Info on taking Ragnaros (And other MC general info)

[Cush]

HYDRAXIAN WATERLORDS:

In Azshara, far to the east on a little island, is Duke Hydraxis. He gives you a series of quests to do, which eventually lead into Molten Core. Without his help, you will NEVER defeat Ragnaros. You will need at least 8 members of your guild visiting him before a successful Ragnaros attempt, because each of the 8 preceding bosses has a rune that needs to be doused with an item he will give you � and each person can only hold one. You can have one person do the run 8 times, but really, it isn't worth worrying about right now. You won't be fighting Ragnaros any time soon if you're just getting started. Just make sure your raiders are aware that they should be working on these quests. The faction will come on its own as you raid MC. However, once you have defeated Shazzrah and Lord Geddon, you will need to focus on getting people done these quests and obtaining their Aqual Quintessences for dousing the runes.



MOLTEN CORE GENERAL INFO:

There are two ways to enter Molten Core. The main entrance is near the end of Blackrock Depths. After the Chamber of the Seven, but before the Lyceum, is a side path that is guarded by several jumbo fireguards. There is a large green swirling portal behind them that indicates a raid instance. Entering from here will allow you to walk into the zone. However, only 10 people can be in a BRD group, and up to 40 are needed for MC, so what to do?

As you approach Blackrock, there is a High Elf offering a quest called Attunement to the Core. When you enter BRD and attempt to fight down to the entrance to MC, there is a rock to the left of the portal. Accessing this rock will �attune� you to Molten Core, and once you complete the quest, you will be able to enter Molten Core from out in Blackrock Mountain, right by that High Elf, in the future. Specifically, there is a crystal next to him that will take you to MC if you are attuned.

True to its name, most creatures in Molten Core are fire-oriented. This means players will want to consider having some fire resist gear, and mages will want to use frost spells rather than fire. Between MC and Onyxia, there is little incentive for a mage to be fire-specced pre-AQ if they intend on raiding much. Fire protection potions are vital in some situations.

Pets are difficult to use in Molten Core. They can easily die to area effect spells before they can do much good. Against specific targets they can be helpful, but a hunter pet is often best used a pulling tool and warlocks will want to use passive imps for Blood Pact most of the time. That said, use a pet at your own discretion. They can't really do any harm.

Creatures in Molten Core use a ton of debuffs. These are almost exclusively curses and magic effects. Druids and mages need to remove curses, and priests and paladins need to dispel magic effects. (Unfortunately for Horde, this leaves them with only one dispeller class.) Classes that have range abilities that allow them to do their job away from under creatures� bellies should not be there!



TRASH MOBS:

A trash mob, by definition, is a random creature that is blocking your way from reaching a loot-dropping boss. There are a number of different trash mobs in Molten Core, and each requires different tactics.

FIRE LORDS are fire elemental creatures. They have a number of short-range effects, notably a fire resist debuff, and a fire DoT that also silences. Their melee attacks are not physical. They also periodically cast a spell that looks like Flamestrike and creates a new monster named a Fire Spawn. When fighting a Fire Lord, mages should be constantly casting Blizzard in the vicinity of the Fire Lord. (At least, early in the learning curve.) All single-target attackers need to redirect themselves at the Fire Spawn when they appear, because if left unchecked, they can split. Fighting two Fire Lords is sometimes necessary for one of the early pulls in the zone � fighting two at once means the ST needs to get on the second one, and Blizzard becomes that much more important.

LAVA ANNIHILATORS are rock elementals. They don�t hit particularly hard, but they somewhat-randomly change targets. Some guilds use a policy of keeping everyone inside the red targeting circle of the annihilator to keep mostly everyone bunched up when fighting these so they don't run off. If you are fighting one of these and another target, banish these guys and fight the other one. They are by far the easiest targets in the Molten Core.

LAVA SURGERS are also rock elementals. They move extremely quickly, and are almost never stationary. Their main attack is a charge at the person farthest away on their aggro list, and it will knockback them and everyone in-between, along with some radius of effect, for about 1000 points of damage. Be very careful where you fight surgers. Surgers respawn on a much shorter timer than other mobs, (about 20 minutes,) but after defeating Garr, the fourth boss, they stop reappearing completely.

An ANCIENT CORE HOUND is a big red cerberus. They have a breath attack that suggests the tank keep them facing away from the main raid, and they also periodically use one of a number of AE debuffs that do all kinds of things from running around in fear to lowering fire resist by 200. They hit harder than the creatures mentioned above, as well, so watch tank health. They respawn on a short timer, (about 20 minutes, like the surgers,) until you defeat Magmadar, the second boss. Then you just have to deal with the pre-existing ones.

MOLTEN GIANTS and Molten Destroyers always come in pairs. This is unavoidable. Destroyers are tougher than Giants, but don't show up until after taking the tunnel toward the third boss. When fighting these guys, split them apart so they aren't both stomping on everyone, and make sure the MT and ST know which one to attack so one doesn't end up loose. They have a lot of HP, so aggro control and mana conservation are important. Warlocks might consider casting Curse of Doom on the second target while the raid is fighting the first. Destroyers, in particular, are difficult due to the AE knockdown on their stomps, so given a choice, fight the giant before the destroyer, and a back-up tank on destroyers is especially important since aggro can be difficult to grab and keep initially.

There are a ton of FLAME IMPS in small packs before the first boss, that are a REAL challenge to get through. They are really your first test as a raid. If you can kill and pass them, kudos to you. The imps do a lot of fire damage, and should be AEd, but pulling them is difficult, and they respawn very quickly. Use a paladin with bubble to pull if you can, or in lieu of that, a mage with ice block.

CORE HOUND PACKS lie strictly between the first and second bosses, in groups of 5. The snag about these guys is that they revive if one of their pack-mates is left alive too long, so the group must be very careful to damage all 5 equally. You will need 5 separate tanking units, that keep the hounds close together, and a lot of AE. Anyone doing single target damage needs to switch targets frequently. If one revives, you're probably sunk.

"LAVA PACKS" are the hardest trash in the zone, and only appear in the second half. A lava pack consists of 3 or 4 creatures � one firewalker, one flameguard, and either one lava reaver or two lava elementals. They should be killed in that order, as the last types can be banished. The two fire elementals in every pack are very nasty and will randomly nuke things for 3000 as the fight goes on. Healers need to be on their toes, and fire resist gear helps IMMENSELY.



EARLY CLEARING (to Lucifron):

Note that at any point where a Fire Lord or Lava Annihilator can spawn, it can be either of the two. I'm going to refer to that as an L/A. Because I often fill the role of puller, I may be a little verbose with the actual pulls, since they are actually fairly intuitive.

