Killin' Animals (Heroic Northrend Beasts)

The first boss in Trial of the Grand Crusader is a pretty harsh lesson in what hard mode means for somebody who goes in expecting pretty much the same fight as normal difficulty. For some guilds it's the most difficult encounter in the raid to get down the first time after Anub'arak himself. DPS requirements are high, tank damage is ridiculous, raid damage is punishing, and every mistake tends to compound into more deaths.

Warlocks have a few tricks to excelling in the fight, maximizing DPS, and protecting your pets.

Specs
Affliction can actually outperform it's usual disadvantage on this fight, though inferior scaling still tends to bury it (pre-3.3 at least). Maintaining a full round of dots on off targets in phases 1 and 2, and having dots already rolling during charges both help affliction more than other specs.

Demo has no particularly special tricks on the fight, but it does have a key disadvantage: You can't use immolation aura on phase 1, as Gormok does a powerful stomp that also inturrupts casting for 8 seconds.

Destruction is generally the best DPS performance, but ranged pets are actually at greater risk on this fight than others in the zone. There's a very simple trick for dealing with this.

Useful Macros
/target macros are useful, specifically for Snobold Vassals. A macro to quickly target Dreadscale and put him on focus and then target Acidmaw will let you get set up in phase 2 immediately.

Set up all your dot spells like this:

#showtooltip
/cast [nomodifier] (spell)
/cast [modifier:shift, target=mouseover] (spell)

While holding shift the spell will be cast on your mouseover instead of your current target. You can also use target=focus, and set the secondary target (such as Dreadscale in phase 2) to focus.

Phase 1: Gormok the Impaler
This is where destruction has pet issues. Gormok's little snobold helpers throw fire bombs at the raid. Each tick you stand in the fire stacks a DOT on you. The fire itself counts as AOE and is greatly reduced by pet avoidance, but the DOT does not, meaning an imp standing in the fire is going to die very quickly.

The fire has to limitations: Pets are not valid targets and targets inside of stomp range are ignored. The problem with stomp range is that now your imp is getting locked out of casting for 8 seconds repeatedly. Staggering stomp is huge damage, almost 10,000, but it's AOE, so imps can shrug it off easily with fel synergy. The lockout, however, isn't so good. With the raid spread out, standing room is at a premium, the imp's just not safe standing with the raid.

So what to do? Gormok will generally be tanked facing his entry gate. Nobody will generally be standing back here, meaning you can set your imp on stay back there and he'll be completely safe. Before the fight is activated, tuck your imp into the corner of the door and set him to stay and passive, then just give him the attack order at the start of phase 1.

Each guild has different rules for dealing with snobolds. Usually if they're on a melee or hunter, they're lower priority than if they're on a caster or healer. When a snobold is called for death, focus your DPS on it. Keep DOTs rolling on Gormok as well, if you're using shift-focus macros set Gormok as your focus for this phase.

You've got a very tight time limit in this phase, hence the reason for not immediately killing snobolds if they're on low priority targets. You can increase your overall DPS output by putting DOTs on low priority snobolds, but the number one priority is to kill Gormok before Acidmaw and Dreadscale enter the arena. As long as you kill him before the worms enter on their own, you'll have a sufficient window to finish off any remaining snobolds.

Phase 2: Acidmaw and Dreadscale
If you're using focus macros instead of mouseover, here's where that worm macro I mentioned is useful:

/target dreadscale
/focus
/target acidmaw

This doesn't need to be anywhere convenient, you'll only need it once. Rolling dots on both targets isn't just meter padding here like it is (arguably) in phase 1, since both worms must die in the same strict time limit. When doing this, destruction warlocks should remember to put their second curse of doom on Dreadscale - they won't get a second on Acidmaw. Heroism will likely be used very early in this phase, in an attempt to kill Acidmaw before or shortly after the first submerge. It's entirely possible to do this before the submerge, but more likely that he'll submerge at low health and need to be finished off. If your guild does have a chance to kill him before the first submerge, destruction warlocks should put their first CoD on dreadscale, or it might not tick at all.

