Noobing Molten Core

[MongoJerry]

You also have months of experience with these mobs. I've found that experience is just about everything in MC. Once you have a group that knows what to do, things get a whole lot easier.

Absolutely. Please don't misinterpret me. I'm talking specifically about the fight with Magmadar here, whose fight at its core is very simple. The only people who need to know what to do are: 1) Main tank who holds down Magmadar. I suppose this includes stance switching -- I'm still waiting to hear back from Sabik on what he does. 2) A healer rotation of six who heal at range. This only takes a couple minutes to get together even in noob groups. 3) A shaman who knows how to drop totems for the main tank. 4) A couple of hunters who alternate firing tranq shots when appropriate. This is 9 people who have to know what their roles are and only one of them (the main tank) requires any real skill. The other 31 people don't have to do anything out of their normal instance experience, and if some of them mess up or die, it doesn't make a large difference. This is in contrast to, say, the fight with Major Domo, where everyone has a role to play and has to be on their toes and know what they're doing.

[NotSoDarklord]

We got together today at 5pm with the goal of going into MC to kill Luci and Magmadar just to start the timer.  We had no plans to go much farther than that tonight.  We ended up clearing all of Molten Core, including Ragnaros, by 10:30 without a single wipe.  The accomplishment just amazed us all.
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First attempt on rag he nukes with an unresistable high damage aoe. You guys didn't wipe on this? Or are you not counting soulstone resurrections?

[MongoJerry]

First attempt on rag he nukes with an unresistable high damage aoe.  You guys didn't wipe on this?  Or are you not counting soulstone resurrections?

All but one player logged off, that (naked) player triggered Rag and died, and then we all logged back on. Exploit or a bug-workaround? You be the judge. But no, I don't consider one person in the raid dying a "wipe" even if he was the only one in the instance at the time.

[MongoJerry]

By the way, our main and secondary tanks died on Ragnaros and all of our warriors were dead when he was at like 1-2%. Ragnaros killed people one at a time at this point, and what was left of us healers just shrugged and started blasting away. Ragnaros died to a SW:Pain with like 10 people left alive. Woot!

[Taeme]

Limping past the finishline eh mongo? We've never done Rag like that, but Onyxia, oh boy it's fun when all the tanks die and you just start screaming

Shazzrah doesn't count because like you said, it's almost impossible to wipe on him =) Annoying? Hell yes. Probably much more annoying then Mag. Especially when people run through the raid instead of towards main tank when they get the random aggro. But I think Mag fight is more instense for MT since you always have to pay attention to timers and watch for fear =\ Not hard either. Just can't watch TV during it unlike in some fights. [right][snapback]79201[/snapback][/right]

We have an addon running that does timing for the fear and announces when to be ready for the fear.

Shazzrah is frustrating because it's not like you can just, well, NOT TANK, but you do have to do something and oh man he doesn't stand freaking still.

[lemekim]

Limping past the finishline eh mongo? We've never done Rag like that, but Onyxia, oh boy it's fun when all the tanks die and you just start screaming

We have an addon running that does timing for the fear and announces when to be ready for the fear.

Shazzrah is frustrating because it's not like you can just, well, NOT TANK, but you do have to do something and oh man he doesn't stand freaking still.
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I guess to each his own =) We never wiped on Shazzrah, even the first time. Unlike Mag... Although Mag is trivial now as well.

Geddon on the other hand sometimes still can be fun... I have a screenshot somewhere of me hitting Geddon with one last execute for 1000 damage, killing him, dying from his one last attack, and one priest out of the whole raid left standing. Best fight ever.

[Hedon]

Thx for your tips on dealing with Magmadar. :)

We will try him tommorow using your suggestions on tremor totems and "stance dancing". Hopefully he will fall quickly and we can procede to Gehennas on the same evening.

Any hints on the best strategy to tackle this particular beast (Gehennas), before we go off on our noobish rampage through the Molten Core? ;)

[MongoJerry]

We will try him tommorow using your suggestions on tremor totems and "stance dancing". Hopefully he will fall quickly and we can procede to Gehennas on the same evening.

Any hints on the best strategy to tackle this particular beast (Gehennas), before we go off on our noobish rampage through the Molten Core?  ;)

Gehennas casts curses and has two guards. Basically, he's Luciferon but just a little tougher. Like Luciferon, it's best to tank the boss and pull the guards well away from him so that dps players won't get cursed or damaged while killing the guards. After the guards are dead (which takes very little time), everyone settles in for a long but not terribly difficult fight against the boss. The main thing is to remove his curses and to tell people that if they're getting hit by his rain of fire to move out of the way of it.

