Norushen Detailed Strategy Guide (Heroic Mode included)

Table of Contents

• +1. General Information
  • 1.1. Health Values
  • 1.2. Enrage Timer
  • 1.3. Raid Composition
• +2. Loot
  • 2.1. Armor
  • 2.2. Weapons
  • 2.3. Amulets, Cloaks, Rings, and Trinkets
• 3. Overview of the Fight
• 4. Class-specific Advice
• 5. How Corruption Works
• +6. Tests
  • 6.1. Test of Serenity (DPS)
  • 6.2. Test of Reliance (Healer)
  • 6.3. Test of Confidence (Tank)
• +7. Normal Realm
  • 7.1. Abilities
    • 7.1.1. Amalgam of Corruption
    • 7.1.2. Adds
  • 7.2. Strategy
    • 7.2.1. Purifying Players
    • 7.2.2. Handling Normal Realm Mechanics
    • 7.2.3. Sub-50% Health
• 8. When to Use Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp
• +9. Summing Things Up
  • 9.1. Tanks
  • 9.2. Healers
  • 9.3. DPS
  • 9.4. Everyone
• 10. Learning the Fight
• +11. Heroic Mode
  • 11.1. Differences From Normal Mode
  • 11.2. Strategy
• 12. Concluding Remarks
• 13. Changelog

Introduction

This guide is intended to provide a comprehensive description of the encounter with Norushen in Siege of Orgrimmar. It is targeted at anyone who desires to understand the fight mechanics.

This guide is updated for World of Warcraft WoD 6.1.2.

The Norushen encounter is the third fight in the Siege of Orgrimmar. Your raid will be assisting Norushen by fighting against a boss called the Amalgam of Corruption. This fight takes place in two different realms, both of which the majority of your raid members will have to experience. In this sense, the fight is reminiscent of the fights against Valiona and Theralion, and Gara'jal the Spiritbinder.

During the Norushen encounter you actually never fight Norushen himself, instead fighting a mob called Amalgam of Corruption. Norushen is friendly to your raid and he is not involved in the fight.

The encounter takes place in two different realms:

• a Normal Realm, where you will face the Amalgam of Corruption, and where the vast majority of the fight takes place;
• a Test Realm, where each raid member must go, briefly, once per fight.

All raid members start the encounter with a level of Corruption (and they can gain additional Corruption by handling certain fight mechanics), which causes them to deal reduced damage to the Amalgam of Corruption. The enrage timer can only be beaten if most or all of your DPS players purge their corruption, becoming Purified, and thus dealing full damage to the Amalgam. Healers and tanks who become purified gain increased healing and reduced damage taken, respectively.

A player may purge their Corruption by entering their Test Realm, where they must complete a test (defeating certain mobs). Once the test is over, players are sent back to the Normal Realm.

Videos:

• PTR Preview — a short overview of the boss, based on PTR testing, which is extremely useful for getting a rough understanding of the fight;
• Video Guide — a video guide of the boss, based on live-realm experience.

On our forums, we are maintaining threads with class-specific advice for each of the fights of Siege of Orgrimmar. So, make sure to check them out, and if you have things to share, do not hesitate to contribute!

Class	Forum Threads
Death Knight	Blood Frost/Unholy
Druid	Balance Feral Guardian Restoration
Hunter	All specs
Mage	All specs
Monk	Brewmaster Mistweaver Windwalker
Paladin	Holy Protection Retribution
Priest	Discipline Holy Shadow
Rogue	All specs
Shaman	Elemental Enhancement Restoration
Warlock	All specs
Warrior	Arms/Fury Protection

At the start of the fight, all players receive a Corruption resource bar. Everyone starts out with 75 (out of 100) Corruption, which causes them to deal reduced damage to the Amalgam of Corruption.

Players can remove their Corruption by completing their role-specific tests, which we cover in the next section. In short, players have to enter their Test Realms, something that is done by interacting with one of the several orbs located around the edges of the room. When a player interacts with an orb, they are sent to an alternate version of the room, where neither the raid nor the Amalgam of Corruption is present. Instead, they will have to face one or more enemies (depending on their role). When players become Purified (reaching 0 Corruption), or after a certain amount of time regardless of success, players are sent back to the Normal Realm.

Becoming Purified affects players differently, depending on their role.

• It causes all players to deal full, unreduced damage to the Amalgam of Corruption.
• It causes tanks to take reduced damage.
• It causes healers do increased healing.

