Icecrown Citadel introduction quests Part 2

Tags : icecrown citadel quests, wow icecrown citadel, icecrown citadel

The Pit of Saron

As soon as you enter the Pit of Saron, you'll be greeted by a handful of enemies, including a massive frostwyrm being ridden by Scourgelord Tyrannus. If you engage these mobs, Sylvanas will swoop in to help rescue you. There's some dialogue which I won't spoil, but this is where you pick up the next step in the quest chain: The Path to the Citadel.
All the bosses for the Pit are on the outside of the big, massive circular area. If you stick to the outside wall, you can avoid most of the mobs in the area. The trash is all fairly straightforward and not very difficult, so just blow through them at an easy, steady cadence. The slaves you need to rescue are along the wall, and can be released by simply clicking on their chains.
The first boss you encounter will be Forgemaster Garfrost.

Forgemaster Garfrost

Forgemaster Garfrost is a very large giant. As you go up the ramp to engage him, there will be a dozen or two trash mobs who also engage. DPS should burn these down fairly quickly. They're not very tough, but they would be an unwelcome distraction through the remainder of the encounter.
Forgemaster does a steady stream of damage to everyone in the encounter via his Permafrost. It's a rather annoying effect which is going to make this a bit of a DPS race. Your healers can keep you up through it, but there's no reason to take your time during the encounter.
Garfrost throws large boulders of Saronite on the ground during the encounter. When Garfrost rushes to his forge, have your party duck behind the Saronite to avoid LOS damage.
Otherwise, Garfrost is pretty easy. He forges himself a Frostborn Mace at 66% and 33% life, so those will be golden opportunities to hide behind saronite boulders.

Ick and Krick

After you've killed Garfrost, you'll need to go fight Ick and Krick. This is really just a gnome riding an undead funky thing. Focus on the undead part -- that's Ick -- and burn him down. He has two actions to which you need to pay attention. First, he'll occasionally give Pursuit to a random party member -- run away from him. Second, he'll throw a Poison Nova from which you simply need to run away.

The Path of Tyrannus

After finding out some key information from Ick and Krick, you'll need to go up a long hallway up to the final boss. The gauntlet to Tyrannus involves some tricky maneuvering. First, you'll have some slightly-more-difficult packs of trash on which you'll need to practice your kill-the-caster-first skills.
As you enter the cave, however, the ice falls down and tries to kill you. There's very clear warning, though, since rune circles appear on the ground. Those circles are warning that rocks and ice are about to fall. Don't stand in it, or you'll take damage.

Scourgelord Tyrannus

Scourgelord Tyrannus is probably the most involved fight in the Pit of Saron, which is befitting the final boss. Nonetheless, the game interface itself is pretty friendly about the fight, and gives you lots of warning about the important stuff.
The most important tip I've learned about Tyrannus involves him placing Overlord's Brand on a party member. If the person who has the Brand attacks the boss, it'll do damage to the tank. If the person who has the Brand gets heals, it will heal Tyrannus. Also, keep an eye out for Tyrannus's dark enrage, called Unholy Power. He'll get bigger to give you warning. He hits much harder, but walks slower -- kite away from him and keep a distance until it wears off.
Rimefang the frostwyrm will occasionally fire Icy Blast and Hoarfrost down on the party. Don't stand next to the person who is targeted, and the healer should be ready to take care of that person. Otherwise, it doesn't seem to be a big deal.
After killing Tyrannus, you step into the Halls of Reflection.

Halls of Reflection

I don't know the script for Alliance side, but when Sylvanas walks into the Halls of Reflection, she's none to pleased. Confronted with Frostmourne, she's pretty certain she's going to meet her final destiny. She nearly does, ultimately, but I'm trying to avoid the big spoiler at the end. Nonetheless, the climax to this run is quite worth it.
Halls of Reflection is really just one long story event. It's quite worth it, but the fight itself is pretty straightforward. You'll see two waves of adds coming to kill you, before you finally have to flee old Arthas himself. Each wave has its own mini-boss.
The waves are probably more difficult than the boss itself, depending on your tank's ability to handle large groups. The waves have Riflemen, Mages, and Priests. The casters will need to be silenced in order to get them to move. Otherwise, just tank and spank them down. Kill the Priest first, or else it will heal its friends and give you a big pain in the butt.
The first mini-boss is Falric. His annoying trick is the occasional Defiling Horror. Even though Falric doesn't attack during your fear, it throws your party into disarray and is pretty frustrating. You're going to want someone in your party who can dispel magic effects in order to handle Impending Despair.
The second mini-boss, Marwyn, is more straightforward. Don't stand in the Well of Corruption and otherwise just burn the guy down as fast as possible.

The final "fight" is with Arthas. Well, not actually. Arthas roughs up Sylvanas a bit, and Sylvanas warns you all to flee. Once you confirm your readiness, you follow the outside path to flee. Arthas stalks you slowly, certainly, and with murder in his eye. He reminded me mostly of Jason Voorhees in this phase. However, Arthas has magic that Jason didn't and will throw giant walls of ice in your way.
Because Arthas has to move slowly, he needs help. He'll summon several waves of undead for you to fight while you try and flee. You have to kill these waves of undead while Sylvanas (or Jaina, if you're Alliance) breaks down each wall of ice. The undead aren't really fantastic or special, but they'll definitely lay some serious damage on your tank. This is an endurance fight, since you won't have much time to drink or such while fleeing.
When you reach the end of the path, Sylvanas will warn you to gird your loins for the final confrontation. Don't worry -- it's not time to fight Arthas yet. But once you've gotten this far, congratulations, you've won.

Summary

This entire faux-attunement series can be done in an hour or two, and each instance goes by pretty quickly. The story is fantastic, and does a great job queuing you to go into the Icecrown Citadel. I think this is a wonderful technique by Blizzard's team. It really helps ground you in the genre and mood of the raid, while helping make sure your characters are adequately geared for those fights.
The gearing part can't be underestimated. Going through these fights in Heroic is probably your last, best check to make sure you can actually handle the Icecrown Citadel raid. Use them as a test. If you get through without much trouble, you're ready to step in to the final raid of Wrath of the Lich King.

by Michael Gray