Our raid composition is made up of two tanks, three healers, two melee, and three ranged. Make note that it is possible to succeed at this encounter with one tank, but we feel more comfortable with two. The choice is yours.
To begin the fight our first tank pulls and stands against Magmaw on his right side while the rest of the raid, except one ranged, stands against him on his left side. This is for his “Pillar of Flame” mechanic.
Every 30 seconds Pillar of Flame will choose a raid member at least 15 yards away from Magmaw to erupt under. If nobody is 15 yards away, it’ll erupt under your raid. This will not be a good thing. When it erupts, anyone directly on top of the area will be shot into the air then shortly after 8 – 10 lava parasites will spawn from the eruption. Our hunter avoids the eruption and then kites the lava parasites while our other two ranged DPS AoE’s them down. If a lava parasite touches a raid member, it will infect them with Parasitic Infection which causes 12,000 – 14,000 damage, every two seconds for 10 seconds, then finishes as Infectious Vomit. All players within 8 yards of the infected member will receive a lot of damage and more parasites will spawn. This could cause a lot of problems, so it’s best to stay away and kill them at range quickly.
During this time Magmaw is also inflicting damage to random raid members with Magma Spit so healers will not get a break during the first phase.
About a minute and a half into the first phase, Magmaw will Mangle your current tank. Yes, he will eat your tank. The tank will need significant heals at this point. Shortly after the mangle begins, “Magmaw slumps forward, exposing his pincers.” There will be steam coming out of the ground on the side of the room he will be falling on. It’s important to move over to the other side or you could end up like our mage on previous attempts … crushed. In 10 player, 2 raid members, preferably melee, will jump on top of Magmaw at this point. They have 2 goals: they must pin Magmaw down before the next Pillar of Flame and they must pin Magmaw down before the tank gets mangled to death … literally. To do this, they will hit 1 on their ability bar and then click on the spike in front of Magmaw. Once "Magmaw becomes impaled on the spike, exposing his head!", phase 2 begins.
Don’t worry, no Pillar of Flame, Lava Parasites, or Magma Spit this phase. All DPS will target the Exposed Head of Magmaw and pop all their DPS cooldowns this first time down. This is when we call for Heroism or Time Warp. Magmaw takes increased damage while he is down so it is important to take advantage of it. Healers get a break to top off the raid and regen mana this phase. I chose to melee the boss.
As soon as this phase ends and he returns to his position, your other tank will taunt. This is due to an armor debuff the first tank received while being Mangled. After the tank switch, it is just rinse and repeat until he is dead. If you chose to use just one tank instead, your tank will need some extra heals while the armor debuff is active.
It’s pretty simple mechanics and I would say, the easiest raid encounter in Cataclysm at this point.
Just a thought or two,
- Keona