The very first pull is two lava giants, a bit of a rude awakening for the unwitting group. Don't be afraid to zone out and try again until you learn what you're doing. The group should stay back while the puller brings the mobs to the tanks, who are standing forward of the raid. After the two giants, everyone can shift forward a little. The first L/A is the one on the left. It should come by itself. Then get the two on the right, which must normally be fought at once, so hopefully at least one is a banishable Annihilator.

You will be facing a bridge over a gap, with two giants on the far side. Do NOT move the raid across. The raid should ONLY move forward at the orders of the raid leader or the puller. Do not let them "creep" � slowly move forward bit-by-bit with each fight. Pull the giants back across the bridge, while watching for the lava surger that patrols this area. Snag him first if able, or immediately afterwards if not. Make sure you fight the lava surger in a place where you can afford to be knocked back � i.e., not by the edges. There is also one Ancient Core Hound that patrols all the way up to where you are, but it takes a very long route, so chances aren't very high you'll have to deal with him. However, the lava surger will respawn unless you move very quickly, and on your first trip here, you won't, so make sure the warlocks are prepared to banish him later, if necessary.

Move the raid over the bridge, and pull the two L/As down the ramp up to that spot, and then the two past there. (A hunter with hawkeye can get these from a decent distance away, so no need to move the raid yet.) Keep an eye out for that Core Hound if you haven't killed him yet. Once those four mobs are dead, move down to where the next mobs are along the left, and progress your way forward. You'll see baddies to the right side you won't actually need to fight, and the hounds may or may not path into you, so watch their movement. Ignore the tunnel off to the right, but remember it for later.

Ahead of you should be a bridge guarded by two giants. Fight them, the L/A and the hound past them, and pull the surger on the two bridges ahead, and then prepare to do some AEing. Lava Imps are insidious little creatures that don't take a lot to kill on an individual basis, but they come in droves of about 10 and do a lot of fire damage. Your puller will not last long, so you can't afford to bring them very far, and there should also be one or two surgers roaming among their ranks you'll want to try to pull out separately. The kicker with the imps is their fast respawn. If you are very careful, and everyone is level 60 and HUGS the right-most wall, you can actually get by only pulling one group, however most groups will not have the initial discipline to pull that off. (If anyone is not level 60, tell them to wait behind and get a summon later. They WILL kill the group with low-level aggro.)

There are 2 ways to pull the imps. You can have someone try to actually pull them, which paladins are good at and other classes are decidedly not. Or, you can charge the spot you want to fight them, with an immune paladin or ice-blocked mage holding them off til everyone moves into place and all the imps are clustered in one spot.

If you can somehow slink past all those imps, you will find your way into Lucifron's cavern, and be ready to set up for your first boss.


THE FIRST FOUR BOSSES



BOSS #1, LUCIFRON:

In the chamber you have now entered, you will see Lucifron slinking back and forth along the length of the hall, with groups of slightly smaller hounds all over. You will need to clear some of the packs before fighting Lucifron, so here's how to deal with those:

Determine 5 tanks. Use a druid if you have to. Make sure healers are watching each of the tanks. The raid leader will target one of the hounds, and tell the first tank to assist him. The first tank will do so, and confirm, and the raid leader will move on to a second hound and tell the second tank, etc. A single person must do this so everyone has a different target.

The 5 tanks should stand in a small clump, and someone else should pull the hounds to them. They each take and hold aggro on their own target, while the raid AEs the 5 hounds. For single target attackers, IT IS IMPERATIVE YOU DO *NOT* FINISH ONE OFF EARLY. When a hound falls, it doesn't truly die unless all of the other hounds are dead. If one is killed 10 seconds or so ahead of at least one of the others, it will revive and you will wipe. Obviously, you can not let this happen. Attackers need to split up, and periodically check the health of other targets.

You will need to pull one or two packs before fighting Lucifron, in order to make space for yourself. After that, designate 3 tanks, and a back-up for the main tank, for the Lucifron fight. The basic idea is to kill Luke's two guards away from him first, and then kill him. There are two things that make this tricky, though.

First, the guards randomly Mind Control people. Priests need to dispel this ASAP, but because MC'ed players tend to use their long-duration abilities, WARRIORS ABSOLUTELY MUST BLOW THEIR INTIMIDATING SHOUT BEFORE THE BATTLE. If they do not, they risk getting controlled, running into the middle of the raid, and fearing everyone.

Second, Lucifron has an AE magic effect much like Curse of Doom (called Impending Doom,) except that it has a *much* shorter timer, and it really hurts. Hunters and mages with extended range talents need to stay on the very edge when actually fighting Lucifron proper, priests (and paladins) need to dispel *as their first priority* both for MC and for this effect, and the guards must be fought sufficiently far away to not deal with this during the early part of the fight.

Third, Lucifron has another AE that is a curse that raises mana cost of all abilities by 100%. If this stays up for any length of time, the raid will collectively go out of mana, and keel over and die. So druids and mages need to be on top of removing this.

Because of these three things, and that the imps are not far away in the tunnel, placement is important. The raid should strictly be along the right and back walls, nowhere near that tunnel. If anyone does aggro the imps, they should run *forward* into them, and die, so they do not risk transferring them to the rest of the raid. The tanks should initially be at the top of the little rise along the right edge of the room, and the MT should keep Lucifron up there. (Tank and healers should work out placement ahead of time to ensure line of sight.) The other two tanks should know which guard is their's, and take aggro on the pull and bring them to the back wall of the cavern where the rest of the raid is. The MA will designate one to kill first, and then burn down the other. Finally, when they are dead, you can fight Lucifron.

Your raid should celebrate when they win, and nobody should go anywhere near the body except the leaders responsible for handling loot. Anyone else that loots without permission should be kicked from the raid, the guild if possible, and not allowed back. This is important to the integrity of your raiding. (Except that everyone should loot the hand of Lucifron if they have the Hands of the Enemy quest from Duke Hydraxis.) That aside, Lucifron will always drop a Tome of Tranquilizing Shot. This enables hunters to fire a special shot that is of very limited use and nothing for anyone to be jealous about. The tome should not be a DKP item, and should go to the most dedicated hunters in the bunch. Effectively, the only time it is of significance is against the second boss in Molten Core, as you will soon see.


BOSS #2, MAGMADAR:

You'll have to clear past a number of hound packs to reach Magmadar. You've fought a couple of these already, so you know what to do by now. Magmadar is the jumbo hound at the end of the tunnel, and represents a key checkpoint in your Molten Core run. After he is killed, the wandering Ancient Core Hounds will no longer respawn, which also means if you come back later in the week, they will not be there at all. (Due to the way instances reset, it effectively respawns everything after the zone has been empty for 30 minutes.)

