Nothing that great nowadays ...

but I must concede I'm still quite happy of it.


It is the first time I'm able to finish the content of an extension before the next one. A big thanks to all the members of my guild, Skyre Hordalis on Dalaran EU. You all deserve a big big hug for all the nights together in the frozen halls of Icecrown Citadel.

Healing Through: Icecrown Citadel - Deathbringer Saurfang

This one was already nearly finished, so I'll post it before I move. Have fun in ICC everyone.

Deathbringer Saurfang is the fourth boss of Icecrown Citadel and the end of the entrance part. It was considered as the second test of Icecrown, the first being the purely gear check of Marrowgar. Saurfang is a healing and dps check, if you can finish him, you should be able to try the inner halls.
For a guild at least partly in T10+ items and with the new buff Saurfang should not be a problem anymore. Your raid should still know what to expect, or you can be sure of a raid wipe.


Deathbringer Saurfang: Trash Mobs

This will be a short section, the reason being that there is not a single mob between the gunship battle and the fourth boss of Icecrown. The only opponent you'll have is waiting for npcs to finish their speech (especially if you're horde).


Boss Description

Saurfang has relatively few abilities, but they have all to be mastered by your raid to kill him.
The first mechanic is Blood Power, this will increase Saurfang damage through the fight. When his Blood Power is low, his damage will be light and healing the tanks will be easy, but it gets harder with his blood power increasing, at 100% Blood Power he hits twice as hard. You should understand that every damage taken by your raid during the encounter give Blood Power to Saurfang, hence one key of the encounter is to reduce damage and shorten the encounter as much as you can.
Pro-tip: All damage prevention abilities are extremely effective during that encounter, a discipline priest is nearly overpowered with his shields that can reduce Saurfang Blood Power influx by more than 50% in 10-Man. If you have any damage prevention ability, use it as much as you can.

The second main ability is Mark of the Fallen Champion. This ability is used each time Saurfang Blood Power reaches 100%, and resets it to 0. The target of the mark will take damage each time Saurfang hits the tank (around 4K each 2s). You have to understand that this additional damage will also give Blood Power to Saurfang, hence with each Mark he will gain more Blood Power, and will cast the next Mark faster. This ability is Saurfang "time limit" mechanism. It adds up to his enrage at 30% health which makes him hit faster, hence producing more Blood Power, especially if several Marks have already hit.
Pro-tip: Oh last thing, if anyone hit by a mark dies, never ever battle rez him, as the mark sticks through death.

Saurfang has two other abilities that will generate Blood Power for each character hit. The first is Boiling Blood and the second Blood Nova.
Blood Nova is only cast on members at range and hits the target and anyone in 12 meters. It is the reason why your raid ranged and healers should be all 12 meters apart (in 10-Man) or positioned in groups of 2 or 3 characters each 12 meters apart (in 25-Man).
Boiling Blood is a dot, you'll have to heal it nothing else to say.
Pro-tip: Boiling Blood will generate Blood Power with each tick, if you can shield the target that is a must, if you can Hand of Protection the target that will remove the dot, preventing 8 Blood Power for Saurfang, do it fast. What you should know is that Boiling Blood can be cast on the target of a Mark of the Fallen Champion. This is one of the main reasons for losing a Mark target and could be a good reason to keep your Hand of Protection.

Rune of Blood is the reason you need two tanks during the encounter. They should switch as soon as this debuff is cast on the current tank. Nothing else to say.

The last ability of Saurfang (did I say he had few abilities ... he does have some but most of them only impact healers) is Call Blood Beast. This calls for 2 beasts in 10-Man and 5 in 25-Man. These beasts need to be dpsed quickly and most of all they should *not hit anyone*. Anyone hit by a Blood Beast will give Blood Power to Saurfang. The best is to use all what you can to prevent them from reaching your dps, hunters Frost Traps are one of the best tools for that.
Pro-tip: All melee, the tanks included, should avoid any sort of aoe damage when the Blood Beasts pop. If they don't, the beasts will stay hitting them and Saurfang will gain a big amount of blood very quickly, which can cause a raid wipe a few minutes later when the marks are too numerous for the healers to endure.

If you want more details you can find very good info on Bosskillers or Tankspot.


Raid Composition

Both in 10-Man and 25-Man you need 2 tanks. This encounter being a dps-race, you need to take as few healers as you can, usually 2 in 10-Man and 5 in 25-Man.
This will put a lot of pressure on your healers, and they will need a very good mana sustainability to finish the fight.
Pro-tip: Though spellpower is obviously important for healers, this will be more an endurance fight. If you have any source of mana replenishment in your raid you should save it for your healers in this fight if they need it, an oom healer during the last 30s of the fight will seal your fate.

The rest of the raid should be dpsers, both melee (they will be 100% of the fight on Saurfang and the main source of damage to him) and ranged (they will spend a large portion of the fight dealing with the blood beasts). Don't forget the ccers for the beasts that can be slowed, rooted ... anything but completely cced (no fear, mc or anything).
If you have a shaman, keep the Heroism/Bloodlust for the last 30% of Saurfang, you can call for it as soon as he enrages.


Healing Build

As I said, expect this fight to be very very mana consuming and put a lot of stress on your shoulders. Especially until all members of your raid master it. The more blunders there will be (blood beasts staying on the melee, tanks not switching fast enough ...) the more marks you will have to deal with at the end of the fight, and the harder it will be.
Remember you'll have to heal the tank and a few raid damage at all time (nova, dot, beasts). Each time a mark is cast, that will need at least half a healer attention to keep the target alive.

The last thing that I didn't say in the boss description is that for any death in the raid, Saurfang will regain 5% health ... this obviously means that you have to keep everyone alive as much as you can, Saurfang is not a boss you can finish at the very last moment with only 2 raid members alive.

In 10-Man you won't be able to endure more than 2 marks for every long, and most probably not more than 1 death.
In 25-Man if your healers are good you can manage up to 4 or 5 marks depending on your raid composition, and you can probably win with 2 deaths. More will probably lengthen the fight too much.

Whatever your class is, aim for fast "small" heals, as much damage prevention as you can, and the best sustainability you can get.
Use your mana cds as soon as you can get the full benefit of them, and if you can't use them during a strong healing phase, before the first mark is cast.


Paladin Healing tips

Holy Paladins are among the best healers for this fight, with Discipline Priests, but for very different reasons.
A Discipline Priest can greatly reduce the amount of Blood Power gained by Saurfang through the use of Shields.
A Holy Paladin can use his Beacon of Light to heal the target of a Mark of the Fallen Champion and continue to heal the raid. He can even heal both the first and second marks by himself.

Until the first mark is cast, the healing is light. But, as a paladin, you will have much more job as soon as a mark is cast. In a 10-Man raid you will most probably be the only Holy Paladin, and the two first marks will be your job. In a 25-Man raid Holy Paladins should share between them the first marks, 2 per paladin.
Once your first designed mark is cast you'll need to cast your Beacon on it (and remember to refresh it, use your focus frame or an add-on for that) and start cast continuous heals on the raid.
Pro-tip: You can never stop healing for much more than one gcd or your beacon target will die especially if it's a clothy (mark damage is physical and reduced by armor). Remember to recast your beacon/judgement when your Holy Shock is up in case you need the speed-up healing boost.
Once your second designed mark is cast you'll need to keep your Beacon on your first target and heal the second mark regularly, keeping both alive.
Pro-tip: As soon as your mark is cast you will not be able to stop healing, or use a Divine Plea because the healing reduction will be too strong. Try to use it before your assigned mark is cast (use Deadly Boss Mod to check Saurfang Blood Power), you should be full mana when you start healing a mark.

