zeroinitiate - A World of WarCraft Rogue Blog

A quick guide to the 5-man bosses of the Icecrown Citadel:
The Forge of Souls:

Bronjahm:

• He will create soul fragments from a member of the party. The fragment will spawn from where the party member is located. It will then start moving toward Bronjahm. If it reaches him, it will heal him. Obviously, killing the fragment is a priority. The group also has the option of creating distance between the boss and whichever party member that becomes the fragment source.
• When he’s close to death, he will move to the center of the room and create a vortex around him. Anyone who gets hit by it is damaged, so move in along with him. He will cast fear on someone, possibly causing the feared player to run to the vortex. This is something that’s more for your healers but watch out for it anyway. Can anyone confirm if Cloak of Shadows works when you run to the vortex?

The Devourer of Souls:

• This thing reminds me of a quintesson.
• When it uses Mirrored Soul, stop DPS. You’ll be killing the team member who received the debuff if you don’t.
• Unleash Souls will spawn adds. Try to avoid them as much as you can. They don’t hurt a lot but become troublesome once they gank you. Use Evasion if necessary.
• Wailing Souls shouldn’t be a problem for you if you’re doing what rogues were born to do: attacking from behind. Still, if you do see it being cast, move behind the target.

The Pit of Saron:

Forgemaster Garfrost:

• Permafrost is a problem for healers. The best way to deal with it is to avoid unnecessary damage (meaning don’t get hit by massive boulders) and DPS as much as you can. Killing him faster means leaving less chances for your healer to run out of mana.
• When he runs to a forge to craft something, you can either chase him (make sure the rest of your party does so as well) or you can hide behind the boulders to avoid Permafrost damage.

Ick and Krick:

• Make sure your group clears the trash around the boss. Those pats have a nasty habit of inviting themselves to the fight thanks to a party member that isn’t paying attention.
• There’s a lot of poison to avoid, giving this encounter a lot of movement. Move away from the puddles.
• If the boss goes after you, run away. Pursuit will one-shot you.
• When it casts that nova spell, run away from it.

Scourgelord Tyrannus:

• He likes hearing himself talk.
• Overlord’s Brand is an ability that’s best understood before the fight begins. If you get the debuff and attack the boss, you’re also hitting the tank. The boss can also get healed by it. The groups I’ve been in have never had a problem with it but it’s better to be prepared.
• His mount, Rimefang, will cast ice spells that freeze targeted party members. The game calls out who it’s cast on so move away from him or her. The damage itself isn’t too bad so if you get hit, it doesn’t mean it’s a wipe.

Halls of Reflection:

• Once you’re done with the dialogue, the place becomes a static gauntlet. You fight waves of adds followed by a boss then more waves followed by the other boss. Unlike Violet Hold or Black Morass, wiping after the first boss is downed doesn’t reset the entire thing. You start from first wave after killing the first boss.
• Once again, this place is more of a problem for your tank. Your job is to DPS as fast as you can. Take down the casters first. I usually just TotT + FoK the entire thing. If you have a death knight in your group, have him or her Death Grip a caster or hunter to the group to help your tank out.
• The bosses themselves are easy. Well of Corruption from the second boss is the only thing you’ll need to avoid. Getting to the part where you can fight them is the hard part.
• The next mob after the encounter is a huge undead guy that will spawn copies of your group, similar to what happens with the Herald Volazj fight in Ahn’kahet (AKA OK). There’s no phasing involved this time, so just bring it down as quickly as you can.
• You’ll run up to the throne room. Move to the right exit and get ready for another gauntlet. Your group along with Sylvanas or Jaina will start to run away from the Lich King. He will block your path with huge ice walls and then proceed to move forward very slowly. Waves of undead will also start attacking you. After you deal with them, the wall will shatter and your group does more running away. You’ll repeat this process three or four times.
• Don’t get close to the Lich King. He has an aura that deals 6k-7k damage on plate (I was on my DK at the time) per second. Imagine what he can do to leather.
• When you board the ship, a chest will spawn signalling the end of the instance. Get your loot and celebrate.

