Kormrok Detailed Strategy Guide (Heroic+Mythic Modes included)

Table of Contents

• +1. General Information
  • 1.1. LFR Difficulty
  • 1.2. Normal, Heroic, and Mythic Difficulty
  • 1.3. Enrage Timer
• 2. Overview of the Fight
• +3. Summing Things Up
  • 3.1. Tanks
  • 3.2. Healers
  • 3.3. DPS
  • 3.4. Everyone
• 4. Pools and Empowered Abilities
• 5. Abilities
• +6. Strategy
  • 6.1. Empowerment Order
  • 6.2. Tanking Concerns
  • 6.3. Positioning
  • 6.4. Unempowered Strategy
  • 6.5. Empowered Abilities
• 7. When to use Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp
• 8. When to use the Legendary Rings
• 9. Learning the Fight
• +10. Mythic Mode
  • 10.1. Differences From Normal/Heroic Mode
  • 10.2. Strategy
• +11. Loot
  • 11.1. Armor
  • 11.2. Weapons
  • 11.3. Amulets, Cloaks, Rings, and Trinkets
• 12. Concluding Remarks
• 13. Changelog

Introduction

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

This guide is updated for World of Warcraft WoD 6.2.

Kormrok is one of the boss encounters in the Hellfire Citadel raid instance. The fight is demanding from a positioning and strategic point of view, requiring everyone to have a solid understanding of the mechanics.

This guide is written and maintained by Azortharion, a top Hunter with 6 years of raiding experience, who currently raids in Ðanish Terrace, a world top 20 guild.

For the Looking for Raid version of the fight, we provide you with a special LFR guide. This will tell you everything you need to know in order to complete the encounter, in a quick and concise way.

This main part of this guide covers both the Normal and Heroic versions of the encounter, as far as mechanics and general strategy is concerned. The only difference between these two modes is found in the tuning, with Heroic being more difficult.

When we speak of extreme situations (such as the difficulty of a soft enrage timer, or damage from a certain source being too high to survive), we mostly refer to Heroic mode.

In addition to this, we have a specific Mythic mode section, where we present all the differences between Normal/Heroic and Mythic, as well as the strategy to defeat the Mythic encounter.

5 minutes and 40 seconds into the fight, Kormrok uses Enrage, increasing his damage and the frequency of his abilities. This makes the fight very difficult from this point on, though it is not really a hard enrage.

Kormrok is a single-phase encounter during which your raid faces Kormrok himself. At certain points during the fight, the raid must also face a number of very similar adds.

The fight revolves around the boss empowering some of his abilities, causing them to be much more dangerous. Moreover, when an ability is empowered, Kormrok also temporarily gains a new ability.

In this section, we will very briefly summarise what the players belonging to each of the three roles have to do during this fight. This is by no means meant to provide sufficient information to master the encounter, and it is only supposed to give you a very rough idea of what to watch out for.

• Perform a tank switch when Kormrok uses Swat, Foul Crush, or Explosive Burst.
• When Kormrok uses Swat, avoid being knocked into a pool. Additionally, avoid traveling either too far or not far enough. The former will leave you too far away from the boss, while the latter will deal too much damage to properly mitigate.
• When the other tank is targeted by Explosive Burst, move Kormrok at least 40 yards away from them.
• Be wary of the pools when Kormrok uses Leap.

• Healing cooldowns will be needed for every Pound.
• Excess healing cooldowns should be used for when Kormrok uses Grasping Hands / Dragging Hands, and when he uses Leap, dealing damage to everyone.
• Heal raid members triggering Explosive Runes, especially if they do so in rapid succession (during Empowered Explosive Runes).

• Save DPS cooldowns for Grasping Hands/Dragging Hands, and Crushing Hands and quickly AoE them down.
• DPS Kormrok.

• Use personal cooldowns before triggering Explosive Runes.
• Push Empowered Explosive Runes towards a central point by running forward into them.
• Spread out 4 yards when Kormrok casts Pound.
• Avoid standing in Fel Outpouring and Empowered Fel Outpouring.
• Gather up but remain at least 4 yards apart when Kormrok is about to cast Grasping Hands/ Dragging Hands.
• Move at least 40 yards away from the tank affected by Explosive Burst.
• In Mythic mode, when Kormrok uses Leap, the entire raid must spread out around the center of the room and intercept as many void as possible to prevent them from spawning, effectively creating a safe zone in the center.

In the room where you fight Kormrok, there are 3 large coloured pools of energy, each located near an edge of the room. One is purple (associated with Shadow damage), one is orange (associated with Fire damage), and one is green (associated with Nature damage).

