The bad news was that our 25 man ToC raid could only muster up 18 raiders, and we had to cancel the raid. The good news was that instead of 25 man ToC we decided to give Icecrown Citadel (ICC) a try.
Icecrown Citadel is the new 10/25 man raid instance introduced with Fall of the Lich King (patch 3.3). From the description, it seems that Blizzard took ideas from both Naxxramas and Ulduar in crafting this new, monstrously huge place. There are four wings, like Naxx, with numerous bosses in each wing. There is a final encounter after the four wings have been defeated, just as there is in Naxx. Naxx was a large city - Ulduar was even bigger, so big that teleportation devices were placed inside Ulduar to help get around in there. ICC has also been equipped with teleportation devices, as it is even larger than Ulduar.
When patch 3.3 first came out, there were issues with the map of Icecrown, the zone where ICC is located. The location on the map did not match the coordinates. Or the coordinates did not match where it appeared on the map. Or something like that. Couple that problem with Wild's own, shall we say, less than ideal sense of direction, and - well, let's not embarrass the big cow too much, ok? Wild did find the place, but that was only because he'd been there once before doing the 5 mans the first week of 3.3. Even so, Wild did a lot of spiralling around the great mountain that houses the citadel before finding his way inside. But Wild wants everyone to know that he did find his way without having to beg help from another raider. And now that the coordinates are working properly and ICC is located where the map says it is, he should not have any more problems. He thinks.
This is what the exterior entrance looks like. There are hostiles along the outer ramparts engaged in ongoing battles with npc guards, but they are mostly harmless to players entering and leaving unless the players actually attack them. It's one small area on one side of a very large mountain with a very large citadel built deep into it's rocky core.
A long, level hall is cut straight into the mountain fronting the top of the stairs. It's a cold, empty hall with only one feature - the shimmering instance portal at the far end. Wild stepped through it.
Wild didn't know what to expect when he stepped through, but he was still a bit surprised to find a busy area of bustling npcs. There was an open, semi-circular area just inside, with alcoves to the left and right. The center area was guarded at it's far end, and as Wild watched a large, ungainly creature from deeper within the citadel shambled into range of the defenders. It was a brief fight, and the creature died. Wild looked around a bit more while the raid leader worked on getting the raid assembled. I found someone who could repair broken gear. Very convenient, but Wild wondered uneasily if that meant a lot of gear got broken in here.
Which reminded Wild that the graveyard was also only a short distance away on the lower lip of rock a bit further down the mountain. It's easy to fly off in the wrong direction, though, when returning as a ghost, and Wild whispered to himself a kind of graveyard mantra to keep from getting lost - fly south, and fly UP the mountain! Wild shook himself from thoughts turning to the morbid side.
We continued sorting out the raiders. We had three healers among the original 18, so we all got invited. One of the healers, though, had gotten into an ICC PUG earlier in the week and was locked out. We ended up inviting a very undergeared priest alt of a guildie as the third healer. Wild was the only player who had never been in ICC, so I was pretty wide eyed with wonder at getting my first chance at it. The rest of the raid was composed of well geared, experienced raiders mostly from the raid leader's original ten man Ulduar raid group. In that respect Wild was a guest as the usual second healer for the group couldn't make it.
Once everyone was inside and buffed up, the raid leader made a raid check, and then said, "Well, let's see how we do on the trash."
We did better than we thought we would. The mobs were grouped up sometimes as many as five together. In addition there were rather nasty grey spiders that we tried to split out and solo. The mobs carried a lot of health, and killing them took time, but kill them we did, group after group, spider after spider. We were warned early on that as we moved deeper inside, there would be unseen traps that would release a huge skeletal monster called a Deathbound Ward. When the trap is tripped, they step out from the walls themselves, announcing "I am ... awakened!" Knowing it would happen sooner or later, and having it happen in the middle of a fight, are two different things. The Ward came up behind us - where the healers are, of course - and aggroed on us immediately. We just as immediately died. We would wipe once more when we tripped two traps while in the midst of a fight, but we were undeterred and soon enough we faced the first boss, Lord Marrowgar, located in the Lower Spire.
Lord Marrowgar may be the toughest boss fight Wild has ever had to learn. On it's surface it's no more difficult than many other encounters Wild has seen over the years, and the info on the fight leads one to believe it is not all that difficult. There are a lot of moving parts to the fight, and two repeating phases, but then again Ignis in Ulduar is more complicated. Maybe it was just Wild that found it so hard to gets his leafy paws around it, but we went at Marrowgar again and again and again, to no avail.
After ten attempts and plenty of trips to the graveyard and the repair npc, we called it a night. "Don't be discouraged," the raid leader told us, "we learned a lot and are not giving up. Let's all be back here on Monday night and go at it again." Wild hoped his wounds, and his wounded pride, would survive another night in there.
Monday Night -
Back so soon? At 6pm Wild was in the long hall of the mountain, waiting for the raid to form up. I checked on the list of guildies in game, and it looked like nearly all the raiders from Sunday were in game. The second main healer for the group (who had missed Sunday's run) was also available, which could have meant going without a third healer - but Wild got his invite.
