Morchok Healer Strategy Guide (Heroic Mode included)

Table of Contents

• 1. Overview of the Fight
• +2. Crystal Phase
  • 2.1. Abilities
  • 2.2. Strategy
  • 2.3. Tips
• 3. Black Blood Phase
• +4. Heroic Mode
  • 4.1. Differences from Normal Mode
  • 4.2. Strategy
    • 4.2.1. Crystal Phase
    • 4.2.2. Black Blood Phase

Introduction

This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of the encounter with Morchok in Dragon Soul. It is mostly targeted to healers who desire to have a short but detailed overview of what is expected of them during that fight.

This guide is updated for World of Warcraft WoD 6.1.2.

The Morchok encounter is a very straightforward and easy fight. Healers will only have to move to melee range of a few crystals that the boss periodically spawns, and sometimes take cover behind some pillars of stone, in order to avoid taking damage.

From a healing perspective, the fight is not very challenging, although there are certain times during the fight when players may take high amounts of damage.

Morchok is a relatively simple encounter made up of two alternating phases:

• The Crystal Phase, which lasts approximately 1 minute, is a tank and spank phase during which the raid is faced with two tasks (other than attacking the boss):
  • the tanks need to regularly taunt the boss off of each other;
  • a few players need to soak the proximity damage done by crystals that the boss summons.
• The Black Blood Phase, which lasts approximately 30 seconds, requires your raid to hide behind pillars of stone (created during the encounter) to avoid being hit by the Black Blood flowing out from Morchok.

Finally, at 20% health, Morchok gains the Furious buff. This does not affect the alternation between the Crystal Phase and the Black Blood Phase: the fight continues normally, just that the boss deals more damage and attacks faster.

The following abilities are of interest to healers:

• Every 15 seconds (3 times per Crystal Phase), a number of players (DPS and healers alike) will be linked to a red crystal. The crystal explodes after 12 seconds, dealing damage to these players, depending on how close to the crystal they are.
• Every 10-15 seconds, Morchok will deal a moderate amount of damage to all players within 25 yards of him, through Stomp.
• The tanks will taunt the boss amongst themselves, due to the Crush Armor debuff that the boss applies.

From a tactical point of view, you have very few things to keep in mind during the Crystal Phase:

• when you are linked to a Resonating Crystal (in addition to the visible link, you will also have a debuff on you), move to melee range of the crystal until it explodes (alternatively, another player can cover for you if necessary, as the links target the closest players from the crystal);
• always stay within 25 yards of Morchok.

As a healer, you should expect the following sources of damage:

• sustained, moderate tank damage. The current tank will be progressively debuffed with Crush Armor, so their damage taken will increase. The tanks perform a swap regularly, so be prepared to heal the new tank.
• regular, unavoidable raid damage from Stomp;
• moderate amounts of damage on the specific players who are linked to a Resonating Crystal (all these players receive a debuff that you should be able to see on your raid frames; boss mods will likewise alert you).

Use cooldowns such as Power Word: Barrier and Spirit Link Totem on a group of players who is stacking on a Resonating Crystal, to reduce the risk of them dying to the combination of damage from the Crystal and Stomp.

During this entire phase, Morchok is immobile. After 30 seconds, the boss returns to the Crystal Phase.

He will begin the phase by pulling the entire raid to him before channeling Black Blood of the Earth. This ability causes Black Blood to flow outwards of him, dealing heavy damage to anyone standing in it.

As soon as you are free to move (after being pulled by Morchok), hide behind one of the stone pillars that appeared when the phase started.

As a healer, the heroic mode of Morchok is going to prove an extremely stressful encounter, where a high amount of healing will be required, and the incoming damage will often be unpredictable.

The differences between normal and heroic Morchok are simple.

• At 90% health, Morchok splits himself in two, and your raid has to fight both Morchoks at the same time (the other boss is called Kohcrom).
• Both bosses use the same abilities as Morchok does in normal mode, with the same frequency and in the same way.
• Crush Armor no longer exists, meaning that there is no need for a tank swap.
• Both Morchok and Kohcrom place a debuff on their tanks each time they cast a Stomp. This debuff lasts for 10 seconds and increases physical damage taken by 100%.

In addition to this, the bosses have more health, melee the tanks for more, and all of their abilities deal more damage.

Until the boss reaches 90% health, you should be within 25 yards of him, to soak the damage from Stomp and simply heal the tank and the raid. At 90%, the actual heroic mode begins.

Your raid leader will split the raid into two balanced groups, one for each of the two bosses (Morchok and Kohcrom). Once the boss reaches 90% health and splits in two, simply go to the side where you were assigned. The bosses will be tanked very far apart from one another, effectively meaning that the two groups of your raid will play independently from one another. After the split, Morchok will normally be on the right, and Kohcrom on the left.

The difficulty of the Heroic version of the fight lays in properly handling the Crystal Phase (as the Black Blood Phase remains the same). Your strategy in this phase will involve healing extremely high and sustained amounts of damage on your entire group, while performing the following tasks.

• Always be within 25 yards of your boss, in order to soak the damage from Stomp.
• If you are assigned to soak the Resonating Crystal (you almost certainly will be), move on top of it each time it spawns and wait until it explodes.

You should expect damage from the following sources:

• Moderate, sustained tank damage from the boss' melee attacks (after a Stomp happens, the tank will take 100% increased physical damage for 10 seconds, so watch out for that too and coordinate cooldown usage with the tank);
• High raid-wide damage from Stomp;
• High damage to the Resonating Crystal soakers.

There are two other things to look out for:

• One player in your group (specifically designated by the raid leader), either a plate-wearing DPS or a Rogue, will take a double share of damage from each Stomp. For this reason, you must pay special attention to this player's health and top them off before each Stomp.
• In the event that you are assigned to soak the crystal, and the boss is not within 25 yards of it, you should first wait for the boss to Stomp, and only then move into melee range of the crystal to soak it (you should have 5-6 seconds to do this after the Stomp).

You should expect the damage to be extremely spiky when Stomps and Crystals come in quick succession, and you should not hesitate to use cooldowns to deal with such situations.

The Black Blood Phase remains unchanged, and you should treat in the same way as in normal mode.