Magmadar is a more difficult fight than Lucifron, though. He has more health, and more annoying abilities. Here are the key points to Magmadar:

-Periodically AE fears everything inside of 30 yards. The MT will need to "stance dance" or have some sort of fear immunity from Will of the Forsaken or Fear Ward�if this is an issue, assign a priest or paladin to dispel the fear. Everyone else who cannot stay out of range will have to deal with the periodic fears. (If you've beaten Onyxia, you should be used to this.)
-Tosses out big fireballs that torch the ground in a given area. You must move out of these as soon as possible, but they will continue to burn after you leave them, so group healers need to be alert. They are also targeted, randomly, so the group should fan out so as not to all be hit at once.
-Enrages every 20 seconds or so, and needs to be tranquilized by a hunter. He does much more damage while enraged, and this needs to be dealt with immediately. If there are two hunters with Tranquilizing Shot, they need to be on a rotation, since he will enrage faster than the cooldown on TS. Additional hunters should be either kept on back-up in case a tranq'er gets feared or misses, or should double up to do two sets of two. Hunters need to save mana for firing this shot throughout the fight.

He also has a short range breath AE that isn't extremely potent, but the rogues should be mindful; some guilds strictly ranged attack Magmadar. There is only need for one tank on Magmadar, since there are no guards. The MT must stay in one exact spot, and he must not die. Everyone else is setting their range according to the MT and to Magmadar, so this is important, and with the AE fears, might not be easy. The tank should charge Magmadar and stand slightly further out than the dead center of the cavern. Everyone else should spread out along the edge of the cavern, unless they need melee range, staying as far as possible and still be effective. The tank will need to have Magmadar beyond him so the healers can be in range of the tank and not of Magmadar's fear, which has the same range as heal spells. And, of course, hunters need to tranquilize routinely � it's pretty obvious when he enrages, so just make sure you communicate with your fellow hunters, and try not to be feared during an enrage.

If you beat Magmadar, congratulations. You've just taken your first step toward raiding effectively as a 40-man group. Unfortunately, you are now at a dead end, and rather than dealing with the imps, the easiest thing to do now is have everyone take off all their armor and go die so they can run back and enter the instance from the beginning again. (Alliance sometimes port to Ironforge instead.) This is, of course, assuming you aren't done for the night. Otherwise you can just port out. Since you're returning to the zone-in, it isn't a bad time to stop, until you've got these two bosses so licked you can get to this point in an hour.



CONTINUING ONWARD

Regroup, rebuff at the entrance, and fight back through again, only this time rather than going across the bridge toward the imps, you will take the tunnel to the right, which leads to the rest of the zone.

You can ignore the mobs off to the left. Kill the two L/As by the entrance to the tunnel, and stay down the right wall. You should pass a core hound or two, and there will be two giants at the bottom of the ramp, one of which might be your first run-in with a Destroyer. Before them is a lava surger circling a stone pillar. At the end of the path before it turns left is a Dark Iron ore node. This is your warning that Gehennas is right on the other side of that wall, and you will need to break away from the right wall.

Run across the cavern to the other pillar almost exactly to your left, and be VERY wary of the two giants behind that pillar. Don't back into them, or just pull them if you aren't comfortable. (You might need to deal with a Core Hound before actually moving.) From there, pull the L/As to the left of the giants at the next pillar, pull the giants, and then pull the 3 L/As between you and the third boss, Gehennas.

You aren't going right for Gehennas, though. You need more room to work with. So continue south, to the left side of that central pillar, and clear around. You will fight another pair of giants, and 2 or 3 L/As. You do not need to clear into the next chamber, but you might consider killing the 2 L/As and the giants on the slope as a safety net. Once you are staring at Gehennas from the south, you are ready.


BOSS #3, GEHENNAS

Like Lucifron, Gehennas has two guards. Like Lucifron, you will want to split off those two guards. The fight is actually surprisingly similar, but the terrain is a bit different. The MT and the healers for the MT will go around to the east of Lucifron, while the rest of the raid will deal with the guards to the south. The tank will pull Lucifron, and then two hunters who have the two guards pre-targeted will run forward, tag them, and bring them back to the two off-tanks. Kill the guards. Kill Gehennas. Here's what keeps it from being that simple:

-The guards AE stun. This means that nobody wants to be near the guards except the tanks, the two guards do not want to be right next to each other, and that aggro at the beginning is a bit tricky. It is almost essential that each of the two off-tanks has a Free Action Potion to use at the start of this fight so they do not lose aggro at the onset. For this reason, some guilds split the two guards around opposite sides of the southern pillar.
-Gehennas has an AE curse that lowers the effectiveness of healing dramatically. Because of this, druids and mages will need to be responsible for removing the curse. One should be assigned singularly to decursing the main tank, and one or two others should be in the healing contingent for the MT.
-Gehennas has a targeted rain AE attack. It is shadow-based, so shadow protection should be cast before the fight, and because it is targeted, again, the group should spread out while attacking him. Range isn't nearly as vital, but you don't want people clustered or they will get hit with the rain, be unable to heal from the curse, and die the second time they are rained upon or from�
-Gehennas has another randomly-targeted attack, a shadow bolt. The bolt lands for over 2000 damage and gets used fairly often. This means healers need to be on their toes, and non-healers need to be prepared to bandage so long as the curse isn't on them.

Overall, this isn't a hard fight. If you've gotten this far, you can kill Gehennas. He's probably easier than Magmadar, and the off-tanking guards thing should be familiar from Lucifron. Gehennas also has a hand to loot for the Hydraxis quest, but otherwise, he's no major milestone.



BOSS #4, GARR

Garr, however, is a bit more of a challenge.

Clear the southern chamber where he resides. Pulling is tricky here if the core hounds are still around. Grab the visible targets on the ramp, get the L/A behind the pillar (from the left side), pull the giants to the right and then the L/A behind them, and then carefully clear the left side of the chamber. Be aware that there is a wandering core hound in the tunnel on the left side of the chamber that you should also kill before facing Garr.

The hardest part about Garr is the set-up and coordination. Confusion = death in this fight. Here's why:

-Garr has 8 minions called Firesworn. The fact that he has 8 guards is bad enough.
-The guards detonate when they are about to die. Anyone fighting one at close range (about 15 yards) should back off, except for the tank. The explosions hurt. As Garr's health drops, he will periodically try to detonate the guards before they are actually dead � this randomness element makes it important to kill the Firesworn first.
-Garr has two AEs. Neither does damage. One strips you of your buffs. The other snares you, making it difficult to move around the chamber.

In other words, you have 9 targets to account for, and Garr needs to be pulled away from the rest so people can actually navigate the chamber. The Firesworn need to be tanked by a legitimate plate (or feral) tank. Paladins suffice in a real pinch, but you will probably want them healing. I can't say for shamans, but I know my hunter can't tank them very effectively. The good news is that the Firesworn can be banished.

