09-12-2013, 09:01 AM
Nutshell guide: Norushen
For the third fight, we'll be HELPING Norushen by fighting with him against a boss called the Amalgam of Corruption.
This fight takes place in two realms, a Normal Realm and a Test Realm. Most of the fight will take place in the Normal realm, where we'll fight the Amalgam of Corruption, but each raid member must go into a Test Realm briefly, once per fight.
All members will START the fight with a level of Corruption. They get a resource bar that starts at 75 out of 100 Corruption. Corruption causes players to do LESS damage to the Amalgam of Corruption. Players can gain more Corruption during the fight as well, thus doing even less damage.
The enrage timer -- a hard enrage at 7 minutes -- can be beaten ONLY if most or all of our DPS PURGE their corruption, become PURIFIED, and thus deal full damage to Amalgam. Healers and tanks who become purified gain increased healing, and reduced damage taken, respectively.
A player PURGES their Corruption by entering their Test Realm, where they must complete a role-specific test -- defeat certain mobs. Once the test is over, the players are sent back to the Normal Realm.
A player GAINS Corruption by from an ability that is cast regularly throughout the fight, which REQUIRES certain raid members to take damage from it. Doing so grants these players 25 Corruption.
Realistically, it is impossible to get the entire raid Purified. So we will be making decisions about which raid members should be Purified.
THE TEST REALMS
A player chooses to enter the Test Realm by interacting with one of several orbs which are located around the room in the Normal Realm. When a player clicks an orb, that player is sent alone to an alternate version of the room, where there is no raid and no Amalgam of Corruption. The Test Realm differs according to that player's role in the raid -- DPS, healer, or tank.
After a player goes into the Test Realm, the orb they used disappears from the Normal Realm until that player returns. Therefore, the number of people we can send into Test Realms at the same time for Purification is limited to the number of orbs we have. In a 10-man, there are 2 orbs. Presumably there will be a few more if we have more players.
The DPS Test Realm: Test of Serenity
This realm contains one large add, called a Manifestation of Corruption, and one or more small adds called Essences of Corruption. When an add is killed, it leaves behind a globe of light, which, when walked over, removes some Corruption from that player. Large globes are left by the large add, and remove 40 Corruption. Small adds leave small globes that remove 15 Corruption.
The exact number of small adds depends on how much Corruption the player must purge to become Purified. So, if the player has to purge 75 Corruption, there will be one large add and three small adds. If the player has less Corruption, there will be fewer adds.
When a player has picked up enough globes to remove all their Corruption, they will be teleported back to the Normal Realm. Alternatively, if they have not reached 0 after 60 seconds, they'll be automatically teleported out.
The Manifestation of Corruption has a frontal cone attack that deals a lot of damage, but which can easily be avoided (there's a graphic effect that precedes the damage -- get out of that). The Essences of Corruption have an attack that they fire in a line in front of them -- avoid that.
The Healer Test Realm: Test of Reliance
The healer test realm contains a hostile mob called a Greater Corruption, and three friendly mobs that attack it. The healer must survive, and they also have to heal the friendly mobs. Any damage they can deal to the Greater Corruption will speed up the phase.
The Greater Corruption casts 3 spells:
* Disheartening Laugh deals damage to the healer and the friendly NPCs. Heal through this.
* Pit of Despair is a damaging void zone. Move out of it.
* Lingering Corruption is a debuff placed in the healer or one of the NPCs, which, if not dispelled within 10 seconds, deals a high amount of shadow damage.
Once the Greater Corruption has been killed, the healer will be teleported back out to the Normal Realm.
The Tank Test Realm: Test of Confidence
The tank Test Realm contains a hostile mob called Titanic Corruption. The tank must survive against this mob for 60 seconds in order to become purified, and be teleported back out to the Normal Realm. This mob has several abilities:
* Titanic Smash is a frontal cone attack that must be avoided.
* Burst of Corruption is a ground attack that deals massive damage and must absolutely be avoided.
* Corruption is a stacking DoT that does a small amount of Shadow Damage per stack.
* Hurl Corruption is an interruptible nuke.
* Piercing Corruption is an attack that deals a lot of damage and must be survived through.
