Malkorok Detailed Strategy Guide (Heroic Mode included)

Table of Contents

• +1. General Information
  • 1.1. Health Values
  • 1.2. Enrage Timer
  • 1.3. Raid Composition
• +2. Loot
  • 2.1. Armor
  • 2.2. Weapons
  • 2.3. Amulets, Cloaks, Rings, and Trinkets
• 3. Overview of the Fight
• 4. Class-specific Advice
• +5. Might of the Kor'kron
  • 5.1. Abilities
  • 5.2. Strategy
    • 5.2.1. Tanking and Positioning
    • 5.2.2. Arcing Smash and Breath of Y'Shaarj
    • 5.2.3. Imploding Energy
    • 5.2.4. Ancient Miasma
• +6. Blood Rage
  • 6.1. Abilities
  • 6.2. Strategy
• 7. When to Use Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp
• +8. Summing Things Up
  • 8.1. Tanks
  • 8.2. Healers
  • 8.3. DPS
  • 8.4. Everyone
• 9. Learning the Fight
• +10. Heroic Mode
  • 10.1. Differences From Normal Mode
    • 10.1.1. Might of the Kor'kron Phase
    • 10.1.2. Endless Rage Phase
  • 10.2. Strategy
    • 10.2.1. Might of the Kor'kron Phase
    • 10.2.2. Endless Rage Phase
• 11. Concluding Remarks
• 12. Changelog

Introduction

This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of the encounter with Malkorok in Siege of Orgrimmar. It is targeted at anyone who desires to understand the fight mechanics.

This guide is updated for World of Warcraft WoD 6.1.2.

Molkorok is the ninth boss in the Siege of Orgrimmar raid instance. This boss is located in some sort of underground area of Orgrimmar that seems to have been unlocked only as part of the Siege of Orgrimmar, since it is not accessible in-game otherwise. This is a very challenging fight. It has a short enrage timer, and it will require the utmost focus from your entire raid.

The Malkorok encounter has two phases that alternate until the boss dies. These phases are on a fixed timer, and your raid's actions do not affect their succession in any way.

• The Might of the Kor'kron Phase is the first phase you will experience. It lasts for 2 minutes, and during this time Malkorok uses several abilities against your raid. After 2 minutes, the phase ends.
• The Blood Rage Phase follows the Might of the Kor'kron Phase. It lasts for 20 seconds, and during this time Malkorok only uses two abilities against your raid.

Malkorok has a Rage bar which serves no other purpose than to indicate when the next phase change will occur. When Malkorok reaches maximum Rage, the Might of the Kor'Kron Phase ends and he enters the Blood Rage Phase, causing his Rage to start decreasing. When his Rage reaches 0, he enters the Might of the Kor'kron Phase once again.

Videos:

• PTR Preview — a short overview of the boss, based on PTR testing, which is extremely useful for getting a rough understanding of the fight;
• Video Guide — a video guide of the boss, based on live-realm experience.

On our forums, we are maintaining threads with class-specific advice for each of the fights of Siege of Orgrimmar. So, make sure to check them out, and if you have things to share, do not hesitate to contribute!

Class	Forum Threads
Death Knight	Blood Frost/Unholy
Druid	Balance Feral Guardian Restoration
Hunter	All specs
Mage	All specs
Monk	Brewmaster Mistweaver Windwalker
Paladin	Holy Protection Retribution
Priest	Discipline Holy Shadow
Rogue	All specs
Shaman	Elemental Enhancement Restoration
Warlock	All specs
Warrior	Arms/Fury Protection

This phase always lasts for exactly 2 minutes, as indicated by Malkorok's Rage bar.

Throughout the Might of the Kor'kron Phase, all raid members are affected by a debuff called Ancient Miasma. This debuff has two effects.

• Firstly, it causes all healing done to raid members to place a damage absorption shield on them instead of healing them. The shields have a maximum capacity of 100% of the player's maximum health. These shields protect players even against fall damage.
• Secondly, it deals a moderate amount of Shadow damage to all players every 2 seconds.

Malkorok himself uses several abilities against your raid.

• Fatal Strike is a stacking debuff that Malkorok applies on his current tank. Each stack increases the target's damage taken by 10% for 30 seconds. This ability requires a tank switch.
• Seismic Slam deals a massive amount of Physical damage to a random raid member, knocking him up into the air. Any allies within a 5-yard radius also take the same damage and are also knocked up. Malkorok uses this ability roughly every 15 seconds.
• Arcing Smash is a series of three frontal cone attacks that Malkorok casts in random areas of his platform, about 15 seconds apart. The attacks deal a massive amount of Physical damage.
• Breath of Y'Shaarj is an ability that Malkorok uses about 10 seconds after the third frontal cone attack of Arcing Smash. This ability deals a lethal amount of Shadow damage to anyone standing in the areas of the platform that had been affected by the previous three Arcing Smash frontal cone attacks.
• Imploding Energy is an ability that Malkorok uses roughly every 15 seconds. It creates a number of void zones (3 in 10-man, 7 in 25-man) on the ground that, 4 seconds after appearing, deal a very high amount of Shadow damage to any players standing in them. If there is not at least one person damaged by each void zone, then the entire raid takes a very high amount of Shadow damage instead.

