2fps

Random picture day today, showcasing some visuals of Icecrown Citadel for those of you who don’t spend your days and nights killing pixel monsters.

Flying back after a wipe

What I see when tanking the first boss

Riding up the elevator after the second boss.

Oh noes, battling a copy of myself!

Staring up towards the final boss’s hangout

Lonely harpy flying around.

Hoofin’ it up through the Plaguewerks

First boss we stomp on in the Plaguewerks: Festergut

Festergut’s puppy: Stinky

Second boss we stomp in Plaguewerks: Rotface

Rotface’s puppy: Precious

Last boss in Plaguewerks: Professor Putricide

Second wing of Icecrown Citadel: Crimson Hall

What I see when tanking the first boss of the Crimson Hall.

After a night of raiding, we retire to Dalaran to loiter until going to bed.

Last night Nocturne downed Festergut on the second attempt. This comes after a series of extraordinarily brief attempts on him last Tuesday. I believe one of the biggest reasons we didn’t kill him Tuesday was because I simply got things wrong about what to expect from the encounter.

For instance, I expected a lot more of the incoming damage to be magical in nature. As it is, 80% of the damage done to the tanks in this fight is raw physical melee hits. The disease and shadow damage is so negligible as to almost not exist. As a result of this misunderstanding, healing wasn’t coordinated to match the raid’s needs and the tanks were caught with our pants down when Festergut inhaled for the third time.

So, armed with correct information and a much better idea of what to expect, we charged the gates of Icecrown again last night. We had a bit of a hiccup that cost us the first attempt and honestly I have no idea what that was anymore. The next attempt we downed him with 20 seconds to spare on the enrage timer.

How we did it

Aurorai and I (Bear and Blood respectively) were on tank duty.

Amaniita, Zenhakar and Balor (Disc, Resto shammy and Holy paladin respectively) were on heals.

Zindo and Gorrok (Assassination and Frost DK respectively) made up the melee duo.

Zulrohk, Astoreth and Zarat (Marksman, Affliction and Shadow respectively) remained at range.

The healers stacked on the melee so they would never have to move. Ranged with spores moved in to spread/receive the innoculation.

The first tank let the bloat debuff stack to 9 before the second tank taunted. For us, the second tank ended up taunting just a few seconds before the third inhalation. I think this worked out very favorably for us. Tanks called out when they were taunting so healers would be able to switch to the active tank without wasting heals. When the bloat stacked to 9 and the other tank had taunted, the tank with the bloat stacks switch to kitty form or blood presence and kept attacking.

There was one suspenseful moment where I had 9 stacks and after Aurorai taunted off me, I forgot to switch presences. I very shortly regained the top spot on Omen and looked on in dismay as I waited for the tenth and final bloat debuff to kill us all. Luckily Aurorai is always on the ball and saved us from certain doom.

At the third inhalation we blew all available cooldowns to keep the tanks up. Festergut hits for an absolutely ridiculous amount of damage after three inhalations and despite using a multitude of cooldowns I found myself hovering at 5 or 6% health a few times. Dicey business that.

Our kill was rewarded with an Abracadaver and Precious’s Putrid Collar.

10man guilds are often overlooked when it comes to gear discussions. After all, doesn’t everyone have access to both 10 and 25man normal mode loot?

Obviously no, not everyone does. Most people simply keep things broad and generalized to cover most audiences. Not so much the case here!

This post is a list of gear introduced in 3.3 specifically for the 10man-only raid tank. This should put all relevant gear in one convenient (hopefully) list for those who are tired of sifting through wowhead.

I won’t offer any commentary or analysis on the gear itself here in this post. For now, I just want to get the list out there.

