Demonology Morchok 10 man guide

This is the first of my Dragon Soul guides for 10 man normal mode slanted towards the Demonology Warlock, as the title may have given away.

These are designed to be quick to read (especially the fight rundown as a video guide can explain it far better then I ever could) with specific tips for Demonology Warlocks that you won't find in general guides; What pet? When shouldn't I pop 'Metamorphosis'? Can I stand safely in melee range? What's the best use of 'Demonic Circle'? Does 'Demonic Empowerment' have a use?

So I'll jump right in:



Overview

Morchok is a tank and spank fight with 2 very simple mechanics tacked on, he truly is an introductory raid boss.

In phase 1 he does 'Stomp' an AoE which splits its damage between everyone within 25 yards and deals double damage to the 2 closest targets. We stack everyone behind the boss with the off tank slightly closer to make the healing a bit easier but the positioning of everyone isn't overly important beyond being within 25 yards for every stomp.

He also spawns 3 'Resonating Crystals' one after the other that explode after 10 seconds hitting the 3 nearest players for shadow damage that increases the further you are from the crystal and knocking them up. A team of 3 ranged (usually 2 DPS and a healer) handle these crystals stacking on top of them to minimise the damage they deal.

Finally there is a stacking armour debuff for the tanks to swap on. It does drop off in phase 2 (and even after a short string of mitigation) so if your main tank is geared enough it can be easily healed through. We single tank this fight so ignore this debuff altogether and have never had a tank death. If you are single tanking it a feral druid or plate DPS can ideally pop into defensive stance to absorb the double dose of stomp damage but it really isn't necessary. We have our Rogue taking it some weeks and he is yet to die ^^

In phase 2 Morchok drags everyone to him with 'Earthen Vortex' and some stone pillars drop from the sky, 'Black blood of the old gods' then starts to spread on the ground from the boss. This does high shadow damage to anyone caught in it but, to avoid it you simply have to position yourself behind one of the pillars. As long as you aen't standing in the bad there is zero damage in this phase.

Phase 1

If you aren't assigned to the resonating crystals all you have to do is pew pew in this phase, it's a nice fight for Demo warlocks as we can stand in melee range easily.

If your assigned to crystal duty (which you probably will be thanks to shadow ward) then you'll need to break off DPS to stand on them when they spawn. Make sure you stay active while moving to the crystal; pop shadow ward to absorb some of the explosion, grab some mana with life tap, reapply DOTs if you need to and fel fire the boss.

Phase 2

Affectionately known as the 'no damage phase', it's important to note that you can DPS normally while behind the pillars if you position yourself correctly, the easiest way is to head behind 2 pillars close to each other and pew pew between them.

Again make the most of the time you spend running to the pillars: you can grab some mana with life tap if you need it, reapply DOTs or simply fel fire the boss. If I'm heading towards a single pillar I like to hit shadow ward here as well to guarantee I don't take any damage while positioning myself behind it. This phase really does belong in a heroic dungeon, and incidently IS in a heroic dungeon ^^

Demonic circle

Your tank should be aiming to keep Morchok roughly where he begins the fight so once you've got yourself into position initially pop your circle down.

The most important time to teleport is at the end of phase 2 so you can get straight back to DPS'ing. Don't worry too much about using it between crystals as you'll either be ignoring them or running to the next one depending on you assignment.

Metamorphosis

You should open with a blowing of all your short cooldowns as none of the mechanics start right off the bat.

The 2 worst times to have popped meta is right before the phase 2 transition or when your running like a mad man for the crystals. There's not much you can do about the crystals, your either assigned to them or your not and you just have to deal with it. It's best to wait until just after phase 2 has ended before popping meta so you don't get caught out in the phase transition (which has a brief stun and some movement which will ruin your cooldown).

Demons

Apart from your opening Demon Soul the Felhunter is recommended. If you are still running Moonwell Chalice then you should still be pet twisting to have a felguard out when you chain your cooldowns.

The fight isn't long enough for 2 Doomguard casts so you can wait for the right moment, remember the Doomguard does NOT benefit from heroism or haste procs but DOES benefit from spellpower and mastery procs.

Heroism

At 20% health Morchok gets a damage and attack speed buff so expect Heroism then (though the damage buff is so tiny it doesn't really matter, we pop it at the start to catch everyones opening cooldowns) so make sure you have your cooldowns lined up to take advantage of it.

Very Minipost: 2012!

2012 is upon us and in a plan that makes me very smug with its cleverness my new years resolutions start today rather then the 1st. All the spare food from Christmas is gone and I've slept off all my hangovers so now the new year can begin!

One of my resolutions is to blog more of course. I have been pretty bad with updates since I started blogging because.....well because I suck really. However in 2012 I have more free time and more drive to keep updating, so fingers crossed!

State of raiding

My switch from tank to DPS has worked out rather well in the end. Our AWOL DPS hasn't returned and we have had guildies step up to the tanking role (half of dragon soul being 1 tankable also helped). If we're short of anything most weeks it ends up being ranged DPS so the change turned out to be a good one.