There's only some small positional awareness involved here. The raid has to be spread out so burning bile and paralytic toxin don't shred the raid, and you can't be in the frontal cone of the mobile worm - it's a very long frontal cone, it's often safe to assume it goes forever, it certainly feels that way when you get caught in it from halfway around the arena wall. Standing room is prime real estate in this fight as well, especially if you want casting range on both worms at the same time (which is a good idea). Don't risk endangering your raid to get DOTs on the off target.

While acidmaw is alive and stationary, before the first submerge, is when you're likely to get paralytic toxin. When this happens, immediately drop what you're doing and move towards the mobile worm's tank, they're the only person who's pretty much guaranteed to have burning bile, which will remove your poison.

Icehowl
If you're here and the raid is intact, congratulations things just got really easy. There's really no tricks here except to watch where you are just before a crash. Watch the line from the center of the room, through you, to the outer wall. You don't want that line to end at any of the four gates, and preferrably not near one of the pillars, since these make for a longer escape route. Try to aim to an open spot between pillars on the wall.

The only DPS trick is to make sure you refresh DOTs right before a crash - it may even be a good idea to clip them. When he jumps to the middle of the room, even destro locks should try to get a corruption off at the last second. The goal here is to have as much damage in place already when he hits the wall and stuns. By the time affliction get's DOTs on him normally, the stun is over and you did nothing with the double damage window.

This is the phase you want to save soul shatter for at all cost - even switching your main DPS to dreadscale while acidmaw is still alive is preferable to not having soul shatter in phase 3. Even here it's largely a safety net. Coming out of stun, Icehowl almost always does his freezing breath, giving an ample window for tanks to taunt if people over-agroed during the stun (which is very likely).

The most important thing is that you (and everybody else) never get hit by a charge. This is guaranteed death, and the enrage it triggers almost guarantees the next person dies too. The enrage can be removed, but even in the time it takes to get it off Icehowl hits like a freight train loaded with mack trucks carrying train parts, and missing an enrage will put you behind the hard enrage timer.

The hard enrage timer has one small forgiveness: The way it's timed, it often hits a split second AFTER a crash. Provided nobody gets hit by the charge, you can still have one more stun to finish him off. A deterrence tank can even buy you precious seconds past that. However, it can also hit just as Icehowl jumps in the air for a crash, causing the crash to do 100,000+ damage to everybody.

The Profit
3 emblems of triumph is never anything to sneeze at - at the going rate of crusader orbs on my server that means the equivalent of 150g.

T9 loot's always a pain to talk about, since horde and alliance get different names, but the general themes are the same. Either way, this is your first taste of itemlevel 258 loot.

Refreshing Winds, a haste/spirit cloak, is one of the better non-hit options in the zone. Tenebrous Mist is a haste/spirit belt with two gem slots and a favorable socket bonus built in.
Robes of Ascent are the first likely upgrade from Merlin's Robe or another crafted option - having three gem slots, not a bad socket bonus, monster spellpower, and haste/spirit.

Main attraction here is the Blade/Barb of Tarasque, though. A hit/haste dagger with 692 spellpower and a blue socket with a spellpower bonus. This is an upgrade of 71 spellpower before socketing from the normal 25 version - the potential to pick up nearly 100 spellpower in a single upgrade is immense. The only other option in the zone is Blade of the Unbroken Covenant/Mortalis, from the tribute chest. With 9 more spellpower and crit/haste, it is the slightly more appealing option, but the line for this weapon is going to include every warlock, mage, and holy paladin in your raid, and being a tribute drop it's much harder to come by than Tarasque.

Wrap your DKP around this weapon and don't hold your breath about replacing it until Icecrown. Even Quel'delar's not going to pry it out of your hands.