EDIT – By request, I’ve added tanking loot that will interest both the non-DK tank and maybe those dirty Frosties too.  1/8/09

The list is broken down as follows:

• Icecrown10 Boss Items
• Crafted Items
• Emblem of Frost Items
• Tier 10 Set Items
• Ashen Verdict Reputation Ring

Icecrown10 Boss Items

Marrowgar
Marrowgar’s Scratching Choker
Citadel Enforcer’s Claymore
Bonebreaker Scepter

Lady Deathwhisper
Ghoul Commander’s Cuirass

Gunship Battle
Abomination’s Bloody Ring
Neverending Winter

Deathbringer Saurfang
Deathforged Legplates
Gargoyle Spit Bracers
Ramaladni’s Blade of Culling

Festergut
Cloak of Many Skins

Professor Putricide
Unidentifiable Organ
The Facelifter

Blood Prince Council
Spaulders of the Blood Princes

Queen Lana’thel
Veincrusher Gauntlets

Valithria Dreamwalker 
Ironrope Belt of Ymirjar
Oxheart

Sindragosa
Scourge Fanged Stompers

Crafted Items

Ashen Verdict Blacksmithing Plans
Boots of Kingly Upheaval – Materials Required
Pillars of Might – Materials Required

Emblem of Frost Items

Sentinel’s Winter Cloak – 50 Emblems
Cataclysmic Chestguard – 95 Emblems
Gauntlets of the Kraken – 60 Emblems
Verdigris Chain Belt – 60 Emblems
Corroded Skeleton Key – 60 Emblems
Sigil of the Bone Gryphon – 30 Emblems

Tier 10 Set Items

Scourgelord Pauldrons – 60 Emblems
Scourgelord Legguards – 95 Emblems
Scourgelord Faceguard – 95 Emblems
Scourgelord Handguards – 60 Emblems
Scourgelord Chestguard – 95 Emblems

Ashen Verdict Reputation Ring

Ashen Band of Courage – Requires Friendly
Ashen Band of Greater Courage – Requires Honored
Ashen Band of Unmatched Courage – Requires Revered
Ashen Band of Endless Courage – Requires Exalted

Another Look

So now that we know what’s out there, let’s break it down a bit. Here’s a glance at our slot coverage. Some slots have multiple options available, others not so much.

Head
Scourgelord Faceguard

Neck
Marrowgar’s Scratching Choker

Shoulders
Scourgelord Pauldrons
Spaulders of the Blood Princes

Back
Cloak of Many Skins
Sentinel’s Winter Cloak

Chest
Scourgelord Chestguard
Cataclysmic Chestguard
Ghoul Commander’s Cuirass

Wrist
Gargoyle Spit Bracers

Hands
Scourgelord Handguards
Gauntlets of the Kraken
Veincrusher Gauntlets

Waist
Ironrope Belt of Ymirjar
Verdigris Chain Belt

Legs
Scourgelord Legguards
Deathforged Legplates
Pillars of Might

Feet
Scourge Fanged Stompers
Boots of Kingly Upheaval

Finger
Ashen Verdict reputation ring
Abomination’s Bloody Ring

Trinket
Unidentifiable Organ
Corroded Skeleton Key

Sigil
Sigil of the Bone Gryphon

Weapon
Citadel Enforcer’s Claymore
Ramaladni’s Blade of Culling
Oxheart

Offhand/Alternate Weapon
Bonebreaker Scepter
Neverending Winter
The Facelifter

Awesome people of the day award goes to my Oculus group for not cowering in fear at the big scary instance with drake mounts!

Thanks to Sleeps from Quel’dorei, Sartik from Nazgrel and Kreepshow (sorry, not going to try to do the funky characters in your name) from Rivendare for sticking with the pug and thanks to Rurie of Nocturne for jumping right back into the tanking game on her first day back after an extended leave of absence!

Boo on our original tank and rogue who bailed out within seconds of zoning in! Scared of the big nasty Oculus that took us about fifteen minutes to clear? Probably best you ran off, you’d probably have slowed us down!

Now that I’ve had time to do the new heroics a few times each, here’s what I think about them.

Forge of Souls

This is clearly where they’ve been hiding the trash that should have been in ToC. It feels like you can’t go two feet without bumping into another group of evil warlocks/reanimated skeletons. With two bosses and a very linear path to take this instance crawls.

