Norushen Heroic Guide

[Zabuzan]

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Norushen Heroic Guide
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If you'd like to motivate me to make more guides in the future, please check out www.vengeanceking.com follow me on Twitter @Zabuzan and like my Vengeance King page on Facebook

Introduction
Hi all,

I created a guide for my guild as reference for Norushen Heroic, describing our original kill strategy.

I'm a big fan of text guides in conjunction with video guides and I feel that each has their own merits when preparing for a new encounter during progression. I'd also recommend the Fatboss, Evrelia and Gabestah video guides as a great resource ahead of any progression. Links to these video guides can be found below the text guide I've created.

Hopefully this guide can be of use to other people as well.

As this encounter is fairly simple after having already got used to the mechanics on Normal difficulty, I've not bothered including a TL;DR summary, for those only interested in the key points.

Disclaimer: This guide is aimed at the 10-man Heroic version of the Norushen encounter and not all of the information presented may be applicable to 25-man Heroic. This is not a definitive strategy and also assumes a basic knowledge of the normal encounter and the changes to mechanics on Heroic. Other strategies are entirely plausible, but this guide reflects what we have used for our first kill and I can vouch that it works for us!

For links to my other Heroic boss guides, check out the Index Thread.

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Raid Composition
Standard composition - 2 tanks, 5-6 DPS, 2-3 healers.
Recommended composition - 2 tanks, 6 DPS, 2 healers.

2 healing the encounter makes meeting the DPS requirement significantly easier and the healing requirement isn't particularly high.

This fight is a borderline "Patchwerk" style nuke, so there is no disadvantage taking either melee or ranged DPS due to fairly minimal movement. Just take your highest single target damage dealers! AoE healers are going to be very strong on this fight as well, expect Efflorescence and Healing Rain to be pushing Resto Druids and Resto Shamans forward as the fight favourites.


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Overview
The Norushen Heroic encounter received an early hotfix which has greatly affected strategies for the fight. This hotfix does not affect the tactics used by many 10-man guilds however, unless they were originally doing the fight without ever sending any DPS to do the Tests; the zerg strategy was far more common on 25-man Heroic difficulty.

Hotfix information - http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/2...erk-reduction/

What this means, is that the primary strategy used to defeat the encounter is likely to be identical or at least very similar to how most guilds defeated the encounter on Normal difficulty. Players still begin the encounter at 75 Corruption in the hotfixed version of the Heroic encounter and the Tests for all roles still produce the same number of adds and effects in the room where the Amalgam of Corruption and the bulk of the raid are located at any one time.

The primary change to the difficulty of the fight is in the healing requirement and the 7-minute hard enrage time, requiring your DPS to perform well and minimise or ideally totally avoid any corruption gains. It should be more than possible that once a DPS has been Purified by completing their Test, they gain no further Corruption, providing that the tanks and healers soak all the orbs dropped by the large adds and avoid standing between the small adds and the Amalgam of Corruption as the bolts they cast deal 5 Corruption to a raid member standing between them and the boss.

As on Normal, the fight consists of a single Phase, with role specific Tests that can be accessed by clicking on the golden orbs floating in the room. Players do not actually fight Norushen, so the boss is actually the Amalgam of Corruption. 4 golden orbs are present in 10-man Heroic, rather than the 2 orbs present in 10-man normal, meaning that more raiders can enter the Test realm at any one time.

As a final note before I continue with a more detailed breakdown of the encounter, I'd like to clarify some things:

• Boss = Amalgam of Corruption
• Big add = Manifestation of Corruption
• Small add = Essence of Corruption
• Wave of adds = 1 Manifestation of Corruption + 3 Essence of Corruption
• Adds = Manifestation of Corruption/s or Essence of Corruption/s

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Strategy

Assuming you are familiar with the Normal difficulty Norushen encounter, there is no real additional complexity with the Heroic version. Providing you can cope with the increased healing and DPS requirements, as well as dealing with the adds effectively, this should be a simple fight to progress.

Heroism should not be used on the pull, as all the DPS will be doing reduced damage due to the 75 Corruption that every raid member shares.

How to Handle the Tests:
The key to the fight is getting your DPS purified as soon as possible, in order of highest single target DPS output. Avoid sending multiple DPS into the test realm at once however, as this causes more harm than good - having more than 1 large add spawning with the raid is a bad idea.