THE NORMAL REALM
We'll start in this realm and most of our time will be spent here. However, the two realms are still connected in that any mobs killed by DPS players in their Test Realms are SENT OVER, at full health, into the Normal Realm, where the raid will have to handle them.
Amalgam of Corruption's abilities
Against the tank:
* Unleashed Anger: High physical damage attack on the tank.
* Self-Doubt: stacking tank debuff that increases damage from Unleashed Anger by 40%. This necessitates a tank switch.
Against the raid:
* Ivy Fear: Raid-wide damage ability used every 3 seconds for the entire fight. Deals increasingly high Frost damage, as the Amalgam's health decreases. This only damages players in the Normal Realm.
* Blind Hatred: Very dangerous ability used every 60 seconds. For 30 seconds, a beam of corruption is channeled into the boss from the outer edge of the room. The point of origin of this beam moves along the edge of the room, so that the beam sweeps over a sector of the room. Any players that come into contact with the beam take a large amount of shadow damage every second.
* Frayed: When the boss reaches 50% health, he gains the Frayed ability. At 50% health, and for every 10% health lost after that, the boss summons a large add called Unleashed Manifestation of Corruption. See below for more on this guy.
Adds in the Normal Realm
We'll be seeing two types of adds in the Normal Realm:
* Unleashed Manifestations of Corruption appear whenever a Manifestation of Corruption (one of the large adds) is killed in a DPSer's Test Realm. Also, one of these will appear when the Amalgam reaches 50%, 40%, 30%, 20% and 10% health. These guys have two abilities:
--> Burst of Anger: they spam this. It's a raid-wide damaging attack that does moderate shadow damage. These mobs can be stunned and thus interrupted.
--> Residual Corruption: small void zone left behind when they die. Deals a lot of raid-wide shadow damage every few seconds. If a player who has 75 or less Corruption stands in it, the void zone disappears (thus stopping the raid-wide damage it does) but it grants that player 25 Corruption.
* Unleashed Essences of Corruption appear whenever an Essence of Corruption (one of the small adds) is killed in a DPSer's Test Realm. These guys have just one ability:
--> Expel Corruption. This is a projectile attack directed at the Amalgam of Corruption. If a player is in the path of this ability it does a lot of shadow damage, and they intercept it. Otherwise, if nobody stands in it, it will reach the Amalgam and will buff it with Fusion, increasing its damage done by 5% per stack, for 15 seconds.
NOTE: any damage done to these two types of adds is also inflicted onto the Amalgam of Corruption (due to Foul Link). This only applies to those spawned by DPS players, though, and NOT to the adds that come automatically as a result of Frayed (the ones that appear at 50%, 40% etc.)
STRATEGY
1) We will need to decide which players will go into their Test Realms to be purified, and when they should go.
The more players we have purified, the easier the fight will be, as our DPS will be higher, tanks will survive better, and healing will be higher. But we can't purify everyone because of the limited number of orbs. We may not even be able to purify all the DPS. We must also have enough purified non-DPS players to be able to soak all the void zones (we'll need to soak about 10 of these, depending on how many DPS players complete their Test Realms).
Suggestion: at the start of a 10-man, send one tank and one DPS into the Test Realm. The first Unleashed Manifestation ( when killed by the DPS) will enter the Normal Realm before this tank has had a chance to get back, and will have to be picked up by the remaining tank (and its void zone will have to be soaked by another player). When the tank returns, Purified, that tank will be able to soak the next 4 void zones. In the meantime, the second tank should go in, become Purified, and then return to Normal.
The raid will continue this cycle, sending one of the two tanks in to the Test Realm regularly (while sending DPS players at every opportunity), having the tanks soak the void zones, and performing tank switching on the Amalgam.
2) We'll need to handle the mechanics of the Amalgam and the two types of adds.
* Tanks switch on the Amalgam to negate the Self Doubt debuff.
* Move away from the beam created by Blind Hatred
* Intercept all projectiles shot by Unleashed Essences of Corruption (a few getting through is not problematic)
* Kill the Unleashed Essences and Unleashed Manifestations as soon as they appear.
* Soak the Residual Corruption void zones with designated soakers (usually tanks).
* When the Amalgam reaches 50% health, be prepared to initiate a DPS burn phase, while still killing adds, and handle the increased raid damage.
