Blood Prince Council Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

• Ranged DPS must spread out properly to prevent Shock Vortex from knocking back multiple players.
• Ranged DPS should try to always keep an eye on any nearby Kinetic Bombs that are getting close to the floor; helping hit one of these for a second or two can easily prevent a wipe.

Hunters and Warlocks should have clear communication about who is sending their pet onto which Kinetic Bomb.

• Melee DPS need to quickly spread out and should position with their back towards a wall to avoid being knocked back too far by Shock Vortex.

• Healers must spread out properly to prevent Shock Vortex from knocking back multiple players.
• Quickly dispelling any Glittering Sparks is your top priority.
• Coordinate raid defensive cooldowns for each Conjure Empowered Flame orb and Empowered Shock Vortex.
• Coordinate defensive cooldowns on the tank for each Empowered Shadow Lance.

• Coordinate defensive cooldowns with your healers for each Empowered Shadow Lance.
• Positioning of each boss is key to this fight. Make sure you fully understand where and why your raid leader has you tanking in a certain position.

The main challenge of this fight is the Invocation of Blood, and the way it interacts differently with each boss. This fight is a council fight against all 3 princes at once, Prince Keleseth, Prince Taldaram, and Prince Valanar. These bosses share a health pool, similar to the Illidari Council fight. However, unlike the previous fight, only 1 boss at a time will have a health pool that can be damaged. Only the boss being currently empowered by Invocation of Blood can be damaged, the other 2 are attackable, but will not reduce the total health of the boss.

Start the fight with a tank assigned to each of the 3 bosses. With enough gear, it is possible to have one tank assigned to tanking both Prince Taldaram and Prince Valanar, but it is recommended to use 2 for progression while learning the fight. A third tank is needed to tank Prince Keleseth, which should be either a Warlock or Death Knight as their DoTs are crucial for this job. The ranged DPS and healers should be spread throughout the room as much as possible without being out of range of anyone on the pull.

The encounter starts off with Prince Valanar being empowered always. Valanars two main threats are the constant Kinetic Bombs that he spawns throughout the room. These are glowing orbs that float in the air and slowly sink down to the floor. If any of these touch the floor, they explode for around 20,000 damage and knock everyone back. To prevent these Kinetic Bombs from reaching the ground, they must simply be attacked frequently. The easiest and recommended solution is to simply assign both Hunters and Warlocks to send their pets on each bomb in an order. The pets will attack the orbs anytime they get close to the ground, sending them back up into the air.

Prince Valanars second ability is Shock Vortex. This will spawn a small, white whirlwind in a random area of the room; any players near the vortex after 3 seconds will explode, knocking back any nearby players and dealing 12,000 Physical damage. The vortex will then continually pulse, knocking back and damaging anyone that goes near it. The boss may need to be temporarily re-positioned to avoid this vortex until it despawns after 20 seconds.

When Prince Valanar is empowered by Invocation of Blood, he gains Empowered Shock Vortex. This empowered version will target all players, dealing damage and knocking back anyone that is within 12 yards of others. It is imperative that the raid is assigned position to spread to during the 4.5 second cast of Empowered Shock Vortex, as this is one of the easiest ways to wipe. This is the recommended spot to use raid-wide defensive spells such as Divine Guardian, as it is very likely a few people will mess this mechanic up.

After 45 seconds, the Invocation of Blood will change targets, requiring the raid to change targets to the new, empowered prince. We will use Prince Keleseth as the second target in this example. Prince Keleseth requires a non-traditional tank, such as a Death Knight DPS or a Warlock. These DoT classes are needed to control the many Dark Nucleus that will spawn every 10 seconds. These orbs do not have a threat table, but instead will attack whoever the last player to attack them was. For this reason, putting damage over time spells on them is a powerful option, as the constant ticking from the DoTs will keep them "attached" to the same target.

