WoW Insider's Guide to Magmaw
by Michael Gray 
Jan 4th 2011 at 8:00PM
Magmaw is the first boss in Blackwing Descent. He's a big magma worm with a big mouth; Magmaw is more than just a clever name!
You can do Magma with a single tank, if that tank can muscle through getting eaten. If not, you'll need a second tank to help relieve pressure during the "oh my god, I've been eaten" phase. However, you do need at least one melee player near Magmaw at all times; otherwise, he'll go berserk and wipe your raid.
You can do Magma with a single tank, if that tank can muscle through getting eaten. If not, you'll need a second tank to help relieve pressure during the "oh my god, I've been eaten" phase. However, you do need at least one melee player near Magmaw at all times; otherwise, he'll go berserk and wipe your raid.
General strategy
Phase 1 The first phase is mostly about not standing in the Pillar of Flame ability, while also making sure to kill the parasites that spawn without getting letting them hit you. If you get hit by the parasites, they explode and spawn still more parasites.
- Magmaw casts Pillar of Flame, marking a location with 4 seconds' warning to get out of the area. Those remaining nearby get a massive damage knockback.
- Pillar of Flame spawns Lava Parasites. These adds apply a debuff that will explode after 10 seconds and spawn more Lava Parasites. Slow and kite the parasites, and kill them immediately from range. You will have about 30 seconds to kill the parasites before more are spawned.
- Magmaw will Mangle your tank, causing massive damage, every few seconds. After 30 seconds, Magmaw will eat your tank, preventing him from taking any action. The tank will need to use cooldowns to power through being eaten, and you should have a second tank ready to go.
- Magmaw will also periodically cast Ignition, which sets half the room on fire. When you see steam, move to the other side.
Phase 2
- Magmaw will slump forward. When this happens, one to three melee DPSers should use the spikes to jump on his head. This will give them a new ability called Constricting Chains. Spam this ability often to impale Magmaw's head on a spike.
- When Magmaw's head is on a spike, it will take double damage and be unable to do anything during the phase. This is the perfect time for Heroism / Bloodlust / Time Warp.
Abilities
- Berserk increases the caster's attack and movement speed by 150% and all damage it deals by 500% until cancelled. It also grants immunity to taunt effects.
- Lava Spew deals 23,125 to 26,875 fire damage.
- Magma Spit inflicts 30,625 to 39,375 fire damage to the enemy target .
Other resources
- Tankspot's guide to Magmaw
- Wowhead loot list and information
Ready Check shares all the strategies and inside information you need to take your raiding to the next level. You might also be interested in our strategy guides to Cataclysm's 5-man instances, and for more healer-centric raiding advice, visit Raid Rx.Filed under: Ready Check (Raiding)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Luckton Jan 4th 2011 8:44PM
How to cheese the worms:
- Bring a DK speced in Frost.
- Put said DK in Blood Presence
- Have DK Howling Blast/D&D worms when they spawn.
- DK kites worms across room using HB while ranged DPS has free reign to DPS worms without fear of drawing aggro.
Ghengie Jan 5th 2011 6:57AM
In my experience, having the dk in frost presence while normally dpsing them with 2-3 ranged dps going all out on AoE is fine . The dk never has time to actually start kiting.
Our arms warrior that feels like boosting his dps also heroic leaps in and starts cleaving when the adds are
Torgun Jan 5th 2011 10:57AM
You can also get a rogue to ToT to one of the ranged and then spam FoK on them to slow them down and do big AoE damage.
Tim {the other Tim} Jan 5th 2011 11:18AM
Wonderful! I will do this next raid. Does this mess with the jumping on Magmaw?
Also, I assume hungering cold is super helpful here.
Luckton Jan 5th 2011 11:42AM
If Hungering Cold ever became effective in this game, I'll eat my boot. Why use it here? You want to kill the worms, not use ineffective skills on them.
Pwekl Jan 6th 2011 8:27AM
Another effective cheese if for a demonology warlock with decent pet skills to toss his Felguard into the parasites as they spawn and use Felstorm. It won't always be up, but it absolutely destroys the adds. Also, Felguards are immune to the infest, and thus Parasite Evening would be cake if you brought 2 Demo Warlocks. Granted, the DK cheese is probably easier. But my group doesn't have a DK, and they do have a Warlock, so that's our strategy.
Jeff (Not that one ^ ) Jan 5th 2011 12:21AM
Should also mention that this is a perfect time for healers to regen mana, not just by standing around and not casting heals, but by actively regenning by using Telluric Currents for Shamans or just smacking the stupid thing for Holy Paladins.
Jeff (Not that one ^ ) Jan 5th 2011 12:52AM
Yeah, "this" was supposed to be Phase 2.
