Ice Crown 5 Man walk Through..Sort of.

I know this is really late but thought I would put it up none the less.



Tuesday night after much waiting and cursing I finally managed to get into game. Just couldn't seem to get the game to load up and thought it was something on my end but after eating supper and spending some time with the kids I managed to get in and try it out. 


First thing I did was the new LFG system and we whipped through AN pretty quick, I was heals even though I had signed up as dps as well. Finding a group went pretty quickly I didn't even get a chance to try and find the entrance to the Ice Crown 5 man instances. I love the new sharding system that is available, thankfully we had someone who could d/e and be able to take advantage of it, not sure how we are going to work this out for guild raids and all. Got my 2 emblems of frost and ported back to Dalaran.. Picked up the alliance quest outside the bank and then flew to ICC and found the entrance to the instances, it is on the west side of ICC on the second level.


After getting a party together we proceeded into Forge of Souls, and went again....and again...and oh wait that one worked. As I am sure many of you know the instance servers were spotty at best. We loaded in with a tankadin, dps dk, shadow priest, ele shaman and resto shaman. Instance was on normal 5 man and the pulls began. All in all it was pretty easy except the tank had to learn to wade into the mobs instead of just pulling them in due to their being ranged dps for the most part. 


We got to the first boss and started dpsing. Right from the get go I had the ele shaman running with tremor, cleansing, wrath, and wrath of air. I was running stoneskin, flametongue, windfury and mana stream, yes I know flametongue was redundant but hey I like to have control of my totems and a searing totem just makes me nervous. This boss everyone get in close because he has a spell that damages people if they are outside of 10 yds of boss. He will pick one person from the group and fear them, hence the tremor totem, keep heals ticking on them as they are going to get damaged as they try to get back to the middle. Burn him down and on to the next trash and last boss. 


This boss is like one from Ulduar that I never took on, or so I have heard. There are 3 faces to the boss, one does huge damage if it is pointed at a person, another is a mirror and sends the damage back as it is hit, the last one brings up spectres that you can't damage but they sure deal it out for a period of time. Once you have that boss burned down talk to Jaina and take portal to next instance....and again...and...oh hey only 2 tries.


Pit of Saron.


3 bosses in here. first one is far to the right from where u load up. You need to release 15 slaves for the quest so start working your way over there killing trash and freeing them. The boss is up on a landing that you take some steps to. He reminds me of the tauren guy in Dead mines that you take on in that he stuns you for a bit while he complains that his weapon isn't good enough as he switches it out for a different one. 2 differences he has a freezing debuff that does some damage, he throws rocks at the party that dps seem to be able to cast through but healers can't heal through it. Last debuff he casts just before he dies is deep freeze. If the party can't kill him before this goes off then it will do 4k dmg to whoever has it. One thing of note, make sure to hand in quest because receiver dies at end of instance and you won't be able to hand it in after that. 


Next boss you follow the wall up towards a ramp, skip past the ramp and you get some mobs that drag boxes behind them, kill the mobs keeping a cleansing totem out and stay out of the green stuff. Then its time for the boss, much like the trash around him he casts green goo that you need to stay out of. He will also drop aggro table and center on one person that is called out, there you just kite him around. The last thing to watch for is the little gnome tells him to stop and he casts out arcane mines that follow the party around. everyone has to keep moving around while trying to dps and heal. Kill him off and on to the last bost Tyrannus.  


Before you hit Tyrannus there is a bit of a gauntlet through a cave, to get to it you go up the ramp you skipped over. In the cave watch for falling ice, if you are doing it on Heroic and manage to get up the cave without anyone taking damage from the ice you get an achievement, Huzzah! 


Tyrannus is an interesting fight. 2 things to watch for, his brand and the ice damage that his dragon does. With his  brand don't do any healing and don't let the dps do any damage while they have it on them. thankfully it only targets one person at a time and ES doesn't seem to do anything against the brand. Ice damage from the dragon consists of zones that he shoots out that will slow down walking and casting as well as a spell that encases you in ice and splashes to anyone within 12 yds of you. Stay spread out. This fight I usually pop my fire elemental along with heroism at the beginning to help get the burst damage on it. There used to be a bug that you could dps him before he dropped down off his drake but they have fixed it so that his hp resets.


Halls of Reflection


This instance is basically 2 sets of gauntlets and will test the gear and capabilities of your tank and healer along with the gear of your dps. First gauntlet consists of 5 groups of 4-5 mobs running at your group that you have to burn down as quickly as possible and still have mana for the next one. There are 2 alcoves along the side and I personally like to use the left one from where you enter the instance. We usually have the dps and healer stack up around the corner for Line of sight and have the tank stand out in the open but within sight of the healer. When the mobs come in make sure to burn the priest first, personally I like the hunter going down next because I despise his frost trap that he casts on various party members. There are warriors and rogues along with the group that can get rather frustrating but it is possible to burn them all down. I usually run stoneskin, flametongue, wrath of air and manaspring since you can go through a lot of mana in this fight. Once the mobs are done then it is time for the first boss. 


With this one you want to make sure you have a tremor totem and healing stream down. He does a fear that does damage and each time he fears it hurts the party more. So keep the group up.


Another set of waves and the last boss in this area. This one casts out a curse zone that if people stay in will kill them fast. Make sure the dps moves out and get your cleanse on them to wipe the curse off.


Next you have a couple of single trash though the first one brings 5 mirror images of your group that you have to burn down as well as the single mob. second one just kill and you meet up with Arthas and Jaina duking it out. When you get there Jaina is almost dead and she casts an iceblock on Arthas, you start the event and start running down a path that leads out of Icecrown. Arthas will bring up 4 walls that you need to protect Jaina while she tries to burn through them. Basically it is another gauntlet with 4 groups that get steadily harder, keep your stoneskin, flametongue, wrath of air and mana spring until the last wave. I usually wait until there are a number of mobs in the last wave and pop my flame elemental again along with army of the dead if you have a dk. After they are up I pop Heroism and burn through them as fast as possible.


Hopefully you staid ahead of Arthas through all of this and run out onto a platform. At this point a ship comes up and blows the wall behind you sealing the cave you were in along with Arthas behind it. Climb on the ship open the chest get your loot.


One thing to note on the 4 waves don't get too far ahead on the first wave because I have actually had the wall form behind me and got cut off from the group once and 2nd time I was inside the wall and accidentally walked off the cliff to my death.