Gunship

Gunship

The 3rd encounter in ICC, and probably the easiest boss fight, Gunship has both an alliance and a horde component.  Once you go up the elevator (or take the teleporter) after Deathwhisper, you have a choice to go left or right.  Left is for the alliance ship, right is for the horde ship (you go to the ship of the faction you’re apart of).

The Fight:

Prior to the fight, everyone should grab a rocket pack from the goblin, and you should split your raid into 2 teams (explained later). Once that is done, talk to either Saurfang, or Muradin to start the fight.  Once you initiate the fight, a big RP event will happen, and the opposing ship will appear and fly next to your boat. 

Home Boat – This is the boat you start on, you should have 2-4 reliable people manning guns (we use ranged) a good AoE tank, your healers, and your ranged.  The tank will stand in the middle of the boat and collect the adds that will come periodically through the portal that appears there. all ranged will focus adds when they come aboard (watch out for whirlwinds), and when the adds on your ship are down, fire at the mobs close to your side of the boat.  Also on the home ship, you will see areas on the ground that will have a glowing circle type thing, these are areas where rockets will hit from the opposite ship.  It’s best to move out of these if you can help it.

Gunners – On the home boat, you will see 2 cannons on 10 man, 4 on 25.  These should be manned by 2-4 reliable people (Preferably ranged).  The job of the gunners is to damage the opposite boat, which once the boat “dies” the encounter is over.  The guns have 2 abilities, one is a rocket that does an AoE and builds up heat which will appear where your rage / energy / mana bar usually is.  If your heat goes over 100, your gun will stop firing for a few seconds as it cools back down to Zero heat.  On the flip side, the second ability takes the amount of heat your gun has, and adds that as extra damage.  The goal is to get your gun as close to, or at 100, and then fire doing lots of damage.  Also, usually you want to aim your guns at the adds in the back (cannoneers) as they will be shooting at your home boat and usually do not die unless you kill them with a cannon.  When the mage on the away boat comes out, he will freeze the cannon, dismounting the gunners, and will not be unfrozen untill the mage dies.

Away Boat – On this boat, there are 2 major points of interests. First off there will be either Saurfang or Muradin, this mob must be tanked and taken away from your team on that boat, usually towards the edge of the boat closest to the home boat.  The other is a mage that will come out and freeze the guns, all dps needs to be on the mage when they are up.  The mage does not attack anyone, so it does not need to be tanked.  If you are returning to the home boat, you can either rocket back to the home boat, or run off the side, and you will be teleported to your home boat. WARNING!: once the away ship is “dead” if you run off the side, you will fall to your death, to avoid this, you can either jump back while the away ship is exploding…or just stay on that boat, and you will be teleported to the landing area.

Alternate strategy -  Another thing you can do is on the away boat is have a tank, all the dps that will be hitting the mage, and one healer.  Pretty much all the dps will attack the home ship attacking mobs, and when the mage appears, the mage.  The healer will heal the tank that is over on the away boat, and the tank will go towards the back of the ship (where Muradin / Saurfang appears).  All the tank has to do is pick up the boss, and collect as much threat as you can (I usually wait till he gains 2-3 stacks of his buff that increases his damage), and then rocket to the raised area in the back.  The boss will then run up either the ramp (horde boat), or the stairs (alliance boat), once they get close, you jump down, wait for them to run back down to you, and then rocket back up.  The boss will sometimes hit you if you don’t time your jumps right, hence the need for the healer.  With this method, the team that is on the away boat does NOT have to return to the home ship.

Heroic -  The only 2 big differences is the Rockets that hit the home boat now have a knock back and the gunners on the away boat will gain experience faster (does damage the higher levels they have.)

Blood Queen Lana’thel

Blood-Queen Lana’thel

Blood-Queen Lana’thel is the final boss in the blood wing.  This fight is a DPS race, along with a slight healer check.

