Morogrim Tidewalker

[benseac]

According to the GMOTD, our next target on the hit parade is Morogrim Tidewalker in SSC. Check out WoWWiki (http://www.wowwiki.com/Morogrim_Tidewalker) to the site for some information about this boss. Bosskillers also has a write-up (http://www.bosskillers.com/cgi-bin/bbguild/index.cgi?action=bosspage&bossid=141) of this encounter as well.

We made excellent progress last week by downing both Hydross and the Lurker. Let's keep up the good work this week and add another first kill to our list! :biggrin:

[Wenge]

It looked to me like the hardest thing for us about this fight is managing the murlocs. I suggest that we change our positioning slightly: that everyone must be within the radius of consecrate (so, that means that the pallies stand behind Morogrim and not in their little party on the side). As soon as the murlocs come in range the only aoe should be a consecrate to pick them up as they run into the party.

Frost Nova has aggro mechanics that probably make it unsuitable for this fight. Specifically, if you have a mob that is currently targeting Lyre, and I frost nova it so it's out of range of Lyre but in range of Ladunch, after a tick or two the mob will turn and hit Lad. Once the FN breaks it will start running around the room untanked. Even if the mob is standing on the consecrate but out of range it will attack whoever is in range. This mechanic does not apply for ranged attackers.

This can be useful though: if you've been in a 5-man heroic with me you know I will frost nova a pull when it is in range of the tank, so that they stop running past the tank toward the healer and instead turn onto the tank.

In this encounter I think FN may have contributed to a number of deaths because someone was too close to the murlocs when they were nova'd in place, and the murlocs will just gank them right there.

[attic]

I'm no mage expert so be gentle if I'm way off here. When we're AoEing the murlocs it seems that with blast wave, dragon's breath, and frost nova (and maybe an earthbind totem) that it should be possible to do a short, circular kite for the amount of time it takes to kill them. What are the technical/tactical problems that are keeping us from being successful here? Certainly if frost nova is the only thing to hit the murloc then bad aggro things will happen. But how can the mob get only one frost nova and none of the rest of the AoE?

Also, would blessing of sacrifice spread the damage out on the tanking paladin?

[Wenge]

short, circular kite[/b]

I kinda tried something like that at one point, and for me the issue was the murlocs move faster than I do, so I'd get ganked by them real quick. An earthbind might make this method work. One problem I could see is that I might end up getting graved while kiting. The other problem is AoE is very mana intensive for us, and the frequency of the murlocs might make it impossible. I'm not sure.

For clarification, Dragons' Breath is the 41-point in the fire tree, and it's frontal cone not circular. Blastwave has a 24-second (with 4-piece tier 4) cooldown, and is also a talent on the fire tree. I believe both Zen and Kart are now split arcane/fire, and may not have blastwave. If a mage does not have points on blastwave then they only have two point-blank, instant-cast AoEs: Arcane Explosion and Frost Nova.

--W

[Lad]

So this guy writes what he calls "Strategy guides for fucking two-year-olds". Which are basically guides that expect that you have no brain stem and need to have your hand held through the english language. Anyways, he did a writeup for Tidewalker, that you can find about halfway down the page.

http://tinyurl.com/2tsp6c

The way he describes the paladin tanking is as such:

The paladin positions himself halfway down the ramp, to ensure the murlocs from both sides reach him at the same time. Our two hunters will each place a frost trap (the slowing effect one) at the top and bottom of the ramp, forcing the murlocs to run through them. Once the paladin has significant aggro from raid healing with righteous fury up he will run them around through the trapped area, kiting them, because it is too much to tank all 10 murlocs at once.

Mages will then frost nova, and warlocks will be placing seed of corruption on as many as possible, before any real dps starts. Once your warlocks have had enough time to put up a good few seed of corruptions THEN you start AOE, and with the added burst damage of all those seeds, the murlocs will die in 10 seconds before any AOE aggro-pulling had a chance to kill anybody.

Be sure to have your hunters call out on vent who the murlocs are aggro'd on, if it isn't the paladin so they can get between the two frost traps in time.

[Mithwen]

Oh my goodness, Assault was right ... that is elucidating!

So ... it seems like those murlocs are handled kinda like the goblin packs in BWL? Except more murlocky and not standing still throwing dynomite which is easily dodged.

Also, read the dude's post on 'Lazy players in denial' at the bottom of the page. :) I think I need a hug ... I'm in denial!

P

[Vand]

The Bosskillers page links to a Morogrim video shot from a mage's perspective (it's the Nightmare Asylum video). One of the things I found most interesting is that the mage in the video stood back out of range of the earthquake and only went into action when the merlocks came out. AoE is very mana-intensive, so this seems like it might be a good way to conserve mage mana. It would also make things a bit easier on the healers as they would have less healing to do after an earthquake, and have the mages at full health for the murlock encounters.

I do not know if this would gimp our dps on the boss too much or not (although the encounter in the video was successful). I just found it to be an interesting strategy.

[benseac]

The Bosskillers page links to a Morogrim video shot from a mage's perspective (it's the Nightmare Asylum video). One of the things I found most interesting is that the mage in the video stood back out of range of the earthquake and only went into action when the merlocks came out. AoE is very mana-intensive, so this seems like it might be a good way to conserve mage mana. It would also make things a bit easier on the healers as they would have less healing to do after an earthquake, and have the mages at full health for the murlock encounters.

I do not know if this would gimp our dps on the boss too much or not (although the encounter in the video was successful). I just found it to be an interesting strategy.[/b]

That could work. I think we could probably swing something like that since he's not on a timer like Voidreaver is.

Last night I thought we made some good progress. We need to iron a few things out but I don't see any reason why we can't have success against him neext week.

Now if we can just figure out what our deal with Voidreaver is...

[Vand]

I think that everybody will agree that handling the waves of murlocs is the key to success in this fight. Once we figure out how to handle them, we pwn Morogrim.

That being said, I think that we need to come up with a way to prevent our tanking palis from being eaten alive. None of them are prot, so they just do not have the resilience to survive such a pounding.

I know that somebody said that frost nova was causing too many problems, but I really believe that it could have an invaluable role to play in this fight. The main issue with frost nova is that if the person highest on the rooted mob's hate list is out of melee range, the mob will start beating on somebody who is within melee range. However, that should not keep us from using frost nova.

Here is what I see as a possible way forward. We do what we are currently doing to get the murlocs aggro'd on the pali. However, the pali is standing a little bit more out of the way of other people. As soon as the murlocs get to the pali, a mage casts frost nova. As soon as that happens, the pali (and anyone else) steps out of melee range, and then the AoE barrage begins. We could probably use some coordination on Vent for when to begin the AoE. Hopefully things could be timed so that some SoCs put on the murlocs while they are running in would go off at about the time the call for AoE goes out (or maybe those explosions could be what would signal the mages to begin AoE). We may need a second mage to recast frost nova when the mobs start breaking out of it, but my sense is that they will be dying quickly enough to make that unnecessary.

I know that I am not an expert in overall raid mechanics, so feel free to pick this apart. Let's just make this thing work!

[Assault]

That is a strategy that other people have successfully employed, Vand. The problem is that, using frost nova, it is absolutely imperative that no one be in melee range of the murlocs when they get rooted, and people have had trouble with that. I think, in theory, our current method is more idiot-proof, but a rolling frost nova strategy should also be workable.

[Wenge]

Yah the major problem with FN has been people standing too close to murlocs when they are rooted, causing them to die really quickly.