Getting Ready for Icecrown Citadel
The next patch is bringing with it some exciting new content that many people will be eager to try out. The new 5-man dungeons, for example, will offer players item level 232 loot when set to heroic mode and all instances will drop Emblem of Triumph rather than the current Emblem of Conquest. Of course, the new instances will be much harder than any others currently available in game, and it is expected that people will be at least Ulduar geared (in item level 219 and 226 armor and weapons) before attempting the heroics. Some of the encounters will also require more skill than previous heroics, with lots of movement, dispelling, crowd control and quick reaction times necessary.
The new raid at Icecrown Citadel will offer players the chance to defeat the Lich King once and for all, and grab some awesome items along the way. The 10-man version will offer item level 251, with the 25-man offering items at 264 level, the 10-man heroic will offer 264 heroic gear and the 25-man heroic will contain items with a mind-boggling 277 gear level. There will also be some new patterns available for crafters at the 264 item level which no doubt will be comparable to the 245 patterns available from Trial of the Crusader at the moment. With such a large jump between item levels though, it is pretty clear that guilds and individuals wishing to run Icecrown Citadel will need to be very well geared. Since the 10-man version offers loot with an item level between that of 10-man and 25-man heroic Trial of the Crusader, it is assumed that will also be an indicator of difficulty. So basically if you can’t do TotGC10 and at least some of TotGC25, you are not ready for Icecrown.
Sorting out your gear
The first thing to weigh up is whether you are ready in terms of gear. A simple way to work this out is to look at your average item level. If you are just getting by in Trial of the Crusader 25 and Onyxia 25 with 232 gear and one or two pieces of 245 bought with Emblem of Triumph, you are not ready. If you are below even this level you will have a very long way to go before you can set foot in Icecrown. You will need to get all the 245 gear you can from TotC25 as well as buy all of the 245 items for triumph and get trophies for the higher tier 9 set, which can all take some time. Vault of Archavon 25 offers two pieces of the 245 tier 9 from Koralon (the gloves and legs), but as this is randomly dropped you may need to make quite a few trips to get what you need.
If you have most or all 245 gear and a couple 232 you will probably be able to just about scrape through in 10-man where you can bag some 251 gear to move on with. Bear in mind though that Blizzard will be moving to a more straight forward upgrade path in the new patch for tier items too. Possibly to avoid the situation where everyone is able to get their hands on tier without raiding, Blizzard are adding a strict upgrade policy where you will have to already own and be able to hand in the previous tier piece along with a token acquired from a raid in order to purchase the new piece of upgraded tier. For example, if you want the T10 gloves you will need the token for them as well as the high level T9 gloves (possibly the 245 version) to hand in. If you already have drops from TotGC25 at 258 item level you will probably be alright in the 10-man and 25-man normal versions of Icecrown, but will still need to farm gear from there to progress to the heroic modes.
Player Ability
In terms of skill, Icecrown Citadel will more than likely feature much harder content than any previous raid in Wrath of the Lich King. If your guild has trouble with encounters that require lots of movement and players that can think on their own you will probably struggle. Blizzard has also hinted that they may be bringing back more fights that require the use of crowd control (CC) like the champions in Trial of the Crusader as this is one thing that has largely been missing from WotLK, so you will need to get your CC classes dusting off their macros and practicing for this now.
Icecrown Citadel will certainly offer new and interesting content to put players to the test and putting in the effort now will help you to be ready for it when it arrives. Make sure you also read up on the class changes in the patch notes (they are published already) to ensure you don’t get caught out by a class change you didn’t notice.
Another way to prepare for Icecrown Citadel is to look into Joana's Guide. I know he will have all the information you will need.
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