As far as tanking and healing rotations go, we use a probably more elaborate system than is necessary, but it works. We set up two groups of healers. Each group has three priests and a druid in it. The three priests heal in a rotation among themselves. The priest who is healing heals the main tank at range while the other two priests stay back out of range so they don't get cursed or hit with rain of fire. The druid's job is exclusively to remove curses and to heal the priests in the rotation. Alternatively, a mage and a shaman can be used for the same role (mage to remove curses and shaman to heal the priests).

Everyone else does their normal thing. Obviously, two warriors will be needed to temporarily tank the two guards and the other healers in the party should make sure to heal them. After the guards are dead, everyone attacks the boss and the healers not in the main healing rotation heal their own parties and maybe throw random heals on the main tank. I imagine that some mages should be assigned to remove curses on everyone but come to think of it I don't recall that ever happening in our raids. It's possible that people just know to do that on their own, though, after raiding Molten Core so much.

[MongoJerry]

I guess to each his own =) We never wiped on Shazzrah, even the first time.

Oh, you never tried fighting him in the tunnel? That's fun! You should try it some time. :)

[lemekim]

Post-patch Shazzrah in the tunnel - sounds like a a 40-man suicide attempt =)

As for tips on Gehennas, I would like to add some more tips. This might be a bit more SPOILERISH though, so read at your own risk!









Gehennas:

First, Gehennas has AOE Rain of Fire attack (a better version of warlock one). He casts it on random person within 40 or perhaps more yards range, and it damages everything within 10 or so yard radius. Thus you need to get out of there if the attack is cast on you, and you also need to spread out - make a big semicircle around him, so that if he casts rain of fire, it affects the least amount of people.

Also, because of the rain of fire, if you do get melee on him, try not to have them bunch up (1 rain of fire will wipe them all out) and not to get too close to Main Tank so that the rain of fire cast on melee will not damage Main Tank. In fact, if you can, avoid all melee altogether on Gehennas, until when warriors can execute him or so.

He also randomly casts shadowbolts for quite a bit, but you can bandage yourself or whatnot, so thats not really an issue.

The curse that he casts is a 75% healing reduction debuff, so you will need a dedicated curse remover on the main tank. You can put a curse dispeller in each group (mage or druid) so that they watch for those curses.

Adds:

Because of the Rain of Fire, you will want to tank the adds far from Gehennas, so that those groups do not have to deal with extra damage.

The adds that Gehennas has have AOE stun attack. So when you pull Gehennas, you will want to get the adds away from main tank as soon as possible, and pull them away from each other as well.

[MongoJerry]

Post-patch Shazzrah in the tunnel - sounds like a a 40-man suicide attempt =)

Yeah, it reminded me of that time in the beta when the Scarlet Monastery was new and my group carefully and cautiously worked our way through the openning part of the Cathedral. Then, with none of us knowing what would happen, one of our partymates pulled Mograine "because he's right there." Wow, what a train that was! It was one of those deaths where you don't mind it, because you're laughing at it so much.

[mjdoom]

Oh, you never tried fighting him in the tunnel?  That's fun!  You should try it some time.  :)
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The only time I really went far into MC I was with a group that hit Shazzrah for the first time. Needless to say we tried to fight in the tunnel. I don't believe I've ever seen 40 people die so fast before :wacko:

- mjdoom

[Hedon]

Well, we tried Magamadar yesterday and unfortunately we failed again :(

Some of this has to do with tactical aspects and much more with the attitutde many people show on these raids.


The tactical aspect has to do with wrong positioning:

According to the Discordias Magmadrar Guide ( http://www.discordia-guild.org/mc_mag.htm ) he must be turned towards the west wall, so the healers can be postioned in a 90 degree angle towards him, maximazing the distance and thus not be subject to his fear. Unfortunatley he was always tanked facing the north wall, which means healers have to be nearer to Mag himself to still reach the tank (Magmadar being between tank and healers).

We did all the antifear tactics you recommended (thanks again for your tips), but while we managed to keep the tank unfeared, he would drop dead as soon as enough healers had been feared, and were thus unable to keep up pumping sufficient HPS into the MT.

Having only one hunter with tranquilizing shot didn't help either.



Not having slain him for tactical reasons wouldn't be as bad, weren't other more "social" factors involved in our failure. This may feel like something of a rant, so feel free to skip it.

From my days playing "Saga of Ryzom" I remember one gaming session esprecially well, in fact being asked, what my best MMO Experience had been so far, I would immediatly answer it was 11h long tour de force raid with the "United Homins", a pro gamer guild, which took us over four continents and two prime root passages, involving some of the most dangerous areas Atys (the Ryzom World) had to offer. This raid has been mostly pick up, infact it was something of a guided tour for by some members of the "United Homins" for noobs like me, to allow them to get bind points and teleporter tickets in distant extremely difficult to reach areas of the world.