Discombobulated are 5/8 in Dragon Soul and are currently working on Blackhorn. He is harder then we were expecting (though we were all expecting lootship 2 so being harder then that isn't difficult) but we have been making decent progress a second night of progression and he should be down.
Our raiding progress is being reasonably solid (for the time we have spent) with the bosses we down staying down week after week, we can comfortably 1 shot up to Hagara even with holes in our roster being filled with non raiders. Ultraxion is also a nice and easy 1 shot with our regular group but the DPS requirements are rather strict so we can't just drag along anyone.

State of Warlocking

Overall I think I've slipped into the ranged DPS role rather well. I'm usually in the top 3 in damage done though everyone in our regular group is pretty close, meters aren't everything of course but it's nice to know i'm not dragging my feet in my new role :).

I had a few tunnel vision issues at first but Ultraxion was pretty unforgiving in that regard so I got over them ^^. Currently I'm calling out targets for the ranged DPS on Blackhorn which is also doing wonders for my awareness.

Overall I have to say I am having a blast DPS'ing my way through Dragon Soul, I am a bit shocked by just how much more i'm enjoying it compared to tanking.

Updates soooooooon

Updates updates where have you been updates?

Phew so as an ex student I have to say adapting to my lazy schedule to getting up at 6am everyday for work is not easy! I've got into the schedule of getting home, cooking then only having a couple of hours to kill before I need to sleep. However I think i've finally got this sorted by becoming addicted to coffee and thus needing less sleep so hopefully I can get more updates going.

I was planning to do a series of posts on sorting out my paladin UI but that's become a moot point now anyway (see below) so here's the news:

News!

Well there's been quite alot of things going on in my WoW life since I last updated so i'll dive right in:

1) Discombobulated downed Ragnaros on our very last raid night before 4.3 ended up hitting! This was especially fortunate since almost everyone (bar me) was convinced we had another week.

Now it may only be Ragnaros normal mode but for our casual raiding guild that was founded at the start of Cataclysm by 6 people who had never raided before and had no idea if they even wanted too it's quite an achievement

A big gratz to everyone who was there for that awesome kill and a big thanks to everyone who helped us get there!

2) With Ragnaros dead Discombobulated was heading straight into new raid content on week 1 for the first time ever! Being almost Christmas time we have been hit by the attendance boss but we persevered, grabbed some spare non raider guildies and jumped in anyway.

So far we are 4/8 in Dragon soul. We got Ultraxion down to 8% a couple of times on Friday. While our temporary DPS did an awesome job with limited gear our regulars were sorely missed, and we would have downed him for sure if they had been around. The healers did a fantastic job keeping us up right until the damage became pretty much impossible to heal through. Next week Ultraxion, next week.

3) Paladin

As I mentioned previously my discontent with DK tanking led me to level and gear a paladin replacement, however one of our ranged DPS (something we've always been short on as we have a lot of melee players and 2 of our ranged switched to healing) has gone AWOL so I'm stepping into that role and no longer tanking. So the Paladin is shelved for now (though it was pretty much done) and I am instead raiding on:

4) My Warlock!

My warlock Arrym had a special place in my heart as my first character she experienced the vast brunt of my newbishness before I knew any better! She became an alt in Cataclysm after I switched to healing and then tanking but I always kept her geared in case she was needed (and because pew pew is fun) and now it's her time to shine!

So I did some research, specced Demonology, sorted out my UI, learnt the rotation, reforged all my gear and she was ready to roll in week 1 of Dragon Soul! Have to say i'm having a blast DPS'ing.

So expect the blog to be a bit more warlockie!

Mini post: level 85

So my Paladin replacement for the Death Knight has finally reached level 85 (that last level was horrible)! Unfortunatly the levelling was the easy part, now I have to grind professions, learn how to tank with my entire toolbox and gear up ASAP. My aim is to get myself ready to jump into our Fireland raids so i'm ready for the Dragon soul raid on week 1 of the patch.

Professions

I have chosen Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing, they are both decent professions for a tank, I have a miner already and I don't have either of them leveled yet. All quite sensible logical thinking.

Oh god the grind! It's horrible!

Jewelcrafting wasn't a problem with the cash I made while levelling but Blacksmithing is horrendous. That amount of matts you need as you go is insane! My plan for blacksmithing is to do it bit by bit with part buying matts and part farming. it's the only way I can imagine doing it without going insane and/or broke.

Gearing up

Gearing up really isn't a problem these days, my i-level was easily up to getting into heroics on the day I dinged 85 and I just hit the zandalari requirements last night. That being said my gear is a pile of crap so i'm trying to drag guild healers along as much as possible until i'm more comfortable, this shouldn't be long though with justice points making it quick to get into almost full 359's.

Learning the class

This is the hardest part of the process. Levelling in prot for almost the entire time (I did play around with ret at 80-85 and really enjoyed it) I know the basics, but there's a big difference between leveling and learning about your cooldown useage in a heroic then raid enviroment.

