zeroinitiate - A World of WarCraft Rogue Blog

Before we start talking about the boss, note that the room itself is a part of the fight because a quarter of it will get flooded with slime. I’m not sure if it’s random as I’ve never paid attention to the timing, but you can tell if it’s about to get flooded by looking at the pipes. When ooze starts flowing out from them, the floor below is going to get slimed. Stay away from it.

Now, about the boss himself. Rotface is mostly a tank and spank except with a lot of movement. At the start of the fight, DPS away. He’ll cast Slime Spray at some point. Aside from the cast bar, you’ll know he’s going to do it when he suddenly turns away from the tank. The simple rule is this: if he’s looking at you, things are going to get ugly if you stand still. Move to his side, get behind him, etc. Just don’t be in front of him when he sprays.

The only debuff you have to watch out for is Mutating Infection. Like most debuffs, it’ll cause damage, but that’s not what you should worry about. When the it expires, it will spawn a Little Ooze that’s stuck on you until you merge it with another Ooze. What you should do next depends on the following:

If there are currently no Oozes other than yours, you’ll have no choice but to wait it out until someone else gets the debuff and spawns another Little Ooze. Bring them together and they’ll merge into a Big Ooze.

If there’s a Little Ooze on another player, bring them together so they’ll merge into a Big Ooze.

The Big Ooze is tanked/kited by your raid’s off-tank. If you get a Little Ooze and there’s a Big Ooze present, bring yours to it so they can merge.

When the Big Ooze gets enough stacks (I think it’s five), it will animate as if it’s boiling and then explode. There’s an emote announcing this so just watch out for it. Your off-tank should be able to call this out as well. When the Big Ooze explodes, it will send a bubble of slime to each raid member. It arcs in the air so there’s travel time involved, giving you a few seconds to move out of the way. It will land in spots where players were at the point of explosion. Simply put, the Big Ooze goes boom, get out of the way and make sure you end up in a spot where nobody else was during the explosion.

Here’s a little trick for this fight. While you have to run during the explosion, you don’t necessarily have to run away from the boss. Picture the fight: the boss is being tanked in the middle of the room. The explosion occurs. Everybody turns 180 degrees and runs. Your main tank does not have this luxury. Instead, he starts walking backwards, kiting the boss. You can follow him or her as he does this as long as you make sure you move along a path that no one else was on during the explosion. This is easier to execute if you’re attacking the boss from the side and not directly behind him. Why? Because when your tank moves backward, you don’t end up moving forward and running along the path he or she was just on. You just move sideways.

I’m not sure if Feint will help minimize the damage from the explosion but give it a try and let me know.

TL,DR:

Stay away from the slime-flooded area. Don’t get hit by Slime Spray. Merge the Little Ooze with another Little Ooze or the Big Ooze, whichever case applies. Watch for the explosion and move away from the raining slimes.

Festergut is a DPS race. He’s got a 5-minute enrage timer that you have to beat.

Again, for melee DPS this is mostly a tank and spank fight. Stand behind the boss and hack away.

Aside from the 5-minute timer, the other gimmick to the fight is Pungent Blight, an AOE spell that will one-shot everyone in the room. Surviving the ability will depend on how many stacks of Inoculated you have on you.

Festergut will put Gas Spores on random raid members (2 on 10-man, 3 on 25) prior to casting Pungent Blight. The spores cause a 12-second debuff and then explode. Anyone nearby will get Inoculated eventually (it causes another debuff first). He will cast the spores three times, which means you can get Inoculated three times, before casting Pungent Blight.

As you can tell by now, spreading the spores is vital to the raid. On 10-man, you’ll have a ranged group and a melee group. DBM will mark the two members who get the spores with skull and X. Your raid leader will likely designate which mark stays with melee and which mark runs to ranged. Pay attention to that part because you want to know when you’ll be running to ranged if you get the spore on you. For example, if your RL says X goes to ranged and you get marked X, then you’ll have to stop DPS, get to the ranged group and stay there until the spore explodes. You have 12 seconds to do all that. On 25, it’s the same, except that there are 3 spores and DBM marks the third raid member with square.

Still on the spores, the last thing to remember is that a tank can get a Gas Spore as well. This can screw up your assignments. Imagine the same scenario above where X runs to ranged. What if the tank is marked X? Obviously, he can’t go to the ranged group since he’s tanking the boss. Be ready to adjust accordingly.

Finally, Feint is your friend. When the boss starts casting Pungent Blight, get Feint up before he finishes and you’ll get hit with less damage. It’s even possible to survive with only two stacks of Inoculated because of it. And no, Cloak doesn’t work. Not in my experience anyway.

TL;DR:

Get 3 stacks of Inoculated. Bring the spores to the correct group when you get them. Use Feint to minimize the damage from Pungent Blight.

Saurfang is a tank and spank affair for melee DPS. Just stand behind him and DPS away.