It is also worth mentioning that it is possible to get more than 75 Corruption. There is an ability that is cast regularly throughout the fight, which requires certain raid members (with no more than 75 Corruption) to take damage from it in order to deactivate it, and doing so grants these players 25 Corruption. There is no particular negative effect that happens when a player reaches 100 Corruption, but they deal 0 damage to the Amalgam of Corruption (making them practically useless as tanks or DPS players), and they cannot deactivate the aforementioned ability.

Realistically, it may be impossible to have your entire raid Purified, given the large amount of time that this takes. As we will see later on in the strategy sections, you will need to make some decisions about which raid members should be Purified.

Even though the tests that players have to complete are not complicated, we have chosen to present them before the Normal Realm because understanding how tests work allows you to get a better understanding of the Normal Realm mechanics.

When interacting with an orb located around the edges of the room, the player will be sent into their Test Realm. The Test Realm is different depending on the player's role (DPS, healer, or tank).

After a player is sent into their Test Realm, the orb they used disappears until the player comes back from the Test Realm. The number of players you can send in Test Realms at the same time is therefore limited to the number of orbs your raid will have at its disposal. There are 2 orbs in 10-man, and 5 in 25-man.

The DPS player Test Realm consists of one large add, called a Manifestation of Corruption, and one or more small adds called Essences of Corruption. When an add is killed, a certain amount of Corruption is removed from the player. Large adds remove 40 Corruption, while small adds remove 15 Corruption.

The exact number of small adds depends on how much Corruption the player must purge in order to become purified. So, for example, if the player has to purify 75 Corruption, there will be one large add and three small adds. If the player has less Corruption to purge, then there will be fewer small adds.

When the player becomes Purified, they will be teleported back to the Normal Realm. Alternatively, if they still have not reached 0 Corruption after 60 seconds, they will be automatically teleported out.

The abilities of the mobs are not very problematic. The Manifestations of Corruption have a frontal cone attack that deals a lot of damage, but which can easily be avoided (the graphic effect precedes the damage). The Essences of Corruption have an attack that they fire in a line in front of them, which must also simply be avoided, and they regularly put up shields that cause all attacks made from the front to be deflected, so simply attack them from behind.

The healer Test Realm contains a hostile mob called Greater Corruption, and three friendly mobs that attack it. The healer must survive, and they may also have to heal the friendly mobs. Any damage that they can deal to the Greater Corruption will speed up the phase.

The Greater Corruption casts three spells.

• Disheartening Laugh deals damage to the healer and the friendly NPCs, and it must simply be healed through.
• Pit of Despair is a damaging void zone that the Greater Corruption casts, which must simply be moved out of and avoided.
• Lingering Corruption is a debuff that the Greater Corruption places on the healer or on one of the NPCs, which, if not dispelled within 10 seconds, deals a high amount of Shadow damage to that player.

Once the Greater Corruption has been killed, the healer will be teleported back out to the Normal Realm.

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 to be teleported back out to the Normal Realm.

The Titanic Corruption uses several abilities.

• Titanic Smash is a frontal cone attack that must be avoided.
• Corruption is a stacking DoT that deals a small amount of Shadow damage per stack.
• Hurl Corruption is an interruptible nuke.
• Burst of Corruption is a ground attack that deals a massive amount of damage and which must absolutely be avoided.
• Piercing Corruption is an attack that deals a high amount of damage, and which must simply be survived through.

Your entire raid will start out in the Normal Realm, and this is where the majority of your time will be spent. That said, most raid members will have to make a short incursion into their own Test Realm relatively early in the fight in order to purge their Corruption. The Test Realms are almost completely separate from the Normal Realm, but because they still do have some bearing on the rest of the fight, we felt it important to mention them first. The most important connection between the two realms is that any mobs killed by DPS players in their Test Realms are sent over (with full health) into the Normal Realm, where your raid will have to handle them.

In the Normal Realm, your raid will have to face the Amalgam of Corruption, as well as two types of adds.

The Amalgam of Corruption uses several abilities against your raid.

• Unleashed Anger is an ability that the Amalgam regularly uses to deal very high Physical damage to its tank.
• Self Doubt is a stacking tank debuff that increases the damage that the tank takes from Unleashed Anger by 40% per stack. This requires a tank switch.
• Icy Fear is a raid-wide damaging ability that the Amalgam uses every 3 seconds for the entire fight. It deals increasingly high Frost damage, as the Amalgam's health decreases. Icy Fear only damages players in the Normal Realm.
• Blind Hatred is a very dangerous ability that the Amalgam of Corruption uses 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 the beam moves along the edge of the room, causing the beam to sweep across part of the room. Any players that come in contact with the beam take a large amount of Shadow damage every second.
• When the boss reaches 50% health, it 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. More on this, and other adds, in the following section.

There are two types of adds that can appear in the Normal Realm.

