Patch 3.3 Icecrown Citadel raid boss information and resources

Patch 3.3 is out! With the release of Icecrown, WoW.com aims to help prepare you with the long journey through the Frozen Throne. In this post, you'll find general information about the various bosses along with the strategies to take them down.

There are 13 bosses in Icecrown. The first four bosses in the Lower Spire will be accessible the moment the patch goes live. The rest of the instance will gradually open up later on. Certain encounters will have limited attempts, but you won't have to worry about them later on.

Lastly, attunements are not required to enter Icecrown Citadel on normal mode.
Here's the full list of bosses that will be within Icecrown. Not all of them will be immediately available. Keep reading for a quick encounter breakdown along with links to additional resources.

The Lower Spire

Lord Marrowgar Lady Deathwhisper Icecrown Gunship Battle Deathbringer Saurfang

Plagueworks

Rotface* Festergut* Professor Putricide* Crimson Hall

Blood Princes* Blood-Queen Lana'thel* Frostwing Halls

Valithria Dreamwalker* Sindragosa* The Frozen Throne

Lich king* * = Not Available



Lord Marrowgar
After wading through various skeletons of all sizes, you'll come across this giant cacophony of floating bones. This introductory boss will set the tone for the rest of the instance. Yeah he's the first boss and all that, but don't take him lightly.

Breakdown: Marrowgar is a two phase encounter. Consider it a tank and spank fight. You'll need 3 tanks to equally distribute his Saber Lash. Watch out for the Coldflames and Bone Spike Graveyards! Coldflames will have to be dodged as the lines streak toward players. Players who are hit with a Bone Spike will need to be broken out of by other players as they will be unable to move (and the impaled player loses 10% of their health every second). On the second phase of Marrowgar, turn tail and run like a mad man to avoid Bone Storm! If you get drilled, you'll be bleeding out for the next 15 seconds. Once the Bone Storm phase is over, it's back to phase 1 and avoiding Coldflames.

Pro tip: Melee players can avoid fires if they stand within his hit box.

Additional information

WoW.com impressions Stratfu: Videos and detailed strategy WoWWiki MMO Champion: Known Marrowgar 25 man and 10 man loot


Lady Deathwhisper
You'll approach Lady Deathwhisper in a chamber behind where your raid took down Lord Marrowgar. All I can say is she looks kind of Lich-y. For the lore junkies, Lady Deathwhisper is also the Supreme Overseer of the Cult of the Damned.

Breakdown: Veterans of the game will remember Mu'ru and that's what the fight will be like in a nutshell.

Phase 1: Lady Deathwhisper starts the fight as immobile with a Mana Shield surrounding her. Your goal is to break open her Mana Shield. At this time, various mobs will spawn on both sides of the room and start attacking the raid. Cult Adherents are immune to magical damage (so assign melee onto them) but they can be Shackled. The rest of the adds will need to be grabbed by tanks and AoE'd down. If there is no trash to worry about, focus back on Lady Deathwhisper and break her shield down.

Other abilities by Deathwhisper include Death and Decay (it's bright green) and Mind Control (Polymorph them).

Phase 2: This phase begins when her Mana Shield is broken. At this point, Lady Deathwhisper is now free and can be picked up by a tank. Be careful as the tank is going to get blasted by an extremely powerful Frostbolt which can be interrupted. Other tanks will need to be careful and be prepared to switch as Touch of Insignificance will drop the current tank's threat.

Watch out for Vengeful Spirits that will spawn and chase random players around. If they catch up to them, they will explode and deal potentially lethal damage.

Pro tip: Ranged players can interrupt Frostbolt if there's a Death and Decay on top of Lady Deathwhisper.

Additional information

Stratfu: Videos and detailed strategy WoWWiki: Overview MMO Champion: Known Deathwhisper 25 man and 10 man loot


Icecrown Gunship Battle
Of all the encounters available, this is by far a personal favourite of mine. Vehicular mechanics come into play here again except players won't exactly be driving or flying anything. Some of your raiders will need to man the guns. The objective here is to shoot down the opposing gunship from the sky as you break for the upper levels of Icecrown Citadel.