We wasted no time pounding through the trash mobs to reach Lord Marrowgar. Wanting to maintain momentum, the raid leader gave a quick raid check. Wild accepted as I was prepping a whisper to the healing leader, but did not get it sent as we moved directly into combat. Three pretty good healers failed to keep two tanks alive past the first thirty seconds and we wiped. As Wild flew back from the graveyard I sent the whisper I had tried to send before the fight: "Did I miss the healing assignments?" I hadn't, as the other two healers were used to working together and, as I learned, they usually didn't need to make assignments. So none were made. Three healers doing their thing was not apparently going to work on this boss.
Wild was assigned as main tank healer, the priest healing leader gave himself second tank healing, and our top druid healer was assigned HoTs on the tanks and raid healing. We were set.
Lord Marrowgar is a disturbing creature. He floats in the center of a circular chamber. The chamber has patterns etched into the center of the floor below him, and rings carved around the circumference. The legless Marrowgar waves many appendages about in a menacing manner, and pairs of eyes stare out from at least four skinless skulls. There is little information about his past in the lore, so all I know is that he is the Lich King's first barrier of defense of the Citadel.
We engaged again. The following combines a number of attempts, and what we learned on those attempts. This is attempt #5:
The main tank led us toward the center, Wild close on his heals. Wild pre-healed the tank with both regrowth and a stack of lifeblooms as I had already learned that without all those Hots ticking on him he would be dead before he got to the center of the chamber. Marrowgar's reach is much wider than most mobs, and the damage started to mount immediately.
Wild slowed, staying toward the outer edge of the chamber but close enough to heal the tank, who was busy turning the boss away from the rest of the raid. The rest of the raid spread out, staying toward the outer edge but within the quarter of the room to what was now Marrowgar's back. Marrowgar's Cleave could be instantly fatal to anyone but the tank, and when any raider moved into that dangerous half of the room the main tank would start warning the raider off. Wild healed continuously. Every Hot Wild had was on the tank, and even then longer cast spells were needed. Wild had to fit the longer heals in between fleeing the fires that targeted random raiders and raced from Marrowgar outward toward the targeted raider. The fires, called Coldflame because they do frost damage, stayed for awhile, fading from the center outward. As raiders inevitably strayed away from each other, more and more lines of fire appeared, criss-crossing the chamber in ever more dangerous waves. The raid healer had a particularly tough job, as it was very difficult to keep raiders in range with everyone on the move. Wild helped when he could. Bone spikes were also very dangerous - nailing a raider to the ground with high initial damage, and then spilling 10% more of the raiders blood as each second passed until a DPSer could destroy it. So many time in earlier attempts we lost raiders because healing and/or DPSers were not close enough to help in time.
That's phase one. In Phase two Marrowgar breaks from the tank, runs around the room charging random players, doing a whirlwind maneuver called Bone Storm. It took Wild awhile to figure out that this is actually the part where it's supposed to get easier. Ha. The tank doesn't take nearly the damage he does in phase one, and the Bone Storm damage can be healed through. Of course, if you are a squishy wearing cloth or leather, things are a bit dicier as Bone Storm is physical, mitigated only by the strength of armor. The lines of coldflame don't stop coming, either, and Wild found himself chased around, constantly on the move. None of these things would kill a raider all by itself, so the trick was managing to avoid having more than one bad thing happening to you at a time.
When Bone Storm ends, the tank regains aggro and moves Marrowgar back to his tanking spot. This is a dangerous moment, as Wild has to avoid the coldflames, keep from getting into the Cleave window as the tank moves the boss, and still get close enough to heal the tank who is now taking heavy damage again. And if I'm really lucky, not get Spiked. Wild was unlucky, and did get Spiked. But a DPSer cleared it and Wild got some heals while frantically healing the tank. These two phases repeated themselves over and over until either Marrowgar, or us, are dead.
We made a great attempt. And wiped with Marrowgar at 4%.
So we played with the positioning some more, trying to find what worked. We wiped on attempts #6 and #7, not getting anywhere near that 4%.
And it all came together on attempt #8, and Marrowgar died. It only took 18 attempts over two nights to bring him down.
This is one nasty fight. I felt completely drained.
Loot went to the tank and to the priest healer, getting ilevel 251 gear that were nice upgrades for them both. Wild and the rest of the raid got two frost emblems, as every boss in ICC drops them.
Our night was not completely over. We took a teleport to the next boss and took on the trash in front of her. We had one hiccup on the trash, when our pally tank over-committed himself and drew more mobs that we really wanted to deal with. We wiped, but after that we cleared the room and made ready for Lady Deathwhisper.
Lady Deathwhisper is not as tough as Lord Marrowgar, but learning the complexities of a new fight cannot be hurried. We wiped seven times, each time learning something new, but we were out of time and had to grant the Lady another few days of life.
It was a hard two nights of raiding, but Wild has now seen the beginnings of the newest dungeon in the land, ICC, and has a toe on the road to that final battle with the man who started all this - Arthas Menethil, the Lich King.
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