Magtheridon (tactics)

Magtheridon

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This article is about the in-game raid boss. For character biography and Warcraft III appearances, see Magtheridon.

Magtheridon is the boss in Magtheridon's Lair, in the Hellfire Citadel instance.

Background in WoW

Template:Hellfire Citadel His death is required for [70] Trial of the Naaru: Magtheridon, the last quest to obtain the Tempest Key. Even though you don't need the Key to get into The Eye anymore, the quest is still there and gives some nice rewards. Magtheridon's Lair is a quick raid encounter, similar to that of Onyxia's Lair. It is a raid wing of the Hellfire Citadel dungeon.

Key elements of the fight

A common misconception is that this fight requires fire resistance. Fire resist is neither required nor desired.

The fight: Magtheridon has 5 adds that you must kill. Magtheridon is banished for the first two minutes of the fight, during which you need only deal with the adds. After two minutes, he becomes active.

Hellfire Channelers:

Each channeler has roughly 240,000 hitpoints.
Cast Shadow Volley, a 1-second cast which hits all targets within 30 yards for roughly 1800 damage. It is interruptible.
Cast Dark Mending, a 2-second cast that heals a Hellfire Channeler for 69375 to 80625. Interruptible
Vulnerable to Mind-numbing Poison and Curse of Tongues. One of these should be applied by rogues/warlocks to help with the above spell interrupts
Summon Abyssal infernals. Each channeler may not summon more than 2 infernals at a time. Infernals despawn after one minute.
Gain a Soul Transfer buff as you kill each Channeler. This buff increases their size by 20% and damage and casting speed by 30%, and stacks as you kill each Hellfire Channeler.

Burning Abyssals:

Deal 2625 to 3375 with a 10-yard range to the player on which it lands.
Cast Fire Blast, which does 3300 damage in a 20-yard range.
May be frost nova'd, banished, feared, stunned, or trapped.

Magtheridon:

Has approximately 4,750,000 health. (Patch 2.0.12)
Hits 6-7k basic melee on a well-geared tank.
Casts Quake, a knockback that hits every player every second for 7 seconds. The first cast occurs 40 seconds after Magtheridon activates. Interrupts spells and is on a 50- to 60-second cooldown.
Casts Blast Nova, which deals roughly 2,500 damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds to every player in the lair. The first cast occurs 1 minute after Magtheridon activates, on a 60-second cooldown. Will result in a wipe if he's allowed to cast it.
Cleave: Standard cleave, can hit for 8k+ on tank. Similar to Doom Lord Kazzak.

Manticron Cubes:

Deal 800 damage per second to a player channeling it. If all 5 cubes are clicked at once, the Blast Nova is interrupted and Magtheridon does not attempt to cast it for another minute.
Apply Mind Exhaustion on the player, preventing that player from clicking it again for another 1 1/2 minutes. Magtheridon takes 300% damage while all 5 cubes are active.

Strategy

Phase 1

At the beginning of the fight, 5 Hellfire Channelers are distributed around the room next to Manticron Cubes. They will not proximity aggro and respond only to hostile actions.
Each channeler must be tanked and focus-fired down. It is recommended to spread them around the room so their shadow volleys do not overlap.
Channeler casting should be interrupted. Shadow volley should be interrupted by the tanks. Dark Mending (heal) should be also be interrupted when they start to occur at 50% hp.
Five tanks are recommended, but it is possible to have one tank holding two at once.
Whenever a Hellfire Channeler dies, the others will gain a Soul Transfer buff that increases their damage and spell casting speed. Therefore it is necessary to have very well-geared tanks on the last two mobs to die.
Magtheridon will be banished for all of phase 1.
Phase 1 lasts two minutes. A well-coordinated raid should be able to kill at least 3 channelers before he becomes active.

Variant strategy for phase 1

Since the channelers have only 240 k HP each, and each dead one increases the damage dealt by the others, a well-balanced raid may try to bring them down all at once. Divide the raid into 5 groups, each consisting of one tank, one healer, a Warlock and two more damage dealers. The Warlock is needed to banish the first abyssal, CC the second one by any other means available. 2k DPS are needed in order to bring a channeler down within 120 seconds, with 3 damage dealers per group this means they have to do about 650 dps each. If that many DPS are available, this distributed approach is quicker and safer than the concentrated method described above. On the other hand, the concentrated method makes control of the abyssals and Magtheridon himself safer, and allows for a little lower DPS, because there are 40 more seconds available to bring down the channelers (all damage dealers together do not need to deliver 10k DPS but only 7.5k DPS).

