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Comment by 16086

The third boss is quite a pain. He hits like a truck - 1700 average on 11k armor, and has a frontal Sand Breath that hits for 3000 arcane damage, so he should be faced away from the group. Additionally, he has the ability to flurry, increasing his attack speed exponentially for that time.

And the worst thing he does is an AoE stun for 4-5 seconds, while he continues to beat on the tank. While this guy may be possible with one healer, he won't be easy. If you still have them left, call your dragons to help you with this fight.

You'll need them.

Comment by 14245

The Black Morass

Strategy

As you enter the instance you will encounter three types of mobs (Spiders, Crocs, and Stealthed Cats) and all of these mobs are non-elites. As you move forward in the instance you will see Medivh surrounded by a red casting effect. The event will start the minute you get near Medivh, so avoid him until your group has cleared a good distance around Medivh of all three types of mobs. This gives you and your party room to move safely about during the event.

Once cleared of crocs, spiders, and cats make sure you are full-buffed and have your consumeables ready. Move close to Medivh to start the event. On the top center of your screen you will see a percentage of remaining shield left on Medivh and a Rift Status Counter. Your objective is to keep Medivh's shield from reaching zero percent and destroy what comes through each of the 18 Rifts.

Rift 1/18 will spawn somewhere in the woods surrounding Medivh. First, an elite Rift Keeper will come out and channel a spell near the Rift to keep it open. As long as the Rift Keeper is alive, the Rift stays open. As long as the rift stays open, more non-elite dragonflight will spawn from the Rift and head towards Medivh. One person in your party is to crowd control the non-elites and prevent them from hitting Medivh. Your main tank is always on the Rift Keeper until it dies. The Rift Keeper is channeling, mind you, so your party moves to each Rift as they spawn and tanks them there. Slay the Rift Keeper and finish the non-elites. There is time to drink between each Rift if you do this efficiently and quickly.

Each Rift will spawn somewhere in the woods surrounding Medivh. Rinse repeat with the elite Rift Keeper and non-elites.

However, there will be Bosses on Rift number 6, 12, and finally Rift 18. Non-elites will continue to spawn from the rifts as these are open so continue preventing them from reaching Medivh. After each boss kill there is a significantly longer time to res dead, drink, or prepare.

Boss explanation

1st Boss - Casts a magical slowing debuff (dispellable). Aoe knockback. Spank and tank.
2nd Boss - Puts a debuff on your main tank (much like Kurinaxx) that reduces healing effects by 10% each stack. Obviously, this is a very heavy dps fight so you burn him as fast as possible. This is the only time when your crowdcontrol does not crowdcontrol and instead does damage to the boss.
3rd Boss - Hits like a truck and uses Time Stop (Much like Chromaggus). If you are a healer, you will get time-stopped and your tank will drop health fast. Shielding when time-stop wears off is efficient and as are HoT's (Heal over Time ). No non-elites come out of the 18th Rift so your crowdcontrol should be dps'ing.

After the 3rd boss is down, you are done with Black Morass. Talk to Medivh, complete your quest, and get your Karazhan key. Good luck.

Comment by 17165

BM Short Version To-Do List:

Preferred EZ-Mode Group Setup:
Tank
Main Healer (Paladin can do fine)
Mage (for adds)
DPS (any class)
Backup Healer or DPS (ie: Shadow Priest/Shaman/Druid)

1. Clear areas where rifts will open.
2. Start encounter
3. Tank fights main rift lord/spawn by rift opening, rest of party stand in the way that adds will take towards Medivh. Keep Adds under control.
4. Kill Boss #1, kill adds as well during fight. Rest
5. Kill Boss #2, always have a backup healer in case debuff does not reset. Let adds run by you during boss #2, after you down the boss quickly run back to Medivh and interrupt the adds and kill them, if your fast his shield should be @ ~80%
6. You should still have 5 beacons in your party, make your life easy now and use them one at a time for the remaining rifts. Makes the last rifts incredibly easy and saves you time!
7. Run towards Medivh for final boss, make sure tank is topped off and its highly recommended that you have a backup healer in case of a bad time stop.
8. Collect Loot.

Note: If you happen to wipe during the third and final boss, you should be able to run back to the encounter and rebuff and try again. Medivh shield will be at ~30%. Just make sure he stops taking hits shortly after. Don't give up!

Comment by dekz

Our group makeup
1x Feral Druid
2x Frost mage
1x Holy Priest
1x Prot Warrior

Mages would take turns on Frost nova/Cone of Cold the 3 whelps that spawn through the portal (which either kills them or gets them close). Feral Druid kill the other dragonkins that would spawn (these are more frequent and easily killed by an average geared feral druid), when there are no class assigned adds up, focus dps on the Rift Keeper (On average takes about 1 min per portal)

We had Medvih's shield at 100% before the last boss. We let the last boss hit his shield for a couple of seconds so we could regenerate mana.

Boss summary are pretty much the same as described above. Enjoy

Comment by slivki

It looks like there's a fair bit of confusion about when you can or cannot use the beacon during boss encounters. Possibilities gleaned from reading these and other posts:

- bosses do a single purge that purges all summoned, meaning that if you have > 1 beacon remaining on a boss, summon 1 and let him be purged before summoning others.

- bosses do X purges which purge >= 1 dragon.

- this purge happens at the start of the encounter, or with some frequency during the encounter, or in response to a summon

Too many possibilities to be of much help at this point. You're making this instance significantly more difficult if you save all beacons to be used during the last encounter, so I'd be sure of how things work before assuming based on the wide range of reports.

Comment by 21568

This instance is pretty interesting. I have yet to complete it because two in the group forgot to get Chrono-Beacons (Yes, I was one of them). We got to the 17th portal, having those two extra Chrono-Beacons would have helped out greatly.

The hardest part of this is DPSing the adds and the Rift Lords fast enough to drink before the next portal and the second boss. A mage greatly helps here for two reasons:
1. Frost Nova & Cone of Cold against the adds, namely the whelps.
2. The second boss casts a buff on himself that speeds up his attack and movement speed by 200%. A level 70 mage CAN AND SHOULD Spellsteal this! I don't know whether or not this can be purged or dispelled on the boss, but the mage can steal it and it greatly reduces the DPS of the boss because he cannot hit as hard as fast. Despite the fact that Spellsteal is a costly spell, it should be done whenever possible to deter the second boss' DPS. And the mage can have fun running around for 10 seconds!

Comment by 21702

Did this for the first time last night. Was pretty easy, though I ran it with a group that had done it several times before. Our druid was extremely nervous that we had 20% less DPS than in her previous run, and they had barely made it through, but in the end we spanked the place.

I am a BM spec Hunter, and I handled all the non-elite adds that came through the gate. The dragonkin have very little armor and I pet tanked them and chewed them up pretty quickly. The whelps come in groups of threes, perfect for multi-shot pulling. I would just pull them all to me, explosive trap, and then beastial wrath on them and let my pet kill them while I DPS'd the elite. They do get tougher as you go through, but I never found them to get so tough that I was overwhelmed...but definitely keep your concentration up.

We used our Chrono beacons on the last 5 non-boss portals. I wouldn't bother wasting the beacon on a boss if he has the chance to purge it...theyre much more useful for getting the elites down as fast as possible.

I can't really say for sure what the others did to fight the elites (priest, mage, warrior, feral druid) but I know for a fact that they're all very experienced players. Hopefully this post will help any groups doing Black Morass that are lucky enough to have a hunter in them ;) Why use two mages for CC when you can use 1 hunter?

Comment by 14055

You get 1115 reputation per Black Morass, if you don't do any quests.

Comment by 18754

Did this run successfully last night. Used one beacon for the 2nd boss and all four others for the last boss. Last boss went down like a tonne of bricks.

Nice neat trick found (though am yet to try it again to confirm): although the +healing debuff on the 2nd boss cannot be dispelled, it can be Mass Dispelled. So get your priest to do a Mass Dispel once MT has about 5 stacks up.

Note the wording on the Mass Dispel help text - able to dispel magic that is normally undispellable.

I think blizz deliberately made some bosses only able to me MD'd so that the new priest talent could be used.

Would appreciate a second confirmation of this.

