Molten Core: The Essentials

There's really only two quests to speak of, but both are very important to do at some point. The first you need to have completed in order to go to the Core, the second is a quest chain you should have advanced to the point of being ready to enter the Core to finish it up. I know the Core is still a long ways off, but getting prepared early is definitely a good policy and I want to make sure you guys know what you need to know.

Quests

The first is Attunement to the Core, which is handed out by a Night Elf fellow near the entrance to BRD (Situated in Blackrock Mountain, accessed by walking across the chains). This quest requires a run through the higher level area of BRD (an "Emperor Run" path) in order to procure a shard that's located at the true entrance to Molten Core. It's sort of on the wall next to the swirley green vortex that indicates the entrance to the Core, and it's located across the bridge from the Black Forge. If this description means nothing to you right now, don't worry.. it will after a couple runs, and people in your group generally won't let you miss this if you're headed that way.

The second is the Duke Hydraxis quest chain, which provides you with a nice Fire Resistance ring with added stats on it. You have to nearly clear out the Core before being able to complete this quest and get the reward, but getting the first parts out of the way early will help. The hardest part is actually finding Duke Hydraxis in Azshara. To help out, I've provided a link to the map showing his location.

http://www.thottbot.com/?m=134217

Gear Requirements

What's that? It's not enough to just have a raid group of 40 people? If you've never been to the place, it may surprise you to learn that in fact... no, this is not enough to clear through the Core. It may not even be enough to kill a single boss for the first while. Molten Core takes one thing in abundance.. patience! The runner-up is "good gear". Specifically, I'm talking about resistance gear. Now without further ado...

Fire Resistance Gear

The first stage of preparing for Molten Core is collecting fire resist gear. However, you can't just look at FR and assume it's good enough. Your gear will have to have not only FR, but at the very least some stamina as well and decent stats that benefit your class. The exception is rings, and trinkets. Those can be FR only. A good suggestion for a trinket is to complete the Overmaster Pyron quest chain given at Morgan's Vigil in Burning Steppes, it rewards you with a trinket that gives +8 all resistances. FR armor can be found throughout the endgame instances like Scholo, Strath, etc... but the main source of fantastic FR gear is from gaining reputation with the Thorium Brotherhood in order to access recipes for epic FR gear.

That involves a lot of rep grinding, aided by the quests starting at Thorium Point in Searing Gorge. The actual vendor thats sells the plans for the FR gear, which you can see http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/factions/thorium/index.html here, is located at the Bar inside BRD. If FR gear drops in an instance, keep the future in mind.

Shadow Resistance Gear

This is, shall we say... less important, but there are 4 bosses out of 9 in MC that shadow damage. No trash mobs do, though. Stock up on SR rings in particular, and be sure to get them at around 18-20 SR. Some gear from other instances may drop desirable SR gear with stamina and the like, so be sure to take a long look at it and consider rolling if it suits your class needs.

Arcane Resistance Gear

This is the Stephen Baldwin of the MC resistance gear... the least important one. Although unlike the aforementioned, you will still need some of it. One of the most troublesome bosses likes to spam Arcane Explosion, and a little resistance can go a long way. Deck yourself out with rings at the very least, and maybe even a cheap green piece of gear or two high in AR. Basically, if Shazrah starts nuking you it won't matter too much how much stamina you have, you'll be toast.

Warriors... Defensive Gear!

Warriors have it the toughest when it comes to gearing up for MC, and I should know :0) The most vital thing you need to tank in MC is gear that gives you good stamina, and good defense bonuses. A good example is the Deathbone set from Scholomance, although since a few patches ago it's been angled more toward Paladins.

You can get a chance at the best defensive non-epic cloak in the game by doing a Dire Maul tribute run, nabbing yourself a Skull of Gyth from UBRS for good helmet defense, completing the Incendius quest in BRD for a nice +defense belt, a great FR and +defense shield from General Drakkisath in UBRS, etc... Look up a few items on thottbot and decide for yourself what you want to go after ^^

Farming Materials

Molten Core requires that we get a head start on making any Fire Resist gear we can for the time being. A BIG part of this is the collection of Dark Iron Ore, because equipping our warriors with FR gear will take a ton. If you happen across Dark Iron Ore and don't need it for yourself, I would request that you send it along to Gholdy or another guild bank character. I think all the other materials have to be procured from the Core itself, but DIO collection is crucial to advancing past certain bosses. Pretty please? :0)

That's about it as far as preparation goes.. just be sure if you see a nice piece of resistance gear, you CAN roll for that based on need sometime in the future so don't be shy.