Blood Pact: Warlock tips for Icecrown Citadel, part 1

This week we delve into Icecrown Citadel and see what these new bosses are all about. We face a bag of bones that won't sit still, a somewhat effeminate version of Kel'Thuzad, a lift boss that is actually supposed to kill you and an orc-gone-bad. All in a day's work for your warlock on the go.
Lord Marrowgar
Time to dance with the bone lord. There are a couple things to avoid here. First is the boss himself when he spins around and drunkenly staggers all round the room. He moves pretty quickly so there's actually little chance of avoiding him completely but it's not a bad idea to try and minimize the damage you take from him. This ability is called Bone Storm and is well announced, spreading out from others will reduce the chances of you getting hit while he molests someone else. The second thing to get out the way of is Coldflame. He'll be sending out four lines of blue fire frequently throughout the fight, radiating away from him. This happens even when he's spinning about the place. Simple and fundamental rule of raiding -- don't stand in the stuff on the floor.
You can completely avoid Coldflame between Bone Storms by standing close behind him, since they spawn just a little way out. This position is normally held by the melee and possibly the healers so you might not be welcome (more people means more risk when he starts to spin). If you are allowed to stand in there then a Circle might be a good idea to get back out fast.
After each Bone Storm his threat list is wiped, so you want to pay attention to your DoTs, especially Curse of Doom. Make sure you allow your tanks a chance to pick him back up and reposition him before nuking away.
The last thing you need to think about is the Bone Spike Graveyards. These get thrown on raid members semi-randomly and need to be targeted and killed very quickly. Melee should really be dealing with any that appear amid their ranks but ranged DPS need to deal with the others. I found that tab-targeting was fine but you might want to put together a macro that

These should be going down in pretty short order so use a burst damage rotation. For destro locks it's the same as your normal one so carry on. Affliction and demo locks should just spam Shadow Bolts (swap to Soul Fire if you get the chance)./stopCasting
/tar Bone
/petattack
/cast Immolate
Lady Deathwhisper
I find this the most interesting fight open in Icecrown Citadel so far but there's still little that is specific for a lock. I'm not about to fill this article with all the mechanics of the boss and the adds, you'll have to go look them up elsewhere (Wowhead or Wowwiki for example). The basics I will cover however. Phase one sees the boss put up a mana bubble that means damage done to her diminishes her mana; when it's all gone we enter phase two. Don't try to use Drain Mana, you will do far more if you just do normal damage.
During phase one a load of adds will spawn, don't get anywhere near them, they really hurt. You can't do any damage to the casters, so if you're not assigned to nuking the boss stick to killing the melee adds. If one comes for you then kite it away and let everyone else deal with it. It's worth spreading out somewhat as sometimes the casters spells splash from their targets. If you have a melee pet I suggest putting it on the boss the whole time.
During phase two you can just nuke the boss, this is a pretty easy tank-and-spank phase, the only thing you really need to be aware of is not standing in the green stuff, but that's true of phase one as well. Make sure all adds from phase one have been cleared up before turning onto her.
On the 25 man version she also casts Dominate Mind every so often. I found that Fear was a good defense against this as it's duration was about the same. Range is a bit of an issue but by standing in the middle of the raid you can fear almost anyone that gets dominated. I used Grid to see who had the debuff and a mouse-over macro to fear them quickly. They are buffed while

That macro lets you just hover your mouse over the dominated character's unit frame and press the keybind for the macro. I added the focus line so I could more easily track if the Fear dropped off.#showtooltip Fear
/stopCasting
/cast [target=mouseover,harm,exists] [harm,exists] Fear
/focus [target=mouseover,harm,exists] [harm,exists]
Gunship Battle
This is a pretty easy encounter if people stick to their jobs, but it can get hectic if not. Before the fight have a word with the Zafod Boombox ("He's just this goblin, you know?") and get the Goblin Rocket Pack. Add this to your hotbar and equip it (it goes in the shirt slot). This can be used to jump between ships, it's worth having a practice before the fight starts. Watch out for any practical-joker priests putting levitate on you, it's all too easy to overshoot the edge of the ship... you might want to suggest Slow Fall to the mage, see what happens.
Since you have the awesome Rain of Fire spell you will probably be told to stay on your own ship and just AoE down the mobs that board it. If so just do this and dodge rockets. Runes will appear on the floor where rockets are about to land so stay sharp.
If you are put onto a cannon (not a great idea if you are demo) then use the ability bound to '1' to shoot the closest mobs on the other boat and build up heat. This heat is indicated on your pet (the cannon) mana bar. Don't let the heat reach 100 but when it's nice and high you can use the other ability (number '2') to fire a high-damage ability and dump all the heat. That '1' button can be mashed really fast, so go for your life. Also, build up a good bit of heat before you start the fight, to speed things up a little.
The only other job you might get is to board the enemy ship. If so then you want to kill the mobs on the far side of the ship most of the time. Every so often a mage will step into the middle of the ship and freeze your cannons. Oh yes, you guessed it, you kill the mage as a priority to everything else. Yay! Don't worry about the other boat's captain; they just need to be tanked out of the way to keep him busy.