Comment by 25039

Okay. I'll explain the OMGFPWN method
Druid, Rogue, Mage, Priest, Shaman
Druid Tanks, rogue kills elites, mage handles whelps.
First boss, tank spank
2nd boss, Sub Rogue double evasion tanks. This will knock 30% life off the boss, and he won't take any debuffs..or 2 at most.
Vanish, druid picks up aggro. Make sure you hitting him so when you growl, u can gain aggro.
3rd Boss, drop all 5 dragons on him at once. He can only purge 1 at a time. Random cd between his purges..but with 5, he will be at 30% life when he purges them all.
Easy

Comment by 15027

We spent quite some time perfecting this run with our group which consisted of a me, a druid tank (resto 1/10/50), rogue, hunter, mage and priest.
We had difficulty on the second boss to begin with as the -healing debuff stacked up to 10 times very quickly. We got around this by keeping my threat relatively low and having the hunter use misdirection on the rogue when the debuff had stacked 5 times in order for him to get aggro.

Our priest tried the mass dispell tip that Minxette suggested but this didn't work... would be interesting to see everyone elses opinon on this.

Once the debuff wore off, I pulled him off the rogue and the rest of the fight was easy from then on.

We used all our chrono-beacons on the last boss and took him down easily. Having originally tried this fight without the chrono-beacons, we found the combination of having no damage reduction and no chance to parry or block with a bear tank meant our healer couldn't keep up with the damage (despite me having around 1.4k armour, 1.1k HP) - so I'd definitely recommend saving up your chrono beacons if you're having trouble with this encounter.

Comment by 23910

As a paladin tank I can higly reccomend judging wisdom on the mob before beggining to tank, the mana you get back from that is priceless. Also remember to never use BoSalv here so you can get max DPS on the adds.

Switching Aura's are also highly recommended here, for the mage-like one you will be switching Frost/Fire aura a lot and Shadow at the Shadow one, retri aura for more threat on the melee ones.

The instance itself requires minimal effort from your Healer and Tank, paladin tanks might want to heal themselves if they need it (Use BoSanct though, not BoW), this instance is all about your DPS being good since you wont be tanking the adds, I higly reccommend a druid healer for the HoTs they bring.

1st Boss: No leaks so far, Medivh at 100% and tanked and spanked it easily.

2nd Boss: DPS was quick here so I only managed to get 3 (or -30%) healing debuffs on me so no need to shield out of it, we completely ignored the adds and Medivh was at 68% after we used a beacon to clear the adds after the boss.

3rd Boss: Basically he was tanked and spanked, the heals our druid sent out were a little miscalculated so I ended up healing myself with Holy Light twice (this is where a self-healing tank shines people!). We used a beacon here since we used none on the trash rifts, but we did not need it.

In closing I would like to say: You are all overrating this instance, you are focusing on the wrong thing, you need good and solid DPS here, tanking and healing is secondary.

Party: Paladin(Tank), Druid(Healer, Resto), Rogue, Warlock, Hunter

Comment by 1841

Apparently the Beacon is useless on bosses now, as they can one-shot the guardian that the Beacon spawns.

Comment by 14055

A reply to the beacon comment above: Save the beacons for the last boss, and use the beacon near Medivh, that way all five dragons takes the boss down to about 50% alone.

Don't know if anyone has tried Heroic Black Morass yet, well, we tried yesterday just for fun. At first, the spiders and such are just the same as normal, so go ahead and AoE them down. In the beginning the spawns seemed to be just like normal Black Morass, but they had more HP and hit harder. We weren't really prepared so our healer ran out of mana very fast. We made it to the first boss and we got it down to about 50%. Then we wiped and quit.

Basically, make sure you get to the new spawns VERY fast and try to conserve mana, if a warlock fears the adds no one will loose HP from those which enables the priest to focus the tank only. In normal BM the break after bosses seems silly, but in Heroic make sure you use it. Make new healthstones for the party, mana gems and so on. Make sure you are fully prepared again.

Good Luck =)

Comment by 21265

Did this last night with some friends and downed last boss in first try but the last Mini boss was a little tricky becouse of the debuff so we restarted once

1x Feral druid
2x Locks
1x Priest
1x Rogue

Comment by 16911

This is the group makeup which we completed BM

2 warriors, hunter, mage, shaman

Basic strategy was to focus dps on the rift keepers.
The second warrior took care of the the non elite dragonkin, while the mage frost nova+aoe'd the whelplings. (note that after the 2nd boss the rift keepers no longer summon whelplings, only the stronger dragonkin).

For the first boss, it is a simple tank and spank as others have mentioned. He has an aoe arcane attack that hits for around 2k. Once he was around 50% health, we placed one dragon-beacon over medihv, which took care of all the dragonkin/whelping spawns. After the fight his shield was around 94 percent. Plenty of time to regain health/mana after his death.

Repeat the same strategy for the rift keepers for the next 5 rifts.
For the second boss, our strategy was simply to pour on as much dps as possible. His attack speed buff can be spellstolen as others have said. Our shaman was able to heal through his debuffs with little problem. At around 50 percent use any aggro wiping abilities and pour the dps on, and he will come down easily. Also at 50% have a second group member place a dragon beacon near medivh, as you did with the first boss. Medivh's shield should be above 80%.

For rifts 13 and 14 use the same strategies mentions above for the rift keepers. For rifts 15-17, have one member use a dragon beacon on the rift keepers. This will make killing them extremely easy. You should be able to down them in about 30 seconds with the dragons assistnace, and have plenty of time to drink in between. Repeat this cycle until Aeonus on rift 18.

Aeonus will immediately head towards Medivh, so if you need a little extra time to get health/mana, you can let him beat on medivh's shield. Aeonus has the aoe stunning effect. He hits very hard, but a capable healer should have no problem with him. Everyone else should simply pour on the dps. Also, when he enrages, if you have a hunter they can use tranq shot on him.

Unlike others i do not recommend using the tokens on Aeonus at the end. We attempted to do so once, and he dismissed the summoned creature almost immediately. The process is extremely smoothing using the dragon beacons on rifts 15-17.

Comment by 26147

On heroic:

Trying to find out if you fail or wipe and medivh dies, does it reset and would the bosses keep dropping badges again? If so that seems pretty farmable 0_o

Comment by 15027

An intended change in 2.0.10:

"Boss creatures in Caverns of Time: Opening of the Dark Portal will now dispel all nearby Time Keepers instead of one at a time."

So the tactic involving using all the beacons on Aeonus seems to be out of the window!

Comment by 28913

I'm throwing in the strategy for the holy pally :P My group consist of
holy pally
shadow priest
warlock
druid tank
rogue

The pally, using consecration on mobs with concentrate aura, can effectivly tank all mobs and act as main healer while all other group members dps rift lords. shadow priest can provide the samll mana and heals to keep the pally from healing himself. once rift boss is down the group can pick up already reduced health mobs easily.

for the second boss fight when the main tank is stacked with 6~7 debuff the pally should cast blessing of protection to dispell the stack, tank need to quickly remove the BoP and resume tanking. also pally doesn't tank mobs but responsible for healing tank.

Everything else pretty much is the same for above comments

our group completed this with 82% sheild.

just for reference I tried this method with 3 pallys in group, 1 ret (dps), 1 holy (mob tanking) and 1 prot (MT). along with a rogue and lock. sheild was 30% when we complete.

Comment by 3215

Just as a FYI - If you die on the last boss and Medivh's shield is still at a high percent, run back quick. You can get back into the instance before the boss kills Medivh. I was in a group that did this last night.

Comment by rugar

I found that warlocks do the best job on adds. They donbt even need heals if their good.

Comment by Xukimonde

I run this instance regularly with the following group setup:
-Hunter (Marksmanship)
-Paladin (Holy)
-Warrior (Protection)
-Warlock (Affliction)
-DPS Class (Usually a frost mage.)

We have never had a problem completing this instance with Medivh's shield >70%. This includes a run I got disconnected twice in a row, logged back in to my own instance, died, ran back, got re-invited to the group, and ran in to help with the current portal. A few things to remember:

It's okay to wait for the healer to regenerate a little mana before engaging the rift lord. One or two spawns are fine, just have the other people in the group kill them while waiting without expending a lot of mana.

