How to: Lich King 25-man Hard Mode Spirit soak tactic

 

These are the tactics that Paragon used on their first Lich King kill 26.3.2010. That week we had the 5% increased healing/health/damage buff active. Patch 3.3.3 had come out on previous Wednesday. The patch provided dps buffs to some classes (like frost death knight and moonkin) as well as it buffed priest shields and gave the 5% damage bonus to pets.

 

Basic stats on the encounter:

Lich King: 103,9M hitpoints (dies at 10%)

Val’kyr Shadowguards: 3M hitpoints

Raging Spirits: 4,1M hitpoints

Vile Spirits: (blew these up)

 

The fight has 3 different phases and 2 transition phases + Frostmourne room in the last phase.

 

 

Click the pictures for a bigger size images.

 

PHASE 1

 

On our kill we had 2 shambling horrors spawning. The shamblers and some of the ghouls were tanked by a protection paladin, Lazeil. We had Sejta, a feral druid tanking the Lich King and the rest of the ghouls.

 

SHAMBLERS, GHOULS, AND THE DISEASE:

 

We brought the disease to Lazeil’s mob pile and he made sure the disease would go to the shamblers. When needed, Lazeil taunted more ghouls off Sejta to stack the disease. A protection paladin works perfect for shamblers, as they have ardent defender as an ‘oh-shit’ ability as well as good stuns. When Lazeil was tanking two shamblers, he stunned them right after they had casted Enrage. He got stun help from a retribution paladin. When needed, he called for a Pain Suppression from our disc priest. Enrage was removed from the mobs by two hunters. When the mobs go below 20% they gain Frenzy and start hitting like mad. It’s important to have them dying as fast as possible when they start going low.

 

TRANSITION PHASE 1

 

On the transition phase we spread out as well as possible; melee did two piles to ease up the healing. We always brought the spawning raging spirits to the tank (it's important to face the tank to get the spirit spawn in a good position and it's easier for the tank to grab it). Our druid tank Sejta turned the raging spirits facing the center, so that they could be moved straight towards the Phase 2 spot when the val'kyr phase started. We had two hunters shooting the frost orbs and some ranged guys assisting with instants when needed. Our rogues and hunters used at least 1 tricks/misdirect per spirit, as the threat on these mobs needed to be really good.

 

PHASE 2 – VAL’KYRS

 

POSITIONS

 

In the second phase we had our whole raid standing on top of our marked moonkin - Lappé. We started by moving the boss and the remaining raging spirit to our raid position 1. We usually had the last raging spirit at 5-10% when the first wave of val'kyrs spawned. It is absolutely crucial to have the whole raid on the exactly same spot to get the val'kyrs going exactly to the same direction after they have grabbed their targets. The spot also has to be far enough from the edges to have the maximum amount of time to dps the mobs down to 50%.

 

 

VAL’KYR STUNS

 

We had our tank Lazeil and both our holy paladins Ilonie and Diamondtear on their specific raid marks to use Hammer of Justice on the val'kyrs to stun them. It was very important to get all the stuns in as fast as possible to keep the mobs together for cleaves. If one of the paladins got the val’kyr we had 2 retribution paladins to take their place. After the 6 seconds stun was over, two paladins used Holy Wrath back to back. Additionally we had three rogues to use Cheap Shots on the mobs if they needed more stuns. The mobs were slowed by unholy death knight's Desecration, rogue's crippling poisons, and our moonkin's Typhoon.

 

VAL’KYR TANKING

 

As the val’kyrs get dps’d down to 50% they drop the player they were carrying and fly up in the air and start shooting. They have aggro and we used a retribution paladin with righteous fury on to pull aggro from the val’kyrs. When they flew up our protection paladin taunted them off the retribution paladin to soak the damage they did. If the val’kyrs were allowed to shoot around freely they would have destroyed all the discipline priest shields which would have made infest healing impossible.

 

DEFILES

 

We always tried to get the defiles as far away from the throne (and the raid) as possible. Val’kyrs and the defile have different timers so sometimes there is a lot of time before the next defile after the val’kyrs, sometimes there is only two seconds in between.