Remember to recast your Jugement of Light on Saurfang, both to increase your casting speed, and to heal your raid.

Keep in mind that your Hand of Protection removes the Boiling Blood dot, it is your choice to use it as soon as you can in the encounter, and have the opportunity to use it again later at the end of the fight. Or to keep it to protect someone being "double hit" by a mark and the dot (this can be very hard to keep up with healing wise).

Good luck and have fun, though very chaotic at first this is a quite fun encounter once your raid will master it.

Icecrown Citadel, Last Wing Up This Week

So tomorrow (today if you're in the US) we'll have access to the last wing of Icecrown Citadel. The new Arena season should start too and we'll have to download patch 3.3.2.
You can find all the news and the patch notes on MMO-champion, on the Fall of the Lich King page. Take care huge spoilers there :P

I'll note the changes to the T10 plate tanking armors (which are receiving a little up). The new str dps Ashen Verdict rep ring. Class wise, warriors and warlocks are mostly the only ones changed.

We'll have a new boss in Wintergrasp too (sigh ... the biggest failure of all LK fmpow).

And finally we get the last wing of Icecrown with my favorite boss I can't wait to try: Valithria Dreamwalker.

I wish you all a lot of fun, we're finally coming to the end of this whole extension.

Some more raiding into ICC.

My horde guild is now raiding regularly into Icecrown Citadel, we have kept up to two 10-Man raids (3 nights a week) and one 25-Man raid (one night a week) during the two last weeks, which allows everyone to step into ICC and the guild to confirm its first downs.
We have now confirmed on the 3 first bosses in 25 and need to speed up a little to down Saurfang in one raid night. We have also downed Festergut in 10-Man and are working on both Rotface and the Blood Princes.
I really like the Blood Princes fight, it's chaotic, it's intense, it's not easy, but it's a really really cool fight :)

I'll write an Healing Through on Saurfang later this week. Until then I have updated my article about Lord Marrowgar with a new tactic we're using considering raid positioning.

On a side-note some very good news for melee dps who prefer strength to agility. A new Ashen Verdict strength dps ring will appear in the next small patch (probably next week), description of the 4 levels of the new ring on MMO-Champion.

Icecrown Gating, Last Wing in 2 Weeks.

No surprise to everyone, it's official on the live servers, the Lich King will wait to eat your souls in 2 weeks (unless you defeat him of course :P). The official date is February 2nd (US) and February 3rd (EU). You can read the details, as usual, on your best source of live information about WoW, MMO-Champion.
The second wing opens today (yesterday on the US servers) with 2 new bosses: the Blood Princes and Blood Queen Lana'thel. A bunch of vampires, that seem easier than Putricide as the queen has already been downed, though this can be due to the guilds having 2 more weeks of itemization in icecrown. Explanations and information about the gating system and the combined pool of limited bosses attemps can be found on MMO-champion, here.

About my games lately I finally got Saurfang down in 10-Man, on both my paladin and ma discipline priest. I tried a bit Festergut with Syrïel, we managed to keep the tanks alive (with me and two other healers) on 2 attempts (we tried it 4 times), but our raid dps wasn't high enough to pass the enrage timer. It's tricky as the tank/heal team is kind of better in the 10-Man my priest is sometimes, but the dps are way higher in my horde guild :P
On a side note a discipline priest is incredibly effective on Saurfang to limit his blood power. We killed him with 0 mark in 10-Man once I figured that if I have the mana I should just shield everyone at all time to prevent as much blood-producing damage as I could. For the first time my priest went into icecrown she started with Saurfang and had a huge amount of fun, even with her limited gear (not even 230 medium ilevel).
The fight with Saurfang is really much more about control and reactivity than pure dps and/or stuff, which I happen to like. Festergut on the other hand is nearly the whole contrary.

Healing Through: Icecrown Citadel - Gunship Battle

Healing Through: Icecrown Citadel - Gunship Battle
My 25-Man alliance raid got some motivation last Friday and we downed the 3 first bosses of Icecrown (yet again, nothing to brag about but we're a semi-casual guild with a lot of far from optimum players that we still like to play with and bring into raid :P).
So I'm going to talk today about the third "boss" that is more an event than a boss. You got it, it is the Gunship Battle.

Gunship Battle: Trash Mobs.

There are 2 alliance (or horde if you're on the wrong side) groups and one dracolich that you have to fight before reaching the ship. They probably repop at some point but don't worry the ship will be down before they do.

As a fun note, if you ever do this encounter on both sides (horde/alliance) you will fight on the other part of the balcony that you can see when fighting the dracolich. In fact if you kill the undead trash after the dracolich, you'll reach this other side, quite funny :P

Boss Description

As I said before this is not really a "boss". The Gunship Battle is a fight between your ship and the other faction ship via the gunship cannons.
You have to man your canons (2 in 10-Man, 3 in 25-Man) and fire on the deck of the other ship. The canons are easy to use, first ability makes your heat meter go up, when it's near full (without ever reaching full) you can use your second ability for max damage. The first targets for your canons are the opposing "canons" that are rocket launchers on the other side of the ship you battle (Kor'kron Rocketeer / Skybreaker Mortar Soldier). If they still have time when these are down, the second targets are the Rifemen /Axethrowers.
Each 25% of life of the opposing ship, a frost mage will be called to freeze your canons. You then have to board the opposing ship and kill the mage.
Pro-tip: To go on the opponent ship you need to get and equip rocket-packs from your own ship (the npc giving them is nearby your ship captain). But the players assigned to the ship can also take them as they can be used to avoid/kite a mob which would aggro you on the ship.

Send in half your dpsers and one high life tank. The dpsers will *only* target the frost mage and come back as soon as he is dead. The tank will only tank the opponent captain (dwarf/orc depending on your side).
The captain tank should take care that the captain gains 25% haste each time he hits, so kiting is better if possible.
Pro-tip: Take care that firemen shoot at flying targets so kiting by using your jet-pack, which is the best option can be dangerous if you take a hit before launching and then get hit by the firemen. Be cautious also that changing ship reset aggro. If you leave your ship with aggro, healers will die, if you leave the opposing ship before anyone else, he will die.

Raid composition

For 10-Man you need 2 tanks, 3 healers and 5 dpsers. One of the tank and one of the healers will go into the canons and only be active during the frozen canons phase when your team has to board the opposing ship.
In 25-Man you still only need 2 tanks. You can go with 6 to 7 healers, depending if you put one or two in the canons with the boarding tank. Rest should be dpsers, it doesn't matter much if they are melee or ranged, this isn't a very hard encounter.

Advised Build

It all depend on your assignment.
If you're the boarding tank healer (assigning 2 healers on him is more secure), you will mostly only spam big heals (Holy Lights for paladins) on him during the time he's tanking/kiting the opposing ship captain, and you'll probably mana regen in a canon when you're not boarding. Obviously a Holy Light build is better for that.
If you're on raid healing, go for a quick healing build (Flash of Light build for paladins). Your ship tank will take a lot of fast damage, but much smaller than the boarding tank. And the aggro on the adds tend to be tricky which can result in short (hopefully) spikes on the healers.

