Voice chat is what really makes MMO’s or any online gaming and raiding guilds fun. Even though our guild is really good about remaining quiet for the raid leader and officers during our raids, the sounds you hear when we beat something worked on is a big part of the fun in team play.

A guild member was nice enough to fraps Monday’s Heroic Anub kill…including vent. This is a transcript of the last 5% of the fight: (which may bore a lot of you, but I like having the record of it )

Main Tank Druid – Penetrating Cold 3 seconds

Melee Class Lead – Watch MT, he’s low!

(main tank dies – boss at 3%)

Warrior OT (raid leader) – Taunting, Shield Walling, Got it! Pally OT get all the adds!

Paladin OT – I CAN’T

(both rogues tricks and FoK the adds to the Pally)

Pally OT – Stunning the adds.

Warrior OT – I’m dead. 1% Burn him, go go.

(all 3 tanks, and half the raid is dead)

Main Tank Druid – WTF seriously? He’s almost dead.

Warrior OT – DISPERSION PRIESTS. DISPERSION.

(More people drop dead to either agg or penetrating cold)

(5 raid members alive – 2 rogues, 2 hunters, and resto shaman that popped back up)

(The rogues die, Shaman dies again, 2 hunters left)

Warrior OT – Go Hunters. Burn him!

(Hunter 1 dies, 10k health)

Anub dies,  Last hunter dies, Achievements pop

(various general screams, shouts, and other excitement)

Me – *laughs* That’s awesome, the whole raid’s dead.

Main Tank Druid – OMFG I love you Hunter #2! I EFFING LOVE YOU, MAN!

Shadow Priest – I’m screenshotting that. Just like that.

Resto Shaman (that popped up) – I rezzed! I THREW FLAME SHOCK AND LIGHTNINGS AND EVERYTHING I HAD AT HIM!

(various I’m so screen shotting this)

Raid Leader – Go ahead and release gang. We’ll loot after everyone’s in.

I accompanied Jaina Proudmoore on her storming of The Lich King’s inner sanctum. Unfortunately, she still believed that Arthas was residing in the Lich King’s cold interior  somewhere. I guess she didn’t do the Matthias Lerner quest chain. Between Arthas and Kael’Thas, Jaina sure hasn’t been lucky in love. I think she should have stuck with the study plan.

My favorite part of the Halls of Reflection was the reveal we get from the ghost of Uther as he speaks to Jaina:

Uther: There is … something else that you should know about the Lich King. Control over the Scourge must never be lost. Even if you were to strike down the Lich King, another would have to take his place. For without the control of its master, the Scourge would run rampant across the world – destroying all living things. A grand sacrifice by a noble soul …
Jaina: Who could bear such a burden?

And the speculation begins. We receive another piece of the story in the Icecrown Citadel raid instance as we hear this exchange:

Highlord Tirion Fordring: Our march upon Icecrown Citadel begins now!

The Lich King: You now stand upon the hallowed ground of the Scourge. The Light won’t protect you here, paladin. Nothing will protect you…

Highlord Tirion Fordring: ARTHAS! I swore that I would see you dead and the Scourge dismantled! I’m going to finish what I started at Light’s Hope.

The Lich King: You could’ve been my greatest champion, Fordring. A force of darkness that would wash over this world and deliver it into a new age of strife.

The Lich King: But that honor is no longer yours. Soon, I will have a new champion.

The Lich King: The breaking of this one has been taxing. The atrocities that I have committed upon his soul. He has resisted for so long, but he will bow down before his king soon.

Highlord Bolvar Fordragon: NEVER! I… I will never… serve… you.

The Lich King: In the end you will all serve me.

When the next gate unlocks in January, it will be interesting to see the new encounters and further progression of the story.

In guild news, we took down Heroic Anub’arak last night to complete our Trial of the Grand Crusade. It was definitely a “Tribute to Mad Skill” as one of our hunters was the last man standing, delivered the killing blow, and died just after Anub fell. One of our holy pallies captured it in a vid for us with vent, it’s totally going on my list of classic raiding moments.

Enjoy the holiday season! Happy gaming.

Patch 3.3 hit live servers this week, and was relatively smooth for a patch day. I love my guild leaders for not scheduling a main 25 raid for us on Tuesdays, so we get a bit of a cushion from UI rebuilding and laggy servers.

Most notably Patch 3.3 introduces:

1. Icecrown Citadel (Tier 10) 10 and 25 man raids and a new 3-wing 5 man dungeon The Frozen Halls.

2. Dungeon Finder and random heroics with PuG’d party members from your server’s battlegroup.

The Rogue class changes also bring with them some adjustments to our game play. You can read an update to the EJ Simple Questions/Simple Answers here. The basic combat spec changes to 20/51/0 and is edged out by Mutilate for top DPS in PvE encounters.

