Ok, so my guild is really new at MC. Only ran it for 2 weeks now. Downed Luci last week, and last night again after the reset with ease. (mage epic boots dropped both times, and some lock gear ><) The best we've done on Mag is getting it down to 10% before we wiped. Need help on strategy.

Oh yeah, let me preface this request by saying that we do not have a dwarven priest. So no fear ward. I know that this has to be doable without one, as horde doesn't have fear ward.

We just get wrecked as the tanks get feared, then the healers run after them to keep them in heal range, and then they get feared into fire, and the 3200 damage over 5 sec is nasty. We have tried various strategies, including keeping 2 tanks off to the side, and when MT gets feared, another tank runs in, etc. Also have a healing rotation going.

What are we not doing that will help us take down this big flaming bastard?

Do you guys have enough Tranq Shots? I know when my guild started MC, we were all pretty much fresh to it and it took us 3 Luci kills to get 3 Tranq shots that eventually won us the battle. The less geared your hunters are the more it helps to have extra Tranq's for missed shots (or a dead hunter). We've done it with 2 now a couple of times... don't know that it's possible to do it with 1 shot.

Horde doesn't have Fear Ward, but we do have shaman totems. I forget off the top of my head which it is, but one they have cancels fears.

I'll use a Fire Protection Pot before the fight, and generally not wear FR gear... but I know lots of my guildie casters do wear FR gear and it does help.

If you can get'm to 10% you'll get'm the rest of the way.

The trick for the MT is to stance dance.

Assuming you're using CTRaidAssist(hopefully you are) and the BossMods mentioned above that give the 5 second warning on fear, the MT switches to berserker stance, hits berserker rage, then immediately back to defensive at the warning..now he's immune to fear. You have to keep doing this, as it becomes very messy if the MT gets feared.

Tremor Totems are the "anti-fear" totems, and they could be helpful for all the melee dps etc, but it doesn't make you immune, so the MT would still be feared, and would still lose agro.

Also, if you're MT is undead, you can mix in WotF instead of Berserker Rage.

It might take awhile for the tank to get the timing down as I don't think the raid warning on the fear is perfect(sometimes he waits an extra second or something like that), but it's not too bad.

Thanks for all the help guys. I have posted some of your comments on our guild forum for us to review before thursday. In the meantime, I am farming herbs for major fire pots.

I think we have 2 tranq shots now, and the hunters are pretty good about using it. Working frantically on getting FR gear for MT. Just got him some epic plate pants with high FR, and are saving Firey Cores for some helm.

It's been tough getting everyone to get CTRA and CTMod, as our guild hasn't wanted to make these a 'requirement' to do endgame, though we are getting more and more convinced to do just this. We're trying again thursday - will let you know how it goes :)

CTMod isn't really a requirement for raiding.. CTRA is though, I would say. It's just so much easier raiding with it. Even speaking from a pure dps point of view, it's useful to know if the main tank is alive, if there are many healers left up, how much mana they have.. you can assess whether you're about to wipe or not.

You should tell your hunters to get an addon called SimpleTranq. It automatically reports into a channel of your choice (raid chat, for example, or a hunter channel that the hunters use to coordinate their efforts). It tells you if your tranq shot missed or hit. On magmadar it's probably best to have it report to the raid channel, because on maggy it's useful for the healers and the tank to know as well.


-Annik

I agree. Tell ur guild CTRA (and the CTRA BOSS) is a must and everybody serious about raiding MC (and BWL) should get it (i would make it requirement). Installation is easy.

It shows u a list of ppl with the lowest health, u can set MT windows showing the target of the MT but also the target of the target of the MT (for example with Veal in BWL this very handy for warriors and healers to see which OT is the new MT when the MT blows up). It plays warning sounds when MT dies or someone gains unwanted aggro from MT targets. And last but not least, it shows very handy (and sometimes very needed) messages with some boss encounters. I think there is also stuff to prevent overhealing and help u with decursing.