Breakdown: The Skybreaker and Orgrim's Hammer will be squaring off in an aerial dual. Your gunship will have several deck guns that can be controlled by a few members of your raid. The gunners need to open fire on the opposing gunship.

At the same time, the opposing faction will have their own mages that will encase your guns in blocks of ice rendering them unable to fire. It's up to you to send a strike team over with equippable jet packs (they're shirts) to shut down the mages. Take out their Rocketeers as they're the ones that will be returning fire with their own rockets on to your gunship.

Not only that, your ship will be boarded by opposing faction forces and they have to be cleared out by the group of players that are holding down the fort.

Pro tip: The guys that board your ship do a Bladestorm. Keep some ranged close by and make sure these guys get tanked away as they can demolish a raid pretty quickly.

Additional information

WoW.com impressions Stratfu: Videos and detailed strategy WoWWiki MMO Champion: Known Gunship 25 man and 10 man loot


Deathbringer Saurfang
Once you've shot down the other faction's gunship, the doors to the upper levels will open and Deathbringer Saurfang will emerge. He has been reincarnated as one of Arthas' servants and stands between your raid and the rest of the instance. All those legends and myths you've heard about him?

They're true.

Breakdown: Jokes aside, contrary to popular legend, he is defeatable.

The Deathbringer will gain something called Blood Power through a number of mechanics. Ranged players need to spread out due to an AoE he does called Blood Nova. Saurfang gains 2 Blood Power per person affected by it.

Your tanks will need to taunt off each other the moment the current one gains Rune of Blood. Otherwise, Saurfang will continue gaining Blood Power per melee hit on the player affected by Rune of Blood.

He summons Blood Beasts and every melee hit they perform results in a gain of 3 Blood Power. This is every melee hit per Blood Beast. These guys need to be kited and DPS'd. Your job is to destroy them before they can hit the player who has threat on them. Use whatever you can to freeze them in place or slow them down. Knock back effects like Thunderstorm or Typhoon will do the job.

Additional information

WoW.com impressions Stratfu: Videos and detailed strategy WoWWiki MMO Champion: Known Saurfang 25 man and 10 man loot More bosses will be added as they become released for players to experience.

http://www.wow.com/2009/12/08/patch-3-3-icecrown-citadel-raid-boss-informaiton-and-resources/#continued

Corehound Pups in the mail with patch 3.3 [Updated]

My level 23 Gnome Warrior, whom I have not logged onto in years, got a Corehound Pup in the mail after the servers came back up. He is as adorable as a corehound pup could possibly be. But why did I get him? What's he for?

It appears that several other staff members have gotten the pups in the mail. Some characters have them, some don't. There doesn't seem to by any rhyme or reason behind which characters get them.

We are researching this further, of course, and will keep you up to date. No word from Blizzard yet about this, however.

Did you get a Corehound Pup, too?

Video Update 5:25pm: Video above and screenshot is after the break.
Update 4:39pm: Blizzard confirmed that the Corehound Pup pet is for Authenticator users.
Updated: He (they?) throws a bone in the air and catches it, rolls over and digs a hole in the ground.

WoW Patch 3.3 known issues

WoW Patch 3.3 obviously is having its share of bugs, some more severe than others. People are reporting inability to zone into instances, often times met either with the dreaded "Additional instances cannot be launched" error or just flat out lagging out so long that they're ported back to Dalaran or wherever the system decides to drop them, entirely unable to enter the instance.

Some of the issues have been addressed, some haven't.

Blizzard has released the first part of the list of known issues with patch 3.3. It will be expanding in the future, so don't get too upset when you don't see a bug on it. Remember that it typically takes a couple days for a patch to get all its kinks worked out. Just hang tight, enjoy some some lore and trailer action, and things will be fixed before you know it.

The full list of known issues after the break.

Known issues from Eyonix:

General Issues

Logging out inside a battleground and logging back in after the BG is completed will cause characters to be unable to queue using the Looking for Dungeon System.

Spamming the Auto Attack button causes the character to play the attack animation even though no actual attack is done.

Dungeons & Raids

Escape from Durnhold - At the end of the Escape from Durnholde instance Erozion teleports you back to Caverns of Time rather than where you entered the instance from.

