[Raid] KoC Classic tour: Molten Core

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Piotyr

Piotyr

So, overall last night's march through ZG was fairly successful, and took 45 minutes. So, the next logical step of progression? Molten Core, the original raid zone.

We'll plan for 8pm Sunday again, unless Halloween is a terrible day for everyone.

A few things to note about Molten Core:
- I believe you still need to complete the attunement quest to get INTO Molten Core from Lothos Riftwalker. He's down in Blackrock Mountain on the way to BRD. He gives a quest "Attunement to the Core" which requires you to go into BRD, go to the portal entrance to Molten Core (near the end of BRD), and break off a piece of a rift crystal and return it to him. Afterwards, you can talk to him to teleport into Molten Core.
- Nearly everything in Molten Core is immune to fire, so if your primary damage is fire, you may want to keep that in mind.
- To access the last two bosses, you used to need an Aqual Quintessence consumable item from the Hydraxian Waterlords to douse 8 runes. Now, each rune will automatically douse when you defeat the corresponding boss. So yay.

So, I'll create a guild event again, and anyone can sign up that wants to go. If anyone needs help getting through the attunement, I would be happy to guide you through BRD to the rift crystal. Nothing in Molten Core has more HP than anything in ZG, so the encounters are roughly equivalent. Maybe possible with 2, definitely with 3, faceroll with 5. :)
 
Dei

Dei

I wouldn't say that nearly everything in Molten Core is immune to fire, back in Vanilla my husband managed to Fire Mage it up just fine. Maybe lava packs. I know that none of the bosses are immune.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
I will probably be out due to Halloween. That is if we have any candy to give out.
 
Piotyr

Piotyr

Dei said:
I wouldn't say that nearly everything in Molten Core is immune to fire, back in Vanilla my husband managed to Fire Mage it up just fine. Maybe lava packs. I know that none of the bosses are immune.
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Anything that is a fire elemental is immune to fire (firelords, lava packs, Geddon, Ragnaros). Core hounds and lava giants are resistant (which includes core packs, both lava giants, magmadar and golemagg). Lucifron, Gehennas, Shazzrah, Garr and Sulfuron Harbringer are thankfully not resistant to fire. :)

---------- Post added at 02:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:06 PM ----------
Dave said:
I will probably be out due to Halloween. That is if we have any candy to give out.
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Would later on be better, then, or a different day?
 
Piotyr

Piotyr

Molten Core

April Fools - 2008


History
  • Molten Core was one of two raid dungeons shipped at release (Onyxia's Lair was the other)
  • When WoW first shipped, the only way to access the Molten Core was to take a raid of 40 players into BRD, go all the way through that (past the seven dwarves), and enter the Molten Core portal. So, just entering Molten Core took upwards of an hour. Eventually, Blizzard decided this was silly and created an attunement quest that would allow players to jump through a seemingly random window near Lothos Riftwalker to enter the Core through a portal. Finally, in patch 1.11 (when Naxx was released initially), Blizzard decided jumping through a window wasn't really intuitive, and had Riftwalker just port you into the raid instance.
  • Before you can even attempt to fight Ragnaros, you need to summon Majordomo Executus.
  • To summon Majordomo Executus, you had to extinguish 8 runes located near the other 8 bosses.
  • To extinguish the runes, 8 separate raid members needed to purchase an item (Aqual Quintessence) from Duke Hydraxis of the Hydraxian Waterlords faction.
  • Before you could purchase it, however, you had to complete a quest line from the Duke that required you to kill elementals in Silithus (back when there was no other reason to ever go into Silithus) and Eastern Plaguelands, then an elemental raid boss in UBRS, then one of each trash mob type in Molten Core, then grind elementals in Silithus/Molten Core trash until honored with the Waterlords (elementals worth 5 rep a pop, MC trash worth 20), and finally kill four specified Molten Core bosses.
  • Only after that could you purchase the item, and the item was both consumed on use, had a 24 hour cooldown (so one person couldn't douse all 8 runes), and was unique, so after each use you had to go back out to Duke Hydraxis to get another, every week you ran Molten Core.
  • On top of that, Duke Hydraxis is located out on an unlabelled island in the middle of nowhere off the coast of Azshara, and not a single NPC/quest/indication in the game let you know he was there. You just had to notice getting rep with the Hydraxian Waterlords, and take it upon yourself to figure out where they were and that they were somehow related to Molten Core.
  • The topper was that all this was impossible to complete in a single raid week without some severe coordination (you would have had to grind elemental rep outside MC because there wasn't enough MC trash to get honored in one run), and would often take guild 3-4 weeks of raiding just trash and the first 8 bosses to have the materials necessary to summon Majordomo.
  • Then, you had an hour to beat Majordomo within an hour, or the encounter would despawn for the remainder of the week, and raid time would be over. This would give raids a maximum of 3-4 attempts a week at him.
  • When you finally defeated Majordomo Executus, you had an hour to summon and defeat Ragnaros, until Ragnaros and Majordomo would despawn and you'd be done for the week.
  • To even attempt Ragnaros, entire raids of 40 players had to have upwards of 175 Fire Resistance to live through more than 5 seconds of the fight. That kind of resist was only available on crafted gear using materials only available within Molten Core (thus, more trash farming!). Most raids at the time left Molten Core after defeating Majordomo, took 15 players at a time into UBRS, let their priests Mind Control a mob at the beginning that had a spell that gave 75 Fire Resistance for 40 minutes, cast it individually on each member of the raid, one at a time, and then got the raid back together and attempted Ragnaros. We did this every week, once for every attempt, getting 3 attempts at Ragnaros a week until we downed him.
  • So, keep in mind, any time anyone harkens back to the "good old days" of vanilla raiding was referring to all that crap. They either never did it, let 8 other raiders carry them through the content, or are certifiably insane.
  • Initially, both Tier 1 and Tier 2 gear dropped in the Core randomly from any boss (including Onyxia). When Blizzard released Blackwing Lair, they organized it better, made Tier 1 gear drop off of specific Molten Core bosses, Tier 2 pants drop off Ragnaros, Tier 2 helm off Onyxia, and the rest of Tier 2 off bosses in Blackwing Lair.
 