Affliction warlocks have a very easy time with the dragonkin spawns during the standard rifts. As shouldn't be said, have them pop a few DoT's on the rift lord to maximize DPS, and then have them be focusing on the spawns. If you have a warlock and a mage in your party, it's more beneficial to the group to have the mage be on rift lord DPS - unless the warlock gets polymorphed.

During boss fights, focus all of your DPS on the boss. The first boss fight - rift 6, Chrono Lord Deja - requires no use of Chrono-beacon. It's just a simple burn on the boss. You have a lot of time in between the boss rift and the following rift. Re-buff here if necessary (shouldn't be) and make sure to be at full health and mana, preferably mounted waiting for the next rift.

The second boss fight - rift 12, Temporus - is a cakewalk with a protection warrior. Focus all of your DPS on him. When Medivh's shield get to around 90%, have one of your groupmates (established beforehand) drop a Chrono-beacon on Medivh. Continue focusing all DPS on Temporus.

-- Re-buff / regenerate in between boss and next rift. --

The last boss, Aeonus, is very simple if you have done the rest of the run without expending more than one Chrono-beacon. Begin tanking and DPS'ing the boss like you would any other, but when Aeonus reaches about 80% health, have everyone who has Chrono-beacons (the other four members, three if the tank is busy and not capable of dropping one in the correct position) drop them about 5 yards *behind* Aeonus. At this point, Aeonus' health will begin to drop very rapidly, and the fight should be over within 20 seconds. Medivh's shield shouldn't have dropped below 70%.

!!!- As of patch 2.0.10, it is no longer possible to use all of your Chrono-beacons at the same time. Aeonus will dispel them all simultaneously. Simply assign an order and stagger them. Aeonus will still die quickly, and the fight only requires a laughable amount more coordination.

---

We have yet to attempt this on Heroic difficulty, but we will likely go in with this same strategy, and adjust accordingly. Good luck.

Comment by Downfall

This instance is hard as hell. Just spent the last 10 hours running it 8+ times and failing each and every time. Usually on the 2nd boss.

Comment by Tobias

Priests, the second boss can be a pain in the ass when you're there for the first time.
The trick is to keep him dispelled.
The following macro worked like a charm for me, just keep spamming it:
/target Temporus
/cast Dispel Magic
/targetlasttarget
Also a mage spamming spellsteal is quite handy.

Comment by Simple

You receive a minimum of 1110 rep per Black Morass run (15x normal min-boss mobs which reward 50 rep, 3x bosses which reward 120 rep). You will also get a few single points of rep randomly throughout the instance from some of the 'adds'.

This will give you rep all the way through to exalted with Keepers of Time.

The quickest run of Black Morass I have experienced was 35 minutes. It was done with a paladin tank, holy/disc priest healer, and 3 mutilate specced rogues. I was one of the rogues, and had to handle adds. To do a run in approx 35 mins you will want to be dps heavy like we were :)

Comment by Deewy

This was pretty easy.
Full lvl 70 party, blues & greens (maybe a couple epics) took this instance down with no whipes or any deaths.

Frost mage (me)
Rogue
Feral druid tank
disc/holy priest
enchancement shaman.

I took the adds down mainly, and kept the shield 100% (Not on 2nd or third boss), the rogue helped me randomly. Druid was a good tank (after 2.0.10 even), enchancement shaman's totems were useful and so on.

We used one beacon at 2nd boss, killed him easily.
Last 2 rifts we used rest (only 4 beacons on our party) of our beacons and they helped us nicely and boosted our speed quite a bit. Last boss was simple as a runescape player, tank kept aggro all the time and rest of us just nuked like a tauren rogue.

As a mage, just use ice lance if you cant get to cast anything else when a mob runs to the portal. Just have 1½ (Mage and something) on the adds and youre ok.

Comment by Jimma

This instance is a tanks dream instance.

I had one hand on and around the vicinity of my groin while the other one was spamming lacerate and mangle, GG.

In other words, you only ever tank 1 mob, it's the most relaxing instance for a tank, ever...

Comment by kingiix

One frost mage can handle the adds efficiently. Just have him stand away from the elite and handle adds as they approach medievh. If done right, the mage can drink between fights.

Comment by 34029

all in all this is a pretty easy instance, my group consisted of a Feral Druid tank, Balanced Druid Dps/Spot heal, Mage for adds, Priest, and Rogue, first time through with 3 of the 5, one other had done it through the first 5 waves, 5th had completed it twice, completed with 90+% left, very easy

Comment by warmblanket

At the end of the 2nd boss one of the whelps bugged out and we couldn't kill it (kept getting 'evade'). Kept taking down the shield though so Medivh eventually died =/. This happen to anyone else?

Comment by 35236

Herioic:

Did this with this grp: Mage, priest, shadowpriest, warr and dps warr

Almost same as normal run, though there are some changes on bosses

Portals spam pretty much fast so u rly need here high dps.
Boss 1: almost same, Just nuke while someone ganks adds(Dps warr).After boss 1 mob with 20k hp will come out of portal. This mobs are pain
Boss 2: now has reflect and deals pretty high dmg, haste buff needs 2 be spellstealed asap.
Boss 3: Almost same, has more hp and thats it

Enjoy in free badges :)

Cirohito
Hellscream

Comment by 35112

On the second boss, disarm clears the healing debuff on the warrior. Wait for the effect to stack 2-3 times then use your first disarm. After that, use disarm whenever the cooldown is up.

Comment by Aristodamos

Find your way to the entrance of the instance: http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/6837/cotlv6.jpg

Comment by 42730

does anyone know if you can do your karazan attunement by joining a party that has just finished the instance??? have heard it both ways some ppl sayin u could some you couldnt, appreciate the comments

Comment by 26725

How to do BM on heroic:

First. Remember that the instance can be reset, but the bosses you killed earlier will be replaced by a copy with no loot i.e. temporus will be called "Infinite Timereaver". This means you cannot get more badges.

The key to winning BM on heroic is wise use of the beacons. Before the first boss, the portals will be easy, you cannot waste any beacons here. After first boss, Executioner adds will spawn. These have a very high amount of HP and hit hard. There will also be caster adds that shoot arcane bolts for over 1k. The best thing is if you can manage without any beacons at all, because then you could use one at every portal after temporus.

Do not fight the adds when there are bosses. Take them out after you have taken out the boss, since you will have 1-2 minutes to regen, depending on how fast you were to clear the portals.

We did it with:
Prot Warr
Ele Shaman
Feral Druid
Holy Priest
Combat rogue

Quantum Blade dropped.

Comment by 18009

What kind of gear do u guyz have that are taking this place down... is it doable w/ pre-kara/heroic gear? my guild has tried this a few times... came really close almost every try

Comment by 43962

Did it 2 times in a row, both successful. First we had no problems, druid tank, rogue taking the adds, shadow priest and arcane/fire mage dps-ing the elites, holy priest on heal powa. Did it like described above. But the second time it was a diffrent party - a lot weaker, undergeared. It was ok until portal 16, but there we slipped and the rift lord was on 50% and portal 17 was already open, all party members under 50%. Took us so much time, that we could not engage portal number 17 - as the boss was already kicking Medvit'h shield. It might be a bug, but if you have the last portal open and the boss is already there - just start killing him. Nothing came to Medvith from the last portal we ignored :) Lucky us :P

Comment by 33227

best group build for this:

- proc warrior ( tank )
- holy priest / pally ( healer )
- frost mage ( dps on adds )
- ms hunter ( dps on adds )
- rogue ( main dps on elites )

Comment by 46079

While a DPS heavy group makes black morass a cinch (assuming they know what they are doing) it is not essential (havent tried heroic tho)...

Protection warrior
Prot/holy pally
Holy priest
Resto druid
Me- Marks Hunter: We did fine, just had to make sure to use beacons after the 12th rift to speed things up. Medivh has 100% on his shield for a reason, you only lose if its 0%. Pally held adds, tank held elites, resto druid in kitty gear, with me DPS'd the elites. No one died, we didn't get overwhelmed, and it went smoothly. Medivh's shield went to 85% during the 2nd boss as we focused on boss instead, but that's all that got thru.

