Wednesday (9 Dec) - Inside the Frozen Citadel

Wednesday (9 Dec) - Inside the Frozen Citadel

The title is the starter quest, available in Dalaran, that begins the journey to the Icecrown Citadel. Wild was in game about 7:30am Wednesday morning to see if there were any other early birds about in the guild. There were none. Wild was all alone.

Well.

Let's take a look at this new Dungeon Finder. On the main page Wild checked the boxes that he could heal and he could DPS. There were two other boxes, one for tanks, and one to check if you felt you could lead a group. The default choice of dungeon was "random." Wild had something more specific in mind. I checked "Specific Dungeon" and was given a list of all the dungeons and raids in available since WotLK. Older dungeons are not listed, so I guess the trade channel will still ring with requests for groups for the older dungeons.

Wild selected heroic mode "Forge of Souls," which is where the quest is completed. This dungeon must be completed before the other two in the Frozen Citadel can be attempted. I wondered how long this Dungeon Finder would take. The old LFG tool could take forever, or more likely, never. It was a weekday, and early morning.

It took about thirty seconds. An announcement popped up on the screen notifying me that Dungeon Finder (DF) had found a group for me. There was no option to see who they were or what classes I would be joining. My choices were to join - or not. Wild joined, and was immediately teleported directly into FoS. Apparently so were the four others: a paladin, a mage, a death knight, and a warrior. We were all from different servers. The thought occurred to me that these were players I would probably never see again once this was over.

We each completed our quest by talking to Lady Sylvanas Windrunner, known as the Banshee Queen and a famous face in the Scourge war. She gave us another quest. Wild said "Hi" in party chat. That's Wild, the conversation starter. I followed that up with, "Who's the tank?" given that pallies, warriors and DKs could all tank. The mage commented, "Are we really here?" I could empathize - a whole minute had passed since Wild considered joining a group and here we were - five strangers already standing inside the instance. It's was a little unnerving.

Wild got his tank question answered indirectly. Lady Sylvanas was droning on about the importance of defending Icecrown Citadel and the pally interrupted her with "We don't have to listen to that junk." He then engaged the pair of trash mobs down the hall. Ok, now I knew who the tank was.

There were a lot of trash mobs, and a lot of metal and stone walkways and passages and alcoves. The pally tank knew where he was going and had obviously been here before. That was one point in our favor. None of the rest of us had ever set foot in here, I would be bet.

We downed the first pair of mobs and the pally moved on, not waiting to see if we were following. That suited Wild, provided the pally could take the damage and Wild could keep him alive. His trust in Wild grew as we fought each new group, as Wild's trust in him grew as well. This was a good tank. The sheer number of mobs we had deal with in group after group meant the rest of the group taking a lot of collateral damage. There was also an abundance of disease and poison casting mobs, which added to Wild's chores as he was the only one who could clean them off.

A few minutes into this the pally sort of threw a comment over his shoulder without slowing down. "Maybe I should pay more attention to these trash mobs," a reference to a near death when he pulled an extra large number of mobs. Perhaps he was asking in a left handed way if Wild needed him to slow down. Wild was keeping up, so I just smiled at him and let him keep going.

The first boss was Bonjahm, a human who has charge of the Scourge Soul Grinders. The pally gave some quick suggestions. Short and to the point. The pally attacked. Wild healed. Bonjahm began pulling ghost-like "soul fragments" from random players. The suggestion was to put distance between you and the boss when that happens so the fragments have farther to go. They all move toward Bonjahm, and heal him if they get there. It was pretty crazy, but we made it through that phase. In phase 2 the boss went to the center of the room and started a swirling whirlwind that circled him. Wild was caught in it but had the health to survive it long enough to get close enough to the boss to get out of it. The boss was also Fearing players back into the whirlwind, and it was just more than Wild could keep up with. We lost the mage, and the DK. Wild kept up the heals on the rest, and Bonjahm went down.

Wild won [Love's Prisoner], an ilevel 232 necklace so much better than his current one he all but disenchanted the tarnished old one on the spot. Wow, one boss and already Wild had loot!

