Abilities
The Lich King melees for roughly 40,000 on an item level 264 geared tank on 25-player difficulty. The Lich King enrages after 15 minutes of combat, gaining 900% damage, immunity to taunt and 500% movement speed.
The fight requires the standard raid composition of 2/3 Tanks and 3/5 healers (10/25 player), while learning the encounter more healers can help. No resistance or other special gear is required.
editTactics
Phase 1
During Phase 1, the Lich King should be tanked by the main tank at a spot near the edge of the platform. On the phase transition this gives Arthas a greater distance to travel before casting Remorseless Winter, thus the raid gets more time to react and a shorter distance to run. Melee sets up behind him, ranged a few yards away, even closer to the edge of the platform. 5 yards to the side of Arthas, the off tank(s) set up to tank the adds. The raid DPS single target Arthas, AoE should not be used.
Harmless ghouls and very dangerous Shambling Horrors spawn during the phase. Horrors have a frontal cleave and an extremely dangerous enrage. To survive the enrage, they must either be tranquilized or stunned.
The adds are mostly killed using the Necrotic Plague mechanism. Every 15 seconds Arthas applies the Necrotic Plague debuff to a player. The plague is a DoT which deals 50k to its target every 5 seconds. Whenever its target dies, or the plague is dispelled, it jumps to any nearby unit - which includes adds. The trick is to have debuffed players run next to the adds and dispel them there, so the plague jumps to an add. The plague also stacks, this means the longer the phase lasts, the faster the adds die. This can be used to kill the Shambling Horrors, because in heroic mode, even the highest dps raids cannot spare the time to switch to the Horrors. Drudge Ghouls can be used to get higher Necrotic Plague stacks before placing it on the Shambling Horror. Each time the plague debuff jumps, Arthas gains one more stack of Plague Siphon, each of which increases his damage dealt by 2%. At about 40 stacks tanks get one-shotted, thus the plague must not jump too frequently.
The Lich King also periodically casts Infest, which requires the target's HP to be topped off quickly to remove the dot. A Discipline priest can proactively shield the raid between Infest casts, helping to minimize the amount the raid needs to be healed.
This phase ends at 70%. Arthas should have about 15 stacks of Plague Siphon. When the last add dies, a player (usually the tank) gets the Plague stack (usually about 20).
Phase 1.5
At 70% health a 1 minute transition phase takes place. The Lich King moves to the center of the arena, away from the tank, and begins casting Remorseless Winter (a 45 yard AoE). When he moves away from the tank, the raid must flee on the edge of the platform to get out of the 45 yard range. He goes on casting Pain and Suffering, and summons a Raging Spirit every 20 seconds. Immediately after the third Spirit, Arthas casts Quake, which destroys the outer ring of the platform - the raid has 2.5 seconds to move away from the edge.
During the transition phase, one player usually gets the plague stack from the last add. This player must move about 10 yards away from everyone else and then get dispelled, this removes the plague (and Plague Siphon from Arthas) without further jumps.
Targets of Raging Spirits have 5 seconds before the add spawns. Raging Spirits melee very hard and possess a frontal cone-area silence ability. They must be killed quickly, so that only one is up in phase two. Frost orbs head towards the raid and explode if they reach it. They have few HP and can be killed by ranged DPS. Pain and Suffering is a stacking DOT that is applied to random raid members. It spreads to nearby players so the raid should spread out some.
When the Lich King kneels and lights up the ground around him, the raid must return to the center area of the platform before the edges of the platform break away (The area that is about to fall becomes very obvious). Continue to kill any remaining Raging Spirits, but the main tank should pick up the Lich King again as quickly as possible.
Phase 2
During Phase 2, the raid must master two different abilities, each of which requires different positioning.
The Val'kyr pick up raid members, carry them to the closest edge of the platform and drop them to their death. To avoid them, the raid should be huddled up closely near the center of the platform, so that the Val'kyr have the longest path to the edge. They must be snared, slowed and nuked.
Defile is an AoE which is centered on a random raid member. Whenever it deals damage, it grows larger and increases its damage output. This ability is extremely dangerous and the major cause of wipes in this encounter. In order to avoid Defile, the raid must be spread out and close to the outer edge of the platform.
Right after the start of Phase 2, Val'kyrs come up next. Thus initially, the raid should group near the center, everyone on the same side (so that all Val'kyr victims are carried in the same direction). Immediately after the Val'kyr have picked up their targets, the raid should spread out, because after 5 seconds, the first Defile takes place.