So if you have 5 people willing to go, ya don't need to be so picky if you know what to do :)

Comment by 39238

I just completed this today for the first time as a level 70 mage. Two other attempts failed previously simply due to group members being undergeared/underskilled/confused, or some combinations of the three. As a Frost mage, my job is Adds, and I feel that even after only three runs, I'm pretty good at it. Here's my secret for Add duty:

Don't aggro the elite, and you can eat/drink after EVERY add. That's right. AoE that group of whelps. As soon as the last whelp is dead, drink up. You may only have 4 seconds to drink before the next add is in range, but it makes a difference. I was never below 60% mana the entire time.

On the second boss I was DPS on the boss, and I just stood at max range, and popped my beacon just behind me. The helper killed all of the adds as they walked by without ever reaching Medihv. (Okay, one reached him, but only did 4% damage to his shield before the boss was dead).

Even after the 2nd boss, the waves were not much harder. I was expecting double spawns, but it was really no big deal. Just summon yourself up 100 waters so you can drink every chance you get.

Comment by 45292

Everyone's strategies for the bosses are quite accurate.

I'd like to add that it would be a good idea to make sure everyone knows what they're doing before you begin the instance, as there is little time to stand around and talk. The portals just keep opening and the mobs just keep spawning (as long as a portal is open).

Someone made a post about mass dispel removing the healing debuff that, I believe the 2nd boss uses, however after testing it last night I can confirm that mass dispel does not remove the healing debuff. It didn't seem to make a huge difference though.

Have fun! as long as no one dies, it's actually quite a fast and easy instance.

Comment by 50617

As a BM hunter, I have found quite an amusing way to do this instance, however it does require a GOOD healer (Its quite a bit faster as well).
Pets can easily (and safely) tank the Non-Boss elites, as long as you have a minimum of 1300 RAP, and your party is willing to wait at least 7 seconds before going in (and of course a healer who can heal pets). It will let your tank get in some real hits, and it reduces the likelihood of a wipe, because even if your pet does die, your tank can just pick it back up. However the elites are immune to intimidation, so if anyone pulls aggro they have to stop for a bit.

Ive done it three times this way:
First Group was...
Me - BM hunt
Frost Mage
Holy Pally
Ele Shaman
Arms Warrior

Second:
Me
Rogue
Arms War
Holy Pally
Frost Mage

Third:
Me
Prot Pally
Resto Shaman
Shadow Priest
Fire Mage

Comment by ameelia

A most excellent place to go skinning, as a Hunter, it takes about 2 hours to clear all the beasts from the instance solo with most skins netting 3 knothide leather or 3 scraps, and you'll pick up quite a few Netherwebs from the spiders. With vendors right outside to sell your junk to. Even though the mobs are non-elite they hit hard and have higher than normal HP, take plenty of water, and keep your Stealth Tracking on for the cats.

Comment by 52348

I guess that this is with steamvault the easiest BC instance (i speak normal mode).

Comment by 12815

After several runs in BM, I found that this group fits really fine with this instance:

1-. Feral druid as tank (far better dps than a prot warrior)
2-. Holy priest as healer (renew is so good in 3rd boss...)
3-. Afliction Lock (dpsing on bosses)
4-. Shadow priest (dpsing on bosses)
5-. Fire mage (dpsing on trash mobs <--- me)

There is no need to use anyone else on mobs, any good mage should be enough for them. Use one of the beacons on the second boss to make it easier, and then the rest on the following portals.

3rd boss is able to dispell all the beacons since last patch, so don't keep them for the fight, use them to be able to save time in last portals.

Tips for healers: since the 3rd boss does an AoE "stun" (like a time lapse in Chromaguss in Blacking Lair) always keep Renew on the tank. Mass Dispell works on 2nd boss, it's a good hint to trigger Inner Focus so you save mana from this expensive spell.

Tips for DpS: use KTM to avoid stealing the agro from the tank, and keep in maximum range for 2nd boss. Any mage can use "Spell Steal" on the 2nd boss, it is a really useful action.

This instance is SO easy that everybody should be able to get the reputation for heroics really fast.

1115 points per run.

Comment by 39663

Did this on heroic last night.

Group setup was feral tank, holy pala, MS warrior, elemental shaman and shadowpriest (me).

This instance is really easy. We had the MS warrior spamming thunderclap near the riftlord and sweeping-strike/cleave/whirlwind kill the adds. Shammy spammed chain-lightning, which helped a bit too.

I used one beacon near Medivh to get rid of the adds at second boss, and we kept dispelling his attack-speed buff, which made the debuff never stack high enough on the tank to make healing a problem (same as on normal). The other 4 used their beacons on the last portal before last boss while we just sat back and /giggled at how fast the rift lord dropped :D

All in all, it took us 28 minutes to complete this. I had to double-check that it was set to heroic, as we couldn't believe how easy it was.

The only new thing is that the second boss has a spell-reflect ability which is up for ~5 seconds every 30 seconds or so.

Comment by 45682

imo best group setup for normal/heroic is:
Prot war/feral druid tank
Holy pala healer
Shadow priest
Warlock on adds (aff/dest)
Mage/Rogue
Good luck :D

Comment by Hotorihanzo

Ran this for the first time last night.

Prot Warrior Tank
Rogue
Warlock/Fel Guard
Resto Druid Healing
Marks/Survival Hunter (me)

Hunter on Elites with tank while lock and rogue blast away the adds.

Finished with 99% left on the shield

Comment by Matza

I got revered with only 3 BM runs, since the quest gives 8000 rep :) Cant wait for heroic.

Comment by Sorvtyl

It says BM is lvl70 but it will show up in lfg queue tool when lvl68.

Comment by 38601

Heroic:

I have read the previous posts on the heroic version of this instance and feel I can add information.

The instance is mainly the same except for a few things.

1) The bosses have a couple new abilities.
2) The the ads are slightly harder.
3) The beacons must be used smartly.

So far this seems pretty obvious seeing how it is heroic, but i will explain these three points further to help any with the way I found to do this instance.

1(a) The first boss now has the ability to pull all members to him like the first boss of Crypts and the last boss in heroic Blood Furnace. I did not check the combat log but the healer in my group was saying that there is a mana burn. It seemed to coincide with the lightning type attack that he has not the pull to him.
1(b) The second boss as said above has a spell reflect. He did not seem much different from the normal version besides this.
1(c) The last boss did not have anything different that I or any of my party members noticed.

2) The Executioners that come in portals 7-11 and 13-17 have a large amount of life. I heard about 20K. The mage and warlock type ads have nearly the same amount of life but just hit harder.

3) You will benefit from the beacons most if they are used on portals 13-17. These can have executioners coming out frequently and these mobs can easily overwhelm you quickly because of their health.

I am a hunter and ran with 2 groups in 2 days. Both days had warriors equipped to tank bosses in SSC. The healers were a holy priest with 1100 healing and a druid wih 1400 healing. Other than me, there was a mage/warlock combo and a rogue/shadow priest combo,. The first day our lock was taking care of the ads and was able to take care of everything pretty easily except the executioners. The second day I (hunter) did the ads. I was able to take care of them as well with some helping DPS on the last mob from the portal except the executioners.

If you have noticed a pattern it is the executioners. They hit me wearing mail for about 300-400 so they aren't that bad damage wise. We found the best way to deal with these is to have one DPS step off the rift keeper and help the main ad guy with these mobs until they die. As said above, in portals 7-11 and 13-17 the first ad to come out WILL be an Executioner. Portals 7-11 will most likely only give you 1 executioner unless your DPS is too slow because you are still getting 3 whelping ad groups.

The beacons are best used in my experience to be placed on rifts 13-17. These rifts spawn only solo ads, as such there is a higher chance to get executioners and you can get overwhelmed not because you can't kill them, but because you will not be able to get out of combat between rifts because the mobs have too much health. By having the dragons and 1 person DPSing the rift keepers until the dragon is gone will allow about 2 or 3 ads to come out total.

I hope this helps some of you complete this instance without having to have a couple warm up tries before completing it.

Comment by 33534

i really hate this place, i'm here at BM just for the Plate DPS Shoulders off the End boss, i went from friendly stright to Exalted that i hit today and i have not seen them drop at all not once, i have seen every drop other then Leggplates of the bold as well, i even have a Nether! *i have not done any BM heroic yet* and still no shoulders.... i hate this place.