2 minutes after the fight begins, and every 2 minutes thereafter, Kormrok will choose whatever pool that is closest to him to leap into. In order to revisit the same pool, Kormrok must first have leaped into the 2 others. If he has recently leaped into the pool closest to him, he will simply pick the second-closest pool.

When the boss leaps into a pool, he deals raid-wide damage (Shadow, Fire, or Nature, depending on the pool), and becomes empowered with the energy from that specific pool for 2 minutes. This in turn empowers the next 2 casts of one of Kormork's abilities (a different one for each pool), and also grants him a new tank-only ability for the same 2-minute duration.

Players standing in any of these pools take extremely high damage (of the school associated with the respective pool) each second.

Kormrok uses a set of abilities, 3 of which are sometimes empowered, becoming more devastating. Moreover, whenever an ability is empowered, Kormrok gains a new ability that he uses against the tanks.

• Leap is an ability that Kormrok occasionally uses to jump into pools and empower his abilities, as we have explained earlier.
• Pound is an ability that Kormrok regularly uses. It deals heavy Physical damage to all raid members and to anyone else in a 4-yard radius around them every second for 4 seconds. This ability is never empowered.
• Fel Outpouring is an ability that Kormrok regularly uses. It causes large, purple globules to spawn from the purple pool and travel across the room, eventually disappearing. These are not actual NPCs, so they cannot be attacked, tanked, or killed. Their movement pattern and movement speed are irregular. If they come in contact with a raid member, that raid member takes heavy Shadow damage. This ability becomes empowered when Kormrok leaps into the purple pool.
  • When empowered by the purple pool, Fel Outpouring causes the globules to spawn from all 3 pools at the same time, tripling the amount of globules. Additionally, they move in different directions. While Fel Outpouring is empowered, Kormrok also uses a new ability called Swat.
    • Kormrok regularly casts Swat on his current tank. This knocks the tank back and deals damage to them inversely proportional to the distance that they traveled when knocked back. Additionally, Swat applies Fel Touch to the tank, a debuff that increases magical damage taken by 50% for 1 minute, which stacks. This ability requires a tank switch.
• Explosive Runes is an ability that Kormrok regularly uses. 5 runes are placed on the ground that slowly expand in size over 15 seconds. They can be detonated by players running over them, dealing heavy Physical damage in an 8-yard radius when this happens. If the Explosive Runes are not absorbed within 15 seconds of spawning, the entire raid takes massive Fire damage. This ability becomes empowered when Kormrok leaps into the orange pool.
  • When empowered by the orange pool, the 5 Explosive Runes spawn in a sort of circle shape. Running over an Empowered Explosive Rune absorbs it, but causes it to respawn roughly 8 yards in front of the player who absorbed it. Explosive Runes do not respawn on top of existing Explosive Runes, nor do they respawn if there are no other Explosive Runes left. While Explosive Runes is empowered, Kormrok also uses a new ability called Explosive Burst.
    • Kormrok regularly casts Explosive Burst on his current tank. This stuns the tank for 10 seconds, and deals massive Fire damage to all raid members within 40 yards of the tank when the stun expires. Additionally, Explosive Burst applies the same Fel Touch debuff applied by Swat, which increases magical damage taken by the target by 50% for 1 minute. This ability requires a tank switch.
• Grasping Hands is an ability that Kormrok regularly uses. All raid members, except the tanks, are Grabbed by attackable adds called Grasping Hands that spawn from the ground. This deals moderate Nature damage to the grabbed player and anyone else in a 4-yard radius. Grabbed players are then Crushed until they die or until the Grasping Hand holding them is dead. Crush deals a moderate amount of Physical damage every 3 seconds. Players who are being Crushed cannot move, but they can cast spells and attack. Grasping Hands becomes empowered when Kormrok leaps into the green pool.
  • When Empowered by the green pool, Grasping Hands becomes Dragging Hands. The Grasping Hands adds become Dragging Hands adds, which, in addition to grabbing and crushing, pull affected players towards the nearest pool. As stated earlier, the pools deal extremely high damage to any players standing in them, so if the Dragging Hands succeed in pulling players to the pool, these players will die quickly. The Dragging Hands cannot be crowd controlled or tanked, but players can still cast their abilities while they are being dragged. While Grasping Hands is empowered, Kormrok also uses a new ability called Foul Crush.
    • Kormrok regularly uses Foul Crush on his current tank. This grabs the tank with a single Crushing Hand, similar to a Grasping Hand, but which deals much more damage and has vastly increased health. This hand stuns the tank, and when it is killed, the tank is debuffed with the same Fel Touch debuff left behind by the other 2 empowered tank abilities.

