Closing the Eye Tips

[Nightstalker]

I have to assume that arms is impossible for the moment, i just can't deal enough dmg to the adds before they reach the boss and heal him unless i'm missing something.

You might try Ravager/BC kombo for each pack, but your burst on the boss will be garbage. I hope blizzard finally realizes that Arms dmg on demand is too reliant on rng and unfit/long CDs. Leap Legs are also a possibilty but you need way too much aoe burst too often to make that phase work. Classes that manage to do so just have spammable/faceroll aoe.

[Khanjali]

Survival Hunter:
(I have not gotten to phase 3. This is just my experience with it so far and from what I've seen others do.)

- Pet tanks Xylem. Pet doesn't need to be in Tenacity spec, but I'd recommend it. Pet healing comes from Mend Pet (not much), Exhilaration (primarily), and Hunter's Bounty (Also not much).
- All adds will proc the Survivalist passive and the Hunter's Bounty artifact trait, so clearing Razor Ice will reset the cooldown, as well as killing clones during phase 2.
- Roots of Shaladrassil is mandatory. Prydaz helps, but isn't mandatory.
- Talents:
- Level 15: Throwing Axes helps with disconnects. You will almost never have enough time to maintain Mok long enough to make good use out of it. Animal Instincts is fine, but Throwing Axes will generally have higher damage.
- Level 30: Crows or Snake Hunter, no real big difference.
- Level 45: Disengage or Trailblazer. There's enough time for Trailblazer to go into effect after Razor Ice and when Xylem teleports. Disengage is always helpful.
- Level 60: Caltrops. Low cooldown, fast damage, slows the shadow adds in phase 3 (watched another SV Hunter do it).
- Level 75: Doesn't matter unless you have Sephuz, in which you use Ranger's Net
- Level 90: Butchery. Destroys Razor Ice, high damage on Shadow adds. Very very useful.
- Level 100: Spitting Cobra. Extra damage and helps to recover focus.

Mechanics and not having enough damage are the biggest drawbacks.

[Deleted]

for sub rogues

just completed it...

during phase 1 i used will of valeera and the cloak as legendarys.
you cant die to anything except ice shards if you are running into them.

at around 30-25% i didnt use ANY cds besides 1 dance charge to break ice shards, you are going to need everything you can for phase 2
i was also using a simple macro for fan of knives:

/cast [nostealth] shadow dance
/cast shuriken storm

makes breaking the shards a bit faster since i noticed there is a bit of higher latency when i was in there: i assume because there are a lof of people inside (on EU at least this was the case)

for the arcane phase i found out that the engineering nitro boost works which will save you a lot of time, cloak and a sprint. keep in mind that it will put a cd on your pots when you use it. on my kill i tried not using any pots until phase 2.

cloak+sprint will make the arcane phase really easy.
but you can also shadowstep to the closest target and get him out that way and not use any big cds.

during transmission from phase 1 to phase 2 you are going to drop combat. go into stealth as fast as possible to regenerate health with soothing darkness.
i also swapped will of valeera for legendary shoulders.

phase 2 is the dps check of the challenge.

kite the boss around the edge.

pro tip: let the boss come to you even if you have to stop attacking for about 2 seconds. sometimes i got teleported into the darkness from SS and died instantly.

when he starts casting seeds on you, DO NOT (!!!!) interrupt him. use sprint and run as far as you can. after around 4 seconds 3 adds will spawn on top of you. if they reach the boss before they die, he gets healed. if this is the case for you, if even 1 add reaches the boss, click "leave instance group". you will not be able to kill him because there is to much darkness in the room. but you wont lose your food and your rune.

after the adds have spawned, you are supposed to be in stealth from the sprint. you dont have to cloak. you dont take any damage that is going to cancel it.
fan of knives crits about 2.4m for me (legendary shoulders).
i spread nightblade on 2 targets for the slow and used goremaw on the third one. kill them as fast as possible. if they reach the darkness with to much hp you wont be able to finish them off.

after the third seed (around 10%) he will enrage. 500% increased damage and immune to stuns.
this is when you use your evasion.
YES, you can stun the boss but i found it rather bad to do so since the darkness keeps spreading and you wont be able to hit him if he is to far in.

if you did everything right and did enough dps, you will end up with a very small patch that has no darkness on it yet. however you can get yourself a 3s window with cloak if you have no room left.


maybe this will help some people.

[Seriena]

Completed this earlier as a Havoc Demon Hunter (Serilithe, Zul'jin, NA), with an ilevel of 903 using Raddon's Cascading Eyes and Anger of the Half-Giants. I'll list some general tips that can probably be applied to every spec before covering demon hunter specifics.