Paladin Healing Tips

Paladins in this fight are better used as healers for the opposing captain tank, three good reasons for that:

• Holy Light spam is the strongest single target heal stream any healer can do;
• using Divine Plea when in the canon will allow the Holy Paladin to Holy Light Spam the whole boarding phases of the encounter;
• using Beacon of Light on the boarding tank will allow the paladin to *stay on your ship* and still healing the boarding tank.

This last point can seem tricky, but it works wonder, at least as Beacon of Light works in patch 3.3. Here is the reason:
The Beacon of Light target will receive in full any heal casted by the paladin on any raid member no further than 16 meters away from the beaconed tank. The Holy Paladin stays on your ship, on the border near the canons, he will target any ranged dpser boarding the opposing ship and dpsing the frost mage (this ranged dpser needs to stay on the other ship border too so that he's in range for your heals). And all the heals incoming to this ranged dpser will hit the tank (unless he's more than 60 meters away which is highly unlikely).
This allows you to not have to board the ship, not get aggro from most of the ship mobs despite your huge heals, spam heals on your boarding tank even when he's flying towards the opposing ship or back to your ship, avoid any hit on your while flying because you can't cast anything during that time it's considered casting while moving.
Pro-tip: Don't miss to cast Beacon of Light on the boarding tank before he launches to the other ship, he could be too far away for that a few seconds later. The duration of the Beacon will be more than enough for your raid to kill the frost mage and the tank to come back. Talk with your tank to be sure he doesn't leave without it :)

And that's all, congratulations for the loot, this is mostly a "Have fun with rocket packs and get some nearly free loot" reward for having downed the two first bosses.
Enjoy it because serious fights start with Deathbringer Saurfang!

I hope this small guide was useful, see you soon for the 4th boss of Icecrown and the last from the entrance section: Deathbringer Saurfang.

Icecrown Gating, Third Wing in 2 Weeks.

Icecrown Gating

You can read it on MMO-Champion here, the third wing of Icecrown Citadel has been officially announced to open 2 weeks after the second one (aka the 19th of January). By the way the next arena season 8 date, which will be the last for Lich King, has also been announced to be probably on the 26th of January.
The third wing of Icecrown will be the last before Sindragosa and Arthas, so we can expect to see the Lich King live the 2nd of February if they keep with the 2 weeks gating time period. Not that I expect my guild to go that fast (we're just finishing with the entrance wing) but I'm sure all hardcore, or even semi-hardcore guilds will keep up with the pace for normal mode.

Now remember that the last bosses of each wings also have a limited number of attempts you can have on them for each week. This number has been increased from 5 attempts to 10 though, so this week everyone will have 10 attempts on Professor Putricide.

Cataclysm release date thoughts.

Now I'm sort of wondering if ICC will be enough content for players until the release of Cataclysm, even with the artificial increased time need to finish the raid that this gating system creates (pool about that topic on the right side). More than 3 months between a raid is cleaned and another appears is usually too much, but if we have the same "new talents live test period" as we had at the end of The Burning Crusade we can probably add about 2 months to this 3 months period farming ICC.
Still 5 months lifespan only bring us to early July, and I don't think now that Cataclysm will be out before the summer (though I was thinking June before). Blizzard won't release during the summer, which brings us to a fall release.
Now you can understand the announcement by Blizzard about a new raid being given to us before Cataclysm launch. I would expect just before or just after they give us the new talents trees. A new raid adds about 3 more months to the time that can go before the launch without players quitting "en masse" the game. Which brings us to the fall/late fall release that seems to be expected by most people now (preorders even give an early November release date).

What do you think about it? I'm really eager for Cataclysm myself, and would like to see it before summer, even if it probably won't happen I'd like to at least see the "new talents live test period" at this time. The global revamp of the talent trees is what I want to see the most right now, I think the "old model" has done its time.

Healing Through: Icecrown Citadel - Lady Deathwhisper

As I'm getting more used to Icecrown I'll post new Healing Through. As of now I've killed the three first bosses a few times and I'm getting comfortable with healing them. As always I'm mostly raiding in 10-Man, so strats and tips will concentrate on 10-Man raids, though I'll give pointers about the change you can feel in 25-Man.

So for today Healing Through, let's discuss Lady Deathwhisper, the second boss of Icecrown Citadel. You can read all abilities description on the WowHead page, and detailed strategy on the Boss Killers guide.

Lady Deathwhisper's room: Trash Mobs.

There are 4 pulls in Deathwhisper room before you can play with her. You have to clean all of them or you can be sure of a wipe on the boss.

Kind of like Grand Widow Faerlina in Naxxramas you have two cultist packs, they can be pulled separately if you take them from the side, and if you silence/grapple the casters to avoid any aggro-link from the second cultist group. No special difficulty, just take care that the melee mobs can spike your tank hard from time to time.

Then you have the two giant Nerubar (spider like creatures) at the back of the room. Single pull, single tank & spank fights. They cast a curse on one raid member that will hurt everyone around him, stay away from each other, with an empty room it shouldn't be hard in 10-Man. In 25-Man you can alternate to the group together strategy, the one being cursed moving away from the group. That requires more reactivity, but ensure minimal damage to the raid.

Boss Description

Lady Deathwhisper fight has two very different phases. During the first one she will have a mana shield, preventing any damage to her, but any damage will reduce her mana bar. As long as she has mana she will remain stationary and invoque adds to defend her. Once you reduce her to zero mana she will activates phase 2.
Pro-tip: try to not switch her to phase2 if there are still adds in the room, wait for your raid to clean one add phase then move her to phase 2.

I will describe her abilities and what to watch for healing-wise in each phase section.

Raid composition

In a 10-Man raid you should go for 2 tanks (mandatory), 2 healers and 6 dps. Being able to keep-up with the adds spawning is the key of the fight and sufficient dps is necessary.
Moreover you'll need about half physical and half magical dpsers, like 3 melees and 3 casters (hunters can be one or the other as needed).
This is kind of a tricky fight considering raid composition and you can't pass it with an all casters raid or all melee raid.

Advised Build

Healing is very different in phase 1 and phase 2 of the encounter.
Phase 1 healing is all about fast heals and reactivity, there can be a lot of sudden damage spikes on a lot of different targets (especially the two healers). And the boss aoes can bring several characters down at the same time, everyone should be hp topped at all times.
Phase 2 healing is mostly only tank healing, with much stronger hits than phase 1.

As you can see the two phases require very different healing options, and two different builds would be necessary to perfectly fit to the fight. But after some experience, phase 2 healing isn't really very hard for one reason: phase 2 won't last for very long. If you can reach it with full mana (and you should be able to) then you'll be ok even with a fast heals / raid healing build.
My view is to go with a fast heals build for raid healing, a Holy Priest or Restoration Druid will be perfect for phase 1 (characters will be fairly dispatched in the room and a Shaman will probably not be able to use Chain Heal as well as with the first Icecrown boss).
As a paladin, a fast Flash of Light build is perfect for phase 1, and it consumes so little mana that you will easily start phase 2 with a full mana bar which will allow you to spam Holy Lights long enough for phase 2 to end.

