5 at a time every 7-8 seconds.

[Ultranutter]

Thanks loads for the video, this info will help us this week when we attempt the kill

[gom]

Hey I have a question about the LK 25 Hard Kill from Premonition.



As you can see they handle Necrotic Plague a bit differently as the most guilds. They have two camps one with Ghouls (for stacking the plague I guess) and another with the Shamblings. I think this method is really great because of the heavy necrotic plague ticks you can greatly reduce the time where the shambling is both enraged and frenzy.

But I don’t really get it how this works in detail? Obviously the players have to drop the plague alternately between the goul and the shambling camp but why?

[Savannah]

Great guide, but just to confirm - at this stage (icecrown buff at 10% going up to 15 next week probably) you would say that a 6 dps set up and a disc priest are absolutely needed?

I ask because our raid group currently has 3 healers, one of every class except Priest, and if this is the case we're basically stuck till the buff increases

I'm wondering the same; we currently run holy paladin/resto druid on most fights, with the option of a resto shaman (or on occasion, holy priest, but I'm a greater asset as shadow). Our shaman's elem dps has improved substantially, but I don't see our druid putting out moonkin dps to compete with my shadow dps and to top that off I'm holy and my gear isn't exactly set up for disc (I'm probably incredibly low on crit for starters).

[Blacksen]

But I don’t really get it how this works in detail? Obviously the players have to drop the plague alternately between the goul and the shambling camp but why?

It's actually pretty simple. In the 25man heroic, most guilds use one of their cleaving melee dps to tank all of the ghouls in melee range before they go over to the offtank. This achieves 2 things: 1) It makes it really easy for the tank to know who has the ghouls on them, and 2) It helps control Infest more (can't bubble people getting hit by ghouls). Usually you have the person stand in melee range and they just naturally get the ghouls. A fury warrior using cleave over heroic strike works. So does a ret paladin with seal of command.

Premonition simply has their "add tank" tank the ghouls outside of the raid. You don't need a real "tank" to tank the ghouls - any plate-wearing melee will do fine. They drop the disease in the ghoul camp first because it will build up faster in the ghouls (only takes 5 or 10 sec to jump OFF a ghoul and gain a stack, while it takes 15 sec for a horror). They drop the next one on the horrors because they then have 2 plagues growing every 5-15 seconds rather than just one.

Honestly though, you can really do the disease any which way you want. Bouncing the plague off ghouls only builds it up marginally faster. Any complicated Necrotic Plague strategy is likely not worth it. Just have your second tank get all the horrors and then as many ghouls as possible. Stop taunting ghouls when there's about ~5 seconds before the next shambling horror. Use all tanking cooldowns in phase 1, including Pain Suppression, Guardian Spirit, bubble-sacs, and Raid Wall. You should be able to keep the add tank completely under cooldowns for a good 20-30 seconds, including your ret paladins and such.

I'm wondering the same; we currently run holy paladin/resto druid on most fights, with the option of a resto shaman (or on occasion, holy priest, but I'm a greater asset as shadow). Our shaman's elem dps has improved substantially, but I don't see our druid putting out moonkin dps to compete with my shadow dps and to top that off I'm holy and my gear isn't exactly set up for disc (I'm probably incredibly low on crit for starters).

If you're going to do a 2-2-6 setup, you absolutely must have a disc priest. It also really helps to have a holy paladin, though the fight can be done with a resto shaman too.

With the 30% buff, it is definitely possible to switch to a 2-3-5 setup, but your DPS do need to be really good (mostly 277's, mostly ranged dps).

[gom]

Hey Blacksen thank you for explaining. I watched the movie again and I think I get it know how it works in detail.

1. First ghoul wave spawns - > picked up by the ghoul "tank".
2. First plague goes to the shambling
3. Second plague goes to the ghoul camp
4. As soon as the first plague is on the shambling, the shambling tank then taunts one Ghoul so that the plague can jump to this ghoul. When the plague is on that ghoul the ghoul "tank" taunts the ghoul with the plague back.
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This step I don't understand. Blacksen you said they do this, so that they can grow 2 plagues rather than just one. But as you can see they bring the second plaugue from the shambling back to the ghoul camp why not drop the second plague directly to the ghoul camp?
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5. Second Ghoul wave spawns
6. Third plague goes to the shamblings
7. Third Ghoul wave spawns
8. Second Shambling Spawns
9.Forth plague goes to the shambling camp
10. Ghoul "tank" takes the few remaining ghouls to the shambling camp as soon as the forth plague has been dropped
11. Forth Ghoul wave spawns
12. Fifth plague goes to the ghoul camp
13. Transission after ~2min 07sec ( ~243'664 Raid DPS , ~18sec left until Shambler 3)
14. shambling tank taunts the remaining ghouls
15. end of p1

At first view this strategy looks a bit complicated but it really isn't in my opinion.