Halls of Reflection - Player will get disconnected when running up the ramp to the ship.

Quests
Horde players do not receive a parachute when the Kor'kron Troop Transport is destroyed during the quest, "Assault by Air".

Classes

Druid
While swimming in Cat form or Travel form players nameplates are clipping through their model.

Mage
Mage Summon Water Elemental does not fully function as a permanent pet when glyphed with Glyph of Eternal Water.

Paladin
Avenging Wrath and self cast Lay on Hands cannot be used within 30 seconds of each other.

UI

The dungeon finder visual UI will sometimes display inaccurate class archetype counts.

The group "guide" is called "Party Leader" in chat.

Second wing of Icecrown Citadel to open in 28 days

Already, a number of guilds have cleared out the first bosses in the lower areas of Icecrown Citadel.
http://www.wow.com/2009/12/08/patch-3-3-icecrown-citadel-raid-boss-informaiton-and-resources/

After taking down the Deathbringer, talking to your friendly faction hero yields some information as to when the doors will open. In Trial of the Crusader, one new boss opened every week. In Icecrown Citadel, it seems like they're increasing the time between gates. The next area will open in 28 days (which is expected to be the Plagueworks containing Festergut, Rotface, and Professor Putricide).

January 5th is the target date for the next set of bosses.

At the rate we're going (28 days between gates), we won't see Arthas until April.

WoW Patch 3.3 priest gear and changes

With wow patch 3.3 very close on the horizon, I figured now might be a good time to go over the few changes priests will be seeing. I'm also going to provide a list of possible juicy items for you to look forward to from the Icecrown Citadel raid, the Icecrown dungeons and the Emblem of Frost vendor. After all, you can't look to take down Arthas without sporting some new threads, right?

Let's start off with the class priest changes.

Divine Hymn: Cooldown reduced to 8 minutes (currently at 10 minutes). This was largely done to help ensure that certain cooldowns would become available faster when working on encounters with limited attempts. In other words, it sucked that Trial of the Grand Crusader attempts would last for about 3 minutes or so before a wipe was called. Another 7 minutes would be needed before the cooldowns were free again. This will help reduce the down time.

Power Word: Shield: You can cast this on non-raid and party targets who are friendly. Now you can keep Varian alive a little bit longer when Horde are beating him down.

That's it for the healing changes. What about for our shadow guys? Shadow priests will be seeing some DPS increases for sure with these changes:

Improved Devouring Plague: The spell dishes out 10/20/30% of it's periodic effect damage instantly (Currently does 5/10/15%).

Mind Flay: Increases the range of Mind Flay to 30 yards (Currently at 20). The other difference is that the Glyph of Mind Flay doesn't provide the range increase since it's already included in the base spell now. Instead, the new Glyph of Mind Flay increases the damage done by Mind Flay by an additional 10% when the target has Shadow Word: Pain.

Shadowform: The talent affects Devouring Plague and Vampiric Touch to see benefits from your haste rating. The period length and duration will be reduced by haste and the mana cost has been reduced from 32% to 13% of your base mana. This is a great help in case priests need to switch in and out of forms for specific reasons (like firing off a few heals during an intense part of an encounter).

Vampiric Embrace: The ability provides a 30 minute buff to the priest that cannot be dispelled (Currently is a debuff applied on targets that can be removed). The healing generated will result from single-target shadow damage spells only.

Our Shadowfiend has seen some changes.

Avoidance (passive ability) : Damage taken from area-of-effect spells and abilities are reduced by 90% but it no longer applies to AoE caused by players.

Priest upgrades from the new heroic 5 mans

Well, this is it. patch 3.3 is expected to be the last major content patch before Cataclysm comes out and there's a ton of gear for us from Icecrown.

Although none of these have any gem sockets in them, you might wish to consider Prelate's Snowshoes (Tyrannus in Pit of Saron on heroic), Braid of Salt and Fire (Ick in Pit of Saron on heroic), or Strip of Remorse (Chest from Halls of Reflection on heroic). Of the two belts, you probably want the Strip if you're Discipline. Mord'rethar Robes (Devourer of Souls in Forge of Souls on heroic) and the Suspiciously Soft Gloves (Marwyn in Halls of Reflection on heroic) do not have haste on them but have a decent amount of critical strike rating.