Phase 2

After 2 minutes Magtheridon will no longer be banished and phase 2 will start.
You can attack him immediately when he breaks the banish, but his threat table doesn't start until he actually targets someone. Often tanks and hunters with misdirect make the mistake of unloading into him as soon as he breaks the banish then wonder why they lost aggro to a healer. Wait till you see something in your target of target to build threat on him.
One minute into Phase 2 he will cast Blast Nova, which is on a 60-second cooldown. To interrupt the cast, all 5 Manticron cubes must be clicked simultaneously. Because of Mind Exhaustion will prevent those 5 players from clicking on the cubes again for 90 seconds, assign two teams of 5 players to rotate on the cubes.
While the cubes are clicked, Magtheridon will take 300% damage. Some groups with healing abilities far beyond Magtheridon are able to heal through the 800dmg/tick however it is not recommended.

Phase 3

At 30% Magtheridon shatters the walls of his lair, causing the roof to crash down on the entire raid. This deals 5250-6750 physical damage to every member of the raid.
It is recommended to time the blast nova such that it will not coincide with the beginning of phase 3, similar to waiting for a favorable class call on Nefarian.
For the remainder of the fight, the ceiling randomly caves in on players, dealing 87,500 to 112,500 damage to players standing underneath an 8-yard radius of the cave-in. There is a cave-in animation shortly preceding it so players will be able to safely move out of the way.

Miscellaneous tips

Be sure to avoid Collapse when clicking on your Manticron cube, since that will likely result in a wipe.
The cube can be clicked from any direction, so an aware player will be able to activate it and channel from a safe location.
Stand several yards from your cube while waiting for the next Blast Nova.
Do not stand on a cube. If Collapse targets you while you are on a cube, this may block the cube from being accessed.
Magtheridon has a 20 minute enrage timer, (22 minutes from the start of the fight).
During Phase 2, it is very important click all the Manticron cubes within the 2-second cast timer after the raid warning "Magtheridon Begins to Cast Blast Nova" is shown. If you click before that time, the 5 clickers will take 800 dmg per tick resulting in unnecessary healing. This method will work for a while, but in the end it results in an almost certain wipe.

Assignments

You need one tank for each channeler. Assign one healer to each tank. Have the remaining healers help out on healing all the tanks and the rest of the raid. Tanks will need more healing as more channelers get killed due to the Soul Transfer ability.
Create two teams of five people each. Put as many Hunters and Warlocks as possible in the first two teams since there won’t be many Infernals up at this stage of the fight. Five people in the raid will act as backups. In each group assign each member to a cube in the room. These two teams will take turns and click all the cubes in the room just as Magtheridon begins to cast Blast Nova. Yes, this is what phase 2 is all about.
All Warlocks and Hunters are on Infernal duty. As the Infernals spawn during the fight they will be a great source of annoyance and random deaths if not dealt with properly. The Hunters can trap and kite them and the Warlocks can fear and banish them.
Position your dps at the entrance. The killorder is: 1 > 5 > 2 > 3 > 4. Have the tanks at cube 5 and 2 move their channeler to the entrance when it's time to kill their respective target. When the time has come to kill the channelers at cube 3 and 4 it's safer to move the raid to them.

Pit lord compare — Magtheridon as seen in the Burning Crusade

Quotes

Magtheridon will randomly utter these quotes as players progress through The Blood Furnace instance, as well as his lair:

"How long do you believe your pathetic sorcery can hold me?"

"Weakling! Drink my blood and die suffocating!"

"Illidan is an arrogant fool! I will crush him and reclaim Outland as my own!"

"Wretched, meddling insects! Release me, and perhaps I will grant you a merciful death!"

"Away, you mindless parasites! My blood is my own!"

"Vermin! Leeches! Take my blood and choke on it!"

"My blood will be the end of you!"

