Icecrown Lord Marrowgar

[Ciderhelm]

You can find a guide to the heroic version of this encounter here!

Welcome to the Icecrown Citadel raid guide, my name is Kanzer. In this video I will be going over our 25 man strategy for Lord Marrowgar, the first encounter in Icecrown Citadel.

If you'd like more information or would like to learn more about downloading this movie, click "more info" on the movie information box on YouTube to head directly to TankSpot! Also, be sure to subscribe by clicking the Subscribe button to the right so you will be automatically notified as we release movies.

Lord Marrowgar serves his purpose well as an introductory boss into Icecrown Citadel, and is pretty straight forward and requires simple coordination from everyone in order to down him. For this fight we used 3 tanks, and 7 healers.

Lord Marrowgar will need to be tanked in the middle of the room about where he stands, and the raid needs to spread out evenly all around him, but not enough they they are out of range of healers. Healers should spread themselves out accordingly to reach everyone and not all be clumped up in one spot. Melee should take advantage of the bosses huge hit box and spread themselves out in a semi circle behind the boss to avoid multiple people getting hit by flames.

There are three distinct abilities to keep in mind during this phase.

First off, Lord Marrowgar does an attack called Saber Lash, this does 300% of his normal melee attack damage and spreads it between the tank, and the 2 closest people to him and prevents them from being impaled by Bone Spike Graveyard. This is the reason for having three tanks, as you don't want a single tank taking the full on attack, nor a dps taking any part of this attack. For this reason, all of the tanks should stand within five yards of eachother, and should do their best to stay that way throughout the fight's entirety.

The second ability to be aware of is called Cold Flame, Marrowgar will occasionally spit out lines of fire that target a particular player, and move in a straight line toward that player until gone. While in the fire a player will take 7000 frost damage every second for three seconds. This is very simple to avoid as all you need to do is side step out of the way and let it go by you. Melee should pay particular attention to this as they can find a fire right on top of them at any given time. Despite being flames, they do frost damage so it is a good idea to run frost protection aura or a totem.

Finally, Lord Marrowgar performs an attack called Bone Spike graveyard. What this does is impales three random raid members and traps them into one of these graveyards. These graveyards deal 10% health per sec in damage, as well as immobilizes whoever gets hit, so they need to be broken out of it immediately before a flame overwhelms them or they die from the tick in general. Its not fun having to heal someone getting hit by both. Range DPS should be divided into two groups on the left and right side of the boss, and their priority is to break people out of the graveyards before resuming DPS on the boss, starting from the outside in. Melee should assist with any that appear near them, otherwise just keep DPSing Marrowgar.

Eventually you will get an emote that says "Lord Marrowgar falls apart and his bones begin to spin!" this signals Marrowgar is about to go into a whirlwind which is phase 2. DPS should continue as normal. When Marrowgar goes into his whirlwind he will begin targetting random people and moving very fast back and forth between them. The whirlwind itself does an insignificant amount of damage and can easily be healed through, however while he is doing this he will shoot out cold flames at four different angles at an accelerated rate, so it is important that everyone is paying attention and moving to avoid these fires. The whirlwind last for 30 seconds and the tanks need to be right there when he wears off to pick him up, because his aggro will reset once its finished. DPS should allow the tank a couple of seconds to restablish aggro and position before resuming DPS.

Once the whirlwind is done, he goes back to normal and its simple rinse and repeat until hes a pile of bones at your feet.

All in all, this is a simple encounter that requires basic movement, positioning, and proper placement to get through. As long as everyone performs as they should, you shouldn't have much trouble.

Thanks for watching this movie! As always, feel free to ask questions or add suggestions either on YouTube or in the strategy thread on TankSpot.com. Also, TankSpot Donors can download all of these movies in High Definition directly from our servers -- click the second link in the movie information box to learn more!

Welcome to the Icecrown Citadel raid guide, my name is Kanzer. In this video I will be going over our 10 man strategy for Lord Marrowgar, the first encounter in Icecrown Citadel.