The firesworn might seem like they move about randomly, but they actually keep their position relative to the way Garr is facing. The one in front of Garr will always be in front of Garr. What that means is that targets should be assigned going around the circle. It's probably easiest for a hunter to assign the targets for this fight, by marking one firesworn, assigning it, and then clicking until he gets the next one over, marking it, assigning it, and continue onward. It's easy to misclick, so getting targets can be an issue. Regardless, Hunter's Mark is vital for at least keeping a bead on where you are in the circle, and anyone assigned a target SHOULD NOT DETARGET IT TO DO ANY DAMN THING. It's a real pita to give you your target back. I've only done the target assignment once, and I hated it. If you need to target something else, get someone to assist you first and hold the target.

Each warlock should get a target, and then each warrior other than the MT on Garr, and then fill in with whoever else you can for the remainder. The main raid should be standing southwest-ish, at the bottom of the incline, and the tank and the MT healers should be up at the fire cones by the tunnel mouth, with a hunter to pull Garr to them. Somebody else should pull the firesworn, and then that hunter should tag Garr and bring him over. (A hunter might not be necessary for that job, but we like the extra range and time control over a warrior ranged attack.) Each of the warriors, 'locks, and other people directly responsible for a Firesworn should pull their's out of the way, or banish it on the spot and move to a place they want it to go. They need to be split up because they're going to be exploding.

Healing is vital in this fight. (When is it ever not?) Two or three healers should be assigned to the MT, and the rest should be watching their groups. If a warlock dies, there's going to be a mess while someone tries to off-tank it. There are two schools of thought regarding warlocks in this fight and their pets � some prefer a voidwalker to try to taunt and tank the firesworn until it can be rebanished, and some prefer to have their imp for the extra health it affords them. If able, hunters should try to feign and lay freeze traps near warlocks to help them in a pinch. Rogues will want to help with the first firesworn or two, and then stop risking themselves on the explosions by moving on to Garr. For this reason, it's actually recommended to reassign the MA for this fight to one of the mages, or perhaps the tank whose target you will attack first.

Kill all the unbanished firesworn. Warriors that become free should find a banished target and help taunt it for the sake of the warlock. Everyone else should move from target to target with the MA � avoiding the near-death explosions of the Firesworn, and then move on to Garr. A raid may opt to kill some of the banished Firesworn first. That is at the discretion of the raid leader, depending on what the guild can handle. There's absolutely NOTHING to fighting Garr. His AEs are irrelevant by the time the entire raid is attacking him, and he has no other special attacks. But he is a solid piece of rock, and takes a long time to chip away at. Due to the length of the fight, if the MT dies, the healers will go next.

Garr is the second major milestone in Molten Core. If you can beat him, you've come a long way. You're effectively halfway done the zone, by most people's thinking, and guilds that run all of MC in two days will often stop at this point or shortly thereafter. Since now the Lava Surgers no longer respawn, along with the core hounds, clearing is a much simpler task�at least to return to Garr's room.

BACK HALF OF THE ZONE

Things get much harder from here. Guilds may need to run as far as Garr several times before making noticeable gain past this point, despite the next two bosses being right at the end of the tunnel. If you didn't use one before, you will want a hunter to pull now, using their pet and Eyes of the Beast. Before those two bosses can come, you will need to contend with three lava packs.

Lava packs are insidious. Everyone in the raid should wear whatever fire resist gear they can find in their bags. Without good FR, on a successful pack kill, it's not unheard of for half the raid to die.

Lava packs consist of two fire elementals and one or two rock elementals. The rocks can be banished and dealt with after, as the two fire guys are much more dangerous anyhow. The firewalker should be target one, as they debuff your FR and toss fiery salvos for 3k damage, two at a time. Someone who gets "double-blossomed" is sure to die without decent FR...oh, but it's been debuffed. Kill the firewalkers first. Then kill the Flameguard, who lowers AC by a ton with a stackable debuff and has some other fire damage effects. At this point you'll have two lava elementals or one lava reaver. The reaver is the easier scenario � slightly tougher on melee than one elemental, but not much. From both, be wary of the AE frontal stun, which can often be the death of the group on the initial pull.

Pulling them is no simple matter. For the first two, you should have a hunter dash a pet down the tunnel to aggro them, and then click off Eyes of the Beast (or just let pet die,) and the mobs will come down the tunnel toward the group. Later on, when you're staring them down before the fight, you might consider having a paladin shield-pull or some other tactic. My guild continues to let the hunter pull, but it's not the cleanest policy.

Regardless, one tank should be devoted to each of the two fire guys, and should ranged pull them out of the way of the main raid, and the warlocks should fight for targets to banish as they see them coming. The puller can actually come right down the middle of the raid if the other players are on their toes, although it might not be a good idea when you're first learning these guys. And you will need to learn them, because they consist of the majority of the trash pulls from here on out.

The chamber at the end of the tunnel will have various mobs throughout it, including one pack at the entrance, two further back - one to the left by the cones and one in the center - and one to the right of the center group that isn't initially visible. You can leave the left-most pack for now, but in order to fight the next two bosses, you will need to at least kill the front, center, and right packs. The right pack isn't necessary for the first of the two bosses you will pull to Garr's room, but it will be for the second, so it's nice to clean it out ahead of time.

If you have those 3 packs killed, and Garr's room isn't at risk of respawning � you get about 2 hours before the L/As come back, and nothing else should return � then you are ready to set up for Baron Geddon.



BOSS #5, BARON GEDDON:

It's theoretical you could fight Shazzrah first, but Baron Geddon is the easier fight and the easier one to pull first.

The baron is one of those fights where everyone needs to pay attention. One person running on autopilot can easily wipe the raid. Geddon is a big fire elemental that runs up and down the length of the chamber at the end of the tunnel. A hunter should pull him much the same way he pulled the lava packs, using the pet and Eyes of the Beast, and the easiest way to do that is to plunk the pet where the "center" pack was and wait for Geddon to come to the pet. If he's at the wrong part of his path, you might run out of time and have to resummon and recast, and you also may have to forcibly make the pet attack Geddon since he whizzes by so fast he might not aggro Fluffy. Once you have aggro, he'll be on the way, so hope your guild is ready!

And here's what to be ready for:
-He casts an ability that looks like Hellfire called Inferno. When he does this, everyone, including the MT, needs to be clear of him, as the damage increases to unmanageable levels as he continues to Inferno. He does not move while casting, so just run out, and return him to position immediately afterwards.
-He uses a dispellable damage-over-time AE called Ignite Mana. It drains 400 mana/tick from each target, and they take an equal amount of damage. It doesn't affect rogues and warriors, who don't have mana.
-The most important ability to be mindful of is Living Bomb. Periodically, Geddon will target someone at random and make them a "Living Bomb." This is a very short-term effect that cannot be removed, except by Divine Shield or Ice Block. At the end of it, the person will explode, doing damage to everyone nearby. So this person needs to not be near anybody else! (This person may not necessarily die, but they will take a LOT of damage.)

