The Lich King is the final encounter in Icecrown Citadel. It consists of 5 phases, 1 which repeats and 1 which is no threat to your raid. This thread is currently marked for 10 man, but the basic principles can be taken for 25 man. It just gets a little more tricky with larger groups and more Val’kyrs to deal with.
HP: 17.1m
Enrage: 15 minutes
Phase 1
Use the following screenshot to find what position you’ll be standing in for Phase 1, as it requires you to only move when you receive the debuff Necrotic Plague.
In Phase 1, there are a few abilities you need to be aware of, and only one ability actually requires movement.
Summon Drudge Ghoul and Summon Shambling Horror are the two casts The Lich King makes in Phase 1 that will comprise your adds for this Phase. The Horror will be tanked by the OT where he stands in the picture, ensuring that the Horror is facing away from every other member of the raid. The Ghouls will spawn beside The Lich King and need to be tanked by the MT. Note that if you have one strong AOE DPS, everyone else can go single-point on The Lich King throughout the entire Phase, with one AOE DPS killing Ghouls and The Lich King.
Infest is a cast made by The Lich King everytime it is off CD (just check DBM timers), hitting all raid members for 9-10k shadow damage and applying a shadow damage tick that increases until it is removed by bringing every raid member above 90% HP.
Finally, Necrotic Plague is the most important part of Phase 1, as it will allow you to kill the Shambling Horrors without spending an obscene amount of DPS time on them. Every 30 seconds, Lich King will infect one raid member (bar the MT) with Necrotic Plague (a disease btw, so abolish or cure disease – not dispel), which will kill them in 5 seconds unless it is dispelled. When dispelled, the Plague will jump to a random person within 10 yards. This is why it is best to tank the Shambling Horror away from the raid. When anyone gets Necrotic Plague, they must move behind the Shambling Horror (not at the front to avoid Shockwave) and wait for it to be dispelled. If it is dispelled to early and bounces inside the raid, you’re likely to wipe if you bounce it around to much due to Plague Siphon, a stacking buff on The Lich King that increase his damage by 2% with each dispel of Necrotic Plague.
If you manage to get every consecutive stack onto the Shambling Horrors, there is no need to DPS them at all and you can focus purely on The Lich King until 70% where you will enter Phase 2.
Phase 2
The first notable reason for the Phase 1 positioning is clear as The Lich King hits 70%, causing him to run towards the center of the room and begin casting Remorseless Winter an AOE Frost spell that will tick for 9-10k/sec until you’ve cleared yourself out to the outer platform of the room. Note that until the Phase transition into Phase 3 starts, he will always be casting this.
Your raid should clear out to the closest exit, which is to the left in the first diagram. From here, your OT tanking the Horror/s (if there are 2 at this point check how many stacks they have and both SHOULD be near death) should run on the outer platform in the direction of the Frozen Throne (which is North), taking the Horror and the Plague away from the raid. Everyone else should stay a little more south, and have the MT in between the OT and raid, ready to pick up the Raging Spirits along with the remaining Drudge Ghouls. Once the Horror/s have been killed, ensure no one else is around the OT and dispel him once the Plague jumps to him.
Raging Spirits have 750k HP, hit hard enough to 1-shot cloth and also have a frontal cone silence. Due to these factors, the tanks will have to face these away from the raid at all times and ensure they keep aggro on them all. It lightens the load in Phase 2 if you have a Hunter or Rogue to MD/Tricks to help out because DPS don’t have any time to waste. Note that the silence CAN be dispelled, and should be immediately in all cases where tanks need to be unsilenced for taunts. 3 of these adds spawn in Phase 2, the third will spawn just as the Phase is about to end, forcing you to bring it with you into the next Phase.
Pain and Suffering is a spell The Lich King casts from the center of room, inflicting Shadow damage to enemies in a frontal cone, as well as an additional DoT damage every 3 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. To even the sometimes overwhelming damage this can cause to a few members of your raid, try having range spread out as much as they can ACROSS the outer area (noted by the large green circle in the picture).
Lastly, Ice Spheres will continue to come towards your raid from the center of the room during Phase 2, have 6k HP and must be killed before they touch anyone, else you’ll instantly get blown off the fighting platform. We found that a discipline priest could handle most of these with periodic help from ranged DPS to ensure he stayed on top of them. This way, every single DPS’er had time to help burn the Raging Spirits, since when you transition into Phase 3, you’ll only want 1 alive.
