Soulrender Zilas

Soulrender Zilas is the second boss in the Hammerknell Fortress raid instance but due to multiple wings and levels is not neccesarily the second boss you will see.

Fight Mechanics
The most important part of Zilas' encounter is understanding each of the different types of adds he spawns, and having enough raid DPS to deal with them. The different adds include:


 * Escaped Butcher, 125k HP - Reduces the raid's damage output by 10% for every active Butcher
 * Escaped Imp, 62k HP - Attempts to heal the boss by casting Cede Spirit (interruptable)
 * Drifting Spirit, 19k HP - Attacks from ranged, and will begin AoE'ing the raid with Dark Volley if not killed quick enough and not interrupted
 * Escaped Magus, 200k HP - Will wipe the entire raid if allowed to make it to the middle of the room and given 5 seconds to cast Purge the Living
 * Wrathful Bones, 28k HP - Spawns in large quantities after every "kite phase" (explained later), non-threatening as long as picked up by a tank

The Fight Mechanics include:


 * Demonic Presence - Reduces damage output by 10% per stack, one stack for every active Escaped Butcher
 * Cede Spirit - 5% boss heal cast by Escaped Imps (interruptable)
 * Dark Volley - Raid-wide AoE damage cast by Drifting Spirits (interruptable)
 * Purge the Living - Full raid wipe if Escaped Magus allowed to make it to boss platform and cast for 5 seconds (un-interruptable)
 * Soulrender's Grasp - Clockwise death beam that needs to be kited, 5 second wind-up time, 10 second channel
 * Soulrender's Rage - Full raid wipe if boss is not properly tanked1

Strategy
Start by placing your entire raid in the middle of room, while facing the boss towards the entrance and having everyone else stack up behind him. The boss has a cleave effect (but none of the adds can cleave), and there is no need for your raid to spread out at all.

The adds will all spawn towards the entrance of the room, and slowly walk around the outside of the room until they eventually reach the middle.

From 100% to 80%, the boss will only spawn Butchers, Imps, and Spirits. The Spirits will stop half-way through and begin casting on the raid from range. You should have one ranged DPS assigned to each side, and these spirits will always be their top priority for the entire fight. If they are not killed quick enough they will begin AoE'ing the raid with Dark Volley (which can be interrupted); it is acceptable for them to get some casts off though, as the damage is healable.

The Butchers and Imps should be allowed to reach the middle area so that they may be cleaved and AoE'd down on top of the boss. Be sure to assign one interrupter for the Imps, which will always be that person's top priority as well. They should be looking for a spell called Cede Spirit, which has around a 5 second cast time and will heal the boss for 5% if it goes off. A backup interrupter should be assigned as well, but it is pretty rare to have two Imps up at once. Butchers and Imps do not need to be focused down with single-target damage, just be sure to kill them with AoE damage while still working on the boss.

The fight is fairly easy and straight forward until 80%. At that point, the boss will enter a new phase and begin summoning Escaped Magi. The first Escaped Magus will usually reach the half-way point (where the Spirits stop) about 30 seconds after the boss reaches 60%. All DPS that do not have a higher priority responsibility should jump up the stairs and begin attacking the Magus as quickly as possible.

Escaped Magi can be stunned by simply attacking the Stasis Crystal when it is next to it. And you can actually double stun it, as seen below:

When the crystal is glowing red it means it is available to be used, when it is glowing green it means the mob is currently stunned, and when it is glowing yellow it means it is currently recharging.

The most difficult part of the fight now comes in determining how long you have to work on the Magi until the boss begins his kite phase. You will have approximately 15 seconds to work on the first add before your entire raid needs to collapse in the middle. You should be able to get the Magus below half health before this happens hopefully, and try to have someone with an instant cast ranged spell stun it a second time as you're running back to the middle. Do not chase the first add beyond the crystal point.

The kite phase is signified by a raid emote that says, "Soulrender Zilas surges with the power of Death!" When this happens, you have approximately 8 seconds to get into position, so do not panic when you first see it.