Rajinnu Jan 5th 2011 5:32AM
Nice guide. TY
apocalypse_dawn Jan 5th 2011 8:33AM
We tried this dude for the first time last night, we were having issues with parasites coming up just before or even during the impale. Seems like a bug but anyone know of a way around it?
matthewggrammer Jan 5th 2011 8:43AM
That means someone's been bitten by a Parasite.
If a Parasite gets in melee range of their current target, they will jump on them, bitting them, doing damage, and then reappearing later (10 seconds?), puked out by that player.
Sols Jan 5th 2011 9:43AM
Just a little clarification on the spiking - the two raid members who make the jump onto magmaw in Phase 2 need to activate the single new ability as soon as it becomes available and then target the black spike in the middle of the room. You will get an "aoe" type targeting circle after activating the new ability and you both must target the spike around the same time. If one person lags too far behind, magmaw will break free of the single chain and cause a decent amount of raid damage while the two people still on his back make another attempt to get both chains down.
And for the love of all that is holy, a smoldering floor beneath your feet is NEVER a good thing to ignore. Get to the other side of the room.
Have fun, and good luck!
Squelchy Jan 5th 2011 10:26AM
Sigh... I wrote a comment about that mechanic twice and it got eaten. Thanks for pointing that out, Sols; I noticed it during our kill, but haven't seen it in any of the guides on the "big sites."
As for guides from little sites, you can find a rogue-centric perspective (including that bit) here: http://blamesquelchy.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/the-stealthers-guide-to-magmaw/
Sols Jan 5th 2011 11:24AM
Great minds, Squelchy...and I just wanted to give you kudos on your strategy post. I followed the link and thought you did a very good job of explaining the mechanics. Keep it up and good luck!
jrblackyear Jan 5th 2011 10:39AM
I'd like to point out that Magmaw's "berserk" is actually called Molten Tantrum, caused when no one is within melee range to attack. This only increases his fire damage output by 100%, and stacks up to 10 times. He'll then use Magma Spit to pretty much one-shot anyone in the raid. Also, he's not immune to taunt in this phase, it's just that taunt is useless because Magma Spit targets a random raid member.
In my experience, he doesn't use Magma Spit unless he's already in a Molten Tantrum, so really the only abilities you should have to watch for are Lava Spew, Pillar of Flame, Mangle and Ignition.
Another quick tip: Magmaw will only cast Pillar of Flame on raid members who are at least 15 yards away, which means if you designate a single player (like a hunter) to stand at range while everyone else stands in melee, you'll know where the Pillar will come up. The hunter can then Ice Trap and--if you wanna look cooler--Disengage right into the melee raiders to help AoE the parasites down! Careful you don't lauch yourself into the lava pit though hehehe...
Torgun Jan 5th 2011 10:52AM
As the tank, when you get eaten, you can actually dps the exposed head for double damage while you are up there :D
If you're a druid and feeling confident in your tank healer you can even go cat form, blow berserk and survival instincts, and do some pretty sick damage on him. The annoying thing is, the damage you do doesn't seem to show up on any dps meters other than your own :S
Code Monkey Jan 5th 2011 2:21PM
Just a head's up, I did this recently (Jan 1st I think), and you needed 3 players in 10-man to jump up on his head, because the chain cooldown is something like 6 seconds, and it only lasts for 4 seconds, and you apparently need 3 chains to bring him down.
Yoake Jan 6th 2011 1:23PM
Just want to point out to a Magmaw guide I made yesterday (25+ hours of work). I have incorporated a lot of the tips presented in the comments above. It is a step-by-step indepth strategy guide which is easy for fellow raiders that do not want to read a lot of text. Every step in the guide is explained with screenshots.
I hope my guide perfectly complement the above Magmaw guide. You can check out the guide at: http://25man.com/home/cata-guides/magmaw.
The shortcut to my guide is: 25man.com/magmaw
Juliusmidnight Jan 11th 2011 11:52AM
Can you please add why some groups use 2 tanks (And why a group completely fresh to raiding should).
After Mangle the tanks armor is dropped by 50% for 2 minutes. With Two tanks, you trade mangles and avoid making your healers OOM on healing through that debuff. Once healer and tank gear has improved, I'm sure its easy to power through that debuff, but for a group fresh to raids, that will need a guide like this, going single tank is going to cause them problems for a while.
Every guide for single tank never mentions anything about what Mangle actually does to the tank. Also, you can use Hand of Protection for the tank while being mangled to ease healer issues.
Francisco Jan 25th 2011 2:45PM
We usually bring a hunter and leave him at the back with everyone else at melee range, so Pillar of Flame always comes up at the hunter. He drops a trap and gets out of there and then everyone will then just have to AoE the adds down. Works like a charm.