I had my first opportunity to run ICC 25 man last night. Our guild was the second on the server to clear all four available bosses in one raid night despite our Wednesday start. In 2 hours and 15 minutes of raiding we cleared through Deathbringer Saurfang then finished with the weekly Instructor Raz raid quest in Naxxramas.

Some notes on ICC:

1. Gorgeous music. Yeah, I know. I don’t play with music on all the time either. But you are doing yourself a disservice if you don’t zone in early, and take a second to listen.

2. The Rogue Quartermaster is a gnome! Hell yeah represent….uh. I mean yeah the Tier 10 set looks bad on that rogue, too.

3. GUNSHIP IS AWESOME – It goes down in my book as the most fun vehicle fight…ever, ever, ever. Jet packs, cannons, faction fighting. It’s a blast. Even if our chest was bugged and we didn’t get any loot or emblems for completing it last night, lol.

4. Take the time to watch what happens between after you kill Deathbringer Saurfang. Tragic.

So excited to see what else the Citadel has to offer. So far, so good. I know better than to complain about the ease of defeating these encounters. This is still normal guys. Heroic hasn’t opened yet.

Happy Raiding! And Happy Holidays!

One of our raiders posted this gem that he nabbed off the StratFu site in our strat discussion thread for Heroic Anub’arak. We’re getting close. Fine tuning our phase 3 wipes.

This one had us all laughing, even if we tend to not be called out this way in raids.

I love the posts over on StratFu. The boss guides are awesome, and Kyth’s blog posts are both amusing and informative. Plus, the guild just seems to have a great attitude and sense of community.

Today a new guide to the Combat Rogue has been posted by Ellyee of Fusion.

Raiding as a Combat Rogue

The guide hits all the high points that make Combat such a successful raiding spec including chaining and managing your cooldowns, hit and Armor Pen numbers, and the basic ability prioritization that should be used.

I’m back from sunny FL to the wonderful cold, autumn rains, and the big buzz in the WoW raiding community today is all focused on Daelo’s post about Icecrown Citadel and Blizzard’s plan for Boss availability and attempt limitation in the instance.

Here is the post in full as well as a link to the original:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21038229051&sid=1

Icecrown Citadel testing has been progressing very well over the last few weeks, and this has been a huge help to the encounter design team. I want to thank everyone who has logged onto the PTR and tried the encounters there.

As we’re now getting closer to the release of 3.3.0, I wanted to talk about our plans for access progression within Icecrown Citadel. Icecrown Citadel is going to be broken up into four distinct sections: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. We plan on releasing these four sections of Icecrown Citadel over time and not all immediately when patch 3.3.0 goes live. At this point I can’t give precise dates for these release dates as they are determined by when patch 3.3.0 goes live. Once dates are known with more certainty, I’ll update the community so they can plan appropriately.

The first section that opens will include the Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang encounters. Progress beyond that point will be prevented for several weeks. Then the Plagueworks will open with Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide becoming available. After another period of time, the Crimson Hall will open and you can then fight the Blood Princes and Blood-Queen Lana’thel. The final Frostwing Halls unlock then occurs after that, making Valithria Dreamwalker, Sindragosa, and the Lich King available. We believe a staggered release of the content will allow players to experience Icecrown Citadel at a sustainable, measured, and ultimately more enjoyable pace.

There are other elements that gate access along the way. Players may not attempt any Heroic versions of 10 player encounters until they have defeated the Lich King in a 10 player raid. Similarly, players must defeat the Lich King in a 25 player raid before they can attempt a Heroic 25 player encounter. So players must master every normal difficulty encounter in Icecrown Citadel before attempting Heroic difficulty.

The Lich King may not be attempted until Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, and Sindragosa are defeated. Furthermore, the Heroic difficulty of The Lich King encounter may not be attempted in any week unless the three aforementioned encounters have been defeated in Heroic difficulty that week.

The Ashen Verdict provides reinforcements and material for players to assault Icecrown Citadel, but this support is not endless. Raids will have a limited number of attempts total each week to defeat the four most difficult encounters in Icecrown Citadel: Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. As these boss encounters are unlocked, the number of attempts available per week will increase. The initial number of attempts provided for defeating Professor Putricide is only five. When Blood-Queen Lana’thel unlocks, the amount of total attempts remaining will increase to 10. Then when Sindragosa and the Lich King unlock, 15 total attempts will be available to defeat all four bosses. After a raid has exhausted their attempts for the week, the Ashen Verdict must withdraw their support and the four most difficult bosses all despawn and become unavailable for the week. The limited attempt system is a feature of both Normal and Heroic difficulty.