Healing Phase 1

Encounter Description:
(extracts from wowhead)

During phase 1, Lady Deathwhisper will have a mana shield that will absorb all the damage done to her. She will attack the raid with Death and Decay and Shadow Bolts - none of which should be too dangerous. On 25-player difficulty she will also mind control a random raid member for a short amount of time - CC them and move on.

She will also summon adds regularly during phase 1. Adds will come in waves from both sides of the room - mix of Adherents and Fanatics. In the 10-player version of the raid, the waves will come from only side at a time, switching sides. In the 25-player one, adds will come from both left and right side - one add will come from the entrance of the room as well.

Fanatics (melee adds) should be kited (preferably by the tanks) and killed by spellcasters. Adherents (caster adds) should be dpsed by the melee dps of your raid. Watch out for adds casting Dark Martyrdom, it means they will come back to life Reanimated in a few seconds.

Healing Tips:

The boss attacks aren't very dangerous, her Shadow Bolts hit for 7-9K and her Death and Decay for 4,5K/s (as long as raiders aren't lame they won't take too much damage from that). D&D can be more dangerous in 25-Man because characters will be more packed, you should assign a Holy Priest and a Druid specifically for that.

The difficulty is the adds. Fanatics cleave (but there should be no melee on them!) and have several regeneration abilities, they also hit hard when transformed if they are not kited/cced correctly.
Pro-tip: Always have one healer assigned to each Fanatic tank (2 in 10-Man, 3 or 4 in 25-Man). For Paladins, having a Beacon of Light on one of them is a very good idea to anticipate any spike on him.
Adherents have strong shadowfrost attacks that can aoe when they get empowered by Lady Deathwhisper. That can result in strong damage spikes on the melee group dpsing them.
Pro-tip: Adherents also tend to focus together on one healer when they spawn, which can result in 2 (10-Man) to 4 bolts targeting the same character, be ready for fast instant healing when they spawn (a Discipline Priest shield should be used on all healers before a spawn in 25-Man).
Pro-tip: You should also watch for mind-controls of a healer/tank and for the adherents curse that puts a 15s CD on all abilities you use when afflicted by it (decursing healers is a top priority).

In the end the first phase is all about being fast and over-reactive. Your raid members can greatly help by reducing the amount of damage the raid takes with proper movement and cc of the numerous adds.

Healing Phase 2

Encounter Description:
(extracts from wowhead)

Phase 2 begins when Lady Deathwhisper's mana barrier has been drained. Try not to have any cultists alive when that happens. The boss will become active and a tank needs to pick her up quickly, as there is no threat reset. A second tank will need to be available to taunt the boss, since she will periodically debuff her current tank with a stacking threat generation reduction debuff. The two (three in 25-Man) tanks taunt off each other every 3 stacks.

Players should be mindful of the Vengeful Shades that will spawn through phase 2 and will randomly chase people - get away from them! These shades are untargetable and will die after a few seconds. Melee DPS might want to set up an interrupt rotation, since Deathwhisper's Frostbolt can cause significant damage (read nearly OS a not well geared tank). She will continue using Death and Decay (and Dominate Mind in 25-player).

Healing Tips:

Healing in phase 2 is much easier, you mostly only have to spam the tanks. All Frostbolts cast by Lady Deathwhisper should be interrupted and even if damage spiked can happen, there should be enough healers to keep the tanks up without too much of a problem.
Shades can result in significant damage, but if raid members kite them properly that shouldn't be too bad either.
The only danger is the Death and Decay, it will hurt tanks and melee several times during phase 2 and a lot of members will take damage this time. Obviously the tanks will move Deathwhisper out of them, but mages and shamans (distance interrupts) need to check-out for Frostbolts at this moment because melee interrupts won't be able to do their job. As for phase 1, assigning a Holy Priest and Resto Druid to heal D&D damage in 25-Man is the best option.

For Holy Paladin this part of the fight isn't hard, just spam Holy Lights, and if you still have the glyph you'll get D&D splash heal as well on the melee raid members.

This fight can be quite hectic, especially in 25-Man, but it's still the one I enjoy the most from the 4 first bosses of Icecrown Citadel.
Have fun with this crazy encounter, and see you for another Healing Through.

Healing Through: Icecrown Citadel - Lord Marrowgar

Another Healing Through post, focusing this time on the first boss of the Icecrown Citadel raid: Lord Marrowgar.
This post addresses both the 10-Man and 25-Man version of the encounter. The heroic version is not available yet (and won't for a few more months), I will update this post later for that.

Be happy fellow Holy Paladins, this is a fight for you, Beacon of Light will shine as never during this fight.

The path to the boss: trash mobs.

Some will say the trash up to Marrowgar are harder than the boss himself. Though this could be slightly too much to say, the packs are relatively interesting and some sort of control should be used before you aoe everything to death. More precisely the undead spider creatures should be cced by priests and killed separately after the other parts of the packs are done.
Pro-tip: the spiders on the sides of the first room can be soloed by using a Death Knight Death Grip ability

Now ... there is a "fun" surprise with these packs, the 4 Giant Bonelords in the walls of the 2 rooms before Marrowgar can activate and aggro you somehow randomly. I've seen only 3 activating, sometimes the 4 of them, sometimes during the first pack, sometimes not before the last one. It seems to be completely random, but to always occur when you're already fighting. A big emote will warn you a few seconds before one activates, and you'll have to deal with it quickly, as it's damage and aoe silence can be devastating.

If you're lucky you will only have one Bonelord then the periodic aoe, that silence you if you were casting, can be easily avoided and your healers won't have problem keeping the tank up. If you have multiple Bonelords, you will have 3 tanks to heal (the 2 Bonelords tanks and the tank dealing with the pack you were fighting) and 2 aoe silence to consider. On my about 10 runs through these trashs, both in 10 and 25-Man (I've done some reputation grinding runs :p), we've only survived 2 times to a double Bonelord and never to a wonderful 3 Bonelord bash.

To sum-up, cc the spiders and always have a spare tank ready to grab the random Bonelord.
Pro-tip: Most of the time, if more than one Bonelord activate while you're still fighting mobs, try to finish your pack quickly if you can and run for the exit, unless you have very good tanks and healers more than one Bonelord while already fighting a pack means raid wipe. Once they have reset, they can be pulled separately while they patrol.

Boss Description, Abilities and Raid composition.

First of all I invite you to read the boss description on WowHead, and WowWiki. And then you can go to the strategy guide on BossKillers, and the video on Tankspot - Project Marmot. Always basic reference for raid bosses. All of that will give you a good idea of the fight if you've not already experienced it.

The 3 mains abilities from Lord Marrowgar are: Saber Lash, Coldflame and Bonespike Graveyard. You can add to them his Bone Storm which is a sort of alternate phase of the fight.
He will use the first 3 during the tanking phase, but only Coldflame when he whirlwinds during his Bone Storm.

You will need 2 tanks in 10-Man and 3 tanks in 25-Man, just to share the amount of damage done by the Saber Lash.
Pro-tip: Lord Marrowgar's damage has been reduced in 10-Man and the life of the tanks isn't as in jeopardy as before, especially after a Bone Storm, but they still should be very reactive in the use of survival cds when needed.

The fight uses 3 healers in 10-Man and around 6 in 25-Man, more healers in 25-Man makes survival easier but the amount of dps is key as quick dps anywhere in the room is needed because of the Bonespikes.

