Horde Molten Core Guide

What/Where is MC?

Attunement

The quest Attunement to the Core is a requirement to join the Horde Molten Core raids. Completing it allows you to zone directly into the Molten Core from Blackrock Mountain without having to clear through to the actual entrance portal far into Blackrock Depths.

The quest is given by a high elf Lothos Riftwalker. He can be found inside Blackrock mountain, between the Burning Steppes and Searing Gorge. To reach him, walk across the chain into the pillar in the center of the lava in BRM and follow the path downwards. At the bottom you will cross another chain and he will be easily visible.

To complete the quest you have to collect a Core Fragment from just outside the green raid portal for Molten Core, between the Seven Dwarfs and the Lyceum. It is completable in a ten man raid, but can easily be done with five. With a focussed 10 man raid this can be done in under a half an hour.

Once the quest is completed, you will be able to zone directly into Molten Core by jumping through the window to the left of the quest giver, Lothos Riftwalker. (Caution: this only works if you are in a raid! Yes, I do speak from experience...) It is not strictly necessary to jump through the window. Walking slowly up to the window will also zone you into the Core if you are in a raid.

Signing Up

Sign up threads will be posted in the Tichondrius Scheduling Forum up to a week before the planned time of the raid. At the moment, Molten Core raids consist of two days; day 1 runs from Lucifron - Golemagg, including Lucifron, Magmadar, Gehennas, Garr, Baron Gedon, Shazzrah, Sulfuron and Golemagg. Our best time for this run is currently four and a half hours, but we haven't taken longer than five. Day 1 is the most friendly to new players to MC as it includes a lot of different boss fights which experienced players know very well. We don't wipe ever (well, not often anyway).

Day 2 includes Majordomo Executus and Ragnaros and will run for about 3-3.5 hours. Ragnaros is still a really tough fight for us. To kill him, we need everyone to have as much fire resist gear as possible and come prepared with appropriate consumables, including at least five greater fire protection potions. See Tin's fantastic post under the preparation section of this guide for other important consumables. the difficulty of the Rag fight and the need for appropriate gear and preparation is reflected in the invite rules, posted below.

The invite rules can be found in this stickied thread in the Tichondrius Scheduling Forum. Any additional requirements will be mentioned in the actual sign up thread.

Preparation

From Tin's excellent post in the Fighter Classes Strategy Boards.

Intro:

Welcome,

There has been a number of discussion going on both on the forums and in game these last few weeks to do with class performance in large raids like MC and Onyxia. Discussion so far has been very positive. With each class having its own raid channel in MC where advice has been offered by all, everyone who's come regularly on MC has had plenty of time to learn their role now that we've made it to Rag.

You may have noticed there are no dps threads up at the moment in the raid leader forum. This is because all the topics people could think to bring up were discussed. If you haven't yet looked at these threads, it may be worth a look if your running or plan to run in MC as they include lots of helpful advice.

With the focus on Ragnaros, there is going to be a lot more focus put on people reaching certain expectations in their class, as it's a difficult encounter. Not to say the focus will be efficiency over fun, on the contrary, people should play their character with the spec they want, and to their own style. What's going to be needed is for players to look at what others are doing to reach that next level, such as what buffs are used, what potions, what special items or trinkets.

So bellow is listed many of the items used on a regular basis by myself and others and which are really not difficult to gather for a once a week instance run. Also, strategies will be listed from my experiences that work to help keep you alive. Most of these will apply mainly to the melee classes, specifically Rogues, but I'm sure there something in here for everyone.

A last note, the following list of buffs are not expected to be used throughout the raid unless you want too. We know many people have limited play time and may only be able to get a few supplies, which is fine. The items are important mainly for Ragnaros fights.

Felwood

Here is a map of felwood spawns of items, and a legend.

These spawns work one of two ways. The spawns located on the map are on random timers, they will either 1. be there and corrupted; 2. Be there and cleansed; 3. Be there and already harvested; or 4. not there at all. It's completely random and changes every few hours.

You either do the quest shown called Cleansing Felwood which gives you a Cenarion Beacon that let's you gather a variety of Corrupted items from either killing felwood mobs, mining, or gathering herbs. You hand in the items for Cenarion plant salve which cleanses the Corrupted plants.

Or, you can just pop down there now and then to check if there are any cleansed spawns up or harvested ones. usually, the harvested ones come back cleansed in about 25 minutes. If you harvest a cleansed one, it will usually come back cleansed in 25 minutes. So I hunt in the northern satyrs' area which has a night dragons and a whipper root spawn, and two other whipper root spawns nearby, as you can see on the map.

Yellow squares: Wild Blossom Berries which are 10 stam for 10 minutes food. it's free, it's there. Red squares: Night dragon's breath 400 - 500 life and mana, usable every minute, on a separate timer to potions. Purple squares: Whipper root tuber 700 - 900 life, usable every minute, on a separate timer to potions.