There will be no explicit rewards for defeating the Lich King with a specific number of attempts remaining as there was with Trial of the Grand Crusader. There will also not be an achievement to complete Icecrown Citadel without being defeated by a boss encounter, or letting a raid member die. (i.e. A Tribute to Insanity).

In the weeks and months after all twelve encounters are unlocked, additional attempts against the final four boss encounters become available. This represents the Ashen Verdict growing more powerful and gaining a stronger foothold in Icecrown Citadel. To further help raids, Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream will begin to provide assistance by inspiring the armies attacking Icecrown Citadel. This is represented as an additional zone wide spell effect applied to all players that will increase their hit points, damage dealt, and healing done. This effect will also increase in effectiveness over time. Players may opt out of the spell’s effect if they so wish.

My thoughts:

1. I actually have no problem with the Gating concept. It seems to fit well with the story they are attempting to build with the Ashen Verdict. It also saves guilds from feeling like they have to devote 24 hours to the raid instance for “first” kills. Although that would probably be the argument that top world and regional guilds would have against the “gating” idea.

2. A limit of five attempts seems a bit ridiculous. People are in raiding guilds because they enjoy raiding. If our time is too limited, you have the problem of boredom and losing core team members. Basically here, I just hope they know what they are doing and the potential pitfalls.

3. The buff that will gradually increase is a built in nerf. I don’t see the point of limiting the instance and building in a nerfing mechanic.

4. I’m still excited to see Icecrown Citadel. I’ve avoided too much spoiler information because I want to enjoy it. However, I’ll have to start researching boss abilities to ensure that my role is covered for my guildmates in our limited attempts.

5. I’m really glad they removed the Insanity and Immortality type of achievement. I dislike the dissention it could cause for raid teams. Making what should be farming run stressful and aggravating. This mechanic has not affected my guild yet in ToGC since we are still working on Anub, but I know it wasn’t fun for friends I have in other top guilds.

As always, it will be interesting to watch both the community feedback and the instance itself unfold. What an explosive 5th anniversary.

We proved the worth of our world, Azeroth, tonight to Algalon the Observer.

He had this to say:

• I have seen worlds bathed in the Maker’s‘ flames. Their denizens fading without so much as a whimper. Entire planetary systems born and raised in the time that it takes your mortal hearts to beat once. Yet all throughout, my own heart, devoid of emotion… of empathy. I… have… felt… NOTHING! A million, million lives wasted. Had they all held within them your tenacity? Had they all loved life as you do?
• Perhaps it is your imperfection that which grants you free will. That allows you to persevere against cosmically calculated odds. You prevailed where the Titans’ own perfect creations have failed.
• I’ve rearranged the reply code. Your planet will be spared. I cannot be certain of my own calculations anymore.
• I lack the strength to transmit the signal. You must hurry. Find a place of power close to the skies.
• Do not worry about my fate <name>. If the signal is not transmitted in time re-origination will proceed regardless. Save. Your. World.

Upon our hunter’s transmission of the Reply-Code Alpha  in Dalaran:

Rhonin says: We received Brann’s message and we begun preparations.

Rhonin yells: Citiziens of Dalaran, raise your eyes to the skies and observe.

Rhonin yells: Today our world’s destruction has been averted in defiance of our very makers.

Rhonin yells: Algalon the Observer has been defeated by our brave comrades in the depths of the titans city of Ulduar.

Rhonin yells: Algalon was sent here to judge the fate of our world.

Rhonin yells: He found a planet whose races had deviated from the titans’ blueprints. A planet where not everything had gone according to plan.

Rhonin yells: Cold logic deemed our world not worth saving. Cold logic however does not account for the power of free will!

Rhonin yells: It’s up to each of us to prove this is a world worth saving! That our lives… our lives are worth living!

And on that note, RogueRaider is taking a nice jaunt to the sunny beaches of Florida for a week. Happy Raiding and living!

*credit to WoWWiki.com for the in-game scripting*

You’ve made it through the 4 boss trials Tirion set forth to test our strength for the upcoming confrontation with The Lich King in Icecrown Citadel, but the fight isn’t over yet! After your raid defeats the Twin Val’kyrs and their orbs and shields of devestation, the Lich King enters and threatens to steal your soul.