• Unleashed Manifestations of Corruption appear whenever a Manifestation of Corruption is killed in a Test of Serenity. Moreover, an Unleashed Manifestation of Corruption will appear when the Amalgam of Corruption reaches 50%, 40%, 30%, 20%, and 10% health. These adds have two abilities.
  • Burst of Anger is a raid-wide damaging attack that the Unleashed Manifestations of Corruption spam while they are alive. It deals moderate Shadow damage.
  • Residual Corruption is a small void zone that is left behind when an Unleashed Manifestation of Corruption is killed. This void zone deals a high amount of raid-wide Shadow damage every few seconds. If a player who has 75 or less Corruption stands in it, the void zone disappears (ceasing to deal damage to the raid), but it grants the respective player 25 Corruption.
• Unleashed Essences of Corruption appear whenever an Essence of Corruption is killed in a Test of Serenity. These adds have a single ability.
  • Expel Corruption is a projectile attack that the adds spam at the Amalgam of Corruption. If a player is in the path of the projectile, they take a large amount of Shadow damage, and they intercept it. Otherwise, if the projectile reaches the Amalgam of Corruption, it buffs it with Fusion, increasing its damage done by 5% per stack, for 15 seconds.

It is important to note that thanks to Foul Link, any damage done to these two types of adds in the Normal Realm is also copied to the Amalgam of Corruption. In the case of the Unleashed Manifestations of Corruption, this only applies to those mobs that entered the Normal Realm as a result of having been killed in the DPS players' tests, and not to those caused by Frayed.

The strategy for the Normal Realm revolves around several important concepts. First of all, you will need to decide which players should go into their Test Realms in order to become Purified (as well as when they should do so). Second of all, you will need to handle the many mechanics of the Amalgam of Corruption and of the two types of adds.

The more players you can have purified, the easier the fight will be, since your DPS will be higher, your tanks will survive better, and your healing will have been made easier. That said, purifying all raid members is simply not feasible, due to the amount of time it takes to do (remember, the number of players that can be sent into Test Realms is limited by the number of orbs). In fact, even purifying all your DPS players may not be realistic. So, you will most likely need to prioritise who gets to become purified. Here are a few guidelines to help you decide.

• You must purify a minimum number of DPS players so that you have enough raid DPS to defeat the boss before the enrage timer. This value will depend greatly on many factors, so you will need to evaluate it in your particular set of circumstances.
• You must have enough purified non-DPS players (tanks and healers) to be able to soak all the Residual Corruption void zones left behind by Unleashed Manifestations of Corruption. At a minimum, you will need to have 10 such void zones soaked (the actual number depends on how many DPS players complete their Test of Serenity, since each completed test sends an Unleashed Manifestation of Corruption to the Normal Realm).

At the start of the fight, you should send a tank and one or more DPS players to the Test Realms (depending on the raid size in which you are playing). The first Unleashed Manifestation of Corruption, which will enter the Normal Realm before this tank has had a chance to return, will have to be tanked (and the resulting Residual Corruption void zone soaked) by the tank who remained in the Normal Realm. When the tank who first entered their Test Realm returns to the Normal realm, they will do so with 0 Corruption, which means that they will be able to soak the next 4 Residual Corruption void zones. In the meantime, the other tank will have to enter the Test Realm, become purified, and return to the Normal Realm.

Your raid will then continue this cycle, sending one of the two tanks to the Test Realm regularly (while sending DPS players at every opportunity). This will also allow your tanks to perform the require tank switching on the Amalgam of Corruption.

The brief outline of the strategy for the Normal Realm is as follows:

• Perform a regular tank switch on the Amalgam of Corruption to negate the effects of the Self Doubt debuff.
• Make sure everyone moves away from the beam of corruption created by Blind Hatred.
• Make sure that all the projectiles shot by Unleashed Essences of Corruption towards the Amalgam of Corruption are being intercepted by raid members.
• Kill the Unleashed Essences of Corruption and the Unleashed Manifestations of Corruption as soon as they appear.
• Have the Residual Corruption void zones left behind by Unleashed Manifestations of Corruption soaked by their designated soakers.
• When the Amalgam of Corruption reaches 50% health, be prepared to initiate a DPS burn phase (while still killing all the adds that appear), and be prepared to handle the increased raid damage taken.

Blind Hatred is hard not to notice, since its visual effect is very prominent. While it appears instantly, the beam of corruption is not damaging at first, so players have a few seconds to get out of its way.

Intercepting the projectiles of the Unleashed Essences of Corruption is also not very complicated, since these adds do not move once they have spawned, so the path of their projectiles is easily predictable. In any case, even if a few projectiles reach the Amalgam of Corruption, this is not very problematic.