More trash went down, and then we faced the second boss, Devourer of Souls. It's a big floating head. Ugly, too. It's hard to remember what this one did. Something about wailing screams and lots of wraiths. Oh, and times when we were not supposed to heal or DPS due to mirroring which reflected it back, which I think we ignored. We got him down to around 25%, but by that time the only player standing was the pally tank. Wild had foolishly strayed into a Well of Souls and died. The pally fought one on one for a very, very, long time. Twice I thought he would kill the boss, but because of the mirroring the boss kept gaining health back. We were all cheering him on, but we finally wiped. Wild was truly impressed, though.

Wild managed to stay away from the Wells on the second attempt and I could heal through anything else thrown at me and the tank. After that display by the pally on Bonjahm, I figured as long I kept him and me alive we would be all right. Devourer of Souls went to bed hungry on the second attempt as we killed him. There were more interesting drops, but none for Wild.

What happened at this point was very interesting. We were at the end of this dungeon. Lady Sylvanus showed up and we completed the second quest, and got another. There was also a portal next to her. When we walked through the portal we were teleported into the Pit of Saron, the second dungeon of the three. Wow again.

"Do we continue?" someone asked. The pally was already charging mobs.

There are three bosses in the Pit of Saron. The Pit is a forge where weapons and armor are made for the Scourge. We can't allow that to continue. Forgemaster Garfrost - oh yea, kill trash mobs first, they were endless. Again, Forgemaster Garfrost is the first boss. He's a flesh giant and likes throwing boulders. Standing in the line of fire is very hazardous to our health, but hiding behind the boulders after they come to rest keeps him from stacking frost damage on you. The problem for Wild on this fight was that hiding behind the boulder took me out of line of sight of the tank. So Wild had to risk the frost damage to keep heals on the tank, while jumping back behind rocks when the damage on Wild started to stack too high. He does a lot of other things, but those were mostly just distractions. The pally tank didn't get distracted, and the flesh giant died.

Wild got more loot, this time a dagger, [Surgeon's Needle]. Wild couldn't believe the mage did not roll on this, but I wasn't complaining. Goodbye to both my two hand healing staff AND my moonkin main hand weapon. Both will be replaced by this magnificant new main hand dagger with a ton of spell power and lots of other nice stats. Second dungeon, and second loot win. Wild is much happy.

We move on. Ick and Krick pair up for the second boss encounter, and they really make messes. Toxic wastes, explosive barrages, and poison novas are a nightmare for Wild, who has to try cleaning all that gross mess off himself and the other players while trying keep from staying too long in the stuff. The main target is Ick. When he dies, so does Krick. So we made sure he died.

A cloth belt drops [Braid of Salt and Fire]. Wild asks the mage if he wants it. He doesn't. Who am I running with here, that doesn't need any of this stuff? He certainly isn't tearing up the DPS charts. But hey, it's an upgrade for Wild, and I take it. It's Wild's third piece of ilevel 232 gear.

Scourgelord Tyrannus is the third and final boss. He's a death knight. He hits incredibly hard, and his flying mount likes to throw frost bolts at random players, leaving ice patches that slow down movement. The ice patches are important, because the tank took too much damage for a stand and slug it it out kind of fight. The first Forceful Smash he took ate a big chunk of his health, more than anything he'd come up against yet. Then there was the Unholy Power Buff, that doubles down the damage beyond anything Wild could heal through. During those the tank started kiting Tyrannus, bringing him across ice patches to slow him down and keep him out of melee range until the buff wore off. Wild was kept on his toes both healing and moving to stay in healing range without getting myself caught in ice patches.

We brought him down. Wild was almost relieved when nothing dropped that he could use. Not! But Wild didn't get anything this time.

Another dungeon completed. Lady Sylvanus again did her thing, we completed quests and got a new one, and ported into the third dungeon.

Wild is starting to huff and puff now. It may read like these battles didn't take long, but hours are going by. Someone mentioned something about repairs. Wild looked at his gauge - down to 20%, that's close to the breaking point. Yep, Wild needed to repair, too. "Hearth and come back," the pally suggested. Ok, thought Wild, it's not that far to fly back from Dalaran. Wild hearthed to Dalaran and repaired his gear. He saw a mention in party chat about a dungeon portal. What's that? Wild asked. Look at the minimap, you'll see a green dungeon portal. Right click it and you'll be ported directly back to the dungeon. Wow, will wonders never cease with this new patch?!

