A Retadin in ICC Part 3 - The Crimson Halls

The second of the main wings to open, this wing contains two bosses for you to complete and is probably on a par in difficulty with the previous wing. Again these are technical fights which require you to be doing the right thing at the right time.

Trash
Yes, I'm going to talk about trash again because there's some annoying mobs again which are likely to need control. Repentance is incredibly useful given it's 1 minute duration so dust off that focus macro and keep your marked mob locked down, remembering to run back into range to reapply should that be required.

There's a rogue type mob that loves to shadowstep and sap your tank so keep an eye on what's attacking you and pop defensive cooldowns if necessary.

Blood Council
Yes, you've seen and defeated these guys before, whether it's in quests or dungeons but this time they've been eating their Weetabix and you get to fight them all at once.

Most of the time you'll just be smacking the guy with the health bar (empowered), but depending on who it is you'll be required to do another couple of things.

When Valanar is empowered he'll occasionally cast Empowered Shock Vortex which will require you to spread out to avoid the damage and knock back effects. The rest of the time he'll just be casting a normal shock vortex which creates a swirly effect on the ground which knock you back if you run into them, so watch out when you're running around.

When Taldaram is empowered he'll be creating giant balls of fire which will target a random player and make a bee line for them. However as it gets close to other people it will shoot off random balls of fire which reduce the final damage done when it hits it's intended victim. This means that after 80 levels you need to chase the fire until it flies out of range. Putting up Fire Res Aura can also help reduce the damage done. The rest of the time you can pretty much ignore the guy, apart from Cleansing any magic debuffs he puts on you.

Finally when Keleseth is empowered it's time to go to town as he'll be chain casting and so unable to dodge your attacks. Just be careful not to pull aggro if your raid is using a ranged tank as if you get targeted for his empowered Shadow Lance you're going to be taking a dirt nap unless a local druid is feeling generous. Keep Hand of Salvation ready just in case you start showing a bit high on Omen.

Other than that the fight is fairly straight forward (apart from all the target switching) and you just keep rinsing and repeating until they all fall down dead. Again.

Blood Queen Lanathel
You'll have seen this vampire chick from the RP before the first fight. This time you actually get to attack her so make sure you're prepared.

This fight has a very tight enrage timer but fortunately there's a cunning mechanic which means you can do the crazy dps required. About 30 seconds into the fight she'll run off an bit whoever is third on the threat meter. At this point they start doing the crazy dps, healing themselves for part of the damage they do and generating no threat whatsoever. The down side is that 75 seconds after this they'll need to bite someone else within 15 seconds to avoid being mind controlled. These two then get another 75 seconds before needing to bite someone and so it repeats until you run out of people to bite, she falls over dead or your raid hits a few problems.

While damaging her she may link you with another player with 'Pact of the Darkfallen', at this point you'll both need to run to a mutually convenient place (generally the centre of the room) to remove it before running back to smack her a few times.

Every two minutes she'll fly up into the air, cast a fear, and then throw blood bolts at everyone. At this point you'll need to be spread out, and is a perfect time to pop Divine Shield and Divine Sacrifice if you've spec'd into it.

While all this sounds complicated it can be summed up quite simply:
1) Know who to bite and when
2) Run to the middle if you're linked to someone
3) Spread out when she's up in the air

Depending on when you get bitten will dictate when you use your cool downs, but if you can use them once before you're bitten and once after make sure you do because you'll need every drop of damage you can eke out.

Overall I find this wing slightly easier than the abomination wing but that doesn't mean you can roll your way through it easily.

Stay tuned as we fight our way into the Frost wing and finally onto the big bad of this expansion, the Lich King himself.