The Nighthold - Grand Magistrix Elisande Raid Strategy Guide

Background and Initial Positioning

• A common player on the stage of Suramar, the leader of the Nightborne has gone to great lengths to “save” her people, including making deals with the Legion and harnessing the power of a Pillar of Creation.
• This fight ramps up in difficulty and complexity as she progresses through her phases, making for a taxing fight.
• When pulling Elisande, she’ll cast Leave the Nightwell, marking an area, landing there after a short period, and dealing damage. Spread out outside of the mark.

Abilities and Mechanics
Persistent Abilities

• Time Elementals - two types of adds that will spawn throughout the fight.
  
  • Expedient Elemental
    
    • These are pink adds that must be grabbed by the off-tank.
    • The adds cast Exothermic Release, dealing stacking raid damage. It can and should be interrupted, and it leaves behind a Fast Time zone upon death. Standing in the zone shrinks it and applies a buff that causes a DPS/movement increase at the risk of faster ticking DoT effects.
  • Recursive Elemental
    
    • These are blue adds that cannot move and therefore do not need to be tanked.
    • These adds cast Shield on Elisande while alive, protecting her from damage.
    • They also cast Blast, dealing stacking single-target damage. This can and should be interrupted, and it leaves behind a Slow Time zone upon death. Standing in the zone shrinks it and applies a debuff causing a DPS/movement decrease at the benefit of slower ticking DoT effects.
    • This add should be priority due to the Shield effect.
    • When both adds spawn, have the off-tank drag the Expedient Elemental to the stationary Recursive Elemental for both cleave effects and benefits later.
• Cascadent Star
  
  • Elisande will consistently cast this chaining spell, dealing average damage to several members of the raid.
  • This ability targets fewer members as the fight progresses.

Phase 1

• Ablation
  
  • This is the tank-swap effect for this phase, and it's a stacking DoT.
  • Tanks should swap at relatively low stacks if possible (3/4), but the off-tank could be busy with Time Elementals.
    
    • Have the off-tank begin the fight on Elisande, as they’ll quickly be pulled away to deal with adds.
• Arcanetic Ring
  
  • Shortly after summoning the first round of adds, Elisande will teleport to a seemingly random location and cast this ability, summoning several rings which will begin to converge on her location.
  • Standing in a ring deals strong damage, and overlapping rings inflict overlapping damage.
  • At first, it seems impossible to avoid a ring, as their circle is unbroken. However, passing over a time zone affects the projectiles, creating a gap to escape through to avoid damage.
  • Having Fast and Slow Time zones in close proximity causes the largest gaps in the ring wall. Aim for this when killing Time Elementals.
  • She will repeat this ability occasionally throughout the phase.
• Echo of Elisande
  
  • After casting Arcanetic Ring, an echo will form in her location.
  • This echo will cast Arcanetic Ring in future phases.
  • Getting into Phase 2 quickly limits the number of times you have to deal with this mechanic in the future.
• Spanning Singularity
  
  • Elisande will target a player and form a damaging pool.
  • Soaking the pool will cause it to shrink, so use defensives.
  • These pools will form at the same location and time into each subsequent phase.

Phase 2 - Activated when Elisande reaches 10% HP. Time Stops.

• Leave the Nightwell
  
  • Like at the start of the encounter, Elisande will retreat to the Nightwell, regain strength, unfreeze time, then leap out.
• Ablating Explosion
  
  • As the tank-swap mechanic for this phase, this ability inflicts the current tank with a debuff that explodes for heavy damage after 8 seconds.
  • The affected tank should swap off and run out of the raid.
  • The target will still take damage, so extra healing or a CD may be required.
• Epocheric Orbs
  
  • Elisande will summon 3 orbs that descend towards the platform, demarcated by arcane swirls.
  • Soaking the impact of the orbs reduces the damage of the ability to a small AoE instead of raid-wide damage.
    • Only 1 player should soak each, and defensive CDs are encouraged.
  • This ability will be cast in the same location and time into the final phase.
• Delphuric Beam
  
  • Immediately and 4 seconds later, Elisande will target a player (two targets total) with a warning debuff.
  • When the debuff expires, all players in a line between the target and Elisande take heavy damage.
  • Moving close to Elisande when targeted (while avoiding the melee group) will hopefully prevent catching any players in the beam.

Phase 3 - Activated when Elisande reaches 10% HP again. Time Stops.

• Leave the Nightwell
  
  • Like at the start of the encounter, Elisande will retreat to the Nightwell, regain strength, unfreeze time, then leap out.
• Ablative Pulse
  
  • As the tank ability for this phase, this affects the current tank with a stacking nuke and a debuff that persists for the rest of the fight.
  • This ability can be interrupted, so tanks as well as a designated backup DPS should interrupt as many as possible.
  • The tank with the least amount of stacks should be tanking Elisande.
• Conflexive Burst
  
  • Elisande will target 2/3 players to receive a debuff, dealing raid-wide damage when it expires.
  • To avoid stacking this damage, have one target run into a Fast Time zone, one run into a Slow Time zone, and one (if targeted) stay outside of zones.
  • Remember that these zones shrink, so don’t be too greedy in earlier phases by trying to keep up the Fast Time zone’s DPS buff.
• Permeliative Torment
  
  • This ability is a relatively simple, stacking DoT applied at random to 4 players. However, with all the mechanics flying around, this can be deadly.
  • If a target is close to dying, standing in a Slow Time zone will limit the rate of damage dealt and allow healers to catch up.