The strategy for this phase of the fight is very reliant on positioning and awareness.

We will summarise it here before going into more details below.

• Your tanks must perform a tank switch on Malkorok, in order to handle the Fatal Strike debuff.
• Your raid should be spread out around the platform to minimise the damage taken from Seismic Slam.
• Raid members must avoid getting hit by Arcing Smash, and they must also avoid being in the locations affected by Arcing Smash when Breath of Y'Shaarj is cast.
• Each Imploding Energy void zone must be soaked.

In addition to this, players have to avoid taking any unnecessary damage, since Ancient Miasma makes it impossible to heal players. While damage absorption shields can stack up to 100% of a player's maximum health, players who temporarily lose their shield and take damage cannot be healed up (but they can be re-shielded).

The boss should be tanked in the center of the platform, where the two tanks will have to perform a standard tank switch.

The raid should spread out evenly around the entirety of the platform, and players should aim to be at least 5 yards apart (so as not to take unnecessary damage from Seismic Slam.

By far the most dangerous abilities in this phase are Arcing Smash and Breath of Y'Shaarj.

Raid members will have to be quick on their feet to avoid the frontal cone attacks of Arcing Smash (which, remember, will be cast in random areas of the platform). We advise someone in your raid to place raid markers at the locations where Arcing Smash hits, because everyone will have to stand clear of these locations when Breath of Y'Shaarj is cast.

Assuming good movement abilities and general awareness from your raid members, these mechanics should not pose any additional problems.

Imploding Energy creates several purple void zones at random locations around the room (with an annoying tendency to rarely spawn under raid members). At least one raid member (and ideally no more than one) should run into each void zone before it has a chance to deal its damage. Ideally, this task should be performed by players whose absorption shields are at maximum capacity, since otherwise the damage of the void zone would damage players beyond their shields.

There are several sources of unavoidable damage in this phase.

• tank damage;
• damage on players who are soaking Imploding Energy void zones;
• damage on players targeted by Seismic Slam;
• regular raid-wide damage from Ancient Miasma itself.

This unavoidable damage means that players' absorption shields will constantly be put under pressure, which in turn means that your healers will constantly have to spam heal the raid to ensure that everyone's shields are at maximum capacity. If players lose their shields and take additional damage before they are re-shielded, this renders them very fragile for the remainder of the phase because, as we have already said, it is no longer possible to heal these players (all the healing will simply turn into an absorption shield).

A particularly problematic moment of the fight is right at the pull, when no one has any shields set up and everyone immediately starts taking damage from Ancient Miasma. You should find ways to get a lot of burst healing as soon as the fight starts. Beware of the fact that the first Seismic Slam is cast only a few seconds after the fight starts, so you cannot remain stacked up for long.

When Malkorok reaches 100 Rage, he enters the Blood Rage phase for 20 seconds. At the end of the phase, he goes back into the Might of the Kor'kron phase.

During this phase, the Ancient Miasma is no longer in effect. Malkorok uses two abilities

• Blood Rage causes each of Malkorok's melee attacks to deal an extremely high amount of Physical damage split among all raid members in a cone in front of him.
• Displaced Energy is a debuff that Malkorok applies on random raid members. It deals Shadow damage every 3 seconds for 9 seconds. When the debuff expires or is dispelled, it explodes dealing a massive amount of Shadow damage to all players within 8 yards. Players who are affected by Displaced Energy do not take damage from the explosion.

When the Blood Rage phase ends, Malkorok gains a stack of Relentless Assault, a buff that increases his damage done by 25% until the end of the fight.

This phase is very straightforward, but also very difficult. As soon as Malkorok reaches 100 Rage, your raid should stack up in front of him (all the while being mindful of the final Breath of Y'Shaarj before the transition). Here, the raid will have to undergo a gruelling 20-second phase of very intense raid damage. Healers should have defensive cooldowns prepared for this.

In addition to this, some players will be affected by Displaced Energy. These players must move out of the raid to a location where they must be dispelled or wait until their debuff expires. As soon as their debuff is gone, they should move back in with the rest of the raid.

The Relentless Assault buff that Malkorok gains at the end of each Blood Rage Phase is simply going to make the fight more difficult as it goes on, but it does not require any action from your raid.

We recommend using Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp at the start of the fight, because there is no better time to use it, and because using it at the start allows all raid members to use all of their offensive cooldowns.

In this section, we will very briefly summarise what the players belonging to each of the three roles have to do during this fight.

• Perform a tank switch on Malkorok to handle the Fatal Strike debuff.

