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This is the best video explanation of Professor Putricide I have come across, filmed by the team at WoW.com they have full explanations running as subtitles throughout the whole video.  Since so many people seem to be getting stuck on this fight in ICC I think this video really is worth a watch.  Yes you can find alot of videos on youtube about the Professor, but non of them are this quality or have the running subtitles to explain whats going on in such detail.  So, for your learn experience, Professor Putricide, enjoy.

The Devil is in the details when it comes to end game content, more so now than ever with ICC fully open.  I get asked alot, what Gear Score do I need to raid ICC?  Sadly the question does not have a simple answer at all, its all about the details that gear score doesn’t cover or take into account.  You see,  to start off, I recommend a GS of 5000, but I can stand two DPS next to each other, same class, race  and watch one pump out 5k dps while the other does 3.5k.  I have seen it many times before and the lower dps is like…WTF what am I doing wrong?

• Know your Class and Spec – When I started raiding with my death knight I was always impressed by a fellow guildie who was hitting 1k dps higher than me at all times. I would check his gear and stats and we both ran the same build and never really got it untill I started really searching on my hit rotations.  BAM!  It hit me hard when I found out half the spells and junk I used was actually dragging down my DPS.  I realized that my total hit rotation only needed to be about 3 keys. Blood Strike, Plague Strike, Death Strike…spam repeat.  Wait, it can’t be that simple can it?  Yes, it really is. Don’t over complicate your DPS, know what your heaviest hitting spells and attacks are, stick to them like they are written in stone.  You may have lots of fancy spells, attacks and abilites you can use, but how much to they contribute to your total DPS?  I advised a warrior to stop using his thunderclap and demorializing shouts on boss fights because in the time it takes him to throw those shouts, he could have popped off another mortal strike for bigger dps.
• Hit Cap -  This is something I notice a lot on DPS all the time.  They come into ICC talking about how they pull 6k DPS on mobs easy, raid starts, clear trash, get to the boss and their dps shows at 3k… So were they full of it?  NO, mobs are 80, raid bosses though are not, they are a 83 Elite.  You may have enough hit ratting to never miss a trash mob but when it comes to that boss, your coming up to bat with a big swing and a miss.   Research your class and know what the hit cap is for your character, I don’t care if you have to switch out Crit or Haste gem with a hit ratting, because your haste and crit do you no good if you can’t hit your target.
• Armor Penetration- If you have hit cap on your character and you know how to DPS, its time to stack your Armor Penetration.  Its a new stat added in Lich King that alot of people still don’t fully understand it, but the basic rundown is how much of a targets armor you ignore.  The more armor pen = how much armor you ignore on hit = more damage delt to target.
• Gem for Success – Once again, know your class and what stat you need to succeed, and not just in terms of DPS. For my disc priest, its not just about stacking intelligence and crit.  Yes big heals are great, but for me personaly, I stack haste.  I prefer to cast my heals fast and often compared to big slow heals.  When you heal raids, being able to heal multiple targets very quickly can prevent a wipe.  When it comes to DPS, do you know which gems help your class and spec the most?  My death knight stacks strength and armor pen, once I met my hit cap and got my expertise to a place I like.  Also..I don’t know if I even need to bring this up, but if your not fully socket with northrend epic gems, you just flat out fail.  What are you waiting for?  ICC is it!   Stop waiting for your next piece upgrade for that epic gem, spend the gold you cheap bastard.
• Enchant Everything – Do I really need to say more about this?  Stop being cheap and waiting.  If you plan to raid ICC you better have everything enchanted head to foot.  Buying the best enchants for each piece makes a huge difference.  From the added spell power or attack power on your weapon to the strength, agility, stamina, what every is best for your character, stack it.  Every piece on my DK is for added strength, my priest, spell power, if your a hunter, go pure agility.  Let your gems and gear stats take care of your hit and armor pen, but try to keep your enchants based off of your main stat.
• Bonus Enchants – Bonus enchants you say?  This is the big one people.  Do you have exalted with Sons of Hodir?  You should, you need that exalted shoulder enchant for bonus spell power or attack power.  You need to get the head enchant from Ebon Blade for attack power or Kirin Tor for spell power.  Have you added on epic leg armor?  You need it, spend the gold and do it.