Map of Fellwood

Also of note, are the Demonic Rune usable every 2 minutes, which can be collected from the Orcs in Jaedenar around the middle of the map. For Mana users, used in combination with Night dragon's breath can be a powerful engine of destruction. Darkfirenova kindly tested this for me in MC last week against Garr, and found a huge % increase in damage.

Winterspring

A couple of great buffs here, one of which is quest related. The NPC for this is in the little Troll area in Orgrimmar where you end up after taking a mage portal, where the firstaid trainer is. She's on one of the stones in the water. the quest is Winterfall E'ko. You recieve a necklace you keep in your inventory like the Cenarion Beacon from felwood. When you kill certain mobs, Eko will drop. Different Eko is traded to her for different buffs. If you do this in a party, one eko will drop per partied person in the area, much increasing efficiency. Take a friend!

The Winterall Furbolgs drop Winterfall Eko. Trading 3 of these in gives you 3x JuJu Power.

As a bonus, these Furbolgs also drop Winterfall Firewater

Blasted Lands

When you enter Blasted Lands from Swamp of Sorrows, there is a line of NPCs to your right not far into the zone. Two of them will have a number of quests for you to gather different bodyparts from different creatures in blasted lands.

It's a very simple grind to collect them and hand them in. You will get a reward of one different buff for each quest, and a new quest will be available to you now which is a repeatable quest to get that buff again.

The buffs are linked bellow. You can only own one of each type of buff, so you can't get a stack of 5 R.O.I.D.s for example. You can only have one buff active at one time, the others will go on a one hour timer when you apply one.

R.O.I.D.s Ground Scorpok Assay Lung Juice

Potions of note

Elixer of the mongoose

Combat Healing Potion Greater Healing Potion Superior Healing Potion Major Healing Potion

Fire Protection Potion Greater Fire Protection

Things you can apply to your weapons

In these, I think Dense sharpening stones are the best value for trash mobs. Dense stone is cheap and easy to get, and they can't be resisted like poison, but the choice is up to the rogue. For Bosses like Rag I think the Elemental sharpening stones will be a good investment.

Instant Poison VI Made by rogues, and only used by rogues. Elemental Sharpening Stones Farm Elemental earth from low level rock elementals in Bad lands and Dense stone is from thorium viens and can be crafted by Asta or Champain of the Basin. Dense Sharpening Stones Dense stone is from Thorium viens and is crafted by blacksmiths.

Try to collect some, have a play around with them in MC and get a feel for using them a little. Build up a supply for Ragnaros. I'll add a strat section to this later, just wanted to get this information out as quick as I could.

Thanks

- Tin

General Tips

If in doubt, ask questions

Lots of players have been to MC many times, and have most likely asked the same questions you want to ask. Ask in party chat, ask in your class channel (Basinwarr, basinpriest, basinshaman, etc), ask in raid chat, ask on teamspeak in that order.

Main assist, main tank, offtank

The mainassist is the person who chooses the target for the raid to attack and is most likely a rogue or a warrior. Everyone should have an assist macro setup ( /assist mainassist'sname ) and should use this macro to select targets instead of manually targetting mobs. The maintank will tank bosses and single mob pulls, while the offtanks tank any additional mobs beyond the first.

Be aware of your surroundings

A major source of annoyance for the raid is people walking backwards into pulls they don't need to make. It wastes time and can end up wiping the raid. Pay attention to where you are standing. If you need to back up, back up to where you came from, not into some new area.

Listen to Teamspeak

Most important instructions will be given on TeamSpeak. Listen attentively at all times (unless Hasta sings, then you'll be forgiven for setting the headset down!).

Be ontime

If you are late, someone will be pulled from the waitlist into your spot. Tough cookies!

Read up on strategy before the raid

There are many many guides to boss strategy all over the net, and you'll find some if you scroll down. Reading up before the raid will save explanation time and save you from being confuzzled.

Repair

Repair and stock up on reagents before the run! Durability and reagent supply can be checked by raidleaders using raidassist. Don't be caught out!

How to contribute to the raid

Class Roles and Guides

Healers

Just a list of recomendations to start fleshing this section out.

If you can cast healing spells, join the basinpriest channel in addition to your normal class channel. This is where the main healing assignments are handed out. Even if you are not assigned as healing, you may be needed in a pinch. Remember, if the tanks die, so does everyone else.

If you are assigned to heal a specific person, you may want to make a macro to target that person.

If you are assigned into a healing rotation, please note down who you are going to take over from, and who takes over after you. Then make macros that announce you are stepping into rotation, or your mana has dropped below the swap out mark and the next person has to step up. These messages should go to the basinpriest channel.

If at all possible, multiple druids should not have the same healing target. Druids rely on HoT spells more often then not, but not only do they not stack, you may not be able to cast it at all if that same HoT is already applied to your target by another druid.