I never actually spent any time on the other ship so can't tell you if Circle works for a quick return, but I expect it does and it certainly sounds like a good idea to me. That said, the rocket packs are fun.
Deathbringer Saurfang
Another great fight and one that seems to cause some problems though it doesn't need to, everything is quite manageable. As ranged DPS you need to stand as far from the boss as you can and nuke (easy so far), then when the adds spawn, you turn on them and nuke them till they all die (still pretty easy). The tricky part is making sure that the adds never touch you. This is done by killing them before they reach anyone -- either by killing them really quickly or by slowing them down. Frost traps, and earthbind totems are commenly employed for this second option, but your Conflag stun and (should you have it) Shadowfury can also help. Listen to the raid leader on how this will be managed but do everything you can not to get hit at all.
Here's why: Every time one of Saurfang's abilities, or one of those of his adds, does any damage he gains energy. When he has enough energy he applies a really nasty DoT to a random raid member. This will in turn also give him energy, so he starts to gain energy faster and apply more DoTs. The people with DoTs are about as hard to heal as the tanks so your healers start sweating and people might die. This is always bad but when the boss gains 5% health back each time someone dies (Saurfang does by the way) it's horrible.
Liberal use of Power Word: Shield around the raid helps a ton, but generally avoiding the beasties is the key. That and letting someone die... Not the normal way of doing things but actually letting the first person to get Mark of the Fallen Champion die is usually worth it (even if they are a healer). Don't be upset if that's you, but do send out a silent prayer for it to be the mage. Also, don't put a Soulstone on the marked person, while that sounds like a great idea the mark persists through death so they will just come back as a liability, die again and give the boss another hit of %5 health.
So it comes down to slowing the adds, kiting them if needs be (smart use of Circle again) and nuking the boss in between. Stick to direct damage on the adds as they are almost immune to AoE. Keep yourself safe and look forward to some nice tier tokens.