5 minutes and 40 seconds after the start of the fight, Kormrok becomes Enraged. He gains a 30% increase to his attack speed, and he uses all his abilities more often. Additionally, all pools become empowered at once. This Enrage does not fade and lasts until Kormrok is killed.

Except for the first 2 minutes of the fight, one of Kormrok's abilities will always be empowered and this impact your raid's strategy to some extent, although your raid can decide of the empowerment order.

The purple pool is the most problematic, so you should make it the last pool that Kormrok jumps in, in each cycle. This way, you may kill him before you reach that point, avoiding the pool's empowerment altogether. For the orange and green pools, it is up to you to choose the order you prefer.

When Kormrok casts Leap, he leaps to the closest pool (unless he has already leapt to that pool in the current cycle). This means that Kormrok's tank can control to which pool the boss leaps. It is important to pay attention to your raid's strategy and to your raid leader's instructions regarding this.

Depending on Kormrok's currently empowered state, tanks must deal with different mechanics.

• Counter-intuitively, it is not best for tanks to stand with their back to a wall when Swat is cast, in order to avoid being knocked back. While this does mean that they can return to the boss right away, it also means that they take extremely high damage from Swat itself, which deals lower damage the longer the target is knocked back. As such, we advise tanks to experiment in order to find the correct distance from a wall that allows them to return to the boss quickly enough without taking too much damage. Once Swat is cast, the other tank should taunt Kormrok.
• When a tank is affected by Explosive Burst, the other tank must taunt Kormrok, and the entire raid must move 40 yards away from the tank affected by Explosive Burst. This must happen within 10 seconds, to avoid taking any damage from this tank's explosion.
• When a tank is affected by Foul Crush, the other tank must taunt Kormrok, and, as we will see below, DPS players should quickly kill the Crushing Hand. The affected tank can also assist the DPS players in this task.

If tanks taunt off of each other as recommended above, then the Fel Touch debuff should never cause problems.

Due to Pound dealing splash damage to players within 4 yards of each other, we recommend having a light spread of at least 4 yards throughout the room. In principle, you need to maintain this spread throughout the fight, but Pound is cast rather reliably on a 60-second cooldown, so as long as you keep track of when it will be next cast you can deviate from this positioning.

Whenever Kormrok casts Fel Outpouring, we recommend moving towards the entrance of the room, especially when it is empowered. Here, it is easier to avoid the incoming waves of damage.

When Kormrok is about to cast Grasping Hands/ Dragging Hands, it is important that the raid stacks up to allow DPS players to quickly AoE down the Grasping Hands/Dragging Hands.

In this section, we walk you through how you should deal with all of Kormrok's abilities, when they are not empowered. This includes how to deal with Pound, which is never empowered.

For Pound, your raid must ensure that there is always a healing cooldown available, since the ability deals a high amount of damage in a short period of time. Since the raid cannot stack during Pound, the healing cooldown cannot be one that requires the raid to stack up.

For dealing with Fel Outpouring, the idea is to avoid coming in contact with the purple globules. Standing closer to the purple pool from where they spawn makes this easier, but it may still take some time to master this.

Whenever Explosive Runes appear, raid members will have to detonate them within 15 seconds in order to avoid taking raid-wide damage. Players can do this liberally, as long as they use defensive cooldowns before detonating the runes.

Grasping Hands should be killed as quickly as possible, especially if a Pound is coming up, as the combination of these two abilities is an almost guaranteed wipe. We remind you to group up when Grasping Hands is about to be cast, but to remain at least 4 yards away. This should allow you to AoE down the hands while still minimising the damage from Grab.

As we stated, at any given point in the fight (except for the first 2 minutes), one of Kormrok's abilities will be empowered. Here is how each one should be dealt with.

When Fel Outpouring is empowered, the strategy for dealing with it does not change, but there are more globules to avoid.

When Explosive Runes is empowered, a number of players should attempt to cattle-herd the Explosive Runes together by collectively pushing their respawns towards a central point. This is done by the raid members forming a vague circle, and running on top of their Explosive Runes at roughly the same time. Eventually, the runes will meet in the middle and become a final Explosive Rune that disappears entirely when detonated.

In order to manage Dragging Hands, the Dragging Hands must be killed with the same, high priority as the Grasping Hands. It is wise to save DPS cooldowns for this point. When Kormrok targets a tank with a Crushing Hand, DPS it down as quickly as possible. It is important that all raid members position themselves closest to the same pool just before Dragging Hands is cast. This is because the hands drag players towards the nearest pool to them, and the goal is for the entire raid to be pulled together, towards the same pool.

