The Lich King becomes available in two weeks.  Are you ready?

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The Crimson Halls were supposed to unlock today, however it appears they are not properly unlocking on most servers.  I guess the ONE thing Blizzard had to worry about by gating the instance every two weeks is making sure the gating actually, you know, works.

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The Crimson Hall wing of Icecrown Citadel is set to unlock this Tuesday, allowing you to access both The Blood Prince Council and Blood Queen Lana’thel.

Gear of importance to moonkin:

10man:

[Cerise Coiled Ring] (Blood Prince Council)

25man:

[Shadow Silk Spindle] (Blood Prince Council)

[Blood Queen's Crimson Choker] (Blood Queen Lana’thel)

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I’ve been remiss in my goal to give brief previews of the different battles for those who have yet to see Icecrown Citadel, or want a very topical description of the fights.  This is in no means a fully inclusive boss strategy, just a high level view of the fight, and those things pertinent to a moonkin.

This is in the point of view of Alliance.  The character names/models are changed if you’re Horde, but the abilities are the same.

There are several different elements occuring at the same time of Gunship Battle.  I’ll try to break them down.

Cannons: (4 on 25man, 2 on 10man)

There are cannons which are used to attack the opposing gunship.  Generally melee are placed in these, and they attack the Kor'kron Rocketeer.  If the rocketeers are dead, they can begin to attack the Kor'kron Axethrower.  The cannons have two abilities, first they use [Cannon Blast], which produces an energy bar called “Heat”.  Once your heat is 80+, you should use the “finishing move”, [Incinerating Blast].  If your heat reaches 100, however, you will begin to [Overheat], which will lock out the cannon for 3 seconds.

Kor'kron Rocketeer:

The rocketeers will launch rockets at your ship, and their destination is marked with a large cross on the ground.  Dodge the rocketstrikes.  The cannons should be attacking them.

Kor'kron Axethrower:

The axe throwers will randomly attack people on your ship.  Your ranged DPS should be killing these.

Kor'kron Sergeant / Kor'kron Reaver

These mobs will teleport onto your gunship and need to be offtanked.  Casters should occasionally AoE them down, as they will begin to do more damage as time goes on.  The Sergeants will also use [Bladestorm] and [Wounding Strike].

Kor'kron Battle-Mage

The Battle-Mage will arrive and [Below Zero].  This will cause your cannons to be frozen and unusable.  Your melee will need to jump over and kill the mage.

High Overlord Saurfang

High Overlord Saurfang needs to be tanked when the melee go over to kill the Battle Mage.  The offtank should jump over BEFORE the melee, and return AFTER them, so Saurfang does not attack any of the melee.  He cannot be killed, and his damage grows in time as he’s in combat, so it’s important to recall totems and return to your own gunship after the mage is killed.

Moonkin loot of interest:

10man:

[Cord of Dark Suffering]

[Muradin's Spyglass]

25man:

[Ring of Rapid Ascent]

[Boots of Unnatural Growth]

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A few hotfixes went out for the Putricide encounter today:

• Professor Putricide’s Tear Gas will no longer remove player auras.
• The Growing Ooze Puddles in the Professor Putricide encounter will no longer continue to grow while players are stunned.

A few heroic dungeons were also nerfed to allow faster clears.

On a side note, the 2 piece Balance T10 proc is called [Omen of Doom].  Doing 20k+ Starfires and 14k+ wraths is pretty neat.

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Although I had to go with our alt group this week, as I somehow fell asleep before raid and slept through half of raid time, *toe*, our main group downed Professor Putricide this week.  I went with our well geared alts, and we were able to get him sub 15 percent a few times, but we didn’t have the right group composition or gear to nail the kill.  Everyone else took their mains back in and finished the job.  I apoligize for the sparse posting lately.  This was my birthday weekend and I’ve had a friend in town all weekend.  I hope to be ramping up again now.

I’ve also been getting behind on my previews for Icecrown, I hope to have time to write one tomorrow.

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Because 25man Icecrown Citadel wasn’t already easy enough, the following nerfs was made:

• The Lady Deathwhisper encounter has seen the following changes in the 25 player normal version: mana pool has been reduced, the health on all adds has been reduced, and Adherents will wait a little longer after spawning before they start casting.

They also plan on releasing one wing of Icecrown every two weeks.  The third will open two weeks from now.  Expect the Lich King sometime in Februrary

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Servers will be going down for maintenance today, and Plagueworks should be unlocked when it returns.  We’re going in with both our 25man groups and will be clearing it.  I’ll post a small blurb about it shortly, as well as another brief synopsis (read: NOT A FULL BOSSKILLERS STRAT) on the Gunsnor..Gunship battle.

We don’t really have two fulltime raiding 25 man groups, however for non-heroic content we intermix a lot of alts in with the mains, to keep them geared up as well in case we need certain classes/builds for certain fights.

Stay tuned for more!

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It’s been a quiet two weeks due to the holiday, but in case you forgot, the next wing of Icecrown, Plagueworks, is released this week.  This will unlock Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide.  Unfortuntately, the only 25man piece of loot of any interest, really, is the [Helm of the Elder Moon], off Rotface.  There’s a few other leather pieces, but they’re itemized with haste, and the [Dislodged Foreign Object] is not impressive.

On the 10man side, there is [Wrists of Septic Shock], off Festergut, and [Chestguard of the Failed Experiment] off Rotface.

Not really a lot of loot for us out of Plagueworks.  I’m still trying to get the spyglass and the bonespike.  The spyglass only seems to drop when I’m running on my hunter, and I keep losing the bonespike to resto druids who haven’t read the 3.3 patch notes.

How is your progression going?  Are you ready for Plagueworks?

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Do you feel Icecrown Citadel is tuned too easy?  On Sargeras, 19 guilds had the first four bosses down the first week … on 25man.  I sincerely hope the next wings get considerably harder.

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