N’zoth is an old god. There is no strategy, just succumb to the whispers and join his eternal Black Empire! Ilith qi’uothk shn’ma yeh’glu Shath’Yar! H’IWN IILTH!
N’zoth is a three phase encounter. Stage 1 serves as an introductory phase, Stage 2 half the raid repeats Stage 1, followed by the other half repeating Stage 1. After both halves successfully complete Stage 2, you’ll enter Stage 3.
As a note, this fight was buggy both times it went up for testing. We believe we have a good idea of how Blizzard intends it to work, and that’s what we’ve represented here. Stage 3 take with a grain of salt, though, as there was only a limited amount of testing possible in the phase. We’ll make any necessary edits and updates after the fight is live.
Encounter-Wide Ability
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- Sanity
- When you pull, you get a Sanity bar. Several mechanics throughout the fight reduce your Sanity. If you ever reach 0 Sanity, you get blessed with the Gift of N’zoth
- Increases your damage and healing by 100% for 20 seconds
- When this expires, you get MC’d and try to destroy your raid. MC cannot be broken and you must be killed
- While MC’d, you cast Mental Decay, draining 15 Sanity from your target and dealing 35k Shadow damage every second for 12s, interruptible
- When you pull, you get a Sanity bar. Several mechanics throughout the fight reduce your Sanity. If you ever reach 0 Sanity, you get blessed with the Gift of N’zoth
- Sanity
- Azeroth’s Radiance
- Extra action button, uses your Heart of Azeroth to restore 25 Sanity every second for 4s
- Moving or attacking breaks the channel
- This seemed to only be available in the Physical realm
Stage 1
- When you start the encounter, N’zoth casts Glimpse of Insanity and pulls the entire raid into a vision. While in this vision, you’ll fight Psychus and deal with a plethora of void tentacles called Exposed Synapses. This Glimpse of Insanity effect pulls your mind out of your body.
- Psychus Abilities
- Psychus has an incredibly massive amount of HP
- Mindwrack
- Cast on tank, deals 107k Physical damage and applies a debuff, causing you to take 33% increased Physical damage for 14s
- Creeping Anguish
- Psychus drops a void zone below himself, which expands out to be 60 yards wide
- While in the void zone, you take 78k Shadow damage every 1
- Also lose 5 Sanity every second
- Your movement speed is also reduced 33%
- See screenshots below. It grows from barely wider than Psychus to covering a massive portion of the room
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- Synaptic Shock
- Killing a void tentacle while Psychus is within 8 yards of it causes Psychus to take 50% increased damage for 20s. Stacks.
- Manifest Madness
- If Psychus reaches full energy, he channels Manifest Madness
- Reduces damage taken by 99%
- Inflicts 107k Shadow damage to the entire raid every 2s
- Also drains 20 Sanity from the entire raid every 2s
- This is a wipe
- Shattered Ego
- Killing Psychus stuns N’zoth and any tentacle adds (including the ones you’ll fight in Phase 2) for 30 seconds
- Synaptic Shock
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- Void Gaze
- N’zoth’s eye opens, dealing 35k Shadow damage and draining 5% Sanity from all players in the vision every 1 second for 3s
- Exposed Synapse
- Probe Mind
- Zaps a random player within 30 yards, dealing 64k Shadow damage
- This ability bounces to any other players within 5 yards of the targeted player, and keeps bouncing to anyone within 5 yards, dealing the same 64k damage
- Resilient Synapses
- When one void tendy dies, the rest all heal to full HP
- Probe Mind
- Restore Consciousness
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- When Psychus dies, you can run to your body and leave the vision, returning to the Physical realm
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- Collapsing Mindscape
- N’zoth casts this when Psychus dies. Anyone who doesn’t reach their body and leave the vision before the cast ends dies instantly
Stage 2
- During this phase, you’ll be fighting N’zoth in the physical realm. He’ll cast Mindgate soon after the phase starts, opening a passageway to the vision realm from Phase 1
- After taking the Mindgate, you get a debuff preventing you from entering any later Mindgates
