Lo-Quality WoW

Another quiet non-raiding night for me.  The raid group decided to run some new people through ICC and since one of the in-guild hunter’s was already going along they asked me to sit.  Really didn’t mind, there’s nothing that I want to buy using the Emblems of Frost you get and while there was maybe one or two drops that I could still use, it was more important to run the new people through to learn the fights.  And since nothing else was happening, let’s continue my little tour of ICC from a hunter’s point of view, covering the Frostwing Halls and The Frozen Throne.

Upon entering the Frostwing Halls, there is another “mini-boss” to face, Sister Svalna.  She’s a Val’kyr who drops an extra emblem, so sometimes we would just go in to the Halls to kill her.  Basically if you’ve cleared the Plagueworks and Crimon Halls, you should have no problem taking her out.

The first boss is a rather unique battle in that it’s a “healer’s fight”.  You enter a room where the green dragon Valithria Dreamwalker is being held captive.  The raid must heal her to full health to complete the encounter.  My job as a hunter is to dps adds that come in, particularly the Blazing Skeletons and Suppressers. 

For this fight, I tend to stay just in front of Dreamwalker.  That usually gives me pretty good coverage of both sides of the room.  From there I can dps the adds the tanks are handling on either side and usually I can take out the suppressers on either side. 

I remember the first time I did this fight, I got scolded because I wasn’t taking on the suppressers on the side that was called out.  I had to point out that there were always 4 suppressers and if I only saw 2 or 3 on the side called out, I knew there were others on the opposite side.  An actually that was part of the problems we were having the first couple of tries, I guess it was assumed all 4 would be only on one side and the Suppression debuff was being kept on Dreamwalker from 1 or 2 suppressers on the other side.

So, it’s a fight that is really out of your hands as a dps for the most part.  You could be pulling the most outrageous dps numbers, but if your healers aren’t on their game, it doesn’t matter, you’ll lose.  Still I thought it was an interesting twist they put in for an encounter.

So after rescuing Dreamwalker, you make your way to Sindragosa.  You do have to deal with two other “mini-bosses”, the dragons Rimefang and Spinestalker.  For them, it’s standard dps tactics, don’t stand directly behind or in front of them and if you suddenly see a glowing circle beneath you, move away because something is coming down on that spot.

Now, there’s two ways to handle the initial Sindragosa aggro, because she will come down as soon as you take out the second “mini-boss”.  One way is to run back into the previous room until she resets.  Which doesn’t always work since we almost always had someone standing to close to the door or something and she’d follow us into the next room where the hilarity would begin…

So naturally, the second method is to engage her directly after taking on the second dragon.  For hunter’s, that means you want to be in Aspect of the Viper for the last few shots on the “mini-bosses”, so that your mana is topped off going into the fight.

Sindragosa, although a very difficult and complex fight, is an enjoyable fight to me and not that bad for a hunter in general.  During phase 1, you don’t get affected by Unchained Magic like most of the other range dps and unless you’re particularly unlucky, you won’t get the Chilled to the Bone debuff stacking too high on yourself.

Phase Two, the air phase, is a bit tricky if people aren’t paying attention.  2 players in 10-man are targeted and we usually bracket to either side of the veyr front of the steps.  I know it tends to target ranged people with the Frost Beacon since it seems that half the time I’m part way up the stairs when I have to turn around suddenly because I get tagged with it.

Two things I recommend for hunters to do going into Phase 2.  One is to call back your pet and put it on follow, otherwise they’ll try and chase Sindragosa off the far end of the platform and despawn.  Which means you’ll have to resummon your pet when you go back to Phase 1, which isn’t all that bad but I know myself and a few of the other hunters have sometimes forgot to do the resummon and our dps suffers for it.

The second thing I would recommend is to slip into your Viper aspect again.  If you’re getting all the way to Sindragosa, the reduction in your dps, both because of the Viper and having your pet on follow, reduces the chance of you accidentally breaking the players in ice tombs out too early.   And of course, topping yourself off before heading into Phase 1 or Phase 3 is always a good thing.  If for some reason you aren’t breaking the players in the Ice Tombs out fast enough, you can always add your pet dps or switch back to Aspect of the Dragonhawk for the extra dps.  But even then, you should have spent several seconds in Viper aspect and that should have built your mana back up.

Of course Phase 3 is pure chaos.  Since you’re supposed to slip in and out of Line of Sight of Sindragosa behind the Ice Tombs so that your Mystic Buffet debuff doesn’t stack too hide, it’s sometimes a little harder for hunters since you’ll still have to stand at a distance from the Ice Tomb I know on more than on occassion I was positive I was out of LOS when I see another stack of Mystic Buffet hit me. 

For here, my main strategy is to keep my pet on Sindragosa and to make sure any stings and Black Arrow is constantly applied to her as I run from behind one Ice Tomb to another.  I’ll also get off an occassional instant cast ability when there are no Ice Tombs up, but my main concern is breaking people out of the Ice Tombs as fast as possible.  So any instant cast goes towards that end in general. 

So if and when you get past Sindragosa, you face the Lich King yourself.  That is, after a long dialogue between him and Highlord Tirion Fordring.  Okay, maybe not that long but you get tired of it after the first couple of times you’ve heard it.  They really need to start adding a skip button to any encounters like this.

Now Phase 1, as a hunter, my responsibilites are to dps the Lich King, make sure to pass on the Infect to the Shambling Horrors when I get it, and to use a Tranquilizing Shot on the Shambling Horrors when they enrage.  We almost always have two hunters on for this since it’s rare for us to have more than two Shambling Horrors up at once.

I, and many others, have macro to target the Shambling Horror, fire the Tranq shot, and then retarget the Lich King.  And while it speeds things up, sometimes the other hunter will tranq the Horror you’ve targeted, requiring you to manually target and fire the tranq shot.  And for the most part, the tank handling the Horrors should be able to survive the few seconds of enrage while you do this, it’s usually when two Horrors are enraged at the same time that things get dicey.  Also note, watch for the enrage animation, sometimes the Horrors look like they’ve enraged but they actually havn’t. 

Going into the transition between Phase 1 and 2, myself and whomever the other hunter is, will usually split duties.  One of us, whomever has the higher dps, will maintain dps on the Raging Spirits.  The lower dps hunter will focus on the  Ice Spheres.  During brief moments when there are no Ice Sphere in range, you can dps the Raging Spirits but those Spheres are top priority.

Phase 2 is also very chaotic since you’re kiling any adds still remaining, dodging Defiles and helping to kill the Val’kyr as fast as possible.  For awhile we used to use Frost Traps to help with the Val’kyr but then we found that the ice slick would cover over the Defile making it harder for people to avoid stepping in it. 

Now, I’ve been told if you’re fast enough, if you happened to be grabbed by the Val’kyr, a hunter can target the Val’kyr, quickly turn around when she tries to drop you and Disengage back on to the platform.  I’ve tried this and while I have successfully Disengaged in the right direction, I’m usually just below the edge and thus still fall to my death.  Still going to keep trying it though!

The transition between Phase 2 and 3 is the same as earlier.  Spliting the duties for the hunter works very well.  Now Phase 3 removes the Val’kyr but you instead have to deal with Vile Spirits while still avoiding Defiles.  There’s also a new thing called Harvest Soul the Lich King will cast, but sinc e I havn’t been targeted by that spell yet, I can’t go into details of what happens with that. 

And that’s it.  I still havn’t participated in the death of the Lich King myself.  Hopefully within the next few weeks.  I’m still drooling over the chance to get that Kingslayer title…