Noobing Molten Core

[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: