Here we share the tips to prepare and gear up for the ICC raid in WoW WotLK Classic Phase 4!

WoW WotLK Classic Phase 4 Gearing & Prep Guide for ICC Raid

In order to maximize your performance in Icecrown Citadel, follow the five-step guide from NOHITJEROME. It covers everything from farming the 277 Ashen Verdict rep ring on day one, completing your Guild's First Shadow War quest line, to killing the heroic Lich King in week one. With proper planning and execution, you can approach the raid as a professional player and achieve great results.

1. Gear Stack Up

The first step to play like a pro player is to stack up like a pro player. One underrated thing all the pros do is to actually expect to receive gear on the first raid night, you should have every relevant Enchanting Vellum (such as Enchant Chest, Enchant Weapon) and Epic Gem (Portable Hole) already set up in your inventory. That way you can immediately kid out new upgrades as you receive them. On Rob's face heroic, your key healer could be getting a 277 item level Trauma to replace a 258 ToC weapon. Also while we talk about consumes, we need to talk about Serenite Bombs and Sappers as well. The DPS checks in this raid are really tight and in fights like Blood Queen using sappers and bombs on CD can be the difference between success and failure. Rounding out the list, all the pro players that play Horde will be using Scourge Bane drafts and infusions to make hitting damage checks that much easier, you can easily farm these in Tranquiline

2. The ICC Raid Tools

The second step to playing like a pro player is to have the tools of a pro player. The biggest Icecrown Citadel tool all the pros are using is the FOJJI WA. The timers for every mechanic are basically perfect and it has a billion overpowered features. For example, there's a giant Crosshair that makes it basically impossible to mess up the ice blocks. Whether private cars should exist in the first place is another question entirely but if your guild has it it makes a big difference in every aspect of the raid, Pro players are paying for it. But if you want to be a pro on a budget, the Tems Free ICC WeakAura Pack will have most of these features and you don't have to pay a cent.

3. ICC Gear Strategy

All pro players going into Phase 4 will have a gear strategy - exactly how you plan the first 48 hours before ICC launches is the crucial first step. If you're missing any key item like Flare of the Heavens, you have to spam random dungeon finder as hard as you can until you get the required Defiler Scourge Stones if you're planning on getting any early BoE pieces like legs or boots, you should also farm Primordial Seranite for 12 Defiler Scourge Stones each. Either way, you'll be likely putting in more than 10 to 15 hours per day, since on the PTR there was no limit to how many random dungeons you could do. Also, every Pro is hitting that daily heroic quest for two emblems of frost plus the Satchel of three more. You'll also be seeing dedicated raid groups just to complete the weekly raid quest for five Emblems of Frost. Don't forget as well that the week after launch, you'll see lots of Vault of Archavon groups, that's because Vault of Archavon 10 man drops 251 tier and 25 man drops 264 gear. If you get lucky and get a piece, it'll save you so many Emblems.

4. Plan your 10-man groups

Another thing Pros will be doing is planning their 10-man group. No Pro Player is pugging their 10-man, the gear is just too necessary and valuable for 25-man success, that being said a lot of Pro players will be trash-farming 10-man in between heroic 25 attempts. Getting a 277 ring early is going to be the difference maker on fights like a future side with insanely tight DPS checks. Every Pro player in Guild has an exact idea of how they prioritize gear throughout the phase giving Deathbringer will to the right player early on it is the difference between getting that blood Queen DPS check and wiping for the 20th time. Tier priority is also known in advance for top players. If you have an insane set bonus like Ret Paladin, you're going to be prioritized early on. Remember that you do have to buy the 251 pieces with emblems no matter what. You'll only be able to farm 104 emblems the first week, so two sets will be far more important than the four sets for progression, even if the set bonus is awesome like for Resto Druid. Although it sounds weird at first, you'll see top kills funneling both the 264 and the 277 tokens to one player that's because you have to have a 264 piece of gear to upgrade to 277 anyway.

5. Review Your Raid Strategy

The fifth and most important thing Pro players are doing with their guilds is planning raid strategies. Even the top guilds have limited time to play since all of us are 30 now and we have to make the most of our raid nights. Even with the limited time we still highly recommend doing three nights of rating the first week, that's because you can get more boes in 277 Rings during the off nights. The first night it makes sense to do the easy and non-DPS check heroic fights like gunship and fester gut. Then you should delay fights like Putride and Blood Queen until the second night, that means you can fit in 10 mans to get gear to make the DPS checks trivial. Then on night three, you can finally get 4 or 5 hours of heroic Lich King progression.

But killing the Lich King will be next to impossible without these essential tips to maximize your DPS and your performance.