I would recommend either of the following Orb orders for the first 5 sets of Tests:

(If you are confident in handling multiple large adds at once)
Orbs #1 - Tank1 + Healer1 + DPS1 (kills big add first) + DPS2 (kills big add last)
Orbs #2 - Tank2 + Healer2 + DPS3 (kills big add first) + DPS4 (kills big add last)
Orbs #3 - Tank1 + DPS5
Orbs #4 - Tank2 + DPS6
OR
(Slightly easier as fewer simultaneous big adds, but means you are freeing up DPS slower)
Orbs #1 - Tank1 + Healer1 + DPS1 (kills big add first) + DPS2 (kills big add last)
Orbs #2 - Tank2 + Healer2 + DPS3
Orbs #3 - Tank1 + DPS4
Orbs #4 - Tank2 + DPS5
Orbs #5 - Tank1 + DPS6

However, numerous other orders will work so adapt it to meet the needs of your raid; the key is sending out a DPS with either a tank or healer with each wave, or more preferably even more DPS per set of golden orbs than that! If you are having trouble with tanks getting gibbed or with DPS, send your tanks in earlier or a healer with DPS output. If you are having trouble with raid healing, send a good AoE healer in early. Many guilds end up choosing to stick with whatever order they used for the Normal version of the encounter and still find success.

The longer you leave it before getting all your DPS purified, the longer the fight will take and the more likely it will be that the boss will hit 50% health with a DPS in the Test realm causing a big add to spawn at the same time the boss summons his first wave of adds.

Irrespective of composition, whenever a DPS enters the Test realm, they should kill the small adds first and the big add last, so that when they leave the realm they can help burn the big add down, unless multiple DPS have gone in on the same wave of orbs, in which case the spawning of the big adds needs to be staggered.

Once all 6 DPS are Purified, the tanks and healers will take turns getting Purified again and again as necessary - if either of the tanks or healers gets to 100 Corruption, it's important to do another Test and get Purified again as the tanks and healers will be soaking all of the orbs dropped by the big adds, to ensure that the DPS don't gain Corruption and are at maximum potential damage output.

We found it easiest for the tanks to soak ALL of the orbs dropped by the big adds and for the tanks to do a new Test each time there was a tank swap.

There are 2 times during the encounter when Heroism can be used effectively. The first is to pop Heroism as soon as all 6 DPS have been Purified, which provides the highest DPS for the encounter - especially if the DPS time their CDs accordingly. Alternatively, if you are struggling with the healing towards the end of the fight, it could be use during the sub-20% execute as a combined healer and DPS cooldown, to help the healers keep the raid up. Personally, I would recommend the former.


How to Handle the Amalgam of Corruption and Adds:
Dealing with the main phase is best handled almost identically to how it is managed on Normal difficulty.

DPS Priority: Adds > Amalgam of Corruption.

As the small adds should be killed first in the Test realms, from a DPS perspective the fight basically consists of nuking Norushen, then switching to kill a few small adds, then the big add, then nuking Norushen again until the next add Phase. When the boss is sub 50% and spawning waves of adds every 10%, switch to the big add as soon as it comes in to reduce AoE damage even if there are some small adds up.

Everytime a big add dies, a tank or healer should be stood exactly on top of it, so that they immediately soak the orb it drops before any AoE pulses occur.
Whenever a small add is present, DPS must ensure that they are not standing between it and the boss as intercepting the bolt it casts will cause them to gain 5 Corruption. Tanks and healers can stand between them if necessary, however there is no real need as the small adds should be dead almost instantly after they spawn. Bear in mind that if you are at greater than 75 Corruption, you cannot soak the orbs that the big adds drop.


Positioning:
There is no reason for the raid not to be stacked up on this encounter and it will make raid healing significantly easier to do so. Avoid moving unless the Blinding Hatred cutter beam is going to go through where the raid is stacked and make the call as to whether to strafe away and the move back to the same spot (if it's about to expire), or relocate in an entirely new location. The Blinding Hatred cutter beam can move both clockwise AND anti-clockwise, so just because it's spawned nearby doesn't mean you know whether movement of the raid is required until movement of the cutter beam has occured. It should be noted that the cutter beam is not a one shot mechanic, but it does deal very high damage.

