icecrown citadel

Both the Icecrown raid dungeon and the Frozen Halls 5 man have been in the PTR for quite a while now so anyone who’s managed to get into the it has probably already seen what both look like inside. But for those who haven’t and are itching to have a sneak peek at what lies inside, the guild Vodka has prepared a nice video of the Frozen Halls dungeon that captures how this place could be quite epic even for for a 5 man. If you read about his place before, you’d probably know already that the Frozen Halls is divided into the Forge of Souls, the Pit of Saron and the Halls of Reflection. Each wing has a separate lockout timer on heroic mode and must be done in order and the succeeding wing unlocked to proceed. The Frozen Halls has the heroes accompany either Jaina Proudmoore of Sylvanas Windrunner depending on your faction. The video below shows the Alliance side with Jaina at their side and shows quite a bit of story there, which should be slightly different if you’re Horde with Sylvanas there.

This should get you fired up to take on patch 3.3 when it comes out!

Post from: WOW Obsessed

icecrown citadel

The devs plan on doing the same kind of thing for Icecrown. There are four sections of the Icecrown raid: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. Blizzard plans to release these sections one by one at designated dates that we still don’t know of because of the uncertainty of patch 3.3’s release. He just said that after they release the first section, the Lower Spire which includes the Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang encounters, content beyond that will be unavailable for weeks until they are finally unlocked one by one.

Daelo also mentions another form of gating content which shouldn’t be new to any raiders. He mentioned that the heroic versions will not be available for players until they have defeated the Lich King for that specific player cap. This means that the heroic 10 man cannot be attempted unless players have defeated the Lich King on 10 man normal mode. The same goes for the 25 man. Considering that the Lich King won’t be available for a while, it’s really going to be a while until we hear of any heroic modes being done. Speaking of the Lich King, he cannot be attempted until Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, and Sindragosa have been defeated for the week and those bosses must be defeated in heroic mode to attempt the heroic difficulty of the Lich King.

If you think that’s tough you haven’t seen anything yet. Icecrown Citadel is taking a page from Trial of the Crusader and twisting it around a bit. Remember those attempts you had in ToC? They’ll be back for Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King but there won’t be any kind of rewards attached to them. Basically, you start out with 5 attempts when Professor Putricide is made available and this number grows as the bosses get unlocked (10 when the Blood Queen is out then 15 when Sindragosa and the Lich King are out). There will be 15 attempts to defeat all 4 bosses and when this runs out, the Ashen Verdict withdraws their support and you’re done for the week. Harsh!

The cool thing about this is that we actually get to see a dynamic system where we actually see the forces against the Lich King growing. As time passes by we’ll see more attempts for the last four bosses added to the game. We’ll also see Garrosh Hellscream and Varian Wrynn lend their support by providing a zone wide buff to players, which will increase the health points, damage done and healing done by players and this buff will increase in effectiveness over time.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

icecrown citadel

Well some info was just released about the 5 man dungeon that will be part of the Icecrown Citadel, which we’ve long known to be like the Magisters’ Terrace of this expansion in the sense that it will be the last and hardest 5 man dungeon. We now know that this dungeon which will be released in patch 3.3 will be called The Frozen Halls. based on the released info, this dungeon is going be so interesting in so many ways, bringing a kind of epic-ness that you’d expect from a dungeon like this.

The design of this dungeon has shown yet again that Blizzard can be innovative. They’ve shown this in the unconventional idea of Trial of the Champion, a dungeon with almost no trash mobs and even has some jousting as part of one of the fights. The Frozen Halls is a dungeon where players accompany Jaina Proudmoore or Sylvanas Windrunner, depending on what faction you’re in, across the three wings of the dungeon – The Forge of Souls, The Pit of Saron and finally the Halls of Reflection.

The three wings have to be done in order and you have to finish the first to continue with the second and then the second to continue to the third. What makes this setup interesting is that each wing is like a separate dungeon so in heroic mode, they will have they’re own lock out timers. This odd setup can be beneficial for example if a player gets saved to the first wing and somehow finds the group fall apart then finds a group that needs a replacement for the second and third wings.

There will be 7 bosses across the three wings – 2 for the first, 3 for the second and 2 for the third wing. The bosses will drop item level 219 gear on regular mode and item level 232 gear for heroic mode. You can check here for more info about the wings and the bosses but I’ll say this since we’re talking about bosses. as I was reading the info about the dungeon I thought it was such a cool idea but when I found out who the last boss for this 5 man was going to be, I almost fell off my chair. Clue: His initials are LK! Of course it’s assumed he escapes somehow for players to fight again in the raid dungeon of the Citadel. But even the thought of getting to fight him as a casual player doing mans really proves that Blizzard has outdone itself in making the Lich King more visible to more players rather than to a small number like with Illidan in The Burning Crusade. I can’t wait!

Post from: WOW Obsessed

icecrown citadel

While discussing tanking niches, Ghostcrawler let loose that Icecrown Ctiadel will have at least 31 bosses and even went on to say that the Citadel is that big. 31 bosses!! That’s the most ever! Even if you say that the dungeon will be divided into wings like in Naxxramas (which most probably will be the case) that’s still a heck lot of bosses. It’s also almost certain that a lot of those bosses will be optional It’s now much clearer why the raid lock out extension feature was released. I mean if a guild plans to fight all at least 31 bosses in there it’s gonna take a while and would definitely spill over to the next week’s lockout.

Just the other day I was thinking about how Icecrown is already pretty crowded with the Argent Crusade and The Knights of the Ebon Blade doing their business in their various quest hubs throughout the zone. Icecrown now also has the Argent Tournament and the Coliseum. The Alliance and the Horde also have their business to do in the zone. Then next patch will have the 5 man dungeon plus the at least 31 bosses in the Icecrown Citadel raid. I knew Icecrown was going to active with it being the Lich King’s area but I never thought it was going to this crowded!

UPDATE: Ghostcrawler came out to say that he was trying to be sarcastic when he wrote about the 31 bosses. Everyone just misunderstood and thought he was serious. Even then I won’t be surprised if the Icecrown Citadel had more bosses than usual.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

mounted standing

I don’t know why but one time I decided to mount the horse for this quest in Moonkin form (I’m usually resto but I go Moonkin for questing) and lo and behold I got what you see in the picture above. It wasn’t a freak incident too since it seems to happen every time as long as I’m in Moonkin form. In my Tauren form everything is ok. This really gave the group quite a laugh!

Post from: WOW Obsessed