 

 

When val’kyrs came just before the defile, our ranged dps and healers waited for all three of them to land, and after that immediately took a few steps away from the raid to be able to run the defile far enough from the raid. The melee dps'd the val'kyrs from the opposite side of the throne. If a melee got the defile, he ran away from the group and the rest of the melee simply moved to the throne side of the mobs.

 

 

Naturally we kept the Lich King on top of val'kyrs all the time to get all possible cleaves on him. When we knew the defile would come a lot before val'kyrs, we had our raid standing still where they had stopped after killing the val'kyrs, and doing max dps until the defile came. The defile was taken far away from our next raid spot and everyone ran to the spot as fast as possible to be grouped for the next val'kyrs.

 

INFEST HEALING

 

We had one discipline priest, Jhazrun, shielding 20 raid targets for infest. We had death knights using anti-magic shells and warlocks using their shadow wards (if they didn't get shielded) to minimize the healing needed on them. Our 5 paladins had an aura mastery rotation which covered up 5/6 of all infests. When our disc priest got grabbed by a val'kyr, or we knew there wouldn't be an aura mastery, we had three priests backing the healing up with Divine Hymns.

 

TRANSITION PHASE 2

 

Second transition phase is just like the first, just that there are more frost orbs spawning, as well as one extra raging spirit (4 altogether).

 

PHASE 3

 

When we entered the last phase, the whole raid took a few steps over the edge to the safe side and dps'd the spirits like mad before the first soul harvest. Lazeil moved the Lich King a few steps away from the middle, to the opposite direction from the raid. During the soul harvest the whole raid is stunned and takes damage, so everyone should be at least over 60% hitpoints to avoid deaths.

 

FROSTMOURNE ROOM

 

In the Frostmourne room we instantly had the whole raid gathering on top of our marked death knight, Synti, in the middle of the room. He checked out where there were very few bombs and took the whole raid there. There are bombs spawning everywhere in the room, but most spawn on top of players. By stacking everyone in the same pile, we were able to move to a clear area, and drag a line of falling bombs behind us. The trick is to make sure the raid doesn't move too fast, so that healers can top the raid and casters can kill the spirits. Starfall is super good to clear the room of spirits, especially when you stand in the middle before picking a direction to run as a group. Never let a spirit reach the group and blow up - never let anyone die, as the boss grows in size and gains stacks as Frostmourne gets the player’s soul.

 

After getting back from first Frostmourne room the Lich King casts defile immediately. We just moved away from everyone. After that, everyone but hunters and priests stacked instantly behind the raging spirits which were tanked next to the edge. Lich King summons vile spirits on the other side of the room and then he is brought to the raging spirit pile.

 

We had a hunter placing a trap a bit in front of the group, which the Lich King triggered when he was brought to the raid. We used our retribution paladin to bubble and blow up all the first wave or vile spirits at the trap as they flew towards the raid. It is crucial to have the whole raid packed up as good as possible to have all the spirits coming to one spot. When we get the defile to the group, the defile guy instantly takes it behind the raid while everyone else takes a few steps towards to boss and the tank. If the Lich King tank gets the defile he moves away from the raid and brings the boss back later. If someone stands behind the group on the gray No Go Zone, the spirits won't come low enough and the soaker won't be able to blow them, and they will wipe the raid.

 

 

We had our hunters and priests on the sides of the room and they used their Fade and Feign Death when the spirits activated (note: not spawned) to make sure they all flew towards the boss. This gave them the opportunity to stand still and do max dps/channel heals. After the first spirit wave was soaked, we usually had the raging spirits dead and we were able to go all out on the boss. We used our first bloodlust in the beginning of phase 1 and this was the spot where we used our second lust.  The boss summoned the next wave of spirits and we moved him a bit towards the middle while ranged stood still and nuked before the second Harvest Soul.

 

After we got up from the Frostmourne room we used our protection paladin to soak the next spirit waves. The idea is to go move the raid across the room and soak the spirits on the trap in front of the raid.