If you'd like more information or would like to learn more about downloading this movie, click "more info" on the movie information box on YouTube to head directly to TankSpot! Also, be sure to subscribe by clicking the Subscribe button to the right so you will be automatically notified as we release movies.

For this encounter you should have at least two tanks, and two healers.

Lord Marrowgar is best described as an introductory boss into Icecrown Citadel, and requires basic movement, coordination and placement in order to down him.

Lord Marrowgar will need to be tanked in the middle of the room about where he stands, and the raid should spread out evenly behind and to the sides of him to all be in range of eachother for healing and bone spikes when they happen. Melee DPS should take advantage of his huge hit box and spread themselves out in a half circle directly behind the boss. It is possible for Melee DPS and healers to stand far within his hitbox to avoid getting hit by the flames altogether, however this runs the risk of them getting Saber Lashed instead of the tanks and so it is not advisable, as dodging the flames is very simple and doesn't leave possible insta gibs to chance. If your raid is having much trouble dodging the flames however, it is something you can try. Range should avoid standing infront of Marrowgar even at a distance, as this also seems to put you at risk of getting hit by Saber Lash.

There are three distinct abilities to keep in mind during this phase.

First off, Lord Marrowgar does an attack called Saber Lash, this does 200% of his normal melee attack damage and spreads it between the tank, and the closest ally to him and prevents them from being impaled by Bone Spike Graveyard. This is the reason for having two tanks, as you don't want a single tank taking the full attack, nor a random dps getting hit by this at all. For this reason, both tanks should stand within five yards of eachother infront of the boss, and should do their best to stay that way throughout the entire fight's duration.

The second ability to be aware of is called Cold Flame, Marrowgar will occasionally spit out lines of fire that target a particular player, and move in a straight line toward them until gone. While in the fire a player will take 6000 frost damage every second for three seconds. This is very simple to avoid as all you need to do is side step out of the way and let it go by you. Melee should pay particular attention to this as they can find a fire right on top of them at any given time. Despite being flames, they do frost damage so it is a good idea to run frost protection aura or a totem.

Finally, Lord Marrowgar performs an attack called Bone Spike graveyard. What this does is impales a random raid member and traps them into one of these graveyards. These graveyards deal 10% health per sec in damage, as well as immobilize whoever gets hit, so they need to be broken out of it immediately before a flame overwhelms them or they die from the tick in general. Range DPS should be divided between the left, right, and center behind the boss, and their priority is to break people out of the graveyards before resuming DPS on the boss. Melee should assist with any that appear near them, or if your range is having trouble breaking people out on their own, Melee should assist with all of them.

Eventually you will get an emote that says "Lord Marrowgar creates a whirling storm of bone" this signals Marrowgar is about to go into a whirlwind which is phase 2. DPS should continue as normal. When Marrowgar goes into his whirlwind he will begin targetting random people and moving very fast back and forth between them. The whirlwind itself does an insignificant amount of damage and can easily be healed through, however while he is doing this he will shoot out cold flames at four different angles at an accelerated rate, so it is important that everyone is paying attention and moving to avoid these fires. The whirlwind last for 30 seconds and the tanks need to be right there when he wears off to pick him up, because his aggro will reset once its finished. DPS should allow the tank a couple of seconds to restablish aggro and position before resuming DPS.

Once the whirlwind is done, he goes back to normal and phase 1 begins again. From this point on its just rinse and repeat until he is dead.

All in all, this is a simple encounter that requires basic movement, positioning, and proper placement to get through. As long as everyone dodges fires, breaks people out of Bone Spike Graveyards, and performs as they should, you shouldn't have much trouble.

Thanks for watching this movie! As always, feel free to ask questions or add suggestions either on YouTube or in the strategy thread on TankSpot.com. Also, TankSpot Donors can download all of these movies in High Definition directly from our servers -- click the second link in the movie information box to learn more!

