Phase One begins when the boss is engaged, during this phase, your only enemy is Grand Empress Shek'zeer.
Phase Two begins after 2 minutes and 30 seconds, and ends when all the adds that spawn during this phase are killed. Shek'zeer is not present during this phase, and cannot be damaged.
Phase One then starts again, and this cycle continues until Shek'zeer reaches 30% health, at which point Phase Three begins.
Phase Three your only enemy is once again Shek'zeer.
Phase One
Phase One lasts for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Shek'zeer's energy has no interaction with her or your raid's abilities. Once the phase ends, Shek'zeer disappears and cannot be attacked.
Abilities
During this phase, the boss will use 4 main abilities.
Dissonance Fields And Cry of Terror
By far, the most important, and most problematic ability that you will have to deal with during this phase is Dissonance Field. This ability is tied to another boss ability, called Cry of Terror, so we will explain them together.
After 30 seconds and again after 90 seconds, Shek'zeer will place two Dissonance Fields, these are yellowish swirly zones, on the ground.
The Dissonance Fields have health pools, but they cannot be damaged. They lose health each time a raid member casts a spell. Eventually, this causes the Dissonance Fields to die. All spells cast by your raid affect both Fields equally, so that they will normally die at the same time. Each time a Field dies, it deals a large amount of raid-wide Physical damage and will most likely wipe us.
To make one Dissonance Field die faster than the other, stand inside the field and cast spells as these spells will cause that Dissonance Field to take more damage. The best way to ensure that the fields do not die together, though, is through the use of a debuff called Cry of Terror. When the player debuffed by Cry of Terror moves inside one of the Dissonance Fields, several things happen.
- Cry of Terror no longer damages the raid;
- That Dissonance Field takes increased damage, causing its health to go down faster;
- The Cry of Terror victim cannot be healed while inside the Dissonance Field. Shields and damage mitigation abilities do mitigate the damage;
- The Cry of Terror victim continues to take damage while inside the field;
Eyes of the Empress is a debuff that Shek'zeer places on her current target and if it reaches 5 stacks, they becomes a Servant of the Empress..
Dread Screech is an ability that Shek'zeer casts at 2 ranged players, every 6 seconds, dealing a high amount of Physical damage to them, and any other allies within 5 yards.
Phase Two
2 minutes and 30 seconds after the start of Phase One, Grand Empress Shek'zeer will disappear, and Phase Two will begin.
Phase Two ends when all the adds that spawn during this phase are killed or if DPS is low after 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
2 Kor'thik Reavers and 6 Set'thik Windblades spawn.
Set'thik Windblades
Fixate sometimes causes the Windblade to fixate on a random target, moving towards that target at highly reduced movement speed. The Fixate effect lasts for 30 seconds.
Dispatch is an interruptible spell that deals high amounts of Physical damage to random raid members.
Sonic Blade is an attack that the Windblade uses on its current target, which deals a high amount of damage and interrupts spell casting.
Sticky Resin is a void zone that when a player walks over a void zone, the void zone sticks to the player and applies a debuff that deals a moderate amount of Nature damage every second to that player, also slowing their movement speed by 30%. When a player with this debuff walks over another void zone, the debuff disappears and the two void zones merge. If this process is repeated 3 more times (so when a total of 4 void zones are brought to an existing one), they turn into an Amber Trap, which stuns the first mob that it comes in contact with and deals 5% of the mob's maximum health in damage every 2 seconds. The trapped add will remain stunned and continue to take damage until it dies. However, if any Windblades are alive when an add is trapped, they will go to them and free them from the trap.
Kor'thik Reavers
Poison Bomb is a 10-second debuff that the Reavers will sometimes cast on random players, it deals a moderate amount of Nature damage to its target. Afterwards, it deals a small amount of Nature damage to a random raid member every 2 seconds.
Toxic Slime is a frontal cone attack that deals a high amount of Nature damage.
Poison-Drenched Armor is a debuff that the Reaver places on its current target that deals moderate Nature damage to the affected player, but also gives nearby raid members a chance to deal additional Nature damage with each attack.
When an add is within 8 yards of another add, they will both benefit from a buff called Band of Valor, which increases their damage done by 30% for each add within 8 yards.
Phase Three
Phase Three begins when Grand Empress Shek'zeer reaches 30% health. The boss gains a series of new abilities. It is a burn phase, that lasts until the boss is killed.
Shek'zeer retains her Eyes of the Empress ability from Phase One.
