Morchok Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot

• Save all major cooldowns for the 20% health burn phase.
• Ranged DPS will need to frequently be moving on this fight if assigned to soaking the Resonating Crystals. Moving to these as soon as possible is your top priority above all else, failing to do so will result in a wipe.
• Melee DPS should be aware of the tanks positioning at all times and avoid standing on-top of the tank, unless you are assigned to soaking Stomp. Your tank will need to move frequently on this fight, so always be on your toes and ready to move.

• Stomp interrupts casts when it goes off, be sure to only use instant cast spells right as it goes off.
• Both Stomps and Resonating Crystals will be constantly devastating your raids health. Quickly topping up raid members between each of these deadly mechanics is the main challenge healers will be facing here.
• Be mindful of your tanks health after each Stomp, especially while the boss is under 20% health, as Stomp also increases all Physical damage taken by 100%.

• This fight has a ton of movement required by the tanks. Be aware of the bosses positioning at all times and be ready to move him to any nearby crytals, or move him away from casters that are getting too close to you.
• Save defensive cooldowns for under 20%.

• Summon Kohcrom
• Phase One
• Stomp
• Crush Armor
• Resonating Crystal
• Furious
• Phase Two
• Earthen Vortex
• Falling Fragments
• Black Blood of the Earth

Morchok is the first encounter available in Dragon Soul for players to overcome, and is a great introduction encounter to display the many challenges this raid has to offer. This fight will cycle between two phases until the boss dies, or until the 7-minute enrage timer is reached. Summon Kohcrom is a heroic-only ability, if you are doing this encounter on normal difficulty you do not need to worry about the boss splitting apart; instead on normal difficulty your tanks will need to deal with Crush Armor (note that this ability is not used at all on heroic difficulty), requiring a tank swap every couple of stacks.

Start off by having your raid split into two equally divided "groups". Each of these groups should consist of one of the tanks, and an equal number of healers and DPS. At 90% health Morchok will split into two, summoning Kohcrom; Kohcrom is an exact copy of Morchok and uses the exact same abilities. One group will be assigned to Kohcrom, while the other group is assigned to Morchok as the bosses must be split away from each other, while still having enough players near each boss to handle the mechanics.

The main mechanic the raid will be dealing with during phase one is Stomp. Stomp deals 2,000,000 Physical damage to all nearby targets, divided evenly between all targets hit, and deals double damage to his current target (the main tank) and the ally nearest to the target (whichever player is nearest to the tank). Players hit by Stomp will also be debuffed, increasing their Physical damage taken by 100% for 10 seconds; this includes the tank who will continue to be auto-attacked by the boss with this debuff. Positioning here is crucial as the raid must be evenly split between the two bosses to ensure the Stomp damage is divided enough ways to prevent deaths. Be sure that no one is standing in-between the two bosses as they can be hit by the Stomp from both bosses here and die.

As your two tanks are also not stacking together, you will need DPS players to soak the "double damage" part of Stomp. This extra damage will always target the current tank, as well as their nearest ally, meaning you can always choose who will eat this extra damage. You will need to coordinate DPS players to stack with the tank and use a personal defensive cooldown before the Stomp goes out. Stomp will also interrupt your casts when it goes off, casters should be aware of the timing at all times and stop casting right before the Stomp to prevent being interrupted.

With Stomp out of the way, the only other mechanic to deal with during phase one is Resonating Crystal. Both Kohcrom and Morchok will constantly summon their own Resonating Crystal near themselves. The Resonating Crystal targets the 7 nearest players with a beam of light that deals damage depending on how far away the target is. Players who are very far away will be debuffed with the red beam Danger and will take a high amount of damage. Players at a mid-distance from the crystal will be targeted with the yellow beam Warning, and players who are near the crystal and will be targeted with a blue beam, Safe.

As the Resonating Crystal targets the 7 nearest players, you will want to pre-assign 7 players (generally healers and ranged DPS) to quickly move to each new Crystal as it spawns and soak the beam. Changing all 7 beams from red ( Danger) to blue ( Safe) as quickly as possible should be the priority for these 7 players as the Resonating Crystals deal a lot of damage over time. After 12 seconds of being active, the Resonating Crystal will explode, dealing damage to the 7 targeted players based on their distance from the crystal, as well as knocking them back a short distance. Any player targeted by a crystal that does not have the Safe mark will likely die from the explosion damage, so be sure the players assigned to "crystal duty" are constantly on the lookout for the next crystal they need to move towards.

After 1-minute phase 2 will begin with the bosses using Earthen Vortex, forcing all players to burrow underground and pulling them underneath the boss; at the same time, each boss will also be covering the area in large spikes, which act as pillars for line-of-sight. After a few pillars have been spawned, both bosses will begin to channel Black Blood of the Earth, dealing massive Nature damage to any players within range and within line of sight of either boss. Be ready to quickly move away from the boss after Earthen Vortex completes and find the nearest pillar to hide behind and avoid dying to Black Blood of the Earth. After 15 seconds Black Blood of the Earth will end and both bosses will return to phase one, with these two phases alternating until 20% health. At 20% health both bosses will become Furious, greatly increasing their damage output. Coordinate raid-wide defensive cooldowns here for each stomp, as well as saving all major offensive cooldowns like Bloodlust to finish the boss off as soon as posible before the damage overwhelms your raid.

4.

Morchok Loot

Normal Heroic

Below you will find all of the loot available for this boss encounter. Use the different buttons to view the different loot between both Normal and Heroic difficulties.

4.1.

Normal Difficulty Loot

Item
Mosswrought Shoulderguards
Robe of Glowing Stone
Mycosynth Wristguards
Underdweller's Spaulders
Girdle of Shattered Stone
Sporebeard Gauntlets
Brackenshell Shoulderplates
Pillarfoot Greaves
Rockhide Bracers
Petrified Fungal Heart
Hand of Morchok
Vagaries of Time
Razor Saronite Chip

Below you will find all of the loot available for this boss encounter. Use the different buttons to view the different loot between both Normal and Heroic difficulties.

4.2.

Heroic Difficulty Loot

Item
Mosswrought Shoulderguards
Robe of Glowing Stone
Mycosynth Wristguards
Underdweller's Spaulders
Girdle of Shattered Stone
Sporebeard Gauntlets
Brackenshell Shoulderplates
Pillarfoot Greaves
Rockhide Bracers
Petrified Fungal Heart
Hand of Morchok
Vagaries of Time
Razor Saronite Chip

Achievement	Description
Siege of Wyrmrest Temple	Defeat the bosses laying siege to Wyrmrest Temple in the Dragon Soul raid.
Dragon Soul Guild Run	Defeat the bosses in Dragon Soul while in a guild group.
Heroic: Morchok	Defeat Morchok in Dragon Soul on Heroic Difficulty.
Don't Stand So Close to Me	Defeat Morchok in Dragon Soul on Normal or Heroic Difficulty without any two players (three players on 25-player mode) ever being within 5 yards of each other while Morchok is channeling Black Blood of the Earth.

Morchok is just one of the eight encounters present in the Dragon Soul raid of Cataclysm. If you would like to learn more about the others, please see our other pages for the raid below.