Keep in mind that the entire initial part of the fight, where you are fighting Xylem, is NOT a dps race. It's purely a survival test, and every ability you have that can be used this way should be.

Setting the frost phase up properly helps you out tremendously. In the initial round, interrupt his first frostbolt and back him up as close to the Eye as you can get. This puts you much closer to wherever he blinks to when he sticks you inside the ice spears, and lets you get out of that situation as soon as possible. Something that I found particularly frustrating in these phases was the way Comet Storm would continue pounding me after I got out of the ring, and I found that the only real way to stop it was to interrupt Xylem's Frostbolt. Any interrupt works for this, including stuns and other cc. I imagine a death grip would solve the problem as well (another reason to position him as well as you can before he blinks).

The first transition (Mirror Image plus Darkness) is probably the easiest one you'll get, since you're actually able to position yourself near the middle. It happens about 1:30 into the fight, after the third set of ice spears. When you see him cast Arcane Barrage instead of Frostbolt, immediately start looking across the room for a sparkly spot - that's where you need to get to. It also shows up on your minimap, but I found it far more helpful to spot it on screen. If you predict it, or have enough dashes or jumps, you can end the phase almost as soon as it starts. You probably won't be so lucky the second or third times this happens, though, so here's how to handle it if that isn't an option. First, always spend the first second or two moving towards the sparkles. You get that much breathing space before the darkness hits and starts to murder you (it'll take about two seconds to die without a major defensive cooldown). While you're moving, pick an image and start chunking it with whatever ranged attack you've got so you can finish it off in another global. The bubble it drops is a safe zone that also heals you very rapidly, but it only lasts about five or six seconds. While you're there, pick the next image you can safely reach and repeat what you did before (ranged poke, execute). You do have a limited amount of time to reach him before he nukes you for 6 million, so make sure you pick the shortest path. When you're near enough, just walk into the sparkles and it ends the phase.

After the transition, he starts throwing Arcane Barrages at you. These hurt, but don't use your interrupt on them - save it for his Draw Power channel. Mitigate the rest with stuns and grips, and remember that he is vulnerable to other hard cc like blind, imprison, and traps. His initial pattern should go along the lines of arcane barrage -> shadow barrage -> arcane barrage -> arcane barrage -> draw power. The next draw power happens almost exactly 15 seconds after the first. Interrupting these without letting him gain stacks of the buff is critical to surviving the rest of the fight.

Shadow Barrage is another fun ability he gains in this phase that is not interruptable (even with stuns, so don't waste those), where he sits and spawns a truckload of shadow orbs that fly in a direction. The easiest way to dodge these is to watch what direction he turns when he starts the channel - they'll always move in straight lines from behind him towards the direction he's facing. For me, the best way to deal with it was to aim the camera towards where they were coming from.

The last part of this phase is that he will occasionally teleport to the other side of the room, which really hurts because you can't do much about Arcane Barrage until you get back to him. The best way to handle this is to cc him right before he teleports - he'll move regardless, and it buys you several seconds to catch up before he starts casting again. These usually happen 1-2 barrages after a Draw Power.

After he's gone through two Draw Powers, he'll spend a short while barraging you and then transition again (Mirrors/Darkness). It's the same deal as the first time - when you see him cast a Frostbolt, he's transitioning. From here, it's almost a rinse and repeat, except for the minor (ha) detail that he blinks a lot farther away every time he traps you in these frost phases. It's harder to reposition him here, too, since he'll always start on the corner, but remember that the closer to the middle you get him the easier it will be to stop the comet storm from murdering you.

After you've finished bouncing between these three phases enough to get him to 10%, he goes neutral. There's a brief window here where you leave combat entirely, which is important for a few reasons. One, it means you can (and should) prepot again for the next phase. It also means you can change your talents with a tome if you want to. I didn't, but it could make it easier if you can switch some survival talents for more dps-oriented ones.

The next phase is your burn phase. This is the actual dps check of the fight, simply because you'll run out of safe places to stand if you take too long. Start by standing at the very edge of the platform behind Xylem and the giant demon that shows up. You'll need to kite the big guy slowly around the room to stay just ahead of the growing void zone he spawns underneath him. Be careful if you have stuns as part of your standard rotation - it's very easy for him to get stuck somewhere just out of melee range inside the void zone for a few precious seconds. Every so often (about once a minute, starting 30ish seconds in), he'll start channeling on you. DO NOT interrupt this channel, or you will spawn three adds on top of yourself that will promptly feed the boss his entire health bar back. Instead, book it as far away from the boss as you can, and when the adds spawn, nuke them down. It's a good idea to save any burst aoe you have for this, even if you'd normally use it on the boss (unless it's a short enough cd to use it multiple times a minute, of course). Keep in mind that the second the last add dies, the boss will start moving again, so try and position yourself so he doesn't run into the middle of the room and cut your working space down drastically.

