Council of Blood (Heroic)

Council fight – when one dies, all others heal to full so cleave = waste.  Low mobility requirements outside of intermission. 

Spec for single target.  Hero on pull.  Depending on the order, there will be different mechanics.  Up to your raid leader to research the preferred kill order for your team comp. We suggest kill order Stavros, Niklaus, Freida.

Phases 1 & 2 – set up interrupt order on Freida. Assign ~3 melee and one ranged dps to cover when DREADBOLT VOLLEY overlaps with DARK RECITAL.

PHASE 1- main raid killer is DARK RECITAL. Boss emotes, “Everyone to your places, or die.” Raid needs to start moving in advance of the emote completing, raiders keep moving and generally move in a straight line parallel to their linked partner. See above for suggested spacing.

Minor add DUTIFUL ATTENDANT spawns regularly and makes the bosses immune. Top priority for immediate deletion. Falling behind on this is the number one source of soft-enrage in phase 2.

Boss facing for Stavros matters, nothing else does. Raiders need to avoid being in front of or behind Stavros, take care when clearing DUTIFUL ATTENDANTS in Stavros’ death zones. Tank swap after 2x stacks of DUELISTS RIPOSTE (debuff on Niklaus tank). Freida does not need to be actively tanked and is fine to ping-pong between the two tanks.

Intermission (dance phase) whenever a boss hits 50%:

1 – Get to your spotlight – each player has a unique spotlight.

2 – Move in the assigned direction. On normal there are 4 steps; on heroic there are 6.

Cleared intermission = haste buff. Failed intermission = no buff. This is a mini-hero.

Dance-intermission spotlights can appear anywhere on the battle area, so tank the boss generally near the middle to avoid issues. Potentially set up raid speed boost cycle to trivialise this.

PHASE 2 – Killing Niklaus.

Boss facing no longer matters; keep them close enough that tanks can taunt swap at 2x stacks of Riposte. Niklaus should be moved around on top of Dredger adds for the raid to cleave down.

Continue interrupt rotation on Freida. Freida now gains DARK ERUPTION; raid scatters when cast comes out. Plenty of time to get clear, consider raid cooldown to mitigate a large amount of healing.

The first burn on Niklaus is the hardest due to having to split damage to adds with no haste buff. If your raid is hitting soft enrage here, consider HERO.

PHASE 3 – Killing Freida

New mechanic: Taking damage causes you to drop pools on the ground. Pools despawn after 30 seconds or when intermission starts, so these are not really a concern EXCEPT during SOUL SPIKES, big hits on the tanks and the entire raid taking moderate chunks. Players will be constantly spawning pools during this and need to stutter step to avoid drowning.

Start the boss near her spawn location, and gradually move her towards the room entrance. Aim to be near the middle of the room for the intermission.

If you didn’t have to use Hero on Niklaus, use it on Freida’s before her dance transition. You’ll have the haste buff to finish her off after the dance.