 

Lady Deathwhisper

Lady Deathwhisper

Lady Deathwhisper is the second encounter in ICC, the key to this fight is managing adds and spliting your raid between adds and the boss. She starts off with a mana shield that needs to dpsed down, untill that happens, she will spawn adds that needs to be tanked.  Once the shield is destroyed, she is tankable.  I’d advise you use 2 tanks on 10 man, and 3 tanks in 25.

The Fight:

Before the fight starts, you should divide your raid between adds and Lady Deathwhisper.  Lady Deathwhisper has a mana shield around her that must be burned down, till that happens, she will continue to spawn adds.  The right side spawns 2 adherents and 1 fanatic, the left side spawns 2 fanatics and 1 adherent.  The backside, if you’re in 25 in normal or heroic (or 10 man in heroic), will spawn one add, it could be either a fanatic or an adherent.

Adherents are the caster add.  They have a shadowbolt attack, and a spell reflect they put on themself that must be broken through melee attacks.  They also have a curse that increases cooldowns by 15 seconds, so this must be decursed as soon as possible.

Fanatics are the melee adds, they have a cleave, can heal for damage they inflict, and also have an attack that applies a debuff that absorbs healing.  So, make sure healers are on top of your heals to pop that debuff off, and make sure you face the adds away from your raid.

Usually, we put our melee on the right side since there are 2 adherents and they have a spell reflect that they apply to themself. On the left side, we put casters and have them nuke the adherent first so that they cant apply the spell reflect. The back add should either be picked up by a tank, or killed by a predetermined team, we usually use our hunters.

Lady Deathwhsiper will occasionally cast Dark Martyrdom or Dark Empowerment on adds.  Dark Martyrdom will explode the add, they will then become reanimated.  Reanimated adherents will require physical classes to attack them, whereas reanimated fanatics will need magic casters on them.  Dark Empowered adds will increase in damage, and also lose threat once they are empowered and will be needed to be re-established.

Lady Deathwhisper herself will also cast death and decay on random people and you would have to move out of that AoE, along with random shadowbolts.  In 25 (and 10 man heroic) she will mind control 1 person, (3 in 25-heroic) so make sure you CC them and are cautious with your AoE damage, if they are MCed in a group while you’re downing adds, you run the risk of killing them.

After the mana shield is broken, she can be tanked.  If you have rogues and hunters, you should have them use their aggro transfering skills on your tank to establish aggro.  In this phase she gains 3 new abilities, she has a frostbolt that can be interrupted (and should be, it hurts), she summons ghosts that will target someone and explode when they get into melee range of their target (doing AoE damage when they explode), and she applies a debuff called Touch of Insignificance which stacks up to 5 and reduces the target’s threat 20% per stack.  In normal mode, she can be taunted, however, in heroic mode, she cannot.

Heroic -  In 10 man heroic, one person will be MCed throughout the fight, she cannot be taunted in the tanked phase, and she still summons one add in the back.  In 25, along with not being tauntable, she MCs 3 characters, and summons 3 adds from sides that alternate after each wave.

Abilities:

Phase 1:

Mana Barrier – This is her mana shield that you must destroy to get into her phase 2.

Shadow Bolt - Lady Deathwhisper targets a random person and shoots at them.

Death and Decay – Lady Deathwhisper drops a green Death and Decay on the ground, dealing damage every second you’re in it’s radius. Lasts 10 seconds.

Dark Empowerment - Empowers a random adherent, causing them to deal area damage with spells. Also makes the target immune to interrupts.

Phase 2:

Frostbolt – Lady Deathwhisper attacks her primary target for a large amount of damage.  Can be, and should, be interrupted.

Death and Decay - Lady Deathwhisper drops a green Death and Decay on the ground, dealing damage every second you’re in it’s radius. Lasts 10 seconds.

Touch of Insignificance – Reduces target’s threat generation by 20% per stack.  Stacks up to 5.

Summon Vengeful Shade – Summons ghosts that will explode, dealing AoE damage when they reach their target.