At the 5:40 duration mark, Kormrok uses Enrage. After this point, the boss must be killed as quickly as possible, as his empowered abilities will quickly exhaust all of your healing and defensive cooldowns.

We recommend using Heroism / Bloodlust / Time Warp at the start of the fight. Since Enrage always happens after 5 minutes and 40 seconds, it is best to ensure that Kormrok's health is as low as possible when this happens. There are also no other, better moments during the fight to use Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp, and at the start of the fight, all raid members have all their cooldowns available.

• For DPS players, the Legendary Ring should be used at the start of the encounter, and when Grasping Hands/Dragging Hands/Crushing Hands occur, as the latter is by far the highest DPS-requirement of the encounter. Additionally, the high AoE damage done in this period will be turned, by the ring's effect, into single-target damage on Kormrok when all the hands die.
• Healers should attempt to use the Legendary Ring for Pound casts.
• Tanks should use the Legendary Ring to help with Kormrok's empowered tank abilities, Swat, Explosive Burst, and Foul Crush, especially during Enrage.

Kormrok is primarily testing your raid's ability to react to avoidable damage and to use a proper cooldown rotation. Several of Kormrok's abilities are unforgiving, which leaves little room for error and training; for example, if an Explosive Rune is missed or if no healing cooldown is used for Pound, it almost certainly leads to a wipe.

This is balanced out by the fact that Kormrok only has a few abilities, so your or your raid leader simply must make sure that everyone has as thorough understanding of what must be done.

Mechanically, the Mythic mode of the Kormrok encounter is very similar to the Normal/Heroic versions. The difficulty is greatly increased, but this boss is still the most approachable Mythic mode after Hellfire Assault and Iron Reaver.

Aside from everything dealing more damage and having more health, the Mythic version of this encounter introduces a new ability, and also slightly modifies the way in which other abilities are used.

To begin with, we must explain the new ability. Each time Kormrok leaps into a pool, he covers the entire floor of the room in swirling graphic effects. A few seconds later, a projectile lands in each marked area, creating a void zone at that location. These void zones persist until Kormrok leaps into the next pool, but if a raid member is standing at the location where a void zone will appear and effectively intercepts the projectile, that void zone will not spawn. This allows raid members to create safe zones by intercepting void zones. The void zones (called Foul Residue, Shadow Residue, or Fiery Residue depending on which pool Kormrok is interacting with) deal moderate damage every second to players standing in them.

In addition to this new ability, each time Kormrok leaps into a pool, the next 4 casts of the ability empowered by that pool are empowered, up from 2 in Normal/Heroic mode.

The boss still uses Leap just as often as before (every 2 minutes), and during its own empowerment phase, each empowered ability is used twice (just as before). However, the 2 remaining empowered uses of that ability are also used once Kormrok has leapt into a new pool, with a much reduced frequency. The result is that the ability empowered by a previous Leap will also be used once in each of the two subsequent Leap phases. The example below should illustrate things clearly.

1. At 2 minutes, Kormrok leaps into the Orange pool and empowers 4 casts of Explosive Runes. He uses this ability twice in the next 2 minutes.
2. At 4 minutes, Kormrok leaps into the Green pool, and empowers 4 casts of Grasping Hands (2 casts of Explosive Runes are still empowered). In the next 2 minutes, Kormrok will use empowered Grasping Hands twice, and empowered Explosive Runes once.
3. At 6 minutes, Kormrok leaps into the Purple pool and empowers 4 casts of Fel Outpouring (2 casts of Grasping Hands and 1 cast of Explosive Runes are still empowered). In the next 2 minutes, Kormrok will use empowered Fel Outpouring twice, and empowered Grasping Hands and Explosive Runes once each.

It is very unlikely that the fight will go beyond this cycle of 3 Leaps, given that, as in Normal/Heroic mode, Kormrok uses Enrage after 5 minutes and 40 seconds, increasing the difficulty even before the third Leap.

The greatest strategical difficulty of the Mythic version of Kormrok is to deal with the positioning requirements of Kormrok's empowered abilities, while still ensuring that the Mythic mode void zones do not hinder your raid's efforts too much. This is especially difficult given the increased number of empowered ability uses throughout the fight.

To deal with the Mythic void zones, we recommend that the raid spreads out around the middle of the room whenever Kormrok is about to cast Leap. The raid should then try to stand in as many graphic effects that indicate future void zones as possible, creating a large safe zone in the center. If the raid is able to do this, then there should be enough room to handle all the abilities that Kormrok uses. All players should avoid standing in the void zones once they are created, as is to be expected.

