Fall of the Lich King - Patch 3.3

[Ghost Rider]

I'm really hoping Arthas HM absolutely bitch slaps even the hardcore guilds. LK normal did for some, there's a fuckload of drama surrounding some US guild, who couldn't down LK normal, so to keep up they recruited a mage from Vis Maior, so they could access hardmodes this reset. Ensidia did roughly the same (they used an alt) and I imagine a fair few other guilds are doing the same.

To those who skipped the LK...they are cowardly little fucks. Seriously that battle is one of the tougher in ICC. I will say Heroic is likely something that will make most guilds cry and the top world ten reconsider their whole "Blizzard make things harder!!" stance. Yogg-0 was hard. Firefighter was hard. This requires somewhere in the lines of 10-11K DPS from everyone. Not me, not our best warlock, and such not. Everyone.

Having finished the regular Arthas battle last night? It is a fucking obscene battle in 25(our 10 didn't get it down before hand but the experience was decent). Shit is flying around, there are quite a few new mechanics and it requires a lot of more DPS and coordination then not. M'Uru is easier in thought then this battle since there is no way of overpowering it(Yeah, I'm looking at the guilds that went DRUMS + SHAMMMMMMMMMMMMAN). Someone fucks up? You die.

Now that we know Heroic has 40 million more HP, and likely double the HP for adds? My guild is wondering how long in heroic are we gearing for. I made a joke that we'll have 1-2 Shadowmournes. No one in Ochat really laughed except the horror that I was probably right.

[Minischoles]

I'm guessing it's tuned in a Brutallus style approach. It's tuned to have every single kind of buff possible, because if they didn't it'd just be too easy. But yeah, with the amount of hp it has, it seems tuned around a guild that has absolutely farmed the crap outta normal and hardmodes first, people equipped with Insanity Cloaks, double potting, all the little tricks that increase DPS (tricksing affliction warlocks who use Nevermelting Ice Crystal for example).


ICC is turning out good, but it's also demonstrating the rampant scaling problem Blizzard has admitted they had. My main hasn't come close to running OOM healing a raid since Ulduar, the only way I go OOM now is if there's a) a monumental fuck up or b) half the healers die. The only healer that come's even close to running out of mana these days are paladins, everyone else can pretty much spam to the exclusion of mana, especially my class druids.
DPS is the same, mages are damn near approaching the crit cap, rogues have already hit it in normal mode gear, it's possible for nearly every melee class to hard cap armor penetration. Hopefully they fix this in Cataclysm, it'd be nice to have the prospect of going OOM again, of having to manage my mana.

While TBC might have been very tight on class constraints and raid composition, at least you had to manage your mana, manage how you spent it and actually consider whether it was safe to downrank in your current gear, or use a higher rank and risk going OOM.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Aren't they going to start adding a raidwide damage/healing buff in ICC as 'The assault progresses' to eventually allow everyone to down Arthas?

[Ghost Rider]

Aren't they going to start adding a raidwide damage/healing buff in ICC as 'The assault progresses' to eventually allow everyone to down Arthas?

Soon. As they put it.

Even then...Heroic Arthas will then get downed by the elite 50 because unless the buff is 50% more HP, damage and some debuff on Arthas, you are going to destroy 20 attempts on him alone.

Regular Arthas gets raped by some guilds because they can endlessly pound on him.

[Jon]

Admittedly, I've only played since TBC was released and not experienced 'WoW Vanilla' as it was way back when but I've been really satisfied with WoTLK as an expansion, and had a hell of a lot of fun playing through 70-80 on my Hunter and Paladin, as well as the dungeons and raids. ICC is a lot of fun, but since I'm in a casual guild mainly with RL friends I have to rely on pugs and even with the achivements/gearscore madness it's shocking sometimes how poorly organised those can be. Furthest I've for so far is rotface on 25 man, but people seem inept at moving when they've got a bit of slime humping their legs or when missiles are incoming. Frustrating really, I guess if I want a real shot at reaching the Lich King I need to consider joining an actual guild capable of working as a coherent unit. Still, ICC dungeons and raids have been a really welcome addition and I must admit I like the throttled release of content, really.

[Ghost Rider]

And Arthas 10 man Heroic still stands tall. Personally this still gives new dimension to heroic 25 man.

To give an idea of the sliding difficulty of 25man because I want to relate how retarded the little chibbers are?

10/12 Heroic mode? harder. They do more and hurt. But if you can down Arthas, you can down a majority of the hard modes. Kinda sad in some ways, expected in others.

