World of Warcraft Molten Core Boss Guide

Name	Molten Core Boss Guide
Category	Raid

Starting off, if you are reading this guide, you are probably in a new guild doing MC, so these are going to assume you have 40 people. If you can do it with less, you won't need this guide.

One thing that really needs to be stressed is healing. Since there are so many tanks in many of these battles, healers need to be VERY attentive about who they are healing. The loss of one tank in these battles can be the difference between a loss and win, so make sure you have ENOUGH healers, and make sure they are GOOD.


Before you read this guide, your raid needs Fire Resist gear!!!


You will zone in from Blackrock mountain, and end up in a passageway, which will have two Molten Giants in view. If you use this map as a guide, you start at the top left of the map.

To prep, buff up everybody, and hand out at least 30 waters to all casters. They will need it through the whole thing, and depending on how far you go and how often you stop, you may need more.

Before we start with the boss guides and how to reach them, I will give a little bit of info on the trash mobs, and how to do these encounters. They arn't hard, but if done incorrectly, they can cause problems.

Here is the mob list for Molten Core.


Ancient Core Hound

These mobs are roamers throughout the beginning of Molten Core. They arn't extremally tough, and use abilities that stun, as well as reduce your max health. They arn't a problem, as they come only one at a time, nothing hard, just tank and kill.

Core Hound

Core Hounds are just like Ancient Core Hounds, just without the debuffs. They are only in packs by Magdamar, and the strategy on those will be explained later. On thing that needs to be noted is Serrated Bite. It is a massive DOT that will get on tanks, and their health needs to be stricly watched because of this. Bad healing with this DOT (25k over 30 seconds) will result in a quick death.

Firelord and Lava Elemental

These two mobs are all throughout the core, not hard to defeat either. The only thing that must be done with these, is the killing of their spawns. They will summon spawns, which multiply into more spawns, and if not taken care of, will overrun your raid. All that is needed is to cast a few blizzards on them after they spawn.

Flame Imp

Only occurs by Lucifron and Magdamar, very easy. Just have all the AOE classes hit them, they go down fast.

Lava Surger and Lava Reaver

These two mobs arn't hard either, they just have odd crowd control. They will hit random people and warriors can lose aggro eaisly, so just keep heals on anybody getting hit, they won't have aggro for more than one or two hits.

Molten Destroyer and Molten Giant

These two mobs are the other type. They cleave and do some alright damage, but easy to keep aggro on. Just keep them away from casters and cleave won't be a problem. They always come in groups of two.


Walkthrough

In this walkthrough I will just be saying how to get to the bosses and kill them, the only thing on the way are the mobs mentioned above, and it is easy to judge which ones need to be pulled and which ones don't. The map at the top has all the mobs listed where they are, except the patrolling dogs. Try to have the dogs single pulled with nothing else being fought.

Getting to Lucifron/Magdamar:

This is pretty straightforeward. After prepping, pull the two lava giants at the beginning and dispose of them. Keep pulling the Lava Elementals and Lava Reavers, as well as the dogs that are patrolling. Go across the bridge, and follow the left edge of the cliff, pulling anything that might pose a problem. After following for a while, you will reach another bridge, which has a few mobs. Pull them across the birdge, kill them and cross.

Once you get to the "island" that has two bridges, keep the raid on that piece of land, and pull the imps in the room across the second bridge, as well as the Lava Surgers. Do not take too long, as the imps have a relativly fast spawn time. Once you take care of the one pack of imps and the surger, have the raid cross the second bridge and follow the right wall. Say in the first room, and pull the imps and surgers from the second. Once that is done, you can go into Lucifron's Room.

You will be able to see Lucifron, but also a pack of Core Hounds. You will want to distribute targets to all the hounds so their is a tank on each. Pull them, and have each tank take their own. Keep them VERY close together, so they can be AOE'd. It must be done this way because the hounds in each pack must be killed within 10 seconds of each other, or they will all respawn. Keep them close together, and AOE until they are dead. WAIT until their bodies decompose.

Lucifron

Make sure you are prepped, and assign tanks to Lucifron and his two helpers. Have a hunter pull them, and have the Main Tank hit Lucifron and keep him realtivly close to where he was standing. You want to have the rest of the guild in the far back corner, away from Lucifron. Pull the cronies by the rest of the raid and kill them. They will mind control, but it is not that big of a deal. Once they are taken care of, have everybody go to Lucifron. Stay at max range and heal and nuke. Lucifron has an AOE curse which makes mana costs rise by 100%, and this must be dispelled quickly. Mages will be on dispell duty this whole fight, and need to keep quick tabs on who need dispells so they don't waste mana. He also has a 2000 damage after 10 second curse which is random, decurse that too. Overal lucifron shouldn't give that much trouble, dispelling is the most important aspect.