Aside from this, nothing else changes. The raid should still execute the same strategy as in Normal/Heroic mode, albeit accounting for the more frequent usage of empowered abilities.

In this section, you will find the loot table for Kormrok. The section is divided in 3 subsections: armor, weapons, and the rest (neck, back, finger, and trinket items).

Item Name	Armor	Slot	Secondary Stats
Pious Cowl (Heroic, Mythic)	Cloth	Head	Haste Multistrike
Deathrattle Mask (Heroic, Mythic)	Cloth	Head	Haste Mastery
Cowl of the Arcanic Conclave (Heroic, Mythic)	Cloth	Head	Critical Strike Mastery
Felfume Hood — LFR	Cloth	Head	Multistrike Critical Strike
Craggy Gloves of Grasping (Heroic, Mythic)	Cloth	Hands	Critical Strike Haste
Goop-Proof Gloves — LFR	Cloth	Hands	Critical Strike Mastery
Sludge-Soaked Waistband (Heroic, Mythic)	Cloth	Waist	Haste Multistrike
Oathclaw Helm (Heroic, Mythic)	Leather	Head	Mastery Critical Strike
Mask of the Hurricane's Eye (Heroic, Mythic)	Leather	Head	Critical Strike Haste
Felblade Hood (Heroic, Mythic)	Leather	Head	Multistrike Mastery
Ironpelt Helm — LFR	Leather	Head	Critical Strike Multistrike
Tunic of Reformative Runes (Heroic, Mythic)	Leather	Chest	Haste Mastery
Sludge-Resistant Waders — LFR	Leather	Legs	Haste Mastery
Hood of the Savage Hunt (Heroic, Mythic)	Mail	Head	Multistrike Mastery
Crown of the Living Mountain (Heroic, Mythic)	Mail	Head	Haste Mastery
Rancorbite Hood — LFR	Mail	Head	Multistrike Haste
Rugged Stoneshaped Pauldrons (Heroic, Mythic)	Mail	Shoulders	Mastery Multistrike
Industrial Lifting Belt — LFR	Mail	Waist	Critical Strike Multistrike
Faceguard of Iron Wrath (Heroic, Mythic)	Plate	Head	Mastery Critical Strike
Demongaze Helm (Heroic, Mythic)	Plate	Head	Mastery Haste
Helm of the Ceaseless Vigil (Heroic, Mythic)	Plate	Head	Critical Strike Haste
Demonbreaker Helm — LFR	Plate	Head	Critical Strike Mastery
Fel-Inscribed Shoulderplates (Heroic, Mythic)	Plate	Shoulders	Haste Versatility
Chestplate of Potential Energy — LFR	Plate	Chest	Multistrike Versatility

Item Name	Type	Main Stats	Secondary Stats
Runic Magnaron Tooth (Heroic, Mythic)	Dagger	Intellect	Mastery Haste
Runeaxe of the Breaker (Heroic, Mythic)	1H Axe	Agility	Mastery Critical Strike
Rune Infused Spear (Heroic, Mythic)	Polearm	Agility	Critical Strike Multistrike

Item Name	Type	Main Stats	Secondary Stats
Glowing Firestone (Heroic, Mythic)	Amulet	Intellect	Critical Strike Multistrike
Glowing String of Pebbles — LFR	Amulet	Agility	Mastery Critical Strike
Shadowgorged Iron Choker (Heroic, Mythic)	Amulet	Strength	Haste Multistrike
Splashcover Cloak — LFR	Cloak	Intellect	Haste Multistrike
Polymorphic Cloak of Absorption (Heroic, Mythic)	Cloak	Intellect	Spirit Critical Strike
Sigil-Stitched Drape — LFR	Cloak	Intellect	Spirit Versatility
Pit-Extracted Stone Signet (Heroic, Mythic)	Ring	Agility	Mastery Multistrike
Stone Runeband — LFR	Ring	Agility Strength	Bonus Armor Multistrike
Rumbling Pebble (Heroic, Mythic)	Trinket	Strength Mastery	Multistrike
Fragmented Runestone Etching — LFR	Trinket	Strength	Multistrike
Imbued Stone Sigil (Heroic, Mythic)	Trinket	Stamina Bonus Armor	Versatility

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

• 04 Jul. 2015: Added Mythic mode strategy.
• 30 Jun. 2015: Fixed a minor consistency issue in the advice given to tanks for how to handle Swat, in the Summing Things Up section.
• 29 Jun. 2015: Added link to our LFR guide.
• 24 Jun. 2015: Finalised information in the guide regarding the positioning for Grabbing Hands and Dragging Hands, following our experience with the fight on live realms.

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