All of his skills and abilities need not be your concern. Yes, even the dreaded mark. They’re things that your healers have to address.

What you have to watch out for is what not to do when the adds spawn, and that involves not AoEing (see how I just turned that into a verb? You get it, right?). Since Fan of Knives has no place in the fight I doubt that you’ll be casting that and hitting the Blood Beasts by accident. Time Killing Spree and Blade Flurry carefully so that you’re only hitting the boss when they’re up.

2 Blood Beasts spawn on 10-man while 5 appear on 25. They don’t do much damage and therefore don’t need to be tanked, but when they hit a raid member they return blood points to Saurfang. This is the reason why they’re usually assigned to ranged DPS. If your raid leader wants you to help DPS them down, then hit hard and fast. Bring them down quickly so that they die before you get aggro.

I’m probably over-simplifying the fight at this point since the boss has more abilities than I mentioned here, but none of them should be of any concern to you as melee DPS.

I tend to think of this fight as ICC’s version of the Chess Event in Kara because of how easy it is. Your goal is to bring the enemy ship down using the cannons mounted on the side. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The first thing you want to do is to talk to the goblin near the boss on your ship and grab a jetpack. Equip it then map it to a key in your action bar. Try it out and get an estimate of its range. Your raid leader may or may not assign you to a gun. Since you’re melee, there’s a good chance he or she will so here’s how to use it:

• Spam the first button until you get to 80-90%.
• Hit the second button. Repeat step one.

If you’re confident about your latency, I recommend waiting until you’re at 90% before hitting the second button. Shooting it as early as 80% is just a safe number for those who have relatively high lat. Since you’re basically spamming the first button it’s possible to lag a bit and then find that you reached 100%, rendering the cannon useless for a few seconds.

If you’re not assigned to cannon duties then help out with the adds that will spawn on your ship. These will spawn in the center and will be tanked by your OT. They spawn one at a time, so watch your threat. Don’t find yourself in a situation where you pick up an add that your tank hasn’t even touched yet.

The last thing to worry about on your ship is that the enemy ship will fire rockets at you. There will be a mark on the floor that will symbolize where they’ll land so watch out for it. They look like small arcane circles.

At some point during the fight your cannons will freeze. This means that a sorcerer (I know it’s a mage, but Bronzebeard keeps calling it a sorcerer for some reason) has appeared on the enemy ship. Use your jetpack to jump over and kill the mage. She’s in the center, stuck in a channeling pose. She does not need to be tanked so feel free to go all out on her. Note that Bronzebeard is the true threat here and your tank has to pick him up as soon as he lands. It’s a good idea to watch your tank and wait for him to jump over before you do so yourself. This way, you’re sure that someone’s going to pick the boss up while you make your way to the mage.

Once the mage is down, jump back to your ship and resume add-killing or cannon-shooting duties, whichever case applies. Repeat this process until the enemy gunship is down.

Obligatory TL;DR version:

• If you’re on cannon duties, spam 1 until you’re at 80-90% then hit 2. Repeat.
• If you’re on adds, DPS as you see fit. Watch your threat. Look out for rocket marks on the floor.
• Jump to the other side of the ship when the cannons freeze and kill the no-need-to-be-tanked enemy mage. Make sure your tank jumps first so he can pick up the boss. When the mage is down, jump back and resume whichever role you were doing.

Lady Deathwhisper is the second boss of ICC. Here’s how to deal with the fight as a rogue. Be prepared for a very long read (at least by my standards).

The fight has two phases. The first phase involves burning down her mana shield. Once it reaches zero, phase two starts. The key to the fight is controlling the adds in the first phase because it’s easy to get overwhelmed if they’re not handled properly. Recognition of which mobs to DPS is important.

Phase 1

At the start of the fight, ranged DPS has a few seconds to kill the boss. After a while, the first wave of adds appear on the alcoves on the sides of the room. For the 10-man version, they spawn on the left side first then the right. For 25, both sides spawn adds simultaneously.

There are two types: melee mobs named fanatics and caster mobs named adherents. Your role is to DPS the caster mobs. On the left side of the room, the adherent is always in the center alcove. On the right, they’re on the front side (near the boss) and the back area (near the entrance to the room). This means that only one adherent will spawn on the left while two appear on the right.

For the 25-man version, an extra add spawns in the back of the room where the entrance/steps are. This can be either an adherent or a fanatic. Obviously if it’s the former, you have to kill it too.

Adherents do not need to be tanked. When they spawn, DPS them ASAP. They start out as regular adds but if they don’t die fast enough, two things can happen: they either become Empowered Adherents or Reanimated Adherents. The crucial thing to remember when this happens is that the casters won’t be able to help you with them at this point (they can with the regular ones), so it falls to you to take them down. It’s kind of your fault for not killing them quickly enough anyway. It’s very unlikely that you’ll run into this problem with the left side of the room since only one adherent spawns there but, with two adherents, the right side can be a problem.

