Plagueworks Trash!

Trash.
From the grey items that clutter your bagspace and the annoying trolls in Trade to the waves of monsters that are there just to fill the empty space….  The unavoidable part of WoW.
Alas, Blizzard is full of surprises!

Wrath of the Lich King trash has been evolving slowly throughout the patches.
Ulduar introduced few trash mobs in between bosses that were either numerous and easy (but annoying. Hodir and Freya trash, anyone?) to deal with or had an interesting mechanic that was always more of a “breath of fresh air” than an actual challenge. Most of it was just filed under the “Super-happy-AoE-fun-time” section and then forgotten until it respawned next week.
Trial of the Crusader had no trash at all! It was just boss after boss after boss after boss.. and some people were content, while some complained that it didn’t feel like an actual raid. For me, it was a nice, quick way to earn Triumph emblems without wasting bullets on waves of generic trash.
And then the gates of Icecrown Citadel opened! Right off the bat we were fighting hordes of skeletal monstrosities, necromancers, huge spiders and what not. There were traps that spawned huge skeletal abominations and rogues were happy, because they finally brought some utility to the raid. It was interesting the first couple of times but it always ended up being a hige AoE grindfest. <_<

Plagueworks is like Naxxramas Plague Quarter on crack. The wings itself opens with Frogger 3.0 = this time in the form of a series of steam/freezing vents that you have to avoid if you value your life. The good news, everyone, is that once you pass them you unlock the convenient teleporting device and you won’t have to worry about this challenge ever again (I lied. You’ll have to do it every week). The first thing that you see after crossing the steam is the Spire on which the Frozen Throne is located. The scene was breathtaking. There are Val’kyrs flying all over the place giving the place a very haunting, yet serene feel to it……
UNTIL ONE OF THEM DECIDES TO ATTACK YOU!!!
Seriously, it’s all of a sudden. The spirit flying lady is doing her business and then all of a sudden she is smiting people and creating spirit clones of your raid members that will attack you without any remorse. You kill her and then to the left there are two abominations. At first they seem like just an ordinary pair of abominations, but watch out because that’s no ordinary pair of abominations! They seem far enough to be tanked and spanked separately but then shit hits the fan and your raid gets swarmed by thousands of your favorite leper geists. There are tons of them and they appear out of nowhere. Oh, and also there’s a couple of Plague Scientists that wear awesome looking gasmasks and polymorph people into little oozes. It’s adorable to watch raid members jump around in that form. ;3
After you clear that madness there are some more Plague Scientists that just seem to die in seconds without doing anything interesting.
Then you face Precious and Stinky. Remember our favorite patchwerk puppy – Gluth? Well we get to meet his friends.
Precious is first. Say hello to your tanking getting stacks of mortal wounds faster than they can say “Ouch!!!”, a devastating Decimate that gets you down to.. well.. almost not HP. Oh, and there are zombies. For some reason we got like a hundred of them and they wouldn’t stop spawning so we had to put down the dog as soon as possible. She’s got like 3 million health. Good news, everyone, she doesn’t eat the zombies and does not regain health.
Stinky we killed second because he smells funny. No zombies here but Mortal Wounds are an issue, combined with the constant pulsing AoE that Stinky does. It hits for 2k, which is not a lot, but combine it with Decimate and you’ll see your raiders go down faster than one of my guildies’ girlfriend. ;D
The path to Rotface is covered it traps. Rogues get to play Minesweeper again and can disarm a series of traps that spawn geists (conveniently jumping above you).

Now, my description of the Plagueswork trash may seem very.. chaotic.. and hectic. And it is! The entire floor is tons of fun, with waves of zombies and geists hiding behind every corner. The trash is so well done that it just brings a big smile to my face. The last time I was that excited and laughed manically on vent was when I did Arena for the first time after bashing it for so long. It still requires a lot of coordination and even though AoE is still used to kill trash, it is actually far more rewarding after the dreaded (not by me) AoE nerf. I’d say, even if you are a casual – try to pug ICC 10 just to reach the Plagueworks. After all the seriousness of the first floor, the chilling music, clatter of bones, the creepy speech given by Lady Deathwhisper and Deathbringer Saurfang’s sad demise, the Plagueworks is there to lift your spirits as you trample over the forces of the Scourge!

Keep your feet on the ground!