Healers will always have to be prepared to respond to high raid damage when an Unleashed Manifestation of Corruption appears. Firstly because it will deal damage to the raid with Burst of Anger, and secondly because for the few seconds after the mob dies and before the Residual Corruption void zone is soaked, there will be high raid damage. It is worth mentioning that Burst of Anger is not cast if the Unleashed Manifestation of Corruption is stunned, so that is a neat way to reduce raid damage.

Healers must also constantly respond to the raid damage from Icy Fear, which increases in potency as the fight goes on.

The truly difficult part of the fight starts when the Amalgam of Corruption reaches 50% health. At this point, the damage dealt to the raid through Icy Fear will reach high amounts. Moreover, the 5 Unleashed Manifestations of Corruption that will spawn (one for every 10% of the boss' health) will put a further strain on your raid.

You simply have to face this part of the fight head-on. Before the boss reaches 50% health, you will have to have finished purifying anyone you wanted to purify, and your entire raid be prepared to focus on the Normal Realm. You must continue killing Unleashed Manifestations of Corruption as they spawn, since you cannot afford to keep any of them alive. Moreover, you will have to keep soaking their Residual Corruption void zones. If no tanks are able to soak more void zones (so, if both tanks have 100 Corruption), then a healer can soak them, or, if there is no other alternative, even a DPS player (but this will lower raid DPS).

We recommend using Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp when the Amalgam of Corruption reaches 50% health. At this point in the fight, most or all of your DPS players should have become Purified, so they will benefit the most from it. Moreover, this is when the fight reaches its most critical moments, since the Amalgam of Corruption spawns Unleashed Manifestations of Corruption, and the raid-wide damage from Icy Fear is very high.

In this section, we will very briefly summarise what the players belonging to each of the three roles have to do during this fight.

• Perform a tank switch on the Amalgam of Corruption.
• Pick up and tank the Unleashed Manifestations of Corruption when they spawn.
• Soak the void zones caused by Residual Corruption (your raid leader will assign you).

• Beware of the increasing raid damage from Icy Fear.
• Beware of the high raid damage while Unleashed Manifestations of Corruption are alive.

• Always prioritise DPSing adds when they are up.

• Avoid the Blind Hatred cutter beam.
• Do not be on top of a dying Unleashed Manifestation of Corruption unless you are assigned to soak it.
• Intercept the projectiles that Unleashed Essences of Corruption fire towards the Amalgam of Corruption.
• Complete your role's test.

There are several things your raid must master before you can begin contemplating defeating this boss. The first is establishing clear assignments for soaking all the Residual Corruption void zones. This is an aspect that should be agreed-upon and well understood before the boss is pulled.

The second important aspect is having an efficient sequence of players to get purified. Coming up with this will require a bit of experimentation, until you figure out exactly what the best solution is, but, as a raid leader, you should always be looking for ways to tweak this to perfection.

Finally, it is very important to execute a powerful, yet controlled burn phase once the boss goes below 50% health. When we say controlled, we mean that your DPS players should never lose sight of the fact that killing adds remains the top priority. Indeed, even the Unleashed Manifestation of Corruption that spawns when the boss is at 10% health should be killed. In other words, you must make sure that players do not develop tunnel vision with regards to the boss, but at the same time you must make sure that the raid DPS is as high as possible.

The Heroic mode of the Norushen encounter is extremely similar to the Normal mode. In its initial version, the Heroic mode presented many new abilities, but this was changed very quickly by Blizzard, meaning that the fight is considerably simpler now.

The only difference from Normal mode is that all the mobs in the encounter have received an increase in health and damage (something quite standard for a Heroic mode encounter).

The strategy for the fight remains practically unchanged from Normal mode. Your DPS players should go into their Test Realms and become Purified as quickly as possible. Once everyone is Purified, you should use Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp and finish off the Amalgam of Corruption.

Naturally, as in Normal mode, when sending DPS players into the Test Realms, you will need to make sure that you do not send so many players in that the Unleashed Manifestations of Corruption that appear in the Normal Realm will overwhelm your raid.

This concludes our raid guide for Norushen. We hope you have found it helpful. Please do not hesitate to post any feedback you may have on our forums.

• 13 Nov. 2013: Added Heroic mode strategy.
• 15 Sep. 2013: Updated the guide.
  • Added a link to the video guide.
  • Added 25-man health values.
  • Clarified certain Corruption mechanics, including the number of players who can be in the Test Realms at the same in time in 25-man (5 players).
• 29 Aug. 2013: Added Summarising Things Up section.

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