Preface-- if you are looking for a guide to normal modes for newbies, refer here http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...Guide-to-ICC10
This is by no means a comprehensive guide for every boss in the instance, i'm merely doing a short strategy write-up for each of the hardmode bosses so those raids/guilds starting on hardmodes have some sort of a guide for them, in an easily accessible place. I'm not going to touch on the normal-mode stuff, so you need to have the basic knowledge of the fight mechanics of normal mode at least.
If you spot any errors please correct me asap.
Note: written when there was no % buff to healing/damage/HP
(some encounters with 5% taken into account, e.g. LK)
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Before i start on this, some FAQ that i always see:
How do i unlock Hardmodes?
At least one raid member in your raid group needs to have killed Lich King on whatever difficulty you want to attempt hardmodes in (10 or 25). As long as you have that one person, the other 24 can be 0/12 normal ICC cleared and still take part in hardmodes. You can also now zone in after a death regardless whether you have unlocked hardmodes or not (in the past it used to require warlocks to summon an 'unattuned' member into the dungeon)
Can i attempt the end wing bosses on normal after using up all my attempts on heroic?
No, you need to save 1 attempt to attempt it on normal
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All hardmode bosses have more HP and all outgoing sources of damage are increased. For exact values, you may check wowwiki or something.
Lord Marrowgar
Differences from normal mode
- Bone spikes have more HP too.
- Bonestorm lasts 10s longer
- Lord Marrowgar continues to cast Bone Spike Graveyard during Bonestorm
Strategy
10 and 25man -
- Spikes should be handled as per normal mode, with the entire raid stacking directly behind the boss so that they're easily reached. Make sure ALL DPS switches, especially the 3rd (set of) spikes just before bone storm.
- A good way to minimize bone storm damage (probably the sole cause of deaths, coupled with bone spike damage) is to have your tanks move out one to the left and one to the right (to roughly where the slope is) Make sure there are healers in range of them. This will cause Bone Storm to often bounce in between them and minimize the chance of some lower HP char getting rolled by Bone Storm.
- A rotation of raid survival cooldowns such as Dsac, Hymn, etc. would be extremely helpful.
- Make sure RDPS are quick to switch to DPS the Bone Spikes that come out in the whirlwind phase, since melee will take time to run over.
- Noone should be spreading out of the centre circle otherwise they'll get out of range of heals.
- It is worth noting that Lord Marrowgar does not move to the same position twice in a single Bonestorm. For example, if he moves over to you and you dodge 20 yards away, when he picks a new location to move to you can return to your original position and he will not return to you. (I'm 90% sure of this, if someone finds that this is false please tell me)
Lady Deathwhisper
Differences from normal mode
- HP increased (but not mana pool)
- Adds continue to spawn in p2. 3 at a time (from 1 side like 10player phase 1) in 25man and 1 (From stairs) in 10man.
- Lady Deathwhisper is not tauntable
- 3 MCs in 25 man, 1 MC in 10man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMyPDH-XowA (25m HM video)
Strategy
10man - Nothing much, just have CCs on the MC target and handle the single adds that spawn in P2, avoid ghosts. Tank LDW near the stairs at the entrance, since that's where the add spawns. MDs to tanks, DPS should watch threat in P2.
25man - The biggest issue here may be the spirits in P2. To put it simply - Your goal is to not let a single spirit hit anyone. A spirit exploding + a frostbolt volley is an easy oneshot for any non-tank (even plate). Make sure there's a solid interrupt rotation going on between your melee DPS.
Once the raid gains enough awareness to avoid every single spirit (basically look out for the swirly smoke that LDW throws out, and run away from the spirit spawn point IMMEDIATELY. You should be at least 15-20 yards clear from any spirits, and basically just kite them nonstop when they come)
Bloodlust may be used at the start of P1, to help meet the much shorter enrage timer (halved if i'm not wrong).
(other guilds may have other issues with this encounter, this is merely my experience)
Gunship Battle
Differences from normal mode
- Mortar Bombs deal a 7 yard knockback on impact. You can use this to race across the length of the ship. It knocks you BACKWARDS always, so just face the opposite direction you want to fly in.
Strategy
- Come up with some fun minigames like the racing thing mentioned above to keep your raid awake.
Deathbringer Saurfang
Differences from normal mode
- Blood Beasts have a enrage which increases damage by 300% (Scent of Blood)
- Blood Beasts have a 80% movement reduction aura which is active when they reach a certain distance from their target.(same thing, Scent of Blood)
- Saurfang regains 20%shitloads of HP upon death of Marked target.
