Molten Core

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Overview

The Molten Core is a 40 man raid instance located in Blackrock Mountain.

Horde Molten Core Guide - Read this before coming to the tich raids.

Attunement

You can access MC two ways, either through BRD, or, after completion of the Attunement to the Core quest, you can enter without having to clear another instance, which is the method you'll use when raiding MC.

To get the attunement quest, talk to the high elf Lothos Riftwalker. He is located at the bottom of the chains in the center of BRM.

The necessary core fragment is located in BRD, just prior to the Lyceum, as noted in this map, item 22. You should be able to grab the core fragment from just beside the (green) raid portal.

The fastest way to get attuned is with a 10-man party, but you can complete it while questing in BRD with a 5-man team as well.

Once you're attuned, the window beside Lothos will take you to MC, provided you're also in a raid group.

Map

Map with mob positions, from Conquest's site.

Quests

Key Quests in this zone: There is a quest line that starts with this quest, all quests given by Duke Hydraxis in Azshara. Upon completion of the fourth quest in the line, Hands of the Enemy, you will be able to get the Aqual Quintessence that you use to spawn Majordomo. There is also a choice of 2 ring rewards for this quest, both of which have 15 Fire Resist on them. The quest lines are the same for Horde and Alliance.

Loot

MC Loot

Preparation

Gear

Molten Core is an endgame instance, and requires a certain level of tanking, dps, healing, and general survival in order to complete it successfully. In general, participants in MC are expected to be geared in either their blue class sets from Strat/Scholo/UBRS, or comparable gear (i.e. Dire Maul gear can be a great substitute for set gear).

Fire Resist Gear

In general, the only people who need FR gear pre-Ragnaros is tanks. But once the raid hits Ragnaros, everyone should be geared in as much FR as they reasonably can. Values that have been tossed around as general benchmarks for FR gear is to try and get over 250 if you're a tank, 150-200 if you're a rogue, and 100-150 if you're anyone else on the raid. Note that this gear also helps for Onyxia, and later on in BWL, so it's a good investment.

Consumables

Consumables are an easy way to get a stat boost, or to stay alive that little bit longer. Usually, unless the materials are cheap, you'll want to save them for the tougher fights, like Onyxia and Ragnaros.

Food

Food is a great way to buff yourself, and all it takes is a little time farming or fishing the ingredients. Following are some foods that can be useful in MC:

Potions

Some potions to consider:

Felwood Consumables

The Felwood Consumables are fantastic, because they don't share the potion cooldown, so you can take a Whipper Root Tuber and then quaff a Healing Potion right away if you need to.

This map shows the locations of the spawns.

There are 3 different items:

Note that the plants can spawn as cleansed, or as corrupted. If they are corrupted, you need Cenarion Plant Salve to cleanse them before you can harvest them. The salve is a quest reward from an NPC south of the Emerald sanctuary. You can either carry a Cenarion Beacon and collect items from killing mobs in Felwood, or you can collect items from using gathering professions in Felwood.

Blasted Lands Buffs

Just east of Dreadmaul Hold in the Blasted Lands is a camp of High Elves, who give quests for various buffs. The big drawback of these buffs is that they are unique, so you can only carry one at a time, but the buffs are a significant boost and are active for one hour (barring death), so are well worth using somewhere like MC. The buffs all share a cooldown, so only one may be active at a time.

Winterspring Jujus (Horde-only)

The horde can visit Witch Doctor Mau'ari in Orgrimmar in order to receive a necklace that will allow them to collect E'ko in Winterspring. Various E'ko can be turned in for different Jujus, some of which are listed below.

Signing Up

Tichondrius

(note: information grabbed from the Tichondrius MC page, check here for the most up to date info!)

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.

Stormrage

The Basin on Stormrage is part of the Avarice alliance, and we run raids together. Signups are posted on the Events Board of the Carpe Aurum forums.

We don't have a set roster of what bosses we complete in a run, since we're still progressing in MC. If you're in doubt as to whether we're starting a fresh instance or continuing from a previous run, ask the raid leader for that run.

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, ask in raid chat, ask on teamspeak in that order.

Make sure you have joined your class channel, since that's the best source of information for new (and not-so-new) players. Many strategies call for specific actions by each class, and the class channel is how you find out what you're supposed to be doing.

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's name) 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.

Note that the Main Assist will not always call dps on every mob - it's your responsibility to know whether to wait for a call or whether you can start nuking right away. Check the mob listings below for this information.