And what is up with that first boss? I think we get it Blizz, you don’t actually have to play the stupid music or include a “brand new bag” for us to get that its a reference to an actual person. I guess Blizzard never has been accused of being too subtle.

Zindo, Nocturne’s resident rogue, noted that people really don’t seem to be getting the shared damage link on the second boss. He’s wrong of course. We get it, we just can’t be arsed to stop attacking. As a tank, I don’t care. When I healed for this boss with my guildies however, it was a different story.

Yes, you guys are bastards.

Pit of Saron

Design flaw: being able to see all of the trash in the instance the minute you zone in does not do great things for your morale. The first part drags a little but the pacing picks right up after you kill the first boss. The instance fails in regards to having interesting bosses by the way. Please, no more overly cartoony voiceovers and stupid dialogue. It just lends further credit to the idea that Arthas is a hopeless fop.

Pro tip for the mages pugging this: if your healer doesn’t want to keep you alive, just switch to mage armor. You’ll never get more than a single stack of the debuff on you at any given time.

Pro tip for the melee: get the hell away from the poison nova on Ick and Crick. Furthermore, get the hell away from the hoarfrost and stop chaining the stun onto me dammit.

Halls of Reflection

This is the only new instance that I feel is appropriately tuned. The Pit and the Forge are both a little too easy. There’s just something that feels right about hiding in a corner behind a pillar fighting desperately for threat on seven mobs at once while the DPS are all on different targets and the healer is being eaten by a rogue.

This instance really loses my attention after the first two bosses. You basically have the first two bosses where your adrenal gland goes into overdrive followed by a coma as you stroll away from the Lich King on your way out.

There are actually two things that I really really like past the first two bosses. The initial scene of Arthas fighting Sylvanas as you come up the ramp looks beautifully epic for a few seconds and then seeing the ghouls Arthas summons leap at you from a billion yards away is also awesome.

Today’s new rules are inspired by Nocturne’s foray into Icecrown Citadel last Sunday. My conclusion: sometimes its fun to be hit so hard you think you’re wearing your Naxx gear.

New Rule – Don’t. Stand. Behind. The. Tanks.

See that guy in the middle of the room? Yeah, that guy with the multiple heads, large bat wings and made entirely of bone? That guy that’s currently eating the face off the bear and the death knight? Does that look like somebody you want to help? No? Then for the love of all that’s holy get the hell out from behind me!

You see, if you stand anywhere behind me, he’s going to shoot big bright blue fire at you and its going to run smack into me first on its way to you. Add that up: big painful scythe to the face + ridiculous cleave of ridiculousness + unnecessary fire = me bitching at you all night.

New Rule – The ice spire has to be melted

Marrowgar, the first boss of Icecrown Citadel and the aforementioned scary man with many heads, bat wings and a scythe, stands at the bottom of the ginormous pillar of ice that Icecrown Citadel is built around. It extends from the first floor all the way to the top where Arthas sits eating twinkies and watching Glee (that’s right, Glee is evil). It looks pretty cool from a distance.

Then you get closer and realize the sinister purpose the spire serves. Getting anywhere near the spire causes my frame rates to die a horrible frosty death. I go from 30 or 40 to the horrendous 2fps that I used to raid with and which of course inspired the name of this blog. I have no idea what it is about the spire that causes this (aside from the evil it radiates) but its really annoying and sometimes dangerous if I have to readjust my camera to pick up Marrowgar after the whirlwind phase.

New Rule – Why are you behind the tanks, stop standing behind the tanks!?

For the love!

New Rule – Give it more than a frickin’ day

On sunday, Marrowgar hit like a truck carrying a load of bricks powered by an engine capable of faster-than-light speeds. At first, I was soaking saber lashes while Aurorai was face-tanking Marrowgar himself. That should mean that the only damage coming in at me is from the saber lash. Manageable right?