- Half of your raid goes down during the first Mindgate, the other half goes down for the 2nd
- Your team in the Vision phase will basically repeat Stage 1, with a couple additional mechanics to deal with
- Psychus has the same HP pool as Stage 1, and retains all the same abilities
- Exposed Synapses are spawned everywhere and work just like Stage 1
- Corruption of Deathwing
- Vision of Deathwing periodically appears, dealing 28k damage to everyone within the Vision every second for 5s
- Also drains 4 Sanity per second for 5s
- Flames of Insanity
- Orange swirlies on the ground
- Getting hit deals 107k Fire damage and drains 15 Sanity
- Also DoTs you, dealing 43k Fire every 2s for 6s
- DoT is dispellable
- Vision of Deathwing periodically appears, dealing 28k damage to everyone within the Vision every second for 5s
- Treacherous Bargain
- Visions of Azshara and Sylvanas appear
- Azshara casts Tread Lightly
- Anyone who moves during this takes 14k Frost damage every 2s until they stop moving
- Sylvanas casts Black Volley
- Deals 7k Shadow damage to everyone in the vision and drains 4 Sanity every 1 second for 3 seconds
- Azshara casts Tread Lightly
- Visions of Azshara and Sylvanas appear
- When Psychus dies, the vision collapses and you need to run back to your body to escape, just like Stage 1
- Soon after the first Psychus dies, N’zoth will re-cast Mindgate. The second half of your raid needs to take this one, go into the vision, and kill the fresh Psychus
- N’zoth
- Corrupted Neuron
- Spawns a bunch of red Neurons around the room, heal themselves 1% every 2s
- Veil of Anguish
- Puddles of purple goop grow around all Neurons, around N’zoth, and around the very outer edge of the room
- Puddles deal 78k Shadow damage and drain 5 sanity every second you’re in it
- Corrupted Neuron
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- Mindgrasp
- Immediately after the Neurons spawn, N’zoth will begin casting Mindgrasp
- Grabs the entire raid with void tentacles, then pulls them
- Can pull either to N’zoth, or to the edge. You’ll be able to tell which based on where the void tentacles are coming from.
- Mindgrasp
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- Paranoia
- Gives every player a partner, and links them for 15s
- Must get within 5 yards of your partner, or you take 10k Shadow damage every second
- Damage increases over the duration of Paranoia
- Coming within 5 yards of someone OTHER than your partner causes you to lose 5 Sanity every second
- Eternal Torment
- Casted ability
- Deals 46k Shadow to everyone in the Physical realm every 1 second for 2 seconds
- Paranoia
- Adds
- Corrupted Viscera
- When any add in the Physical realm dies, it explodes and drops gunk
- Deals 107k Shadow and drains 5 Sanity from anyone hit
- NOTE – this did not occur on the PTR at all. We assume it’ll be a swirlie on the ground like most similar abilities.
- Basher Tentacle
- Gains 3% increased Physical damage after every successful melee hit
- Void Lash
- Bashes the tank (or highest threat target in range) for 161k Physical and 53k Shadow every 0.8s for 6s
- Tumultuous Blast
- Cast when there’s no melee in range
- Deals 53k Shadow to the entire raid every 2s for 10s
- Also reduces Haste by 33% for 10s
- Corruptor Tentacle
- Casted ability, applies a debuff on a random player
- Deals 43k Shadow damage every 2s for 10s
- If this does not get dispelled before it expires, it’ll also drain 15 Sanity
- Casted ability, applies a debuff on a random player
- Spike Tentacle
- Pain Spike
- Throws a small void bolt at a random target, dealing 53k Shadow damage
- Pain Spike
- Corrupted Viscera
- After each half of your raid has gone down and killed Psychus, you’ll move into Stage 3
Stage 3
- At the beginning of this Stage, N’zoth summons a Thought Harvester
- They then spawn roughly every 42 seconds
- Mindwrack
- Same as when Psychus casts it
- Harvest Thoughts
- Deals 71k Shadow damage to everyone within 15 yards
- Also drains 200 Sanity split evenly among everyone hit
- If less than 3 people are it, it’ll instead drain 50 Sanity from everyone
- N’zoth
- Eternal Torment
- Same as Stage 2
- Mindgrasp
- Same as Stage 2
- Stupefying Glare
- N’zoth creates several eyes that shoot eye beams
- Deals 161k Shadow to anyone hit
- Also fears anyone hit for 4s
- Eternal Torment
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- Evoke Anguish