Comment by 66755

Just got back from a 5 hour run in BM. We did 4 tries, first 3 tries where mostly a learning encounter because most of us where new there. We came further each try and the last try we died at the boss because we got overwhelmed by the adds.

Last try we owned them because we used our beacons smartly. Those things sure help a lot. We used from wave 13 to 17 one beacon each wave. Doing that made it very easy.

Comment by Rhut

The Beacons can be banished by any of the bosses now, if that wasn't clearly pointed out earlier.

Comment by 71399

I want to add few tips for warriors prot spec i found quite useful in order to complete this event and few point that might be obvious already for few people as well.
1)When fighting each boss, make sure you sunder 3 times before DPS start(make sure your group know it as well).
2)when fighting the elites ,1st and 2nd boss, pull them slightly to the side,i'll explain why. your Thunderclap ability might kill the healer and yourself pretty quickly. when u use the ability there is a chance you'll aggro the adds coming out from the portal. if you aggro them then the healer will get attacked as soon as you get a heal. so pull them abit to the side then you can use it as much as you want.
3)when fighting 2nd and 3rd boss, as soon as you get enough aggro,start spamming "shield block" and very important use "spell reflection" ability. why? you get alot less
dmg and makes it easier for the healer to heal you.
the "spell reflection" also means that the bosses get dmg + this adds more threat for yourself. I Love this ability.
you can use it on the rift lords as well just before they cast a spell.

Completing this event is all about being in focus. If you or your group dream for a second you'll probably get wiped.
you kill a rift lord you run straight to the next rift and the healer drink to gain his mana back and like a fly to poo, runs after you.

Hope this helps abit.

Comment by 71361

my group had a shaman main healing... we wiped on last boss (everything just went wrong...) we ran back and the shield was at ~65%. wiped again (lol) b/c tank was ready and jumped in before healer was ready (not entirely his fault...). the healer decided NOT to partake in this part and therefore, had no aggro. when we all died, she pulled aggro and went ghost wolf. she managed to kite the boss around and keep him off shield, giving us time to rest. she then brought him to us and we brought him down easily.

bring a shaman/ druid and if you die, have him kite boss around for as long as possible

Comment by 73943

here is some few good tips to make it a bit more easy.

1. first of all get a paladin as healer if possible, coz they are the best healers to keep there mana up for a long time without breaks.

2. get a shadow priest just to make it easyier for your team m8s to reg mana, and the damage is good too.

3. many people say that mages and warlocks is the only who can take care of the add which spawns form the rifts. BUT ITS NOT TRUE, i had a fury warrior with me and that worked perfect. to be honest i dont really know why he could take down the add but he pwned the add so easy.

4. its a good idea to bring a lot of mana-potions, coz the time u get to reg mana is short, and remeber to drink while u can if u are a caster.

5. before u begin the fight then remeber to kill most of the adds close to medive (but dont get close to him, els the event will start and then u will wipe if u are unlucky).

6. after each boss there will be some few mins (about 2-3mins i think) when no mobs and rifts will spawn, use the time to rebuff and drink and be ready for the next rift to spawn.

Comment by 74389

Finally a use for a hunter's Tranquilizing Shot! Works on Aeonus.

Comment by 55827

This instance is not at all like all the other instances.

For one, there's not really ANY adventuring at all. It's more like an arena, so PvP'ers feel right at home!

Another reason would be that it doesn't take as long, if you know what you're doing. You could do it in a half hour, maybe less with a well-established group.

By far, this is one of my favourite instances

Comment by 55952

So it's your first time in BM, and you're on add duty. You're probably thinking "what am I supposed to do, what are the adds like," and other apprehensions along those lines. Well, I'm going to try and make your add duty run as smoothly as possible.

Note: This is based off normal mode. I don't know how different things are in Heroic.

First thing you need to know is that the adds spawn at a decently fast rate, around one every 15 seconds or so, but die very fast. As a frost mage, I was able to kill them and have around 5 seconds to prepare for the next spawn. The adds will not attack, and will just move toward Medivh until you attack them. There also seems to be an order in which the adds spawn. Finally, every 6 waves, or after every boss, the types of adds that spawn change, as well as the order they spawn in.

The Adds
Infinite Assassin: Spawn during waves 1-12. They have around 5500 HP, and hit cloth for around 250. They also use Sinister Strike for added damage, and Kidney Shot for a 3 second stun. Just nuke them down.

Infinite Whelp: Spawn in groups of 3, during waves 1-12. They only have about 2400 HP, and hit cloth for ~70. No special abilities, and can be easily AoE'd down, or taken down one by one.

Infinite Chronomancer: Spawn during all waves. They have around 4400 HP, and are casters. There are two types of them: they can either cast Frostbolt for around 1000 damage and slow, or cast Arcane Bolts extremely quickly (close to 1 cast per second) for 800 each. The Arcane Bolt type is a pain to deal with if you miss interrupting its casts.

Infinite Executioner: Spawn during waves 7-17. Have around 5500 HP, hit cloth for around 250, and use Cleave. Straightforward mob, just nuke it down.

Infinite Vanquisher: Spawn during waves 13-17. Have around 5500 HP, and casts spells. There are also two types of these adds: one can cast Scorch for around 800 damage, and one can cast Shadow Bolt for 1000 damage. Their Scorch casts pretty slowly; slower than the normal mage's Scorch.

The order in which they spawn for each wave (or at least what I observed) is:

Waves 1-6: Assassin, Whelps, Chronomancer
Waves 7-12: Executioner, Chronomancer, Whelps, Assassin (if the rift lord isn't dead by then)
Waves 13-17: Executioner, Vanquisher, Chronomancer
No adds spawn during wave 18.

What To Do During Bosses:
For Chrono-Lord Deja, just continue handling the adds as normal, and just throw a cast at him occasionally.

For Temporus, what I usually do is stop attacking adds for the fight and just all-out dps on him. After he's at around 10% and adds are piling up at Medivh, I run back and drop a beacon on Medivh to clean them up. However, if you have an off-tank, this may not be necessary.

No adds spawn during Aeonus, so no need to worry here.

Comment by Repression

Instance was extremely easy. We did it for a guild run for me to get Kara keyed, but we weren't on vent.

First of all, class makeup:

Warrior (Tank)
Warrior (DPS)
Holy Paladin (Healing)
Rogue (DPS)
Warlock (DPS, adds) <=== That's me.

Was my first time doing BM, and my first time ever doing anything similar to the adds.

The first five or six vortexes that opened, I was a little slow because I was nervous; I'm new to the guild and didn't want to look like a noob, so I tried to look all smart or whatever. After that, I got comfortable with the healer and the last 10-12 vortexes or so had easy add control.

Put my four DoT's up on the big mobs (UA, Siphon Life, Corruption, CoA), then drain tank. When the three little dragons come out, SoC two of them and drain tank the third while waiting for them to explode.

Bosses were cake. We actually had a few pretty long breaks.

You generally have time for a quick drink/food in between vortexes, so take advantage of it. Even if it's only for a few seconds, 500 mana is better than 0.

We finished the instance with the shield having 93% left. Easiest instance I've done in awhile. Nothing good dropped, however.

Comment by 80211

When you do this, having a lock on adds helps extremely. Just have them repeatedly seed the rift keeper so that when the adds come out of the rift, it blows them up and if you continue seeding the rift keeper, the adds will be dead in no time. When OOM, just life tap or dark pact or something and have the healer heal you.

Comment by 46556

When I ran this for the first time, our group make up was

Warrior (Prot, I believe)
Priest (Holy)
Priest (Shadow)
Warlock (Demonology) *me*
Warlock (Affliction)

Let me tell you, me being the noob to it.... my group made it look easy. The Aff Lock single handedly took care of all the adds. That left 4 to work on each elite. With the Holy & Shadow Priest doing there thing, not once did any of use have to worry about health or mana. Nor did we ever have to use a beacon.

So, I do consider myself pretty lucky to have been able to run this with two priests, as they seem scarce on Trollbane.

Comment by 89659

</ranton>
This instance is one of the most annoying encounters in the game in my experiance. So, I decided to go to dictionary.com and look up the meaning for "Morass". I found one of the definitions to be very ironic to my experiances.

"Something that hinders, engulfs, or overwhelms"

The overwhelming part is exactly how I felt for a while...until one group finally pulled of and completed the dang thing...
</rantoff>

Anyways, here are some small tips that make some parts of the encounter loads easier.

