First phase is pretty simple, at its core its just a tank and spank fight. Hunters have three jobs during this phase.
DPS the Lich King
Use both your Rapid Fires in this phase. If you have no Shaman blow them at the very start. The plan is to get out of this phase as quickly as possible so you have more time to take some care with the other messier phases.
Move to the trash when you get Necrotic Plague
Sort of self explanatory. Run to the off tank and disengage back. Do not try to squeak out another steady shot. Just move.
Tranq shot the Enraged Horrors.
Tranq shotting the Shambling Horror enrages is important. They only enrage for a short time but two enraged Shambling Horrors at once can be a bit taxing on the healers. It requires a fast reaction time doing it manually will just not work.
There are two macro options: the icky way and the mouseover way.
The icky tranq macro lets you just push a button to automatically target the Shambling Horror, fire your tranq shot and instantly pop back to the Lich King. But Cheres that's so easy peasy, we will use that! Um no. The danger is if there are multiple Shambling Horrors up, it may not target the one that's actually enraged, in which case the enrage doesn't get dispelled. Its a bad macro but here it is anyone if you don't quite believe me.
The correct way is to use a mouseover macro. With a mouseover you just have to hover your mouse over the correct Shambling Horror and push your macro button. This will fire just the tranq at the correct horror and let you continue to dps the Lich King.#showtooltip Tranquilizing Shot
/tar shambling
/cast Tranquilizing Shot
/targetlasttarget
#showtooltip Tranquilizing Shot
/cast [target=mouseover, exists] Tranquilizing Shot
At 70% health you hit the second phase. Second phase is also pretty straight forward. Run to the edge of the platform very fast. Do not try to get in another steady shot. At the edge you will be dps'g down Enraged Spirits, copies of you or your raidmates bound and determined to kill everyone. (zomg angry trees!) You should be able to use Misdirection on every other Enraged Spirit to help out your tank. You don't want those things floating all over the place.
Since we have so many insta attacks, hunters are often assigned the job of killing the Ice Spheres. Its a mostly easy job they are squishy so they die quickly. You should be able to alternate dps between the Ice Spheres and the Enraged Spirits.
Very important tip
Don't disengage off the platform. Its just like Nexus, if you fall off you die. Don't roll your eyes at me. You know you've disengaged to your death at least once during that run. Just wait for a Mage to blink and fall off the side and feel superior.
After 60 seconds of this we hit Phase 3. Which is called Phase 2 by the mods. Why? I have no idea but its sort of stupid and someone should be fired.
This is the meat of the Lich King fight, where you get to meet Defile, the horrible darkness that spawned the Old Gods. Defile is the capo di tutti capi of void zones.
This is the most difficult phase of the encounter, and the most unforgiving. One person making the wrong mistake can easily kill the raid, so pay attention and react quickly. You'll start the phase by finishing off any remaining Enraged Raging Spirits and then position yourself for the Valkyr and Defiles.
We're a ranged class, which makes Defile a little easier for us since already out of the way of melee and probably most other ranged classes. If Defile is coming before the val'kyr, stay at range, don't run to the center when you're just going to have to run back out.
When you get those tight situations where Defile will happen just seconds after the valkyr, disengage out the instant the val'kyr pick their targets and before Defile goes off.
Once you are chosen as the target of Defile, do not use Disengage. The game does not track your movement when you're in the air. This means if you're targeted for Defile and you disengage out, there's a good chance the Defile will drop where you started your Disengage. Do not use Disengage to get out of a Defile dropped by the person next to you. You'll still be taking damage and buffing the Defile while you're in the air. I made this mistake once and managed to cover the entire platform with Defile. Its not pretty.
Val'kyr from a Hunter POV
As the only ranged class that cannot effectively attack from melee, hunters are pretty screwed with the val'kyr. Remember that you can stay just outside of melee range until the last second and then run in those last 5 yards. Also keep in mind that Volley will do more damage to the Lich King than your melee attacks.
Use your next couple of Rapid Fires for the Val'kyr.
If your raid is struggling on the Valkyr, you might want to grab two ranks of Concussive Barrage for an extra slow. It doesn't count as a stun so it won't affect diminishing returns on that front. Don't bother with Improved Concussive Shot, its not really worth any dps loss.
You can also bring a ravager pet to have the occasional extra stun for the Val'kyr. I didn't. Honestly if you have a rogue, some paladins and/or a feral druid you don't need to change out your pet.
Once the Lich King is brought down to about 40% health, he'll run to the center again and start channeling Remorseless Winter. Run to the edge of the platform at this and get ready to hop to the outer edge when it reforms.
This second transition phase is pretty much like the first. It lasts 60 seconds. You have to deal with the Ice Spheres and Enraged Spirits Set up your MD rotation, use your next set of Rapid Fires and get the spirits down as fast as possible.
The dps team is on the ball and you'll only be dragging one Enraged Spirit into the next phase, but it's very possible you'll have two of them. At the end of the 60 seconds you need to run in as, again, the outer edge of the platform falls away.
Next phase (phase 3, phase 2 3/4, second defile phase, stupid numbering system phase) is similar to the first defile phase sans the Val'kyr (yay...or no yay). Make sure all Enraged Spirits are dead.
Incoming we have Vile Spirits (very appropriately named). They have more health than you'd expect and hunters aren't great at burning them down as a big bunch since our Volley doesn't hit them way up in the air. However, kiting them around and killing them as single target is something we do very well. Do not Multi Shot, you will die.
The important thing here is to make sure that they never reach the melee cluster. If you see some heading that way, use Distracting Shot and any other shots possible to pull them away. A Vile Spirit exploding on the melee cluster is bad, but several of them exploding is a wipe. The sad reality is that your dying to keep them away from the melee might just save the raid from a wipe. Just hope there is a battle rez still left for you. Oh and Deterrence will not prevent Vile Spirit damage to you. That's right 100% chance to avoid bupkis.
Whether or not you're on Vile Spirit duty, you want to maintain as much dps on the Lich King as possible. Always dps him from range, so that when you get Defile it's easy to go dump it someplace safe. Do not use Disengage for anything to do with Defile.
It is possible that sometime during this phase you will get pulled into Frostmourne's room. If so, you have only two jobs:
- DPS the Spirit Warden.
- Interrupt the channeled Soul Rip.
Save a Rapid Fire in case you get pulled into the room , it just makes it all go faster. If you don't get pulled in, use it when the Lich King gets down to 15% to help push him over the edge.
They key to killing the Spirit Warden is to interrupt the Soul Rip. If you are MM use Silencing Shot. You will have to remove Silencing Shot from any of your macros that tie it in with other shots. If you are BM, you can use Intimidation to interrupt the channel. If you are SV, then you will need to bring along a pet that can do the interrupting for you.
Once you have pushed the Lich King down to 10%, the he kills you all. You and your little dog, too. This is the WTF panic phase. Don't be a noob and release.
The last phase is the IWin phase. Terenas Menethil brings you back from the dead (you but not your pet, stupid programmers) and you can dps the last 10% free of consequence.
There is some role play and a spiffy cinematic at the end of the fight. Don't be a dweeb and think you're too cool to watch some girlie lore stuff. You aren't.
This fight is not really about topping the meters (though you should always try to do so), it's about killing the boss. Despite the many aspects of this fight that are very unfriendly to hunters (shocking an unfriendly hunter encounter! /emo) we add fill many important roles: Tranq shot, Misdirects, Icy Sphere management, excellent movement tools that make the fight easier for the whole raid.
Hey there Arthas, all your base are belonging to us.
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