Heart of Fear: Amber Shaper Un’sok

OVERVIEW

The encounter against Amber-Shaper Un'sok is a three-phase fight.

Phase One lasts until the boss reaches 70% health. During this phase, you will mainly have to kill small adds and avoid damaging ground effects.

Phase Two starts when the boss summons an add and ends when the add is killed. During this phase, Un'sok takes 99% reduced damage (so all kill the add)

Phase Three lasts until Un'sok dies and is a very intense phase, for both healers and DPS players. During this phase, the boss gains a sizeable increase in his damage.

During the fight, Un'sok will transform random players (including tanks) into a Mutated Construct. When transformed the player can use certain special abilities, and must perform the most important part in the encounter, EVERYBODY MUST have an excellent understanding of the Construct as this is the key to success as much as the DPS output.

Mutated Construct

Every 50 seconds, during Phases One and Two, and more often, during Phase Three, Un'sok casts Reshape Life and transforms a player into a Mutated Construct. During Phase One, the ability prioritises tanks, while in Phases Two and Three, it can target anyone in the raid.

The Mutated Construct has a unique resource, called Willpower, it must be used wisely, and it is the key to defeating the encounter.

Willpower starts out at 100% and slowly decreases over time when Willpower runs out the transformed player is instantly killed.

The only way to leave the Mutated Construct is to use Break Free, which is only usable when the it is below 20% HP (1.3m HP).

If the Mutated Construct is killed before the transformed player uses Break Free the transformed player will also die.

The transformed player has 3 abilities that they MUST use, in specific ways, throughout the encounter.

Un'sok will continue to cast Reshape Life even if there is already a Mutated Construct present and there can be a multiple Mutated Constructs active at the same time.

The Mutated Construct is hostile to both the rest of the raid, and to the boss. This is relevant, because the Construct must attack the boss, and the raid must attack the Construct.

The Mutated Construct has 4 abilities:

• Break Free is an ability that causes the transformed player to break free of the Mutated Construct. The Construct must be below 20% of its maximum health for this ability to be usable
• Consume Amber causes the Mutated Construct to absorb a pool of  Burning Amber, generates 20 Willpower, INCREASES the maximum health by 5% and heals it for that amount. Use this ONLY if the raid slacks at DPSing and you're likely to run out of Willpower before your HP is 20%
• Struggle for Control costs 8 Willpower and is the only way to interupt Amber Explosion, which deals high raid-wide damage. Using Struggle for Control also increases the damage taken by the Construct by 100% for 5 seconds.
• Amber Strike is a single-target attack, with a 6-second cooldown.

1. it applies a stacking debuff to the target, which increases its damage taken by 10% per stack, for 12 seconds
2. interrupts the target's spellcasting (and is the ONLY way to interupt the Amber Monstrosity from casting Amber Explosion)

The role of the Mutated Construct varies by phase.

• Players must always watch for when the Mutated Construct is casting  Amber Explosion, and interrupt this cast with  Struggle for Control.
• Players should use Amber Strike on cooldown, on the Amber Monstrosity in phase 2 or on the boss in phases 1 and 3.
• Players should normally not consume void zones by using Consume Amber.
• Hopefully we will only have one active Mutated Construct.

Phase 1

During this phase, Un'sok has 3 main abilities:

1) Amber Scalpel targets a random player with a beam of amber which follows them, deals a large amount of damage when hitting the victim and leaves many small void zones behind it which may turn into adds called Living Amber which fixate on random players, dealing low amounts of melee damage as well as a small amount of raid-wide damage every second. When a Living Amber is killed:

• deals a large amount of AoE damage to players within 8 yard radius.
• deals a large amount of AoE healing to other Living Ambers within 8 yard radius.
• leaves behind a void zone, called a  Burning Amber which will stay on the floor indefinitely, unless consumed by the Mutated Construct.

2) Parasitic Growth is a debuff cast on a random player that lasts for 30 seconds, and deals a moderate amount of damage to that player every 2 seconds. While the debuff is active, healing received by the player causes the damage from Parasitic Growth to increase.

3) Reshape Life will turn a tank (in this phase) into a Mutated Construct.

