The Order Rocks ICC: Part 1

Greetings this is the first in a series of posts chronicling our spectacular push through ICC and the take-down of Arthas "The Lich King" Menethil. The guild really came together on this one I think, and we did some very swift progression raiding. I will more or less separate these posts by wing of the ICC. Bear with me as much of the time it had to be a quick shot between heals. Still, I got some great screen shots, particularly of the Lich King fight.

First up, the spire!

Lord Marrowgar, pieced together from the bones of fallen heroes, awaited us at the base of the spire that connects all of the Ice Crown Citadel. Between the falling spikes and swaths of flame, all you need to worry about is spinning whirlwind death upon the blade of what may be the coolest looking boss in the game. Our own Twothumbs had a good time hanging out on the spikes, and we managed to down him without too much trouble.


Heartened by the death of this first enemy, we plunged deeper into the Lich King's stronghold to face the head of the Cult of the Damned, Lady Deathwhisper. As we quickly found out, she does anything but whisper and our rallying cry for this battle was "SHUT UP, BITCH!" as she preached and shouted down all opposition until felled by steel and claw and flame.


Having downed the duchess of the damned, we continued ever onward and upward. That is, assuming you caught the elevator the first time. If not, you watched the rest of the guild continue onward and upward. With the exception of the Lich King, the most deaths suffered in ICC were due to elevators, so watch out for these things. Or at least don't auto run towards the gaping pit and go afk for a beer.

Following the Lady, we emerged on the ramparts of the citadel (which, by the way, we could have been flown to by the gunship. But no matter...) to discover that the scumbag alliance, gnome lovers that they are, was attacking the valiant Horde onslaught. We boarded Orgrim's Hammer to face off against the Skybreaker.


As it turned out, the best strategy for this battle is to talk to the goblin and get the rocket packs BEFORE starting the fight. However, after one wipe, we managed to get far enough to discover that one should not facetank Muradin Bronzebeard. Nor should one stand in the glowing target areas on the ground.


However, we got the jet pack hop down fairly quickly thereafter and settled into a nice routine of rocketing back and forth: killing casters, then running back like little girls from the dwarf. I personally enjoyed hopping, changing to cat form and charging mid air so I never actually had to take a step when attacking the casters.


Last up for this post, we have the bereaved son of Highlord Saurfang. Quite the bad ass is Deathbringer Saurfang as he callously force chokes all the NPCs with us, including his father, triggering a dps race that is much easier with 8 people than with 5, as we found out across our two forays into the Citadel.


We of course emerged triumphant (each one of our dps being worth two or three spectacularly geared level 80's) and the grateful father retrieved his son's body and took him to the Orgrim's Hammer. It was about the time the funeral procession started that we realized that we hadn't looted the body. We asked nicely if we could despoil his son's remains, but Saurfang the elder didn't seem keen to stop and let us.


Thus we conquered the first two wings of the dreaded ICC, some fights still a challenge even as heroic geared cataclysm raiders. Read on in Part 2 as we ascended to the central citadel to take on the Plagueworks, the Crimson Hall, and the Frostwing Halls before finally challenging the Lich King himself!