The second wing of Icecrown Citadel is out, and it’s time to take a look at it our current status!
A few days ago, I QQ’ed a bit over how easy Icecrown Citadel was. I pointed out how easely people that had just farmed badges could go in and get highlevel gear. I complained about the lack of challenge in *the* endgame raid of the expansion. I thought it was just a bit weak. And it seems that Blizzard thought it was time to kick it up a notch too!
Most PUGs, I hear, don’t make it past Saurfang. I guess the coordination is a bit too much to ask for at this stage – sort of like expecting a PUG to get the mages out on Hodir. And even if they do manage to get down Saurfang, they are now facing an even bigger challenge: The Plagueworks!
While the mechanics of the bosses in The Plaugeworks are fairly simple, the fights themselves aren’t. It’s very clear that the difficulty has been increased by quite a large margain, as even my guild – in a good amount of TOTGC gear, much of it heroic – had quite a challenge.
Obviously, wednesday (thats patch day for us Europeans) was riddled with lag. It didn’t really start until we made it to the Gunship Battle, but when it did, we were faced with 5+ seconds delay. I remember trying to jump back to our ship, using my rocket pack several times, only to jump back 10 seconds later – twice. It was terrible. We could hardly get the mage down before the next one spawned, but with a lot of effort, we managed to get through the lag and beat the encounter. Then followed a handfull of wipes on Saurfang, simply because it is pretty damn hard to get the Blood Beasts under control, and because it’s pretty difficult to heal a tank when you don’t know he has taken damage. We got him down, in the end, with around 7 or 8 Marks of the Fallen Champion – a freaking miracle, if you ask me.
Then we went into the Plaugeworks. The trash was quite fun, even if it was rather easy, and we had a great laugh over Stinky and Precious. We went to Festergut first, but we had real problems keeping the tanks alive with all the lag, and decided to just go take a look at Rotface instead. The lag eased up a bit at that point, but we didn’t have enough time to really get some tries in.
Today we visited them again, and went straight to Rotface. This is clearly a coordination check – I think it would be very difficult to do this with people you couldn’t coordinate. We got a narrow kill, but a kill none the less. I think that, once we iron out the tactics a bit, it will go down a lot smoother.
Next up was Festergut, and we were suprised to see how easy it was without the lag. The mechanics, I mean, because it does require a lot of raid DPS. We had several close-to-death wipes – actually one where the boss just had 26.000 health left. 26k, can you imagine? Despite the pressure on the healers, the new fight mechanics and the difficult task the tanks were facing, we did get him down within a few tries – narrowly. We didn’t have much left on the enrage timer, and we are rather well geared. I shudder to think about doing this with less gear. Festergut is clearly a straight up gear check – if you can’t produce the numbers, then you don’t get any shinies.
we decided to leave the Professor for sundays raid, and spend the 10 mans we will do over the weekends on checking out the fight. Considering how few guilds has actually killed him, I think we are in for a big challenge.
What’s most important, however, is that the new fights are fun. Sure, the other fights were aswell, but they are quite easy from my perspective. The increased difficulty was a welcomed change, and I really enjoyed wiping on – and killing – the new bosses. They are rather harsh on ranged, however. Rotface has a lot of movement, and I saw my DPS go down steadely as the fight progressed, ending up at a point where I wasn’t really satisfied. It should be better next week, however, seeing as we will use a triangle tactic, rather than all clumping up in one group, and that should allow for more nuke-time. Festergut doesn’t like casters very much, and you can see a serious dent in your DPS if you are the one moving furthest to spread out after a spore – I’m that guy, unfortunately. Damn need for staying alive (which, oddly enough, I didn’t. I died right at the end).
It’s nice to see some new challenges, and that the rest of the instance seems to be quite difficult as well. I am looking forward to our 10 mans, and to try out Professor Putricide on sunday, and I definately think that Blizzard did a very good job with the new wing. Take that, PUGs!
On a personal note, I got a hold of two “new” items from yesterday. The Belt of Petrified Ivy, an absolutely kickass belt from emblems, as well as the revered version of the caster DPS ring from Ashen Verdict. Zing, shinies for me!
Tags: Icecrown Citadel
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Heroic: The Crimson Hall (10 player)
Heroic: Storming the Citadel (10 player)
The Frozen Throne (10 player)
Fall of the Lich King (10 player)
I haven’t raided since the PW came out, but on my server at least pugs are about 50/50 on Saurfang. If you have a good raid leader that can make sure people take positions properly before the fight starts, I’d say it’s generally in the bag. The reason being that he builds up the blood power really, really slowly when you spread out correctly in 10 man. This is not the case in 25 man, where you can’t spread out perfectly and everyone has at least one other player in 12 yard range.
The range is 10 yards, and you can usually spread out casters and healers so they aren’t in range.
Even if a PUG can get Saurfang down, i really doub they could do Festergut or Rotface anytime soon. The sheer damage needed is massive, at least on 25 man. They might be able to do it on 10 man, but it’s going to be rough.
Unfortunately they’ve already nerfed Rotface.
That was a fix, not a nerf. If you read the blue post about it, Blizzard realised that his health was larger pool was larger on 10 man, relative to the raid size, compared to 25 man. That meant that people spent more time below 30% on 10 man than on 25 man, which made the fight a whole lot more difficult.
It was a fix, not a nerf.
MMO-Champion called it a nerf. I kinda consider it to be so? I know his health pool was larger, but it made it that much more of a pain. I prefer a difficult fight.
And I feel your pain about the dps loss on Rotface. I was almost embarrassed leaving the raid that night.
Potato, potato, it is the way they want it to be. It is still a difficult fight, and it will be even moreso for those that cant or wont put in the effort.
Thank you. Very interesting post.
Hi Quieth,
Firstly, I used to play a druid on Hellscream (now transferred servers) so it’s nice to see someone I saw running around in the game writing a blog.
I’ve been exclusively running Plagueworks on 25man, and I can agree with what you’re saying. Festergut is very very tough (we managed beasts in ToGC25 once, so our gear level is slightly under yours), our first kill only happened because all the pallies bubbled past the enrage timer and our second kill just yesterday had 1 second spare. Rotface is still yet to die, but we consistently got 30% and we are confident he’ll die next raid.
Overall, I’m very impressed with Plagueworks. I think the tuning is quite good, and from Blizzard’s perspective I think the tuning is almost perfect. They wanted casuals to see more of the raiding world, but went too far in Naxx and ToC and the content was probably too easy on normal mode. ICC is the sort of raid where you can beat a boss after an evening of trying, and I think most of the raiding guilds will put in that effort without getting put off by not making any progress. Was their goal to make it just difficult enough to generate a sense of accomplishment without making massive roadblocks?
A quick note on pugs, I find they vary enormously by server. On my old server the thought of pugging ToC-anything made me shudder. On my current server people frequently pug ToGC-10 or the Lower Spire on 25man. I’ve gone into a pug and one-shot the first four bosses, but I do agree that most pugs will not be progressing through Plagueworks for quite some time.
That’s more than enought from me, keep up the good work on the blog though.
Unglar
I have only been on Hellscream for a little over half a year. There is no guarantee that you have ever seen me
Rotface becomes a bitch after 30%, where he does the Ooze disease twice as fast. We emplore a second kiter at that point, and worry more about keeping them out of range from the boss than actually merging them at this point.