Hellfire Citadel

Tank Responsibilities

 

• 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.

 

Healer Responsibilities

 

• 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).

 

DPS Responsibilities

 

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

• DPS Kormrok.

 

Everybodies Responsibilities

 

• 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.

 

Pools and Empowered Abilities

 

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.

 

Abilities

 

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.

• Pound 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 causes large, purple globules to spawn from the purple pool and travel across the room, eventually disappearing. 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 casts Swat on his current tank knocking the tank back and dealing 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.

    • Explosive Burst 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.

    • Foul Crush 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.

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.

 

Tanking Concerns

 

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.

 

Positioning

 

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.