N'Zoth the Corruptor Tactics and Strategy guide
Welcome to our strategy and tactics guide for N'Zoth in Ny'alotha. Here, we tell you all you need to know to defeat this boss. We also include a role by role breakdown of the strategy, so that you can quickly see what you need to do depending on your role: DPS, tanks, or healers.
Read Before
Before you start reading the strategy, we advise you to look at the abilities of N'Zoth, in our encounter journal pages.
Fight Overview
- Players will have to manage their Sanity, just as they did in the previous encounter.
- The fight takes place in multiple phases, with Phase 1 taking place in a vision created by N'Zoth.
- You will first fight Psychus and your raid will need to destroy the Exposed Synapses while cleaving down the boss.
- After killing Psychus, you will have to escape the vision before being killed by N'Zoth's cast. This will start Phase 2 of the fight.
- Phase 2 brings players back to the physical realm, in which they will fight N'Zoth. Your raid will then be split between the physical realm and portals that N'Zoth opens.
- The portal will force half of your raid to complete the first phase again, in which you must kill Psychus again.
- On the first opening of the portal, the first half of the raid will have to deal with Deathwing's Vision, while the second half of the raid will have to deal with Sylvanas and Azshara's vision on the second.
- The half of the raid that is not in the portal will have to deal with N'Zoth in the meantime.
- The final phase of the fight functions extremely similarly to the others, but combined. A Thought Harvester is summoned, which essentially works similarly to Psychus and N'Zoth has mostly the same abilities.
Fight Summary / TL;DR
Tanks
- In Phases 1 and 2, move Psychus between the Exposed Synapses to ensure your DPS can get additional cleave damage on the boss while killing the tentacles.
- Do not move Psychus too often to avoid spreading the
Creeping Anguish
too much. - Taunt on 1 stack of
Mindwrack and then taunt back as soon as it falls
off. - Make sure you get in range of the Basher Tentacle adds as soon as possible.
Healers
- Dispel
Corrupted Mind in Phase 2. - If you have Mana to do so, dispel the DoT from Deathwing's attacks, but the damage is not overwhelming if you just want to heal through it.
DPS
- In Phases 1 and 2, you will need to ensure that you cleave Psychus while killing the tentacles.
- When called for, focus down Psychus to take advantage of the debuff stacks he receives.
- If you are not in the portal in Phase 2, prioritise the Basher Tentacles.
- Kill the Thought Harvester as soon as possible in Phase 3.
Everyone
- You should use your extra action button as much as possible to regenerate your Sanity. Do not reach 0 Sanity unless you are about to kill the boss and require a boost of damage for the final push.
- This fight has a huge number of mechanics to dodge, so make sure that you avoid everything as much as possible to reduce your amount of Sanity lost.
- Remember where your body is when you are pulled into the Vision phase, to ensure that you can get back out as soon as possible.
- Move to the other Paranoia target ASAP if you are targeted by it, to reduce its effects as swiftly as possible.
Phase 1
The first phase sees the raid fight against Psychus for the first time.
Abilities
For a full list of the abilities used in this phase, check out our dedicated N'Zoth Encounter Journal page.
Notes
There is a maximum range on the beams that the tentacles target players with, so anyone that can should try to outrange as many as possible to avoid unnecessary damage. Avoid the centre of the room unless necessary.
Strategy
This phase is a DPS check and if your raid cannot beat it, it will never be able to get past Phase 2. You must be able to clear Psychus before he reaches full energy, otherwise he will wipe the raid.
As soon as you get pulled into the portal, your tanks should get Psychus into position on the first tentacle and your DPS will need to cleave it down ASAP.
Keep moving through the tentacles, killing them until Psychus has enough stacks of the debuff for your raid to finish him off. There is no specific number for this, as it relies entirely on the DPS of your players. The higher your DPS, the less stacks you will need, due to better passive DPS on Psychus, as well as better burst with the stacks.
As soon as Psychus is killed, get back to your body to go back to the physical realm for Phase 2.
Phase 2
After Psychus dies, you will engage N'Zoth in the physical realm. He will eventually summon a portal to fight Psychus again, and your raid will have to split into 2 to deal with it.
Once Psychus has been killed again, another portal will open and, due to a debuff preventing re-entry, the other half of your raid will have to go into the portal and kill him.
Abilities
For a full list of the abilities used in this phase, check out our dedicated N'Zoth Encounter Journal page.
Strategy
Adds will spawn throughout this phase, with the Bashers being the highest priority to be killed.
Your tanks will need to pick up the Basher ASAP, to avoid it dealing huge damage to the raid, and stay in range of it.
When the first portal is opened, half of your raid will need to enter and essentially complete Phase 1 again. Once Psychus is defeated, the other half will have to do the same thing.
The main difference is that, in Phase 2, Psychus will have the aid of a former boss, depending on which portal he is currently being fought in.
For the first portal, Deathwing's vision helps him, but he just adds some passive damage and Sanity drain to the fight. You should also make sure that you dodge the fiery attacks on the ground.
For the second portal, Azshara and Sylvanas' visions appear, which can cause slightly more issues. Azshara will cause any player that moves to take damage until they stop moving, while Sylvanas will deal raid-wide damage and drain Sanity from players. Just make sure that you do not move unnecessarily and this will be no problem to deal with.
For the half of the raid that is fighting N'Zoth, the fight is actually somewhat
relaxed. The main issue is the 
Mindgrasp and Neurons combo, which spawns pools
of damaging zones on the ground before pulling your raid forwards or backwards.
You will have to position yourselves so that you do not get pulled into one of
the damaging zones.
N'Zoth also casts 
Paranoia, which will link two players together. They
will need to move together ASAP to stop themselves taking damage from it, but
they must also make sure not to touch anyone but their linked partner. If they do,
they will lose Sanity every second.
After both halves of your raid have killed Psychus in the portal realm, you will start Phase 3.
Phase 3
After Psychus has been defeated by both sides of the raid, N'Zoth will spawn a Thought Harvester, which functions almost identically to Psychus.
Abilities
For a full list of the abilities used in this phase, check out our dedicated N'Zoth Encounter Journal page.
Strategy
This phase functions very similarly to a combination of the first two, with a few added abilities.
Your raid should focus down the Thought Harvester as soon as possible, making
sure to soak the 
Harvest Thoughts ability by stacking the raid together.
When N'Zoth uses 
Evoke Anguish, try to drop the pools as close to each
other as possible to save space in the room.
Dodge the 
Stupefying Glare from the eyeball adds and, other than the
tactics you have already perfected from Phases 1 and 2, there is little else to
do in this fight.
Simply DPS down the Harvester and finish off N'Zoth.
Loot
Spec by Spec Advice for Ny'alotha
| Death Knight | Demon Hunter | Druid |
|---|---|---|
| Hunter | Mage | Monk |
| Paladin | Priest | Rogue |
| Shaman | Warlock | Warrior |
Changelog
- 01 Feb. 2020: Page added.
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