We got started at something like 6 p.m. and finished around 5 a.m. on the other side of the world, and we had such a great time.


Let's compare this with my latest MC experience. Invites started at 4 p.m. at 5:30 p.m we did our first pull, an hour later, we found out that Luci had still not respawned yet (saved instance from last week) and proceeded to Magmadar. We had more problems with the core hound packs as the last time, because almost always someone killed one prematurely and thus it was rezzed again at full health (you have to beat all core hounds of one pack to around 10 - 15 % and then AE them killing them all at once).

Anyway we approached Magmadar and were wiped for the above mentioned tactical mistakes. Then we stood around for a full hour between our wipe our next attempt in those boring cave, because always someone was AFK or had connection problems or we had to wait for these core hound packs to respawn, so they wouldn't add in the midst of our next Magmadar pull etc.
Unneccessasary to mention that one hour of doing nothing in this boring cave took it's toll on everybodies patience and people started trash talking on the voice and the chat about other raid members etc. After another two wipes the raid dissolved at 9. p.m.



So what was difference between the raids in "Saga of Ryzom" and those Raids I've experienced in Molten Core so far?

Well for one thing, the community in Saga of Ryzom (SoR) was much more mature, than the one I find in WoW, and for this there was a lot less trash talking, better attention spans of raid members, as well as more willingness to take oneself back to allow for better coordination and concentration in general.

I really don't understand why people have to go random AFK for 15 minutes or longer for some reason, make commitments to raids, and then do not show up the next day. When confronted about it, one is often told to ease up: it's only a game after all. Well it's a game, but this game is played by real people and it's those peoples time and enjoyment that is wasted by such negligence. If people don't want to commit to such a raid with all the concentration and time requirements it takes, then they really shouldn't sign up in the first place. :angry:


Being honest I'm quite frustrated about our lack of progression in Molten Core and I rather don't think that I will sign up for one of these raids again, unless our guild has enough manpower to be able to do MC all by itself with perhaps only a few reliable outsiders and a DKP-System in place. I figured that it is more probale to acquire my epic PvP set, than the epic Molten Core pieces as things stand right now.

[russ]

The player problems suck, Hedon, but hopefully people will get further into the game and spend more time working with each other. My guild still has problems getting everyone there in time for a run, but we're at least paying more attention by the time we took Golemag. Garr and Geddon really get people to pay attention, if nothing else.

On another note, you really shouldn't have any of your healers feared outside of some really unlucky events with the Flame Spit. You've got 40 yards on your heals, and people need to know to keep at near max range.

[MongoJerry]

Some of this has to do with tactical aspects and much more with the attitutde many people show on these raids.
The tactical aspect has to do with wrong positioning:

According to the Discordias Magmadrar Guide ( http://www.discordia-guild.org/mc_mag.htm ) he must be turned towards the west wall, so the healers can be postioned in a 90 degree angle towards him, maximazing the distance and thus not be subject to his fear. Unfortunatley he was always tanked facing the north wall, which means healers have to be nearer to Mag himself to still reach the tank (Magmadar being between tank and healers).

We did all the antifear tactics you recommended (thanks again for your tips), but while we managed to keep the tank unfeared, he would drop dead as soon as enough healers had been feared, and were thus unable to keep up pumping sufficient HPS into the MT.

So strange. I've heard of this west wall tanking tactic, but I've never seen it used or seen the need for it. We have Magmadar tanked in the middle of the room, facing south. Our healers heal at range to the south and never get feared. I think the hunters with tranq shot also hang out in the same area (I'll have to pay attention to that next time). The dps people surround Magmadar to the north, east, and west. The dps people get feared occationally, but the main tank and healers never get feared and keep Magmadar held down. Magmadar falls with ease.

Regarding the guild problems, it sounds like more of a problem with the specific group of players you're playing with. You can either try to whip people into shape or try to find another guild that fits your personality and will give you the kind of experience that you.

[Hedon]

*excavating thread*

Having recently come back to WoW after a two months long break ( http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index...topic=6556 ) I also resumed raiding almost immediatly, beginning with attending an Onyxia raid followed by an MC raid yesterday. Ironically it was on my first MC raid after my WoW break that our guild alliance managed to kill Ragnaros the for first time not only for ourselves, but also the first time for the Horde side on our server (Kil'Jeaden - EU). Seems I came right back in time for the bragging rights :D


As you can see from the posts above, the last time I attended an MC raid, our guild alliance, consisting of Infacted (the guild I'm in), Forsaken Heroes and Dunkle Schar, literally stumbled through the core and we were stuck at Magmadar at that time. Frankly I was quite pissed at our lack of progress in MC, probably adding to the reasons I decided to take a WoW break.