*The Rift Keepers that do Shadowbolt Volley are possibly harder to deal with than the second boss. The volley does up to 2k damage to everyone in the group, unless you have some Shadow Resist gear on. If the healers stay in range, they will get hit too. So stay a good number of yards away from the group, probably closer to the person dealing with adds, and run in and heal the tank (or anyone else who is below 50%). My succesful group used this tactic and owned all the volley adds. I was an affliction lock, and just used Siphon life/Drain life most of those encounters, so the healer didn't bother healing me, saving tons of mana.
*Make SURE the tank is the first person to reach the island. The elite will auto engage anyone else who reaches the island before the tank.
*Remember for the Pyroblast Rift Keepers, if you are meele DPS or have a meele pet out, to move them out of range as soon as they start casting Pyroblast.
*Use your beacons on waves 13-17. It doesn't really matter if you use the beacon on the adds or elite. Our group used the beacon on the elites, and burned them down in less than 30 seconds usually, giving us plenty of killing off extra adds and eating/drinking time.
*Never, ever ever ever ever use a beacon on a boss. They automatically dispell it, and you are just hurting your group by using it on one, or saving yours for Aeonus.

Some class tips:
*Mages, you WILL be asked to be on add duty. Don't reject a group because they ask you to do adds. You are the best at it. I'd probably say frost spec is the best for adds, though my group had an arcane/fire mage (Southpark :-D), with a 10k mana pool, so he did fine.
*Feral druids are THE best tanks. They can hold aggro well, and have a huge DPS output, burning down elites faster. If your choice is a slightly undergeared feral druid or a normal geared prot war, get the druid.
*Shamans, for the volley Rift Keepers, put down a tremor totem by any meele DPS if there happens to be some.

And before you start, remember to clear LOTS of trash. If you have a warlock, kill as much as possible so he/she can get more soul shards from drain soul.

Keep some of these tips in mind, they helped me loads.

Comment by 83517

On heroic mode, this instance is still quite hard, but it is by no means as awfully difficult as it used to be before the 2.2 patch, if you have a decent enough group then you shouldn't have any problems with this instance, a good mage can cope quite well with the infinite executioners on his own.

Temporus still demands a lot of respect from any group doing the heroic mode black morass, don't let the debuffs stack too high, and remember that he cant be taunted.

Comment by 20768

The pyroblast used by the rift keepers is a random target, but as a prot tank you can spell reflect it if they target you.

Comment by 70240

Did this with Prot. Warrior (Me), dps warrior, Hunter, Paly (healer), and Feral Druid. We had no problem whatsoever. We used 2 beacons at the last two portals before the boss and it was a breeze. The dps warrior was on adds and he had no trouble. He just spammed cleave and whirlwind.

I have tried this instance with mages on adds and it has always ended in a wipe due to the mage gettin hit one too many times.

*Note Spell reflect is god when it comes to the caster elites that come out of the portals.

Comment by rodmin

From the times i've been on this instance, i've found out there are 4 kinds of elites that guard the rifts, besides the bosses. I don't know if their appearance is random or not, but can tell what they do based on their apperance and the weapon they're carring:

Rift Lord 1: The easiest elite of the 4 elites, by my opinion. It looks like a meele dragon carrying a polearm. Does a small stun and a Mortal Strike on its current target, be it tank or misfortunate DPS.

Rift Lord 2: This elite mob is a nightmare for a team with a lot of meele DPS. The reason why is because it does a thunderclap that damages players that are around 20 yards or close to him (estimated damage is 3.5k damage in heroic mode, someone check if this damage is likewise in normal mode). Also does a sunder armor on the current target he is attacking. Looks like a meele dragon, but carrying an axe that looks the same as the arcanite reaper ( https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/item=12784 )

Rift Keeper 1: This one is also easy, but harder than the Rift Lord 1. It resembles a caster dragon carrying a Bringer of Death ( https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/item=31308 ). Does either a fear on a meele attacker or a shadow damage AOE that hits all players, even in different ranges ( please smebody confirm is there is any maximum range on this ability please )

Rift Keeper 2: This one is, in my opinion, the worst of all the 4 elites. It's a caster dragon carrying a staff with a red stone on the staff's head. It fires a frostbolt that reduces the target's speed, a firebolt that also aplies a short dot on the player, a blast wave of fire damage that affects all meele DPS ( and nearby casters) and a polymorph that affects any meele DPS besides the tank (someone confirm if he sheeps the tank if no DPS is close to the mob, please). The polymorph can be used to heal a current DPS that was injured after a blast wave or another spell.

Comment by 55393

can a felhunter's devour magic dispell the hasten buff on Temporus.

Comment by Mesoforte

A lot of people reccomend a mage for dpsing the trash mobs, but the first group I completed this with tossed a balance druid (me) on defense. It worked out well. Having the druid on defense means that the healer doesn't need to concentrate on them, and they can cc dragonkin with entangle (for melees) and hibernate (for casters). Medivh only lost 3% of the shield. We also had a shaman with high dps that brought down the rift lord quickly (Helped a lot). We didn't even use our beacons

Miollnir
<Grungir>
Bladefist

Comment by amautor

In my experience, paladin tanks are much more effective than warriors or druids, because they can hold all the adds as well as the elites. Consecration and Holy Shield will kill most of the melee adds before the elite is dead. Also, the melee adds do less than 300 damage to plate, so, with a reasonable block value, they do almost no additional damage.

Having your tank take care of the adds allows everyone else to focus on the boss or elite, which makes for a faster and easier run.

Comment by 117097

We have a permanent group we run this instance with daily on heroic and once on non heroic. We have me(destro lock) on adds, warrior tank, priest healing, BM hunter dps, and ele shaman dps. We clear heroic in 26 minutes, and non heroic in 20 minutes. It's an easy heroic for 3 badges.

Comment by 114913

The time has come to shatter this clockwork universe forever!

Comment by 109166

Did this instance a few weeks back, and I have to say it was the most fun I've had in an instance Since clearing SM fully for the first time.

A couple of key notes about this place:

- Communication, communication, communication. Make sure everyone knows where the latest portal is at, whether using your minimap to mark it, via partychat (not recommended, as it takes focus away momentarily from what is going on), or through voicechat (highly recommended)

- If a party member dies, DO NOT STOP FIGHTING. if the person is quick, they can return into the instance and heal up before the crap truly hits the fan.

- Remember to have all of your group members grab their beacons before starting the event. while it is possible to do this instance without them, the beacons will give you a little bit of breathing room.

- If you do wind up wiping, and medivh is taken down, do not reset the instance. heal up and rebuff, wait for medivh to reset, and start the event over again. resetting the instance completely will result in all of the trash respawing as well.

another trick that our party found usefull is to have the tank (who should be fully healed by the healer after the elite goes down) and another person with a decent amount of mana left run to the next portal, while the casters drink for a moment to recover some of their mana. the portals seemed to be based on a timer, not triggered by a fallen portal. this strategy may not work for some groups, and requires good timing. (again, vent helped us out a LOT in this regard.)

This instance is kind of non-linear, in that the mobs can spawn from anywhere around you, rather than walking down a hall or up stairs. keep that in mind when you have someone out there scouting for the next portal.

most importantly, have fun. this instance is a blast, and staving off slavering hordes of baddies while An integral part of WoW lore unfolds is pretty damn cool too.

Comment by 127501

The best add handlers in BM are hunters, either marks or bm. When the rift opens make sure the hunter drops a frost trap in front of the portal, I usually drop it right on the rift keeper itself when he spawn's so that the frost trap activates before the adds emerge. The frost trap will not only slow the adds and allow more dps to be done to them before they get too close, it also establishes instant aggro on you from the adds, that way they dont make a B-line for the healer.

For heroics:

The same applies as above, always have a hunter, always lay frost traps. The time they buy you is even more valuable in heroic.

Having a pally tank grab the adds while the dps burns them down saves time and effort and contains the healing needed to one player, namely the tank.

If a pally tank is unavailable or is not geared enough to tank the adds and the rift keepers at once then it is advisable to have 2 dps'ers do the adds and switch to the riftkeepers in between adds.