I wonder what makes them so suspiciously soft.

Looking for some weapons? Surgeon's Needle is a decent dagger from Forgemaster Garfrost (Pit of Saron). Pair it up with the Shriveled Heart from the chest that is offered in the Halls of Reflection.

For trinkets, there's the Ephemeral Snowflake which drops from Marwyn. The unique component of the trinket is that when you heal a target with one of your spells, you gain 11 mana. Just think about that for a sec. The 11 mana kicks in whenever a Renew ticks. It happens when your Circle of Healing heals 5 different targets. I'm not sure if it will still grant the mana if your targets are at full health. The on use effect is a hefty 464 haste rating which lasts 20 seconds. I suppose you could cycle it with Power Infusion during high stress situations.

Priest raiding loot

Even though the instance is gated, there's still some great drops from the early bosses. For instance, look at the Althor's Abacus trinket which has a chance on heal to cause another nearby friendly target to be instantly healed for 5550 - 6450. The extra 179 spellpower from it is handy. Even better? It drops from the Gunship encounter which means it'll be accessible from the start. Out of the 10 mans, there's the Sliver of Pure Ice which seems really lackluster (it's like a mana potion every 2 minutes).

Need a new neck? Bone Sentinel's Amulet is available if you get lucky with Lord Marrowgar. Holiday's Grace will have to wait until the plague wing with Festergut is opened up. For the Shadow Priests, there's always Amulet of the Silent Eulogy (off of the Gunship encounter).

There's several choices when it comes to rings. Remember that the Ashen Verdict will award you with their own reputation rings that will increase in quality based on your standing with them. Otherwise, I would pair the Ashen Band of Wisdom with either Ring of Rapid Ascent (Gunship Battle) or Marrowgar's Frigid Eye (Lord Marrowgar).

For weapons, there's a nice assortment to select from. Frozen Bonespike will be available immediately from Lord Marrowgar. Feel free to pair that up with Shadow Silk Spindle. The other option is a nifty little mace called Trauma. Every time you heal a target, there's a chance the target of your heal will heal themselves and friends within 10 yards for 217 each second for 6 seconds. From the 10 mans, start off with Midnight Sun (Gunship battle) or Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff.

Crystal Spire of Karabor version 2? I think so!

There's also the Corpse-Impaling Spike for wands (but you'll fighting with the other DPS casters for that as well).

Since we Priests like our tier sets and our haste, there's the Plague Scientist's Boots. These will come later though since the boots drop from Festergut. Incidentally enough, the Crushing Coldwraith Belt seems to have the exact same stats as the boots. Holy Priests will want to consider the Lingering Illness later on (also from Festergut). The only wrist upgrades will be Death Surgeon's Sleeves (Rotface 25) and Bracers of Dark Blessings (Lady Deathwhisper on 10s).

Among cloaks, there are two choices: Frostbinder's Shredded Cape (Valithria Dreamwalker who comes later on and won't be immediately accessible) and Greatcloak of the Turned Champion (The Deathbringer who is available).

Priest tier gear

Our tier stuff is going to be the last items we wear for the rest of the expansion.

Crimson Acolyte Gloves - 60 Emblems of Frost Crimson Acolyte Hood - 95 Emblems of Frost Crimson Acolyte Leggings - 95 Emblems of Frost Crimson Acolyte Robe - 95 Emblems of Frost Crimson Acolyte Shoulderpads - 60 Emblems of Frost What about the craftable stuff?

You can make the following legs and boots with these Ashen Verdict recipes:

Pattern: Leggings of Woven Death Pattern: Deathfrost Boots Pattern: Lightweave Leggings Pattern: Sandals of Consecration Whatever you do, I wouldn't advise crafting the legs. You're most likely going to replace them with tier anyway. Go for the boots if you're unlucky with boot drops (but don't purchase the Primordial Saronite to craft it, just rely on drops and hope your guild is generous).

Not much is known about the heroic gear at this time. Some items have been discovered but you can expect them to be slightly higher up versions of the normal raiding loot.

Good luck in there!