NiM Council

On pull, Calphayus drops and will put out his first Dread Font orange circle.  Our tactic with Calphy is to keep him moving and keep the amount of time he is standing in a Dread Font orange circle to as close to zero as possible.  The tank on Calphayus will be taking the highest damage taken of the group.  Calphayus's crystal projection attack deals a sizable amount of damage.  We can see these crystal's flying toward us and can react with a quick defensive as necessary.  If playing Shadow or Guardian, we should not be using Resilience or Endure for these attacks, as they will be needed for Death Marks, unless your healers are very skilled at cleansing them off of the group.

Learning your defensive timing for crystal projection, keeping Calphy out of the puddles, and your healer knowing when to focus on you are the three main areas that will need ironed out.

Calphayus will also be choosing a player at random (In my experience, it has never been the tank on Calphy or either healer) and "Soa" them.  This is referencing Soa's move where he lifts a player in the air and whirls them around the room.  It is annoying, but causes no damage and is only meant to further disrupt the rhythm of the fight.

In hard mode, we find it easier to have the tanks swap back and forth between Bestia and Calphayus.  In NiM mode, we find it to work better to keep each tank on their separate boss and utilize a DwT to taunt Bestia to allow the Bestia Tank's stacks to drop off.

Where we typically swap as tanks in Hard Mode at 2–3 stacks of Corruption (the orange debuff counting up on Bestia's active target listed below) we do our best to make sure that the tank/DwT get no more than 1 stack of this punishing debuff.

The Tank is typically the one taking every knock back from Bestia.  They position themselves/her so that when the knock happens, they are pushed into the center of the room.  We found this made it easier on our healers (the tank would be LOS'd if being punted down the walkway.

The DwT taunts Bestia as soon as the tank is punted to hold in her place.  They need to run a strong defensive while holding Bestia.  Note that it is wise to wait until your healers are getting "tired" before starting use of your big defensives.  Know your class and which you can cycle to always have something up.  Communication here is key.  The Tank jumps back in and will taunt Bestia as soon as the DwT has taken a stack of corruption.  Bestia seems to apply a stack of corruption about once every 12 seconds.

This sequence can become difficult with the "Soa" mechanic from Calphayus picking the DwT to fling around.  When this happens, the tank and healer needs to be prepared to mitigate and heal through higher stacks of corruption.

Bestia gets pushed to 55%, then DPS is slowed, then stopped at 51~52%.  The DwT on Bestia usually needs to stick around for one more punt/swap maneuver, but can usually go after the tank retaunts and help to push other bosses.  If the group is slow to push Tyrans and Raptus, 2 options are available.

1) Calphy tank and Bestia tank swap to allow corruption to drop off of the Bestia Tank.  This can cause problems with orange circle placement, but can be done flawlessly with proper coordination.

2) The DwT comes back, or never leaves their duty in the first place.  I recommend this option, but the strategy here depends wildly on your team's skill level.  1 is the better choice for DPS, 2 is the safer route for success.  There is no enrage (that we have found), so doing this phase slower has not been a problem.

Subphase 1 is identically to hard mode.  One Tank needs to be assigned to pick up Sytrak's Crystal, the other Brontes's.

As the phase transitions, lightning will being firing across the battlefield.  Players should stack up in the center and get topped up on heals.  The tanks can take a few moments to collect some heals, but need to start their run for their crystals as soon as possible.  If your group contained a sentinel, transcendence would be helpful here

As the tanks work out their timing of getting the crystals, the healers/group will need to plan for some extra stress at this point as Sytrak and Brontes will be targeting DPS or Healers.

When the tanks port back onto the main platform, their respective bosses will lock onto them, and aggro onto a nontank target will now be impossible.

Styrak should be moved to Brontes to be burned down, so that cleaves and DoT spreads can help to push Brontes as well.  It should be noted here, that tanks need to avoid moving Sytrak into orange puddles that may be lingering from Phase 1.  These puddles will heavily reduce the damage Styrak takes and can lead to a wipe.  It is also important to point out, that if the tanks made a mess of orange circle placement in phase 1, Brontes can teleport into an orange circle and really hamper the team's efforts.  Situational awareness is still necessary in what may seem like a pretty straightforward part of the fight.