[Ciderhelm]

Movie up! Donor download will be functional in ~25 minutes. On to Deathwhisper!

[Krenian]

I miss raiding with Eventide.

Looks like a fun fight though. Good job Kanzer.

[Ciderhelm]

This video is completely broken on YouTube. There's a hiccup in the movie file. We're trying to get this resolved this morning.

(The donor download has the hiccup but you can skip past it and see the rest of the movie)

[gabbu]

Gives me a linklok on donor download, is it locked or I just happen to access it at a busy time?

[Ciderhelm]

Gives me a linklok on donor download, is it locked or I just happen to access it at a busy time?

About 13 more minutes before it's available, per above post! Very soon.

[bloodbrother]

Is there a Lady Deathwhisper Guide coming out today? tyvm....

[Mindy]

Dunno if it was mentioned, but after bone storm, is there an aggro reset? When I did it on 10-man it looked like there was.

[Kanzer]

Yes you are correct, his aggro resets once the whirlwind finishes, and it is mentioned in the strat.

[Kazeyonoma]

The aggro reset does happen, but strangely he seems taunt immune? (maybe we were overzealous with taunting and he went immune via normal means, but he was definitely immune as he came out of the bone whirl) so make sure your tanks move together to eat saberlashes when picking him up, and making sure you hit him with a threat move and not just taunt to be safe.

[Kanzer]

The aggro reset does happen, but strangely he seems taunt immune? (maybe we were overzealous with taunting and he went immune via normal means, but he was definitely immune as he came out of the bone whirl) so make sure your tanks move together to eat saberlashes when picking him up, and making sure you hit him with a threat move and not just taunt to be safe.

I'm pretty sure hes simply taunt immune, I found that out after the third whirlwind in the video, which is why I suggest that DPS allow the tank to get aggro and even get into position before going all out on the boss again.

[Coldbear]

Melee can just stay right inside his targeting circle - easily avoids the Cold beer ...er, I mean Flame.

[paxundae]

Melee can just stay right inside his targeting circle - easily avoids the Cold beer ...er, I mean Flame.

Is it possible to move the entire raid into his targeting circle and ignore the flame altogether until the whirlwind? (I'm thinking about this more for 10-man than 25, since the whirlwind damage is so low on 10 and you need to stay a bit closer together anyways to deal with the bone spikes.)

[Wani]

Yes, he is taunt immune, we found that one out very quickly.

Also, what we found on 10 man with me OTing and a bear MTing, we both seemed to be taking about the same damage. Most of our wipes were due to tank death.

[Haramrae]

We were trying him in 10-man last night with two bear tanks. We (the tanks) consistently got triplets of 15-16k melee damage, even though we were right on top of each other. Considering we had 35-39k health it meant a wipe as soon as one of the healers got spiked. We've been through ToTC-25 with these people, we should be able to handle the "easy" first boss in IC, shouldn't we?

Eventually we swapped out a DPS for a healer and managed to stay alive a little longer, but at our best attempt we only got him down to 73% health before a tank died and we wiped. We're now thinking of bringing a third tank instead of an extra healer.

[Muffin Man]

The aggro reset does happen, but strangely he seems taunt immune?

I don't think it's that strange. Didn't vanilla Ony do the same thing going into P3? Aggro wipe while taunt immune? Also, Zul'jin from TBC.

This is the last raid of the expansion so I kind of like how they made it so the entire raid has to watch threat as bone whirl ends. Phase changes and threat drops shouldn't be trivially handled with taunt like Gundrak's Drakkari Colossus after all.

The phase change was the one hang up my guild had before we downed him tonite, so I'd also imagine the encounter would just be way too easy if he was tauntable.

[Mr.Winkle]

In answer to Haramrae

35-39K as a bear tank? That sounds quite low. None the less i agree that when one of you healers get spiked (especially myself as a holy pala) the tanks did drop very low. Using 3 tanks is obviously 1 work around, alternatively saving CDs for healer spikes and relying on the other 2 healers pumping up the output could work.