The only tricky part of the fight is the end of the Bone Storm. When Marrowgar finishes it, he resets his threat table, and he is untauntable in 25-Man. Your tanks need to be quick at grabbing him and move him back near his original position. During this time, any aggro reducing ability is very helpful for healers (Fade obviously for priests, but using a bubble at that time as a paladin is a good choice to allow you to spam heal right from the start of the phase).
Pro-tip: Keep in mind that as soon as he stops his Bone Storm, he will starts his Saber Lash again .Tanks should be quick to gather, and use survival cds is needed. All other raid members should stay more than 10 meters away from the tanks to ensure none eats a Saber Lash whiled he's moved.

Focus on Healing 10-Man.

Pro-tip: in 10-Man the number of raiders is limited, you need to pay attention to the fact that at least 3 raiders should be out of the proximity of Marrowgar and in range of Coldflames, if you have fewer Coldflame targets he will use Coldflames on your tanks.

Most of the damage of the fight comes from the Saber Lashes. But there will be high short duration damage on the victims of Bone Spikes and random medium damage on the whole raid during the Bone Storm phase.

Two healers should be dedicated to the 2 tanks, usually the Main Tank will be a shield using tank to reduce the damage as much as possible as he will be hit more often. If you have a Holy Paladin in your raid (very much advised for this raid) he can heal one tank and beacon the second one, allowing the second tank healer to help with Bone Spikes and people being lousy at dodging the Coldflames.
The third healer will be healing the raid and the victims of Bone Spikes. He should react if ever needed to heal the tanks if one of the tank healers is in a Bone Spike.

Holy Paladin point of view:
I've been using a Flash of Light build during all ToC, this build is not enough for Icecrown, at least not enough for dual tank healing on Marrowgar. I'd advise you a pure Holy Light build for this boss, especially as the Aura Mastery and Divine Guardian talents can really help your raid if used at the right times.
Pro-tip: positioning
As a Holy Paladin, healing while moving isn't your best asset. If you're assigned to tank healing, you will have to use Holy Light, which is a longer cast and will make you very bad at avoiding Coldflames. If you get close enough to Marrowgar, you will be inside the "Coldflame safe zone" where the tanks and all the melee dps should be. As long as at least 3 members of your raid are out of this zone to provide Coldflame targets to Marrowgar, this is the safest spot for you to be healing from.

In 10-Man you'll be a tank heal for sure. Ask for another healer to help you if one tank goes low, or much more importantly if you get taken into a Bone Spike. You should be able to do most of both tanks healing by yourself alternating between Holy Lights and Flash of Lights.
Pro-tip: Remember to judge Marrowgar regularly for your Judgements of the Pure, and keep your Light's Grace up too.

Take care to the tanks after a Bone Storm, remember to refresh your Beacon of Light, use your Devotion or Frost Resistance aura (depending if you have a Paladin tank or not) and you should be set for Lord Marrowgar. There isn't much else to say about the fight :)

Focus on Healing 25-Man.

The fight is not very different than it is in 10-Man. The main difference is the amount of damage, that makes every ability from Lord Marrowgar much more deadly. Notably, the Saber Lash will hit for 300% damage instead of 200%, and the Bone Spikes will kill someone in a matter of seconds if not healer.

3 Healers should be dedicated to the tanks, this is mandatory as one can very probably get Bone Spiked several times during the fight, preventing his healing for a few seconds. The 3 other raid healers should be dispatched in the room and on Bone Spikes heal duty with the random slow people on Coldflames.

Holy Paladin point of view:
You will be affected to tank healing most probably using your Beacon of Light on the main tank and healing one of the Saber Lash tanks with mostly Holy Lights. The amount of damage is superior and you will have to nearly spam Holy Lights for most of the tanking phases, especially when one of the other tank healers is in a Bone Spiked.
The difficulty then becomes mana regen. Divine Plea will be necessary, unless you have external mana regen (Inervation or very effective Replenishment with an insane amount of intellect).
Pro-tip: The ideal time to use Divine Plea is during Bone Storm, but be sure to survive. Pop an Aura Mastery to reduce the damage on the raid and about 15 seconds before the end of the whirlwind use Divine Plea. Then if up pop a Divine Shield and a Divine Guardian, trying to be sure that Divine Shield will be up for the first 5 seconds after the end of the Bone Storm, so you can bomb heal the tank without risk of pulling aggro.

Grats on your downs, and have fun with this fight, very frustrating until most of the raid is reactive enough, easy and crazy fun afterwards :P

As always, I hope this article was helpful, and I'll see you again in the next Healing Through.

Edit January 27th

We changed somehow our strategy on Marrowgar concerning the raid positioning. I guess it's probably a better strategy for more casual (read less reactive) raids that have issues with the switch on the Bonespikes.
Now we do everyone into the Coldflame safe zone, which means everyone is close to Marrowgar, slightly inside his hit box.
This has several advantages:

• nobody can get both into a Bonespike and a Coldflame, which avoid strong damage on anyone that could die before being freed from the spike;
• nobody has to dodge Coldflames, that helps all classes with casting times, both healing and dps;
• everyone is close together so switching dps on Bonespikes is faster as all dpsers can dps the spikes, melee dps included.
  

That strategy will result in Coldflames being cast on your tanks, that will have to communicate to move from left to right when they get flames under them.
We experienced easier kills like that. So if you have issues with people dying on the spikes/flames or raid healing having difficulties with keeping everyone topped and then people dying during the whirlwind, try it too, it could be easier for your raid too.

Icecrown Citadel advance

We're in, after a first advance last week up to the Gunship Battle, we've gone through it this week with no problem on Marrowgar or Deathwhisper, and we've been able to make our first tries on Deathbringer Saurfang after having had too much fun with the jet-packs during the Gunship battle, all of that in 10-Man.
Ok, I know a lot of others have already cleaned all of that, I know some could say it's not that hard, but we're mainly a 10-Man guild and we're not 25-Man geared for most of us. I'm relatively happy with our advance. The first week was really a revival of the Ulduar period "Oh my god raiding is hard, but it wasn't so hard in Naxxramas". But the second week and now the third have been ok with people being more serious about the raids and hence things going much much better. I blame edc normal for having been way way too easy and the hard mode so much harder that we couldn't bring enough people regularly to seriously advance in it.

Anyway, Saurfang is a baaaaad guy ^^ I'm sure it's a lot more hectic in 25-Man but in 10-Man the hard part is that you can't lose anyone until the very end (or at least the last 5%). We need everyone to heal / dps the blood beasts and dps/tank Saurfang.
We used a 2 tanks / 3 heals / 2 melee dps on Saurfang / 3 dps on beasts or Saurfang group. Once we got the positioning and dealing with the beasts ok (no hunter for traps but an elemental shaman doing all the jog with earthbind totems and push backs), we were able to grind Saurfang down.
Our best try left him at 10%, the hard part is that nobody in the group should lose his concentration until the very end. One heal missed, one blood beast not cced/dpsed fast enough, one tank doing an aoe on the blood beasts pop, everyone of these can be the cause to a lot of blood/life for Saurfang and result in a wipe.

Even if we didn't down Saurfang yet, everyone enjoyed the fight, it is a fight that requires a nearly perfect execution from the whole 10 people in the raid, which is a real change for a normal mode, and one we liked.

