Project Lore

Some of the first unofficial information coming out of the new build of Patch 3.3 includes a preliminary list of achievements associated with the Icecrown Citadel raid and 5-man dungeons. The breakdown and running analysis follows:

Icecrown Citadel 10-man Stand-Alone Achievements

These are the achievements associated with individual events and/or bosses. This is most certainly a cursory list, as they do not cover every encounter in the raid as past achievements have. The early inclusion of these, specifically, may indicate that these bosses will be available for testing soon, as they are all included in the first section of the dungeon.

• It's a Trap! - Survive the Ice Jets in Icecrown Citadel.


• Unboned - Defeat Lord Marrowgar without anyone taking damage from Bone Cyclone.


• Thirty One - Defeat X (-this is a placeholder variable-) of Lady Deathwhisper's adds with her bombs and the defeat Lady Deathwhisper.


• I'm on a Boat - Claim victory in the Gunship Battle in which every raid member visits the enemy gunship only once.


• I've Gone and Made a Mess - Defeat the Deathbringer with fewer than X (-this is a placeholder variable-) raid members suffering from Garrote.

Icecrown Citadel 10-man Completion Achievements

These are the achievements awarded for completing different wings of the raid. By looking at each individual feat, we can see the full list of boss encounters for Icecrown Citadel.

• Storming the Citadel - Defeat the first four bosses in Icecrown Citadel: Lord Marrowgar, The Deathbringer (could it be Saurfang or Bolvar?), Lady Deathwhisper, Claim victory in the Gunship Battle.


• The Frostwing Halls - Defeat the bosses of The Frostwing Halls in Icecrown Citadel: Rescue Valithiria Dreamwalker (sounds like a friendly member of the Green dragonflight being turned), Sindragosa (you'll finally get to go toe-to-toe with that Frost Wyrm you see every time you log into the game).


• The Plagueworks - Defeat the bosses of The Plagueworks in Icecrown Citadel: Festergut, Rotface, Professor Putricide.


• The Crimson Hall - Defeat the bosses of The Crimson Hall in Icecrown Citadel: Defeat the Blood Prince Council, Queen Lana'Thel.


• The Frozen Throne - Defeat the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel: The Lich King.


• Fall of the Lich King - Defeat every boss in Icecrown Citadel.

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Icecrown Citadel, from the bottom, up.

For those of you keeping score, that brings the list of boss or primary encounters in Icecrown Citadel to 12. To reiterate:

Lord Marrowgar

The Deathbringer

Lady Deathwhisper

Gunship Battle

Valithiria Dreamwalker

Sindragosa

Festergut

Rotface

Professor Putricide

Blood Prince Council

Queen Lana'Thel

The Lich King

Icecrown Citadel 5-man Dungeon Achievements:

These achievements are associated with the three 5-man dungeons that lead up to the raid: Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, and Halls of Reflection. Unlike the raid achievements, this is probably a comprehensive list.

• Icecrown: The Forge of Souls - Defeat the bosses in The Forge of Souls: Bronjahm, Devourer of Souls.


• Icecrown: The Pit of Saron - Defeat the bosses in The Pit of Saron: Forgemaster Garfrost, Ick and Krick, Scourgelord Tyrannus and Rimefang.


• Icecrown: The Halls of Reflection - Defeat the bosses in The Halls of Reflection: Falric and Marwyn (Arthas' closest confidants in the Third War), Survive the encounter with the Lich King (could this be a Metroid-style escape sequence?).


• I Feel Good - Defeat Bronjahm in The Forge of Souls on Heroic Difficulty without letting him cast his big spell.


• The Faced - Defeat the Devourer of Souls in The Forge of Souls on Heroic Difficulty after having interrupted his big nuke.


• Don't Let It Go to Eleven - Defeat Forgemaster Garfrost in The Pit of Saron on Heroic Difficulty before he gets 11 stacks.


• Don't Look Up - Clear the hallway before Scourgelord Tyrannus in The Forge of Souls on Heroic Difficulty without anyone taking icicle damage.