Dei

Dei

Eventually, Blizzard decided this was silly and created an attunement quest that would allow players to jump through a seemingly random window near Lothos Riftwalker to enter the Core through a portal. Finally, in patch 1.11 (when Naxx was released initially), Blizzard decided jumping through a window wasn't really intuitive, and had Riftwalker just port you into the raid instance.
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There was also the fun times of not getting zoned, and falling into the lava and dying instead. ;)

So, keep in mind, any time anyone harkens back to the "good old days" of vanilla raiding was referring to all that crap. They either never did it, let 8 other raiders carry them through the content, or are certifiably insane.
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Molten Core is the reason that everytime Dave says Azshara is his favorite zone, I want to smack him upside the head. ;)
 
Piotyr

Piotyr

As for personal experience, I only went on one MC raid when it was still required to run through BRD to enter. Many top-end raiding guilds sent a warlock with as many soul shards as he could carry in there with 4 others through BRD, and then summoned the rest of the raiders when they got in (because then only 5 people had to waste the extra hour). The guild I was heal leading started doing it seriously after the window attunement started. We learned about Duke Hydraxis from other guilds that knew about it, otherwise we'd have had no idea. I was one of the folks that actually went through the whole Hydraxian Waterlords quest chain, and went back to Azshara every week to get the Aqual Quintessence. At the time, however, most raiders were farming materials for flasks, potions, equipment and repair money (because flasks didn't stack, so everyone could use as many as possible). It was really tedious (which is precisely why Blizzard changed the whole buff/debuff system, along with ridding the world of resistance fights mostly).

However, I will say this...all that planning and gearing up made Ragnaros epic. Even today, Ragnaros is a sweet fight.
 
SpecialKO

SpecialKO

I hated MC with a freakin' passion. My guild had difficulty getting 40 players together at all, then all the organization problems, and pre-MC rep requirements, ugh. I think I saw Ragnaros only once before BC dropped. As you might imagine, never made it farther into Vanilla except for some PUG spots by other guilds (and never saw the inside of Naxx before Wrath).
 
Baerdog

Baerdog

Wow that is quite a thing. I remember being around back then but wasn't into the raiding scene and had no idea Molten Core was so involved. This should be a fun stop on our Classic Tour.
 
Dei

Dei

Honestly Molten Core wasn't that bad. You only needed 8 people who were bored enough to randomly wander over to Azshara once a week (which, while I did the quest I was sooo not one of them), and in a raid of 40 it wasn't hard to find 8 people who did it. Eternal Quintessence was awesome, but they didn't add it until Molten Core was "old content". I do kind of missing getting green FR gear and saying "RAG GEAR!" while out questing though. ;)

Other "fun" thing from Molten Core (I remember this happening on Rag alot): Healers setting up "bandage brigades" so they could run around and ghetto heal while regenning!
"
 
Piotyr

Piotyr

Yeah, once everything was set up and rolling, it wasn't too bad, especially after the attunement quest was implemented. This was also a time when your role was defined by your class, as if you were a warrior, you tanked, priests and druids healed, paladins or shamans (since you only had one or the other) provided support buffs, healed, and provided out-of-combat resurrections, hunters pulled bosses, and mages, warlocks and rogues did dps. There were no alternative builds or hybrids, except maybe for the 3-4 dps classes. Fights would last so long, healers had to work on a healing rotation, meaning that you'd separate healers into 2-3 groups, and one group would heal until they ran out of mana, then the next group would take a turn healing while everyone else regened with judgment of wisdom (so you'd sit and wand for a couple minutes). Because mana was such a limited resource for healers, if you weren't tanking something, you did not get healed, and you didn't expect to.

