World of Warcraft Wednesday: Icecrown
Places of Interest
Icecrown Citadel
The Argent Tournament
Crusader’s Pinacle
Death’s Rise
The Shadow Vault
Argent Vanguard
The Skybreaker
Orgrim’s Hammer
Ah Icecrown. It’s the zone that pretty much everything in Northrend leads you up to, and it plops you right at the gates of Icecrown Citadel, the home of the Lich King himself. Only…That’s pretty much it right now. As of this writing, the Citadel instance hasn’t been patched in, and most of the quests in the zone just stop dead once you get here.
That’s not to say it’s not worth going through, even though you’ll already be 80 by the time you get here. There are a lot of awesome questlines in the zone, including some fun group quests, the Argent Tournament dailies (which are huge money for not a lot of effort), and a number of really interesting character development quests, including one that really gives you a feel for Arthas’ story, and another which takes you on a tour of every continent in WoW trying to find a cure for the Scourge.
Mining: Saronite, Titanium. There are a handful of regularily occurring Titanium nodes in Icecrown that should be mined whenever you see them. Otherwise, Saronite is all over the damn place, and is pretty easy to come by. With a flying mount and a little time, you’ll be up to your ears in Saronite every time you pass through Icecrown.
Herbalism: Lichbloom, Icethorn, Frost Lotus. Great selling herbs, but a lot of them are in awkward places. They’ll put a Lichbloom node right in the path of Chillmaw, or in the middle of twenty elite scourge, or other inconvenient places. Still, it’s as good a place as any to pick up herbs for your flask brewing.
Cloth: Frostweave. Just about every damn mob north of the Wrath Gate drops Frostweave, and in fairly large amounts. Just doing the Argent Tournament dailies, you’ll probably pick up a stack of the stuff. It’s a great place to grind it out if you don’t mind facing higher level mobs to get it.
Leather: Borean Leather, Nerubian Chitin, Arctic Fur. Nerubian Chitin is at a premium a bit, because Icecrown and the instance Azjol-Nerub are the only places you can farm it. So definitely pick it up if you’re farming and in the area, as you’ll probably need some for leatherwork, or can sell it for a pretty good price in the auction house.
Icecrown is a zone that feels suitably epic. It looks great, it’s crawling with mobs (as you’d expect), and some of the quest lines are really rewarding. But it’s also the most incomplete zone in the game. When you get to the end of the dailies, and you’re *just* about to take the last step to attack Arthas or reclaim Scourgeholm, or fend off the Vykrul, then the quest line ends and you’re left in limbo. Now that’s all going to be fixed in a patch in a few months, when they roll out Arthas and crew, of course, but doing it right now it feels empty, and that’s too bad, because later this year, Icecrown is going to be pretty damn cool.