One way of dealing with keeping the raid together, is to have 2, 3 or 4 stacking locations marked around the boss and then moving around the boss as required. This allows healers to pre-emptively move Efflorescence, Healing Rain or similar abilities to the new planned location as the raid is moving.

For example:

Where the Red, Blue and Green medium sized circles signify raid markers, the smaller Light Orange circles signify the golden orb locations and the unhappy looking Purple circle is the Amalgam of Corruption. The cutter beam moves just over half way round Norushen, so 3 stacking locations should be sufficient, though you may occasionally have to strafe out and back in of a marked location just as the beam is about to finish.

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General Tips

• This fight is 3 healable, however most guilds will probably find 2 healing easier, so if you are getting low percentage wipes with a 3 heal setup and have no further means of pushing out a bit more DPS, drop a healer and you'll probably get the kill. Learning to execute the fight properly is safer with 3 healers, but once you can do it well and minimise AoE damage from the big adds, 2 healing should be far easier to ensure you meet the DPS requirement.
• You can get away with only sending DPS and healers into the Test realm once, and sending your tanks in again and again so they can always soak Corruption stacks and no one else has to.
• Interrupt the small adds when they spawn around the raid and don't stand between them and the Amalgam of Corruption.
• Stun the big adds and make sure a tank (ideally) is standing at their location when they die to instantly soak the purple orb before it pulses.

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Video Guides
Below are some video guides for further reference, bear in mind that not all aspects of the strategies or tips described in the videos may be shared with my own information, but can be used in conjunction with the guide for a better overall idea ahead of progressing on this encounter.

Fatboss Video Guide:
LINK

Evrelia Video Guide:
LINK

Gabestah Long Video Guide:
LINK

Gabestah Short Video Guide:
LINK

Gabestah Tank Video Guide:
LINK

Gabestah DPS Video Guide:
LINK.

Gabestah Healer Video Guide:
LINK


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Reference Links
For a full list of Gabestah Video Guides, please check out his thread HERE

Icy Veins Norushen Guide: http://www.icy-veins.com/norushen-detailed-strategy-wow

Healer CDs Tips: http://www.healercds.com/siege-of-or...trategy-guide/


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Change Log

1. Added links to the Fatboss and Evrelia video guides.
2. Raid composition advice rewording
3. Amended the guide to promote 2 healing over 3 healing to ensure the enrage timer is a non-issue.
4. Amended the suggestions for who completes their Tests and when.
5. Added links to all of the Gabestah video guides.
6. Added a statement clarifying the number of orbs allowing access to the Test realm.
7. Reworded "Trial" to "Test"
8. Reworded "Amalgamation" to "Amalgam of Corruption"
9. Added a proper positioning diagram.
10. Reformatted to make reading the walls of text a bit easier.
11. Added links to Facebook, Twitter and Blog.
12. Fixed the link to the website.

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[Kicksplasher]

Just so you can include. With the DPS requirement being what it is on 25. You have to send a significantly higher percentage of your raid down in 25 at once, and in doing so, you also have to mostly wait for all your DPS to be purified before a tank can go down or the quickly spawning corruption adds will dominate your raid members.

[Dorakko7]

i killed it yesturday like it was normal lol we sent 2 dps at the first ...one was killing the big adds first and 2nd was killing it the last so we didnt have 2 in the same time

[Berianther]

I disagree with 3 healing this fight on progression. There is barely any healing required that this fight should be 2 healed on heroic. Remember there are much more orbs on heroic than normal, so you can probably send in 3 ppl down the first wave. As long as you never send down 2 healers at the same time, or 2 tanks at the same time, tanks/healers can go any time they want. For example we did 1 tank + 1 heal + 1 dps first waves.

[Zabuzan]

Killed it tonight, 2 shot. Dropped it to 2 healers before we even started to make the enrage a non-event but we definitely could have pushed for a 3 DPS kill with an Atonement Priest and a Mistweaver Monk without too much trouble.

Ended up sending down: 1 tank / 1 healer / 2 DPS in the first set of orbs, then 1 tank / 1 healer / 2 DPS in the 2nd set of orbs, then tanks alternated going in each taunt swap and the last 2 DPS went in separately so as to avoid multiple add spawns. We popped Heroism as soon as we had all 6 DPS Purified and when all 10 raiders were in range to make the most of it.