• Make sure players' Ancient Miasma shields are at maximum capacity.
• Dispel players with the Displaced Energy debuff when they are out of the raid, if your strategy calls for it.

• DPS Malkorok.

• Spread out around the platform during the Might of the Kor'kron Phase, and stack up during the Blood Rage phase.
• Make sure to soak the Imploding Energy void zones if you are assigned to do so.
• Be extremely mindful of the locations of Arcing Smash and Breath of Y'Shaarj.

Positioning and movement are the key concepts your raid will have to master in order to defeat this boss (along with having enough DPS and HPS, of course).

It is important that you emphasize the importance of proper positioning to your raid members, because if multiple players take damage from abilities that should only damage one player, your healers will struggle to keep everyone alive.

You can have some attempts where you purposefully do not DPS Malkorok, allowing your DPS players to focus solely on properly handling the mechanics. Since the phase changes happen regardless of what your raid does, this will even allow you to "test" the Blood Rage phase.

The Heroic mode of the Malkorok encounter is step up in difficulty, compared to the previous Heroic modes in the Siege of Orgrimmar. Although there are few mechanical differences, the fight is very intense.

In addition to Malkorok's health and damage being increased, there are a few new mechanics to consider.

During the Might of the Kor'kron Phase, there are two new mechanics.

• Every 3 seconds, a number of orbs of corruption (2 in 10-man and 5 in 25-man) will spawn in random locations on the platform. These orbs persist indefinitely, and they do not do anything unless players come in contact with them. When a player comes in contact with an orb, the orb is detonated and the player loses their damage-absorption shield (caused by the Ancient Miasma) and takes a moderate amount of Shadow damage.
• Adds called Living Corruption spawn regularly throughout this phase. While they sometimes spawn whenever Seismic Slam is cast, their spawning does not appear to be strictly related to these casts. These adds melee, and they respond normally to threat mechanics, but they do not have any other abilities. What they do have, however, is a passive aura that reduces the movement and spell casting speed of all players within 8 yards by 75%.

The only difference to the Endless Rage Phase is that players who are affected by Displaced Energy are now also rooted in place for as long as they are affected by the debuff.

The Heroic mode changes affect the strategy in each of the two phases, so we will discuss these separately.

During this phase, your raid will have two additional tasks to perform:

• kill any Living Corruptions that spawn, ideally away from spell-casting raid members;
• regularly detonate orbs of corruption.

Regarding the Living Corruptions, your raid obviously cannot allow any of these adds to stay alive, since the fact that their aura slows movement speed makes it impossible for players to move around as needed to avoid the mechanics of this phase. This means that the Living Corruptions should be killed off as quickly as possible. They are not very damaging, so it is safe to bring the adds into melee range and have them cleaved next to Malkorok. This also ensures that they stay away from ranged raid members who may need to move around freely.

Since the orbs of corruption persist indefinitely, they end up limiting your raid's free space, which will cause problems when you need to move around to avoid Breath of Y'Shaarj or Arcing Smash. This means that you need to regularly detonate them to make enough space for adequate movement. That said, since detonating an orb removes the damage-absorption shield of the player who detonates it, and also damages them, it means that you cannot simply have people running around and detonating the orbs. Instead, you must have players with strong damage-reduction cooldowns (such as Shadow Priests with Dispersion or immunities (Hunters with Deterrence, Rogues with Cloak of Shadows) detonate as many orbs as they can. Everyone else must be extremely careful not to come in contact with an orb, since this will most likely get them killed (especially if they are just about to soak an Imploding Energy void zone).

You will not be able to keep the room clear of all orbs of corruption, but this is not necessary as long as you free up a reasonable amount of space.

Aside from this, the strategy for the phase remains unchanged from Normal mode.

Even though the change for this phase appears minor, it has a large impact on the strategy. Since players affected by Displaced Energy cannot move, it is up to the rest of the raid to get away from these players. There are currently two working strategies for this phase.

The first (and easiest) strategy is to have your raid use a single tank for the boss during this phase, while the rest of the raid spreads out around the room. This tank will need to survive the truly massive amounts of damage that the boss deals (since there will be no other players there to split the damage), so a good chaining of tank and external defensive cooldowns must be used. The Rook's Unlucky Talisman trinket helps greatly with this task. The rest of the raid can take this time to clear up any remaining orbs of corruption, before the end of the phase.

The second strategy requires your raid to stack up in front of Malkorok (as you would do normally for this phase), and to then move through the boss to the other side each time Displaced Energy is cast. Doing so ensures that all players who are not rooted will move away from the rooted players. We only advise trying to make use of this if, for some reason, your tank is unable to survive solo-tanking the boss (although this should never be the case).

This concludes our raid guide for Malkorok. We hope you have found it helpful. Please do not hesitate to post any feedback you may have on our forums.

• 26 Nov. 2013: Improved Heroic mode strategy section.
• 21 Nov. 2013: Added Heroic mode strategy.
• 20 Sep. 2013: Added a link to the video guide.

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