Also, Aeonus goes into Frenzy on heroic and non heroic. it increases his speed and dmg output substantialy. Hunters need to pop him with tranq shot whenever he goes into a frenzy. the healers will love you. Time to move tranq shot back onto the bar... yay!

good hunting

Comment by 108760

Why does nobody run this instance? when ever i ask in LFG or /2 all i get is "Lol, your'e actually trying to form a group for dark portal?"

Comment by 129969

I just thought I'd add my experience of handling the adds in here. I'm a BM hunter and have had add duty so many times now that it just defaults to me whenever I go in. Only once have I had a mob get to the shield and that was when the tank and healer disco'd causing the rest to wipe... not exactly something I could stop happening! Should note that all this has been on normal so far, no doubt I'll have to modify it for heroic. The rest of the group setup has varied wildly, even having 2 tanks on one run (both on the mains) and some truly dire DPS on a couple without me having a problem.

I tend to have a set approach to each kind of add and it normally works pretty well. I also tend to be in Aspect of the Viper for just about the entire run, never had a mana problem doing so.

Assassins: I tend to hit these with intimidate then just DPS them down. If I pull the agg they're dead before they get to me.

Whelps: Explosive trap, pet in at one, multishot, arcane shot on same targ if needed then melee until pet pulls agg, back off, shoot. These are my least favourite add but generally the multishot and trap near as kill them so they're not too bad. I do find that on the western most portal they can fly far enough apart that multishot sometimes doesn't get them all.

Chronomancer: Meh, send in pet, DPS, they stay at range so if I have the agg I can still shoot.

Executioner: Another that I tend to intimidate. The down side is that on waves 7-12 intim won't have CD'd by the time the assassin spawns (if he gets to).

Vanquisher: As Chrono, pet in, DPS.

Normally I find that my guild groups will let 2-3 adds out per portal, PuG's tend to be more like 4-5 but I've had as many as 7 and not had an issue. Rarely need healing so the healer can concentrate on the tank without worrying about me. It's worth noting that as a Hunter on add duty you can stay well back towards Medivh. This lets you move less between portals and therefore can give you time to eat/drink between portals if you need to.
I find it's helpful if you can get the tank to pull each main slightly to one side of the portal. Doing so means a clear line of sight for you on the spawn point for adds, I often find I get an attack cursor slightly before they appear (we're talking fractionally before) and I can get the pet sent off. The main being to one side also means that the pet's less likely to get caught by those who AoE and therefore avoid stray damage and not go all psycho on the main.
I've never needed to DPS on the bosses or the mains (on 2nd boss I take the adds still) except for the odd MD onto the tank at the start of a fight before the adds spawn. Found this especially helpful if you have main DPS without a threat meter!

Occasionally someone will pull an add or something will get in my way getting LoS on an add (usually the main mob!) and I'll have one spawn before the previous one is dealt with. If the current spawn's whelps I'll leave them meleeing me and kick off on the next mob, allow the trap to do its damage and then go back to the whelps if they're still alive (they hit for nothing so can be ignored in melee). If it's something other than whelps I'll try to get agg from both onto the pet, knock out a heal and kill one then the other. I've used both a cat and a wind serpent to do the job and both work well. I think I prefer the WS as it can pull nicely with lighting breath (I use it in my macro or trigger manually). Shadow resist def helps the pet on the mains that shadow volley and avoidance helps avoid the AoE's if they catch the pet. I've sometimes had the DPS stop to help with the final add especially if it's spawned just as the main's died but it's really not neccesary.

Sorry if this has gone on a bit, hope it's useful to someone.

*edit*: Possibly worth noting that I use the Mark of Conquest when running this as it helps with the old mana regen.

Comment by 120322

This is where you need to complete the last chain of the Karazhan pre quest.

Comment by TheMuffinMan

Black Morass is also a great place to farm up Netherweb Spider Silk (https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/item=21881) for a 70. Run in, find and kill some spiders, and head out.

It's especially convenient as you don't have to worry about robbing anyone doing a quest (or likewise BEING robbed by someone doing the quest). Simply run out when you kill all the spiders, reset the instance, and had back inside.

And since it's Instanced, no big threat of respawns as long as you're able to clear out a safe spot.

Comment by 60495

Easily the hardest heroic.

I would heartily suggest against pugging this on heroic, since you need a solid tank, a lasting and potent healer, and some fairly experienced DPS before you can do it.

Comment by ComputerX

As of 5th March 2007 a level 63 cannot start a summon from the CoT summoning stone, but CAN assist in summoning.

I found this useful with my alt engineer, getting the group there faster.

Comment by 124209

With the recent nurfs to heroic BM's difficulty and the changes to heroic Mech's badge system, I find that Black Morass replaces Heroic Mech as the new "badge farm" instance.

Essentially, 30-45 minutes for 3 badges.

And with 2.4 adding a portal in Shatt to the Caverns of Time, even the long teleport/flight/boat/flight/run/flight process of getting there is all but removed.

Comment by 131420

Anyone! I can't find a freakin' sentence to tell me if it's hard relatively to other heroics.

Comment by 101817

Yes you still need to complete Durnholde and the associated quests in order to enter BM.

Comment by Sandos

One may ask why the alliance would help in opening the Dark Portal - a keeper explains that if it wouldn't take place the alliance wouldn't have been formed and the races would get into a huge civil war.

Comment by 154717

Do you have to be level 70 to enter Black Morass?

Comment by FinnrSlayer

IF your group cant finish this in 30-40mins you'll probly fail cause of dps..

Comment by 133513

i did my first BM today hoping for a couple pieces of armor...i thought it would b a really slow and boring instance but it wasn't and i was like whoa...but the main thing i'm typing for is that u don't always need strategy...u just need some common sense...clear the trash and just go for it...we did it twice and the first time, we were careful and planned everything perfectly...it wasn't needed...when we accidentally started early...we did better somehow because we weren't expecting it to b an easy-going instance...the only thing we had any trouble with was temporus on our first try...easy dungeon and well worth it for rogues...half a dozen pretty decent drops for us and then some greens that were pretty alright too...after your first BM u will have rep to do heroics...even more worth it for rogues at least...

Comment by 8512

The easiest group setup on this is:

Prot paladin
Lock
Low-threat healer (pref. priest)
2 other DPS

I regularly farm this with friends for shards/rep, we can 3-man it on regular. The warlock just does Seed of Corruption on the boss a few times while the pally is consecrating, and that takes care of the adds, and then since the pally is really well geared, I can usually heal the tank with Renew and then DPS on the boss. Save your beacons for the portals before the last boss, and drop them right on top of the portals - the non-boss elites will get owned by the beacon dragon.

Comment by 177609

Can anyone help a pve unfriendly rogue out? Was put in charge of adds and was decently clearing them but the dps was just right below 400. Setup as a combat swords 20/41

Comment by Cymorth

Not seen this mentioned but on Heroic if you wipe after killing 1st boss.

It will reset and you can kill 1st boss again but NO loot or Badges will drop.

Comment by 169810

I loved this instance at normal mode it was kinda possible (still tough tho) and i was feeling like fighting at the lord of the rings :xD (especially at second boss) Still the instance in heroic mode is impossible...

Comment by 61872

Enhancement Shamans are pretty good to take the adds. They can easily solo them all, just throw down a magma totem when the Whelps appear, that way you can aggro them all and take them down pretty easy. Water shield + Shamanistic Rage is more than enough to replenish your mana.

Comment by Djuntas

For info:

You need full clear off oldhillsbrad + quests and BM runs for reverd.

Comment by 218014

Something that should be noted is that the adds that spawn from the rifts do not aggro until they are attacked, so there should be no worry of healers pulling add aggro.

Comment by 233300

Went in at level 80 today. Still was getting pretty decent rep on non-heroic. 10 per rift lord, 120 per boss.

Comment by spartan2600

has anyone soloed this yet?

Comment by SeanDamnit

Solo'd easily as a level 80 prot pally in heroic/Naxx10 gear in normal mode. I went back here to get the Kara key, since I didn't get to 70 on this character before WotLK came out.

Originally I thought I wouldn't have enough DPS, but that wasn't a concern at all. The only problem I ran in to was getting mana against caster mobs, but I still got through it all with 100% shield.