Far easier encounter than I'd expected! 2 shot Immerseus HC after our first kill last week. 2 shot Protectors HC using the strategy described in the guide I wrote for that and then 2 shot Norushen making it up as we went along and have amended the strat on this to reflect it as it worked really well for us.

Also got a 3% wipe on Sha of Pride HC, so will get my guide for that polished off as well now that I have a strategy I'm happy with

Thanks for the feedback all by the way - and bump, have made numerous updates and listed them in the change log.

[Sinthetik]

25 man heroic.

We sent multiple dps down on the pull. Used a warrior tank with Taunt Banner to round up the many large adds spawning so close together. Think we sent 5 dps, spawned 3 large, then 2 large, pretty close together. Nuked em, had tank and healers soak everything. Tank swapped on boss, tank goes to purify. We then sent dps in waves of two at a time, to have a steady stream of large adds but not overwhelming. PACE is EVERYTHING. Have your dps kill there big add last so they can help dps it. It's REALLY easy to get overwhelmed if you don't pace yourself.

We called a full stop on purifying dps @ 55%. At this point tanks can purify to help soak orbs, and healers can help too. The enrage is very tight on 25 man heroic (though gear will help as the weeks go by.). We had numerous low % wipes. 9%, 7%, 4%, 3%, 1.5%, then a kill. We ignore both the 20% and 10% add that spawn, and just off tanked them. Tank dps did eventually kill the 20% add and a healer stepped out to soak it. Boss died with the 10% add still alive. Really intense fight.

[Zabuzan]

Bump - added a positioning diagram as well

[Deleted]

Can you stop the AoE dmg pulse of big adds the whole time they are alive?

[Zabuzan]

Yes, there should be sufficient stuns in pretty much any comp to do so - the big adds should die within a few seconds anyway, so even one stun per pig add should be enough to avoid AoE if your DPS are switching quickly enough.

A deathknight being able to deathgrip the add straight into tank range is very useful for this. We actually killed it with some of the AoE pulses getting through, usually the first one after the big add spawned and especially at the start when we were sending multiple DPS into trials at once, but to be honest, this fight shouldn't really need to be absolutely minmaxed, we found it quite forgiving even with some people getting unnecessary Corruption.

[Zabuzan]

Reformatted to make reading the walls of text a bit easier.

[Deleted]

Just to clarify, it still does one AoE pulse even when it's stunned. The orb also pulses atleast once. Pulses does not give corruption anymore though, so doesn't harm that much.

[Zabuzan]

Yeah, needs clarifying. Will amend!

[Sinthetik]

The large adds continue to pulse, even while stunned.

[Zabuzan]

Yeah, that's already been mentioned and I'll get round to making a note of it in the text as well.

[Deleted]

Question. We're about to start this, and I was reading the dungeon journal. It says the purified buff only lasts for 1.5min? Is t even possible to have all 6 dps purified then, without sending down multiple at a time?

[Deleted]

Question. We're about to start this, and I was reading the dungeon journal. It says the purified buff only lasts for 1.5min? Is t even possible to have all 6 dps purified then, without sending down multiple at a time?

The Dungeon Journal is outdated as it describes the fight the way it was before the change. The current version of Norushen is essentially normal with somewhat higher numbers. People start at 75 Corruption and clearing yourself means you're cleared for the right of the fight, unless you soak.

[Deleted]

The Dungeon Journal is outdated as it describes the fight the way it was before the change. The current version of Norushen is essentially normal with somewhat higher numbers. People start at 75 Corruption and clearing yourself means you're cleared for the right of the fight, unless you soak.

I see, appreciate the answer, thanks!

[Zabuzan]

The Norushen Heroic Guide from this thread is now up on my new site: www.vengeanceking.com

Please check it out - and if you notice any errors or have any further questions, please let me know.
http://vengeanceking.com/raid-encoun...mmar/norushen/

[Zabuzan]

If you'd like to motivate me to make more guides in the future, please check out www.vengeanceking.com, follow me on Twitter @Zabuzan and like my Vengeance King page on Facebook

Kor'kron Dark Shaman guide will be up later on today.

[Zabuzan]

Thanks to thesmuggler for pointing out the links to my new website were messed up! Fixed them