These Dark Nucleus need to be attached to the tank assigned to tanking Prince Keleseth, as they grant the player the Shadow Resonance debuff, dealing 1,000 Shadow damage every 3 seconds per Dark Nucleus, but also reducing ALL Shadow damage taken by 35% each. This is required to tank the constant Shadow Lances that Prince Keleseth will be casting. This tank will want to constantly maintain 5 or 6 Dark Nucleus on them at a time.

While empowered Prince Keleseth gains Empowered Shadow Lance, greatly increasing the damage dealt and making the spell un-resistable. The tank will need to have a defensive cooldown ready for each of these, so be sure to coordinate this so they always have something available, such as Pain Suppression.

Lastly, there is Prince Taldaram, the Fire Prince. His first ability is Glittering Sparks, which is a cone-based attack on a random target. This places a debuff on all players hit, dealing 16,720 to 18,480 Fire damage over 8 seconds and reducing their movement speed by 40%. These must be quickly dispelled, ideally by a Discipline Priest with Mass Dispel. This mechanic is rather simple, and with a quick Mass Dispel, it can be all but ignored.

The more important of the 2 abilities for Prince Taldaram is his Conjure Flame. Every 30 seconds he will summon a Ball of Flame above his head and send it flying towards a random target, which will explode with Flames upon reaching them, dealing up to 12,000 Fire damage to the raid depending on their size. This damage can be greatly reduced by having the targeted player run away as far as they can from the boss, and having your raid position between the boss and the targeted player. Every second the Ball of Flame will zap nearby players with Ball of Flames Periodic, shrinking in size. This is vital as the Flames damage it deals when reaching its target scales with the size of the Ball of Flame; the more zaps of Ball of Flames Periodic you can cause the orb to do before reaching the target, the better.

While empowered by Invocation of Blood, Prince Taldaram will gain Conjure Empowered Flame, greatly increasing the damage this spell deals. This spell functions exactly the same as the non-empowered version, just much more powerful. It is vital that the targeted player gets as far away as possible and uses a personal defensive cooldown before the Ball of Inferno Flame reaches them. This is likely where you will face the most difficulty as this requires EVERYONE to soak the Empowered Flare from the empowered orb, as it deals 65,000 Fire damage at full size. This is also the ideal place to use raid-wide defensive cooldowns, such as Divine Guardian, or Aura Mastery in combination with Fire Resistance Aura.

This fight plays out exactly the same, with the introduction of 1 additional mechanic. Shadow Prison is added to the fight, dealing Shadow damage to players whenever they move. This starts out slow at 350 damage initially, but continuing to move will grant players a stacking debuff, increasing Shadow damage taken by 500 per stack, stacking up to 10 times. This can make the fight extremely deadly as players will constantly be moving to avoid Empowered Shock Vortex, or to help soak the Conjure Empowered Flame. For this reason, it is highly recommended that players know exactly how far they need to move, and where to move to exactly, while also using any form of movement speed increase available, such as Nitro Boosts. Remember, the debuff is NOT a DoT, but an increase to the damage you take when moving; you can always stop moving and wait for the stacks to fall off if you are stuck in a bad position and low on health.

• Invocation of Blood — The Darkfallen Orb empowers Valanar, granting him more formidable abilities.
• Shadow Prison — Binds an enemy. Movement by a bound enemy inflicts 350 initial Shadow damage, increasing by 500 for each second of movement. Remaining motionless for 10 sec will reset the stack.

• Shadow Resonance — The nearest target resonates with shadow, suffering 1,000 damage and reducing Shadow damage taken from all sources by 35% for until canceled.
• Shadow Lance — Hurls a bolt of dark magic at an enemy, inflicting 19,013 to 19,987 Shadow damage.
• Empowered Shadow Lance — Hurls a bolt of dark magic at an enemy, inflicting 95,063 to 99,937 Shadow damage.