* Healers be prepared for high raid damage when an Unleashed Manifestation of Corruption appears (from its spamming Burst of Anger while alive, and raid-wide damage from void zone after it dies before the void zone is soaked). Healers must also respond to increasing damage from Icy Fear.
3) Below 50%
This is when it the difficulty ramps up. Icy Fear will do increasing raid damage. We'll have to deal with five Unleashed Manifestations, one at every 10%.
To deal with this, finish purifying everyone we want to purify, and the entire raid focuses on the Normal Realm. Continue killing the Unleashed Manifestations as they spawn, since we can't afford to leave them alive. Keep soaking the void zones. If not tanks can soak any more (if they're both at 100 Corruption) then a healer can soak them, or, if there is no alternative, a DPS can soak them (at the cost of raid DPS).
We will use Bloodlust at 50% health. But remember that adds still have top priority. Even the one that spawns at 10% must be killed.
SUMMARY
Tanks:
* Tank switch on Amalgam
* Pick up the Unleashed Manifestations when they spawn
* Soak the void zones that appear when the Unleashed Manifestations die.
Healers:
* Beware of increasing raid damage from Icy Fear
* Beware of high raid damage from when Unleashed Manifestations are alive
DPS
* Prioritize the adds when they are up
EVERYONE
* Avoid the Blind Hatred beam
* Get away from the dying Unleashed Manifestations unless you are assigned to soak its void zone
* Intercept the projectiles that the Unleashed Essences fire at the Amalgam
* Complete your role's test.
We will establish clear assignments for soaking all the residual corruption void zones:
* We will start with having Shantow go into the Test Realm. Umu will hold the Amalgamation, and will pick the first add.
* Umu (or Oryx, if needed) will soak that first void zone.
* Shantow will come out, pick up the boss, and Umu will go in to his Test Realm. Shantow will soak up the next 4 void zones.
* Umu will return, and will soak the next 4. And so forth.
* We will send our DPS players into the Test Realms as fast as possible, as well as healers. We may start with ranged DPS -- we will see the size of the room, and the #orbs that we will get.
* We will determine the best order of who gets purified as we learn this fight and will make this order clear to the raid.
For the third fight, we'll be HELPING Norushen by fighting with him against a boss called the Amalgam of Corruption.
This fight takes place in two realms, a Normal Realm and a Test Realm. Most of the fight will take place in the Normal realm, where we'll fight the Amalgam of Corruption, but each raid member must go into a Test Realm briefly, once per fight.
All members will START the fight with a level of Corruption. They get a resource bar that starts at 75 out of 100 Corruption. Corruption causes players to do LESS damage to the Amalgam of Corruption. Players can gain more Corruption during the fight as well, thus doing even less damage.
The enrage timer -- a hard enrage at 7 minutes -- can be beaten ONLY if most or all of our DPS PURGE their corruption, become PURIFIED, and thus deal full damage to Amalgam. Healers and tanks who become purified gain increased healing, and reduced damage taken, respectively.
A player PURGES their Corruption by entering their Test Realm, where they must complete a role-specific test -- defeat certain mobs. Once the test is over, the players are sent back to the Normal Realm.
A player GAINS Corruption by from an ability that is cast regularly throughout the fight, which REQUIRES certain raid members to take damage from it. Doing so grants these players 25 Corruption.
Realistically, it is impossible to get the entire raid Purified. So we will be making decisions about which raid members should be Purified.
THE TEST REALMS
A player chooses to enter the Test Realm by interacting with one of several orbs which are located around the room in the Normal Realm. When a player clicks an orb, that player is sent alone to an alternate version of the room, where there is no raid and no Amalgam of Corruption. The Test Realm differs according to that player's role in the raid -- DPS, healer, or tank.
After a player goes into the Test Realm, the orb they used disappears from the Normal Realm until that player returns. Therefore, the number of people we can send into Test Realms at the same time for Purification is limited to the number of orbs we have. In a 10-man, there are 2 orbs. Presumably there will be a few more if we have more players.
The DPS Test Realm: Test of Serenity
This realm contains one large add, called a Manifestation of Corruption, and one or more small adds called Essences of Corruption. When an add is killed, it leaves behind a globe of light, which, when walked over, removes some Corruption from that player. Large globes are left by the large add, and remove 40 Corruption. Small adds leave small globes that remove 15 Corruption.