This is it. You’ve skinned the beasts, banished the demon lord back to his realm, made short work of the opposing faction’s champions and clipped the wings off the twins. It’s time to face the Nerubian Lord Anub’arak, who’s back for round two.

Phase One is a tank and spank with adds. Anub’arak has a cleave attack so make sure you’re nowhere in front of him during the fight. DPS the boss, switch to the adds when your off-tank picks them up (one add in 10-man, 2 in 25) and then go back to the boss. A second set of adds will spawn shortly but we usually ignore those until the boss burrows.  The adds can also burrow and then pop back later. To prevent this, they have to be tanked on frozen ground. If they’re not, you can interrupt their burrow cast by using Kidney Shot.

When Anub’arak burrows, Phase Two begins. Kill the adds that your off-tank is dealing with then proceed to killing scarabs. These do not need to be tanked so just DPS away. They cast a stacking damage debuff on you so watch for it. If it becomes tough to handle you can use Cloak of Shadows to get out of it. The boss himself will cast spikes that chase random raid members. Just stand on frost (or get frost between you and the spikes) if it targets you. The spikes will hit the frost in a rather violent animation and then switch targets. Once Anub’arak pops from the ground, it’s back to Phase One.

Phase Three starts when the boss’s HP hits 30%. He’ll stop burrowing and will cast a life leech spell that will drain HP from the raid and give it back to him. This phase has more to do with your healers than you but the idea is to keep everyone except the tanks at 30-50 percent HP throughout the remainder of the fight. Just DPS the boss, pop your trinkets and enjoy the loot.

That’s it. I hope you enjoyed this guide to Trial of the Crusader. I know it’s delayed as hell but real life got in the way again. I was actually forced to a 3-week break from the game because of Ketsana and other shit (and when I say it’s shit, it really is shitty).

The fourth fight of TotC pits your group against Fjola Lightbane and Eydis Darkbane, the Twin Val’kyr. Four portals will spawn, 2 light and 2 dark. When you click one, you will see a matching aura on your feet, indicating what color you’re attuned to. The gimmick of the fight is knowing when to use which color.

• The fight itself is a tank and spank. Seriously.

• Install DBM or any similar addon. DBM will literally tell you what color to use if you need to switch. The version I downloaded today also tells me if I need to switch targets and it also shows when I should use Kick to interrupt the heal. We’ll cover that later, but what I want to emphasize here is that the fight is simplified exponentially by using DBM.

• You will always DPS the target opposite your color. If you’re white, you DPS black and vice-versa.

• Black and white orbs will spawn around the area. Grabbing orbs that have the same color as your attunement will buff you. Touching different colored ones will hurt you. So if you’re white, grab white.

• At certain points during the fight, one of the twins will cast one of two abilities. One is an AoE ability called Vortex. To avoid taking damage from it, switch colors to match the caster’s. If Eydis Darkbane is casting it, switch to black. If your color already matches that of the caster’s, then you don’t need to do anything.

• The second ability is Twin’s Pact, which heals the Twin Val’kyr for 20% of their health. One of the twins will cast it. The spell has a long cast time and can be interrupted, however the caster will have a shield up. Burn the shield, interrupt the spell. Remember that you have to switch colors if the caster happens to have the same color that you do so you can bring that shield down faster.

The Faction Champions match is a PvP fight done in PvE gear. You’ll be up against members of the opposing faction. For this round, your ability to survive is more important than your DPS. It’s also a good idea to have your crowd control abilities within easy reach. Evasion, Cloak of Shadows, Kick, Blind, Gouge, Vanish, Dismantle, Cheat Shot and Kidney Shot are all going to be vital for the fight.

Since this is a PvP match, there are no phases or gimmicks. The key to winning is to know which target to prioritize. Obviously, healers are on top of the list. Your raid group should be able to identify which is which and mark them accordingly.