Professor Putricide? Talking with a couple Paragon members...it's a whole new fucking ball game. He squashes the other two with a wink of his dead eye. The fact only two guilds have knocked him down is proof of that.

Arthas? Makes the Professor look like a grade school wanna be. This is the one most are saying you need to farm Heroic mode for at least 3-4 weeks, get lucky with drops, and then you stand a decent chance. From what I asked about, he does around 50-55K on tanks and his adds give almost 70 Million more HP to burn through while beating on him. Also of note? He has two times where he just yabbers for nearly a minute and other small events that just prevent even DPSing him, just as he does in regular mode. So the fight is really burning through 163 million in 12-13 minutes. Why 163 Million? Because the presumption is that at the last 10% he's the same as normal. Mind you if that's changed as well? You're unholy fucked with a spiked dong.

Again, to every motherfucker who went "Yogg-0 lasted longer!!!!". That's because it expected you to deal with invincible mobs and DPS the giant fucker and gear wasn't nearly that good. The fight had problems because overall, it was trying to figure the math around a seemingly inconcievable problem and do it within the enrage timer. And guess what? Once figured what things could be circumvented, the battle flows.

[GuppyShark]

So is it difficult because he has eleventy jillion hitpoints, or is there a lot going on that needs to be tracked?

How does it compare to Kael'thas 25?

[Ghost Rider]

So is it difficult because he has eleventy jillion hitpoints, or is there a lot going on that needs to be tracked?

How does it compare to Kael'thas 25?

Both. His HP makes it daunting because he summons a fucking army to help him, and the army actually will pick you up, throw you around or apply some horrible shit. Like I said, if you can beat him? 7/12 is easy in Heroic Mode. He really is that much more a step up from the rest of ICC.

I'd say he's harder all then super Kael. And I mean the bugged version of Kael. The amount of awareness on Arthas is enough to frighten most, but it's the fact you are honestly racing against time, and he then TALKS and GLOATS to waste another precious minute.

Heroic? A few of us are theorycrafting and there is shit that is just complete fucking amaze and wonder of what the fuck to do. His HP there is daunting but it's the fact he has some three new abilities along with his other shit.

[Civil War Man]

A WoW Insider columnist described the Lich King fight as a combination of Kalecgos and Illidan. Like Kalecgos, the fight takes place in two different worlds and also has a dot that will jump between players. Like Illidan, it has phases that require everyone to stay away from the boss and adds that need to be killed, some of which will instantly kill raid members if not burned down fast enough.

Add to that a void zone that gets bigger if anyone stands in it and a multitude of ways for a single screw-up to guarantee a raid wipe, and you have the Lich King fight.
Spoiler

If anyone dies while inside Frostmourne, Arthas is instantly healed to full hp

[Ghost Rider]

A WoW Insider columnist described the Lich King fight as a combination of Kalecgos and Illidan. Like Kalecgos, the fight takes place in two different worlds and also has a dot that will jump between players. Like Illidan, it has phases that require everyone to stay away from the boss and adds that need to be killed, some of which will instantly kill raid members if not burned down fast enough.

Add to that a void zone that gets bigger if anyone stands in it and a multitude of ways for a single screw-up to guarantee a raid wipe, and you have the Lich King fight.
Spoiler

If anyone dies while inside Frostmourne, Arthas is instantly healed to full hp

Yeah, that's a nice way of describing the fight. Really...only Putricide has given as much challenge, and it was more of coordination.

[Rahvin]

My guild is STILL only 6/12 on regular 10 man, and a pathetic 4/12 on regular 25.

A bit of investigation shows that, bluntly, my server (Azjol-Nerub) absolutely sucks for progression. We have a huge Horde population, but only a tiny handfull (6) of Horde guilds can even manage 6/12 on 25ICC. I'm strongly considering a transfer to Hyjal, where 15 guilds on the Horde side are at least at 6/12, and guild raid times tend to be later (for some reason, despite being on Mountain time and based in the LA server farm, AN has a huge amount of East Coast players; Hyjal tends to be more reasonable for those of us in the Pacific timezone). I also have a friend who recently transferred there...but at $25 a pop, transferring my 3 worthwhile toons plus all of my girlfriend's characters (I believe she wants to bring 4 or 5) gets a bit pricey.

[Terralthra]

My friends and I founded a guild on Kilrogg midway through the ToC era. We're currently on Sindragosa on 10, and working to get Putricide, Blood Council, and Valithria consistently on 25. Calculated Risk on Kilrogg, in case you're interested.