With the release of patch 3.2 came the new raid Trial of the Crusader and Trial of the Grand Crusader (Heroic). The heroic version is a significant upgrade from the regular version and requires the raiders to be well geared and know the fights inside and out.

I’m the raid leader of our guild and I’ve done a decent amount of research on this fight as well as others and thought I would provide some useful information and links to add to your knowledge so that you might be able to implement them into your runs.

First here are some great links for the basic abilities of each boss as I won’t be going into the detail about every ability:
Downfallguild.org: http://www.downfallguild.org/NorthrendBeasts
Tankspot: http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f206/53693-coliseum-northrend-beasts.html

Gormok the Impaler
On the whole Gormok isn’t too bad. On regular mode, I ask everyone to be sure to spread out to avoid the head cracks from the snobolds (and people around them) and to ensure that no more than one person has a fire thrown at them at any time. Snobolds are taken out on the fly and priority is given to the healers, ranged, then the melee.

A neat trick I found was that if you levitate your ranged and healers, the fire that is thrown at them will disappear and thus they won’t have to move, maximizing their healing and dpsing. I challenge my priests so that they keep levitating people mi-fight so that ideally we would not have any snobolds at all.

We usually have three tanks for this fight and since we have pally tanks they can cleanse impales off of themselves and carry on tanking. This helps especially in heroic mode as it takes a huge burden off of the healers. I have also gone with 5 healers to increase our dps but 6 healers would make it easier given that your raid has an average of 5,000+ dps.

As long as you maintain your dps and if you keep your tanks up, you should have no problem with Gormok, just make sure you get rid of all of the snobolds before engaging the worms.

Acidmaw and Dreadscale
I’m sure every guild has different ways to deal with these two worms, but we usually concentrate on one worm and heal through the enrage of the second worm. Again everyone should stay spread out to avoid getting the toxin or burning bile. Ideally no more than two people should get either unless you’re unfortunate or melee gets it.

The key here is to make sure the raid knows who has either buff so that they can be taken off quickly. The tanks will often get either buff and will need to face the worms to the direction that they will need to run and therefore the raid should be aware of which way they will run.

The Dreadscale tank will need to move periodically as it will drop Slime Pools that will hurt you. Every so often, the worms will burrow and you will need to ensure that you are spread out after they come back up. In addition, you will need to know beforehand, which direction the tanks will be facing the worms after they come back up. Rinse and repeat and you should be able to get the worms down.

Obviously, on heroic mode things won’t be as easy. The toxin ticks every second instead of every two seconds and the burning bile hits 2-3 times harder. As long as everyone is aware of their range and their buffs and the Slime Pools you should do alright.

Icehowl
Icehowl is probably the easiest of the three bosses. On heroic, the only thing you have to worry about is the enrage timer and this will depend on how quick you were able to down the first two sets of bosses. You should still stay spread out for Icehowl as he will artic breath the raid, which will freeze people in place. Mages can blink out of this.

Melee will be knocked back occasionally and there isn’t much you can do about this. The main part of this fight is his massive crash where Icehowl jumps to the middle of the room and knocks the entire raid against the wall. He will then pick out a player and charge them. In normal mode this is a cinch as you will have a speed buff. However on heroic you will need to move in the right direction immediately. Note that you should be using your mouse to move and that the first split second it makes you run towards Icehowl, be sure to click again so that you are facing the direction you want to be running.

Once Icehowl hits the wall and doesn’t hit anyone, he will stun himself and this is usually when we blow hero. If he hits someone and enrages you can tranq shot him in normal but not in heroic. Rinse and repeat and you’ll have him down. Congratulations on the kill!

Tags: acidmaw, dreadscale, gormok, icehowl, northrend beasts, Raid Leading, snobolds, The Wrath of the Lich King, trial of the crusader, trial of the grand crusader, World of Warcraft, WoW, WoW Gold Guides | Category Raid Leading