EDIT: Also, the setup required to get into Molten Core was nothing compared to trying to get a 25-man raid attuned to Mount Hyjal and Black Temple. It was so complicated that Blizzard had to make a chart on their site, and the chart was so ridiculous it spawned a mock chart as a joke for the next attunement.
 
Piotyr

Piotyr

Molten Core Bosses

  1. Lucifron -- Health: 351,780

    Background
    • Lucifron was flanked by two Flamewalker Protectors with 90,000 HP each.
    • He always dropped a book to learn the Hunter skill Tranquilizing Shot, which was required to defeat Magmadar.
    • He dropped Tier 1 boots for Mage, Druid, Paladin and Shaman, and Tier 1 gloves for Warrior and Warlock (total of two drops per kill).
    • Even though there were no Horde Paladins or Alliance Shamans, Horde would get Paladin drops and vice versa.
    Mechanics
    • Flamewalker Protector
      • Cleave - Frontal AoE melee attack that hits up to 5 targets
      • Dominate Mind - Control random player for 15 seconds. Dispellable, used every 30 seconds.
    • Lucifron
      • Shadow Shock - 20 yard radius AoE shadow attack
      • Impending Doom - 40 yard range magic debuff that does 2000 damage after 10 seconds
      • Lucifron's Curse - 40 yard range curse that increases the cost of all abilities by 100% for 5 minutes
    • Raid
      • The main tank would pull Lucifron far away from the rest of the raid to avoid the debuffs on most players.
      • Two or three healers would stay 40 yards from the main tank to heal him and dispel Impending Doom.
      • Four other tanks would deal with the Flamewalker Protector adds, two on each to deal with Dominate Mind.
      • This was the fight that caused the creation of Decursive. Priests only job the whole fight was to dispel Dominate Mind and Impending Doom off everyone in the raid. Mages only job was to decurse Lucifron's Curse off the whole raid (healers first) when that was applied.
      • If a raid was very careful and hated rogues, it was possible to position Lucifron in such a way that only the main tank got cursed or debuffed. Made the fight take longer, but the debuffs were easier to deal with.
  2. Magmadar -- Health: 826,088

    Background
    • Magmadar was located just behind Lucifron. He was surrounded by packs of Core Hounds that would have to be pulled very carefully to avoid aggroing Magmadar.
    • When Magmadar was killed, Core Hounds would no longer respawn in the instance. This was a huge deal, as the respawn timer on core hounds was initially 15 minutes. It was basically a race from killing the first core hound to downing Magmadar before the core hound respawns delayed the raid from another attempt.
    • One of his abilities, Frenzy, was only counterable by a hunter's Tranquilizing Shot. However, the cooldown on Frenzy was less than the cooldown on Tranquilizing Shot. So, a raid would either need enough healers to heal through every other frenzy (and at release, this fight took a LONG time, upwards of 10 minutes for new raids), or spend a week of raiding killing just Lucifron so the next week two hunters would have Tranquilizing Shot, since skipping Magmadar wasn't really a viable option due to the fast core hound respawn.
    • He dropped Tier 1 pants for all classes.
    Mechanics
    • Magmadar
      • Frenzy - Increase attack speed by 150% for 8 seconds. Dispellable by Tranquilizing Shot.
      • Panic - AoE fear on everyone in a 30 yard radius for 8 seconds. Dispellable and chance of break on damage.
      • Lava Bomb - Thrown at random player, creating a 5-yard radius fire pit that does 3200 damage over 8 seconds.
      • Magma Spit - Chance on melee attack to add 75 fire damage stackable dot to target that lasts 30 seconds.
      • Lava Breath - AoE frontal cone fire attack for ~1200 damage.
    • Raid
      • This was the first instance of "stance-dancing" for tanks (i.e. warriors), along with the first set of cries over faction advantage on bosses. Warriors could become immune to fear by briefly switching to Berserker stance and using Berserker's Rage, which lasted 4 seconds and so would have to be timed very well (any tank worth his salt got really good at this in vanilla, however). However, an Alliance raid with a Dwarf Priest would have the use of Fear Ward, an automatic fear absorption that could be cast every 3 minutes. The only Horde option was to use Tremor Totem, which was a reactive pulse that dispelled fear. Fear ward was far more effective, though, because by the time Tremor Totem pulsed, Magmadar was no longer on the tank and running rampant through the raid (who hopefully had an off tank sitting outside fear range just in case).
      • A two-hunter rotation could handle all the Frenzy casts, but if you were a new raid that only killed Lucifron once, you could only handle every other Frenzy. The ones that weren't dispelled had to be spam healed through, which also called for a healer rotation.
      • This was also the original "don't stand in the fire!" mechanic, and raids had to spread out as much as possible to avoid stacking up on a Lava Bomb. Also, occasionally the tank would have to move Magmadar to get out of a melee Lava Bomb.
      • This was a long fight at release, and it was very easy to miss a fear or get caught in fire once and wipe the whole raid.
  3. Gehennas -- Health: 351,780