I can offer no shortcut here. Simply put, the adds have to go down. Some people have trouble recognizing which add to kill. When that happens, it causes a delay in taking them out. You can avoid the confusion by answering the following:

• Can you identify which alcove they spawn from?
• Do they have the word “adherent” in their name?
• Are they casting spells?
• Do they have a mana bar?
• Do they have a staff?

If the answer’s “yes”, you can identify the right mob. Here’s a hint: if they’re hitting you with a big axe, it’s unlikely that they’re casters.

Oh, keep out of the Death and Decay.

Phase 2

When phase 2 hits, it’s mostly a tank and spank. Mostly.

Avoid the blue ghost-like things that approach you because they go boom. They’re actually tough to see in 25-man so keep an eye out for them.

Make sure you interrupt frost bolt whenever you can. I know, it’s KT all over again. For the 10-man version, Kick should be enough to cover it. She’ll cast the spell, you interrupt it. By the time she tries to cast it again, Kick should be available. You’ll see her use frost bolt more often in 25-man. Interrupt when you can.

Use Tricks on the active tank whenever you can. The boss casts a debuff that reduces threat. You can use Tricks to counter it.

Here’s the TL;DR version:

Phase 1

Kill the caster adds. Identify their spawn points and learn to recognize them. They do not need to be tanked so just burn them. Stay out of Death and Decay when it’s cast.

Phase 2

Interrupt frost bolt. Use Tricks on the active tank. Run away from the blue ghosts. DPS the boss.

Lord Marrowgar is the first boss of ICC. Here’s how to deal with him.

• He only has two phases: a melee phase and a whirlwind phase.
• During the melee phase, stand behind him while staying inside his hit box. He has a frontal attack that requires tanks to stack on top of each other similar to the Patchwerk fight. Don’t make the mistake of standing in front of him. Give him a wide berth.
• Standing inside his hit box will prevent the fire from touching you. It’s one less thing to worry about.
• He will cast bone spikes which will impale a few group members and render them immobile. Throw a quick Fan of Knives while you get your bearings and target the spikes. Take them out then resume DPS on the boss.
• When he does his whirlwind phase, he behaves like a top, moving to a spot, staying there, then moving to another, all while spinning around. Unlike most whirlwinds from other bosses, his won’t one-shot you (at least on normal 10 and 25 versions). Just do your best to avoid him while he does his thing.
• He will drop blue fire on the ground where he stops. It spreads in an X-shaped pattern and crawls across the floor. Avoid it as much as you can. In my experience, you can jump over it and not take any damage (or it’s minimal damage, I couldn’t tell).
• If you have to choose between avoiding the whirlwind or the fire, take the latter. It’s more survivable.
• Once the whirlwind phase is over, wait for your tanks to re-establish aggro because it will reset. Go back to what you were doing during the melee phase.

Here’s the TL;DR version:

• Melee phase: stay behind him, inside his hit box. Kill the bone spikes when they’re up. DPS the boss.
• Whirlwind phase: avoid the boss, avoid the fire. Wait for tanks to gain aggro once the melee phase resumes.

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.

Before you go on, please read this first. The post below started as a comment on Dinaer’s thoughts on the matter and when I noticed that I had written three paragraphs on the subject, I decided to just make a post about it here.

I think the whole point of Trial of the Champion is to make Ulduar and Trial of the Crusader more accessible to players. The heroic version of Trial of the Champion drops ilvl 219 gear, sharing the item level that comes from Ulduar 10. This makes it possible for players to skip Naxx 25 and go straight to Ulduar 10.

Going back to the post title, I think we need to define what a typical player is first. Dinaer says:

Most players have a max-level character. The majority of those have been in either Naxxramas or Obsidian Sanctum to some extent. Somewhere between half to two-thirds of them have done Ulduar raids, and maybe a quarter have done any of ToC.

I know that it’s hard to define exactly what a typical player is, but if we take a look at the last part of the description, we’ll see that the closer we get to end-game content, the number of typical players goes down. Do we actually want all players to see the end-game content? I think Blizzard wants us to, given three things:

• the accessibility of ilvl 219 gear from heroic Trial of the Champion;
• the streamlining of emblems so that they’re all Conquest now;
• the rewarding of Triumph emblems via heroic dailies.

All this points to the conclusion that gearing up is easy, and that means if we put effort into it, we will see end-game content. The question here is if a typical player is willing to do all that legwork. Do we want all players to see end-game content? Of course. Should everyone see end-game content? Not if you don’t work for it first.

My two-cents. It’s something that I’ve always thought about since patch 3.2 came out and I’d like to thank Dinaer for asking that question. It helped organize my thoughts into this (somewhat) cohesive post.

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.