It’s N’Zoth times in LFR, and so far this wing is insane. I will describe my group experience in the next post, here’s just a summary opinion on the boss design and difficulty.
First of all, lore. Despite of what other people say, the whole thing is quite logical. We placed the beacons all over Ny’alotha carefully guided by MOTHER (not where a random hunter or monk decided), Wrathion provided us with cloak to resist madness and also participated personally in the Old God’s defeat. His storyline was quite developed. We engaged the Old God, and on the verge of defeat were used as a final beacon to channel the Titan energies into the Old God.
Cinematic in my opinion is fine, but too short – we could have got another couple of scenes. It could have been at least shots of Uldum and Vale, where Black Empire obelisks crumble, the skies clear, and Ramkahen/Pandaren people rejoice. It would have taken very little development time, and show us in person that our actions made an impact on our world. That would have been a nice touch, and we would feel quite different. Well, what did not happen – did not happen.
I can’t criticize the boss lore design though. It is simply amazing to deal with the Old God itself – so huge that it required two encounters to kill it! Most epic, and last time we had that I think was Deathwing in Cataclysm.
Carapace of N’Zoth – seemed easy enough. We killed it on second pull, and it was quite intuitive. The first wipe was about people not paying attention to tentacle tumors. Once we figured that out, it was a breeze. First phase – nuke the big guy, focus tumors and AoE adds, don’t stand in the bad. Sanity doesn’t really drop here. Second phase – is a G’huun-like couple of wings to care about, teleporting to Wrathion with low sanity and nuking the big Fury guy when done. Third phase – just kill it off.
N’Zoth the Corruptor was insane. It is exactly Archimonde 2.0. – a well deserved title. There is a lot of stuff going on to be figured out, lots of stuff to care about, and it’s an insane DPS check.
It is worth saying that N’Zoth is due to immediate nerfs, because you began feeling more or less confident with 5 determination stacks only! Mind you, on reset day the most developed characters come to the raid, so I can’t even imagine how it will feel later – for example, on weekend runs. Also at this moment, 2 months into patch, it’s unlikely that LFR people would get a sufficient growth in power, so it’s not gonna be a lot easier. So yes, nerfs must be done.
The encounter is not intuitive at the very least, and tactics should be learned and executed. Here’s the crash course guide to the N’Zoth LFR encounter:
1. Come close to N’Zoth before pull, because rim void could kill you when encounter starts.
2. Phase 1: tanks should lead Psychus to tentacles, people nuke tentacles which are within melee range from Psychus. When tentacle dies, it applies an armor debuff to Psychus. Once it has 5-6 stacks, nuke it fast and very, very quickly return to your body (where you started the encounter) and click it not to die from boss’ cast. It is important that tanks don’t lead Psychus too far from bodies, because all people must manage to return. Don’t stand in the bad from tentacles, ever.
3. Phase 2: the main concern is tentacles. Focus and nuke Bashers asap, because they deal heaviest damage to the whole raid. Minor ones are dealt with on your way. During this phase a round portal will pop up on the ground – this is a door to phase 1. The idea is to kill Psychus twice in portals in the very same manner as phase 1, while other players kill tentacles in real world. We’ve assigned DPS groups 1,3,5 to walk into portals (+ 1 tank and 2 healers) when they pop up, and groups 2,4 kept dealing with tentacles when we were away.
Every time Psychus dies, N’Zoth becomes vulnerable for a short period of time, nuking him is ok, but it’s not the main idea.
What else? Sometimes N’Zoth will cast Paranoia – don’t run away, stack with it.
It is also important to avoid pulls and pushes which N’Zoth does from time to time. He will either stun and push all players into the rim, or stun and pull all players to himself. Touching the rim void or void around him does a heavy chunk of damage, so be as far from where he wants you (either by the boss or by the rim). These pushes and pulls happen in certain phases and in a pattern, so it’s worth learning the sequence.
4. Phase 3: once Psychus dies the second time in portals (after Sylvanas/Azshara talk), N’zoth’s shield crumbles, and, like with Vexiona, all is left is to nuke him down – the easiest part.
One more shit to care about, as if this all wasn’t enough, is your sanity. You have your cloak action button to restore it to full. The guideline is simple: use it first when below 30% sanity, and then just hit it on cooldown.
Overall, tactics are not too hard to execute and explain – the biggest problem is DPS. We required 8 stacks to beat him down. I could say it was possible with 6-7.
This is not gonna be a pleasant wing to farm :) Naturally people will eventually learn tactics, which will make the encounter easier, but I hope very much that nerfs are in order. Like the whole Ny’alotha, wing 4 seems overtuned.
Well, maybe a lore character of that importance doesn’t deserve to be a pinata after all!
Gnomecore 