Am I doing Lord Marrowgar right?

Lord Marrowgar is the first boss in Icecrown Citadel. He’s a fairly easy boss that is forgiving for a good deal of dps slop (even on 10-man after the 12/14 nerf). This strat guide focuses on the hunter perspective. For a complete raid strat I recommend Tankspot’s Marrowgar Video. The value of actually seeing a video of a fight cannot be overstated.

Phase 1: Bonespike and DPS

During phase 1 hunters have three jobs. In order of priority these are:

1. Avoid the coldflame
2. Dps the bonespikes
3. Dps the boss

Phase 1 will be the majority of your dps. Start off with a misdirect and pop your cooldowns right off the bat to get a good start on the boss. There are three things we need to be aware of:

• Coldflame: Marrowgar will pick a random ranged target and send a line of blue flame crawling across the ground to that target. If you’re in the flame, you’ll get a frost damage dot. Coldflame moves at a moderate pace and is very easy to sidestep. It’s also important to note that it’s not a big deal to take one dot of coldflame damage. If you need to get to the other side of a coldflame line to be within range of a dps target, go ahead and run through it (as long as you’re not at really low health). As long as you aren’t just standing in it, you should be fine.
• Bonespike: Marrowgar will periodically cast Bonespike Graveyard on random raid members (1 in 10-man, 3 in 25-man). This can be cast on anyone other than the tanks, and this is your #1 dps priority. You should have a macro “/tar bone” on your hotbar to instantly target these the second they appear. Don’t bother with hunter’s mark, serpent sting, or your pet on them. They should be going down far too fast for any of those to be effective. Depending on your strat, it’s likely that only ranged will be dpsing these.
• Positioning: You want to remain about 30 yards from Marrowgar. You don’t want to be too close because you want plenty of time to avoid the coldflame, but you also don’t want to be too far, because you want to be within range of others to dps down bonespikes. On a similar note, all ranged dps should be in the front right or front left. Don’t go running off to some secluded corner. The coldflames are easy to avoid, and you want to be within range of the other dps on your side for when you’re targeted with bonespike — that way they can free you without having to chase you down (which you’ll soon learn is incredibly aggravating).

Phase 2: Bonestorm

Every minute Marrowgar will cast Bonestorm. During this he’ll spin around (like a warrior’s whirlwind) doing aoe damage to the raid. He will pick a random raid member and zip over to them then stand in place before choosing another member. He’ll do this 4 times, and the same person can be chosen twice in a row. And when he stops after chasing someone he’ll shoot out his coldflame in 4 directions at once (so in phase 2 there can be 8 lines of coldflame out, all over the place).
There are two important things to understand for phase 2:

• Bonestorm Damage: Bonestorm does more damage the closer you are to Marrowgar, and much, much less when you’re farther away.
• Avoid Cross Coldflames

You want to continue to dps during Bonestorm, taking extra care to avoid the coldflame all over the place and be sure to stay at a decent range from the boss. Remember to use your disengage on this phase if you’re too close to Marrowgar to get to range quickly and without losing your auto shots (but look where you’re jumping so you don’t leap into coldflame).

If you’re MM you should be getting 4 rapid fires during this fight (6 if it’s going slowly). In general they’re best used at the beginning of phase 1 (I use two of them during the first phase 1 if it’s going to be a long fight (ie: low overall dps) to ensure that I’ll get all six). Don’t use haste boosts during phase 2 as you will be moving around too much to get much (if any) benefit from it.