- Debuffs everyone in the raid, dealing 178k Shadow damage every 5.2 seconds for 8s
- When it expires, leaves a pool of Anguish, same type of pool as in earlier phases
- Every time this ability is cast, all previous pools grow in size
- Evoke Anguish
Strategy
- As a general rule throughout the fight, if your Sanity drops below 25%, use your extra action button
- Before you pull, split the raid in half for your two Stage 2 groups. Each group needs 1 tank, and an even split of DPS and heals
- Stage 1, Stage 2 Visions
- While in the Vision fighting Psychus, you’ll need to move him around the room on top of the tentacles
- Kill whatever tentacle you’re currently holding Psychus near
- While in the Vision fighting Psychus, you’ll need to move him around the room on top of the tentacles
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- As soon as that tentacle dies, move Psychus to the next tentacle
- While you’re killing the tentacles, make sure DPS are cleaving onto Psychus
- In Stage 1, you can start nuking Psychus after 4 tentacles
- In Stage 2, you’ll need about 6 before hard swapping to the boss
- In Stage 2, killing Psychus before he reaches 100 energy is MUCH tighter than Stage 1. You’ll need to maximize cleave damage onto him as much as possible, while still killing tentacles as quickly and efficiently as possible
- Once you kill the 6th tentacle, drag Psychus onto a 7th tentacle, and main target Psychus. Cleave damage should kill the 7th tentacle relatively quickly, then everyone hard focus Psychus
- DPS should save cooldowns for after the 6th tentacle dies
- Don’t stand in the purple void gunk
- Synapses have a 30 yard max range on Probe Mind. Ranged and healers should stay near melee range of Psychus to minimize the number of Synapses within range to cast
- During Stage 2 visions, make sure to dodge the orange swirlies from Deathwing
- The mechanics from Azshara and Sylvanas are not as impactful overall as the swirlies from Deathwing. When Tread Lightly is up, only move as far as necessary
- As soon as Psychus dies, get yourself to your body ASAP. It’ll be wherever you had entered the Vision from
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- Stage 2, Physical Realm
- On PTR, the Physical realm was rather slow paced
- Prioritize killing the Basher > Corruptor > Spike
- Make sure your tank gets in range of the Basher ASAP and stays on it
- Healers need to make sure to dispel Corrupted Mind
- Dodge the swirlies (we think) that spawn when an add dies. These should be easily dodgeable, no reason to take unnecessary damage and Sanity loss
- When affected by Paranoia, make sure to get to your new best friend as quickly as possible, and stay away from other groups
- Corrupted Neuron and Mindgrasp function as a combo. Neurons will go out first, and you’ll have a few seconds to attack them. Need to nuke these down so a path clears in the puddles
- Soon after, Mindgrasp starts. You want to be in the middle of the platform ring when this starts, and quickly move to the opposite side of where the tentacles grabbing you are coming from
- Once both halves of your raid successfully complete a Stage 2 Vision, you enter Stage 3
- Stage 3
- Due to limited PTR testing time, we did not get much time to work through all of Stage 3. We’ll list the important points here, and complete the strategy after the fight is live and has been killed
- When the eye balls spawn for Stupefying Gaze, make sure you do not stand in front of them so you don’t get eye beamed
- When Evoke Anguish goes out, the raid should collapse and drop their pools as close together as possible
- You’ll most likely want to drop the first set near the back of the room, and drop all subsequent sets as close to the edge of old pools as possible
- After dropping pools, the raid should shift together around the room to an open area. Don’t go too far or you’ll eventually run out of room
- When the Thought Harvester spawns, all DPS should swap and nuke it
- When he casts Harvest Thoughts, the raid should collapse to all soak this together and spread the Sanity drain as much as possible
- Stay near the middle of the platform ring when Mindgrasp is cast to help make sure you have enough time to move to whatever side is opposite of the tentacles
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