On a side-note, I'll try to post a Marrowgar Healing Through guide tomorrow, as we got this fight nearly perfected in 10-Man and we've tried it 2 nights now in 25-Man (we decided the raid alliance needed some 10-Man experience before we go there in 25-Man again, too many slow movers ;p).

It has been a Busy week.

Sorry for the lack of post, I've got a cold, a lot of job and I'm busy trying to push through Icecrown Citadel.
I know that for most of the raiders ICC could look dull, especially if they are full ToC25 and are doing ICC10, but for my small raiding guild even ICC10 is not at all won.
We have had two wiping nights in 25 on Marrowgar with the guild we allied to to reach the 25-Man cap, people aren't reactive enough mostly. I blame Nax and ToC for having been too easy with any kind of reactivity issue.
We also wiped in 10 Sunday to finally get the right set of people/motivation to push and down Marrogar and Deathwhisper last Tuesday. But I must say that trying to organize all these raids while being sick isn't the easiest of things.
Anyway enough complains, posts will hopefully resume next week with a Healing though Marrowgar and a post about Holy Paladin healing macros that I want to write for some time.

Have a good raiding in ICC everyone.

Healing Through: Halls of Reflection

This is the first post of a series I'm starting and will try to update regularly. Healing Through will compile my healing guides for instances and raid bosses. I'll try to target everything that I found hard, or when I have nice tips to give.
Healing Through will mostly be healing through an event as a paladin. I hope the tips can help other healers, I'll perhaps extend it to Discipline Priest and Druid if I find some time ^^

Healing Through: Halls of Reflection Heroic (and Normal)

After a few experiences in Halls of Reflection as a healer (3 times normal, 2 times heroic) and discussing it with a friend who did it as a dps and healer, I think this instance is going to be the next nightmare of healers (5-Man wise).
I guess some of you that tried it on heroic know what I mean. I'm going to try to point out the difficulties and what to expect/do during the different parts of this instance.

Pro-tip: during the whole instance all mobs are undead, don't forget Holy Wrath, it stuns mobs for a few seconds, can prevent a wipe, especially if your tank needs 2s to pick-up a group of mobs.

Pro-tip: Cleanse is mandatory (seriously :p) during most of the instance, so don't go into Halls of Reflection without an add-on to help you like Decursive (up-to-date on curse add-ons website).

Phase 1: The Gauntlet

The instance starts with waves of ghosts attacking you, several at a time. You have to defeat 5 waves to get the first boss, 5 more for the second boss and then you go to see the Lich King.

I think these 10 waves are the hardest part of the instance for the healer. The reason is the random aggro, the fact that your tank will have a very hard time maintaining (or even gaining) aggo on the casters/distance mobs, and the sheer amount of heal you'll have to do to keep the aggroed dpsers alive (and you).
To say things simply, don't try HoR heroic if your tank is not good at gaining aggro and keeping it on several targets at a time. A tank able to silence caster opponents is the best. I think paladin tanks shine in this instance.

How to not turn crazy during the gauntlet?
If you do it "the basic way" and your group stays in the middle of the room, it'll be hard. It can work in normal (I did it like that) but it'll certainly not work in heroic. The reason is that the ghosts will aggro the closest person, damage you or your dpsers (squishy) resulting in you healing a lot, taking aggro from several mobs and being ganked to death in like 2s.
The solution is to use "line of sight" to force the mobs, and even the casters/distance to get to your group and especially come in reach of your tank. For that you have two choices.

Positioning your group.
You can try to stay in the entrance corridor, it'll still require your tank to go out and pick-up the casters, or you to heal him get aggro and go from left to right of the corridor to use line of sight and force all distance mobs to come towards your tank (who should be between them and you).
The other solution is to hide in one of the alcoves on the side, where the two first boss ghosts are. You can have everyone hide in the side of the alcove, wait for the mobs to come, and your tank just has to pick-them up right here. It's the easiest way, just look-out for aoe casters that hurt!

What else do you have to expect?
First several mobs have debuffs, and your party will be debuffed a lot (magic/poison I'm sure, I don't know about curses they are not displayed on my decursive). It's hard to cleanse & heal all the time, I advise you to leave the debuffs and concentrate on healing when anyone goes low.
Pro-tip: *always* keep your Beacon of Light on your tank at all times, even a few seconds without healing can result in a dead tank in heroic.
Now there is a very very nasty debuff, rogue ghosts use a poison that reduces healing by 50%, if you leave that on your tank he'll die very fast even with a Beacon. So you have to cleanse the tank at all time, if you let several debuffs on him, when he'll get the poison it could require you 3 or 4 gcds to cleanse remove it, and he'll be dead by then ...
Now last but not least, the healing aggro. Ok you forgot it even existed, it'll be reminded to you the hard way here. If you use one of the los positioning techniques, the mobs will all come towards your group. It's perfect if your tank can pick-up all of them before you have to heal, but it will rarely be the case, as they won't reach your group at the exact same time. If you have to heal him before all the mobs reach your group (very probable) then you'll have the aggro when they come close. And the aggro of 3 mobs in heroic will get you "dead in 2s". In the end your life is in the hands of your tank, if he's fast and able to pick-up the mobs before they reach you you'll live, if not you'll die on each wave ... I experienced the "rez" each 2mn with a bad tank, and I swear I'll not pug that instance again XD
Pro-tip: paladin consecration is the hottest thing ever invented to protect a healer, and don't forget to use Divine Protection, Hand of Protection ...etc on yourself.

Boss 1: Falric

Now if you can manage the waves you'll be able to face the bosses. Rejoice, they are way way easier than the waves, from a healer perspective. They still hit hard and require reactive cleansing though.

Falric is the first boss, he has two nasty abilities:
Impending Despair - Causes Despair Stricken, stunning the target for 6 seconds, if not removed after 6 seconds. Magic effect.
Defiling Horror - Inflicts 2,500 (4,000 in heroic) Shadow damage every 1 second for 4 seconds.

Impending Despair only requires a cleanse, but don't forget it, if your tank or you get stunned 6s, you're asking for a wipe.

Now, and especially as a paladin without any hot or proactive healing like shields, Defiling Horror is the worse part of this boss. Every 20s or so, Falric will fear your whole group and deal strong shadow damage on everyone.
Pro-tip: remember to switch to shadow protection aura when he engages.
Your whole party will be hit for 10K (16K in heroic) shadow damage while you can't heal. If they are not full-life they could be dead before you get out of fear. And the boss then immediately resumes hitting your tank who will have suffered the same shadow damage as everyone. You then have 20s to heal everyone to full again before the next fear.
The "easy" way to survive this fight is to be sure that your tank will have a Beacon of Light when the fear ends and start casting Holy Light on your whole group one after the other. One Holy Light should be enough on each member, perhaps with a Flash of Light in heroic. If your tank is a little low at the end of the fear, start with a Holy Shock on yourself.
Pro-tip: if at any time someone goes too low during a fear, bubble and heal.

All in all Falric isn't very hard once you get the timing right.

Boss 2: Marwyn

Marwyn is the last step to be rid of the waves, so you don't want to wipe on him :P
Happily he's not very hard, even easier than Falric is you don't miss on your cleanses.

Marwyn three main abilities are:
Obliterate - Inflicts 18K (26K in heroic) Physical damage, mitigated by armor.
Shared Suffering - Inflicts 4K (6K in heroic) Shadow damage every 3 seconds for 12 seconds. If dispelled, splits the remaining damage equally between all players. Magic effect.
Corrupted Flesh - Reduces maximum health by 25% (50% in heroic) for 8 seconds.

