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The Molten Core is a fiery cavern, home to the firelord Ragnaros, one of the four elemental lieutenants of the Old Gods. On
release, it was the only 40 man instance in the game, thus Ragnaros was the first "game end boss". With the advent
of Blackwing Lair, Ahn'Qiraj and Naxxramas, defeating Ragnaros is no longer the pinnacle of raid achievement. However, slaying
him is still considered a very important step in raid progression before engaging into more challenging content. It is the
first raid encounter which requires a concerted effort in acquiring massive amounts of a particular statistic (in this case,
fire resistance). Moreover, the encounter is the first one to demand the extensive use of consumables, at least in the learning
process and in the first few kills. As such, it is a very important stage in the evolution of a raiding guild.
Molten
Core poses an interesting problem to advanced raiding guilds. Killing Ragnaros requires a full Molten Core clear, all 9 other
bosses must be down in order to be able to summon him. On one hand, for guilds deep into more challenging instances the time
required to clear MC (3 hours for a reasonably mature guild) is wasteful and inhibits raid progression. On the other hand,
many guild members, (especially recruits), will need to farm Ragnaros for the Tier 2 pants he drops. For many classes, better
pants won't be found until deep into AQ40 or Naxxramas. Exacerbating this is the fact that trash mobs in MC respawn fairly
quickly, so the instance must be run (more or less) all in one night.
Thus, while Molten Core helps the itemization
of the raid significantly, the time cost required to farm Ragnaros often hurts raid progression. Guilds commonly struggle
with balancing these competing goals. Usually guild members are very happy when they are finally able not to run MC any more,
especially since most of the encounters only require large amounts of DPS.
My Favorites
Favorite Band or Musician: firelord
Favorite TV show: lava
Favorite movie: volcano
My Hobbies
eat raiders
Most Admired
nefarius
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