Feral Tips:

Bear

• If you’re tanking, try to become the OT, this will open you up to do more damage.  Usually I take the backside add in 25 and the OT for Lady once her bubble pops.  While you’re not tanking, in Phase 1, you should join the melee side on the right, and in Phase 2, when you’re waiting for your debuff to fall off, you should turn into a cat and dps lady deathwhisper.

• If you DO take the back add, if you get a fanatic, take him to the left side and make sure you’re careful of cleaving the other tank and raid while you’re dragging him through.  If you get the adherent, take him to the right, try to target  another adherent on that side and feral charge them to stop a cast.  After you charge them, duck behind one of the pillars and line of sight them till they are in the group and charge back in there.

 

 

Lord Marrowgar

LORD MARROWGAR

Lord Marrowgar is the first boss in ICC and one of the easier bosses, on both normal and heroic.  In 10 man, this boss requires only 2 tanks in both normal and heroic modes, where as the 25 requires 2 on normal and 3 on heroic.  As far as healers go, we usually run 2 on 10 man, and 6 on 25.

The Fight:

When you start this fight, the tanks need to stack up so that the cleave he does can be split between them.  Everyone else needs to stack up behind Marrowgar, in melee range, with only hunters on the outside, but still behind.  Marrowgar will target someone and place a strip of flame on the ground that will deal damage to anyone in it’s path.  With everyone stacked up, the only people that would have to move would be tanks and hunters.  Tanks should coordinate the way they will move before the encounter.  We usually go right 3-4 times, then go to the right to the first open spot, and continue to go right untill bonestorm. 

Also while Marrowgar is not bonestorming, he will choose 1 person in 10 man, and 3 people in 25 man to bone spike.  Bone spike does initial damage, along with an extra 10% health every second untill it’s destroyed.  These must be destroyed as soon as possible.

While bonestorm is going, the closer you are towards his center, the more damage you take, so make sure that you dont stand in the middle of his hit box.

About 6-8 seconds before bonestorm, we usually have everyone except for tanks spread out.  During bonestorm, Marrowgar will target someone, and speed towards them, and then stop where they were when he targeted him.  After20 seconds in normal(30 seconds in heroic), he will stop bonestorming and can be tanked again.  At this time tanks should stack up again, and as the rest of the raid moves back into melee range.

Heroic – In heroic mode, other than him hitting harder, only 2 things change.  The flames he puts on the ground last 8 seconds instead of 3.  Secondly, he will continue to bone spike while bonestorming.  With the addition to the extra bone spikes, the raid should make sure that ranged should still spread out, but make sure they dont stand near the spikes, only 1-2 melee should be near a spike while they’re up.

Abilities:

Bone Slice - This is Lord Marrowgar’s cleave attack, it will hit his target, and up to 2 nearby allies.

Cold Flame – This is the strip of fire he throws towards a targeted player during the tanking phase, this lasts 3 seconds (8 in heroic)

Bone Spike Graveyard – A casted spell that will impale 1 person (3 in 25 man) that will deal initial damage, and then an additional 10% every second before it’s destroyed.

Bone Storm – Deals damage to everyone to the raid every 2 seconds, the closer to the center of his hit box you are, the more damage you’ll recieve.

Feral Tips:

Bear

•  If you are MTing, make sure that you pop berserk in the beginning after your first lacerate and then spam mangle and maul, this will help your initial threat so that your raid can lay into him right off the bat.  This will also allow your raid to pop Bloodlust (Heroism) at the start without the worry of losing threat.
• Marrowgar’s hit box is extremely large, so while he is bonestorming, you can reapply your lacerates with ease without taking very much damage.

Cat

• Since everyone is stacking up, you can use swipe when bones spike happens, the only spikes you should not be able to hit would be the ones that are applied to hunters.
• Marrowgar’s bonestorm is an AoE, so if you’re talented into Preditory Instincts (which you should be if you’re a cat.), you’ll take 30% less damage from it, so you can stay at the edge of his hit box, and mangle / reapply bleeds without having to worry too much about your health.