The Lich King Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

• Be ready to move towards the stack of Drudge Ghouls if you are targeted with Necrotic Plague.
• As Defile is about to come off cooldown, spread out lightly and be ready with any movement speed boosts available.
• Save all cooldowns for when the Val'kyr Shadowguard spawn in and grab players as these MUST die quickly.

• The Necrotic Plague must only dispelled when the player reaches the stack of Drudge Ghouls; make sure no one is randomly dispelling.
• As Defile is about to come off cooldown, spread out lightly and be ready with any movement speed boosts available.
• Coordinate defensive cooldowns on your tanks for every single Soul Reaper; they must always have a major cooldown up for this.

• Communicate any tank swaps before they happen. The Lich King is the hardest hitting boss in the game, give your healers time to prepare for swaps.
• If you are assigned to tanking the Drudge Ghouls and Shambling Horrors, make sure to keep them faced away from the raid, and that you are standing at maximum melee range away from the mobs.
• Coordinate defensive cooldowns on your healers for every single Soul Reaper; you must always have a major cooldown up for this.

The Lich King fight is a far step-above any of the previous boss encounters in the instance, and on heroic difficulty this fight becomes nearly impossible for most guilds to overcome.

Firstly, while not a "mechanic", The Lich Kings melee damage must be mentioned. He is by-far the hardest hitting boss in the game, easily being capable of killing the best geared tanks in 1 hit, or leaving them with only a sliver of health remaining. Simply surviving the sheer amount of Melee damage The Lich King deals to your tanks will be one of the hardest challenges your raid will need to overcome.

The first actual mechanic the raid will be faced with is Infest casts every 20 seconds. This deals 17,672 to 19,828 Shadow damage to all player and places a DoT on everyone, dealing more and more damage with each tick until players are healed above 90% health. Since the DoT from Infest increases with each tick, this makes it harder and harder to heal everyone up to 90% health, and thus makes removing the DoT more and more difficult the longer it is up. To counter this, the healers must be ready to quickly top the raid up with AoE healing spells; a Discipline Priest spamming the whole raid with Power Word: Shield here is invaluable to keeping the raid healthy as this will absorb a huge amount of damage and keep health bars as close to 90% as possible.

Every 30 seconds The Lich King will cast Summon Drudge Ghouls, summoning 3 Drudge Ghouls. These are very weak mobs that have no abilities and should be quickly picked up by the 2nd tank. DPS players must control their lizard brains and restrain from AoEing these down, as they must be alive to deal with the later mechanic.

After casting Summon Drudge Ghouls, The Lich King will cast Summon Shambling Horror, and then again every 60 seconds. This will summon in 1 Shambling Horror, which must quickly be picked up by the off-tank who is tanking all of the Drudge Ghouls. The Shambling Horror must be faced away from the raid due to the Shockwave it will cast every 20 seconds or so. It will also frequently Enrage, tripling its damage dealt; this must be instantly removed with a Hunters Tranquilizing Shot or your tank will very likely die. At 20% health the Shambling Horror will Frenzy and must be stunned as much as possible until it dies.

The last mechanic for the phase is Necrotic Plague, which will target a random member every 30 seconds. This disease deals 150k damage every 5 seconds for 15 total seconds, and will bounce to the nearest target if dispelled. This is important to understand as it will bounce to any target, with the exception of The Lich King himself, including both the Drudge Ghouls and Shambling Horror.

Controlling and managing the Necrotic Plague debuff is the top priority in phase 1. Whoever is targeted with the disease must quickly move to the stack of Drudge Ghouls and get dispelled, forcing the Necrotic Plague to jump to one of the ghouls. If done properly, one of the Drudge Ghouls will have the Necrotic Plague on them, and will die to the third tick. This will cause the Necrotic Plague to "gain a stack", doubling its damage done and jumping to another nearby target.

The goal here is to force the Necrotic Plague to kill all of the Drudge Ghouls and Shambling Horrors by having it first ramp up in damage by killing Drudge Ghouls, then forcing it onto the much higher health Shambling Horrors. If the Necrotic Plague runs out of mobs to kill, it will bounce to the second-tank and must be dispelled; this is not ideal as you will lose all ramp up damage forcing the process to start over again, greatly reducing how quickly the adds die.

While this might seem easy at first, it can be quite tricky as The Lich King himself with gain a stack of Plague Siphon every time the Necrotic Plague jumps from target to target. This includes both dispelling, and it killing the current target; The Lich King will gain a stack of Plague Siphon every time the diseases changes targets.