Filed under: Warlock, Guides, Bosses, Raiding, Walkthroughs, How-tos, Tricks, Tips, Analysis / Opinion, (Warlock) Blood Pact
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
rawrawrawr Dec 21st 2009 5:58PM
Also, giant numbers. Everyone loves giant numbers.
Scott Baldwin Dec 21st 2009 5:34PM
Unfortunately, Circle doesn't work on the Gunship battle, just like it and Summon don't work on boats or airships in the world.
Terethall Dec 21st 2009 4:17PM
I would like to take a short moment to point out that "orc-gone-bad" is a little redundant.
For the Alliance and whatnot.
Carrast Dec 22nd 2009 9:20AM
IF you cast drain mana you can easily get to full mana from the boss!
duffry Dec 22nd 2009 8:57AM
Life Tap will provide you about twice the mana return of Drain Mana. Better to tap often (especially with GoLT) than drain your mana and then refill all at once. Look for moments of repositioning or when many abilities are on CD.
Poppy Dec 21st 2009 4:39PM
Great article - thank you! I read other strats but it's really useful to have lock specific tips for fights
duffry Dec 21st 2009 5:15PM
It's still worth reading other strats to get a broader view of the fight but a lot of what's in there can be ignored. Hopefully I've covered all the things you do need to think about in these fights.
JC_Icefox Dec 21st 2009 5:40PM
I'm not usually picky about spelling, so I don't want to sound like I'm raggin' on ya, but when I saw Sourfang I immediately thought:
"Try the new candy: Sourfang! It'll cleave your tastebuds...with flavor!"
It's even better if you do a Powerthirst-y intro in your head.
Hey, stop looking at me like that...
duffry Dec 21st 2009 7:06PM
Oh dear, he's so gonna mark me first next week.
Thanks for the heads-up; fixed.
Fung Dec 21st 2009 6:14PM
some extra optional fine-tunings i've found in a couple runs:
lady gaga & saurfang-the-doesn't-cleave-on-crit: both involve a fair amount of target switching, which impacted my rotation slightly. particularly in that, just before switching targets away from the boss i'll throw up a corruption, usually not worth the gcd for my destro spec, just to leave a little extra ticking damage on the boss while killing adds. (are any of the math-inclined here willing to confirm this is worthwhile?) also consider that the nature of our aggro can be used to help increase kiting time on adds: we frequently would position a hunter fairly opposite me so that the initial aggro of the hunter got the add running a couple feet away before the conflag-cbolt hits and turns him around towards me. this provided enough time to burn down one with little to no cc while cc could lock the other add long enough to deal with the first. circle-port definetly helps not get hit while kiting, or to get back in position after having to go further than you want to kill an add someone dragged to the opposite side of the room. couldn't agree more with letting the first person w/ the mark die immediately in 10--thus preventing getting the 2nd mark that much faster: this was the realization that got him down in a couple groups for me.
gunship fight: axe throwers!! your healers will love you if you use your range from your ship to kill/aggro the closest axethrowers on the other. especially at the start of the fight or when the away team isn't away & the home-side adds are well-under-control. There's plenty of time to cull that herd and take care of your own ship at the same time.
duffry Dec 21st 2009 7:03PM
It is generally considered that tossing a Corruption when moving (and nothing better to throw) is great even for single target fights. When there's a fight where you have to reposition to kill a different target than that Corruption can be thrown over your shoulder before you change target (tab or /assist). So, yes it's good, Conflag, CoDoom or CoA might be better bepending on position in rotation.
Affliction is another story of course but throwing a little free damage sounds all good to me.
Hanako Dec 22nd 2009 4:05PM
To confirm - when Saurfang spawns bloodbeasts you throw Corruption on the boss prior to engaging the adds? I'm away on vacation so I can't easily hop into game, but isn't Corr on the GCD? So you have to wait ~1.5seconds to cast your first damaging spell on the blood beasts? Just doesn't seem worth it to me. You can either cast another direct damage on Saurfang if you're waiting for the adds to be targetable or just engage the adds immediately - either seem a better use of time (unless you have to run to engage the adds, wherein I'd question your positioning) and therefore dps.
Gwen Dec 21st 2009 8:04PM
Point of order: Please do not assume that every raiding warlock is Destruction. 3.3 has made every spec viable for raiding.
I got excited when you mentioned other specs at the beginning... and then you forgot about us.
Thanks for trying, I suppose.
duffry Dec 22nd 2009 8:35AM
I'm sorry you feel you were forgotten. I try to keep Blood Pact generic across all specs and look to include all tips I feel are worth adding. In this case I assume you are referencing the destruction tips in the Saurfang section. I mention these not because most warlocks doing this fight are destro (though they currently are) but rather because the techniques for slowing these adds are in the destro tree. Demo has intercept but this is fiddly to use and possibly not worth it. Affliction has CoEx (maybe) but I feel that GCD is better applied to a damaging spell. The affliction burst rotation is SB spam and it would be advisable to spread the bolts across all targets to spread the ISB debuff. This should mean that the afflock has no need for an extra slowing move to prevent the add reaching them.
I'm glad you recognise that affliction is now raid viable, though it does seem to be having a hard time off paper. Did you read the Blood Pact last month about raid builds in 3.3.
http://www.wow.com/2009/11/16/blood-pact-patch-3-3-raid-build-roundup/
Lohr Dec 21st 2009 6:28PM
Demonic Circle works for avoiding Marrowgar. Just don't summon it and stand right on it. If you see him barrelling towards you...fhzap.
One pile of smoking green dust later, you're completely out of the way.
sukyfruit2 Dec 21st 2009 6:48PM
Use rawr to find out the best gear for your character if you're getting kicked out of ICC groups left and right, or are unhappy with your dps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfYiZ8J5Oug
Bensal Dec 21st 2009 7:07PM
Rawr is awful for Warlocks, due to the fact there isn't a decent up to date module for Warlocks.
It you want to find out the best gear for yourself, use a spreadsheet. I recommend this one.
http://dmz-gaming.com/site/wiki/index.php?title=Warlock_DPS_Spreadsheet
duffry Dec 21st 2009 7:11PM
@Bensal That was a good sheet, but it has fallen into disrepair (I should know, I'm supposed to be repairing it). Currently I find that guildox.com and simulationcraft are the most reliable tools though you have to have some idea how to manipulate the scale factors to get a proper gear weighting. Sounds like an article idea right there.
I might be calling for help on that spreadsheet soon so if you're interested then keep an eye on the forum on that site or EJ.
Bensal Dec 21st 2009 8:11PM
Or poke you in game, I am on Eonar :)
Merus Dec 21st 2009 7:00PM
I'm going into ICC for the first time tonight, so I really appreciate this. (I did wonder if Drain Mana was worth it on Lady Deathwhisper.)