WoW WotLK Patch 3.3 – Icecrown Citadel: Access and Progression
Posted on November 25th, 2009 by Gustava under Achievements, Alliance, Cataclysm, Expansion, General Tips, Horde, Instances, PVE, Patch, Raiding, WotLK
Blizzard has finally revealed how Icecrown raid will act at launch.They are going a ToC-type route. Content will be released over several weeks, below is how the raid will work.
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Quote from: Daelo – Blizzard Lead Encounter Designer (Source)
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. We 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, we 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 we 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.
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This move by Blizz is a smart one, to keep content from being cleared to fast. This way even the most top end guilds will have to wait before they can knock the Lich King off his throne. As was the case with the Release of ToC, it gave every guild a chance to build up to the later encounters at the same pace as the Hard-Core Raiders. Leveling out the playing field as it were.
The max counter on the Big-Four and having to beat Arthas on regular to start Hard Modes will make it more fun and offer a new take on raiding. Blizzard is essentially applying their ToC formula to an actual 10-25 man raid, as opposed to ”encounters”. In retrospect it seems that ToC reveals itself to be a test for a new format of end-game encounter.
Another fringe benefit of this type of growth is that it will allow all players the necessary time to pick up the rather rare Emblem of Frost necessary for the Tier-10 gear. I also suspect that this latest tier won’t really be an option if you want to stand a chance against Arthas.
The format used in Icecrown will allow Blizzard more time to develop the next expansion by stretching out this patch over several weeks as well as allowing them the necessary time to fix the bugs they inevitably create when tweaking existing content.
This should keep players busy for a while, at least until a certain Black Dragon performs a global, elemental jail-break. I’m still curious to see just how long this patch will last based on how fast guild are progressing through content.
All in all however it’s always nice to see Blizzard respond to user feedback and continue to cater to their clients.
great artical rots [see if you wanna know ask the gear hog] …
so to all those that ask me in chat on fenris and all those in trade chat every where picking up on rumors as i always say when we tell you then you can get excited for anything wow think DOMINATE
Anibow
This actually seems like a really smart move by blizzard. By staging the release they allow all guilds to access the content at roughly the same rate as the hardcore raiders, BUT, in limiting the number of attempts there still remains a decent benefit for being a hardcore raider. So the elites are still ahead of the pack, just not out front by so many miles that rest of the lvl 80 population are still stuck at the front door while the hardcores are begging for new content. Very smart.
You see, it’s the deliberate, well thought out moments that Blizzard has that makes me believe the tremendous imbalance in favour of the lice with regards to any city hopping World Event achievements currently doing the rounds are NOT a happenstance occurrence. The lice are perfectly free to come sit at our tables, with nary an eyelid batted by our guards or (dismally small number of) players alike, while in return we Hordies have to wade through hell, die multiple times to a swarm of guards and table camping lice 12 year olds. Three of the 4 lice cities force us to flag (compared to 1 of ours), there are a tonne of guards around IF (we’re pretty much unguarded), and we have to run the gauntlet to get to the IF tables, to get to Exodar or Darnassus on the boats, and finally THROUGH an entire city … whereas the lice just stroll on up.
I know that this rant is completely off-topic, but I wonder why, when they’re capable of this level of sophistication in the one place they go completely brain dead in another.
seriously? if you’re forcing your toon through enemy cities then you are seriously misusing your time. granted, getting to the boats is a pain, and you are stuck running through darnassus to hit their tables. but those boats, are the alliance’s crappy consolation prize for the teleporter to gnomeragen. so bear that one. i will agree that they should put the darnassuss tables somewhere more enemy faction accessable, it’s not really fair to make people have to port into the city and run around looking for the tables, with all the guards there, as not everyone ports instantly and a loading screen causes death so quickly. however i tend to see horde favored over alliance in so many things that i just can’t really care too much if they have it rough once or twice.
Wow, you’re kidding right? Horde are treated like Blizzard’s red headed step children. And how can I be “wasting my time” forcing my way through an enemy city? That’s the only way to even get to the table. And what the hell are you talking about with the gnomeragan teleporter? What has that to do with the lice boats and the fact that horde have to use your boats to get to 2 of your cities?
Every time we raid your cities for the black war bear you know we’re coming well in advance and can (and do) have a welcoming party there for us, because of the way we get funnelled on those docks. When you raid us, it’s often a surprise (and horde have fewer people in general, and fewer 12 year olds as a result, so we don’t even defend most of the time). Whenever we want to get the exploration achievements on any of our toons, again we’re forced to get on your stupid boats and again we’re forced to go through Darnassus. You lice have it easy. And don’t get me started on AV.