- Saurfang gains BP alot faster
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=251FYT9PwRk (saurfang25 HM)
Strategy
10/25 - It's good to have some sort of knockback, such as Thunderstorm or Typhoon for the adds, given that they slow you significantly so you cannot really run from them once they are about to hit you unless you have Freedom or some sort of snare break.
- With good DPS in 10 it should be possible to zerg down the adds without any knockback, just snares. (did this in mine, with 2 heals 6 dps)
You may want to run 3 heals if you find your 2 healers unable to handle MotFC.
- In 25 you may want to assign a shaman/moonkin on each side of the room to knockback any loose add that gets too close to the raid. Any kind of slow/snare effect will help - Frost Trap, Desecration, Earthbind, CoI, etc etc.
- MotFC ticks are really nasty in 25man when it gets past about 4 marks or so (8-10k ticks), you definitely want to assign specific healers to specific marks. Holy Paladins work very well here, just take 2 marks each. (I believe 3 is possible, but you'll have to rotate your GCDs very wisely, esp when it gets over 4 marks) You shouldn't be getting more than 6 marks, if you do, it's either a DPS problem or a BP handling problem which is normal mode stuff.
Rotface
Differences from normal mode
-Prof Putricide casts Vile Gas throughout the fight (The ability from Festergut that makes you Disoriented) but this interrupts you for a shorter period as compare to actual Vile Gas in Festergut.
-Mutated Injection has a higher frequency. (i don't notice this significantly)
(video- www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOQKH1bG-ik)
Strategy
- Ranged need to be spread out well to avoid chain Vile Gases. Slime spray still kills if you stand in it, so watch out for it.
- The whole raid needs to be aware of where the OT and big slime is at all times. With a longer fight there's bound to be cases where 2 small slimes merge instead of it directly merging with the big slime, so the OT needs to watch out for this.
- You'll most certainly die if you stand in Slime Flood, so you need to be wary of the pipes and know which quadrant is going to have the Slime Flood
- With increased damage output from boss abilities, it is ever more important to keep away from Big Oozes and not stay near one for too long when merging your Small Ooze with it.
Festergut
Differences from normal mode
-Prof Putricide casts Malleable Goo throughout the encounter (can target tanks/melee/ranged) This now also reduces melee attack speed, on top of increasing spell cast time.
- It is worthwhile to note that with the increased damage, any non-tank WILL get one shot by Pungent Blight if you have anything less than 3 stacks of Inoculated without any defensive cooldowns.(i may be wrong for some plate wearers with very high HP) (it's about 34k+ damage for someone with 2 stacks)
(video - www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZMMfCjnG4A)
Strategy
- I've seen many different positions to tank Festergut, such as at the door, to the left side, etc. I suppose anywhere other than the middle would be good. (more reaction time for malleable goo)
- There's quite abit of constant movement required in the melee group, so it MAY be better to leave some healers outside and tank healers on melee, for example. This is really RNG and is subjective, so i won't give a definite comment for this.
- The main issue for guilds will be Malleable Goo hitting the melee/healer group. A simple tactic is to have all of them stack on one leg, i.e. right leg. When malleable goo is targetted at melee (now there's this helpful green circle which shows where the goo is going to hit) , THE WHOLE MELEE GROUP needs to move to the left leg. Rinse and repeat.
- It may be helpful for 1 or 2 tank healers to stand with the tanks, so they have less movement to do. (They still HAVE to move if Goo is targetted on tanks)
- Be very careful about Spores management, especially in melee groups, as people tend to miss it (i.e. tank, or when moving for Malleable Goo)
- For ranged groups, it is good to pre-determine a direction to dodge Goo if one comes when you are stacking for spores. (always happens). (i.e. Everyone moves left if we're stacking and a Goo comes)
Professor Putricide
Differences from normal mode
- Gains new ability Unbound Plague http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=70911.
- Doesn't throw Tear Gas during transitions, but spawns a green and red slime simultaneously instead.Originally Posted by Saliz
- For 25man (not 10 man), he casts one of two possible debuffs upon each raidmember.
You either get a "green" debuff or a "red" one. the color of the debuff shows which goo you're able to successfully attack.
Half the raid will get red, half will get green. Green can only attack green, and red can only attack red.
Strategy
- Unbound plague requires some good communication between your raiders, so being able to speak on Vent is extremely helpful. You have about 10seconds (and SHOULD wait the 10seconds) to pass it to someone else before the damage gets uncontrollable. To pass it you just have to 'touch' someone, just run to him or run through him or something.
Once about 10seconds are left on the plague that person can hold on to it till it drops off.
Remember that you shouldn't and musn't pass the Plague to someone who still has the 250% debuff.
The raid should try to stay spread out throughout the fight to prevent accidental passing of the plague.