This achieves 2 things: 1) It makes it really easy for the tank to know who has the ghouls on them, and 2) It helps control Infest more (can't bubble people getting hit by ghouls).

That's right and I also think it is easier for the off tank to focus on the stuns and usage of cooldowns because he doesn't has to taunt the ghouls all the time. Our off tank had many problems picking up the ghouls:
the ghouls often turned back to a cleaver after a taunt because the way was too long or he couldn't land an attack on the ghoul in time. So he asked the melees if they could step down a little with AE in addition he used vigilance (glyphed -_-) on me (MT) wich resulted in poor Aggro. I said he could put vigilance on a cleaver who has always a ghoul which would have the same effect his response was that I should try a littler harder..
Of course this resulted in dps problems third shambler etc. positioning was also bad.

I think the strategy of premonition also favours permanence in p1 which we absolutly don't have atm. (well only 8 trys until now but anyways you get the point.)

[amfeetamiin]

I wish to know what AddOns you use on theese movies. I have always admired TankSpot's AddOns.

[Savannah]

We're having trouble with an adequate stun rotation on heroic Lich King in the 25man, to the point where if a warlock doesn't get picked up, we're probably going to lose someone. We're consistently dealing with defile and I feel like this is our last little break to getting a kill. Our previous method, used on regular LK, was just Holy Wrath x3, but that's proving to be vastly insufficient. Most of the time, we're getting VERY close to killing them (~60%). We're seriously considering a switch to using Hammer of Justice and such, especially since 1 Hammer gives us more stun time before DR than all three holy wraths combined.

My question is this: how do you deal with hammer's cooldown without going up the protection tree? It seems you're forced to chose between Aura Mastery and Improved Hammer of Justice, which means paladins can only stun every other wave with their minute cooldown. With only 4 paladins in the raid, this doesn't seem like the best idea.

Any tips appreciated!

Get some rogues.

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EDIT
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I guess I could be a little more specific. Rogues > Paladins for stunning. Why you think Paladins are your be-all, end-all is beyond me.

Assign each rogue in your raid to a mark (DBM assigns circle, triangle, and diamond, iirc, to the valks). Ideally you have three, but you may only have one or two in which case assign Paladins to your remaining marks--two paladins per mark so they can alternate waves.

Make sure that no one else is using other stun mechanics because they'll trigger DR and screw you over---however, cheapshot (at least in normal 25, idk about heroic) is off the DR so rogues should save up a couple combo points and be ready to vanish+cheapshot if the valks get too close to the edges. Paladins should save Holy Wrath for near the edge if valks are getting away--and you should have someone specifically assigned to do this.

Communication is key when managing the valks like this: rogues and paladins have to call "circle is not stunned, someone else stun circle" if they get picked up (note that I said the target that needed attention, not the player name, no one cares who's picked up, just what job needs to be taken care of).

And make sure they're always slowed--we put one earthbind totem about 10 yds from the center and and another about 10-15 yds from the edge but there are lots of other slows to use too--mindflay is one of the best and if you're having trouble with slows, assign your shadow priest(s) specific targets/jobs. Things like rank 1 frostbolt are super helpful too.

Hope that helps! Oh, last thought: I assume you're doing something like this already, but you may want to make sure your raid is forming a perfect stack so that all three valks fly in the same direction and so you can set your earthbinds and whatever. We designate one raid member with the moon (I think it's the only mark DBM doesn't use on this fight) and tell everyone to stack on that person.

[Fhres]

Question regarding the paladin hammer stuns; do you stun the valks instantly when they land (so the first stun ~1sec before the last stun) or do you wait until all three have landed and then stun them?

[Blacksen]

Stun them as soon as you have the correct target. It's much more important to stun the correct target versus stunning quickly.