COT - Black Morass Strategy

[voctovian]

There is some good information on Black Morass on www.wowwiki.com as well as other sites.  I thought I would pass along some other info.  Basicly, there are 18 waves of mobs composed of a boss/miniboss and some easier mobs that come out of the temporal rift.  The goal is to kill the miniboss/boss, cleanup any remaining mobs and proceed to the next rift.  You will want to familiarize yourself with the encounter before attempting.. it is a demanding instance.  Pay close attention to the three boss encounters.

Normally, the group is divided into 4 roles - tank, DPSx2, healer and adds.  A couple of important points:

• The tank should try to keep the boss next to the rift.  Ideally, if there is a rogue or feral (cat) druid, the boss should be kept facing away from Medivh to keep the melee DPS in healing and cleansing range.  If all DPS is ranged, or if melee DPS does not need to be behind their target (i.e pally or warrior), it does not matter
• The healer should be at max range to heal the tank, to keep them out of any AOE
• The person on adds should try to stay about halfway between Medivh and the healer, this will allow them to be healed/cleansed as the adds hit quite hard
• Ranged DPS should try to be at max range, the minibosses have several possible AOE attacks (see below), if everyone is caught in the AOE, the healing load can overwhelm the healer. 
• The healer should allow a polymorphed character to heal fully before cleansing.. free heals are good
• All DPS, especially melee DPS, must help cleanup adds before proceeding to the next rift.  This will allow people to drink to mana up
• Drink and eat whenever possible.  There is a short break after the bosses (waves 6 and 12) to get healthstones and to rebuff
• Do not engage the final boss prematurely, it is a very healing intensive fight.  Wait until the healer has full mana, with no adds, you can wait until the shield is down to 5% before you engage.  Healer OOM = wipe on that fight

There are three types of minibosses:  warrior/mage/warlock

• Warrior-type minibosses hit moderately hard, use thunderclap and mortal strike, and have more health than the other types.  These should not be much of a challenge provided they are tanked away from the healer and ranged DPS.
• Mage-type minibosses will send out frostbolts, cast polymorph and do a powerful fire based AOE.  With all ranged DPS, these are very easy.  With some melee DPS, they are more difficult than warriors, but not too hard.  They do not have as much health as warrior type minibosses
• Warlock-type minibosses will send out shadowbolts and cast fear.  These are quite nasty.  The shadowbolts hit very hard and hit all members of the party.  If you get several of these minibosses in succession, it is very easy for the healer to go out of mana.  Use healthstones for these waves if you still have one.  They seem to have higher health than mage-type minibosses, so take a little longer to kill

Advanced strategy
This assumes that the group is prepared to clear the first 12 waves without having to use a [wowitem]chrono-beacon[/wowitem].  Basicly, on waves 13-17, the tank charges at the miniboss and each party member takes turns dropping their [wowitem]chrono-beacon[/wowitem] on top of the rift.  All DPS, including the person previously on adds, focus on the mini-boss.  Once down, DPS cleanup any adds that may have got through and proceed to the next rift.  On the 17th wave, cleanup adds, but do not aggro the final boss until everyone is at full health and mana.  The last 5 waves before the final boss can take less than 5 minutes by following this strategy

Final notes:

• It is possible to die, run back and still finish
• If you wipe, you do not need to reset the instance, medivh will respawn after 5 minutes or so.  Remember to pickup a new [wowitem]chrono-beacon[/wowitem]
• If you leave the instance, you will lose your [wowitem]chrono-beacon[/wowitem], talk to the person at the entrance and pickup another
• If you are a melee DPS, loot any minibosses.. they can drop BOE rares or epics
• Set a loot policy before you start.. there is not much spare time to loot if all pass
• If there is low total DPS, and you take too long to down minibosses, more than one rift will open.  The encounter gets more difficult with later waves.  If you take more than about 13 minutes to get to the end of wave 6, this will probably happen.  If so, is will likely be a wipe.  I have taken down just the final boss with three rifts open and one person dead, but this is not a recommended strategy
• With a solid group, the encounter takes about 25-30 minutes from the opening of the first rift (excluding time to buff and clear the area)
• The beasts in the instance drop lots of leather and [wowitem]netherweb spider silk[/wowitem].  It is a good place to farm for these mats if you are a leatherworker or tailor.

[Thunda]

The Beakers work well against bosses too, instead of the mage/hunter/warlock killing the adds they don't kill any and  focus DPS on the boss.  When a certain amount of trash start bashing on Medivh, drop the beacon and keep focus on the boss.