Lord Marrowgar Encounter

[Spiritus]

CLICK HERE FOR THE PROJECT MARMOT VIDEO GUIDE & TRANSCRIPT!

Hello, and welcome to TankSpot's written guide to the Lord Marrowgar encounter. My name is Spiritus and I will be offering specific details on the encounter, as well as working strategies to deal with certain mechanics

BIG NOTE: As always, abilities are subject to change with hot-fixes and minor patches. Below is the official 25/10man TankSpot Video Guide:

Environment, Positioning, and Pull:

(1) Your raid will enter the room through a door at the apex of a half-circle room, with Marrowgar centered on the far wall (big ice sheet).

Figure 1. Starting Position

(3) MT and 2OTs will run in and grab aggro on Marrowgar, spinning him 180deg so his back is facing the raid. It is important that the three tanks stay stacked on each other during the pull and phase1.

(4) Melee DPS will position themselves behind Marrowgar and commence DPS.

(5) Ranged and healers will spread out in a semi circle at max range, evenly spaced apart.

Figure 2. Positioning After Pull/Phase1

Boss/Add Abilities:
Lord Marrowgar has 18.06m HP (5.2m 10man).

<---PHASE 1--->

Lord Marrowgar Melee Hits
Lord Marrowgar seems to take about 25-40% off of a well geared warrior tank. Very manageable.

Saber Lash
Splits 300% of normal melee damage to an enemy and its two nearest allies. 5 yd range, Next melee. Prevents the target from being impaled while tanking.
This is the reason why 3 tanks are recommended for this fight. This ability is used very frequently, and is nearly spammed ala heroic strike.

Cold Flame
Summons a line of frost that hits enemies in the way. Inflicts 8000 Frost damage every 1.0 sec for 3 sec.
Lord Marrowgar summons a line of frost at a raid member presumably out of melee range. This travels relatively slow and is easily avoidable. However, melee must be quick on their feet to move out of the way as it will travel through their positioning on its way to the ranged target. This ability is spammed throughout the entire duration of the fight, including phase2.

Bone Spike Graveyard
3 second cast, un-interuptable
Hurls 3 massive bone spikes which impales any enemies in the way. Deals 9,000 physical damage and an additional 10% health per sec for 5 minutes or until killed. Spikes have 37900HP in 25-Man Normal Mode.
This ability, which is used every 17-29sec, erupts under three raid members, stunning them until the bone spike is DPSed down. This is the number1 priority for DPS. It is recommended that melee take care of melee bone spikes and ranged take care of ranged bone spikes. Damage caused by bone spike is easily healed through. Bone Spikes are not cast during phase2 on normal mode.

<---PHASE 2--->

Phase 2 occurs when the raid warning displays "Lord Marrowgar creates a whirling storm of bone!" In the video, this happens at approx 0:45sec into the fight (0:53sec mark). It is recommended that at 0:40sec the raid moves to this position:

Figure 3. Positioning seconds BEFORE Phase2

Bone Storm
Instant Cast, 30sec duration, 1min CD from the end of the whirlwind.
Attacks nearby enemies in a whirlwind of bone, which causes them to bleed for 15 sec. Deals [Exact number not known]. Marrowgar will emotes before he uses this ability.
If you ever encountered Leo in SSC, then you know this mechanic already. Marrowgar begins to whirlwind and randomly pursues a raid member for a short period of time before refocusing to a new target. Once he reaches the place where his target is/was, he will WW in place for a few seconds before acquiring a new target. This ability lasts for 30sec and will happen every 1.5min (e.g.- 30sec WW, 1min phase1, 30sec WW, etc.). The catch is that Marrowgar will continue to cast Cold Flame during this phase. Avoid the whirlwind and avoid cold flame in that order of importance. UPDATE: Damage significantly reduced from PTR. Hearsay is about 2k damage with a 1k bleed, though this is unconfirmed.

Figure 4. Phase2/Whirlwind=Don't Stand Next to the Red Dot

After Whirlwind is over THERE IS AN AGGRO WIPE. Phase1 begins again and Phase2 will occur in 1min. Rinse and repeat until dead.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

(1) Proper positioning makes perfect. The more evenly your ranged is spread out in the semi circle, the less the number of people will have to move, resulting in better heals and rDPS.

(2) Melee DPS must be quick on their feet to move out of the Cold Flame spam.

(2) KILL BONE SPIKES! The faster your friends are out of the spikes, the faster they can get back to DPSing and healing.

(3) MOVE AWAY FROM WHIRLWIND! It is recommended that melee run out 5sec before Whirlwind is cast. It is on a hard timer after the first one (which also may always occur at the 0:45sec mark), so there is no reason not to. Healers and ranged DPS must begin to move if Morrowgar starts moving in their direction. Dead=0HPS/DPS.

All in all, this seems like a fairly simple first encounter. Even so, I'll be glad to be doing something other than ToC *cringe*.

As always, feel free to add info to this post that will further everyone's understanding of the fight.