• Flasks – Once again, its not the time to be cheap, hopefully you have a good raid that keeps a bank tab full of flasks for raiding parties, but if not, then you need to get a few flasks and keep them up during the entire raid.

Last but not least, don’t think for a second that ICC is the only raid that you can run anymore.  There is a lot of value to running Naxx, Ulduar, TOC, even the dragons of Northrend.  Get that time in, gain the raid experience and use it as a way to build your skills.  ICC is not the time to be trying out a new spec, or a new rotation, its game day so show up with your A game ready and remember gear score is only a starting point, without everything else I covered above, your not ready.

The following is a repost of an article from Dominate Your Server.com I thought I would share this because hit rating can be a bit confusing sometimes.

Hit Rating For Spells And Mages Explained

Posted on February 9th, 2010 by Lawbringer
There really isn’t an easy way to completely understand hit rating.  There are so many variables involved when it comes to talents, abilities, resistances, and the fact that Blizz has a tendency to change their mind from time to time (such as making all hit rating just plain hit rating instead of both mele and spell hit rating, whew!)

But since you are probably looking for spell hit rating we’ll just leave it at that and separate out the different classes so that you can find what you need without having to root through some huge table (if you can even find one that makes sense).

So here we go with Mage Hit rating and caps.  To keep thing simple we’ll just go straight for the kill shot and not go into some tedious explanation of combat ratings and all that other what-not.  So here goes.

In order to maximize your DPS you need to get hit capped before you worry about anything else.  For every 26.232 hit rating you will gain 1% DPS.  There is simply no other stat that matters more until you hit the cap.  Once you ARE hit capped, more is worthless and then spell power (up to about 4k spell power for mages) haste and crit become more valuable.  Be sure to see our post on Making Gear Decisions For Your Toon.

So now that you know you must be hit capped to maximize your DPS,  we need to talk about what the heck the hit cap is.  You’ll hear two terms when people talk about the hit cap.  One is the hard cap, the other is a so-called soft cap.  The hard cap means that you have reached a point where more hit is worthless, the soft cap is a term used for abilities past which point have diminishing returns.  There is no such thing as a soft cap for hit rating.  You are either at the hard cap, or you are not capped and need to get there.

The absolute hard cap for hit is 446 Hit Rating = 17% in the tooltip

The hard cap represents the amount of hit necessary to ensure that you never miss.  That means the hard cap is a 100% chance to hit any and every mob in the game.  It may not seem like a big deal to have a 1% chance to miss, but if you miss on a big, fat Arcane Blast for 15K it will seriously erode your DPS in a big, fat hurry.  Now let’s talk how to hit the hard cap without having to get to 446 hit rating from gear and gems.

We’ll start at the top and work our way down.  For every one of these things you have available, your hard hit cap for spell hit drops to the next number down.  Just find yourself in the list and you’ll know how much hit you need to have to be hit capped and never miss.  Keep in mind that anything that adds +% chance to hit does not necessarily show up in the tooltip (like +17%), so the hit rating is a much better way of looking at things.

• Dranei or Dranei in Party – Hit Cap = 420

• Mage with Precision OR Arcane Focus – Hit Cap = 368

• Dranei or Dranei in Party Mage with Precision OR Arcane Focus – Hit Cap = 342

• Arcane Mage with Precision AND Arcane Focus – Hit Cap = 289

• Dranei or Dranei in Party Arcane Mage with Precision AND Arcane Focus – Hit Cap = 263

There are a few levels past this if you do a lot of 25 man raids, or have just the right combination in your ten mans.  If you always run with a druid that uses improved faerie fire or a shadow priest using misery you can get by with just 210 hit rating.  And if you happen to be a Dranei or have both a Dranei AND SP/ImpFf in your raid you can do as little as 184 and be capped.