Enter Anub’arak. This fight will test your raid’s ability to maximize positioning, tanking, healing, effective AoE damage, and ability to burn Anub to 30% and get to phase 3 with a minimum of burrow phases.

This is a great, intense fight for the rogue class and allows us to use our new WotLK abilities to their max potential. There is an awesome discussion going on over at the Rogue theorycrafting area on Elitist Jerks which you can read at the link posted below:

http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t77307-anubarak_hard_mode_tips/

We started worked on our first full night of attempts, and were pleased with the progress we enjoyed. All that’s left to continue building on our phase 1 and 2 success, and manage DPS and healing to finish out phase 3.

I chose to run two combat specs in our first night of attempts to get some raid testing on which would grant me the most success in achieving my role. Rogues are generally expected to help provide great initial threat for the add tanks through well-managed usage of Tricks of the Trade combined with our combat abilities and cooldowns such as Fan of Knives, Blade Flurry, Adrenaline Rush, and Killing Spree.

I ran the 15/51/5 Combat CQC spec, and for this fight I dropped glyph of Rupture for glyph of Fan of Knives. A good majority of my guild’s strat for this fight relies on quick burn of the 4 adds that spawn in two cycles in Phase 1. With three rogues in the guild and a three tank strategy, we had no issues with add tank threat. After completing some more research, I’ll be throwing the poison combat build 18/51/2 in my dual spec to test the increase in poison damage in conjunction with so much FoK spam.

Looking forward to more work on this fight over the next week, and best of luck in your raiding adventures!

I’ll try to keep these to a minimum, but this is one of the most exciting moments for me. We’re not world first or server first, but we worked hard as a team and it was rewarded!

Heroic Glory of the Ulduar Raider! We defeated Yogg with only Thorim to guide us.

For a sort of World Series themed post, I think we all believe that the Wrath of the Lich King expansion is heading for home with what is probably the last major content patch before Cataclysm hits Azeroth moving closer to live.

I haven’t done a list post in a while, and I love some lists! So here are my favorite memories from Wrath of the Lich King:

1. Veteran of the Wrathgate

If I didn’t love WotLK until this moment, at 74 it captured me. The series of quests that start in Wintergarde Keep with my Rogue assisting the 7th Legion at the foot of Naxxramas, and leading up to the ill-fated joint Horde/Alliance assualt led by Bolvar and Saurfang on the Lich King at the Wrathgate captured my imagination. I enjoyed the series equally on my two alts that I levelled to max. This is truly the most epic chain I think I have experienced. I was a part of history, and a part of the world.

2. In the mountains

Catch phrases are fun. From the many wipes on Thorim and his hard mode, every guild enjoyed some form of joke at the forgetful Keeper’s expense. IN THE MOUNTAINS…this one lives on as an inside raider joke and an Elitist Jerks Blizzcon Tee.

3. War of the Fish Feasts

Fish Feasts. A buff food feast that can be shared by your entire team. Raiders old and new love you for providing this feast of less grinding for raid buffs. And sometimes your worth more than one. Grats to one of our hunters who won the coveted 5 dkp prize for spelling our guild’s initials out in fish feasts, and gave us all a screenshotted raid memory.

4. Firefighters

More than any of the Ulduar hardmodes, I’m going to take this Mimiron hard mode fight with me. It requires a coordination and personal accountability that isn’t to be found in many of the WotLK raid fights. It was sometimes frustrating, and we worked on it for hours. The kill was a blast.

5. Defeating the Twin Val’kyrs

Another favorite raiding moment, we struggled for several raids to manage the Twins Pact a moment when the raid has to burn down a shield and interrupt a healing cast. On our kill, the MT for Darkbane died at 11%, our last special was a light shield with 6 DPS down, and we managed to burn it and get the kill. Epic shouting and rejoicing for all. Luckily for our raid leaders nerves, subsequent kills are cleaner.

6. Massive Sinster Calling Runs

Everyone became more helpful and friendly than usual doing multiple Headless Horseman runs to ensure that those working on “The Hallowed” could achieve their goals.

7. Battleground Experience

I am having a blast levelling my DK that would probably have sat untouched. My significant other and I have taken our toons from 58-69 (thus far) mostly by taking advantage of the new PvP levelling system. You meet interesting people to be sure, and it’s a great break from the grindy feel of questing.

I’m sure I’ll have many more things to add with the 3.3 Icecrown Citadel Patch experience. Overall, I’m playing less and having more fun than I did in TBC days, even if I do miss some of the raiding aspects that made TBC fun. Things I wish would go away forever? Gear scoring and people that live for trade chat trolling.