Pre-grats on defeating the first boss in ICC! Other written, speculative strats on the first wing bosses will be available soon.

[Turelliax]

awesome thanks! keep up the good work

[Bishoptwo]

His whirlwind behaves differently now.

He moves much faster to someone, pauses there then moves again.

Overall its travel time is much faster, then it pauses for a short while then moves again.

Whirlwind seems to hit for slightly less since its harder to avoid.

Also his character model doesn't look like that anymore.

[grafarion]

that video is from blizzards 1st itteration on the encounter on PTR, while it gives you an idea of the fight several mechanics have changed since then

[Dragaan]

He doesn't cast the bone spike graveyard during whirlwind on normal mode anymore. He does on heroic.

[Wars]

Well that will make normal mode much much less taxing.

[Spiritus]

Updated the movie to the new model/behavior.

Changed some text to reflect the new encounter, though positioning is essentially the same. NO BSG during Bone Cyclone makes this fight even easier.

Thanks for the tips!

[Kherberos]

great to see my guilds movie made it here lol .

Damage from bone cyclone is sufficiently lower now that its not rly a big problem, though I can see it being nasty on heroic mode.

This was our 2nd attempt on the boss ever. Being the first boss of the instance he is quite easy (maybe justly so , but I prefer it being harder for the last instance of an expansion)

[Spiritus]

Getting hit with Saber Lash prevents you from being a victim of BSG (which I just realized I failed to mention in the guide), so as long as your three tanks are standing in-front of the boss, they should never be impaled. At least according to information available now.

Grats on making a video that keeps the camera centered on the mechanics of the fight! I don't know how many times I've watched a video where the camera is looking at a wall, floor, or ceiling... or looking at the boss when the real action is behind them with adds (see the Deathwhisper videos).

I don't expect many guilds to have much trouble with Marrowgar, but honestly he was designed that way to get people's foot in the door and not cause a /gdisband over the first boss.

EDIT: Oh, I did mention the saber lash/impale mechanic in the guide. I need to read my own guides more often .

[Kherberos]

I can tell you his hitbox is enormous , I was trying to pull him back after cyclone but I had to walk 20 yards to get him to move 5. Quite annoying , but for the rest as you said, entry boss !=hard

And yea Sunsetz did a great job on the camera action here.

[Endralich]

great to see my guilds movie made it here lol .

Damage from bone cyclone is sufficiently lower now that its not rly a big problem, though I can see it being nasty on heroic mode.

This was our 2nd attempt on the boss ever. Being the first boss of the instance he is quite easy (maybe justly so , but I prefer it being harder for the last instance of an expansion)

Woot, the one time I am offtanking on a PTR boss... tanking being my offspec, the movie gets put up on tankspot... awesome

Anyway yeah good movie, hadnt seen it yet

[gorignak64850]

did you try strafing him to make him move farther? it can sometimes work to advantage when needing to move a boss quickly.

[Kherberos]

I know about strafing yes. Always works great, but no it didnt help alot. His hitbox is just huge.

Also with the agro wipe after bone cyclone you cant spend alot of time on it in the start. So I just ended up tanking it in the middle and moving it later.

ITs not rly important to the tactic rly , its roughly placed fine. Im just a purist , so if I can pull it back more I do it.

[Megatwan]

Sounds fun, nice write-up. Seems like Anub'Rekan meets Leo.

Small question: Why not have the melee stand to the sides and ask healers and ranged not stand in line with melee and the boss?

...That way the cold Flames will always be going ou tthe back and becomes a non issue for all melee. Positioning wise basicly have the melee pretend its a dragon that tail swipes etc, assuming they will still remain 5 yards from the tanks.

[Kherberos]

because the melee also gets targeted alot anyway they need to move .
besides. melee has 0 issue with strafing while dpsing , so why bother : ) + melee helps out with impale dpsing close to the boss etcetc. +bone cyclone every 1.5 minutes with fires everywhere during . It just isnt a dps boost /loss .
Now we know what to expect so our dps will be alot higher. Lots of us were just looking around , noting down debuffs/buffs whatever + testing fire damage on purpose etc. Its an easy boss , why make it harder?

[Megatwan]

oh wurd, i was under the impression it only targeted ranged for some reason.

if so it would just take a small step out of the fight not make it harder per say. either way non-issue if it targets melee. kek

[Kherberos]

Im pretty sure it does. Ive seen the fire shitz go at weird angles into the sides when there was only melee there.
-edit , next time we do marrowgar on the ptr ill pay attention to it. To confirm it

[stuppp]

if you dudes want i can post a flash file of the encounter and its tacts

[selhen]

nice nice as im getting used to with you ¡¡¡¡
i cant wait for this out on live¡¡¡¡¡

[Tereika]

I have a question about the saberlash ability on 10 man difficulty. Does it effect 2 players or 3 players? If its effecting only 2 of them, its easily countered with just using two tanks. If its 3, I suppose outside of outgearing the fight, stick one of the less-squishie melee in front with the tanks.