    Background
    • Gehennas is flanked by two Flamewalker Elites with 100,000 HP each.
    • He is a different direction from Lucifron, and possible to encounter without defeating Lucifron/Magmadar. However, his area has tons of core hounds that would respawn very quickly if Magmadar weren't down.
    • This fight was all about the pull. If the pull went well (and a mage or druid decursed the tank regularly), it was a fairly simple encounter.
    • He dropped Tier 1 gloves for Priest, Rogue, Paladin and Shaman, and Tier 1 boots for Warrior and Hunter.
    Mechanics
    • Flamewalker Elite
      • Fist of Ragnaros - 8 yard AoE stun for 4 seconds. Mostly just annoying when trying to get the flamewalkers away from Gehennas.
      • Sunder Armor - Reduce armor by 1000, stackable up to 20 times (i.e. kill the flamewalkers first before the tanks die).
      • Strike - Yes, just "strike". Extra damage on an attack to make them a bit bursty. Designers got sick of thinking up neat names, I guess.
    • Gehennas
      • Shadow Bolt - 2500 shadow damage to a random target in his threat list. Forced healers to pay attention to people other than the tank. Not much, but just a little. ;)
      • Rain of Fire - AoE fire rain over a 10 yard radius that did 1000 damage every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. Good idea to avoid it.
      • Gehennas' Curse - 45 yard AoE (meaning everyone anywhere near attack range got it) curse reducing healing by 75% for 5 minutes.
    • Raid
      • The strategy was to pull Gehennas as far away from the elites as possible so that the curse didn't affect everyone until the adds were down. To do this, the raid cleared every mob on all sides of Gehennas' room, split into two groups (one being just the main tank, a decurser and healers) and pull the elites in the opposite direction of Gehennas.
      • Mages and druids on decurse duty again, tank priority.
      • Elites were pretty simple to burn down, just watching for threat during the stun.
      • Once elites were down, the raid spread out in a circle around Gehennas to limit the number of raiders having to move out of the rain of fire.
  4. Garr -- Health: 659,938

    Background
    • Garr is flanked by eight Firesworn adds, with 60,000 HP each.
    • You know how I said that last fight was all about the pull? That was training wheels for this one. Raids wiped until they got the pull down, and then downed the boss the first time it went well. It could get frustrating wiping 10 seconds into the fight, repeatedly, though.
    • This is the opposite of most add fights. For each add that was killed, Garr gained 50% damage and attack speed. So, at release, the best strategy was to find a way to deal with all those adds (or as many as possible) while you killed Garr, then finished off the adds later. Very few tanks could handle more than one add, though (especially without tier 1 gear).
    • He dropped Tier 1 helms.
    • He also dropped the right half of the Bindings of the Windseeker (1% drop), half of an item that began the quest for the legendary weapon Thunderfury, by far the best tanking weapon in all of classic WoW (and even the best tanking weapon in Burning Crusade until they nerfed its abilities post-60)
    Mechanics
    • Firesworn
      • Immolate - 800 frontal damage and magic dot for 400 damage every 3 seconds for 21 seconds.
      • Separation Anxiety - Increased damage by 300% if pulled too far away from Garr (we're talking out of the room here, not just out of Garr's range...i.e. don't pull Garr or everything else out of the room to make the encounter easier).
      • Eruption - Firesworn explodes on death for 2000 damage to everything within 8 yards, and sends everyone flying backwards. Fun when it didn't kill the raid/screw up the fight.
    • Garr
      • Antimagic Pulse - Dispel one magic effect on all players within 45 yards. Used so often it made HOTs (i.e. druid healers) and buffs useless.
      • Magma Shackles - 45 yard aura that slows everyone in it by 40%. And that's all he does.
    • Raid
      • To do the fight at release, you were required to have a combined total of at least 9 warriors and warlocks. Warlocks would use voidwalkers to corral an add and keep it banished, warriors would off tank Firesworns with a healer that could dispel immolation, and each add was pulled to a different spot in the room, far enough from each other and Garr to avoid the slow aura and eruptions, but not completely out of the room to trigger Separation Anxiety.
      • If you were lucky to have 8 warlocks, the DPS would kill Garr first. For each off-tanked add, that add was killed first because the healing would get too spread out otherwise. Garr's damage started getting really high after 4 stacks, though, so either you needed a lot of healers or 5 warlocks to make the fight easy/doable.
      • Eruption would send melee players flying in all directions, which was actually kind of fun, aside from the 2000 damage from it. More fun the more a raid overgeared the fight.
  5. Baron Geddon -- Health: 586,256