Just barely actually. I think around half the wipes we had were caused by me being overwhelmed by the incoming damage. This is with me chaining as many cooldowns as possible. I’d start with Icebound Fortitude so people could get into place, pop Vampiric Blood as Icebound Fort ended, then follow it up with an armor potion and my Furnace Stone clicky. Sometimes even all that wouldn’t stop me from eating pavement. We did get better as the night went on and got him to 14% before having to stop for the night but still, it was really-

HOTFIX SIGNIFICANTLY NERFS MARROWGAR’S DAMAGE OUTPUT

-really, pain… what? Already? Hey! What the hell? Why can we not have a really challenging first boss? What’s wrong with starting out grueling and having the next few bosses be easier? Do we really need to nerf this guy so soon? We spent all night working at it and nearly had it and would have had it later tonight but now its already a foregone conclusion.

At least give us more than a single night before you start drastically changing the numbers, jeez.

It just ain’t the same yo.

Once upon a time you could get into a battleground without having to wait thirty minutes. Once you got in you wouldn’t always find yourself staring at a perfect win for the other team already in progress.

Tell me again why it takes half an hour to get into Arathi? I’ve entirely given up trying to get into anything else. Tell me again why I’m getting killed in two hits once I do get into Arathi despite having nearly 900 resilience? Tell me why its the last patch of the expansion and victory is still decided by which team has the most Ret paladins and DK’s?

Even more importantly, tell me why I always get killed at the precise moment that ensures I will have to wait the full 30 seconds to spirit rez?

But most importantly, why the hell can I not queue up for more than two battlegrounds at a time?

Grats on making pve content so readily accessible but I hope that accessibility didn’t come at the cost of one of the other majorly fun parts of the game.

A combination of burnout, the pre-patch doldrums and lots of work to do have left 2fps languishing for a while. While its not a Tuesday I figure there’s no better way to update the blog than by posting new rules so here you go!

New Rule – Leave some mystery

Patch 3.3 is called "The Fall of the Lich King" but may as well be called "Don’t worry guys, you totally win". Here’s a look at the titles for all the patches so far released in this expansion as well as the titles of all the major Burning Crusade patches:

3.2 Call of the Crusade
3.1 Secrets of Ulduar
3.0 Echoes of Doom
2.4 Fury of the Sunwell
2.3 The Gods of Zul’Aman
2.2 Voice Chat
2.1 The Black Temple
2.0 Before the Storm

Notice how they set up the main thrust of the content but don’t give away the ending? I know, I know. All patches are going to end the same way: you’ll go to the new raid, wipe a bunch of times, struggle together valiantly and then you’ll beat the final boss and then mindlessly faceroll it again and again until the next patch.

That doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy at least some suspension of disbelief. I don’t want victory over the baddies assured before I even finish swearing at the mess my UI is in after patching. Let’s lay off with the positive reinforcement.

New Rule – No more reposting patch notes

Continuing the theme, stop reposting the patch notes everywhere. I hate patch days because it means my reader fills up with a billion posts that are just copy/paste jobs of the official patchnotes. Occasionally the notes will be trimmed down to just the stuff about a particular class but you know what? Its still old and irritating to plow through when you get to the ninth or tenth blog.

We know its patch day, we know there are notes and we know at least two or three places to find them in their entirety. If you really think people won’t find the patchnotes (Hint: They’re right in front of you as you patch the game) then just put up a link to the official site or wowhead.

New Rule – Arthas has to move to Quel’danas

Remember Burning Crusade raids where there was fire and lava and warm colors? Remember looking down from the Black Temple across the volcanic felfire of Shadowmoon? Remember the Sunwell with its opulent blood elf brilliance?

Let’s just move all the baddies back to those places. I’m cold and everything is all blue and grey and black and I would like to get my feet out of the slush and back onto a well-manicured stretch of grass, drenched in the warming glow of the Sunwell.

Stupid snow.