For positioning, Geddon will be pulled to essentially the center of Garr's chamber. Someone should build a campfire on the spot the MT will stand to help him return to position following the infernos. Everyone else should note which group they are in, in terms of the raid, and fan out accordingly, like an old telephone rotary dial, completely around the MT's position except for the space between him and the tunnel. The groups closest to the tunnel will probably need to back away from their "spot" until Geddon actually comes in. Each group should get to the edge of their range and still be able to hit Geddon. NOBODY should be on the actual outer wall of the room. (Alternatively, some guilds use the mouth of the tunnel and form a semicircle around it.)

The reason for this funky formation business is to help insure minimal damage with the living bomb. Some UI mods have settings to warn people when they are the bomb, but it is critical that when someone is the bomb, they run to the outer wall, away from their group members, to explode. A thoughtful priest might try to shield that person so they have a shot at surviving, but they will take fire damage and be launched upward high enough to usually die from the falling damage that follows. If, and it will happen eventually, the MT gets living bomb, he needs to stay put and everyone else needs to run away. Heals on the MT become especially important in those moments, and everyone should stop damage since it's possible a new tank will need to step in, or at the very least, Geddon will be moving.

After the first inferno or two, and the MT calls engage, melee *can* run in and hit Baron, so long as they run back out when he does another inferno, however some guilds find it preferable to simply keep everyone at range.

This fight isn't actually hard, when everyone is wearing their fire resist gear, but it's tricky. When you finally finish Geddon, he "performs a final sacrifice to Ragnaros" which will destroy everyone in melee range of him if it has time to go off, (which is usually doesn't,) and then dies.



BOSS #6, SHAZZRAH

Immediately after killing Geddon, the group can prepare for Shazzrah, who is often the bane of raid groups, because he has a few very annoying abilities. Tell your group to take off their fire resist gear and go to normal (unless they actually have arcane resist gear, which would be awesome here, but not realistic.)

Shazzrah is a mage. His abilities all mimic that of a mage's, and his melee is fairly weak and consists of beating someone with a staff. The group should assume the same positioning they did for Baron Geddon, and the hunter should pull him the same way. The fight itself runs a bit differently though.

-Shazzrah constantly casts Arcane Explosion. It does about 1k damage normally.
-Shazzrah casts an AE curse that amplifies the damage of his arcane explosion, which doubles its damage to 2k. With the frequency of how often he casts both these skills, nobody should be in melee range except the tank. Which is unfortunate because...
-Shazzrah blinks randomly at one of the raid members every 30 seconds or so. When he does this, the built-up aggro against him is greatly diminished, nearly wiped.
-Shazzrah AE counterspells. This makes healing rather difficult at times.
-Finally, Shazzrah has a self-buff that greatly reduces his damage taken. A mage will need to keep Detect Magic up on him, and a priest or shaman will need to purge/dispel him throughout the fight. Assign someone, plus a backup.

So basically, the fight goes something like this:
1. Shazzrah comes to the tank, AEs him a bunch, but he gets decursed and gets enough heals that it isn't an issue, and
2. Shazzrah blinks into one of the groups just as someone lands a large spell. Everyone runs in panic, inevitably making it harder for the tank to get aggro back, since the person who cast the large spell will probably actually be Shazzrah's target until then.
3. Between the curse and the Arcane Explosion, some people die, and then ultimately a warrior gets him back to center and tanking resumes as normal, and we return to step 1 until the blink cooldown is up.
4. After enough people die, Shazzrah just mops the floor with everyone who is left.

To avoid people dying, and actually getting to step 4, everyone needs to be very mindful of what happens when Shazzrah blinks. Stop all damage. Stop doing anything that doesn't involve keeping a person alive. Don't run unless you KNOW you don't have aggro. If you are a warrior, try to taunt Shazzrah and run him to the MT. If you are a hunter not immediately next to Shazz, try to use Distracting Shot to bring him back to center. Once the MT has aggro, everyone else can go back to their positions, and resume fighting once he gets to center.

And rogues and warriors should be fighting with their bows and guns. Do not melee Shazzrah. His damage comes almost exclusively from his Arcane Explosion, and everyone needs to avoid it as much as possible. Decursing his amplify magic is a first priority for druids and mages.

The fight takes practice. You should not expect to beat him on the first try. If everyone does their decursing/dispelling/healing/damage-only-when-appropriate jobs, you will eventually win, but it does take a little luck sometimes.

There are a few variants on how to fight Shazz. Shazzrah can also be done by keeping the groups clustered so there are fewer places to blink to. This makes his blink more predicatable, but also possibly more damaging. You can also set up hunters on opposite sides whose goal it is to try to hit Shazzrah with distracting shot and bring him to center. Whatever works for you.

A guild that can clear both Baron Geddon and Shazzrah is now officially in farm mode for the early parts of the zone. It's nice that those two are so close to Garr. Unfortunately, the next boss is a bit away. If you haven't already, make sure your guild is working on the Duke Hydraxis quests by now, as you should have 3 of the 4 hands for the last quest for those who have gotten that far in the chain. After a lot of lava pack clearing, you will reach the 4th guy.


LAVA PACKS, LAVA PACKS, AND MORE LAVA PACKS:

Everyone can now see what that pulling hunter has been privy to so far down the length of that mysterious tunnel. The chamber is mostly circular, and has a ramp going up to the left. Shazzrah came from the right end of the chamber, Baron Geddon paces tirelessly around this room and up and down that ramp. At this point, you will be essentially alternating every fight between a lava pack and an L/A. No more giants, no more surgers, no more core hounds. Get out your fire resist gear.

Your guild should figure out what works best for them in pulling the lava packs at this point. My guild lets me continue to pull the packs with the pet, so I typically clear all the way up the left side while they stand at the room's entrance. The only real advantage this has is that we can cut straight up the left wall rather than fighting / risking aggro on the mobs on the back edge of the room. One lava pack in particular tends to add if you don't fight them first. I've heard of other people pulling with paladins and bubble. Anyone who doesn't have extreme fire resist or some kind of immunity is just committing suicide if they try to pull, but if you have a tank with 200 FR, they *might* be able to just bring the pack in themselves.

Going up the left ramp, you will fight the pack at the base, an L/A, a pack halfway up by the cones, an L/A, a pack on either side of the narrow bridge that goes past the giant Golemagg, (you'll deal with him later,) and then scattered packs and L/As until you reach Sulfuron Harbinger. There is a side path you'll see off to the left. That is the road to Golemagg; you can leave it be for now.

Make no mistake � this will be very slow-going. Your guild might spend a week or two just figuring out how to get past this yard trash. It tries one's patience, but when you get through them all, you will be on the home stretch.


BOSS #7, SULFURON:

Compared to what you just endured, Sulfuron should be a piece of cake. He has 4 guards, all healers. The protocol for what to do should be pretty obvious, especially since Sulfuron himself doesn't do anything particularly nasty.