The boss will channel a beam of death in a clockwise fashion, similar to the last boss in expert CC. If it passes through you it will instantly kill you, but you are given ample warning time to determine where it is going to be positioned.

The white wisp rotating around the room warns you where he will be casting it. Since you have plenty of time before he actually begins channeling the deadly portion of his spell, simply hold still and let the wisp pass through your character once, and then chase it. If done properly, it is incredibly easy to avoid.

The boss will begin casting the "wind-up" portion of Soulrender's Grasp about 3 seconds after the raid emote. This cast is about 5 seconds and is just a warning, and he won't begin channeling the beam until it finishes. After it finishes, he will have around a 10 second cast channel where the whole raid needs to kite around the middle.

Notice the purple circle located directly in the middle: this is deadly as well. Simply chase the beam around in a clockwise fashion while hugging the edge of the purple circle. The entire raid must be on the boss' main platform as well, or they will be insta-killed (even if it looks like they're out of the beam's range).

From here on out it is mostly a matter of mastering the kite phase while managing to keep the Magi under control. The kite phases are exactly 60 seconds apart. This means that whenever a kite phase ends, all of your DPS are free to leave the middle area and chase down any Magi that are up. If you only got a Magus to 50% before having to kite, as soon as it ends you should run to intercept it (before it reaches the middle). You may also have time to jump on the next Magus that spawns early, and chase it all the way until it dies.

When a kite phase is due to happen again (it may take you a few attempts to get a good feel for this), you need to be sure that no one is further away than any of the Stasis Crystals. If someone is in the corner of the room when the kite phase warning appears, they will not have enough time to make it back to the middle. Expect numerous wipes as your raid simply adjusts to and learns the timing on this. Eventually though, you should have zero deaths to the kite phase, and never be letting a Magus reach the middle of the room.

When the boss is at 40% he will also begin stunning random raid members with a Rift Prison type spell. This can be AoE dispelled, but not single-target dispelled. It is not too threatening, as long as the player isn't too far away from the boss when a kite phase is due.

And just when you master the kite phase and Magi, the encounter will throw you another curve ball. At 20%, Zilas will begin deactivating certain Stasis Crystals, as signified by a purple-death-looking animation on them.

You can reactivate these crystals by killing the 19k health Drifting Umbral add that spawns near them, but due to the sheer amount of chaos during this part of the fight that may not always be possible (and they should not be given priority over the Drifting Spirits).

While the Stasis Crystals are deactivated you can no longer stun the Magi, which also makes the fight heavily RNG-dependent. The worst-case-scenario when this happens, would be for a Magus to pass by the middle area during a kite phase. If this happens, it is very unlikely you will be able to kill the Magus in time after the kite phase ends. However, you should only have to deal with 1 Magus during this phase if your raid DPS is high enough.

Once the boss is at around 7%, any Magi that have not already reached a Stasis Crystal should be completely ignored. At this point it just becomes a burn, and you should have most of your raid-wide DPS cooldowns saved for this (or helping you kill a Magus before that). Be sure to not let the Escaped Butchers stack up too much in advance of this burn phase (since they reduce your damage output), but once the boss is 7% you should focus solely on single-target damaging the boss. Also be sure that the Imps continue to be interrupted; having them get off a 5% heal during this final phase would be devastating.

It may seem logical to try and clean up the adds before pushing the boss to 20%, but I would usually recommend against this, simply due to the fact that there is a constant stream of adds and it serves no real purpose. It would be ideal to push the boss to 20% directly following a kite phase, but again, I would not recommend actually stalling DPS to try and do this.

The RNG component comes primarily from when your raid happens to push the boss to 20% (if it's right before a kite phase), and when the Magi spawn compared to when the kite phases happen. As long as the boss is above 7%, whenever a kite phase finishes you should have all available DPS splitting off and chasing down any Magi that are up, whether they just spawned or are nearing the boss' platform.1

Raid Assignments
TBD

Workflow
TBD