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. We do chat and goof off in TS sometimes, but when a pull is being organized, or strategy is being discussed, please keep the chatter in your class channel, and out of TS.

Be on time

Your spot in the raid is held until the time that's posted in the signup thread. If you're late, your spot will be filled. Tough cookies!

Read up on strategy before the raid

You can find MC info all over the internet, including this page. Reading up before the raid will minimize the instructions that are needed, and it will be much easier for you to understand what's going on if you've read the strategy before.

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!

Beastiary

Trash Mobs

Molten Giant

Molten Giants come in pairs, with another Giant or a Destroyer. Molten Giants have a knock back attack that can send the warrior beyond aggro range, and cause the Molten Giant to choose the next target in his hate list. They also have an AoE that will hit players in melee range.

There will be a dps call on these mobs. They are always a static spawn with a 24 hour respawn timer.

Tichondrius notes

We like to keep 1 tank on each giant and 2-3 priests on each tank. If you are a priest and do not know who to heal ask in the healer chat channel (/basinpriest on tich) or you frequently heal the warrior that is on the same side of the raid tab as yourself. For example if the Maintank is in Group 1 and the Offtank is in Group 2 then the healers for the MT are in groups 1,3,5,7 and for the OT are in groups 2,4,6,8. Shamans/Pallies and Druids can keep the dps alive since the giants have a melee area aoe. When pulling we assign each offtank a hunter that pulls the giant right to him so he can taunt it off. Once the warrior has aggro on the giant the hunter can FD and change to dps gear if needed.

Stormrage notes

We put 2 warriors on the Molten Giants so that another tank is 2nd on the hate list rather than a healer.

Molten Destroyer

Molten Destroyers are virtually identical to Molten Giants, except that they don't have the knockback-aggro wipe effect that Giants have. He has a stomp attack which is an AE knockdown and stun. This makes getting initial agro fairly difficult and causes a lot of damage to rogues and other people in range.

Stormrage notes

Only one tank is needed, since the aggro isn't wiped with the knockback.

Lava Annihilator

This is your basic melee mob with a twist. It uses the random target system to determine a 2nd person to attack, and then it returns to the person on the top of it's hate list. Basically it means its just about impossible to tank and will target new people constantly. To minimize the need to chase it all over the place everyone should pile onto it in melee range and just heal who needs healing.

Tanks should feel free to taunt whenever it is up just so they can eat a few hits before it switches again. These are Always a static spawn and have a 150 minute respawn timer. Any Annihilator has a chance to spawn as a Firelord and vice versa. Like other rock elementals in MC it is susceptible to Banish and Freezing Trap. Typically, we start dps right away with no dps call.

Lava Surger

Very similar to Lava Annihilator, and the same tactics are used. When he surges, everyone near him at the time plus the person he charges will get hit with a ~800-1000 damage and get knocked back a few yards. The affect is much like bowling pins. These are on a timer of 28 minutes, and stop respawning when Garr is killed.

Since Lave Surgers do keep an aggro table you can fight them with only the melee attackers around them so that when it surgers only the melee attackers get hit with the AoE pulse. The target of the surge will still take damage, but the surger will go back to whoever has aggro on it. Surgers can actually be tanked like giants with an occasional surge then run back to the tank.

==== Firelord ==== (adds: Lava Spawn)

Firelords come either singly, or occasionally in pairs. They cast a magic debuff that needs to be dispelled, but their signature move is throwing out a lava spawn at regular intervals. DPS needs to switch to the spawns when this happens, particularly on dual firelord pulls, so that the spawns go down quickly, otherwise they split into more spawns. Firelords are positioned close to each other, so that mages' blizzards will hit both lords and spawns. DPS typically starts when the first spawn pops out with no dps call.

Stormrage notes

For dual pulls, we often assign even groups to one lord and spawns, and odd groups to the other.

Ancient Core Hound

Hounds spawn in several varieties - they can have one of the following AoE curses (info stolen from Conquest website):

  • Short duration stun
  • -200 fire resist debuff
  • 50% spell and melee slow
  • Short duration confuse
  • 30% less health, 50% less int/spirit.

They have a fire breath effect that is cone-based, so the MT usually pulls the hound, and turns them to face away from the raid. Respawn on these is ~18 minutes, and they stop respawning when Magmadar is killed. Wait for dps call.

Flame Imp

The imps are non-elite, with a very fast timer, and are typically AoEd. Be careful when fighting in Lucifron's room that you don't get too close to the entrance where the imps are, it is easy to pull/be feared into the imps, which usually causes a wipe.