Since the Necrotic Plague is required to kill both the Drudge Ghouls and Shambling Horrors, it is a guarantee that The Lich King will gain multiple stacks of Plague Siphon. This puts a tight DPS check on phase 1, as once The Lich King reaches around 15-20 stacks of Plague Siphon, your tank will like be able to get 1-shot. For this reason, you want to use all DPS cooldowns immediately on the pull to burn as much health as you can; you must reach 70% health as quickly as possible.

As you approach 70% health remaining on The Lich King, have your tank drag him towards the edge of the platform in preparation for the phase change. Once he reaches 70% health, The Lich King will run to the center of the platform and begin to channel Remorseless Winter for 60 seconds, fatally wounding anyone caught in the storm.

To avoid the damage, players must be ready to quickly get to the very edges of the platform, as visible by the cracked circle surrounding the center of the platform. Quickly finish off any remaining Drudge Ghouls or Shambling Horrors and spread out as much as possible, separating the melee DPS from the ranged players.

Throughout this "transition phase", The Lich King will constantly cast Pain and Suffering on the raid, choosing a random target and hitting all nearby allies in the same direction. For this reason you want the raid to spread as much as possible; aside from that there is not much else to do besides heal through it.

The Lich King will also be constantly using Summon Ice Sphere to send a Ice Sphere at the raid. This sphere will pulsate Ice Pulse to any nearby enemies, and will Ice Burst if it ever reaches a player. These must be top priority of a few ranged DPS to keep these in check and always ensure they die before reaching the raid.

Lastly during the transition, The Lich King will summon 3 total Raging Spirits, 1 every 20 seconds starting right after the transition. These Raging Spirits must be quickly picked up by the tanks and faced away from the raid as they have a deadly Soul Shriek ability that will kill any non-tank hit. The player that the Raging Spirit spawns from must quickly run away from it, as it will attempt to auto-attack quickly after spawning.

After the 1 minute channel of Remorseless Winter ends, The Lich King will cast Quake, destroying the outer edge of the platform that players are currently standing on after 5 seconds. Everyone must quickly move into the inner circle, or fall to your deaths and be removed from the rest of the encounter.

Phase 2 starts after The Lich King finishes the Remorseless Winter and uses Quake to destroy the edge of the platform. He will continue to use Infest in this phase every 20 seconds, but no longer summons any Drudge Ghouls, Shambling Horrors, or uses Necrotic Plague.

Almost immediately after the Quake destroys the out-platform, The Lich King will cast Infest, followed up by one of his new abilities for the phase, Summon Val'kyr. This will call forth 3 Val'kyr Shadowguards, which will grab a player and start flying towards the edge of the platform, then releasing the players to fall to their deaths.

To handle this, the entire raid must be as quick as possible to stack in the center of the room, forcing all 3 Val'kyr Shadowguards to gather near each other as all players are stacked. These must be stunned and slowed as much as possible, ideally coordinating a Hammer of Justice on all three, followed up by multiple Holy Wraths to keep them in place. All DPS must instantly start AoE, using any available DPS cooldowns to burn the Val'kyr Shadowguards down. These Val'kyr Shadowguards have a buff Wings of the Damned, preventing them from being slowed more than 50%. Once the Val'kyr Shadowguards are killed, or reach 50% health on heroic difficulty, they will release their captured player.

The next new, deadly ability The Lich King gains in this phase is Defile. This will summon a Defile under a random players feet, which will rapidly grow in size each time it deals damage to a player caught in its area. This can quickly lead to a wipe as even 1 person can cause the Defile to grow in size faster than the raid can run away from it, instantly wiping the raid.

Everyone must be ready every 40 seconds for the incoming Defile, and use any available movement speed boosts such as Nitro Boosts to immediately get out of and away from the Defile pool without allowing it to grow too much. Be mindful of the timer and assign someone to call out "Defile soon" so the raid knows when they must spread.

Finally, the 3rd and most deadly ability The Lich King gains in this phase is Soul Reaper. Every 30 seconds he will use this on his current target, dealing 50% of a normal auto-attack, and playing a 5 second debuff that deals 70,000 Shadow damage when it expires. At the same time, The Lich King will increase his attack speed by 100% for the same 5 second duration. Seeing as he was already nearly 1-shotting your tank before, the combination of the base Shadow damage, as well as the 100% increased attack speed make this the deadliest part of the encounter.