Subphase 2 begins As Styrak dies, and is new for NiM.  Styrak will pop to the center and begin a chain manifestation, just like in his boss encounter.  Styrak's big ghost in the center needs to be DPS'd down before the chain closes in on the group.

For this phase, we use our Vanguard Tank's Sonic Rebounders.  The entire group moves to the center, rebounders go out.  We do not interrupt the first channel of suffering that the center Big ghost is channeling.  The damage suffering does reflect back to the Big ghost, pretty much killing it for us.  Some DPS is required, but this part of the fight pushes insanely quickly with this tactic.  Remember to interrupt suffering as soon as rebounders are consumed and to interrupt any further channels of it.  If not running rebounders, this channel needs to be interrupted immediately.  If you are using this tactic, be aware of any classes leaping in to the Big Ghost that may interrupt the channel with their leap in.

Once the Chain Manifestation is dealt with, it is back to Brontes.

Subphase 3 begins at approximately 40-50% of Brontes Health.  She will begin calling her reaches to kill the Ops group.  This is where the difficulty of this fight comes into play.  The group must continue pushing Brontes while dodging reaches, just like we have to do in the Brontes encounter.  We find it helpful for the team to stack close together and orbit around Brontes as reaches come up.  The challenge here is Brontes teleporting and the group getting strung back out as the melee can gap close quickly, but the ranged/healers will lag behind and create more space between reaches as they pop up.  Personal situational awareness is critical in this phase.

Brontes will push to the center at ~ 20% HP and begin her clock phase beam o death.  The team must DPS Brontes while avoiding reaches, while not dying to the beam o death all while trying to get in a good position to start phase 3.

Easy.

The Dread Masters will return to the fight in a ready or not fashion.  They are on a timer from being pushed up in Phase 1.  They will enter the Styrak and Brontes phase if you were unable to DPS them down quickly enough.  Watch for them to re-enter play.  Ideally Brontes should be dealt with, the last of her reaches will be firing off and your assigned Crystal holders will have had time to move into position before they arrive.

Crystal assignments - Just like in the previous phase, each of the 4 main bosses have a crystal that can be collected when they return in phase 3.  Here are my recommendations.

Calphayus Crystal -> Tank who was tanking him in Phase 1
Tyrans Crystal -> DPS that was DPSing him in Phase 1
Raptus Crystal -> DPS that was kiting him in Phase 1
Bestia Crystal -> We do not grab this one, it is a trap.

So let's talk about Bestia first.  If a player collects a boss's crystal, that means that they are threat locked onto that target.  If we collect Bestia's Crystal, the Tank and DwT are unable to swap, leaving no way for the Tank to drop their stacks of corruption, resulting in their dying at around 3-4 stacks of the debuff.  Our best pulls saw our tank dying every time.  We changed this one piece and this kept them alive.  Do the mechanics on Bestia same as Phase 1.

Calphayus - If we DPS Calphayus to below 34% he will instantly wipe the group.

Raptus and Tyrans, use the same strategy as Phase 1.

Ideally we want all the Dread Masters (except for Calphayus) pushed to around 20~25%  The DPS that was on Calphayus Phase 1 should start on Bestia and help push her down.  They should then help push each of the other bosses to about the same point.  Leave Bestia a little early ~30% so that the DwT on Bestia can continue to contribute.

When all three bosses are pushed to 25%, push Calphayus to about 36-38%, then tell your team to push Bestia.

In Phase 3 we use the same strategy as phase 1, with slight modifications pictured to the side.  This phase will last about half as long as phase 1.  Death marks can ninja kill the group here if the team is not staying focused on them.  Remember that if you were using friend of the force, and either the tank or target of the guard died to reaches that a guard will need to go back on them.

Keep running your patterns here until your team is confident and ready to enter burn.  Burn should NEVER be a surprise, stay calm and make it a calculated stress-free team decision to start pushing.