Phase 1 Strategy

• Mutated Construct NEVER target your team mates they ARE hostile targets you WILL kill them.
• Mutated Construct use Amber Strike on the boss on cooldown.
• Mutated Construct uses Struggle for Control to interrupt Amber Explosion.
• Mutated Construct uses Break Free ONLY when the boss is about to cast another Reshape Life (to maintain the damage buff on the boss.
• DPS priority is Mutated Constructs as soon as they appear (their in-game name is the same as the name of the player who is transformed), bringing them below 20% of their maximum health.
• DPS Un'sok when a Mutated Construct does not need to be attacked.
• Avoid being hit by the  Amber Scalpel beam by kiting it away and out of the raid each time it is cast.
• Kill Living Amber adds.
• Heal the players affected by  Parasitic Growth as little as possible, BUT keep them alive. It can be removed by Divine Shield,  Ice Block., etc

Phase 1 Healing Concerns

Healers will have to contend with the following sources of damage in this phase:

• steady tank damage on Un'sok's tank;
• steady raid-wide damage, depending on the number of Living Ambers that are alive;
• high damage on random players who are affected by  Parasitic Growth, and who cannot be healed abundantly;
• avoidable damage from players getting hit by  Amber Scalpel;
• avoidable damage from the explosions dealt by Living Ambers within 8 yards of themselves, when they die;
• avoidable damage from standing in the void zones left behind by dead Living Ambers.

Parasitic Growth:

• can be removed by abilities such as  Divine Shield and  Ice Block.
• absorption effects do not trigger the debuff's effect, Power Word: Shield and  Sacred Shield are great!
• Hand of Purity works against this debuff and almost negate the final 6 seconds.
• overhealing will still stack the debuff on them, so you must be careful.

Phase 2

When Un'sok reaches 70% health, he casts Amber Carapace, becoming 99% immune and summons an Amber Monstrosity with 65million HP (about 30% of the bosses HP), which when killed ends Phase 2 and removes Amber Carapace.

Un'sok continues to use Amber Scalpel, Parasitic Growth, and Reshape Life (now any player can be a target, including healers.

The Amber Monstrosity uses 3 main abilities:

• Amber Explosion is cast every 50 seconds dealing a high amount of raid damage. It is interruptible ONLY by the Mutated Contructs Amber Strike.
• Massive Stomp is a knockback that is cast every 20 seconds dealing a large amount of damage to all enemies within 15 yards.
• Fling is cast every 40 seconds on the current tank and throws them to a random location in the room. When landing, the target deals a large amount of damage to all players within 8 yards of the point of impact, and stuns them for 3 seconds.

Phase 2 Strategy

Deal with Unsok abilities as you did in Phase 1, however the Amber Monstrosity adds a few challenges.

The Mutated Construct must be prepared to interrupt the Amber Monstrosity's Amber Explosion every time it is cast. This is more important than stacking the debuff on the boss and must be off cooldown when it is cast to avoid a raid wipe.

Ranged DPS players and healers should be at least 15 yards away from the Amber Monstrosity, so that they do not get damaged and knocked back.

Tanks must be prepared for Fling as this will stun the tank for a few seconds at their landing location.

Phase 2 Healing Concerns

In addition to the Phase One healing concerns, healers have to to watch out for the following things:

• increased tank damage, since the Amber Monstrosity melees;
• regular damage to the tanks and melee players (as well as any careless ranged/healers) from  Massive Stomp;

Phase 3

When the Amber Monstrosity dies, Un'sok will enter Phase Three and cast Concentrated Mutation, buffing his damage done and his attack speed by 50%, but removing the Amber Carapace.

During this phase Un'sok uses 3 main abilities:

• Parasitic Growth (as in P1 and P2)
• Reshape Life (as in P1 ands P2) but now more frequently which will act as a soft enrage.
• Volatile Amber will regularly cause one of the amber pools located around the edges of the room to explode, which fires a barrage of amber shards at the raid, and deals a moderate amount of damage or healing the Mutated Construct for 20% of its maximum health.

Phase 3 Strategy

DPS should simply focus on burning the boss and ignoring the Mutated Constructs.

These Constructs should stack Amber Strike on Un'sok as much as possible and they should consume  Burning Amber void zones whenever needed to replenish their Willpower.

Executing this strategy will result in a kill where you have several players turned into Mutated Constructs.

If DPS is not high enough to allow you to kill the boss before too many players are turned into Constructs, you can DPS the first few Mutated Constructs, allowing those players to Break Free. This will keep the number of Mutated Constructs in check, and give some time to stack Amber Strike on the boss. Then, after killing a number of Mutated Constructs (the number will depend on our DPS), we should just ignore future ones and DPS Un'sok.

Finally, it is important to avoid  Volatile Amber healing the Mutated Construct, if you are trying to help players exit the Constructs. You members will have to shield the Mutated Construct with their bodies, so that the amber shards from Volatile Amber hit them, and do not reach the Construct.

Phase 3 Healing Concerns

In addition to the damage from Phase 1 and 2, tank damage is the main concern here as well as healing up victims of Volatile Amber. Thankfully Amber Scalpel is nolnger around adding to the damage.