There is a little "trick" here. If you don't cleanse the Corrupted Flesh on your tank, he could die of an Obliterate is you don't keep him full life (most tanks will be reduced to around 20K life by a Corrupted Flesh on heroic difficulty. So you have to cleanse. But there is Shared Suffering that will do about 5K damage to everyone in the group if you're fast on cleansing it.
What should you do in the end? Well, the answer is relatively easy, only cleanse your tank at all times. It could result in group damage, but as long as everyone is topped that won't be a killer. That implies you'll have to heal the target of Shared Suffering but with a Beacon of Light on your tank, this won't be a problem, healing two people at once is easy for a paladin even without hots.

As a side-note Marwyn also lands shadow zones under you from time to time, who's not used to that now, just move away (yes you too Mr.Tank ^^).

Phase 2: The Running Away from the Lich King

Now you'll killed Marwyn. Good job, you can have fun running with the Lich King and Frostmourne right behind you.
This phase is much easier for you as a healer, just be cautious that the abominations have a cleave and a frontal aoe, so stay on the sides and out of direct contact if you can. Your dpsers could get hit from time to time be quick on the heals and keep an eye for a saving Hand of Protection.

This part of the fight is much more focused on the dpsers, exactly as the first part of the instance is hard on the tank and healer.
Your dpsers have to be able to down all the mobs of a wave before the Lich King reaches you, it could seem easy during the first two waves, it's surely not as easy on waves 3 and 4.
Now, the mobs are not arriving exactly at the same time, and if any dps (or you) get the aggro on an abomination and your tank doesn't pick-it-up in time, you'll have a corpse on the ground (they nearly OS any non tank character). These big flesh puppets also cleave and have a frontal aoe ... so if the dpsers are the ones in charge of the success, your tank still needs to be very quick and aware.
Be happy, this phase should really not be so hard on you compared to the gauntlet, but it doesn't mean it'll be easier for your group.
Pro-tip: try to help your dpsers if you have some free time, paladins do have good dps abilities on undeads. Especially always use Holy Wrath as soon as it's out of cooldown and don't fear to use consecration as soon as your tank got aggro on a whole pack.

You're done?
Enjoy the cut-scene, you deserve it, especially in heroic (with good gear the normal difficulty should not pause you any problem).

See you soon for more Healing Through series.

note: There is a nice article on WoW.com about the perspective of a tank during HoR, and I think what he says about it is right on the spot and will give you an idea of all what a good tank has to do during that instance gauntlet.

Icecrown Gating, Second wing on the 5th.

Thanks (as always) to Boubouille from MMO-Champion for this news, and to the player who sent it there. You can read the details here, but the basis is: the second wing of Icecrown Citadel with Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide will open the 5th January. So we have 4 weeks (probably a bit less spent raiding with Christmas and New Year during that period) before the next wing is opened and more bosses are given to us.
Boubouille speculated that the next gating will probably be shorter, or we would not have Arthas before April (and hard mode can't be unlocked before you beat Arthas on normal). He's probably right, 2 to 3 weeks is probably the time we'll have to wait during the next gating periods.

Until the 5th, we can have fun with Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Gunship Battle, Deathbringer Saurfang in the entrance of the Citadel raid. But don't forget the new instances, I think the bosses there will be a fun challenge even for moderately geared players.
More news about the patch when I'll have been able to play it, the servers just came up again in Europe and I won't play before tonight :)

If you're experiencing problems, look at the list of known patch issues also present here. And don't forget to update your add-ons beforehand (like when you're patching ;p).

Are you getting ready for Icecrown, moneywise?

Everyone are expecting patch 3.3 to hit the live servers next Tuesday (Wednesday in Europe). As such I guess all raiders are getting ready to jump in the new raid and have some fun with new bosses, a new instance, some welcome trash (trash gives deepness and atmosphere to a raid). We're all eager for some novelty, the end of the expansion is approaching and as such we've all maxed mostly all what we wanted, crafts, reputations, ... and most of us have too many lvl 80 to ever want to hear Barrens again before Cataclysm hits.

So the question is, what are you doing this week to be all ready to jump in Icecrown Citadel next Tuesday/Wednesday?
I made sure to have several stacks of Flasks in advance (about 20 to 30 / char), food in profusion, gems ready (at least uncut ones when I have a jeweler on the server), enchant mats stockpiled. And I'm not even trying to abuse the patch release market, I just prepared some stocks for myself, so that I don't have to pay an arm and a leg on the ah during the first week of the patch release.
As always with new major content patches, you can expect a big increase in the ah prices for a few days/weeks. Gems, enchants, glyphs, pots, food, everything needed for raiding and for new loots will be greatly needed.

What I'm a bit afraid of are the prices. They're already relatively high right now, despite the lower number of raiders (bored by the long wait for IC and the lackluster ToC). The only reason I see is the lower number of players in general farming the mats, due to ... the lower number of players as a whole.
And if prices are already high right now (like more than 50 gold for a single Frost Lotus) how high are they going to top in like one week after the patch release? Well, we'll see, even if I had to pay a good amount of money to stock my consumables, now I'm secured and I really encourage you all to do the same before next week :P

See you all in Icecrown!

Icecrown Citadel raid loot for Holy Paladins

From a Holy Paladin view, what will be hot loot in Icecrown Citadel Raid ? That's the question I'm trying to answer here, starting with a list of all armor (plate only) & other items from the raid loot tables we have.
Discussion will come in later once we have more loot from the PTR.

That's a first compilation of Icecrown Citadel raid loot, taken from the PTR data you can get on MMO Champion loot post from November 20th, updated on Nov 26th.

10-Man (ilevel 251)
Sword Frost Needle marrowgar-10 -- hit/haste
Plate Feet Ancient Skeletal Boots marrowgar-10 -- crit/mp5
Plate Hands Festergut's Gaseous Gloves festergut-10 -- crit/mp5
Plate Wrist Bracers of Pale Illumination gunship-10 -- haste/mp5
Plate Legs Corrupted Silverplate Leggings marrowgar-10 -- crit/haste
Plate Shoulder Emerald Saint's Spaulders valithria-10 -- crit/mp5
Finger Signet of Putrefaction festergut-10 -- haste/mp5
Neck Soulcleave Pendant saurfang-10 -- crit/haste
Trinket Sliver of Pure Ice -- spell power, mana regen

10-Man hard (ilevel 264)
Plate Wrist Bracers of Pale Illumination gunship-10-hard -- haste/mp5
Finger Signet of Putrefaction festergut-10-hard -- haste/mp5
Neck Soulcleave Pendant saurfang-10-hard --

