Siege of Orgrimmar Preview: Norushen
Norushen is expected to be a part of the third encounter in the Siege of Orgrimmar that's coming in with patch 5.4. After we cut through the trash, we found that Norushen prevented us from going any further. Apparently, he detected that we were full of pride and said our bodies had to be purged before we could advance onwards.
Our main job here is to defeat the Amalgam of Corruption. It's the elements of pride within us combined into something that we can tangibly kill. If we don't kill the Amalgam within 7 minutes, Norushen's quarantine zone kills everyone.
And how does one about purifying themselves? Why I thought you'd never ask!
Every player started with 75 Corruption and this appears as an energy bar toward the bottom of your screen. The more stacks of Corruption we get, the less damage we put onto the Amalgam. When we have 0 Corruption, we become completely Purified. It's divided into 4 sections. You'll gain Corruption in chunks of 25.
One key ability that the Amalgam has is called Blind Hatred. Those of you that fought Halion back in Ruby Sanctum might be familiar with those. The Amalgam emits a beam and will rotate either clockwise or counterclockwise. Anyone caught by is takes 400000 Shadow damage per second. So don't get caught!
Players can interact with the Purifying Light (below screenshot) spawns around the room to look within. When we look within, we enter our own phase and tackle a role-specific task. Each role gets it's own set of tasks that they need to do in order to completely cleanse the Corruption from their system. Once the player is purified, they get a bonus (for example, healers receive a 30% healing increase to their output while DPS players will be able to deal full damage to the Amalgam similar in concept to Primordius).
Test of Reliance (Healers)
The healer needs to defeat a Greater Corruption on their own. There's a few NPCs in there that will help. If we don't kill the Greater Corruption, it'll re-emerge in the real phase. Once the Greater Corruption gets eliminated, there's a gold orb that can be touched which returns them to the rest of the party. Stand out of the Pit of Despair if you see it underneath you. Dispel Linger Corruption if you see it on yourself.
Test of Confidence (Tanks)
For tanks, all that needs to happen is for them to survive for a full minute against a Titanic Corruption. It won't be easy. The tank needs to stay out of any Titanic Smashes. Anytime they're hit by the Titanic Corruption, they take 10000 Shadow damage per stack per second. If that's not enough, the Titanic Corruption will Hurl Corruption in their direction. Cooldowns will need to be timed to properly mitigate Burst of Corruption and Piercing Corruption.
Test of Serenity (DPS)
DPS have it a little easier. They'll be defeating various parts of the Corruption that's up. Anytime a Corruption ad dies, it'll repsawn in the main phased area where the rest of the raid is. I noticed there was one big ad and four smaller ones. Go after the four smaller ones before finishing off the big one to give time for the players on the main phase to adequately DPS them down. When these Corruption ads die in the main phase, a pool of Corruption will be left behind that periodically deals 90000 damage to everyone. Players can run into them and pick them up but it'll add 25 stacks to their own personal Corruption meter. Players with full stacks of their own Corruption will not be able to help clear or pick up additional Corruption from the pools.
There were two Purifying Light spawns: One on the left and right when you first enter the chamber and descend the stairs. We prioritized sending three healers and a tank first. With the tank getting their Corruption taken off, it allowed them to properly soak up any Corruption pools that the DPS players would spawn in the later parts of the fight. Healers who were clearing their Corruption stacks gained a bonus to healing which comes in handy as there's tons of damage flying out everywhere. The hardest part is when there's only one healer on the surface and the other two healers are out trying to get rid of their Corruption. Send your best healer first because they're going to need to solo heal 8 players until the other healers emerge. Spare no cooldowns as you'll need them.
As you can imagine, this encounter revolves mainly around balancing Corruption stacks that are on players. They need to individually cycle through and remove their own Corruption stacks before slowly regaining them again then purging them.
Dropping the Amalgam below 50% causes it to become Frayed. It'll release an Unleashed Manifestation of Corruption (an add) and a new one every 10% until it's dead. If any of these ads reach the Amalgam, the Amalgam's damage goes up by 5% for 15 seconds. Let's not forget about the Amalgam's Icy Fear. It starts off at 75000 damage to everyone every 3 seconds. As the Amalgam's health drops, it'll start dealing even more damage per tick.
My group's attempts went quite well. We were able to push the Amalgam below 50% many times. This is definitely a stress test for healers especially towards the end. Our attempts involved activating Bloodlust right at the start (and yes, I was Horde for these attempts and I felt gross after). I felt that maybe we should've delayed Heroism until later in the fight to help defensively with the healing and the new adds that were being released.
I was holy when I went down to face my challenge. A combination of Mindbender, Smite, and Holy Fire helped make quick work. Between Renews and Power Word: Shield, I didn't face much of a chance of death or anything. Just stay observant and stand out of pools and cast a Purify on yourself every so often when you see a debuff.
All in all, this is a decently paced fight. I think the enrage timer's a little short. There's already a soft enrage between the Icy Fear and the amount of ads that come out towards the end.
WoW Insider Siege of Orgrimmar previews