Getting to Magdamar

Magdamar isn't very far from Lucifron. Keep following past where Lucifron was, and you will encounter more Core Hound Packs. All you must do is pull one pack a time with every one on a tank, and follow the same AOE pattern. Make sure they are balanced before they start dieing. Rogues can attack one if it is at a higher health than the others if neccesary. There are 5-6 packs after Lucifron, then Magdamar will be in sight.

Magdamar

Magdamar has a few tricks which are more impressive than Lucifron, but he shouldn't pose too much of a problem either. His three main tricks are conflagration spawns, AOE fear, and Enrage. Hunters have to be ready to Tranq shot Magdamar when he enrages. Have the hunters form a order in which they will tranq shot so somebody is always able to do it. AOE fear isn't the biggest of deals, though it can cause some confusion with the conflagration spawns. Magdamar will shoot fireballs at people, and on the ground where they are hit fire will spawn. If one walks in it, they will suffer some good damage, so watch out, and if possible stay away from them so you arn't feared into them.

Engage Magdamar where he is, and just have the tanks all on him, though not all frontal tanking. Have hunters tranq shot him as he enrages, and just watch the conflagration spots. Other than that, its just a matter of whittling his health away. Just keep the heals up on the tanks, and have some druid/shaman heal others in their group if they get hit with conflag.

Getting to Gehennas

Once you kill Magdamar, retrace yourself, killing the respawns of Imps and possible lava surgers back to the bridges, and follow the right side back up some. Using the map (see above), you can see that there is another way on the left side a little ways up back towards the entrance. If you follow that side closely, you can stop some unnecessary pulls. You will encounter some giant groups as well as surgers, nothing that hard. If you continue on down until the ground levels out, you can start pulling mobs. You will need to clear some considerable space for Gehennas. Basically, if you look where Gehennas is on the map, all in front on him needs to be cleared, as well as the mobs (if you are against the lava which he faces) around the back section, as your raid will stand almost against that lava. Once you have a sufficent amount cleared, you want to assign tanks to all three mobs.

Gehennas

This boss isn't much of a challenge, just some awarness is needed. Gehennas will basically AOE your raid, and you must move out of the way as it is powerful. He also will cast a curse on random people that REDUCES HEALING EFFECTS BY 75%. It is essential that you keep this off your tank, as he will not be able to keep up with Gehennas' damage if it stays on him. Make sure mages are watching carefully at that, and dispel immediatly. Tanks are the first priority for that curse.

If you pull the cronies off to the back where the raid is standing near the lava pool, and keep Gehennas where he is, AOE's arn't much of a problem while you kill the adds. Just take them one at a time, they go down fast, and keep healers on your main tank while you do so. You can then focus on Gehennas, and other than watching the AOE and Curse, just keep hitting him and evading the AOE. He isn't a hard battle.

Garr


Garr is the next boss, and if you look at the map, you just need to clear the giants and surgers and elementals around him. Basically, clear the whole room, because it will be essential for some other boss battles. Once you have the whole room cleared, stand in front of Garr and prepare to prep.

Garr has his babies around him, which must be killed before him... Kinda. If you kill all of the babies and then go for him, he will begin to cast knockback on half the raid occasionally and it's annoying. Our guild did it this way, and I dont like it, so I'll explain the better strategy. Other than that, he just dispells, not a big deal, buffs arn't needed too much!

To take care of the babies, all you will do is have you hunters mark them one by one, and have warriors assist them so you have them all. The reason for marking is just to ensure that all are accounted for. Basically you will want a tank on each of them, but probably not enough tanks are in your raid to accomadate, so have warlocks get on some to banish. Once all the targets have been assigned, pull. If you are facing Garr, have the Main Tank pull Garr off to the right side, and then pull the babies into the raid. You can either take them one by one and have all the tanks getting healed (they don't hit too hard), or you can try AOE. I reccomend one at a time, with a maximum number banished for crowd control sake.

Here is the trick. Don't kill all of his babies, kill all but one. This will stop Garr from casting his insane knockback. Just have a warlock constantly banish the last one, while the rest of the raid kills Garr. He will fall relativly slow... lots of HP, but then just kill the add when hes gone.

Note: Don't let the last babie get to Garr. He WILL explode and knock back everybody a LONG way away, causing a lot of confusion range wise for healing.