The exact number of small adds depends on how much Corruption the player must purge to become Purified. So, if the player has to purge 75 Corruption, there will be one large add and three small adds. If the player has less Corruption, there will be fewer adds.
When a player has picked up enough globes to remove all their Corruption, they will be teleported back to the Normal Realm. Alternatively, if they have not reached 0 after 60 seconds, they'll be automatically teleported out.
The Manifestation of Corruption has a frontal cone attack that deals a lot of damage, but which can easily be avoided (there's a graphic effect that precedes the damage -- get out of that). The Essences of Corruption have an attack that they fire in a line in front of them -- avoid that.
The Healer Test Realm: Test of Reliance
The healer test realm contains a hostile mob called a Greater Corruption, and three friendly mobs that attack it. The healer must survive, and they also have to heal the friendly mobs. Any damage they can deal to the Greater Corruption will speed up the phase.
The Greater Corruption casts 3 spells:
* Disheartening Laugh deals damage to the healer and the friendly NPCs. Heal through this.
* Pit of Despair is a damaging void zone. Move out of it.
* Lingering Corruption is a debuff placed in the healer or one of the NPCs, which, if not dispelled within 10 seconds, deals a high amount of shadow damage.
Once the Greater Corruption has been killed, the healer will be teleported back out to the Normal Realm.
The Tank Test Realm: Test of Confidence
The tank Test Realm contains a hostile mob called Titanic Corruption. The tank must survive against this mob for 60 seconds in order to become purified, and be teleported back out to the Normal Realm. This mob has several abilities:
* Titanic Smash is a frontal cone attack that must be avoided.
* Burst of Corruption is a ground attack that deals massive damage and must absolutely be avoided.
* Corruption is a stacking DoT that does a small amount of Shadow Damage per stack.
* Hurl Corruption is an interruptible nuke.
* Piercing Corruption is an attack that deals a lot of damage and must be survived through.
THE NORMAL REALM
We'll start in this realm and most of our time will be spent here. However, the two realms are still connected in that any mobs killed by DPS players in their Test Realms are SENT OVER, at full health, into the Normal Realm, where the raid will have to handle them.
Amalgam of Corruption's abilities
Against the tank:
* Unleashed Anger: High physical damage attack on the tank.
* Self-Doubt: stacking tank debuff that increases damage from Unleashed Anger by 40%. This necessitates a tank switch.
Against the raid:
* Ivy Fear: Raid-wide damage ability used every 3 seconds for the entire fight. Deals increasingly high Frost damage, as the Amalgam's health decreases. This only damages players in the Normal Realm.
* Blind Hatred: Very dangerous ability used every 60 seconds. For 30 seconds, a beam of corruption is channeled into the boss from the outer edge of the room. The point of origin of this beam moves along the edge of the room, so that the beam sweeps over a sector of the room. Any players that come into contact with the beam take a large amount of shadow damage every second.
* Frayed: When the boss reaches 50% health, he gains the Frayed ability. At 50% health, and for every 10% health lost after that, the boss summons a large add called Unleashed Manifestation of Corruption. See below for more on this guy.
Adds in the Normal Realm
We'll be seeing two types of adds in the Normal Realm:
* Unleashed Manifestations of Corruption appear whenever a Manifestation of Corruption (one of the large adds) is killed in a DPSer's Test Realm. Also, one of these will appear when the Amalgam reaches 50%, 40%, 30%, 20% and 10% health. These guys have two abilities:
--> Burst of Anger: they spam this. It's a raid-wide damaging attack that does moderate shadow damage. These mobs can be stunned and thus interrupted.
--> Residual Corruption: small void zone left behind when they die. Deals a lot of raid-wide shadow damage every few seconds. If a player who has 75 or less Corruption stands in it, the void zone disappears (thus stopping the raid-wide damage it does) but it grants that player 25 Corruption.
* Unleashed Essences of Corruption appear whenever an Essence of Corruption (one of the small adds) is killed in a DPSer's Test Realm. These guys have just one ability:
--> Expel Corruption. This is a projectile attack directed at the Amalgam of Corruption. If a player is in the path of this ability it does a lot of shadow damage, and they intercept it. Otherwise, if nobody stands in it, it will reach the Amalgam and will buff it with Fusion, increasing its damage done by 5% per stack, for 15 seconds.