My main priority here is going to be configuring my cooldowns, macros and UI to make the most out of all my abilities and my next few posts are going to be based around that process.

Blog change over and why I hate Runic Empowerment

So previously my blog was over at DK diaries and anyone reading may have realised that I never update ever! There were a few reasons for this the major one being spare time being a bit of a luxury thanks to my failure to adapt to full time work (sorted now). The second reason is that since 4.3 was announced whenever I did sit down to post I was overcome with despair about my topic: Death Knight tanking.

Quite simply I find it boring.

Don't get me wrong I LOVE my Death Knight; I love the darker aspect of them, I love the abilities, I love the toolbox, I love the lore. If I could get into melee DPS I would probably really enjoy it as a Death Knight. But the tanking is just dull at the moment, and it's only getting worse in 4.3. To clarify I do NOT think that Death Knight tanks are in a bad place competitively (though there are issues) just a boring place for me personally.

So what are the problems that's making my blood DK boring? These points are all based on raiding where the majority of your time is spent on a single target.

1) Deathstrike, Deathstike and MOAR Deathstrike.

Everything that a blood DK is about is wrapped into this one ability; The self healing, mastery and our damage are all tied to it. When your rotation is basically one ability with cooldowns and Rune Strike thrown in occasionally (like it will be in 4.3) it gets old pretty fast. Having most of our damage and almost all of our survivability tied to one ability is VERY irritating: on the one hand you want to save your runes to death strike after a big hit for maximum healing and a big blood shield but you ALSO have to use it to deal damage or your just sitting there doing nothing for periods of time. Doing nothing is not fun.

2) Blood runes are the least important runes for BLOOD death knights.

At the moment clever use of blood runes is required in order for us to keep our damage reduction from blade barrier up (and with the spike damage we take even that 6% is essential). In 4.3 that's going away as blade barrier becomes a passive ability. With the way runic empowerment works (see point 3) this means that essentially the only use of blood runes is to hit rune tap every 30 seconds for some healing and hit blood tap to get an extra death rune when you need it. The rest of the time you can just stare at the active blood runes on your rune interface.

3) Runic Empowerment is a shit mechanic..

In point 2 I said 'clever' use of your blood runes was required to keep blade barrier up, what I actually meant was minimal use, all because of runic empowerment. Runic empowerment gives you a 45% chance to activate a currently depleted rune every time you hit with rune strike (or any of the other runic power dumps but that's irrelevant for blood DK's). Because we have such a large focus on Death Strike you want those runes that are reactivating to be Frost or Unholy runes as much as possible. Ideally every time you hit rune strike both your Blood runes will be active (this is impossible to actually achieve every time so your often risking activating a useless blood rune) so the proc won't be wasted on them, it's all about MOAR death strikes.

This leads to what's known as rune Tetris in DK circles. Your trying to keep blade barrier up, use rune strike as little as possible when your blood runes are recharging without letting runic power go to waste, get as many death strikes through as possible AND have death strike ready for big hits.

It's a lot to take in especially when your trying to not stand in the fire. I'm not saying other tanks don't have to be aware of a lot of things too but none of them spend the amount of time staring at their resource bars as we do.

Rune Tetris is not fun IMO.

And yet I'm complaining that Blizzard are making it less of a nightmare in 4.3 by making blade barrier passive. Rune Tetris is not fun but neither is pressing a single button over and over again for a 6 minute fight. I have been levelling a paladin tank as a potential replacement for 4.3 and I am having a blast! I get to press so many buttons you've got avengers shield for pure dps, you have CHOICES about how to use your holy power (do I heal or dps? Unlike deathstikre you have options in both these catagories not tied to holy power), crusader strike for basic damage and building up holy power, your judging to keep your mana up. It's a lot to rotate through but it's INTERESTING and that's not even taking into account all the utility you have available.

THAT'S the reason for the blog change. I started a DK blog because it was what I was playing at the time but that was only the case because my guild needed a tank. I'm not someone massively attached to a single character, I don't hunt achievements, mounts or pets. I play what my guild needs and I have come to the realisation that THAT is one of my big strengths as a player. I've been a gamer all my life and it's made me quick to learn and highly adaptable, my blog should represent the fact that I can and do chop and change what I'm playing.

Thus I went from DK diaries to Should've Rolled Horde.

But why is the blog called 'Should've rolled Horde"? It's simple: I want to play a damn Blood Elf (yes I know the Internet has made it cool to hate Belfs but meh)! In any fantasy setting I've always liked elves but the hippie Night Elves just don't do it for me, now the ruined society of magic addicted elves? THAT'S some interesting stuff right there. Unfortunately when I started playing I joined 2 friends who had already rolled Night Elves so I was alliance destined. My revenge has been throwing the 10% quicker rep from all the humans I've rolled in their faces for 2 years.

Welcome to "Should've Rolled Horde" and thanks for stopping by (More updates this time around, I promise).