Keep in mind that heroic Presence is party only, so folks may be fighting to get the Dranei in their group, meaning you might not always be able to count on this buff – plus it’s a 30 yard range so on fights with a lot of movement you may be out of range for it from time to time.  Your best bet is to stick with the absolute cap of 289 unless you ARE a Dranei (in which case you will always be in your party and can’t get out of range without some wicked bipolar debuff) in which case you can always be safe with a hit rating of 263.

The bottom line is this.  If you are an arcane mage your basic hit cap is 289.  If you are a Dranei or always party with a Dranei your basic hit cap is 263.  Everything else is just gravy.  Now, the more gravy you get, the more hit rating you can drop in favor of other stats.  But the reality is that it’s much harder to balance staying just barely above the cap than it is to find a bunch of gear without hit on it.  It can be tough to get hit capped when you first hit 80, but later on you’ll be looking for nearly every chance you can find to dump hit for spell power or haste or just about anything else.

One more factor to consider, however is that many bosses will have a certain amount of resistance to one or multiple schools of magic.  In the end the balancing act can be almost impossible to hit precisely between just enough hit to overcome both the regular combat hit rating and any resistances a boss might have.  It’s not a bad idea to just go for 289 as a mage and anything above that is going to overcome a certain amount of resistances that might be present.  But it would probably not be a great idea to carry around a hit rating of 350 at the expense of spell power or something else.  You can get anal retentive about it if you wish and figure it out for every boss, but only if you have a lot of time to kill.

So there is hit rating for mages made simple.  If you are arcane, your goal is 289 add in Dranei and it’s 263.  Once you get hit capped it’s far better to try to stay as close to 289 or 263 as you can (and still be over) and then use the Simcraft Engine to figure out what else you should be stacking and how much.  The less hit you can get away with and still be over the cap, the more of those other DPS stats you can stack which will really bring your DPS up to Domination levels.

Thanks to Wow.com for this video of the new Toxic Wasteling Pet, not to be confused with the Disgusting Oozeling Pet.  The toxic wasteling pet is an all new vanity pet added this year for the Love is in the Air holiday in Warcraft and is a random drop from the new boss Apothecary Hummel who has taking up residence in Shadowfang Keep for the duration of the holiday.   For more info on the boss and how to beat him, along with all his loot drops check out our posting on him, Love is in the air again! Oh and be sure not to let your Wasteling feed, or you might just get the results you see in the video…

Love is in the air again in the World of Warcraft, and that means tons of achievements to be had by all, not to mention some fat lewts by the seasonal boss Apothecary Hummel who has taken up residence inside of Shadowfang Keep in Tristfall Glades. Closest road there is to take the flight path to Southshore and hang a left on the road till you get there. No worries though because the summoning stone is up and running for all levels for the duration of the Holiday.

This boss is a new boss this year and is a standard heroic level 82 elite boss.  I pugged a group in minutes, and once was there grabed the daily quest to kill him from the goblin inside the instance. Killing him will get you the holiday achievement Tough Love.  He asks you to serve Court Subpoena to the boss and gives you a package containing said subpena along with two potions, Perfume Neutralizer, Cologne Neutralizer, both of which you use during the fight to stop the poison damage.  Other than poping the potions to stop the AOE damage, there is a bit of crowd control for the adds but they aren’t tough.  Mostly its a tank and spank and I had no trouble healing it, just make sure to keep your hots up incase someone in group forgets to pop their potion on time because the poisons will tick off some heavy damage.  The following is the loot list…even a super epic new Flying Mount!