Unless otherwise noted, during boss fights you should stay at max healing range from your designated target.

Tanks (from Cybit, alliance tank)

If you're the MT or OT, your job is simple. Hold aggro on your target at all costs. To do that, I generally run towards the target and hit bloodrage, then hit shield block (this works if you have improved shield block) right before I engage. This allows me to most likely block the first attack from the target, triggering Revenge. I hit revenge, and odds are the rage from being hit so hard has given me enough rage to sunder as well. I then start spamming sunder, hitting shield block whenever the timer comes up, and hitting revenge as much as possible. Since I have 31+ protection, I also hit shield slam as often as it comes up, as well as shield bash. So a typical run goes like this

1) Bloodrage/Charge enemy 2) Shield block 3) Get hit by enemy 4) Revenge 4a) Demo Shout/Battle Shout 5) 5x Sunder 6) Shield Block 7) shield bash (12 sec cooldown?) 8) Shield Slam (6 sec cooldown) 9) Revenge (5 sec cooldown, shares with overpower) and then repeating 6 through 9, and applying Demo Shout/Battle Shout/Thunderclap when necessary. I don't tend to use heroic strike too much, because it goes away when you use another instant skill, but if you have a fast weapon, spamming heroic strike after revenge works wonders for holding aggro as well.

Using Taunt: Assuming you have CTRA, and can tell what your target's target is, the rule I have for taunt is simple. If the target's target isn't something with a rage bar, use Taunt. :) My character has improved taunt, which gives me far more leeway in that regard.

Bosses: Generally the same idea. Hold aggro at all costs and trust your healers. Improved Shield Wall and Last Stand are extremely nice skills for tanking bosses.

Trash Mobs

Molten Giants and Destroyers

These are fairly straightforward mobs to clear. They are big and made of lava, as the name suggests.

A pair of Molten Giants are the very first pull in MC. They come in pairs, or with a Molten Destroyer. The giants hit fairly hard and fairly fast but like all MC trash mobs, they aren't a problem to heal through. They do however have an aoe attack to people in melee range, so spot healing is required. Molten Giants also have a knockback which they will use on the tank, reducing the tanks aggro and most often chasing after one of the damage characters. For tanking these mobs it helps to position yourself between the giant and the casters. When knocked back, you will be able to easily intercept the giant on its way to the casters.

Molten Destroyers are easier to deal with. They are larger in size, hit harder and take significantly longer to kill. But again, they really aren't a problem to heal through. They have an aoe knockdown, stunning for a couple of seconds, but it doesn't have the aggro reducing component of the giants' knockback so it is not a threat to the raid, though as with giants spot healing is needed.

Neither of these mobs respawn until the instance has been empty for thirty minutes.

Firelords and Lavaspawns

Firelords are usually pulled singly, occasionally in pairs. These mobs look like large fire elementals and their damage is all fire. They have no aoe; instead they will periodically spawn smaller lava spawns. Lava spawns have a ranged fireball attack, but don't do much damage. But if they stay alive for more than 20 seconds, they split in half to form two lavaspawns, each as powerful as the original. If left alone long enough, these two will also split into four, who will split into eight, and so on. So it is imperative that they are killed as soon as possible. Mages will most often blizzard to hit both spawn and firelord and melee dps will assist the MA in attacking the lavaspawns.

Firelords themselves cast a magic debuff every three seconds or so that does a lot of damage over time and silences the target. This should be quickly dispelled by priests. Firelords have a two hour respawn timer.

Lava Annihilators

Lava Annihilators look like very large rock elementals, first encountered in Ragefire Chasm. They have a fairly strong melee attack and a random target charge. They seem to wipe aggro everytime they charge and attack a random target, so they are not really tankable. The random target charge really makes them a pain to attack for melee if everyone is spread out all over the place. To keep them in one spot we have everyone, rogues to hunters to priests, everyone, stand in melee range. "Hug the Annihilator!!" They have a two hour respawn timer.

Lava surgers

Lava Surgers look just like annhilators, but they are always patrolling and are different to fight. Surgers charge a random target, like annihilators, but they don't wipe aggro. They will come straight back to the tank. When they charge they do a 1000 damage aoe knockback to everyone in a small area around their original postition and a knockback for a similar amount of damage to the random target they charge. It is important that casters and anyone who can attack from range do so to avoid the aoe knockback damage. Melee should also take care to ensure that their backs are not facing the lava to avoid an unpleasantly hot bath. Healers will need to be vigilant with spot heals particularly on the rogues. These guys have a 24 minute respawn time, but stop respawning when Garr is dead.