Stormrage notes

Not all packs need to be fought, and we "sneak" around some of the northern packs.

Core Hound

There are 5 packs of 5 core hounds in the Lucifron/Magdamar room. We assign 5 tanks (pallies/druids if not enough warriors). All the tanks pull their mob, and face them inwards to protect non-tanks from the Core Hounds serated bite attack (they spawn in a circle, and that's roughly how they are still positioned when we fight them).

The hounds need to all be killed within 10 seconds, or they respawn at full health.

Wait until all 5 bodies have disappeared before moving on to the next pack. Core Packs can reignite other Packs, as well as their own.

Tichondrius notes

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 made on 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.

Stormrage notes

We set up CTRA windows for all of the tanks so everyone can see the health of all 5 mobs, and classes with AoE use that whenever possible. We don't use a 20% rule, we just have the single target dps switch targets depending on which mob needs more damage to stay in line with the others, so the dps really needs to be on the ball.

Lava Packs

Kill the Firewalker first, offtank the Flameguard. Banish the Reaver and Elemental. We have a hunter pet pull the pack or a Pally with shield. Warlocks banish, and the two flamers are tanked. Have warlocks pre-target a reaver or elemental for banish. After the pull, we sic hunter pets on the warlocks' banished targets and use growl (auto-cast or manually) so that the pets eat the damage dealt between banish breaking and getting the mob re-banished. The debuffs cast by the Firewalkers and Flameguards can really ramp up the damage received by the raid, so decursing is very important in these fights.

- Firewalker
This should be the first mob killed in the lava packs. He curses with a -200 FR debuff, and chain throws 3K fireballs.

- Flameguard
Has AoE damage and a stackable AC debuff, second target to be killed.

- Lava Elemental
Banishable. Has a cone-shaped stun and dot, third target.

- Lava Reaver
Banishable, has a vicious melee and cleave attack and the last to be killed.

Bosses

Lucifron

Adds: 2 Flamewaker Protectors

First MC boss, and the boss whose death sets the raid lockout timer. Luci is humanoid, and comes with 2 humanoids adds, Flamewalker Protectors, who are assigned to offtanks. The offtanks are positioned at the back of the cave, while the MT tanks Luci near the south end of his patrol route, so that Luci's AoE doesn't hit the rest of the raid while they are fighting the adds.

The adds have a MC that needs to be dispelled ASAP, so your rogues don't kill your healers. The raid assists the MA, and takes down the adds one at a time.

Because of the MC it is a good idea to have a "free roaming" warrior to pick up the guard if the off tank gets MC'd. The guards like to MC their tank and then run into the DPS or healers.

Lucifron has a curse that increases mana cost of abilities by 100%, need to get this off the healers as quickly as possible. He also has an AoE that goes off every 30 seconds that does 2000 damage after 10 seconds, so any dps class that isn't high on healing priority needs to bandage or otherwise keep their HPs above 2000 during this fight.


Magmadar

Mag comes with no adds. In order to fight him, you need to have hunters with tranquilizing shot, which Luci drops. This is used on Mag when he goes into a frenzy, to bring him back to normal. Hunters will communicate with each other on rotation and let the others know when a shot misses, so the next hunter can take their shot. This mod might help.

Mag's other abilities include an AoE fear every 30 seconds or so (hunters try to stay at max range to avoid this), so dwarf priests are useful to ward the MT. He also spits fire at random targets, and the fire stays on the ground as an AoE, so be sure to step out of it if he spits at you. Also, he has a cone-shaped fire damage.

Because of his frenzy and fear if a shot misses and too many healers get feared the MT can go do quickly to him. It is a very good idea to have at least one more tank who is in defensive stance doing a slow aggro build. This also helps the situation where the MT misses a stance dance or fear ward.


Gehennes

Similar to Luci, Gehennes is humanoid and comes with 2 humanoids adds, who are OT'd and killed first. Gehennes curses with a 75% less healing curse which can be dispelled, throws shadow bolts, and has an AoE fire spell - if you're in the fire, get out of it!

Gehennes guards have an AoE stun and a cone shaped cleave attack. They need to be seperated enough to keep them for stunning the other off tank and to keep the cleave away from each other.


Garr

Adds: 8 Firesworn

Garr is an elemental and comes with 8 adds. With each add killed, Garr becomes more powerful, so keep as many banished as possible, and assign warriors to OT the others. When the warrior-tanked adds are killed, move on to Garr, then mop up the banished adds. We stick hunter pets on the banished adds, to eat the damage they do before they can be rebanished, so the OOC resser should see if he/she can ressurect pets when they die in this fight.