NOTE: any damage done to these two types of adds is also inflicted onto the Amalgam of Corruption (due to Foul Link). This only applies to those spawned by DPS players, though, and NOT to the adds that come automatically as a result of Frayed (the ones that appear at 50%, 40% etc.)
STRATEGY
1) We will need to decide which players will go into their Test Realms to be purified, and when they should go.
The more players we have purified, the easier the fight will be, as our DPS will be higher, tanks will survive better, and healing will be higher. But we can't purify everyone because of the limited number of orbs. We may not even be able to purify all the DPS. We must also have enough purified non-DPS players to be able to soak all the void zones (we'll need to soak about 10 of these, depending on how many DPS players complete their Test Realms).
Suggestion: at the start of a 10-man, send one tank and one DPS into the Test Realm. The first Unleashed Manifestation ( when killed by the DPS) will enter the Normal Realm before this tank has had a chance to get back, and will have to be picked up by the remaining tank (and its void zone will have to be soaked by another player). When the tank returns, Purified, that tank will be able to soak the next 4 void zones. In the meantime, the second tank should go in, become Purified, and then return to Normal.
The raid will continue this cycle, sending one of the two tanks in to the Test Realm regularly (while sending DPS players at every opportunity), having the tanks soak the void zones, and performing tank switching on the Amalgam.
2) We'll need to handle the mechanics of the Amalgam and the two types of adds.
* Tanks switch on the Amalgam to negate the Self Doubt debuff.
* Move away from the beam created by Blind Hatred
* Intercept all projectiles shot by Unleashed Essences of Corruption (a few getting through is not problematic)
* Kill the Unleashed Essences and Unleashed Manifestations as soon as they appear.
* Soak the Residual Corruption void zones with designated soakers (usually tanks).
* When the Amalgam reaches 50% health, be prepared to initiate a DPS burn phase, while still killing adds, and handle the increased raid damage.
* Healers be prepared for high raid damage when an Unleashed Manifestation of Corruption appears (from its spamming Burst of Anger while alive, and raid-wide damage from void zone after it dies before the void zone is soaked). Healers must also respond to increasing damage from Icy Fear.
3) Below 50%
This is when it the difficulty ramps up. Icy Fear will do increasing raid damage. We'll have to deal with five Unleashed Manifestations, one at every 10%.
To deal with this, finish purifying everyone we want to purify, and the entire raid focuses on the Normal Realm. Continue killing the Unleashed Manifestations as they spawn, since we can't afford to leave them alive. Keep soaking the void zones. If not tanks can soak any more (if they're both at 100 Corruption) then a healer can soak them, or, if there is no alternative, a DPS can soak them (at the cost of raid DPS).
We will use Bloodlust at 50% health. But remember that adds still have top priority. Even the one that spawns at 10% must be killed.
SUMMARY
Tanks:
* Tank switch on Amalgam
* Pick up the Unleashed Manifestations when they spawn
* Soak the void zones that appear when the Unleashed Manifestations die.
Healers:
* Beware of increasing raid damage from Icy Fear
* Beware of high raid damage from when Unleashed Manifestations are alive
DPS
* Prioritize the adds when they are up
EVERYONE
* Avoid the Blind Hatred beam
* Get away from the dying Unleashed Manifestations unless you are assigned to soak its void zone
* Intercept the projectiles that the Unleashed Essences fire at the Amalgam
* Complete your role's test.
We will establish clear assignments for soaking all the residual corruption void zones:
* We will start with having Shantow go into the Test Realm. Umu will hold the Amalgamation, and will pick the first add.
* Umu (or Oryx, if needed) will soak that first void zone.
* Shantow will come out, pick up the boss, and Umu will go in to his Test Realm. Shantow will soak up the next 4 void zones.
* Umu will return, and will soak the next 4. And so forth.
* We will send our DPS players into the Test Realms as fast as possible, as well as healers. We may start with ranged DPS -- we will see the size of the room, and the #orbs that we will get.
* We will determine the best order of who gets purified as we learn this fight and will make this order clear to the raid.