The area in which the Val'kyr drops their victims is right where the outer ring that dropped away used to be. If a Val'kyr is summoned while the Lich King is close to the transition phase, it might be more valuable to push him to the next phase instead of killing the Val'kyr. When the Lich King resurfaces the outer ring, the victim is dropped safely on the edge, outside of Remorseless Winter.
Soul Reaper is a very damaging debuff applied on the Lich King's current tank every 30 seconds. It's a good idea to switch tank after Soul Reaper, otherwise a combination of Soul Reaper tick plus melee hit may instantly kill the tank.
Phase 2.5 ? Remorseless Winter
When the Lich King falls below 40%, he casts Remorseless Winter again, forcing the raid to the edge of the platform. The transition is similar to the first Remorseless Winter. This time every 15 sec a Raging Spirit spawns for a total of four. Some raids like to use DPS cooldowns after 15 sec, so the Raging Spirits die fast. After one minute, Phase 3 starts.
Phase 3
During Phase 3, Arthas continues to cast Defile and Soul Reaper. Instead of Val'kyr, he summons Vile Spirits. Generally, the raid should be well distributed during Phase 3, to minimize the danger from Defile.
At the start of Phase 3 1-2 Raging Spirits are up, so melee DPS should kill them, while ranged deal with the Vile Spirits. Vile Spirits (10-man normal: 66,000 health; 25-man normal: 200,000) move toward raid members and explode when they reach their target. The most obvious way to deal with them is to AoE kill them before they start moving ? fire mages, shadow priests, affliction warlocks and moonkins are very effective at this - but only if the spirits are grouped closely together. The Spirits move very quickly at start but slow down over time, thus snares are helpful. An effective strategy is to drag the Lich King to one edge of the room and then drag him all the way to the opposite side after Vile Spirits spawn, and kite them through Earthbind Totems and frost traps. They start with a small amount of threat on a random player but they can be both taunted and outthreated. The tank who is not tanking can taunt the Spirits onto him and absorb their damage.
Arthas also casts a new spell called Harvest Soul every 70 seconds on a random raid member, which causes 45,000 (25-man 90,000) damage over six seconds. Victims who survive this are sucked into Frostmourne (see below).
After 15 Arthas enrages. His enrage gives him an enormous buff to his damage output, but he does not one-shot the raid when he enrages like some other major bosses; therefore it is still possible to push him into phase four (and thus defeat him) after he enrages.[1]
Inside Frostmourne
Inside Frostmourne, King Terenas' spirit (an NPC) fights with the Spirit Warden (a mob). Upon entering, players get the Harvest Soul buff, which increases damage done by 100%, but kills after 60 seconds. The buff is removed when leaving Frostmourne. Players leave Frostmourne when the mob is dead.
This means that the add must die within 60 seconds. The NPC deals nearly enough damage to do the job by himself, but he does need support. The channeled spell from the add (Soul Rip) alone is enough to kill Terenas - it must be interrupted. Tanks should take over the add. Healing classes should heal Terenas. All classes should DPS the add as much as they can, and interrupt Soul Rip. Stunning the add is also very helpful, since it heals itself for 50% damage dealt. It is vulnerable to most forms of CC and interrupts that affect Undead creatures.
If either the player or the NPC die inside Frostmourne, Arthas gains +200% damage for 15 seconds.
Phase 4
At 10% health, the Lich King casts Fury of Frostmourne. This kills all members of the raid and renders them unable to release their spirits (clicking the button displays the message "Your soul belongs to the Lich King"). The Lich King and Tirion will have an exchange during which Tirion destroys Frostmourne using the Ashbringer. The ghost of Terenas Menethil II will appear and resurrect the raid while the spirits that were trapped inside Frostmourne hold the Lich King in place. All raid members who have died during the fight, even from being dropped off the edge by the val'kyr, are resurrected by Terenas at this point. The Lich King becomes immobilized, and players can finish off the Lich King at their leisure.
Should the raid decide not to accept Terenas Menethil's resurrection, Tirion Fordring melees the Lich King to death; which takes approximately one hour. All players still receive the achievement and loot if he dies in this fashion.
Heroic Difficulty
Shadow Traps in phase one spawn on people's locations, and after a few seconds, launch anyone still on them 1,000 yards off the platform (in an extremely comical manner).
Val'kyr HP triples, however they drop their target at 50% health and fly above the raid and begin casting Siphon Life on the raid until they are killed.
In the third phase the entire raid will be pulled into Frostmourne instead of one person. Wicked Spirits will fall from above which must be dodged/killed. Any deaths will still result in Harvested Soul being applied to the Lich King and it can stack.
Phase four is unchanged.