Garr also likes to explode his adds periodically when you're fighting him, so the adds should be far away from Garr and the rest of the raid, otherwise the melee fighting Garr will be caught in the explosion of the add.

Garr has a slow effect, and will remove buffs from players periodically. Generally by the end of the battle everyone is sitting at their base stats. The explosion of the adds will do around 3200 damage and then you will get fall damage as well. The adds will explode when they die or when Garr blows one up. Everyone should back away from them when they are low on health and let ranged DPS kill them, much like the green ghouls in Scholomance.


Baron Geddon

Geddon is pulled to Garr's room. Previously, this was accomplished with a pet pull, but with the changes in aggro, a paladin may be the best way for alliance to pull him, with a hunter taking him off the pally midway and bringing him back to Garr's room. The MT waits for him in the center of the room, and the raid stays close together. Each group should stay close to their mage for decursing. A couple of spots are chosen as the bomb spots, stay away from these spots unless you are the bomb.

The Baron has a curse that burns mana, taking 400 mana per second and turning it into 400 damage per second. Classes without mana are not affected. There is also a strong AoE that all melee should run out of as soon as it starts. Backing up isn't fast enough, turn around and run away.

Geddon is pure fire damage so the higher your FR the better. His AoE pulse attack does more damage with each pulse but Geddon does not move while he is pulsing. So all melee, including the MT need to run when he starts this attack.

But, the most memorable attack of the Baron is the bomb! Basically, a random person on his aggro list is chosen to be the bomb. After 10 seconds, the person will be blown up into the air. If the initial damage doesn't kill you, the fall usually will, so abilities like slow fall are good here. If you are the bomb, you MUST run to one of the areas without people, otherwise you'll kill your allies and they won't be very happy with you. CTRA includes a message on your screen "YOU ARE THE BOMB", as well as a whisper from the raid leader that you are the bomb. Mages can ice block to remove the bomb, paladins can shield. Power Word Shiled will absorb bomb damage. If the MT gets bombed the healers simply must pour on the heals and keep them alive.


Shazzrah

Shazzrah is pulled to Garr's room. Like Geddon this used to be done with a hunter pet pull though that may need to change. Shazzrah will curse you to take more arcane damage and has a very large radius Arcane Explosion. His physical damage is not much more than any other Molten Core mob so tanks with high arcane resist help on him.

Shazzrah's unique ability is a blink and aggro wipe. He will randomly blink to a target and do his AE attack. Groups should be spaced so that only one party is effected by his attack when he blinks. Since he wipes his aggro table on blink all DPS must stop so that the MT can re-establish aggro. Off tanks are position by the groups to try and get quick aggro on him and bring him back to the middle of the room. However if you have aggro you have to run to the middle of the room to help the MT. The MT should try to keep any form of DoT on Shazzrah that they can. Other DoT's should be avoided as they will cause him to run amok in the group until the MT can get aggro again. Curse of Doom is generally OK because it is a one shot deal.


Sulfuron Harbinger

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Majordomo Executus

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Golemagg the Incinerator

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Ragnaros

Adds: Periodic waves of 6? Sons of Flame

text here


Various Adds:

Core Rager

text here

Firewalker

Garr spawned add

Flamewaker

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Flamewaker Elite

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Flamewaker Healer

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Flamewaker Priest

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Class-Specific Guides for MC

Hunter

Horde

Hunters actually have a purpose in MC besides being (inferior) DPS in most other instances, our job is to pull mobs to the MT, and to peel mobs off the MT to off-tanks so the MT doesn’t get swarmed.

Things to do before and in the raid:

- Join the hunter channel (basinhunter on Tich, aim2please on SR), this is the channel the hunters, MT and Off-tanks communicate.

- If you get assigned to an Off-tank, communicate in regard to where to peel to, and let him know you're his designated peeler.

- The main puller and secondary puller should run up and be ready for the next pull as fast as possible after a kill, if one of the hunters is dead assign a third Hunter to sub, and take the task of the current dead hunter(s).

- On peels, the only target getting Hunters Marked, is the one that’s going down first. Most often peeled by the secondary puller.

- Get “Wardrobe-mod”, (unless you use a better mod, in which case link it), even experienced pullers will die frequently, and you will notice that the repair bill will be steep if you pull in your primary gear, in addition to the possibility of rendering yourself useless in the raid due to broken gun/bow. Most classes find “Wardrobe” to be cumbersome, due to the fact that you have to be out of combat to be able to use it, as hunters we have the possibility to FD, and get out of combat, so you will be able to change gear mid battle. Note! Most of the hunters on Tich don't do this anymore, mainly due to the fact that we've gotten better gear, and don't die that much anymore :) I really recommend doing this, if your guild is starting out in MC though. Note2 Personally I swap to my Rag, (fire res gear), on fun packs.