Phase 3
This is Phase 3, the Val’kyr Phase. Note that The Lich King retains the ability Infest. Have everyone come back towards the center of the room (ensure all ice spheres are dead) and keep The Lich King there, with the Raging Spirit close but facing away and continue to burn it until it’s dead. Shortly after entering Phase 3, The Lich King will summon a Val’kyr with 450k HP, it will grab a random raid member and attempt to drop them off the edge of the room. From our fight, we know that all forms of stuns work (DR applies), Frost Traps and Chains of Ice also work. Note that as long as you have a Raging Spirit up, the DPS priority will always go Val’kyr > Raging Spirit > Lich King.
Towards the end of the first Val’kyr’s life, Lich King will use the first of his 2 new abilities, Defile. Defile targets one raid member and places a large black swirl underneath them that causes massive damage. Every time you allow ANYONE to take damage from Defile by not moving out of it, it will expand. It will do so until it covers the entire room. Note that as soon as you have 2 Defiles up, the first of the two will soon despawn.
This phase basically consists of being actively aware of the CD timers on Val’kyr and Defile and rotating your raid around the room the adjust for space after Defiles. To handle Defiles in Phase 3, the raid CAN be clumped together, but do not stack. As soon as a target is chosen for Defile, have that person run OUTWARDS of the circle and have everyone else move INWARDS of the circle.
The last new ability in Phase 3 is called Soul Reaper and is something healers and tanks need to be vigilant about. Soul Reaper will be cast on the current tank tanking Lich King, and will deal 50k damage to that person after 5 seconds. You do not (where possible) want the tank to take a 50k Soul Reaper AND a melee swing from Lich King simultaneously, so the idea here is to have the OT taunt and take over until the MT has been hit and healed back up.
At 41-42%, pick whichever side of the outer room you’re closest to and get ready to move.
Phase 2-2
Refer to Phase 2, the only exception is that there will be 4 Raging Spirits instead of 3. You should Bloodlust when the first add is at 50%. Expect to bring 1 full life Raging Spirit and 1 almost dead Raging Spirit into Phase 4.
Phase 4
This Phase has The Lich King retaining Soul Reaper and Defile.
When transitioning from the outer platform, having ranged head towards the middle of the room, while the melee and the OT take the Raging Spirits over by Tirion’s iceblock. Melee’s first priority is the Raging Spirits and once they’re dead, melee can go full time on The Lich King until 10%, except in the case of soaking Vile Spirits.
Vile Spirits will be released roughly every 30 seconds by The Lich King. No AoE bar Mind Sear can hit them, and therefore ranged DPS must single target them down quickly (66K HP) before they fly down to blow up on the raid (15k/ea). Using 3 ranged, you should be able to kill at least 4-5 Vile Spirits after each cast, making the need to soak a few necessary. If possible, kite the Vile’s for as long as you can and continue DPS. It is best to have the OT soak the damage once the Raging Spirits are dead. Note that melee priority is Raging Spirit > Lich King, while ranged priority is Vile Spirits > Raging Spirits > Lich King.
When The Lich King summons his first batch of Vile Spirits on the far side of the platform, he will need to be dragged through the middle of the room across to the other side so that melee, healer and tanks have plenty of space between themselves and the incoming attack from Vile Spirits. This drag across the room needs to be made after every Vile Spirit summon. Defile’s will need to be placed quickly and efficiently to the north and south of the platform, clearing the path for the tank to drag The Lich King.
Effective soak methods include DS, Dispersion, Barksin + SI, or just have anyone in the raid on full health soak one, heal them and then they may soak another.
The only other new technique in this final phase is called Harvest Soul, a move that will target anyone in the raid except the current tank tanking The Lich King (yes, OT can be targeted and it’s a pain in the ass, RNG is needed here in most cases, especially when learning the fight). Harvest Soul will deal 7500 damage every second for 6 seconds on the target. If the target is still alive by the end of this cast, their soul will be transferred into the Frostmourne Room, where you will have to kill the add inside to escape.
- DPS IN THE FROSTMOURNE ROOM: You must DPS the add down before it kills King Terenas. That’s it, don’t overthink it, just DPS hard.
- HEALERS IN THE FROSTMOURNE ROOM: You must heal King Terenas while he kills the add, feel free to throw some DPS on the add as well after you’ve healed Terenas up a decent amount.
- NOTE THAT IF YOU HAVE INTERRUPTS, YOU CAN USE THEM ON THE ADD TO STOP HIM REGAINING HEALTH AND HURTING TERENAS!
Rinse and repeat this process until 10%. Watch your RP. Collect your phat lewts.
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