    Background
    • Baron Geddon patrolled an area just past Garr's room through a tunnel. He patrolled dangerously close to Shazzrah, however, so fighting him in that area was basically not done. Geddon was usually pulled by a hunter pet into Garr's room, since it was nice and big and not dangerous (once Garr was dead, obviously).
    • When Geddon was killed, no firelords would respawn. Not as big a deal as the core hounds because the respawn rate was much slower, but those lava packs were annoying to fight once, so it was a nice bonus.
    • This is the first encounter in which any raid member that didn't pay attention would wipe an attempt. You were better off doing the encounter with 35 good players than taking those 5 extra that didn't pay attention or were super laggy.
    • This was also the encounter that popularized the use of an out-of-combat rezzer, to resurrect everyone who bombed. Blizzard eventually decided that they didn't want this strategy to be possible, so now every time any raid member aggroes a boss, the entire raid is put into combat.
    • He dropped Tier 1 shoulders for Mage, Druid, Warlock, Shaman and Paladin.
    • He also dropped the left half of the Bindings of the Windseeker (also a 1% drop). Due to the rare drop rate, raids could either go months without seeing either drop, or get really lucky and get both on the first clear. Either way, this was just the beginning of the quest, and many a guild pooled their resources for months to get one of these for their main tank, just to see him leave for another guild when he got the weapon (happened to our guild twice).
    Mechanics
    • Baron Geddon
      • Living Bomb - Similar to what is now a fire mage spell (!), but far cooler. Undispellable DOT that did 500 damage a second for 8 seconds, after which the target would explode for 3200 AoE damage in a 15 yard radius (and the explosion could crit), get tossed far up into the air, and then take falling damage. If you weren't overgeared or didn't have fire resist gear on, it would likely kill you unless you lucked out with healing.
      • Inferno - Geddon stands still and pulses fire every second for 10 seconds. Damage starts at 500 and increases by 500 every 2 seconds (i.e. melee run out, including non-fire-resisting tank). 10 yard radius.
      • Ignite Mana - 35 yard range AoE magic debuff that burns 400 mana every 3 seconds for 5 minutes, with all mana burned converted to damage (i.e. if you have mana, be at least 36 yards away from Geddon).
      • Armageddon - At 2% life, Geddon stops attacking for 8 seconds, after which he would explode for 10000 fire damage to everything within 20 yards (the ultimate "RUN AWAY!" spell).
    • Raid
      • Positioning was incredibly important for this fight. If you had mana, you needed to stay 36+ yards away from Geddon at all times, and priests had to be on the ball for anyone that wasn't. If you were melee, you had to constantly run in and out of inferno range to stay alive. And if you got Living Bomb, you sure as hell had better get away from the rest of the raid (to spots designated before the encounter was started).
      • Often healers were stationed "near" the designated explosion area to try to keep players alive during the explosion.
      • As I mentioned above, a big fallback tool at the time was a raid member who would stay out of combat to resurrect anyone who died from Living Bomb. When Blizzard ended that, this fight went from one of the easier to one of the more difficult (for raids who didn't pay close attention). Much QQ in the forums over the decision.
      • The tank would often need at least 200 fire resist to be able to tank Geddon effectively, because having the tank run out of inferno tended to screw up the very delicate positioning required for the ranged mana users.
  6. Shazzrah -- Health: 351,780

    Background
    • Shazzrah was located in the room through the tunnel past Garr, just behind where Baron Geddon would patrol. Due to positioning requirements for the fight, Shazzrah was also generally pulled into Garr's room by a hunter pet.
    • Shazzrah was pretty much just a ranged fight due to the vast amount of close-range AoE damage plus debuffs. Rogues yet again resorted to using just their ranged weapon.
    • Despite no adds and a low amount of HP, the fight still took long due to aggro control issues. Very methodical, slow, tedious fight that was won by the patient group, and messed up by the impatient group that tried to get a little extra dps.
    • He dropped Tier 1 gloves for mage, druid and hunter, and Tier 1 boots for priest, warlock and rogue.
    Mechanics
    • Shazzrah
      • Arcane Explosion - 1000 Arcane damage to everything in a 20 yard radius, used almost constantly (thus the ranged strategy)
      • Magic Grounding - Magic buff reducing magic damage taken by Shazzrah by 50%. Dispellable.
      • Blink - Teleport to random player on threat list, and reset threat table (ugh...)
      • Counterspell - 45-yard range AoE instant that interrupts all spell casts and prevents spellcasts from that tree for 6 seconds (i.e. suck it, healers!)
      • Shazzrah's Curse - 35-yard AoE curse that increases magic damage taken by 100%
    • Raid
      • This fight sucked for two groups of players: melee DPS and healers.
      • The tank will regularly lose aggro after blink, during which all DPS would need to stop immediately, and whoever was the target of Shazzrah's Blink would need to immediately run towards the tank, so the tank could build threat and the fight could resume. Usually, the raid was spread into groups in a circle around Shazzrah to reduce the amount of damage taken during a blink-arcane explosion spree.
      • Healers needed to make use of as much instant healing as possible, always having to be careful about the AoE Counterspell. One counterspell had the potential to knock out ALL healing for 6 seconds, which would be very bad for the tank.
      • Decursers needed to be on the ball for their group and the tank, because it caused the arcane explosion to 2 shot almost anyone.
      • Between the blink, counterspell and threat issues, it was a very long control and positioning fight where the whole raid just had to be patient. The more DPS one player tried to squeeze in, the crazier the threat issues would be, and you'd end up just having control issues between blinks with no DPS time in between.
  7. Sulfuron Harbinger -- Health: 439,692