But coming back to raiding I must admit I was in for some surprise. Not only a professional DKP system has been installed but much more importantly the guild and raid leaders have whipped our chaotic bunch to almost military discipline.
Guides have been written, DKP penalties for not showing up on time were implemented, mandatory talent specs for the attending classes been issued (you can't imagine how I mourn the loss of my shadow spec as I had to respec Melisandre completely to disc/holy to get a raid slot *sob*).

So things went really smoothly this time and soon Magmadar, the source of so much frustration two months ago, was disposed of with ease.



The other bosses soon followed Magmadars fate, with the expection of Majordomo Executus, where we experienced our first and only wipe prior to Ragnaros on this raid. Baron Geddon was fun, though I was a bit disappointed that I never had the pleasure of being the living bomb. I felt neglected and ignored :blush:
( see Mongos "Adventures of Neriad - Baron Geddon" Issue for a good writeup on this encounter http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index...topic=5552 )

We interrupted our MC Marathon for a tactical planning hour on the spot where ragnaros would spawn, so we could dry practice the encounter without any time constraints (Ragnaros spawns in the middle of the MC dungeon, so you come to his place almost halfway on your way to Majordomus Executus, who is placed at the far end of MC and who you have to kill in order to summon Ragnaros himself).
Though our positioning was not perfect, this hour of dry practice really paid off, when we came to tackle Ragnaros live later on.



Now our Ragnors strategy was as following:

Ragnaros spawns in the middle of the lave lake, which has a spiral of solid rock in it (see the above picture) The main tanks (MTs) were positoned left of Ragnaros, with MT healers and shaman totems behind them. As Ragnaros casts the "Wrath of Ragnaros" every 25 sec, which kicks everone in Melee Range, we used 2 MTs in case one MT didn't make it out of kicking range in time.

Second, Ragnaros casts explosions on random raid members every 20 to 30 sec. (By Fire be Purged) which kick everyone in 15 yards distance of the target. So you should make sure everyone is spreadout accordingly. It is especially important to make sure no one is whithin the 15 yards radius around the MTs.

Melee damage dealers start intially with the ranged DDs on the outer ring, but move into melee range once the MT has established aggro. Melee DD healer stay on the outer ring as possible, together with ranged DD and their healers. On the picture you see me standing on a kind of natural gallery from which I would heal the four mages of my group below me. (Not an optimal position as it turned out, as it was difficult keep LoS for healing and the 15 yards distance at the same time. I was kicked everytime, especially since the people below tend to overlook the one on the gallery and move too close once action starts).



After sucessfully killing Majordomo on the 2nd try we all committed suicide and entered MC anew to make our way to Ragnaros' lair (it's faster this way, then to fight your way back from Majordomus place).

So finally here we were and watched the summoning of Ragnaros. Ragnaros is quite an impressive sight when you see him for the first time.





Soon action ensued. We had to get Ragna down to at least 50% before the first "Sons of Flame" Phase (see below), as we only wanted to suffer one this phases.




Then came the so called "Sons of Flame" Phase. Every three minutes Raganros submerges into the lava and smaller fire elemantals emerge. They have a nasty manaburn aura and are thereby extremly dangerous for mana dependent classes.
The key to success is of course to gather them all in one corner, binding them with melees and then to AE nuke them.

Here is a picture of our first Ragna try on that evening, where it obviously didn't work out, but you see the position where the sons should be engaged.





After three minutes Ragna emerges from the lava once again and you have another three minutes before the next Sons of Flame phase and so on, therefore it is important to do as much damage as possibly to avoid another Sons of Flame Phase. We downed Ragna one minute before the next phase; me being dead from being kicked into lava. Fortunatly I was hopelessly OOM at the time I was kicked anyway, so it wasn't that bad. You can read all the cheers in the chat window as Ragna went down; the mad screaming on voice was beyond imagination :)



What dropped? Nothing really uber, at least for cloth wearers though Majordomo dropped the [Staff of Dominance]. Since I'm starting to build up my DKP account only now I didn't have the points to bid on it. But Loot was secondary on this night, it was the accomplishment of downing Ragna for the first time that thrilled us.

I would like to thank all the members of Infacted, Forsaken Heroes and Dunkle Schar for making this possible and inviting me to this raid, although I have been away from the raid circus for two months. You are great and I couldn't imagine a better "welcome back gift" then this one :)

The raid:





We will now work on perfecting our MC performance to make it reliably farmable, as well as setting out for new frontiers; a BWL raid is scheduled for tommorow.

BTW: Can we expect an "Adventures of Neriad - BWL" issue? Pleeezzzzee, we need input :whistling: