Storming the Citadel

Icecrown Citadel - day 1

19.12.2009

 

The gates were breached, the journey to Arthas had begun, and the bosses were already killed overseas. Icecrown Citadel had finally opened it's doors for Paragon.

 

This patch has been waited everywhere in the world with anticipation. Not only Blizzard promised epic battles in a huge new instance, but it is also the time for Arthas to meet his destiny. Melee players might also be excied about the new legendary item - Shadowmourne. There are different reasons people are dying to get the heroic mode open in Icecrown Citadel,  but we as a guild have even more reasons to hold our breaths for the new patch.

 

Icecrown Citadel is the instance we have prepared for the most. Of course we spent all the possible time on ptr, studied the mechanics and so on, but we also leveled up a second main team just to be able to get more experience from the bosses and of course more loot for our mains. We feel that this is the real challenge where we need to prove how good we really are.

 

Yesterday was our first day in the brand new instance. Storming the Citadel describes our raid perfectly. We started our raid with 3 ToC normal modes and had a rain of trinkets dropping. Just our luck that them bastards drop when the new patch is already here. When we finally got to the instance everyone was excited to get to the first boss. The trash in the first corridor was even more annoying than on the PTR with the spirit traps (the big bone fellows) and the ranged mob packs. Lord Marrowgar easy mode wasn't anything new to us and we oneshotted him fast. Lady Deathwhisper got the same treatment. We considered burning her with Bloodlust but decided to go with melee killing the side adds.

 

Raiding became interesting at Gunship battle because there was huge lag on our realm. I had found the general idea and the looks of the fight really cool already at the PTR. I liked using the jetpacks and flying to the other ship. Now I wonder how fast the whole thing will get old. The fight wasn't that interesting in everyones opinion though. Sniffu had to be on the cannon for the whole fight, which took forever because of the lag. I believe shooting with a laggy cannon for ten minutes isn't his idea of fun raiding. When the Skybreaker was at 30% and we were discussing how cool/boring the fight was, Liha expressed his interest by saying that the fight makes him feel like "taking the jet pack and jumping over the edge".

 

Day 2

 

Now we are done with 25-man Icecrown Citadel with our second group as well. We also did 5 different 10-mans in ToC hc and Icecrown so I sure feel like we have actually raided something! I'm eager to see more bosses in Icecrown and especially see the Blood Princes, which somehow appeals to me the most. People say I'm crazy as they feel like the whole fight is a knockback hell.

 

If I had to say the best thing about this patch, I'd say it would be the new instances with an epic storyline, awesome new mechanics and of course the new dungeon finder tool. Blizzard has really succeeded with it and I find myself wanting to do 5-mans again now that I don't have to fly to Utgarde Keep.