    Background
    • Sulfuron is flanked by four Flamewalker Priests with 68,000 HP each.
    • The theme of this encounter was interrupts. Each of the priests was able to heal itself and Sulfuron for 100,000 a pop. Without interrupting all four constantly, the fight would outlast healer mana and wipe the raid.
    • He dropped Tier 1 shoulders for Priest, Hunter, Rogue and Warrior.
    • He also dropped the infamous Shadowstrike/Thunderstrike, unique in that at release, it was a weapon no class was able to make use of effectively, as a 2H Polearm with no stats and a proc effect. As stated earlier, Warriors were tanks, not DPS. A Paladin trying to DPS was a joke and Hunters never went in melee range. It was effectively a weapon useful for no one.
    Mechanics
    • Flamewalker Priest
      • Heal - Heal target for 100,000 HP. 2.5 second cast, interruptable.
      • Shadow Word: Pain - Magic DOT for 400 damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. Dispellable.
      • Immolate - 800 instant damage plus a magic DOT for 400 damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. Dispellable (yes, a second DOT that is exactly the same as the first...except this one was Fire damage).
      • Immune to debuffs (like Curse of Tongues, which prolonged spellcasting)
    • Sulfuron Harbinger
      • Demoralizing Shout - 45 yard AoE debuff reducing attack power by 300 (again, suck it melee!)
      • Inspire - Increase target attack speed by 100% and damage by 25%. Not dispellable. 45 yard castable range (i.e. pull priests FAR away from Sulfuron)
      • Hand of Ragnaros - 400 fire damage, knock back, 2 second stun.
      • Flame Spear - 45 yard range cast of an 1000 damage fire attack with a 20 yard AoE (stay spread out)
    • Raid
      • The pull made use of pretty much the whole room, as the main tank plus 1-2 healers dealt with Sulfuron where he stands, 3 other tanks + interrupts + healers pulled 3 adds a good 70-80 yards away, and another tank/interrupt/all the DPS pulled one priest another 70-80 yards away from that.
      • Important to dispel the debuffs, as two going the whole duration did 5000 damage, which killed pretty much anyone.
      • After an add was killed, another was peeled off the priest group back towards the DPS until each was dead.
      • Once the healer adds were down, the fight was basically over, as Sulfron himself was a pushover.
      • This is the only flamewalker without a curse debuff, so druids and mages actually got to heal or DPS!
      • This was also the fight that spawned a demand for visibility of the enemy cast bar for aid in interrupting. For a long time, players used mods to see it, until Blizzard finally implemented it into the default UI.
  8. Golemagg the Incinerator -- Health: 826,088

    Background
    • Golemagg is flanked by two Core Ragers with 81,000 health.
    • The trick for this fight was to get those Core Ragers as far away from Golemagg as possible, and then to completely ignore them, as they can't be killed. Every time they drop below 50% health they heal to full.
    • This was also the first "burn him down fast at the end" fight, as the last 10% could only be dealt with by a shield wall and heal spamming.
    • He dropped Tier 1 chests for all classes.
    • He was also the only mob that could drop Sulfuron Ingots, a necessary ingredient to make the legendary Sulfuras: Hand of Ragnaros. The drop rate was 30% and 2-handers were very limited in use when content was relevant, though, so there was never any guild drama about that.
    • After Golemagg was downed, it was a popular joke to fool the noobs by saying you could peek through the "window" behind Golemagg and see Ragnaros. What really happened was when you got within 5 yards of that "window" you were killed instantly from fire damage. Much fun was had.
    Mechanics
    • Core Rager
      • Mangle - 300 damage every 2 seconds for 20 seconds, and 50% reduced movement speed
      • Refuse Death - If Golemagg lives, whenever Core Rager dips below 50% health he heals to full.
    • Golemagg the Incinerator
      • Golemagg's Trust - Aura that increases Core Rager damage by 500 and attack speed by 50%. 45 yard range.
      • Magma Splash - Stacking debuff that does 50 damage per 2 seconds and reduces armor by 250 per stack. Stacks up to 50 times, cast almost constantly (i.e. switch tanks!)
      • Pyroblast - Hits a random target for 2000 damage and 300 every 2 seconds for 15 seconds (i.e. healers need to pay attention to the raid too!)
      • Earthquake - Cast at 10% health, does 1000 damage every 2 seconds and increases Golemagg's attack speed and damage by 25% until he's killed. 18 yard range (i.e. ha melee, you thought you'd be useful in this one!)
    • Raid
      • First important thing is to get those ragers away from Golemagg. Have to keep them in the same room, though, or the encounter bugged out/reset.
      • An off tank and a healer on each rager was basically all that was necessary. Everyone else was on Golemagg.
      • Multiple tanks would be used on Golemagg due to the stacking magma splash. Healers were generally assigned to specific tanks for the rotation effort, since it took a while to get Golemagg down.
      • Near 10%, you'd switch tanks (for a fresh Magma Splash reset), that tank would pop shield wall, and it'd be go time. The raid had about 20 seconds to get Golemagg down until Shield Wall wore off and the tank was basically instantly killed without lucky spam healing.
      • In the last 10%, rogues could continue DPSing, but they'd die in under 10 seconds from the Earthquake (remember, all healing on the tank in the last 10%).
  9. Majordomo Executus -- Health: 666,000

