Morogrim Tidewalker
The Basics
This section contains a basic outline of the fight, and is a must read for everyone, as it contains information you need to know so as not to wipe the raid. If you are interested in knowing the why of the instructions here, or in improving your individual performance, the details are available below.
If we do Morogrim before Leotheras, be very careful and hug the right wall (really, hug it!) when moving through Morogrim's room, otherwise you are likely to aggro him.
Morogrim Tidewalker is a two phase fight, the first phase wherein random raid members are teleported to watery graves, and the second in which we move to avoid watery globules that do damage. Periodically during the fight, Morogrim stomps, causing an earthquake and summoning two packs of murlocs. Keys to this fight are efficiently dealing with the murlocs and watery graves. There will be two tanks in this fight, one for Morogrim, and one for the murlocs.
Initially, Morogrim is tanked in the mouth of the tunnel leading to Karathress' room. The watery grave area is out of range of the earthquakes and watery grave in this position, a grave healer, the murloc tank, and the murloc tank healer will be positioned down there.
Periodically (~every 30 seconds), Morogrim will send up to four raid members (other than the main tank) to their "watery graves", which are four waterfall areas in the center of the room. After six seconds of being in the grave (and stunned, unable to take actions), those in them will take 6K frost damage, and be thrown in the air high enough to cause fall damage when coming back down. You must make sure that you are healed up enough to withstand an earthquake before returning to Morogrim. You also need to be proactive about making sure that you don't get summoned into a grave badly depleted on health, as the grave healer has up to four people to take care of. If an earthquake happens and a watery grave is due before the raid healer can safely heal everyone up after the murlocs come through, heal yourself (bandages, pots, healthstones). If you are in bad shape and unable to do anything, run down to the watery grave area, you will be out of range of getting watery graved.
If more than one healer is graved, hybrids who can heal are expected to help out healing on the main tank until those healers return from the graves.
Periodically (~every 45 to 60 seconds), Morogrim will stomp and cause an earthquake which deals 3K to 4K damage to all members of the raid in range, and summons two packs of six murlocs each. The paladin tank in the middle will heal a designated target (a life tapping warlock usually) in order to get heal aggro so the murlocs come to him. No one else should heal this person. Warlocks will seed the murlocs on the way in, timing the seeds so they don't go off until the murlocs reach the paladin tank. Once the seeds go off, mages will begin
AoE, swiftly dispatching the murlocs.
In order to avoid competing with the paladin for heal aggro, raid healing will be curtailed until the murlocs reach the paladin tank, and the main tank healers will switch to using fast heals so as to avoid getting off a large crit heal that pulls the murlocs on them. Once the murlocs have reached the paladin tank, normal healing can resume.
Once Morogrim reaches 25%, he stops using Watery Grave, and begins summoning Watery Globules from the graves. These move towards a specific randomly targetted player, and will explode for 4k to 6k damage if they reach that player. The globules will despawn after a period of time, so we move Morogrim to a corner where the globules will be close to despawning when they get that far. It is still necessary to watch out for them and move away if they are coming towards you.
All of the people in the grave area move up to Morogrim at this time, and the northern pack of murlocs will reach the paladin tank a lot faster than when he was in the middle. A hunter will set a frost trap or a warrior use piercing howl (or both in succession) in the tunnel to slow the murlocs and give the tank more time to generate threat before the murlocs reach him.
The Details
Morogrim Tidewalker:
Health: 5.7 million
Enrage timer: None
Base damage: 4.5K to 6.5K, weapon speed 1.5 seconds
Immunities: all crowd control, taunt
Special abilities:
Tidal Wave: Frontal arc, 2 second cast time, 4K to 5K frost damage, reduces attack speed by 400% for 15 seconds, major effect is to slow tank threat
Watery Grave: teleports up to four players under the waterfalls, 6K frost damage after six seconds, fall damage, 30 sec cooldown
Earthquake: 3K to 4K damage within 50 yards, summons murlocs, 45-60 sec cooldown
Watery Globules: after 25%, these move slowly towards a fixed player, and explode for 4K to 6k damage on impact
Tidewalker Lurker:
Health: 35,000
Base damage: 700 to 800
Immunities: sheep
Special abilities:
Carnivorous Bite: Frontal arc
AoE, bleed dot for 200 physical damage, stacks
"What can I do to help survive Watery Grave?" Be proactive about your health. Earthquake does a lot of damage for the single raid healer to heal up (3K to 4K on almost the entire raid), so if a watery grave is due soon, heal yourself. Everyone should have bandages, pots, and get a healthstone before the fight. Beyond that, priests should ensure that they have a shield on when the grave is due, mages and priests can use slow fall or levitate, druids can shift to cat form while in the air to minimize fall damage, etc. If things are dire, running down to where the paladin tank is will outrange the watery grave. Also, don't leave the grave area until you've been healed, ideally to full. Be patient, there is one grave healer and up to four people in the graves.
"I healed someone and got yelled at for it." There is a designated warlock the murloc tank will be healing so as to get aggro from the murlocs. If you heal this target, the paladin will end up with overheal, which generates no threat. I know it's hard *not* to heal someone, but try.
"I healed and the murlocs aggro'd me!" All healers should go to fast heals (but full rank) when the earthquake hits, until you see the murlocs go sailing through and reach the pally tank. On average, you should have the same throughput, but no one healer will happen to get off a huge crit heal that draws murlocs. The raid healer must be judicious about healing right after an earthquake as well. A chain heal on several melee is damn near guaranteed to draw murlocs.
"Why does the tank not stand in the tunnel on the first pull?" Assuming we didn't clear through the Leotheras side, there is a patrol in the tunnel that despawns when Morogrim is pulled. We expect to clear through Leotheras in the future though, so this is not likely to be a consideration in the future.
"I heard a druid tank is better for this fight, why don't we use one?" Indeed they are, know any well geared ones we can use?
"Should I frost nova the murlocs?" In general, no. If they are rooted, they will hit whoever they can if their aggro target is even a teeny bit out of range. This often results in dead mages. Now, if you pull aggro after they reach the paladin, do what you need to, but proactively doing it as a matter of course is dangerous.