Stay away from the melee members of the enemy group. From what I’ve seen, they all have a habit of using some AoE ability such as Whirlwind that literally drops your health to half or more. On normal mode, they can be taunted, so your tanks should be able to keep them distracted.

Your targets can be stunned. It’s a PvP fight, so both Cheap Shot and Kidney Shot work. If you’re having a hard time bringing a healer down, stun him! Like I said, DPS is only a secondary concern for this match, so don’t feel bad about not using those precious combo points on a damage-oriented finisher like Envenom or Eviscerate. When you’ve stunned a target, call it out on Vent so your teammates know they can unleash more DPS if they want to.

Get ready to interrupt! Kick should be your primary interrupt ability, but keep in mind that Gouge, Kidney Shot and Blind work as well. If you have Throwing Specialization, Fan of Knives can interrupt, but it’s getting nerfed in 3.2.2 so don’t get used to it.

Regarding survivability, Dismantle works on anyone, but it’s better to save it for melee targets. If you’d like to get someone off your back, Gouge works well. Just make sure your target is facing you. You also have Blind to fall back on. If all else fails, Vanish.

Still on survivability, Cloak of Shadows and Evasion will keep you alive if you use it well. Don’t expect your teammates to be constantly on the money when it comes to dispelling debuffs on you. A well-timed CoS will remove them and grant you near immunity to spells for a few seconds. Got melee AoEing? Evade before you run away if they happen to be too close.

That’s it. Like I said, it’s a PvP fight so there’s a bit of unpredictability involved. Keep yourself alive, tweak your group’s strategy to match your opponents’ abilities and you should be able to push past them.

The entire fight is an exercise in staying out of stuff that can kill you. If you can do that while doing decent DPS, you’re all set. The target you’ll be DPSing depends on who your raid leader will assign you to. The fight starts out as a tank and spank then becomes livelier when the adds spawn.

Lord Jaraxxus

• Interrupt Fel Fireball.
• Watch out for Legion Flame, regardless of whether it’s cast on you or not. It’s a debuff that does fire damage and leaves fire on the ground. Anyone that stays in it dies, obviously. If it’s on you, run to the outer wall so you don’t end up spreading fire all over the place. Keep running along the wall until the debuff is gone. I think you can use Cloak of Shadows to remove the debuff, but even if you can, you’ll still end up with fire on the ground, so it’s best to just move away from the group and run along the wall.
• The part about watching if it’s cast on you or not is dependent on whether Legion Flame is cast on someone in the melee group. Keep your eyes open and stay out of the fire.

Mistress of Pain

This add is spawned when a Nether Portal opens during the fight. The portal itself does damage to nearby players so stay away from it. The mistress herself is just TnS, but watch out for the piledriver and get ready to pop a pot or healthstone in case you’re out of heal range. Because Jaraxxus’ Fel Fireball can be interrupted, it’s possible that your raid leader will ask you to stay on him instead of helping out on the mistress, so just pay attention.

Felflame Infernals

Ranged DPS is usually assigned to deal with these adds because they move around too much for melee to be able to do anything substantial. That doesn’t mean you can ignore them though. Keep an eye out for their AoE. It looks like a Warlock’s Hellfire, except it’s green. Stay away from it.

Welcome to my guide on the Trial of the Crusader. Please note that I will cover rogue-specific roles and strategies only, although melee DPS will probably find something useful here as well.

Northrend Beasts

The first round of TotC pits your group against 4 Northrend Beasts: Gormok the Impaler, Acidmaw, Dreadscale and Icehowl.

Gormok the Impaler

Gormok is a magnataur that carries 4 snobolds on his back. This fight is mostly a tank and spank.

• Get out of the fire on the ground.
• Kill snobolds when they hop on to someone in the group.
• DPS the boss.

Acidmaw & Dreadscale

The next fight involves two jormungars: Acidmaw & Dreadscale. The important thing to note here is that one of them will be mobile while the other is rooted. You need to identify that. The simplest way to do it is to look for the tail. If you can’t find it, then that’s not the worm you should be DPSing.