    Background
    • I know I just listed his health up there (mostly for the novelty), but it's completely irrelevant, as you won't be killing him. The encounter ends when every add is down.
    • Majordomo is flanked by four Flamewalker Elites at 103,000 HP and four Flamewalker Healers at 97,000 HP.
    • Majordomo Executus will only spawn when all eight boss runes are doused. At release, this required Aqual Quintessence, available at Honored Reputation with the Hydraxian Waterlords, after you completed a quest chain for it. Now, each rune will douse when its corresponding boss is killed.
    • Loot wasn't dropped, but rather a chest of loot spawned when the encounter ends. This caused an issue with Blizzard's loot handling system at launch, as anyone could open up the chest and take as much loot as he/she wanted. Hopefully, by the time you actually got this far, you were able to trust a group of 40 players to not ninja anything. However, two of the items in the chest were items for the epic hunter (bow) and epic priest (staff) quests, so often players' greed would get the best of them and would steal those particular items for their classes. Blizzard fixed the loot system eventually to include external chests.
    • At release, this encounter, once spawned, was only able to be attempted for an hour before it would despawn for the week. Now you can try as often as you like once the runes are down.
    Mechanics
    • Majordomo Executus
      • Aegis of Ragnaros - Self-buff, absorbs 30,000 damage, and heals him to full on each cast. Cast constantly (i.e. don't even bother trying to damage him).
      • Teleport - Random raid member is teleported into a fire pit in the center of the room, which does 1000 fire damage every 2 seconds (i.e. move out of the fire, idiot!)
      • Blast Wave - 18 yard range AoE for 750 fire damage and 50% reduced movement speed for 6 seconds.
      • Damage Shield - Physical damage reflect shield, cast on himself and all his adds, with unlimited range. It is purple.
      • Magic Shield - Spell reflect shield, cast on himself and all his adds, with unlimited range. It is white.
    • Flamewalker Elite
      • Blast Wave - 18 yard range AoE for 750 fire damage and 50% reduced movement speed for 6 seconds.
      • Fire Blast - 1000 fire damage to direct target.
      • Immune to crowd control
    • Flamewalker Healer
      • No melee attack
      • Shadow Bolt - 1000 shadow damage to random target
      • Greater Heal - Heal target for 50,000 life. Interruptible
    • Raid
      • Majordomo himself shouldn't be damaged, but he still runs around and teleports/blast waves/attacks people, so a tank needs to pick him up and keep him away from the raid. This tank will also require healing.
      • At the start of the fight, the Healers can be polymorphed to avoid dealing with the heals and random attacks.
      • Four other tanks would be needed to tank each Elite, since they couldn't be crowd controlled. They would also need to be spread out through the room because of blast waves. Those tanks also all needed healers.
      • Once four adds were down, the healers became immune to crowd control.
      • One shield or the other would be up on all adds at all times. Mages had to take note of the shields especially, because if they tried to polymorph a healer with a white shield, they would turn into a sheep themselves.
      • This fight spawned the need for raid targets (you know, all those lucky charms). Players used mods for a while that provided the targets, but eventually Blizzard put them into the default UI (on the Naxx release patch)
      • There were many different kill order strategies, but to me the most effective one was "Follow the leader". The four Healers would be sheeped (and mages kept on them, sheeping), and the DPS would attack one of the Elites. That Elite tank would be the leader, and marked in some way. All the DPS would follow that tank to a sheeped healer target, one at a time, killing them. After 3 healers were down, the fourth would be up automatically and subsequently killed quickly. Then the leader would head to the Elites, one at a time, until only Majordomo was left, ending the encounter.
      • Once the encounter was over and the chest was spawned, Majordomo walks (slithers?) to Ragnaros's Lair, where you could ask him to summon Ragnaros.
  10. Ragnaros -- Health: 1,099,230

