As you may have learned from my previous post, my guild has nearly cleared the first wing of Icecrown Citadel 10 man. Our 25 man did manage to drop Lord Marrowgar this past Thursday, but struggled on Lady Deathbringer. Not enough people were clear on their roles, which is a sure fire ingredient for fail when dealing with the amount of adds in the 25 man encounter.
Anyway, I figured I’d offer up a brief recap of the 10 man versions, along with a few tips from a Hunter’s perspective. We’ve completed 3/4 of the encounters and have gotten pretty close to dropping Deathbringer. That’s a difficult fight, but I feel we’ve got a good shot at getting him before the raid reset. We shall see.
Lord Marrowgar
As a Hunter, this fight isn’t all that tough as long as you pay attention to these things:
- Get out of the path of Coldflame – Lord Marrowgar sends out a Coldflame which travels towards a random person in the raid. It can be easily avoided if you’re paying attention, as it moves moves fairly slow. 18K frost damage over 3 seconds if it gets you, so be mindful.
- Call out and DPS down the Bone Spikes – Marrowgar will hurl a spike at a random player, which will then cause all players between the intended target and Marrowgar to be stuck in the Bone Spike Graveyard. These Bone Spikes must be dealt with immediately. Getting the Bone Spikes down ASAP is the most important part of this encounter. The Bone Spike itself causes an instant 9K damage when the player is impaled, followed by additional damage equal to 10% of the player’s remaining health for 10 seconds. What makes the Bone Spikes especially dangerous is the fact that the affected player is unable to move, which makes them a sitting duck for Cold Flame. He’ll emote just before tossing down the Bone Spikes, so be looking for them. Ideally, the range should be spread out to one side of him so that anyone impaled can be reached easily. If people start running around all fancy crazy trying to avoid Coldflame and then get impaled on a Bone Spike a good distance from the DPS & heals, then it causes problems.
- It’s not too hard for us Hunters to see the spikes as they appear, but if you find you’re not getting to them quick enough, spamming tab target or creating a /target Bone Spike macro could come in handy. It’s also important to let your raid know if you’re impaled. If you’re not on vent, then a macro letting the group know: >>> [YOURNAME] IS GETTING BONED <<<, can be clutch. 😉
- Avoid Bone Storm – Throughout the fight Marrowgar will go into a 20 second Whirlwind type attack, then charge random players. After attacking them for a few seconds, he’ll go after another player, damaging everything in his path. Bone Storm by itself isn’t lethal (only does 6K over 2 seconds), but if you happen to get hit by a Coldflame followed by Bone Storm, then you may have issues. If you do happen to get caught in a Bone Storm, then Deterrence will help out here.
- Apply Misdirection following Bone Storm – Bone Storm resets Marrowgar’s aggro table, so it’s imperative that the tanks pick up threat once it’s over. If not, he’s likely to target a healer or DPS and send them to the GY. Stop DPS before the timer runs out and then cast a Misdirection and resume DeePS.
- Rinse and repeat ’til he’s dead.
- Celebrate and distribute loots.
Lady Deathwhisper
The key here is making it to the second phase. The second phase is pretty much a DPS race. If you can make it past the first phase, it’s relatively smooth sailing the rest of the way provided you have the firepower.