The easiest way to deal with this is to coordinate defensive cooldowns and always have at least 2 major defensive cooldowns up during this phase. It is more ideal to have all healers fully healing a single tank with multiple defensive cooldowns up, rather than having the tanks swap and use 1 defensive only each. Seeing as The Lich King can be taunted, once the current tank runs out of personal defensive cooldowns, coordinate a tank swap just before the next Soul Reaper and allow the second tank to rotate through their defensive cooldowns.

This phase will repeat until The Lich King reaches 40%, where he will run to the center of the room and channel Remorseless Winter, repeating the "transition phase" almost exactly the same as phase 1. The only difference here is that he will summon a Raging Spirit every 15 seconds instead of 20, summoning 4 in total instead of 3. After 1 minute, this phase will end with The Lich King casting Quake again, destroying the outer ring of flooring.

Phase 3 starts after The Lich King finishes the Remorseless Winter and uses Quake to destroy the edge of the platform. He will continue to use only Defile and Soul Reaper from previous phases, in addition to 2 new abilities. Use any available DPS cooldowns to quickly finish off any Raging Spirits, as you are likely to have 1 or even 2 left from the transition phase.

Shortly after the phase starts, The Lich King will cast Harvest Soul on a random raid member, dealing 15,000 Shadow damage per second for 6 seconds. Quickly be ready with a personal defensive cooldown and make sure you survive this. At the end of the 6 second cast, the targeted player will be ported inside Frostmourne itself.

In this "spirit world", the player will find Terenas Menethil, the The Lich Kings father. Terenas Menethil will be locked in battle with a Spirit Warden and will require your aid to defeat the creature. Your job is to DPS the Spirit Warden while also keeping Terenas Menethil alive. If you are a healer, simply focus on healing Terenas Menethil himself and allow him to deal the needed damage. Regardless of your role, it is crucial that you either interrupt or dispel the Soul Rip that the Spirit Warden will frequently cast on Terenas Menethil. Once the Spirit Warden is defeated, Terenas Menethil will cast Restore Soul on you, returning to the platform to finish the fight against The Lich King. Failing to save Terenas Menethil will result in the players death and The Lich King will gain Harvested Soul, immediately causing a raid wipe.

Lastly, every 30 seconds The Lich King will cast Vile Spirits, summoning 10 Vile Spirits in the air above him. Once the final Vile Spirit is summoned and the cast finishes, your tank must quickly start to move The Lich King across the room away from these spirits. Use any available slows such as Frost Trap and quickly create as much distance as you can between the raid and these spirits before they activate.

Once activated, the Vile Spirits will start chasing after raid members, blowing up with Spirit Burst if they touch anyone. Your raid must properly kite these until they are low enough to the ground that players can touch them. Then you will want to send a Paladin in with Divine Shield to "pop" all of them out of range from the rest of the raid group. This mechanic will repeat every 30 seconds, forcing the raid to constantly reposition back and forth on either side of the platform until The Lich King reaches 10% health.

The final phase, phase 4, starts when The Lich King reaches 10% health, and is technically the end of the fight after the roleplay event plays out entirely. Congratulations on defeating the hardest boss in Wrath of the Lich King!

Phase 4 starts when The Lich King reaches 10% health. While this is technically a new phase, the fight is over at this point, you have finally defeated Arthas.

The Lich King will start this phase off by casting Fury of Frostmourne, instantly killing your entire raid and preventing you from resurrecting or releasing spirit. This will then be followed up by a 3 minute roleplay event between The Lich King, Highlord Tirion Fordring, and Terenas Menethil. At the end of this event, Terenas Menethil will cast Mass Resurrection on the entire raid, bringing everyone back to life. Meanwhile, Highlord Tirion Fordring will permanently stun The Lich King, allowing your raid to freely finish of his last 10% remaining health.

In phase 1, The Lich King will also cast Summon Shadow Trap every 15 seconds on a random player. This player, and anyone nearby, will have 5 seconds to get away from the trap before it activates. If anyone gets anywhere near this trap after it has been activated, they will be thrown off the platform to their death for the rest of the encounter.

In phase 2, the three Val'kyr Shadowguards summoned in will have 3 million health instead of the normal 700k, and will instead drop their grabbed players when they ready 50% health instead of on death. Afterwards, they will fly back to the center of the room and cast Life Siphon, dealing 5,000 Shadow damage to a random target and healing the Val'kyr Shadowguard for 50,000. The 3 Val'kyr Shadowguards will continue this onslaught until they reach full health, meaning it is best to entire stop DPSing each individual Val'kyr Shadowguard after dropping them to 50% health, as any further damage will simply be dealt back to the raid.