• Glittering Sparks — Glittering sparks shoot from the caster's hands in a cone, burning enemies for 16,720 to 18,480 Fire damage over 8 seconds and reducing their movement speed by 40%.
• Conjure Flame — Conjures a ball of flames that flies through the air toward the target and explodes on impact.
• Conjure Empowered Flame — Conjures an empowered ball of flames that flies through the air toward the target and explodes on impact.

• Kinetic Bomb — Summons a Kinetic Bomb. The bomb drifts toward the ground and explodes on contact. Direct damage is absorbed by the bomb and converted into energy, propelling the bomb higher in the air with each hit.
• Shock Vortex — Creates a vortex of swirling force near an enemy target that inflicts damage and knocks back enemies near it.
• Empowered Shock Vortex — Creates force vortices on all nearby enemies, inflicting 5000 Physical damage and knocking enemies near the target away.

Icecrown Citadel bosses have 4 varying difficulties that they can be engaged on, with each difficulty dropping geared tailored to match its' challenges. Below you can find a list of gear dropped on each and every difficulty for this boss encounter.

Item	Type/Slot
Spaulders of the Blood Princes	Plate Shoulder
Heartsick Mender's Cape	Back
Bloodsoul Raiment	Cloth Chest
Blood-Drinker's Girdle	Mail Waist
Battle-Maiden's Legguards	Plate Legs
Pale Corpse Boots	Cloth Feet
Taldaram's Soft Slippers	Leather Feet
Cerise Coiled Ring	Ring
Thrice Fanged Signet	Ring
Soulbreaker	One-Hand Sword
Hersir's Greatspear	Two-Hand Polearm
Wand of Ruby Claret	Wand

Item	Type/Slot
Spaulders of the Blood Princes	Plate Shoulder
Heartsick Mender's Cape	Back
Bloodsoul Raiment	Cloth Chest
Blood-Drinker's Girdle	Mail Waist
Battle-Maiden's Legguards	Plate Legs
Pale Corpse Boots	Cloth Feet
Taldaram's Soft Slippers	Leather Feet
Cerise Coiled Ring	Ring
Thrice Fanged Signet	Ring
Soulbreaker	One-Hand Sword
Hersir's Greatspear	Two-Hand Polearm
Wand of Ruby Claret	Wand

Item	Type/Slot
Geistlord's Punishment Sack	Leather Head
Landsoul's Horned Greathelm	Plate Head
Shoulders of Frost-Tipped Thorns	Leather Shoulder
Crypt Keeper's Bracers	Plate Wrist
San'layn Ritualist Gloves	Cloth Hands
Taldaram's Plated Fists	Plate Hands
Treads of the Wasteland	Mail Feet
Incarnadine Band of Mending	Ring
Valanar's Other Signet Ring	Ring
Keleseth's Seducer	Off-Hand Fist
Shadow Silk Spindle	Off-Hand
Cryptmaker	Two-Hand Mace

Item	Type/Slot
Geistlord's Punishment Sack	Leather Head
Landsoul's Horned Greathelm	Plate Head
Shoulders of Frost-Tipped Thorns	Leather Shoulder
Crypt Keeper's Bracers	Plate Wrist
San'layn Ritualist Gloves	Cloth Hands
Taldaram's Plated Fists	Plate Hands
Treads of the Wasteland	Mail Feet
Incarnadine Band of Mending	Ring
Valanar's Other Signet Ring	Ring
Keleseth's Seducer	Off-Hand Fist
Shadow Silk Spindle	Off-Hand
Cryptmaker	Two-Hand Mace

Achievement	Description
The Orb Whisperer (10 player)	Defeat the Blood Council without anyone in the raid taking more than 23,000 spell damage in a single hit in 10-player mode.
The Orb Whisperer (25 player)	Defeat the Blood Council without anyone in the raid taking more than 25,000 spell damage in a single hit in 25-player mode.

Blood Prince Council is just one of the twelve encounters present in the Icecrown Citadel raid of Wrath of the Lich King. If you would like to learn more about the others, please see our other pages for the raid below.