Sometimes I feel like I don’t know
Sometimes I feel like checking out…

Its late November, the sky is the color of dull concrete sidewalks and we’re stuck in the dead zone between patches again. Its a familiar situation but I don’t feel any more prepared for it than I have in the past. I feel pretty good about having cleared Ulduar before 3.3 and the only boss I’ve not seen die is Algalon which I’m ok with for now but at the same time, I’m not thrilled to be coping with the feelings of listlessness and purposelessness.

In the month before Ulduar came out I still had goals and milestones I was reaching for: getting Death’s Bite so I could start Ulduar with a decent weapon, running a few heroics and doing a bit of pvp to stockpile badges and honor for epic gems, etc. This time around, I think I’m stuck with nothing in particular to work for that has any real significance to me. Going after gear on alts is remarkably unappealing due to the veritable flood of new gear that will shortly be available from the new heroics and if we take working on alts off the table, I’m not left with much.

The one upside to being caught in the between-patch purgatory is the assurance that I can safely turn my back on the Argent Tournament and never think twice about it again. I was altogether done with that place a month after it came out and I’ve never been more relieved to write off a part of the game.

I almost got to this point with the Isle of Quel’danas in BC but I never could let it go. Quel’danas felt like it mattered. The dailies had purpose. Recover ore from the naga so we can forge weapons and armor to use against Kil’jaeden. Take mana remnants from our enemies to power our defenses on the island. Bomb the incoming enemy fleet to secure the harbor for the Shattered Sun. All these and more like them were all dailies that served a clear purpose and contributed to a very tangible goal: taking back the Sunwell.

Tournament dailies are so bad as to almost make me wonder who got fired between patch 2.4 and 3.2 for the quests to have lost so much in quality. Joust some dudes so you get better at jousting because when you fight Arthas you’ll need to… do something with a lance and a horse? Kill some Scourge dudes; go ahead and pick any of them throughout the zone, this is just a token effort it won’t really mean anything in the war effort. Kill Chillmaw because he’s a dangerous threatening dragon who is apparently so cross-eyed he can only fly in one tight circle around a completely empty part of Icecrown.

That’s why I’m very much looking forward to 3.3 and how it makes Quel’danas relevant again, if even in a small, transient way. One of the last steps in the Quel’delar chain is to take the blade to the Sunwell. I did it last night and it was such a surreal experience. In what is easily the most significant moment I’ve had while engaging in the storyline of the game, I found myself in front of the entrance to the Sunwell on the island of Quel’danas, a broken and possessed blade in hand.

I portaled to the island and blinked as I looked around. The crack elves were gone, the demons weren’t flooding out of the nether gates and the archers weren’t shooting down enemy hawks. The village was peaceful with most of the Shattered Sun soldiers cleared out entirely. I walked down the road to the Sunwell without seeing anyone or anything until I reached the summoning stone. There were soldiers standing guard outside the instance portal but they weren’t fighting or even looking like they thought they might be fighting soon. I asked for an escort to the Sunwell proper and was ushered into the hallway leading out from the room Mu’ru had been held captive in. High elf and blood elf pilgrims walked by me down the ramp leading to the site of Kil’jaeden’s battle with Kalecgos and Anveena. The leaders of Silvermoon were conversing on the ground level below.

The most obvious sight in the room below was the Sunwell itself. A blazing pillar of fire stretching out into the empty sky above. It was amazing. I had chosen to play a blood elf originally because the destruction of Silvermoon and the defiling of the Sunwell in Warcraft 3 were such significant, compelling events. The pathos of the fate of the blood elves was gripping and intriguing. Every blood elf npc had been shouting "Remember the Sunwell!" since the first moment I started a character.

Here it was, purified and restored in whole.

Being near the Sunwell was irrationally satisfying. I felt as calm and content seeing it onscreen as if I was actually physically there. I finished the quest with whatever silly sword it was I was working on fixing and then just stayed there taking it all in. Eventually I left and finished the Quel’delar chain but as soon as I could, I went back to the Sunwell.