In phase 3, The Lich King will use Harvest Souls instead of the previous Harvest Soul. This new version of the spell targets the entire raid, instead of just one player at a time. The entire raid will be stunned during this channel for 6 seconds, and take 24,000 Shadow damage over the same duration. Because of this, it is vital that all remaining Raging Spirits MUST be finished before this spell goes off, or your tank will die.

After the stun wears off, the entire raid will be teleported inside of Frostmourne, rather than just 1 person. The previous Spirit Warden is no longer around, instead the room will be filled by waves of Wicked Spirits that will continually spawn as long as the raid is inside Frostmourne.

These Wicked Spirits will quickly fly towards the raid group, casting Explosion if they reach any player. For this reason, it is best to stay stacked together as a raid and move in a circle on the outside of the room, forcing all of the Wicked Spirits to funnel in one direction. Quickly kill these spirit and prevent any of them from reaching the group.

In addition to stopping the Wicked Spirits from reaching the raid, you must also avoid the same Explosion that will trigger when their dead body touches the ground. For this reason, your raid group must constantly be moving forward and only kill spirits behind you, not in front of you or you will have no room to move.

If any player dies inside Frostmourne, The Lich King will gain a stack of Harvested Soul, increasing his damage dealt by 500%. This is simply a wipe, meaning all players must survive while inside Frostmourne.

If your raid team can survive this 40 second assault, Terenas Menethil will finish casting Restore Soul, and return all players to the starting platform to resume the battle with The Lich King. As soon as you are returned to the platform, The Lich King will cast Defile, requiring you to immediately spread out.

• Summon Drudge Ghouls — Summons three Drudge Ghouls over 3 seconds.
• Summon Shambling Horror — Summons a Shambling Horror.
• Necrotic Plague — Infests the target with a deadly plague, causing 150,000 Shadow damage every 5 seconds for a total of 15 seconds. If the target dies while afflicted or the effect ends, this effect will gain an additional stack, doubling its damage, and jump to a nearby unit. If this effect is dispelled, it will lose a stack and jump to a nearby unit. Whenever this effect jumps, The Lich King's power will increase.
• Plague Siphon — Increases Physical damage dealt by 2%. Stack increases each time Necrotic Plague jumps.
• Infest — Deals 17,672 to 19,828 Shadow damage to all enemy players within 50,000 yards. In addition, the targets will take increasing Shadow damage per second. This effect is removed when the target has more than 90% health.
• Summon Shadow Trap — Summons a Shadow Trap at the feet of a random player, which will knock all nearby players off the platform to their deaths if activated.
• Remorseless Winter — Creates a massive winter storm, dealing 14,138 to 15,862 Frost damage per second to all surrounding enemies within 45 yards.
• Summon Ice Sphere — Frequently summons a Ice Sphere that will slowly move towards the raid. These use Ice Pulse on any nearby targets.
• Pain and Suffering — Deals 7,540 to 8,460 Shadow damage in a cone effect in front of the caster. In addition, the targets will take 1,200 Shadow damage per second for 3 seconds.
• Quake — Sends out underground shockwaves, causing the edge of the platform to crumble.
• Summon Val'kyr — Summons three Val'kyr Shadowguard.
• Soul Reaper — Strikes the target for 50% weapon damage and afflicts the target with Soul Reaper. This effect deals 70,000 Shadow damage after 5 seconds and grants The Lich King Soul Reaper for 5 seconds.
• Defile — Defiles the area under a random target. Any enemies got within this area will be dealt Shadow damage and cause the area to grow. Lasts 30s.
• Harvest Soul — Attempts to harvest the target's soul, dealing 20,000 Shadow damage per second for 6 seconds. If the target is still alive after the channel is completed, the target's soul will be transferred into Frostmourne to be devoured.
• Harvest Souls — Attempts to harvest the soul of all nearby enemies, dealing 4,000 Shadow damage per second until canceled. If a target is still alive after the channel is completed, that target's soul will be transferred into Frostmourne to be devoured.
• Vile Spirits — Creates 10 Vile Spirits which will attack enemies after 30 seconds with Spirit Burst.
• Fury of Frostmourne — Deals 1,000,000 Shadow damage to all enemies and renders them unable to release spirit or resurrect.

• Enrage — Increases Physical damage by 200%.
• Shockwave — Sends a wave of force in front of the caster, causing 150% weapon damage in a 20 yard cone.
• Frenzy — Increases the caster's attack speed by 50% and the Physical damage it deals by 100% for 10 min.

• Soul Shriek — Deals 42,413 to 47,587 Shadow damage to all enemies in a 15 yard cone in front of the caster, silencing them for 5 seconds.