In addition:

Aggro: "Thank you for releasing me. Now... die!"
Draining: "Not again... NOT AGAIN!"
Freed from the draining: (laughs evilly) "I... am... UNLEASHED!!!"
Earthquake: "I will not be taken so easily. Let the walls of this prison tremble... and FALL!!!"
Kills a player: "Did you think me weak? Soft? Who is the weak one now?!"
Death: "The Legion... will consume you... all...." (gurgles, dies)

Loot

Tier 4 chest tokens
Chestguard of the Fallen Champion Binds when picked up Classes: Paladin, Shaman, Rogue Requires Level 27 Sell Price: 5 Chestguard of the Fallen Defender Binds when picked up Classes: Druid, Priest, Warrior Requires Level 27 Sell Price: 5 Chestguard of the Fallen Hero Binds when picked up Classes: Hunter, Warlock, Mage Requires Level 27 Sell Price: 5

Other drops
Aegis of the Vindicator Item Level 32Disenchants into: Not disenchantable Binds when picked up Shield Off Hand 45 Armor +2 Strength +5 Intellect +3 Stamina +3 Versatility Durability 120 / 120 Requires Level 27 Sell Price: 6 65 33 Cloak of the Pit Stalker Item Level 32Disenchants into: Not disenchantable Binds when picked up Back 3 Armor +2 Agility or Strength +2 Stamina +3 Critical Strike Requires Level 27 Sell Price: 3 97 40 Crystalheart Pulse-Staff Item Level 32Disenchants into: Not disenchantable Binds when picked up Staff Two-Hand Speed 3.60 3 – 5 Damage (1.1 damage per second) +15 Intellect +5 Stamina +5 Versatility Durability 120 / 120 Requires Level 27 Sell Price: 13 9 38 Eredar Wand of Obliteration Item Level 32Disenchants into: Not disenchantable Binds when picked up Wand Ranged Speed 2.00 1 – 2 Shadow Damage (0.8 damage per second) +10 Intellect +3 Stamina +3 Critical Strike Durability 75 / 75 Requires Level 27 Sell Price: 9 19 37 Eye of Magtheridon Item Level 32Disenchants into: Not disenchantable Binds when picked up Unique Trinket +4 Intellect Equip: Grants 170 increased spell power for 10 sec when one of your spells is resisted. Requires Level 27 Sell Price: 9 11 60 Girdle of the Endless Pit Item Level 32Disenchants into: Not disenchantable Binds when picked up Plate Waist 9 Armor +3 Strength or Intellect +2 Stamina +3 Critical Strike Prismatic Socket Prismatic Socket Socket Bonus: +3 Critical Strike Durability 55 / 55 Requires Level 27 Sell Price: 4 24 94 Glaive of the Pit Item Level 32Disenchants into: Not disenchantable Binds when picked up Polearm Two-Hand Speed 3.60 6 – 12 Damage (2.5 damage per second) Prismatic Socket Prismatic Socket Prismatic Socket Socket Bonus: +4 Critical Strike Chance on hit: Steals 300 life from target enemy. Durability 120 / 120 Requires Level 27 Sell Price: 16 38 29 Karaborian Talisman Item Level 32Disenchants into: Not disenchantable Binds when picked up Held In Off-hand +5 Intellect +3 Stamina Requires Level 27 Sell Price: 20 30 59 Liar's Tongue Gloves Item Level 32Disenchants into: Not disenchantable Binds when picked up Leather Hands 4 Armor +3 Agility or Intellect +2 Stamina +3 Critical Strike Prismatic Socket Prismatic Socket Socket Bonus: +3 Critical Strike Durability 55 / 55 Requires Level 27 Sell Price: 3 30 Soul-Eater's Handwraps Item Level 32Disenchants into: Not disenchantable Binds when picked up Cloth Hands 2 Armor +2 Intellect +4 Stamina +2 Critical Strike Prismatic Socket Prismatic Socket Socket Bonus: +4 Spell Power Durability 55 / 55 Requires Level 27 Sell Price: 2 42 38 Terror Pit Girdle Item Level 32Disenchants into: Not disenchantable Binds when picked up Mail Waist 6 Armor +3 Agility or Intellect +1 Stamina +20 Hit +3 Critical Strike +2 Haste Prismatic Socket Prismatic Socket Socket Bonus: +4 Stamina Durability 55 / 55 Requires Level 27 Sell Price: 3 60 76 Thundering Greathelm Item Level 32Disenchants into: Not disenchantable Binds when picked up Plate Head 11 Armor +3 Strength or Intellect +4 Stamina +5 Critical Strike Durability 100 / 100 Requires Level 27 Sell Price: 6 89 22