Baron Geddon and Shazzrah


These two bosses arn't hard to get to, and it is eaisest if you pull them back to Garrs room. Though first, head through the tunnel that is to the left of where Garr was. Go until you see the opening, and be ready for some fun. These pulls are probably the hardest in the zone, though no worries. They will either consist of two elementals and two surgers, or two elementals and one surger. They arn't hard, you just have to know what to do. Have a hunter give out targets to two warlocks who can banish the surgers, and then assign warriors to the elementals. Have the hunter pull, and have the warlocks keep the surgers banished while the raid kills the two elementals.

For these pulls, one must watch out for Flame Blossom, which will do about 2000 damage to its target depending on fire resists. Just make sure you keep people healed who get hit, though it doesn't happen that often.

Basically, you want to avoid Garr and his patrolling while you pull these, and pull the packs that are on the way to Sazzrah, who is in the back of that room. You want to clear that room so you can pull Geddon and Shazzrah to the room Garr was in without getting adds.

Once that has happened, bring the whole raid except a hunter back to the Garr room. Prep up and then pull Geddon.

Geddon

Geddon is a fun fight. He has a hellfire type AOE, which isn't the biggest problem, but as well as the ability to make somebody a living bomb, who explodes and shoots up into the air, and will kill anybody in a range. The best way to defeat this is to assign a place where anybody who is bombed will run. This way nobody will get hit by anothers bomb. When somebody is bombed, have a priest sheild them and a druid rejuvinate them, so when they explode and shoot up, they can survive on landing. I think the best location is to have the raid near the rune, but far enough so that the bombed can go run to the rune and blow up there.

All you have to do is keep Geddon on the tank, not hard, and keep your tank healed. You MUST have a call for this (get CT Raid Assist), so that everybody will know when they are the bomb and when to get the hell out of the raid. Not listening can get raids killed.

Other than that, Geddon is dropped pretty fast.

Shazzrah

You can pull Shazzrah right after Geddon, which is a nice perk. Shazzrah has three abilities. He can blink (far), he can AOE (long range 1k), and curse the raid with 100% extra magic damage taken. He can also cast something on himself which temporarily reduces his magic damage taken by 50% (have detect magic on and dispell him).

Basically, its another fight you can't not pay attention too. Mages must watch curses, and people must stay away from Shazzrah. Though he will stay on the tank, when he blinks he will run around and AOE. If you have his curse on and he blinks by you, he will AOE you for 2k, and you must run out as fast as you can or death will come quickly. Basically its a run around and nuke fight, rogues arn't very effective meele, do ranged attackes. Just stay away from Shazzrah, keep everybody dispelled and healed, and you should be fine. He doesn't have a whole lot of health, so he drops relativly fast.

Sulfuron Harbringer, Golemagg the Incerator, and Majordomo Executus

These last three bosses are in a little clump together. All you have to do is follow back to where Geddon was, and follow the right wall. There will be many (10-15) pulls similar to the packs, and the same strategy needs to be used with banish etc. If you keep following the roads and putting out the runes, you will clear all the way to Sulfuron.

Sulfuron


Sulfuron isn't a big challenge, he doesnt do that much. The trick are his healers. They need to be killed, and in the right order or they will heal each other. Basically kill them from left to right. Assign targets to all of the mobs, pop on Shadow Resist, and pull. Keep the priests spread out, and pull them away from the healers, who should be positioned to heal the MT right by where Sulfuron is, as he will keep him there. Kill the mobs left to right (if they start healing each other, you will be doing it in the wrong order). Once you do that, down Sulfuron. Probably one of the eaiser battles. Just watch for cleaves, as if they get on healers or casters, this battle can end quickly.

Golemagg

Golemagg is up the path to the right if you are coming back from Sulfuron. Just finish off the packs as usual, and them prep up for Golemagg. He is one of the more complex fights in the zone, with two hounds with him, random pyroblasts and some aggro issues.

You will need to have two off tanks on the dogs with two healers (possibly one) on them. You will just have those tanks kill the dogs during the battle, no other DPS. They die upon Golemagg's death.

Golemagg himself needs two tanks. Its straightforeward in the fact that you can just nuke the hell out of him and keep you tank healed, as well as those getting pyro'd. The trick is when Golemagg gets to about 20/30% health, you have to switch tanks. If you don't he gets a little pissy, and starts to go on a rampage around your raid. If you can execute the tank change, you will win eaisly.

Majordomo


Majordomo is the most complex battle save Ragnaros in the zone. To spawn him and his minions, you must put out all the runes that were next to the bosses. If you missed one go back. Just make sure its not Magdamars or Lucifrons, because that is a trip and there will be respawns for sure. Just dont forget..