Never even needed to pop a cooldown, other than spamming Divine Plea, of course

Comment by 229345

Major pain in the ass to solo as a prot war. Died at 17/18 portals from not having enough time to eat between portals, ran back and medivh's gone. Shield was at around 98% when I died so I don't see how it's possible to run back.

Comment by mattdel

Just tryed to solo this as an 80 BM hunter, pre 3.08 nerf.
got to the 2nd boss, failed hard. 2k+ dps is just not enough when you gotta switch back to adds, back to boss, etc... plus mend pet(which blizz needs to buff bigtime, 5k hp over 15 seconds on a pet that has 11k hp is nothing)

Should be noted that the more you clear, the faster they come. By the time the 2nd boss came, the add's were coming out of the portal about 1 every 4 seconds.

Comment by escme

Easy to solo as a fury warrior, bloodthirst (with the glyph) kept me at near full HP the entire time. The last boss hits fairly hard so keep demo shout up and shield wall + enraged regen if things don't look good.

Comment by shadowspa

tried to solo this place..went quite well

untill temporus
his healing debuff completely destroyed me along with his enrage

Comment by 115427

Adding to adashiel's great description of the zone's lore (above): The name is probably taken from the H.P. Lovecraft story "The Call of Cthulhu," in which a group of investigators discover a mysterious cult in the midst of a ceremony:

Only poetry or madness could do justice to the noises heard by Legrasse's men as they ploughed on through the black morass toward the red glare and the muffled tom-toms.

The word "morass" literally just means swamp or marsh, so it's possible that Blizzard came up with the term independently. But given the word's uncommon usage and the notoriety of the Lovecraft story (and Blizzard's propensity for cultural references), it seems more likely that this is an intentional reference.

Comment by beemerider

And in case you are level 80 and geared but still lacking in kot rep - this place is easily soloable. I'm an SV hunter in the best pre 3.1 gear and with a few heal pots it's pretty easy to roll through here on your own. Gorilladin tanking and I've probablly got around 3.5k dps usually.

Comment by 359620

Cake to solo as an 80 feral druid with Naxx 10 gear. Just pull the portal guardians a few yards toward Medivh and swipe any of the incoming adds. Never in danger. No frenzied regen or anything. Have fun.

Comment by 128168

Normal is soloable by retri paladin with naxx10/heroics gear. Trash is really easy never went below 80%. Temporus hits hard, bubbled to stay alive. Aeous was really the same, though he hits slower and just more hard, bubbled aswell to heal up. All in all it's quite easy, mobs give 55 rep and bosses 132 (human). Got about 1220 rep, which means for non-humans around 1100. Medivh's shield wasn't even touched. Good luck

Comment by 429426

I solo'd this with tanking gear fit for naxx 10 man on my lvl 80 (obviously) human warrior. I had my offspec enabled which was tuned for pvp so I could enjoy all the benefits of high def and sta, shield block, shield reflection (handy against those rift keepers' magic attacks) combiened with Arms tree's Relentless Assault so I could stick to defensive stance and spam crits with Revenge (of which I'd spent enough points in prot to allow 50% chance to stun too).

As long as your health is full or close to full and your shield wall and enraged regeneration is warmed up for use by the time you fight Aeonus you should be ok. To ensure this, its best not to worry about the adds on the last rift and just focus on the rift keeper. You could use your becon on them if you wish but the small damage they'll do to Medivh's shield is minimal (assume you dispatch the rift keepers fast enough, which shouldn't be a problem). If you try to aggro them as you fight the rift keeper then chances are they'll chip away at your health enough to put you in a bad condition for the boss. To stress this its worth noting that you can't eat after you've killed the last rift keeper and adds because as soon as Aeonus attacks Medivh you are in combat with him. You really want to use Enraged Regeneration during your fight with Aeonus too, not before.

Also worth mentioning that if you decide not to worry about the adds from the last rift they won't bother you when fighting Aeonus. So long as you don't unnecessarily thunder clap or anything stupid like that ;-)

Comment by 427463

Mobs in this dungeon no longer provide 1-3 Knothide Leather when skinned: The amount appears to have been reduced to a maximum of 1 knothide at a time.

Comment by olania

Managed to solo it on normal as an elemental shaman - 2 pieces of T8.5, 1 piece of T9, the rest a mix of Naxx25 and Ulduar 25 drops. Aeonus was a bit hairy, and I had to blow Heroism. Otherwise it was a cakewalk. If I had taken the thing from the guy at the beginning I probably wouldn't have even needed the one cooldown I used.

Comment by 342407

Hi

Easy as pie to solo as a lv 80 rogue.

1st keeper, blow Killing Spree
2nd keeper, blow Adrenalin Rush
3rd keeper, blow Killing Spree
4th keeper, blow Evasion.

shouldn't need to bandage or pot before this point, but do so now till you have full health.

5th keeper, blow nothing.
Mini Boss, blow evasion, adrenalin rush and killing spree.

You now have time to eat back to full health.

Rinse and repeat upto 17th stage.

As soon as stage 17 begins, quickly change spec to subtlety so that you can now have 2 x evasion, and bandage/eat/pot to full health. (you WILL have time to do all this as combat is NOT entered until any spawns begin attacking the shield)

Kill 17th keeper WITHOUT using any CD's so that you have everything available for final boss.

At final boss, blow evasion and anything else you might have, 20 seconds (or 15 unglyphed) later, blow preparation/evasion to give you even more time.

Personal record was shield left at 97%.

Good luck (but you won't need it)

Tatyana
Anachronos

Comment by 487009

I've just done it today.. it was quite simple : just pull elite drakonkin to the water so they can't call aids , kill him and run to another one. as a retropaladin seal of wisdom helps a lot because i used to be in combat all the time and i dunno why :)

Comment by 321609

Alchemists looking to get Elixir Mastery will have to go into Black Morass and do this quest.

The Essences of Infinity will only drop from the Keepers and such, not any of the bosses.

This should be fairly easy enough to solo at 80. Good luck!

Comment by 365814

i tried to get in to BM today as 80 dk, not sure if there is a prereq quest to get in , but i cannot seem to enter this instance. i keep getting a screen-note that says "you do not have the requirements to enter" .. what do i have to do? does anyone know?

Comment by 204793

Soloable... 80 Feral Druid

Comment by Leaflow

Soloable with an Ele shaman, be sure to use magma totem after rounding up a dozen or so mobs on your mount.
Also, the mobs now seem to respawn as well, so by the time you've sweeped across the zone, the mobs from your starting point should have returned. No longer seems necessary to run out and reset every time.

Comment by Dragoonman

Wonder if it is soloable as a mage...

Comment by 438227

Normal mode as a Shadowpriest (232-245 gear lv):
Rift keepers: just nuke.
First boss: nuke.
Second boss: nuke, but try to keep PW:Shield (-50% healing debuff).
Third boss: start with PW:Shield, nuke just like everything else, Disperse at Time Stop.
Never got below 50% in the entire instance.

Also it took 2 full runs to get the Elixir Mastery quest done.

Comment by 491037

Easily soloable on Normal at Level 80. (shadowpriest 5.6k GS)
I timed it, it's about 18 minutes per run, and netted me 1100 rep.

It would be hard to shave much more time off it than that because you have to wait for the 2 minute cooldowns after waves 6 and 12

Old Hillsbrad gives you about 900 rep on normal in 25 minutes, if you don't stray off course to pick up random mobs, again timing is pretty fixed due to the roleplay elements.

TLDR: KoT solo rep grind is 1 and a half times quicker in Black Morass Normal than Old Hills Normal

Comment by Arxaion

If you're like me, you're probably wondering... Why did we help Medivh open the Dark Portal?

Through this dungeon, the Infinite Dragonflight is attempting to stop Medivh (possessed by Sargeras) from opening the Dark Portal. This sounds good - until you think of all the damage that would come in the future. Think of all the times the Horde served as a second line in combat against a greater evil, or the input some of the more respectable Warchiefs were able to give. At the time there may have not been very many examples of where the Horde came in handy, but it has definitely grown since then.

Links

The Black Morass

Caverns of TimeOld Hillsbrad FoothillsThe Black MorassChrono Lord DejaTemporusAeonusHyjal SummitTanarisCaverns of TimeBrood of NozdormuThe Black MorassMedivh

The Black Morass

Music

Intro Music

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