Set up 5 tanks � one for each target. The MA is in control of this fight, and should work across the room killing the priests. The pull is as simple as everyone aggroing their target simultaneously. No fancy hunter pulling or anything, although you can certainly do that if you like. The tank on Sulfuron should take him to the back, where he was to begin with, while the priests are fought at the base of the incline. There really isn't much to say about this fight beyond that.

Sulfuron will periodically move away from the tank to try to get a couple ranged attacks in with his throwing spears. He also uses Demoralizing Shout and occasionally cleaves. Nothing you can't handle. Make sure you loot your last hand.

Alternatively, some guilds choose to AE the priests, with Curse of Tongues and Mind Numbing Poison to slow down the heals to the point of being easily interruptible.

One thing to note about Sulfuron is that he VERY frequently drops an item that is collectively known to the player body as "vendorstrike." Shadowstrike is nothing to be excited about, and will ultimately be getting disenchanted routinely. If you use a DKP system, don't have a high cost on this one.

After killing Sulfuron, you can go up the side path. The clever explorer will notice that there's actually a fork here where the path doubles back on itself. You'll find there is nothing up that other path beyond a couple trash mobs, though. Just forge on ahead to Golemagg's room. There are a few L/As on the near edge of the room, and a couple lava packs on the far edge, but that's about it as far as trash goes. Time to finish this.



BOSS #8, GOLEMAGG THE INCINERATOR:

Golemagg is a test, not so much of your skills, as of your equipment. Experienced guilds find this to be a much less challenging fight than, say, Shazzrah. However, for the guild that just got here for the first time, this battle will NOT be easy, because it is not short.

Golemagg has two core hound pets. They can not be killed.
Let me repeat that: they cannot be killed.

Set up an off-tank group for each dog consisting of a warrior, a warlock to park an imp nearby, a priest, a druid with Innervate, and your factional hybrid. These groups needs to be self-sufficient throughout the battle. Everyone else will be focused on Golemagg.

The dogs are stronger when they fight near Golemagg, so the pull will consist of bringing the left dog over the edge of the room entrance, the right dog to the fire cones over by where the lava packs were, and Golemagg to the top of the ramp in the center, with enough room for the rest of the raid to stand at the back wall. A hunter will probably need to tag the two dogs to bring them to the off-tank groups, but it's not exactly a milk run since those dogs are very fast and hit rather hard, so don't be surprised if those hunters die in the process. A paladin/shaman still out of combat should be prepared to rez them.

Vitals on Golemagg:
-He has tons of health. This fight will last longer than your previous fights, so mana conservation is of the utmost. Get Judgement of Wisdom or Mana Tide Totems going!
-Golemagg launches a fireball at a random target that does impact damage and some ensuing damage over time. Anyone hit by this fireball should bandage after the DoT ends to save their healers' mana. Hunters should have pets out, on passive, to serve as additional fireball targets.
-Golemagg does a stomp attack like all giants in MC do. At low health, he does these constantly, which some guilds refer to as "earthquaking." The dogs also step things up a little when Golemagg is low.
-The dogs have a high-damage bleed effect. This should be effectively absorbed in the healing of the tank. They also get stronger as they take more damage, so off-tanks should fight with something fairly ineffective like a mining pick.

Beyond that, there really isn't much to be said for this fight. It's fairly straightforward once you have the logistics down. Off-tank and burn down the boss. That's really what it comes down to. You will either wipe early because of some mishap, or you will wipe at under 5% because you ran out of steam. In-between is very unlikely unless the tank just happened to die.

Once you kill Golemagg, the dogs will collapse instantly. Congratulations! You've cleared Molten Core�or have you? What are these glowing rune things, and what was that side path on the way to Golemagg? Come to think of it, wasn't there another side tunnel we completely ignored out by Gehennas? And isn't the boss of Molten Core Ragnaros?

Well, even if there are further mysteries to unravel, you've certainly come a long way, and your guild should definitely be patting themselves on the back.

DOMO AND RAG


HYDRAXIS, REVISITED:

The mysteries of what remains in this zone now lie squarely in the hands of Duke Hydraxis, so let's review what quests are in the series:

Poisoned Water � Kill corrupted water elementals in Eastern Plaguelands
Stormers and Rumblers � Kill air and earth elementals in Silithus

Eye of the Emberseer � kill Pyroguard Emberseer in Upper Blackrock Spire

Agent of Hydraxis � get to honored with Hydraxian Waterlords (will happen on its own in MC, do not recommend grinding outside)

The Molten Core � kill select trash mobs in MC

Hands of the Enemy � return to Duke Hydraxis with the hands of Shazzrah, Lucifron, Gehennas, and Sulfuron

A Hero's Reward � You receive one of two rings with 15 fire resistance, and can now obtain an Aqual Quintessence, which is the real goal of this exercise.



SUMMONING 'DOMO:

Next to each of the 8 bosses in Molten Core you have slain by now, (or at least read about,) with the exception of Lucifron, there is a rune that looks like a grate on the ground with white glowy stuff coming out of it. If you have an Aqual Quintessence, you can "put out" the rune. It would be nice if you could reuse the Quintessence, or carry more than one, but this effectively means 7 people need to do this on every MC trip. After using your Quintessence, you can get another one from the Duke.

Put out the 7 runes, and there will be a yell throughout the zone from Majordomo Executus, who now resides on the once-empty plateau above Golemagg and Sulfuron.

While you're in the "we must do this Hydraxis crap" phase, you might want to read below to the "preparing for Ragnaros" section as well.



BOSS #9, MAJORDOMO EXECUTUS:

Domo's fight is, in some ways, the exact opposite of Golemagg. He has 8 guards � 4 Flamewalker Elites and 4 Flamewalker Healers - and rather than off-tanking them while killing him, you off-tank him while killing the guards. When all the guards are dead, he surrenders and leaves behind a chest to loot in place of his corpse.

Getting to this point is no small matter, however:
-The healers heal. As a result, care has to be taken with them. They also toss random shadowbolts.
-The elites have a short-range fire AE that mandates you spread them out.
-Majordomo periodically creates a shield effect that prevents him and his guards from certain types of damage � either it blocks all physical attacks and reflects some damage, or it blocks all magical attacks and reflects some damage. The only class who has it easy here are hunters, whose autoshot apparently falls under neither category. Some mods will announce when a given shield is up so you don't damage shield yourself to death. The shields only last a few seconds.
-Majordomo teleports a target, often his primary target, to the hot coals in the center of the room (that are effectively lava.) After doing so, his aggro is partially wiped.
-Majordomo goes berserk when there is only one of his guards left, healing that guard to full and then ping-ponging aggro and doing more damage than before.

This all sounds pretty bad, and it is. But obviously there is a way to defeat, and that route is through your mages, who have had little-to-no job so far other than summoning water.