Once he spawns, you will see there are 9 mobs. There are four elites, four healers, and Majordomo. You will need 5 tanks for this (use a druid if neccesary). Basically, have a tank on each elite, and your main tank on Domo. Spread out your healers so everybody gets some heals. The deal with the healers is to keep them polymorphed. This battle is a total bitch without four mages, so make sure you have enough. Have the mages keep the Healers poly'd at all times.

What you will do is pull the mobs, have the mages poly, have the MT keep aggro on Domo, and have four tanks on the elites. Keep the elites spread out. The skills that these mobs have is just either a Damage Shield or a Magic Reflect. When these are called, obviously certain classes will stop attacking for the 10 seconds depending on what it is. You will want to kill the elites first, making sure the healers are poly'd.

The tricks in this battle: kill off three elites, then take the fourth one down to ONLY 10%!!! The thing is once you kill four guys the healers become immune to polymorph. This means, kill 3 elites, take another to 10%, then start to kill a healer. Take him down all the way, this will make the other three healers un-polymorph, but you will be able to take down the fourth elite within seconds. This just leaves three healers, eaisly taken care of one at a time.

Once you kill the 8 mobs, Majordomo wusses out and gives up. Take the loot from his chest.

Ragnaros


The big red one is your next target.

Basically you need to backtrack yourselves to Garrs room, follow the right side of it and go down the path there to Ragnaros' Lair. You will probably want to repair via a bot or going to town, but if you go to town realize there will be respawns.

Prep for Rag

One thing that is neccesary is Greater Fire Protection Potions. You will need to farm a lot of Dreamfoil and Elemental fire, but you will want everybody to have 2 of these at least. Tanks maybe not because they take so much damage, but its not a bad idea.

Anyways, give everybody these, make sure you have a shaman in the tanks groups for fire resist totems, give them healthstones, soulstone the healers, and give out major mana potions to healers too if neccesary.

You will want to space out yourself throughout the middle part of the lair. If you look at themap you can see that there is a piece of land to the right of ragnaros that branches off. This needs to be kept clear for healers and casters later in the battle. You will want to be to the south and to the southeast of ragnaros if you are a caster, and if you are a rogue or offtank, be on the north side of his spawn. The main tank stands at the tip of the middle, so he will be facing that way.

killing the Fire Lord

When you talk to Majordomo as the main tank, Rag will spawn and kill Domo, and then talk for a bit and start attacking. Keep your tank healed (no brainer), and start to dot/attack. You have 3 minutes until he will sink below the lava and you will have to kill his Sons. Have CT raid up so people know when there is 3 minutes, 1 minute, and 20 seconds left.

You will want to pound on Ragnaros as hard as you can for those 3 minutes. Use Mana potions if you need to, use Mana Tide Totems, and bash him as much as you can. You will want to be aware of the 1 minute, and especially the 20 second mark before he goes away.

When he sinks down, he will spawn 8 sons of fire, which are elementals with a aoe on them that hurts everybody and drains mana. The best way to accomplish this, is at 20 seconds, have EVERYBODY but the main tank, move near the piece of land to the right of Rag that is an extension, having the casters on that piece. Furthermore, have hunters lay snare traps at the entrance to that piece of land; that is where the sons will be tanked. Have warriors on that spot and hunters to the south, and wait for Rag to drop. He will go down,a nd the sons will spawn and start to run that way. Have hunters tag the elementals and warriors taunt them, and keep them CLOSE TOGETHER. You NEED mages to AOE the mobs with blizzard, you only have 60 seconds to kill them all. Have rogues focus on them too, probably all on one to down them fast. You can have warlocks banish, but only if necessary, and NOT BY THE CASTERS. The mana drain will keep going through the banish.

This is probably the part that take the most skill, you MUST keep the tanks up, and be AWARE of the 20 second mark, because if you are late to collapse to the spot, then the sons will run all over the place and kill random people.

With 15 seconds left of so, have the MT run back to his tanking position. The sons should be dead by this point, or only 1 left, but regardless, the MT has to go back to hit rag. Make sure his healers are there to, and go back to stage one positions.

Depending on the amount of DPS you have, you may have to encounter two waves of sons, or only one. Until recently, we had to do two sons, but with 16 debuffs now as well as BWL gear, you can easily down him with 1. Two isn't hard, you just have to make sure you have mana. If necessary use fire protection potions, and just be aware of the time. If you can be aware of that, you will not have a lot of trouble. Just sync blizzard for AOE etc etc.

This guide should help you fight through rag and kill him, and if so, congrats on the win!

Onto Blackwing Lair!