The Lich King – Defeated
Posted by thideras | Filed under General Information
After a slew of disappointingly easy bosses in Icecrown, it seems that Blizzard has got the best fight of the expansion right. I’m not the only one relieved at how difficult the Lich King encounter is, and I’m actually glad to see us wiping on it. I would venture to say that this fight is on par with the difficulty of Hard Mode Anub’Arak 25 man.
Why is this fight hard? The fight itself is extremely technical and requires perfection. There is a lot to remember during the fights and it varies greatly from phase to phase. I’ll briefly cover each phase since we haven’t finalized our strategy just quite yet.
Phase 1 (100% – 70%)
The Lich King is tanked just outside the metal circle that covers the room. Ghouls spawn around him and are slowly killed through multi-target abilities (Maul, etc) and direct AoE when called for. A Shambling Horror spawns frequently and has roughly 2 million health. We leave melee on the Lich King and ranged on the Shambline Horror. He will randomly cast [Necrotic Plague] on a raid member. They need to stand next to the Shambling Horror before it ticks and have it dispelled, otherwise they will immediately die. This will move the debuff either to the off-tank (which it can be dispelled again to the Shambling Horror) or the Shambling Horror, which will do substantial damage to the mob. Along with all that, he casts [Infest] every 20 seconds on all raid members. It does around 10,000 partially resistable shadow damage and applies a DoT. The longer this DoT is active, the more damage it does. The only way to remove the debuff is bring the player’s health above 90%. He will continue to cast this through all phases except transistion phases. This phase is fairly easy as long as the raid members can get to the mob quickly.
Phase 1.5 (70%, 1 minute long)
He starts channeling [Remorseless Winter] for one minute and all raid members must get out to the far edge of the platform. We form three groups in a line. The tanks and melee are in the middle. The ranged are split into two groups, one on each side of the tank/melee group. During this time, random raid members will have Summon Raging Spirit cast on them and need to move to the tanks before the debuff falls off and the spirit spawns. He will also be casting [Pain and Suffering] during the the phase transistions. At the end of one minute, he will break the outside edge of the platform, making it substantially smaller. You have roughly eight seconds to get off it, and one that doesn’t will fall to their death.
Phase 2 (70% – 40%)
This phase starts immediately after he breaks the edge of the platform and is the hardest portion of the fight. We are currently working on this phase, so this strategy will probably update. Currently, we tank the Lich King in the center and have everyone (including melee and ranged) directly behind him. He will cast [Defile] on a random raid member. [Defile] is a black puddle that appears beneath who ever it is cast on. We all know that “black stuff is bad”, but this is worse than most; the puddle grows for any damage it does. For example, if you have 1-4 people standing in it, it doesn’t grow very fast. If someone drops their puddle below the raid, it will grow faster than you can get out of it; easily causing a wipe. Right now, we are working on a strategy to mitigate this threat. The other half of the fight another very interesting mechanic. He will summon 3 Val’kyr which will carry players off the edge of the platform. They can be slowed and stunned, but they can not be snared. They have roughly 250,000 health in 25 man and must be killed immediately. He also casts [Infest] during this phase, healers beware.
Phase2.5 (40%, 1 minute long)
This is exactly the same as Phase 1.5 except there will be four spirits spawned.
Phase 3 (40% – 10%)
There is no more Infests during this fight. He will still cast [Defile] during this phase, so it is important to keep spread out. He will summon spirits often around 15 yards above the himself, they have roughly 2.6 million health and will need to be AoE’d before they start coming down. They can be stunned and snared. They will explode when reaching their target, so they need to be eliminated quickly. He will also case [Harvest Soul] on a random raid member that will do substantial damage; they must be healed through it. If the cast is allowed to finish (they don’t die), they will be brought into a room with a friendly and hostile target. If a DPS/tank get in, they need to kill the hostile spirit. If a healer gets in, they need to heal the friendly spirit. Once it dies, they are put back in the normal fight with everyone else. Overall, this fight is quite simple once you understand the basics.
Phase 4 (10% – 0%)
THE WHOLE RAID DIES, DO NOT RELEASE. The Lich King will kill everyone instantly and some RP takes place. Again, DO NOT RELEASE. After roughly a minute, Terenas Menethil will ressurect everyone and you burn the boss down. No damage takes place and you can not wipe at this point. Grats, you killed him!
Kill video – http://thideras.com/videos/exodusraids/Icecrown/Lich_King_kill.mp4