Plain and simple, you can NOT do Majordomo without certain classes being present in force. A fifth mage is helpful for back-up, but without 4 mages, you will be sunk. Without 5 valid tanks, you will be sunk. Without sufficient healing, you will be sunk. This fight must be very well-orchestrated, beyond anything you've yet seen. You will want to set up the following groups:

1 mage group consisting of 4 mages and a priest for them. These mages cannot die, as they will be responsible for polymorphing the healers.
4 off-tank groups consisting of 1 warrior, 1 priest, 1 druid/hybrid, 1 warlock (for imp), and 1 other random person. In one group, this should be a hunter. These groups will need to be self-sufficient while they off-tank for a very long time. The hunter group will be the one off-tanking Majordomo.
3 groups of DPS classes and whoever is left, hopefully involving *somebody* to heal these people, but perhaps not. These players should be fully-prepared to use potions and bandages. 1 of these groups should have a "point tank" who is the main assist for the fight and also responsible for tanking the first elite.

Yes, you read right. The healers are sheepable. However, there is a caveat to that � it's only the healers, and once 4 targets are dead, they become immune. This means you want to kill 1 or 2 elites, wipe out all the healers, and then finish the remaining elites. Most guilds find it preferable to only kill 1 elite first so they do not risk an active healer after the immunity wears off. A few guilds do things very differently, but 1 elite, 4 healers, 3 elites is the norm.

Clearly, pre-targeting is vital. Note that the array of lizards here is elite-healer-elite-healer-DOMO-healer-elite-healer-elite. Two of the elite groups should fan out down the right side and pull to their target to their location � you can navigate down the wall so long as you stay right on it, and be prepared to take the two elites on the right side of Domo. One of the elite off-tanks should be on the left-most elite and be prepared to take it to the stalagmites to left of the entrance ramp. The guild will focus fire initially on the inner-left elite. Each of the 4 mages should work out their own target to sheep, and be singularly responsible for keeping that healer polymorphed until the guild gets around to killing it.

Domo will be off-tanked near the left side of the lava pit, or at least some place out of the way. Wherever the warrior decides to position him, the hunter should stand to the opposite side from the raid, and be prepared to use Distracting Shot to bring him back every time he seems to lose interest from the warrior, usually because the warrior was teleported. This hunter should have Deterrence at least, and be well-prepared to Disengage, since he will end up taking a few hits along the way, and HE CAN NOT FEIGN, or he will lose all aggro, which he actually needs here.


This fight will be a huge freaking headache to learn. Bring repairbots. Bring extra supplies. Make sure a rezzer is soulstoned before every fight. Here's just a short list of what can go wrong:
-One of the mages dies. A loose healer wreaks havoc on the raid both by healing the current target and adding excess damage. If this happens, a spare mage should hopefully be at the ready to grab him.
-One of the tanks dies, and nobody is in much of a position to pick him up. Theoretically, a druid in the off-tank groups could go bear, or worst-case scenario one of the other off-tank warriors actually CAN tank both, if the two groups' healers converge on him.
-The Domo tank or hunter die. Domo starts running amok on the off-tank groups and slaughters them, compounding the problem. If the hunter dies early, another hunter can step in, or later on when a warrior is free they can be a second taunt to hold him. Otherwise you have problems.
-Someone aggroes early. You can't handle this fight by surprise. Even if you're prepared, if the wrong person "pulls", they will die. A paladin with bubble-pull is the preferred Alliance technique. Horde will have to do whatever they've done before on fights like Garr.
-Nobody gets soulstoned after a wipe. Unless you get lucky with a rogue or hunter with cables, you're looking at a reclearing for that one.
-Someone does something stupid, like uses an AE. The raid wipes horribly.
-The raid doesn't efficiently focus fire and blaze through the different targets in succession. The healers risk running out of mana and the off-tanks will die.

And I'm sure you'll invent your own that aren't on this list.

When you finally kill Executus, he will leave behind his chest, which will always contain either the Benediction or Rhok'delar quest starter, and go off to summon the sleeping Ragnaros.



PREPARING FOR RAGNAROS:

You need fire resistance for Ragnaros. Yes, you. All of you. No exceptions. The hunters and mages can not hide out of range. The tanks need ridiculous amounts of it. You all need lots and lots of fire resistance. Obviously you don't want to sacrifice tons of good stats for FR, **but you might need to anyway.**

NOBODY in the raid should have under 100 unbuffed fire resistance. Anyone who is going to be up close to Ragnaros should have closer to 200. Unbuffed means unbuffed. Paladins can not count their aura.

"But getting 100 fire resistance is too hard for the whole raid to do!"

No, it's not. Do BRD vault runs for the Librams of Resilience, and you can ADD 40 fire resistance to a combined head and leg item of your choice. Mind you, this doesn't have to be your normal gear, if you find a nice piece of alternate fire resist headgear. Your Onyxia key is good for 15 if you don't have another neckpiece that comes close. Your Hydraxian Waterlords ring reward is another 15. One of the BRS quests rewards you with a trinket, Ward of the Elements, that has 8 to all resistances. You can get 7 fire resistance added to your cloak fairly cheaply, and an Onyxia Scale Cloak has 16 to begin with. Your DM trinket will have 10. There is a 5 FR shoulder enchant. This is equipment and bonuses EVERYONE CAN GET, and there's plenty of more restricted items like the Torch of Austen or Dark Iron armor.

Getting 100 is not hard, but it does require some effort from each individual in the raid. Even if someone thinks they can write off the need for fire resistance, it will be significant again during several parts of Blackwing Lair.

Furthermore, every guild member on the raid should have Greater Fire Protection Potions. The alchemy recipe for that drops in LBRS, and isn't extremely common, but someone in the guild needs to have it. The materials for the potion are 1 Elemental Fire, 1 Dreamfoil, and 1 Crystal Vial. Everyone should be responsible for their own potions, by supplying materials to the alchemists. The emphasis here is that killing Ragnaros is a GUILD effort. You cannot expect everyone to do the work for you so you can reap the glory.


SETTING UP FOR RAGNAROS:

After defeating Majordomo, you have a limited amount of time to meet him in the center of Ragnaros's lair. The lair is on a side path near where you fought Gehennas. Another tunnel branching off to the east before Garr's room will lead you straight down the long, winding path into the spiral room. While explaining this room purely in words is difficult, when you arrive you will understand that there is an outer ring and an inner ring around the very center of the room, (as well as the pathway along the outer wall.)

Domo will be here, in the inner ring, and if you talk to him, he will spawn Ragnaros. Don't spawn Raggy 'til you're set-up and the raid knows what to do.

Groups will be spread out throughout the area, as Ragnaros pops up in the center of the inner-most curl of the spiral. Be very mindful of lava and the prospect of being knocked back into it. Some spots are very difficult to climb out of.

This fight calls for two main tanks, because of the knockback. They will both be along the inner circle, but on the most clockwise part of it. Rogues and other warriors will be along the other sections of the inner circle. Healers for the MT and ST will need to be in range, but just barely, so they will be on the outer ring, but very close to the MT/ST. Ranged groups should fan out among the rest of the outer ring. Our guild typically has three "melee" groups and three "ranged" groups, in addition to two groups for the tanks and their healers.