Elisande once distinguished herself by resisting the Legion. She and her highborne followers broke away from Queen Azshara and the dark path she was taking, harnessing the power of the Eye of Aman'thul to create the Nightwell to protect Suramar from the Sundering. But over ten thousand years later, the Legion's arrival offered her no such recourse. She has cast her lot with the demons, hoping to once again use the power of the Nightwell - albeit this time in a very different sense - to save her people.

• Overview - Grand Magistrix Elisande harness the power of the Nightwell to shape time itself. When her health is low and she is nearing defeat, she rewinds time to send players back to the point at which they first engaged her. The fight recommences from this point, but Elisande uses new abilities mixed in with echoes of her past actions. She can perform this feat twice, after which time can no longer save her.
  
  • Damage Dealers -
    • Epocheric Orb damages the entire raid if allowed to strike the ground.
    • Expedient Elementals continually damage the raid with Exothermic Release until they are dispatched. This damage increases with each successful cast.
    • Recursive Elementals Shield Grand Magistrix Elisande as long as they are alive.
  • Healers -
    • Epocheric Orb damages the entire raid if allowed to strike the ground.
    • Cascadent Star will damage a large portion of the raid.
  • Tanks -
    • In each time layer, Elisande employs a different ability to threaten tanks.
    • Ablating Explosion inflicts falloff damage to the entire raid when it expires.
    • Interrupt Ablative Pulse.
• Time Stop - The caster stops the flow of time for all but herself, and sends her enemies back in time. This ability costs the caster a significant portion of the caster's energy and can only be used as long as they have sufficient time energy available.
• Temporalisis - The caster freezes enemy players in time for 4 sec.
• Cascadent Star - The caster hurls an orb of cosmic energy at the target that inflicts 357,000 Arcane damage on impact, then strikes out at additional targets for 335,000 Arcane damage. The number of additional targets decreases as the caster's energy depletes.
• Time Elementals - Grand Magistrix periodically summons Time Elementals to aid her in combat. When these elementals are dispatched they leave behind a rift that persists until they are consumed.
  
  • Recursive Elemental - When this elemental dies it leaves behind a zone of Slow Time.
    
    • Lingering Burn - The victim burns from intense Arcane energy for 4 sec.
    • Compressed Time - The caster lobs orbs of Arcane energy that inflict 500,000 Arcane damage to all players within 5 yards of the impact.
    • Shield - The caster shields Grand Magistrix Elisande from nearly all damage.
    • Recursion - The caster resets the duration of all enemy players' debuffs, and resets the duration of the Grand Magistrix's Delphuric Beam ability.
    • Blast - Inflicts 571,500 Arcane damage to the target. Each successful cast of Blast increases the damage of successive Blasts by 5%.
    • Slow Time - Your relative time has decreased by 30%, reducing casting, movement, attack speed, cooldown recharge rate, and periodic tick rates.
  • Expedient Elemental - When this elemental dies it leaves behind a zone of Fast Time.
    
    • Exothermic Release - Inflicts 402,000 Arcane damage to all enemies. The caster deals 10% more damage with this ability each time they use it.
    • Expedite - The caster increases the time rate of all enemy player debuffs. Both the periodic rate and the duration of affected auras will be faster.
    • Fast Time - Your relative time has increased by 30%, increasing casting, movement, attack speed, cooldown recharge rate, and periodic tick rates.
• Time Layer 1 - While in this Time Layer Grand Magistrix Elisande will use her Spanning Singularity and Arcanetic Ring abilities.
  
  • Arcanetic Ring - The caster summons an Arcanetic Ring that slowly collapses inwards, inflicting 1,070,000 Arcane damage to all in its path.
  • Spanning Singularity - The caster rips several holes in time under their enemies. Each hole explodes for 178,500 Arcane damage to victims caught in the area.
    After the explosion occurs, a Singularity is created. Anyone entering the Singularity suffers 500,000 Arcane damage every second.
    Standing in the Singularity causes it to shrink and ultimately disappear.
  • Ablation - The caster traces Arcane magic around the target that will inflict 71,400 Arcane damage every second.
    
• Time Layer 2 - While in this Time Layer Grand Magistrix Elisande will use her Epocheric Orb ability.
  
  • Delphuric Beam - The caster periodically targets players and fires a burst of Arcane energy at them. Any players caught in the path of this Arcane energy suffer 714,500 Arcane damage.
  • Epocheric Orb - The caster rips a hole in the fabric of time, unleashing an orb of intense Arcane energy that will inflict 714,500 Arcane damage to all players when it hits the ground.
    If a player catches the orb, the radius of the explosion is reduced to 5 yards instead.
    
    • Epocheric Vulnerability - The victim is vulnerable to the damage of further Epocheric Orbs for 1.5 min. All Epocheric Orb damage is increased by 100% per application.
  • Ablating Explosion - The caster traces Arcane magic around the target that will inflict 1,360,000 Arcane falloff damage to all enemies from the point of the target after 8 sec.
• Time Layer 3 - While in this Time Layer Grand Magistrix Elisande will use her Delphuric Beam ability.
  
  • Ablative Pulse - Inflicts 600,000 Arcane damage to the target. Each cast of Ablative Pulse increases the damage of further Ablative Pulses against the victim by 10%.
  • Delphuric Beam - The caster periodically targets players and fires a burst of Arcane energy at them. Any players caught in the path of this Arcane energy suffer 714,500 Arcane damage.