• We're Not Retreating; We're Advancing in a Different Direction. - Escape from the Lich King in under two hours and eleven seconds.

Don't be alarmed by that last one. It's undoubtedly one of Ghostcrawler's "let's give the our players a heart attack" placeholder numbers. The encounter will not take two hours and eleven seconds!

Feats of Strength

There's only a single new Feat of Strength listed, but boy is it a doozy!

• It's Over Nine Thousand! - Earn more than 9000 achievement points.

I'm only at 5130 myself, and I don't see that number increasing significantly anytime soon. It may not seem impossible, but the closer you get to the maximum, the thinner the margin, since you'll have done most of the achievements you knew you were capable of.

What say you of these achievements, friends? Cool? Uncool? Hard? Easy? The boss-related ones give us some hints about how those encounters might work. What do you think of their potential capabilities?

Keep in mind that the 10-man stuff isn't complete and the text is not final. Not to mention that there are likely 25-man versions of each one, as well.

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The Forge of Souls

With patch 3.2.2 now live, the next major patch on the radar is patch 3.3. It introduces three new 5-man dungeons with both normal and heroic modes, as well as Icecrown Citadel, the flagship raid of Wrath of the Lich King where players will face off against Arthas. The 5 man instances will be three wings of "the Frozen Halls." Players will be assisting one of their faction's heroes, either Sylvanas Windrunner or Jaina Proudmoore, as they infiltrate Icecrown Citadel through an alternative entrance while the Argent Crusade and Knights of the Ebon Blade attack the main gates. An epic questline will lead players through the three instances, and players must participate in the questline in order to get attuned to the second and third dungeons.

Scary

The first wing, The Forge of Souls, tasks players with assisting their faction's hero to destroy machines known as "soul grinders." The instance has two bosses who operate the machines: Bronjahm, the Godfather of Souls, and The Devourer of Souls. The second wing, Pit of Saron, is home to Scourgelord Tyrannus. Players will free soldiers of their faction to assist them in combating Tyrannus. It is not clear who or what this "Saron" is. Players will apparently get clues as to where Arthas' private chambers outside of the Frozen Throne are. Three bosses inhabit this instance: Forgemaster Garfrost, Krick and Ick, and Scourgelord Tyrannus. The final hall, the Halls of Refection, seems to house Frostmourne, the legendary weapon that the Lich King wields. Players, accompanied by their faction's hero, will ultimately confront Arthas. It is unknown how this encounter will progress. Two encounters exist in this instance: Falric and Marwyn, and The Lich King. More information can be dug up at the official World of Warcraft website.

10-man	ilvl	25-man
Naxx	200
KT, EoE	213	Naxx
Ulduar	219
IC 5 mans	219
Ulduar hard	226	Ulduar, KT/EoE
CC	232	Ulduar weapons
IC heroics	232
	239	Ulduar hard
CC hard	245	CC
	258	CC hard
IC Raid	??
	??	IC raid

This information is flooring. Not only is it a lore-gasm, but the loot here is astoundingly good. Players can grab iLevel 219 loot in the normal version of the instances, and iLevel 232 gear in the heroic version. That puts the normal mode on par with Ulduar 10-man, and the heroic version gear on par with 10 man Crusader's Coliseum loot. The full, updated iLevel chart is on the left. The first two wings seem to introduce new characters as bosses, but the final wing, Halls of Reflection, bring back Arthas' two old commanders, Falric and Marwyn as bosses. It was unconfirmed prior to this announcement if they were truly undead. They were last seen accompanying Arthas into King Terenas II's chamber to slaughter him and signal the downfall of the human kingdom of Lordaeron. And who knows of what nature the encounter with Arthas will have? He will not be defeated here, as he is the final boss of the 10/25 man raid instance. Jaina is seeking any humanity left of him, so perhaps this will be some shade of Arthas' soul. I, for one, look forward to accompanying Sylvanas to hunt Arthas to the death.

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