Have you been wondering amidst all of this Cataclysm talk “Hey wait a minute… what about the Lich King?” Well the Dungeons and Raids panel finally gave us what we were have been looking forward to: the attack on Icecrown Citadel. And from what they described this is going to be one heck of a fight. There will be the 10-25 man raid against the Lich King, but there will also be three 5-man dungeons for players to go through. Each of these dungeons can be unlocked by doing an epicquestline that will lead you through each of the dungeons.

But the main event will be interesting as to get to the top of the citadel, you will have to race against the opposite faction. In this battle, you will have to defend your zeppelin as well aslaunch attacks on the opposing faction’s zeppelin with the use of rocket packs. If your faction manages to beat the other to the top, you will have access to the raid instance. Once insideIcecrown Citadel, you will be forced to battle 12 different bosses to defeat as you work your way up to the fourth and highest floor of the Citadel whereArthas resides. Blizzard promises that this will be one hell of a battle, and to give us a taste of what to expect they revealed that parts of the platform thatArthas is on will crumble and fall down, and if you fall with one of those pieces it could be very very bad for you.

Abyssal Maw

But along with Icecrown Citadel, we got to hear a little bit about the new dungeons and raids that will be coming in Cataclysm. There will be four new raids (GrimBatol, Skywall, The Firelands, Blackwing Descent), six new dungeons (Grim Batol, Uldum, Deepholme, Skywall, Abyssal Maw, Blackrock Caverns), and two revamped old world dungeons (Deadmines, Shadowfang Keep). With each of these we were treated to the maps of each of them as well as quick preview videos of some of the areas of these new dungeons and raids. One of the more beautiful ones so far in my opinion is the Abyssal Maw which is in the sunken city ofVashj’ir. The brighter colors combined with windows that look out into the ocean around it make it for one beautiful looking instance.

The revamped Onyxia raid for WoW’s 5th anniversary was also touched on, but not much new info was provided. The fight will be similar, and we will still need more DOTs for fighting the brood mother. Blizzard did mention that the 310 speed mount that will drop from the instance will be a “very rare drop,” so make sure your guild is ready for many, many runs before this mount drops. This will also, along with the updated tier armor that one could receive from the originalOnyxia raid, should prove to be the brunt of many ninja looters and loot QQ.

These revamped dungeons and the Onyxia raid are quite an interesting concept, and I’m sure that there are some players who are looking forward to going up against these super charged old world bosses. I was actually able to get a preview of one of them during the LiveWoW Raid that happened on day two of Blizzcon. Top rated raiding guild Premonition (US-Sen’jin) went up against a custom raid that was crafted just for Blizzcon which featured teams of bosses. After defeating Thaddius, Anub’Rehkan and Patchwerk, they moved onto a new area with a lone opponent standing in the middle. It was none other than everyone’s favorite nostalgia boss Hogger. But this Hogger was different from what we originally knew, as this was the beefed up version for the new Heroic Deadmines. So when one of the members went up and shot at Hogger, he stood no chance and was immediately one-shotted. After rezzing, the entire group went to chalenge Hogger and a wipe ensued to the cheers and laughter of the audience. I guess we can no longer joke around about the “LFM Hogger raid!” in trade chat.