Ancient Core Hounds

Ancient core hounds are large demon dogs. They have a nasty frontal aoe fire breath attack as well as one special ability. The special ability is drawn from a pool of five different abilities:

 - Warstomp: an aoe stun, about 5 seconds in duration.
 - Ancient hysteria: A removable curse, reduces enemies' spirit and intellect by 50% for 15 minutes. Should be removed after the fight.
 - ...: an aoe confuse effect, causes everyone to run around in circles. If nobody resists, the hound will wander around doing nothing too. If someone resists, their face is about to be eaten. Shadow resist is a minus for this variation :D
 - ...: reduces maximum hit points by 30%. Magic debuff, dispelable. Should be removed immediately off the tank and after the fight for everyone else.
 - ...: reduces attack speed and casting speed by 50%. Magic debuff, dispelable. Should be removed as soon as possible from damage classes after each application for the duration of the fight. 

The tank will face the ancient corehound away from the raid immediately to avoid the flame breath hitting everyone. Melee dps will however need spot healing as the flame breath can often hit them, even when standing behind the hound. These guys have an 18 minute respawn time, but will stop respawning once Magmadar is dead.

Core Hound Packs

Core hound packs are found in Magmadar's Cavern. One pack has to be cleared before Lucifron and four more before Magmadadar. Each pack is composed of five corehounds, a smaller version of the familiar demon dog mob. But these guys have a difference. All five must be killed within ten seconds of each other or any living dogs will bring the dead ones back to life.

Each dog is tanked by one warrior, whose target is assigned using the target management ( /tm ) system built into raidassist. One priest will be assigned to each warrior, which is plenty of healing. The corehounds will be pulled and spread in a rough circlular formation facing outwards, each hound like the spoke of a wheel. The main assist will target each hound in turn, switching the raid's target as soon as the hound hits 20% health. Once all five dogs are at 20% the call will be madeon teamspeak to bring the mobs together and for aoe attacks to begin. If everything goes to plan the dogs will all die within a couple of seconds of each other. It is critical that all damage dealers pay attention and switch targets as soon as the main assist calls for this to happen.

One thing to watch out for on these guys is the serrated bite. This is a nasty bleed cast on a random nearby target. It stacks; each application refreshes the duration and increases the damage over time by 1500 damage over 30 seconds. If the dog positioning is poor, it can end up applied many times to each tank. The highest I've personally seen is fourteen applications, or 21,000 damage over 30 seconds. It is important that priests and other healers watch the hitpoints of the tanks even after the dogs are dead.

Corehound packs provide a fairly unique opportunity for ridiculous damage meter exploitation. When each dog dies it is lieing on the ground for ten seconds while the game checks for any live dogs. For this ten seconds the dogs count as sitting, and so the ciritical hit chance is boosted to 100% on all landed attacks!

Corehounds are on a one hour respawn timer, but won't respawn when Magmadar has been killed.

Imps

Flame imps are found in the narrow caves between the first cavern of MC and Magmadar's Cavern. They have fairly low hitpoints and come in large packs. The imps are easy to aoe with all the mages and warlocks in a typical 40 person raid.

Lava Packs

Lavapacks (funpacks) are the most difficult groups of trash mobs in MC. They are composed of three of the three mob types, described below:

Firewalker

Firewalkers are nasty customers, the first to be killed in a lavapack pull. They look like fire elementals, seen throughout the game. They have a large aoe debuff which lowers fire resistance by 200. It is dispelable, but is frequently applied. It also has an ability called fireblossom, not as pretty as it sounds. This is a self buff which freezes the firewalker in place and fires a bunch of ~3000 damage fireballs to random targets. Sometimes these double up on one target, pretty nasty. It can be hard to position these guys because they stop to fireblossom a lot.

Flameguard

Flamgeguards are the second mob to be killed. These guys have a debuff called melt armour which lowers armour and stacks, so it is better for the firewalker tank to also tank the lava elementals and reavers. Flameguards have a frontal aoe fire attack, like a flame thrower. The tank should face them away from the raid, and damage dealers should attack from behind these mobs.

Lave reavers and elementals

These guys use the familiar rock elemental model but are smaller than surgers and annihilators. Lava packs will either have two level 61-62 lava elementals or one level 63 lava reaver. Both have the same abilities though. They have a high damage cleave and a frontal aoe stun/dot. The tank should face both types of mobs away form the raid, so they should affect no one but the tank. These guys are also banishable, and should be kept banished by warlocks until the firewalker and flameguard are both dead.

General Lavapack Strategy

On the pull, two tanks will be positioned with a good separation between each one. Hunters will pull the firewalker and flameguard to seperate tanks. The two are kept seperate to prevent people catching both of the debuffs. Warlocks will banish the lava elementals or reaver. The raid kills the firewalker then the flameguard, then as the reavers and elementals come out of banish they are dispatched.

All damage and spells except for the reaver/elemental melee attack and cleave is fire damage, so everyone should be wearing as much fire resistance as possible.