Let everyone know where they will need to be for both phases of the fight, and then converge to your center of operations for buffing, which is usually best done in the gap between the two large rocks lining the back of the outer ring. Everyone should have at least two fire protection potions for the fight, one of which they use immediately and one they save for later, as needed. Once buffs are complete, start the dialogue with Majordomo as you do paladin blessings, if appropriate, and have everyone return to their spots and begin the fight!



RAGNAROS, MAIN PHASE:

The phase of the fight where you get to fight Ragnaros lasts for 3 minutes, before he summons his "Sons" and you have to deal with them. He returns shortly thereafter to restart this phase.

Nobody should be taking aggro from the MT. It's unlikely this will happen, since rogues will be good little elves and orcs, and not attack instantly, and it's virtually impossible to do from ranged. During the course of the 3 minutes, here are the things to be aware of:

-Wrath of Ragnaros is a melee knockback, accompanying the phrase "Taste the flames of Sulfuras!" This is a fire-based attack that can be resisted, although to be done reliably, you will probably need around 250 FR. If the MT is knocked back, everyone needs to be careful, and hope that the ST wasn't also knocked back, who will be the focus at least until he gets back. Some guilds trade-off between the two tanks when this happens. It hits for around 1k, and is on a timer that can allow the other melees to avoid it by getting to the back edge of the inner ring. The call-out is the warning for it.
-Ragnaros also has a ranged knockback, which he uses when he says, "By fire be purged!" Randomly a target from a distance will be picked, and anyone immediately next to them will be sent flying. For this reason, it is important that ranged fighters do not stand on top of each other, and the groups fan out. It does some damage, but the falling damage is perhaps at least as significant. It's possible to be knocked forward, and even into a Wrath of Ragnaros, if you try to keep from going backward by standing right against one of the big rocks.
-Ragnaros places a debuff on his target, which should be the MT, that does several thousand points of damage over time.
-Lava Splashes occur intermittently, doing damage to anyone nearby.
-Ragnaros will Magma Blast anyone who he has aggro on from afar for 6k of fire damage. MAKE SURE SOMEBODY IS IN MELEE RANGE AT ALL TIME, even if that means calling and sending a hunter pet for a few seconds of relief. As long as someone in melee range has aggro, the rest of your raid should be (relatively) safe.

Aside from adapting to the knockback, and the in-and-out dance the rogues run, this is actually fairly straightforward. All good things must come to an end, however...

RAGNAROS, SONS PHASE:

As Ragnaros sinks beneath the flames, about eight "Sons of Ragnaros" emerge from all directions and converge on the raid. These need to be well-controlled. They can be banished, and perhaps one or two should be, but for the most part all the melees � and melee in this case means strictly anyone without a mana bar, so rogues, warriors, and perhaps shifted druids need to round them up into one central area so they can be AEd. They go down easy with focus fire, but unfortunately they take down your mages quickly as well. In addition to beating things up badly, they also have a local fire damage effect around them that also burns mana, EVEN WHEN BANISHED.

Casters need to avoid these things like the plague. One MA should be assigned to help with focus fire, but the AE will be the primary source of damage here. They are affected by Frost Traps, so it is not unwise to have hunters feign to poop a couple out as they approach to reduce their mobility.

Transiting into this phase is possibly the hardest part of the encounter. Once the sons are under control, they usually aren't too bad. They are susceptible to Frost Traps and Frost Nova. Before summoning Rag, you might consider practicing collapsing for the sons.

After all the unbanished sons are dead, everyone except melee damagers should return to their phase 1 positions and prepare for Ragnaros respawning. The rogues and other warriors should finish off the last son or two before returning to the fight. Ragnaros respawns after 90 seconds, regardless, so when this timer is ending, the tanks and healers must leave and prepare for Ragnaros whether the sons are dead or not.




ADDITIONAL NOTES:

You will not survive into a third sons phase, no way no how. Some raids that are more healing-centric will weather a second phase, whereas more DPS-oriented raids will want to try to kill Ragnaros before a second sons phase can begin. Generally, if you don't get Ragnaros to 40% by the end of the first main phase, you will not beat him in two passes, and if you do not get him to 60%, you will not beat him at all.

Being well-supplied for this fight means getting everything you can out of everyone. Some additional items to consider bringing include:
-Cooking-made food items, for the well-fed effect
-Special cooking foods, like Poached Sunscale Salmon and Runn Tum Tuber Surprise
-Crystal items from Un'goro, such as Crystal Restore and Crystal Force
-Felwood purified plant items, like Wildblossom Berries and Whipper Root Tubers
-Blasted Lands quest rewards, i.e. Cerebral Cortex Compound or R.O.I.D.S.
-Buff-granting potions, a la Elixir of Fortitude, Mongoose Potions, and Wizard Oils

Some of these items are more reasonable and worth acquiring that others. (BL rewards and crystal items aren't nearly as recommended as choice potions, i.e.)

Anyone that enters the zone while the fight is active will be considered to have aggro. If you die early and try to run back, you will simply die again. If, by some chance, the raid wipes and can't recover, the path down will probably still be clear. Following a wipe, Ragnaros' aggro radius is surprisingly small, and as long as you do not enter the inner ring, you should be safe to rez or move about.

Ragnaros despawns 2 hours after being spawned. If you fail to kill him one day, you can go through the Majordomo fight again to resummon him later that week. Guilds that are interested in focusing on Ragnaros, and don't have time to make a serious attempt on the night they are approaching Majordomo should camp a warlock in a safe place in the area, such as the top of the Domo ramp, and have two rogues sneak in the next day to join and help for summons.

Guild morale may be difficult to maintain through Majordomo and Ragnaros. Players that have grown accustomed to seeing a pay-off for their work in raids will begin to flag in confidence. Leadership will need to keep the guild focused and motivated. Simply put:


IF YOU BEAT RAGNAROS, CONGRATULATIONS.

You deserve it.

[Cypher]

That's one helluva guide. Thanks a lot Cush.

[Cush]

Designed to please

[killerk]

MC is now a pretty easy run, we can take down all the sub bosses in 4 hours without a single wipe. We leave Domo and Rag for a one night stand. We could take down Rag to 38% but the damn sons are the big problem. We tried banishing them, fearing them and frost nova them. but they still come after us. if we can survive the sons we can easily down him. we have casters with atleast 100 FR unbuffed and melee with 150 FR.

Also getting CTraid and CTraidboss is very useful.

Here is a list of stuff warriors can get for FR gear. I went ahead and made the DI helm and leggings.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Plate_Resist_List

Also getting KLH Threatmeter is usual when u wanna dps, but not gain aggro.

[Christopher]

i tink my guild is going moltin core soon
i will tell them this