Welcome to our complete Molten Core Raid guide for World Of Warcraft Season of Mastery (SoM).
Season of Mastery brings many new raid challenges for experienced Classic WoW Raiders. Starting off with big buffs to Molten Core.
First, if you prefer a video format, we recommend you check out the SoM MC Guide by staysafe below
Season of Mastery Molten Core Changes Overview
One of the biggest changes is that World Buffs will not be working in Raid Settings. This means that your Onyxia/Rend Heads, Dire Maul Tribute Buffs, Songflower, Zandalar Tribe Buffs will instantly be taken off of you when you zone into a raid.
What does this mean?
This means that the ideal compositions for raid groups will undoubtedly change. For example, Fury Warrior DPS take a massive hit because they don’t have the buffs to Crit, Attack Power, Health, and Attack Speed(for horde) making them much squishier and reducing their potential DPS output. Your group may bring a few Fury Warriors regardless, but I anticipate Rogues being the top Melee DPS throughout Season of Mastery.
Another major change, is actually the lack of change with loot drops from bosses. “How can it be a change if there’s no changes? You’re stupid Boris.” Yes I am, but no I am not.
The “change here” is that since we’ll be spending half the usual time running raids as “current” content means that we’ll be seeing half of the loot that we normally would. Loot scarcity will be a real issue, until the end of Season of Mastery and I’m certain that certain weapon/gear recipes are going to have much more impact on players than they have before.
Increased Boss HP
Bosses within Molten Core now have a 50% health buff compared to their Health values in base World of Warcraft Classic.
With fights lasting that much longer(especially without world buffs) many boss encounters may come down to how well your DPS can follow mechanics, how well your tanks can pump threat(to allow the DPS to mong out ofc), and how well your healers will be able to manage their mana.
Many of the bosses also have Mechanic additions and tuning to damaging abilities which will be covered specially per boss further in the article.
Unlimited Debuff Slots
Raid bosses now have unlimited debuff slots making certain specs viable, and possibly, even necessary. Let’s get into a few potential classes we may see bless our raids in Season of Mastery.
Shadow Priest – one of the biggest memes of the classic era, Shadow Priests hit like wet noodles, run out of mana within 45 seconds, and pull so much threat that they’ll usually get that one Mind Blast Crit where the boss turns to them and just blows them to smithereens(i’m looking at you Garr)
But for what Shadow Priests lack in dps, survivability, and probably a loving family(I mean who rolls shadow priest in classic c’mon) they make up for with Shadow Weaving. Shadow Weaving is a debuff that stacks up to 5 times, and buffs Shadow Damage taken by the target by 2% per stack. Minimal right? Not anymore. Which will lead me into the next potential class we could see.
Affliction Warlock – Ah, Warlocks. They’re shadowy, they have demons, filled with an enormous variety of utility, and most importantly they sling Shadow Bolts like nobody’s business. Warlocks in base classic (in PvE settings) couldn’t really do much. They brought the utility of Healthstones, Curses, Banishes, Imp buffs, and the occasional panic fear, but were mostly stuck just slinging Shadowbolt until they got a couple of unlucky crits and ripped threat off of your tanks only to tragically get one shot and or punted into more adds(looking at you again Garr).
But with the addition of unlimited Debuff slots we may see something totally new. Affliction warlocks may now be viable due to them finally being able to toss Corruption onto adds and bosses allowing Shadow Trance to proc for those juicy instant cast Shadow Bolts.
The addition of being able to utilize Drain Life may be critical on tougher, more healing intensive fights such as Ragnaros. Allowing the healers to focus on keeping up the Tanks and DPS classes who do not have as much Self-Sustain potential as warlocks do. Life Tap to 1 health amirite?
Potentially, we may even see some Afflicition warlocks spec into a Tanky/Drain Build which would allow them better Off-Tank on bosses that may allow that sort of strategy. As of now, I only know of a few fights later in the game where it is necessary for there to be a Warlock tank.
Balance/Feral Druids – I am going to pair these two together. Everyone loves a good druid, decent heals as resto, solid off-tanking as Feral Bear, plenty of utility with Mark, Thorns, Innervate(for your hunters ofc) and of course Rebirth. But with no debuff slots we can anticipate seeing some druids going Balance and some going Feral DPS.