25-Man (ilevel 264)
Mace Trauma rotface-25
Shield Bulwark of Smouldering Steel marrowgar-25 -- crit/haste
Plate Head Faceplate of the Forgotten festergut-25 -- crit/mp5
Plate Shoulder Rusted Bonespike Pauldrons marrowgar-25 -- crit/mp5
Plate Waist Waistband of Righteous Fury gunship-25 -- crit/mp5
Plate Chest Rot-Resistant Breastplate rotface-25 -- crit/haste
Plate Waist Belt of the Lonely Noble trash-25 -- crit/haste
Plate Wrist Crypt Keeper's Bracers bloodprinces-25 -- crit/haste
Plate Feet Boots of the Funeral March -- crit/mp5
Plate Hands Fallen Lord's Handguards deathwhisper-25 -- crit/haste
Finger Ring of Rapid Ascent gunship-25 -- crit/haste
Finger Marrowgar's Frigid Eye marrowgar-25 -- haste/mp5
Neck Holiday's Grace festergut-25 -- crit/mp5
Neck Bone Sentinel's Amulet marrowgar-25 -- haste/spirit
Trinket Althor's Abacus gunship-25 -- spell power additional heal

25-Man hard (ilevel 277)
Plate Waist Waistband of Righteous Fury gunship-25-hard -- crit/mp5
Finger Ring of Rapid Ascent gunship-25-hard -- crit/haste
Trinket Althor's Abacus gunship-25-hard -- spell power additional heal

Emblems (ilevel 264)
Plate Chest Chestplate of Unspoken Truths -- crit/mp5
Plate Hands Gauntlets of Overexposure -- crit/haste
Plate Waist Lich Killer's Lanyard -- crit/haste
Cloak Drape of the Violet Tower -- crit/mp5
Cloak Volde's Cloak of the Night Sky -- crit/spirit
Trinket Purified Lunar Dust -- spell power, mana regen
Libram Holy Libram of Blinding Light

As a first rough analysis you can just take into account basic Holy Paladin facts, spirit is nearly useless for us, hit is marginally useful, mp5 is a useful but weak stat, crit and haste are good (and obviously int and spell power but all the items above have them :P).
This time I chose to order the items by 10-Man, 25-Man and hard (heroic) rather than by slot. I think it's easier for people to see quickly what they can have access to depending on their guild raids. On a common basis heroic items are remake with better stats of the non heroic items and 25-Man is half a tier better than 10-Man as always.
Hence mp5 is a plus, crit and haste are big pluses on an item. More in deapth analysis once we have more boss loot.

Last Update Nov. 26th

Patch 3.3 Item Avalanche, Holy Paladin view

So I wrote yesterday about the beginning of Icecrown Itemization on MMO Champion, guess what ? There are a lot of news today, cheers to Boubouille !

• Page 1: 5-Man loot table, normal & heroic, and Quel'Delar
• Page 2: Emblems of Frost Badge Rewards
• Page 3: Icecrown Citadel raid loot, 10 & 25-Man, and Tier 10 Armor sets (not many of them yet), and Ashen Verdict Reputation Rings rewards

If that's enough to make you drool, I don't know what you want. From what I've seen most items are pretty nice considering stats, we're back to the great stats allocation of Nax with ilevel 251+ items.

Just looking at the 5-Man stuff already makes me happy, there is nearly a full tanking set of ilevel 219-232 there, perfect to gear a new tank and bring him into IC 10. Also nice for my lazy ass that can't cope with raiding enough to itemize my 3 healers, especially with my loot habit :P

Now let us give a look to the Ashen Verdict rings. Healers will go for the crit/mp5 ring (Ashen Band of Wisdom) for sure, the other one having hit. But I'd have loved a haste ring, with the changes from my T7.25 (I still was using it until we started ToC 10 Hard ...) to a T8-9 combo I went from about 600 to 400 haste and I don't like that >.< But I should not complain, seeing this ring Signet of Putrefaction in Icecrown 10-Man ...

About the Emblems of Frost rewards ?

• Gauntlets of Overexposure
• Lich Killer's Lanyard
• Drape of the Violet Tower
• Libram of Blinding Light
• Purified Lunar Dust

Nothing else to say, grab them ! (We'll have to wait for the tier10 to decide about the gauntlet but a haste/crit item makes me jump in my chair).

I won't start looking at the Icecrown Citadel items right now, we don't have enough of them yet and there are still some confusions between the normal and heroic mode loot. But expect a review early next week. Still I want to see my Blood Elf with that shield.

Icecrown itemization go go go

Ok, I'm all excited because the first item lists for patch 3.3 and Icecrown are out. Items are in the last PTR files, though I don't think they started dropping yet.
Anyway you can find the first lists on MMO Champion (your best source of wow news as always):
5-Man Dungeons loot lists (normal 319 ilevel, and heroic 332 ilevel),
Icecrown Citadel first loot list (I assume 25-Man from the 364 ilevel),
you can also add the Crafted Items list published a few days ago.
I'll start a review for Holy Paladins once we start to know on which boss the items drop (what I did for Ulduar).

ps: Ok, ok, I'm really as excited as everyone about these new shinies even though I tend to pass on loot in raids. I'm just an itemization and optimization nerd, at least on paper :P

Valithria Dreamwalker

The Dragon Who Loved Me.
from the memories of an Icecrown raid healer

Ok, that's a completely silly and cheesy subtitle, but I can't help. That's probably the first fight in the history of WoW that puts healers in the center of the stage. Yes, during that fight the goal is not to kill something, but to heal a captured green dragon.
My healer friends, we will have to bring back this mighty dragon from 50% life to full while our raiding brethren will protect us from the enemies assaulting us and trying to prevent our task.
Isn't that so cool to be the one that will decide on the length of the fight ? Yes you've read correctly this fight is not a DPS race, it's a ... Healing Race !

Let's come to more details. Valithria Dreamwalker is the first boss of the Frostwing Halls of Icecrown Citadel and is encountered before Sindragosa. She starts the fight at 50% life, you will need to heal her while killing the adds that will spawn to stop you. Once the dragon is back to full health she will destroy all remaining adds and teleport her (and you) out of the citadel effectively ending the fight.
During the fight players can use portals created by Valithria to switch to dreamstate, and alternate plane where dreamclouds will spawn. These clouds will regenerate your mana and greatly increase your healing for a short time, you can then get out and bomb heal Valithria before going back in there. While some healers (and a few dps as the clouds have to be destroyed to give buffs) will rotate between healing & regaining mana, the rest of the raid will have to deal with all the adds.
There are 5 kinds of adds. Glutonous Abominations will be especially dangerous as they'll spawn Rot Worms when they die (8-10 in 25-Man) that will melee their target (for about 5K) and can easily OS any character that is not a tank if they gang on him. But the key of the fight will be Suppressers, a class of adds that cast a strong debuff on Valithria reducing all heals on her by 10% and effectively making the fight longer as long as they're up. In 25-Man there is 6 Suppressers per wave when this fight was tested on the PTR.
You can find some details about the abilities on the wowwiki page, or the MMO Champion page (with a nice video of the fight).

Now about tactics, my guess will be for the Valithria healing squad to switch to dream state when a wave of adds spawn, buff and regen there until the Suppressers have been killed by the raid and come back to heal Valithria with full mana and the healing bonus while not being hindered by the Suppressers healing debuff on the dragon.
Now for the classes, I think Holy Paladins and Restoration Druids will probably be the healers assigned to Valithria if you have enough of them, while Shamans and Priests will probably stay on the raid. Why ? Because their single target spam healing is probably the best of the 4 healing specs, though very mana intensive, hence the use of the dreamstate plane. Holy Light spam and Nourish spam (whith full hots active) will be hard to best.

It really looks like a very interesting fight and I'm really eager to try it, especially in 25-man where the number of adds can turn the fight from controlled to hectic in a few seconds ^^