Apothecary Hummel drops epic quality (item level 226) amulets which are the equivalent of Wrath of the Lich King’s second tier Emblem of Conquest neckpieces.

• Winking Eye of Love (Frozen Tear of Elune)
• Heartbreak Charm (Evoker’s Charm)
• Shard of Pirouetting Happiness (Shard of the Crystal Forest)
• Sweet Perfume Broach (Broach of the Wailing Night)
• Choker of the Pure Heart (Spiked Battleguard Choker)

Apothecary Hummel also drops some fun seasonal items, including a fancy rose for your character’s hair, a gas mask (YES!), a non-combat oozeling companion, and an item so powerful it can break your heart!

• Forever-Lovely Rose
• Vile Fumigator’s Mask
• Toxic Wasteling
• The Heartbreaker

As if those things were cool enough, Apothecary Hummel also has an extremely low chance to drop the most stylish flying mount ever – the Big Love Rocket! Nah..no innuendo there…

So get out there, down that boss and have fun with the holiday.  Oh and send me any screenshots if you manage to get the new mount, I’ll post it on the site and give your credit for your epic win!  Ronne@worldofweirdcraft.net

Valithria Dreamwalker is the first boss in the Frostwing Halls of Icecrown Citadel.

She is a green dragon captured by the Scourge, likely used in experiments to reproduce the Emerald Nightmare effect.

Overview

Valithria is, in some ways, a very unique encounter. Unlike other bosses, Valithria needs to be healed from her starting 50% health to full, while continuous waves of adds assault her and the raid. Taking extra healers might seem like a lucrative option here, but considering how many adds will come, you are better off playing it safe and not sacrificing your DPS.

Two tanks are enough for this fight – one to the left, one to the right. There are five types of adds that will need to be taken care of – Risen Archmages, Blazing Skeletons, Suppressors, Blistering Zombies, and Gluttonous Abominations. In short, the Archmages will slow your melee with Frostbolt Volley, and annoy your healers with Mana Voids that burn mana and thus need to be avoided. The Blazing Skeletons can activate Lay Waste fire aura and use Fireball – they are high on the to-kill priority list, as Lay Waste will passively damage Valithria. The packs of Suppressors that come need to be AoE’d quickly too – they will channel Suppression, which reduces the healing taken by their target (Valithria) by 10% per application. Blistering Zombies are, unfortunately, another type of mobs you should kill quickly – both Corrosion and Acid Burst can do quite a bit of damage, some of which AoE. The Gluttonous Abominations and their Gut Spray are not too dangerous, and can usually be left out for a little while as long as they have a tank on them. They spawn Rot Worms upon death, which should also be tanked and quickly AoE’d.

Valithria will be able to help you a little during the fight. Every so often she will open 2(?) (6 on 25-player) portals to the Emerald Dream. Players who enter them will find Nightmare Clouds surrounding them. Killing a Nightmare Cloud grants Emerald Vigor to players nearby, which increases their damage, healing, and mana regeneration. It also phases them back to the room with Valithria. Both DPS and Healers will need to take those, lest your raid gets overwhelmed by adds, or stuck with the healing.

Valithria Dreamwalker Abilities

• Summon Nightmare Portal – Summons a number of (NPC #38429). Players that take the portals will be phased out of the room, and enter the Emerald Dream.
• Nightmare Clouds – Killing a Dream Cloud inside the Emerald Dream grants Emerald Vigor to nearby players and phases them out of the Dream.
• Emerald Vigor – Regenerates 200 mana per 3 seconds, and increases damage and healing by 10%. Lasts 35 seconds.
• Dreamwalker’s Rage – Inflicts 10,000,000 damage to all enemies. Used by Valithria when she is fully healed, and marks the encounter as over.

Sindragosa is the second boss in the Frostwing Halls of Icecrown Citadel.