Balance druids have always struggled with mana issues but now they may just be thrown into a raid group to give the mage group or the warlock group the 3% spell critical strike aura. Like shadow priests, Balance druids may not pull the best DPS but they bring enough utility and buffs to other classes and specs that I believe there’ll always be room for at least one.
Feral DPS druids were always a niche class. Incredibly difficult for little to no reward, they always struggled to pull DPS that was even close to worthy. But now with no debuffs, they can apply their bleeds to targets, which, will add a very good bit of damage to their kits. You can also stick one in a melee or tank group(if you don’t have a bear OT) to buff them with an extra 3% critical strike chance on melee.
These are in my opinion the key changes with debuff slots. All other classes have benefits from this as well. Rogues/Warriors can apply their Bleeds now, Hunters can utilize their Sting Spells, the healers with a little bit of extra mana can throw some dots on the boss, and other examples I can’t think of atm.
Molten Core Boss Changes – Season of Mastery
Lucifron
Lucifron instead of having two Flamewaker Protectors, now has four. Make sure your raid has an extra off tank and mages that focus less on DPS and more on decursing/magic dispells.
The biggest challenge here will be the random stuns that go out and the additional damage on your Tanks. Healers will have to prioritize tanks more so they don’t get blown up by his adds and they don’t become loose. DPS will need to be aware of where they are standing, so they can be CC’ed with ample time when they get Mind Controlled so healers don’t get blown up.
You will be killing all four ads then Lucifron.
Magmadar
When the boss fight starts after around 20 or 40 seconds, 2 Core Hounds will spawn (like the trash mobs) next to Magmadar. Your raid will need to burn them down at the same time or else respawns will occur. Every minute another two Core Hounds will spawn.
Again, make sure you have geared off tanks who can pick up the Spawns right away.
The final change with Magmadar is that his ability called lava bomb will create much more spots on the floor that deal a lot of fire damage when stood on. Make sure to communicate this to your raid and call out raiders who are standing in Lava. Greater Fire Protection Potions may be a big help to mitigate some of the damage on this fight.
Make sure your raid is spread out to avoid as much fire damage as possible and using fear ward(Alliance) and tremor totem(Horde) to avoid people being feared into patches of fire as well as keeping Magmadar facing AWAY from the raid. Nothing more tilting than a tank being feared and watching the boss breathe on everyone.
You can even out range the fear if you are far away enough.
Gehennas
Gehennas now has four Flamewaker minions instead of two so make sure your off tanks and healers are prepared. These minions have a melee cleave and stun so they need to be focused down immediately before the raid turns on Gehennas.
Mages will need to be decursing the healing debuff off the tanks and DPS much more often as well.
Rain of Fire is cast more often so your DPS will need to be much more aware of their positioning so they don’t overwhelm your healers while they panic heal your Tanks.
Greater Fire Protection (or normal) potions for dps, and Armor Potions for your tanks will come in handy on this encounter.
Garr
Garr has seen some significant changes and may be a very difficult challenge for inexperienced raid teams.
A new mob called Magmakin will spawn on top of Garr and charge a random raid member. After charging the raid member it will explode causing AOE Damage doing around 1,000+ damage. You will want to spread out in this encounter and make sure your healers are ready for widespread raid damage. You will also need to clear the entire room and potentially the tunnel to avoid dps being thrown into more adds which will, definitely cause a wipe.
When Garr hits 50%, all of the adds become immune to banish meaning most of them MUST be dealt with before Garr hits 50% health.
Garr enrages if all of the adds die. The most common strategy will most likely be. Banish adds while dps deal with them 1-2 at a time. When there is one add left, start pumping damage onto Garr. Have an Off-tank ready to pick up the add or adds when they become immune to Banish.
It is very important to note that, while banished, healers still build threat on the adds so an off-tank needs to be ready to pick them up as banishes start dropping.
Baron Geddon
The biggest change with Baron Geddon in SoM is that when the boss casts Living Bomb, he will target 3 raiders opposed to one at once. Bombs will need to spread out more and cannot just all run to one location. He tends to be one of the hardest bosses in updated Molten Core with the most changes.