Pulls:

Solo pulls: Lava Annihilators, 'Surgers, Fire lords and Core Hounds.

Usually the Core hound can be pulled by the MT, but if needed the hunter may be asked to pull it. Freezing trap will work on Annihilators/Surgers, which makes it possible to buy some time getting back to the MT.

Some of these pulls may require a peel, (Distracting Shot), from a second hunter, depending on how far away the mob is, this is especially important on the way to Lucifron/Magmadar, where there are 3 Annihilators/Surgers, a Firelord and a Core Hound that needs to be pulled from the bridge area. (Note! The last pull here, is a Surger which should be pulled on his way to the right, if you try to pull him on his way to the left, you will get imps).

Giants:

These come in pairs, either Giant/Giant(G/G), Giant/Destroyer(G/D) or Destroyer/Destroyer (D/D), these guys have an AoE stomp, so expect to die a lot . Our way of doing most of these pulls is that the secondary puller, marks his target and when the main puller has pulled, peels him off to the off-tank. The main puller runs to the MT, usually a bit aways from the raid. As we do it, the destroyer always goes to the MT if G/D. If dual, G/G or D/D, the puller gets the closest one, and the furthest away one gets marked and peeled to the off-tank. If the Destroyer is the furthest away one on G/D’s, I, personally, prefer to let the secondary puller pull, and have the main puller peel to the MT, (according to Vlo this is not necessary though ;)).

Note! In Garr’s part of the instance there will be two D/D pairs with a random spawn mob in front of each pair, these pulls can be very hard. It's recommended to pull the giant pair closest to the entrance near the cave wall, (behind the pillar), as the single mob in front of them will not add.


Other multipulls:

Through the tunnel from Garr to Baron Geddon and Shazzrah, you will have to pull some packs consisting of Flameguard, Flamewalker and two ‘Reavers, (gets banished), to clear the way for "clean" boss pulls. Lately we’ve been doing pet pulls on these “tunnel pulls”, as it’s very hard to get a successful peel off in there, and have the time to run back. Having Dash/Dive is helpful. (Baron Geddon and Shazzrah is pulled the same way).

These packs will also be on the way to Sulforon and Golemagg. Usually we pull either the Flamewalker or the Flameguard, (whichever is easiest to pull), and peel the other one. It's important that the hunters, MT and off-tank communicate on who gets what.

Boss encounters:

Lucifron/Gehennas:

Requires 3 hunters, one to pull closest guard, one to peel the second guard and one to peel Lucy/Gehennas himself. Note! The peeling of the boss should be done as fast as possible after the initial pull!

Magmadar:

This encounter requires Tranquility shot, a special attack you learn by a book that drops off Lucifron. Mag will every 15 seconds or so, go into a frenzied state, where he will cause more dmg to the MT, this state must be shut down as fast as possible with Tranq. (Timer is 20 seconds). The way Basin on Tich do it, is that we pair up hunters, where the players in each pair fire at the same time when he gets into frenzy, the hit rate is like 90% with an average decked character, so it’s very unlikely that both will miss. If the tank has him facing the end of the cave the sides are a good way to stand. Hunters with improved range will have no problem firing from outside his fear range.

Requirements:

- Magmadar mod. (Gives you a warning when he gets into frenzy, and when his fear will be released).

- Macroes for /Basinhunter; “<charactername> Hit” and ”<charactername> missed”.

- Isolate your "combat spell hits" in combat log for this encounter, as it's important that you can easily see if you hit/missed to send the hit/miss macro to /basinhunter channel.

Garr:

Pending on the amount of Warlocks for banish, Hunters get assigned to off-tanks, where each team gets assigned to a location in the cave by the raid leader, and peels the assigned “guard” to the off tank, freezing traps will buy some time here too.

Baron Geddon/Shazzrah:

DPS duty, besides pet pulling. (Note! The hunter pet-pulling, should stay in the middle of the room with the MT, and stay there until he’s sure the MT has aggro).

Sulforon/Golemagg/Majordomo:

Peel assigned guards to off-tanks. On Majordomo we have 2 hunters Distracting Shot'ing Domo to the MT.

Ragnaros

DPS.

Sjur

Note! some additional info in regard to gear on:[1]

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