One of our group had to leave, though. The mage. He said he was already locked to the third dungeon as he'd started one earlier and then had gotten kicked out. Not sure I would have admitted that, and no one asked the obvious question. Why? But he was gone. Losing a group member before patch 3.3 likely meant ending the group. Within seconds, though, using Dungeon Finder, we had a new fifth member, a shadow priest. Amazing.

The third dungeon is the Halls of Reflection. There are three bosses, and that third boss is the Lich King. My goodness. I think we all got an adrenaline burst just knowing he was in here.

We started the event by talking with Lady Sylvanas once again. A short hallway leads to a central area with an altar where the sword Frostmourne rests. There is a set piece where Lady Sylvanas talks with the ghost of Uther Lightbringer, which brings the Lich King. Uther is banished and the Lich King summons two of his Scourge revived captains, Falric and Marwyn, to teach Lady Sylvanas (and us) a lesson.

The five of us wait to see what will happen next. Falric started by summoning five waves of spirit soldiers. The pally tank had moved us to the opposite side of the room to keep from aggroing too many of the spirits, and we fought them in wave after wave. Once they were defeated, we fought Falric, who wasn't too hard to manage. Marwyn then sent in his own spirit soldiers, much tougher than the earlier ones. We came close to being overwhelmed, but Wild kept death away and we finished them off. Marwyn himself was a different story. Wild worried about Marwyn's Obliterate attack, which even the pally could not take too many of. Wild had to go to bigger heals more often and prayed that I would not have to use my emergency spells too soon or need them when they were gone. In addition, Marwyn was doing group wide shadow damage AoEs that Wild also had to cover for. It was a tight fight, but Marwyn fell.

Imagine how annoyed that must have made the Lich King? The Lich King returned. Lady Sylvanas has defiant words for him, but we are getting worried. Are we really going to fight the King of the Scourge? Now?

Lady Sylvanas and the Lich King engage. We are helpless spectators. Sort of. We could attack the Lich King ourselves, but what if he took notice? Gulp. But Lady Sylvanas is losing. Badly. In desperation she manages to freeze the Lich King briefly. Her advice to us in that moment? "Run!" We do.

Lady Sylvanas follows us, telling us the way to escape. Holy crap, we are being chased by the Lich King! A massive wall of stone and ice then thundered down, blocking our escape. The Lich King summons mobs to descend on us. Wild tried to heal Lady Sylvanas as her health was nearly gone, but the heals would not work on her. While we fought the mobs around us, and kept one eye on the approaching Lich King, Lady Sylvanas put her power to good use by spell bursting down the walls that hemmed us in. Again we ran. The pally chose that moment to mention that if anyone actually lets the Lich King catch them, it was an instant wipe. So don't dawdle!

Again the Lich King dropped walls in our path. Four times those walls dropped. Four times we fought summoned mobs backed into that corner, ever more deadly mobs at that. And each time we survived the assault and Lady Sylvanas broke the walls down.

Finally, we stumbled out onto a half circle ledge. A ship waited, and Lady Sylvanas encouraged us to board. The Lich King reached the last blasted wall, and then cannon fire from the ship closed the opening before he could reach us.

On the boat was a Captain's Chest with the loot. And Wild got lucky once more. [Shriveled Heart] is an off-hand that pairs up very well with the new dagger Wild also got on this run. Four ilevel 232 items on one very long run of three dungeons and eight boss encounters. It took about four hours.

The whole three dungeon adventure was truly epic fun, capped by the exciting Lich King chase.

We dallied a bit, a little unwilling to end it. But after congratulations and looting were finished, there was not much left to say. We each took the Dalaran portal available on the ship, and we each went home to our own Dalaran on our own servers, probably never to see each other again.

PS - The alt-10 did not run Wednesday night. Reading the tea leaves, the raid leader cancelled it so that folks could get into the new dungeons. What we do on friday - well, I don't know at this point. By the way, Wild checked the gear of that pally tank - he was decked out in all i245 gear with two pieces of i258. No wonder.

What a great morning. And an impressive patch so far.