Dreadscale always starts as the mobile worm. At some point, they’ll burrow to the ground and then swap places, with Acidmaw becoming the mobile worm.

• DPS the mobile worm. Make sure you stay behind it. Stay away from the rooted worm.
• Watch out for poison clouds from the mobile worm. They look like the ones that Grobbulus drops.
• The fight’s big gimmicks are two debuffs: Paralytic Toxin and Burning Bile. Paralytic Toxin can only be dispelled by Burning Bile. If a tank gets hit with the toxin and you have the burning debuff, run to the tank to remove the toxin, then run out of the group because you’ll be doing AoE damage while Burning Bile is on you. If you get the toxin, run to someone with the fire debuff.
• Burning Bile can be dispelled by Cloak of Shadows. I have not verified if this applies to the toxin as well.

Icehowl

Icehowl is a yeti and is the final boss of the Northrend Beasts encounter.

• Again, this is mostly a tank and spank.
• Watch out for Arctic Breath. I recommend you attack him from the side and not from behind.
• He knocks back often. Make sure you’re close to a wall so that you don’t do a lot of walking back.
• His big gimmick is Massive Crash. When he does this, everyone gets knocked back to the wall and gets stunned. Pay close attention to who he targets and get ready to run. You’ll have plenty of time to move away from his charge.
• If he doesn’t hit anything, he gets stunned. Unleash massive DPS.
• If he hits someone, he enrages. Hunters can dispel this, but so can you with Anesthetic Poison.

We’ll cover Lord Jaraxxus in the next post.

Ding! Congratulations, you’re level 80. Now you want better gear so you can do heroic instances and 10-man raids. Here’s a gear guide to help you get there. We’ll start with the best blues you can get from quest rewards. These will be enough to get you through most if not all of the heroic 5-man dungeons. From there, we can move on to epic gear so you can become Naxx 10 ready.

What I like about quest rewards is that they’re guaranteed loot. The catch here is that most of them come from either group or dungeon quests.

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UPDATE: Assault by Ground has been added. It was originally omitted because the quest was missing for a couple of days on my realm. Now that it’s back, I’ve made a few edits to this post.

My post regarding Icecrown dailies needs a revamp. Why? Because of time constraints. Ever since I joined Built Horde Tough I’ve been raiding almost everyday. I’m not complaining, mind you, but more raid time means less time for dailies. Obviously, I have to find a way to make the two meet. I’ve yet to fine tune the solution but here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

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One of the things that Wrath of the Lich King has given a lot of emphasis on is vehicle combat. Instead of simply acting as mounts, there are plenty of vehicles in the game that act as more than methods of transportation. The introduction of the Argent Tournament takes vehicle combat to a new level by introducing a jousting system. Instead of the usual practice of simply spamming the attack button of a mount, players are forced to strategize by juggling between offense and defense.

I’ve read feedback from here and there and know that the reaction has been mixed. Some players love the Argent Tournament while others hate it. Regardless of how you feel about it, it will be one of the focus points of patch 3.2, so I suggest you hone your jousting skills while you have the time. In this guide I’m going to tell you a few tips that will make it a little easier to do.

Let’s go through your mount’s abilities first.

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As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been raiding Ulduar thanks to a guild that’s been gracious enough to include me during their runs. Yeah, it’s a PUG, but when you’re always tagging along with them you kind of get used to how their guild works and how they do their runs. Anyway, here’s what I’ve been able to gather so far on what you’re supposed to do as a rogue in the early parts of Ulduar. Before we get into that, let me set the expectations first:

This is a guide specific to what rogues should be doing. This isn’t a comprehensive Ulduar guide nor does it outline boss strategies and abilities.

My experience is limited to the 25-man version.

For now, I can only take you as far as Auriaya. I have not had the privilege of defeating any of the keepers yet.

With that said, let’s begin.

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