Sadly it was all gone. The phased area I was in while doing the sword quest chain was no more. Demons once again ran amok, crack elves were lining the beaches and the arcane patrollers were breaking down and falling apart. I would trade all of those daily quests and all of Quel’danas as it existed in 2.4 to have that access to the Sunwell back.

Here’s hoping there’s a way in the future.

Icecrown General chat was flooded tonight by people talking about how many times they were wiping in Heroic Halls of Reflection on the PTR. My group wiped just over a half dozen times but after coming up with some killer strategery we got through the instance. Now I’m going to share said strategery with you, here’s hoping its useful!

You enter the instance down there at the bottom of the map next to the Halls of Reflection title. As you can see, its a very short walk down the hall to get to the first bosses. As the fight begins you’ll see hosts of inanimate NPC’s arranged in a ring around the walls. Think back to Halls of Lightning. Remember how some of the Vyrkul guys would come to life as you walked past them? Similar mechanic at work here. Small packs of mobs will animate and charge your group and once you’ve taken down a few waves of adds you can kill the first boss. The first two bosses themselves are complete pushovers. The trash before them can be more problematic.

The packs will have warrior types, mages, hunters and priests. Obviously you want to kill the priest first as he’s a healer. You may find it helpful to nuke down the mage next as her flamestrike isn’t very comfortable. Here’s the deal with the trash. The first few waves shouldn’t really hold you up. Once you kill the first boss, the one conveniently labeled with a number 1 on the map, you can make things infinitely easier on your group by hiding out in the nook on the left wall where the boss was standing. The blue arrows make the nook impossible to miss! You can hide out of line of sight while standing in that nook while your tank stands in the entry in line of sight to make sure none of the adds glomp onto one of the casters. Once all the adds pool together in the entryway it becomes very easy to nuke them down.

Kill bosses 1 and 2 and pat yourself on the back, that room is the worst of the instance for most.

Note that it says TRAP in the next, smaller circular area in the hall. This just means that that big skeleton guy you see all alone really isn’t alone at all. He summons a handful of adds that you’ll need to pick up as they are elites. This little room is also what gives the instance its name. The summoned adds are shadow copies of your party, much like the Herald Volazj encounter in Ahn’kahet.

At the end of the hall you see Arthas fighting Sylvanas one on one. You’ll think to yourself, this would be so much cooler if she had her original voice. Then you’ll shed a tear.

Some stuff will happen and you’ll need to talk to Sylvanas to start the final part of your trip: the gauntlet. Exit the room through the door on the right. You see this tunnel? This long tunnel that’s spans the entire instance? You’re going to be running down this hallway away from a lumbering Arthas. He walks slow and funny and isn’t nearly as menacing as you might have hoped but he will oneshot your whole party if he catches you.

Arthas summons big walls of ice to trap you in but no worry, Sylvanas will bring them down. Your job is to kill the waves of trash that attack you as she’s working on the icewalls. Once you kill all the trash the wall will conveniently drop and you’ll move on to the next one. The first wall only has a few ghoul mobs. The second one introduces aboms and warlock caster types. The third wall features a ridiculous number of all of the above. You’re looking at around four aboms and a handful of casters. The casters put a nasty Curse of Doom on your party members so be sure to dispel that quicklike if you can. Get past this last wall and you only have one thing left to do: get to da choppah! Your faction’s airship awaits you as you scurry away from the big bad snowman and conveniently provides you a portal back to Dalaran.

Grats, you finished the Halls of Reflection!

As a side note: if you came here to finish the related step in the Quel’delar quest chain you’ll be treated to a different intro sequence as you start the instance. The blade comes alive and is clearly possessed as it becomes an enemy mob you have to kill. Loot the sword and you’re good to go. You don’t have to kill anything else in this instance. If you want to be a complete asshat, get this part done then turn around and leave the instance to turn in your quest. The npc you turn it in to is standing a stone’s throw away from the summoning stone.