Healing Perspectives: Morchok

Today I finally ventured into Dragon Soul....just to say hi. I couldn't help but notice how different the experience was from my first foray into Firelands. I enjoyed these fights a whole lot more! There wasn't an insane amount of trash to be had, the first boss took a few attempts but was relatively painless, as was the following one. The mechanics were interesting and didn't give me the impression they were designed by a complete sadist. So far, so good.

Speaking of downing bosses, let's talk about Morchok....Father of Ozruk! Well, not really....or maybe? They do look alike! Here's how to take him from the perspective of a healer. For clarity, this post is about dealing with Morchok on 10 man normal mode.

Morchok is a relatively straightforward fight that swings between two phases until he dies: The Crystal Phase and the Black Blood Phase. Thus coincidentally, there are two big things we'll be doing as healers: i) dealing with crystals and ii) running behind pillars.


Abilities and Healing Strategy:

• Crystal-soaking duty: Every 15 seconds or so Morchok will spawn a crystal that will explode and deal proximity damage to players depending on their distance from it. Thus, these crystals require alternating groups of three people to stack on the crystal and split the damage it gives out. Pay attention to the crystal spawn locations and whether your group is on soaking duty. Its easy to tell where the crystal is and how far you are from it by the beam that connects you to the crystal when it spawns.
• Heal the crystal-soakers: Damage from an exploding crystal is not trivial so be sure to have your quick heals like Regrowth and Swiftmend ready to keep people from dying. I personally pop barkskin to reduce the damage taken from the crystal booms.
• Heal through Stomp: Stomp does raidwide AoE damage and is unavoidable. It's not terrible but its important to heal through it quickly and have people topped off before they take on the crystals. Also note that Stomp and crystal explosion can line up sometimes, having the crystal soakers take more damage than is usually expected - nasty surprise there.
• Hide behind pillars: This phase is similar to what happens with Slabhide in Stonecore. Simply put, pillars fall from the sky and one must hide behind them to avoid taking AoE damage. Furthermore, be sure to avoid the nasty black goo on the ground while doing so. This is a great time to top people off, regen some mana if you need it or better still, dps Morchuk.
• Keep track of tank swaps: Throughout the crystal phase, tanks will be swapping amongst themselves thanks to the Crush Armor ability. Keep track of the current tank with the debuff as they take increasing damage. At 20% Morchuk gains the Furious ability that simply increases the damage he deals to tanks.

Morchuk is a fun and easy fight with some familiar mechanics thrown in there. I did say easy there and I think some of that still has to do with the initial Firelands comparison. I personally think that in this case, easy is good. Gives us time to wake up and let the coffee kick in! Have fun! =)