I believe Marrowgar can be dismantled so try that if you have a rogue. Also make sure that ALL (yes including melee) DPS nuke the spikes immediately.

We wiped a couple of times ourselves but that was mainly due to aggro issues after bonestorm. However our tanks both have around 48k buffed.

I imagine he is taunt immune to stop the bonestorm being controlled via taunts.

[Haramrae]

"Especially as a holy pala"? Our three healers were all holy paladins. I suppose the priest stamina buff would have been nice for this fight. Usually we bring our warrior tank (45k) and a holy priest to our raids, but they weren't available last night.

With two tanks with 48k health you wouldn't have any problems indeed. That's 3x16k, which is the high end of what Marrowgar's attack rounds add up to and with that much health they probably have more armour (so even less damage) than I have as well. I wonder what gear your tanks have to have that much health?

[Mr.Winkle]

"Especially as a holy pala"? Our three healers were all holy paladins. I suppose the priest stamina buff would have been nice for this fight. Usually we bring our warrior tank (45k) and a holy priest to our raids, but they weren't available last night.

With two tanks with 48k health you wouldn't have any problems indeed. That's 3x16k, which is the high end of what Marrowgar's attack rounds add up to and with that much health they probably have more armour (so even less damage) than I have as well. I wonder what gear your tanks have to have that much health?

What i meant by the Holy Paladin post was that i, as a holy paladin, was easily the most effective healer on that fight due to the constant damage on 2 tanks. As such, when i was spiked the priest and druid had to keep the tanks up.

With 3 holy paladins i can't see how you could possibly die unless one of two things are happening:

1) The melee attack of the boss is enough to 1 shot you, clearly not.
2) Your not always standing with the other tanks so you take a full sabrelash yourself = 2 x 100% melee damage. BTW sabre lash only hits for 2x melee dmg in 10man, not 3, however it can be spread across 3 tanks.

perhaps you and your off tank are slightly undergeared, but still, with 3 holy paladins healing you i just don't see how you could ever die.

Don't forget the scroll buffs if you're missing a priest or druid.

Here's our tanks armory profiles:
The World of Warcraft Armory
The World of Warcraft Armory

[Tahriel]

We were trying him in 10-man last night with two bear tanks. We (the tanks) consistently got triplets of 15-16k melee damage, even though we were right on top of each other. Considering we had 35-39k health it meant a wipe as soon as one of the healers got spiked. We've been through ToTC-25 with these people, we should be able to handle the "easy" first boss in IC, shouldn't we?

Eventually we swapped out a DPS for a healer and managed to stay alive a little longer, but at our best attempt we only got him down to 73% health before a tank died and we wiped. We're now thinking of bringing a third tank instead of an extra healer.

I Did the 10 man version last night with my guild, we used 2 tanks and 2 healers, originaly expecting we'd need to bring in a third healer, but we were surprised that the raid damage is so low we could focus fully on healing the tanks. I would mention that tanks health did drop a hell of a lot and sometimes got below 10%, but we never had one of them die. We also one shot this encounter.

The whirlwind damage is a joke, i expected our melee to get ganked on the first whirldwind, but to my surprise the whirlwind on first boss of Nexus seems to hit harder. The fire on the floor can be painful, but as you should be moving out of it quickly it shouldn't pose any threat.

We did the encounter with our Paladin healer tanking the encounter (Our Main Tank couldn't get ingame.. ) and he mentioned how easy it would of been for him to heal with beacon across both tanks. That encounter will be one healed by a Paladin before we know it.

I'd bet that your healers arn't keeping their eyes focused on the tanks properly and are all switching to heal the impale allowing your tanks to get low. Set up some healing assignments. Personaly i'd go with using your 2 paladins. Have both of them put their beacons on the tanks (one tank beaconed each) and have them both heal the impales and any fire damage.

Use 6 DPS and get the encounter finished faster.

/Tahriel