    Background
    • Ragnaros did so much fire damage, the entire raid had to have upwards of 150 fire resistance to attempt him.
    • To start the encounter, you have to speak to Majordomo Executus in Ragnaros Lair after forcing him to submit.
    • This was probably the most fun fight for ranged players in all of classic WoW, because Ragnaros didn't move, and if you were at range it was literally impossible to pull aggro. Threat was very tenuous back in the day, and not a single fight existed where you didn't have to throttle DPS in some way on a regular basis. This one, though? Balls to the wall, start to finish.
    • This fight, along with Onyxia, were the only fights at release to have phases. After 3 minutes of combat, Ragnaros would submerge and spawn eight Sons of Flame, with 15,000 HP each. At that point, you have 90 seconds to deal with them on their own before Ragnaros re-emerges. At release, you were going to get at least one set of sons. It was a total DPS race to burn down that million HP before the second 3 minutes were up to avoid a second set of sons.
    • At release, it was common practice among raids after defeating Majordomo to send the entire raid to Blackrock Spire so priests could mind control a mob near the entrance that could cast a buff to increase fire resistance by 75 for 40 minutes. Blizzard admitted they allowed this on purpose to help that fight if needed.
    • Ragnaros actually had a voice at release, the only encounter in which this was the case. "BY FIRE BE PURGED!"
    • He dropped Tier 2 pants for all classes. He also had a 1% chance to drop the Eye of Sulfuras, which was used to create the Sulfuras legendary. Also, if a player had both legendary Bindings of the Windseeker, he would also drop the Essence of the Firelord for that quest.
    Mechanics
    • Ragnaros
      • Magma Blast - If no players are in melee range of Ragnaros, he will constantly cast this, doing 5000 fire damage per cast to everyone in the raid until they die. So, somebody has to be in there while Ragnaros is emerged.
      • Wrath of Ragnaros - 1000 fire damage AoE for 20 yards, along with a full knockback, often knocking players into lava. Tanks had to hurry and get back in melee range afterwards to avoid magma blasts. "TASTE THE FLAMES OF SULFURON!"
      • Hand of Ragnaros - 300-400 fire damaged ranged attack to any random player that has a 10 yard AoE and knocks back all players within AoE range (i.e. spread out!). "BY FIRE BE PURGED!"
      • Eruption - Causes lava to surge up in specified points and do 4500-6000 fire damage to anyone caught in it. Definitely avoidable.
      • Elemental Fire - Debuff to primary target that does 2500 Fire damage instantly and another 600 fire damage per second for 8 seconds. Just to keep the healers awake.
      • Melt Weapon - Causes a point of durability loss per cast, cast very often on primary target (often forced tanks to bring multiple weapons for the fight).
    • Son of Flame
      • Mana Burn - 10 yard AoE ranged aura that burns mana to do damage (i.e. keep these away from the casters).
      • Fire aura - 200 fire damage per 2 seconds to anything within 10 yards.
    • Raid
      • Two important things: spread out and make sure someone is in melee range.
      • As for melee DPS, it was beneficial to avoid Wrath of Ragnaros, and could be timed to do so fairly easily to avoid the random knockback and 2000 fire damage.
      • It was very easy to get knocked into lava, and there were specific points to climb up out of it and avoid death (since the lava did 600 damage per second)
      • Fire resistance was crucial at release, but at the same time you wanted enough DPS to be able to burn Ragnaros down in 6 minutes or less to avoid a second wave of Sons of Flame.
      • During phase 2 (sons of flame phase), all casters would generally group up and stay away from them while melee dps and tanks would keep their attention during AoEs. Banishing was possible, but you only had 90 seconds to deal with them, so you still need to deal with them quickly.
 
Piotyr

Piotyr

I'm not overly picky, just trying to find a consistent time when the most people can be on. There's no rush to do this one either, since it's not going away anytime soon.

I have learned, however, that several of these bosses will be returning come Cataclysm in southern Hyjal and the Firelands raid (led by Ragnaros). So it'd be neat to witness them in their original state before heading out to Sulfuron Keep.
 
Piotyr

Piotyr

Ok, all MC boss information posted now. :)

I think we'll delay Sunday's raid to 9pm to let people get all their Halloween trick or treating/etc in. I'll be out myself for dinner time, but should be back in time for 9 easily.
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

By time my original guild got Ragnaros on farm status, the guild fell apart and nobody got Sulfuron and few if any got their complete Tier1. Then I moved to another raid group that ran BWL until The Burning Crusade hit. I just finished getting the Dragonbreath Handcanon. Then replaced it in a few days with a Green from Outland.
 
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