Sindragosa was Malygos’ last consort from the time before his madness and the devastation of the Blue Dragonflight. When Neltharion betrayed the other Dragonflights and decimated the Blues, Sindragosa was separated from Malygos, and sent far into the frozen north, where her last thoughts were ones of anger, hatred, and revenge. When she was recently raised by the Lich King, she became one of his most fearsome servants.

Overview

The main tank begins the fight by positioning Sindragosa so she faces the south end of her platform. Any direction would serve, but south makes it easy for the raid to keep their sense of orientation. Everybody other than the tank should be on one side – either east or west. Stacking is not necessary, but people will need to watch out for the obligatory Tail Swipes and Cleaves.

Sindragosa will spend most of the fight in Phase 1, during which she will remain on the ground. Her Frost Aura will damage the entire raid, and her Frost Breath will hit the tank hard, reducing his or her attack speed by 50%, and movement speed by 15% – stacking. Casters will need to beware of Unchained Magic – a debuff that causes them to take damage over time for every spell they cast while the debuff is up. Melee and hunters have another thing to watch out for – Permeating Chill. Every successful physical attack they land on Sindragosa will have 20% chance to DoT them for 1,000 Frost damage every 2 seconds for 8 seconds (stacking). Tanks will probably want to stop attacking for a few seconds if the debuff starts stacking too high.

The raid-wipe mechanic in this phase is Blistering Cold. Occasionally while she is on land, Sindragosa will pull the entire raid next to her and start the 5-second cast of Blistering Cold. The spell does very high amount of Frost damage, so everybody should run out of its 25-yards range. The tank can either stay and eat it, or run away and charge back in after the cast is over.

First cast will be at 85%, and every 1:50 minutes after that, Sindragosa will lift off in the air and enter Phase 2. During this phase she will target 2 (25-player: 5) players and imprison them and anyone nearby in frost tombs. It is recommended to have the marked players run in the middle of the platform until they get hit, while everybody else goes to the outskirts, stacking. Sindragosa will fire 4 Frost Bombs in this phase, each one doing a lot of Frost damage. A mark on the ground will indicate where the Bomb is going to fall. Players not frozen should run to the middle and use the tombs to break line of sight with the bomb location, while breaking the tombs through damage. It is important not to break all the tombs before the 4th bomb, as the raid will take a lot of damage.

As soon as the 4th bomb drops, Sindragosa will land and re-enter Phase 1. At 30%, Sindragosa will start casting Mystic Buffet, a raid-wide debuff that stacks and increases magic damage taken – this stack works as a soft enrage mechanic as if it is allowed to stack too high the damage will be too difficult to heal through. She will also being to imprison random people in ice tombs – have those people run somewhere close enough, where they won’t chain anyone else with the Ice Tomb. Players can use the ice tombs to break line of sight with the boss and let the debuff drop (much like Forgemaster Garfrost), but the fight is a dangerous DPS race from this point on. Defensive and healing cooldowns should be used in this phase, specifically before a Frost Breath when the tank has accumulated several stacks of the Buffet. If you have a second tank and DPS seems low, you can let the fresh, stackless tank pick up the boss, while the new one runs behind an Ice Tomb. Sindragosa will not fly off after her health has reached 30%.

Toravon the Ice Watcher is an Ice giant boss, located in an eastern wing of the Vault of Archavon. He is only accessible if your faction controls Wintergrasp.

Overview

Toravon, much like the other bosses here, is mostly a DPS race while managing to kill his adds.

Occasionally Toravon will apply a stacking debuff to the tank which deals damage over time to the tank and also snares him. You will want to have a second tank to switch off with back and forth to deal with the debuff.

Every so often a tiny ring will appear on the floor, you must move away as adds will spawn that deal AoE frost damage. These adds must also be killed as quickly as possible.

Each wave of adds that spawns Toravon will cast Whiteout which will apply a stacking debuff that increases frost damage to the player by 25%. This acts as a soft enrage timer much like Koralon the Flame Watcher’s stacking damage buff.