10man - For transitions the raid should be stacked up at the green slime area and aim to get knocked back in the same direction (preferably against the wall, so that the person who gets targetted by Gas Cloud isn't thrown towards it. Green ooze should be down after one knockback, then all DPS switch to the red one.
This method of handling the transitions for 10/25 is pretty subjective, just tweak it to fit your raid group.
Blood Princes
Differences from normal mode
- Gains new ability http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=72999. Shadow Prison
This ability is a raid wide debuff, so anyone who moves will take damage. This includes knockback from vortexes and jumping.
- Kinetic Bombs drop faster / takes more damage to keep up (?)
Strategy
10/25 - All abilities remain the same, probably with increased damage etc. The main issue will be Shadow Prison.It may take a few attempts to get the hang of it, but basically it forces you to move efficiently and not unnecessarily.
- To be clear - you take damage every second of movement, but not when you stop. For example if 1 stack does 500 damage and you move for 5 seconds you'll take -> 500 , 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 = 7500 total damage, and damage ceases when you stop moving. However, if you move again before 10s is up (stacks haven't reset) you'll just add to it and take 3000 damage, for instance.
- A good practice is to have healers take the centre of the room (so that they can keep range with the raid + tanks) and everyone to find their own spot when Valanar is empowered to minimize damage from Vortex, and more importantly the knockback you take if you are near someone. (due to Shadow Prison)
Then when it's Taldram, the ranged/healers should stack up and whoever gets targetted just runs back, so that it's only one person moving and taking damage from Shadow Prison.
Watch out for Shock vortexes too.. well all these are normal mode stuff.
Blood Queen Lanathel
Differences from normal mode
-each vampire bite adds ~5% dmg to boss,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjHoNyKJis8 (25m HM video)
Strategy
No real difference from normal mode besides the increasing damage as more bites go out, which means your healers have to work harder. Saving survival raid cooldowns like Hymn/DiSac for the 2nd air phase would be good, since damage will be greater than 1st air phase.
Just execute the fight mechanics as per normal mode, and healers need to heal reactively very well (i.e. keep those with blood link at full HP, as they may get chain bloodbolted when they're together and moving away)
Valithia Dreamwalker
Differences from normal mode
- Dreamwalker's HP deteriorates over time
- Adds have new abilities , Lich's AOE Frostbolts have a Mana Burn effect, Abominations have frontal AOE, Zombies have a new debuff (? )
- Portals/Orbs are red in colour now, and they deal a stacking DoT for every stack you have. (i.e. more stacks, more damage) Negligble at first, but once you get past 25~ stacks you probably need a solid HoT on you when flying inside. (i had 40 stacks and was getting about 5-6k DoT)
-Orbs do not respawn like in normal mode.
Strategy
- 2 healers/4healers for 10/25 man going into the portals was a pretty comfortable setup to complete this encounter. It may help for healers to enter portals close to each other and move together as a group (it always helps to at least pair up)
Whatever tactic you use, keep in mind of the fact that orbs don't respawn so you need to be efficient about it (i.e. move together, etc)
- Maintaining your stacks of the buff is critical
- Holy Pallies should beacon Dreamwalker and stand close and heal themselves. This allows their Glyph of Holy Light splash healing to splash onto the boss. This contributes to 15-20% of my healing each time so it's quite significant.(Proof: http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q...teo/iown-1.jpg) An even better tactic is to have a hunter's pet near Dreamwalker that's specced http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53482 and you heal it. AFAIK, beaconed heals don't have the increased healing but the splash heal from Glyph does.
Sindragosa
Differences from normal mode
- Backlash acts as a splash AOE to those around you for 20 yards, not just damaging you alone.
- 6 Frost Beacons in air phase for 25 man (up from 5) (no change for 10man)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB51PSXlfF8 (Sindragosa 25m HM vid)
Strategy
- Those with Unchained Magic shouldn't cast at all, especially when a Blistering Cold is coming up (imagine 6 people splashing >2k damage each onto all 25man)
- 6 tombs, so placement needs to be well planned beforehand.
The Lich King
- New ability Shadow Trap. Cast on player, and 5s later spawns a 10 yard black hole on the player's original location. Anyone touching it will be knocked off the platform. Cast in Phase 1 only.
- Phase 2 Val'kyr HP triples, however they drop their target at 50% health and fly above the raid and begin casting Siphon Life on the raid until they are killed.
- Phase 3 (last phase) Harvest Soul sucks the WHOLE RAID into the Frostmourne room. You have to kill Wicked Spirits inside (similar function as Vile Spirits, come downwards and blows up if it reaches you) as well as dodge falling bombs that rain from the sky.