Friday Night (14 Jan) - Another Look at the Lich King

Friday Night (14 Jan) - Another Look at the Lich King

[Note - this is the third post in a series covering Thursday through the weekend]

Wild was busy getting his daily fishing and cooking chores done when he got a whisper from Ch, the priest that was often Wild's partner in the ICC runs with G2. She had taken some time off at the beginning of Cata and had started leveling late. She was level 84. The guild has a "retro raid night" one night a week and they had picked Friday this week. Since we had many new guildies and a few veteran guildies who never got a chance to see the Lich King fight, a 10 man group was formed and in they went.

Ch whispered Wild, asking that if the run ran too late would he be around to fill in for her if she had to go? Wild had plenty to do at the moment and said yes, I should be around awhile.

So Wild listened to the progress of the ICC raid (made up of a couple of 84s and the rest 85s) on vent while I got a few things done. The raid leader had a locked raid and was able to start the raid off in the third wing, home of Dreamwalker and Sindragosa. While that was going on Wild completed his cooking quest (a new one I hadn't seen before) and got the cooking achievement for doing all of the cooking quests. That got a gratz from Bd, who saw it on the guild chat channel and was in the ICC raid.

Wild then ported to Twilight Highlands and went fishing for deepsea sagefish. Wild meant to go to Uldum for the fish, since he could also pick up fathom eels in Uldum, but what the heck, he was here and didn't feel like porting again. Deepsea sagefish make the best cooking buff in the game for healers. The recipe is called Severed Sagefish Head and when eaten gives +90 sta and int. This fish is not fished in pools like most fish that wind up in a cookpot, but have to be fished in the open ocean. Gathering them is a little slower that way, but then again Wild doesn't have to move around looking for pools of fish, either. While Wild was fishing the ICC group saved Dreamwalker and killed Sindragosa, and moved up to the Lich King.

Wild fished for about forty minutes, got three stacks of sagefish, and also maxed out his fishing skill at 525, getting another achievement. Bd sent along another gratz in guild chat and Wild responded with "I'm just a'fish'n an a cook'n." A reference to the song "a pick'n an a grin'n." Ok, never mind.

Ch whispered Wild a few minutes later saying that she was exhausted and would Wild like to take over for her? She was going to go one more attempt, and then she'd get Wild a port to ICC. Sure, Wild responded.

Wild had plenty of fish, so he made a campfire and cooked them while waiting for his port to ICC. Cooking all that fish got his cooking skill to the max, and, yes, a third achievement on the night. Hey, all those achievements are good for guild rep, too! The guild is up to level 11 and Wild can now summon the guild bank from anywhere in the world.

The ICC raid did not kill the Lich King, and Wild was invited to replace Ch. Bd told Wild that they were using the same strategy that our G2 group used to bring LK down, and that there had been quite a few attempts already. They had gotten into phase 2, which was good, but not phase 3, which meant that the group still hadn't seen everything that LK throws at us.

There are a couple of things to consider when you think about a bunch of level 84/85s doing a level 80 raid. First, the Lich King is not just a level 80 boss. The mechanics of this fight require a complete understanding of all three phases - what to do, where to stand, where not to stand, what to avoid, what to chase after, etc. It doesn't matter if you're level 100, you do something wrong and you'll die in this fight. All level 84/85 gets us is a good bit more health so that we have a wider cushion to survive a mistake and higher DPS so we can kill more quickly - if we do everything else perfectly. The second thing to consider is that healer mechanics were changed with Cata. Wild spammed rejuv and regrowth during LK fights. Now, even with a much larger mana pool, if Wild did that I would run out of mana. From a healing perspective, the LK fight is all about huge damage hitting the raid and healing that has to come fast and constantly. But the Cata mechanics don't lend themselves to either fast or constant.

Wild only got one attempt on the Lich King. The raid was already tired and Bd could tell they had absorbed about as much as they could. It's an exhausting fight. We got to the second phase again but wiped shortly after the transition. Wild was nabbed by a val'kyr and when the raid didn't kill it in time Wild was dropped off the ledge to his death.

Wild was also a bit rusty and learning how to best heal the fight. Wild did plenty of healing, but not as much as the paladin who was with the group the whole evening. It was fun, but if you think you can walk through the LK fight just because you're a level 85 - well, this raid group just received a lesson from the best boss fight of them all.