Concerning Mag, i've tanked him once without a fear ward (with my warrior that is). I just swapped stance after the warning (waiting 1-2 seconds), cast the berserker rage, and immediatly swapped back. Since one of the last patches, ur berserker rage stays still active. However tell ur MT to wait a bit, once i made the mistake of imm swapping and getting berserkerrage, resulting in getting feared because my berserker rage had ended to soon.

Also if no dwarf priest is there, in my guild we use an OT to start the initial attack and the MT takes over after the first fear (to get correct timing going).

Good luck in MC, hope u get nice (evenly spread between classes) drops.

We downed Mag on Sunday! After a ton of wipes over the past two weeks (five runs, 2 wipes each before backspawn causes us to quit), we finally got him, and now have a strategy that we are hoping will keep Ol Maggy on farm status.

Basically, our tanks mastered stance dancing, and when Mag is anchored in one spot, not running around and fearing people into the fire, the fight is a lot easier.

We had a great healing rotation, though understaffed (3 priests 3 druids), and the tanks did a great job. We had probably too much DPS (7 hunters 7 mages) but that worked out ok. The three hunters with Tranq shot were great in keeping Mag calmed down too. When we downed him everyone was yelling and cheering over TeamSpeak. What a rush.

Drops were decent - epic bow (strikers mark I think) and some random epic ring. No set pieces, and nothing worth spending my dkp as a druid.

We just forged our MT a sick helm in BRD with +sta and lots of +fr, and had about 15 Fire Protection potions for the melee classes, and everyone has been farming herbs and other mats / gold. We're gettin there!

We are running MC again on Thursday, and are going to be taking on the third boss. Any suggestions / ideas as to what we are in store for?

I think Gehennas isn't that bad if you understand the placement.

The biggest thing is just making sure the raid and the range is far enough away from the MT(more importantly Gehennas), that you're out of his curse range(75% less healing on the target) as well as the rain of fire.

As long as you keep Gehennas off to the side away from the raid, you can kill the adds easily(it's alot like Luci), and not have to worry about the rain of fire until you get to Gehennas. Only thing tricky the adds do is stun, which can get ugly if it happens to an OT early in the fight but usually not a big deal.

Gehennas:

Clear efficiently and fast. Surger that circles in cave - on a 20 minute timer roughly. 2-3 pulls on the shelf next to the river of lava. Corehound #5 (as we call it), can be prox agrod safely between 1 static pull and 2 giants. Kill 2 giants for safety and prox agro pull the one add just left of Gehennas - will come single.

MT prox agro pulls Gehennas, hunters pull adds to offtanks. Seperate adds - kill them in the cave where you cleared the Surger. Adds AE sunder and stun. Follow the MA and kill each add before starting in dps on Gehennas. 2-3 healers per offtank is plenty.

Gehennas has 3 abilities: AE Curse every 30 seconds - reduces healing effects by 75%. Targeted AE rain of fire - run out of it (everyone except MT). Single target shadowbolt about 2K-2500. Shadow protect the whole raid beforehand if you have enough priests.

MT tanks Gehennas about 50 yards from his spawn point. MT healers stand on shelf. 2 Mages (1 primary 1 backup) with healers. Primary decurses MT immediately upon AE curse. Healing:

When we were learning MC, we found rotations of 3 healers to be very effective in conserving mana. If you have 15 in the raid, 3 on each offtank, then 3 groups of 3 in rotation on the MT. Rotate when the first group gets to around 40% mana. Have group2 start healing - then have group1 stop. Most of the early fights we used healing rotations (Luci/Mag/Gehennas). They aren't really practical or necessary for Garr, Geddon, Shazz, Sulfuron and Domo. They are good on Golemagg though.

If you think there's a chance you'll get to Garr - get familiar with the target assignment capabilities of CT_Raidassist. Or, you can go download Garrtarget Mod from cursegaming.

If you provide me an email, I'm happy to send you my entire MC Healing Guide - on setting up and managing Healing Groups, and how to heal on various bosses.