In addition to this, she gains several new abilities:
- Sha Energy is a spell that Shek'zeer uses to deal a moderate amount of Shadow damage to 2 random raid members.
- Consuming Terror is a frontal cone attack that deals a high amount of Shadow damage and fears all affected players for 8 seconds.
- Visions of Demise is a two-part debuff applied to 2 random raid members, at regular intervals throughout the phase. It is 4-second debuff, that simply triggers the second debuff. After 4 seconds, the player will have a new debuff applied to them and any other players within 8 yards, causing them to be feared and take a moderate amount of Shadow damage every second for 20 seconds. This second debuff can be dispelled.
- Calamity is cast roughly every 6-10 seconds, which deals Shadow damage to all raid members, equal to 50% of their current health.
- Amassing Darkness causes a random target to take a moderate amount of Shadow damage. The spell affects an increasing number of players, eventually dealing a large amount of raid damage.
Strategy
Phase One
Positioning and tank switching is the key to winning the fight. Simply spread out 5 yards apart and perform a tank switch.
The biggest challenge in phase 1 is dealing with the Dissonance Fields which we don't want to have both explode so you need to designate a Dissonance Field to kill, and have the Cry of Terror victim move inside it.
Tanks must switch at 4 stacks of the Eyes of the Empress debuff. If a tank switch is missed you have to kill the MC'd tank and resurrect them or wipe.
Positioning spread out at least 5 yards apart, to avoid taking unnecessary damage from Dread Screech.
The Fields always spawn in the same locations, so it is possible to pre-define which Dissonance Field to stand in. However, to minimise raid damage the chosen field should be the one closest to the first Cry of Terror victim.
Because of their immunity to heals and the increased damage they recieve, players cannot spend too long inside the Dissonance Fields. Players must also leave the field at least a few seconds before it dies, so they can be healed to full before the raid-wide damage.
The goal is to have the Dissonance Fields die as far apart as possible as this will give you time to top off the raid between their deaths. BUT, you only have 60 seconds before the second set of Dissonance Fields spawn and the second set must be dead before Phase 2 begins. Raid cooldowns like Spirit Shell, Rallying Cry and Tranquility. Cooldowns such as Power Word: Barrier or Spirit Link Totem are not effective as the raid MUST be spread out.
Phase Two
The primary goal is to kill the adds within 2 minutes 30 seconds. You should prioritise killing the Windblades before the Reavers, and aim at trapping the Reavers in Amber Traps.
Trapping the Reavers means you will need to wait for Sticky Resin to be cast at least 10 times, so you may need to stop DPS on a few Windblades so that they have a chance to cast the final Sticky Resins.
The 30% damage done increase from Band of Valor when the adds are close to one another, is not really problematic IF you don't tank all the adds together.
Tank the adds in two groups of 1 Reaver and 3 Windblades as you will benefit from the damage bonus from Poison-Drenched Armor, helping you kill the Windblades very quickly. The Reavers will need to be tanked at all times, and faced away from the raid as their frontal cone attack, Poison-Drenched Armor shouldn't be on any other player.
When Windblades begin casting Dispatch, it needs to interrupted. If Windblade fixates on a player that player should kite it around the group of adds, and ensure they don't get hit by it.
Creating Amber Traps
Players will have to create Amber Traps by merging 5 Sticky Resin void zones and requires some basic coordination as someone will pick up the first Sticky Resin zone and take it to another one, after this first move, all other void zones will need to be stacked on it. This should be done by healers and ranged DPS players.
It is recommend trapping the Reavers (by kiting them over the trap) once all the Windblades are dead. Which means that you will end the phase with the Reavers trapped. Asit takes a Windblade some time to free a Reaver from an Amber Trap, you can trap the Reaver as you are killing the final Windblades.
It is perfectly safe to enter Phase One again with the Reavers trapped, as the add will remain trapped for as long as it takes for it to die.
Phase Three
This is the toughest challenge the healing team will have faced in Tier 14. Tanks will still have to alternate tanking the boss, and Shek'zeer should be faced away from the raid at all times.
Shek'zeer's frontal cone attack has a cast time, which makes it possible to avoid. Anyone enough to be hit by it should have their fear dispelled as soon as possible.
As the toughest challenge is surviving the raid damage it is best to stack up behind Shek'zeer. This means that the Visions of Demise victims MUST move out of the raid immediately.
Because of the severity of damage incoming and teh need to burn through it you should save ALL you major cooldowns including Heroism/Time Warp.
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