• Ice Pulse — Deals 7,540 to 8,460 Frost damage to all enemies within 5 yards of the target.
• Ice Burst — Deals 28,275 to 31,725 Frost damage to all enemies within 10 yards, knocking them back.

• Wings of the Damned — Unable to be slowed by more than 50%.
• Life Siphon — Deals 4,625 to 5,375 Shadow damage to an enemy target, healing the caster for 10 times the damage dealt.

• Spirit Burst — Sacrifices the caster, dealing 35,100 to 36,900 Shadow damage to all enemies within 5 yards.

• Soul Rip — Deals increasing Shadow damage to your target every second for 8 seconds.
• Dark Hunger — Heals the caster for half of any damage dealt.

Icecrown Citadel bosses have 4 varying difficulties that they can be engaged on, with each difficulty dropping geared tailored to match its' challenges. Below you can find a list of gear dropped on each and every difficulty for this boss encounter.

Item	Type/Slot
Pugius, Fist of Defiance	Main-Hand Fist
Tel'thas, Dagger of the Blood King	Main-Hand Dagger
Valius, Gavel of the Lightbringer	Main-Hand Mace
Stormfury, Black Blade of the Betrayer	One-Hand Dagger
Troggbane, Axe of the Frostborne King	One-Hand Axe
Tainted Twig of Nordrassil	Staff
Warmace of Menethil	Two-Hand Mace
Windrunner's Heartseeker	Crossbow

Item	Type/Slot
Pugius, Fist of Defiance	Main-Hand Fist
Tel'thas, Dagger of the Blood King	Main-Hand Dagger
Valius, Gavel of the Lightbringer	Main-Hand Mace
Stormfury, Black Blade of the Betrayer	One-Hand Dagger
Troggbane, Axe of the Frostborne King	One-Hand Axe
Tainted Twig of Nordrassil	Staff
Warmace of Menethil	Two-Hand Mace
Windrunner's Heartseeker	Crossbow
Conqueror's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token
Protector's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token
Vanquisher's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token

Item	Type/Slot
Bloodsurge, Kel'Thuzad's Blade of Agony	Main-Hand Sword
Royal Scepter of Terenas II	Main-Hand Mace
Havoc's Call, Blade of Lordaeron Kings	One-Hand Axe
Heaven's Fall, Kryss of a Thousand Lies	One-Hand Dagger
Mithrios, Bronzebeard's Legacy	One-Hand Mace
Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas	Staff
Glorenzelg, High-Blade of the Silver Hand	Two-Hand Sword
Oathbinder, Charge of the Ranger-General	Polearm
Fal'inrush, Defender of Quel'thalas	Crossbow
Conqueror's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token
Protector's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token
Vanquisher's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token

Item	Type/Slot
Bloodsurge, Kel'Thuzad's Blade of Agony	Main-Hand Sword
Royal Scepter of Terenas II	Main-Hand Mace
Havoc's Call, Blade of Lordaeron Kings	One-Hand Axe
Heaven's Fall, Kryss of a Thousand Lies	One-Hand Dagger
Mithrios, Bronzebeard's Legacy	One-Hand Mace
Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas	Staff
Glorenzelg, High-Blade of the Silver Hand	Two-Hand Sword
Oathbinder, Charge of the Ranger-General	Polearm
Fal'inrush, Defender of Quel'thalas	Crossbow
Conqueror's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token
Protector's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token
Vanquisher's Mark of Sanctification	Set Token

Achievement	Description
Been Waiting a Long Time for This (10 player)	Allow Necrotic Plague to stack to 30 before defeating the Lich King in 10-player mode.
Been Waiting a Long Time for This (25 player)	Allow Necrotic Plague to stack to 30 before defeating the Lich King in 25-player mode.
Neck-Deep in Vile (10 player)	Kill every Vile Spirit that spawns before it explodes and then defeat the Lich King in 10-player mode.
Neck-Deep in Vile (25 player)	Kill every Vile Spirit that spawns before it explodes and then defeat the Lich King in 25-player mode.
The Frozen Throne (10 player)	Defeat the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel in 10-player mode.
The Frozen Throne (25 player)	Defeat the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel in 25-player mode.
Bane of the Fallen King	Defeat the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel in 10-player Heroic mode.
The Light of Dawn	Defeat the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel in 25-player Heroic mode.

The Lich King is just one of the twelve encounters present in the Icecrown Citadel raid of Wrath of the Lich King. If you would like to learn more about the others, please see our other pages for the raid below.