A patch of AOE fire will remain on the spot where the bomb explodes, meaning the targets of living bomb will need to be moving to new locations each time. The raid group will most likely also need to be ready to shift somewhere in-case some single brain-cell hunter keeps bomb in the raid group(looking at you Cellphones).
Additionally, Baron Geddon will drop one huge scorched earth after the ability melee usually need to run out of to avoid the aoe damage making it necessary for the tank to move the boss.
On top of this, ignite mana will have to be constantly dispelled.
At 10% HP the boss will start casting a powerful raid AOE explosion similar to an execute ability called armageddon which is a DPS race. You have about 15 seconds. Good luck!
A good strategy is to kite him back to Garr’s room and backpetal dropping the bombs out of range of the raid.
Shazzrah
Shazzrah in Season of Mastery is a much more formidable raid boss because of his new clone ability.
Shazzrah will leave behind an “Image of Shazzrah” after he uses his Blink Spell.
These images will cast Arcane Explosion for the rest of the fight and just stand in the same location.
A strategy that may be used is to bunch up all of your casters and other ranged classes in one pack and slowly kite him back to Garr’s room.
Greater Arcane Protection Potions will be key for this boss encounter.
Golemagg
During the encounter, the Core Rager pets of Golemagg have an enrage buff buff (Golemagg’s Trust) which increases their Attack speed and melee damage permanently.
Golemagg will also cast Earthquake during the whole encounter instead of just before 10% of HP. Earthquake will do raid wide damage. In the Original version of Classic, he also gains Attack Speed when he hits the 10% threshold. It is unclear whether or not he’ll have increased attack speed overall.
The tanks need to swap once they hit a certain amount of stacks of Magma Splash(4-6 potentially) so as to avoid too much armor reduction and too much damage from the Fire Damage tick.
Fire Protection Potions and Armor Potions for your tanks will be very helpful. Fire Protection Potions on your dps may help by absorbing the random Pyroblasts that Golemagg casts on the raid. Dealing a significant amount of damage initially and leaving a ticking fire damage debuff.
Your healers will most likely need to be chugging mana potions during the encounter, but can start off with a Fire Protection Potion on them.
Sulfuron Harbinger
The Sulfuron fight in SoM is quite different from normal Classic WoW.
The 4 Priest minions and Sulfuron share a health pool along with Their inspire buff being increased leading to higher damage.
All of the priest minions need to be spread out as they can all buff each other with inspire.
Every heal needs to be kicked or the fight will only be prolonged. Assigning a rogue or a fury warrior to each priest to kick alongside the tank will most likely be necessary.
You can drain mana from the priests so they don’t heal, but this will probably be unideal due to the damage going out on tanks. The strategy originally was to blow up the Priests and then focus Sulfuron, but with them having a shared health pool it may just come down to zerging Sulfuron as fast as possible while keeping all the priests kicked.
Majordomo Executus
Domo will pose a challenge to inexperienced raids but overall is not considered one of the hardest in season of Mastery Molten Core. He does not have too many changes.
A new Spell has been added for Flamewalker Elite called Fireball Volley. Additionally, they are immune to CC after two have died opposed to four in normal Molten Core.
A strategy would be to polymorph the 4 healers, kite two of the melee adds with hunters, and burn down the remaining two adds. After the polymorphs break, kill the healer adds.
Ragnaros
Ragnaros in Season of Mastery will actually be a tough boss to defeat. You will only have 60 minutes to defeat him or he will just despawn. You can see the remaining time on a timer.
At 50% he will always go to his submerge phase making it impossible to cheese the encounter.
The adds do an AOE mana burn ability so healers/casters/ranged need to keep their distance.
Don’t kill the final add until your raid has completely spread out and ready for Ragnaros to come back to the surface.
Once Rag comes back from his submerge, at 30% health. Sons of Flame will randomly spawn from the lava attacking raid members.
You will have 3 minutes to kill him before he submerges again as a second submerge you will not be able to recover from.
Good luck in all your MC Raids in Season of Mastery! If we have missed anything in this guide, feel free to shoot us a note.
**EDITED AT 2:40pm 12/3/2021**
You can watch the World First MC Clear and Rag Kill by <w h o> from Dreadnaught EU below! The Molten Core run starts about 8 hours and 40 minutes into the full stream.
Streamed Originally by Zulp!
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1220938917?t=08h38m32s