For demon hunters, there's several things that can make this a lot easier. I ran with a 3-3-1-3-2-2-3 spec, which gives you an absurd amount of survivability and plenty of dps to boot. If you have Achor, the Eternal Hunger, you can consider using Netherwalk instead of Soul Rending to make the transitions a bit easier, but I'm not convinced it's worth it even then. Fel Blade is another reasonable option, particularly if you don't have Raddon's. Chaos Cleave can be switched out, but keep in mind that the fewer Chaos Strikes you're using, the fewer procs you're getting from Demonic Appetite and the less Metamorphosis uptime you'll have. Unleashed Power is honestly a convenience thing, but I feel like Demon Reborn is generally wasted - you'll never need Blur or Nova when you're in Meta, and only one Eye Beam cast will extend your Meta duration (more beams before you drop Meta just do damage/generate fury, which really stinks, especially if you hit it half a second before the buff wears off).

First, remember that you can double jump -> fel rush to get out of the icicle spears. This is handy, but keep in mind that Eye Beam + Death Sweep clears a path as well, and sometimes dashing midair seemed to earn me more Comet Storm hits than just punching through. It also spawns a boatload of soul fragments.

Try and keep Fel Eruption ready for transitions. If it doesn't kill an image outright, it guarantees a kill from Chaos Strike without needing Fel Rush + Glaive Throw first. You can also very easily Fel Rush -> Fel Rush to end the first transition as soon as it starts, if you've positioned correctly. Don't try a Vengeful Retreat after that unless you're positive it'll land you on top of Xylem, though, or you'll die very quickly to Darkness. And speaking of Fel Rush, make sure you aim for the right image when bubble hopping - overshooting or undershooting is very likely a death.

Blur is best used to help mitigate damage during downtime between Eye Beams. If you can, hold your Eye Beams in the barrage phase until after he teleports - this lets you Imprison him instead of stunning him, letting the dr wear off. And lastly, for the final phase, keep your Fury of the Illidari and Eye Beams ready for the adds. You'll usually get to sneak an extra Eye Beams in on the boss afterwards, too.

I'll be honest, this was an incredibly close fight for me. I imagine it gets better with gear, but I was down to the last fading patch of safe space when I killed it, and that was with drums (used these after the third set of adds), food, flask, double pot, and an augment rune. Hope this helps the general population with this one!

[Deleted]

How much DPS did it take for your people to complete the last phase?

[Gokuqt]

For the few Arms warriors out there, heres how I did it: /watch?v=KuIK9zfvqeE

Frost Phase:
Talents - Dauntless, Double Time
- Save Heroic leap to efficiently exit the Razor Ices.
- Warbreaker + BS works too.

Arcane Phase:
- Interrupt Xylem to get closer to the middle of the platform.
- Charge the mirror images until you are able to Heroic Leap to Xylem. Don't expose yourself to their cast while in their bubble.

Phase 3:
Talents - Sweeping Strikes, Shockwave
- Keep moving on the outskirts of the platform.
- Save Warbreaker/Cooldowns/BL for the three adds that spawn.
- Dont interrupt his cast, just Heroic Leap far away to buy as much time as possible.

I used Mannoroth's Bloodletting Manacles for self heal in p1/2 but swapped it to Kil'jaeden's Burning Wish for more Add damage in P3.

[Opils]

Am i the only one who die from the knock down he does before the blink during frost phase? (SV Hunter here)

[Deleted]

Can somebody explain why I can't see the darkness on the ground on this boss? I just got to p2 for the first time ever.

https://clips.twitch.tv/NurturingSuspiciousBottleDoggo

got to it again, same problem...

https://clips.twitch.tv/HyperOilyDonkeyBrainSlug

[Legiondaryl]

I just got this on my 902 arms warrior, I have a video but since I'm a noob I can't link it here.

[Lolsteak]

Can somebody explain why I can't see the darkness on the ground on this boss? I just got to p2 for the first time ever.

https://clips.twitch.tv/NurturingSuspiciousBottleDoggo

got to it again, same problem...

https://clips.twitch.tv/HyperOilyDonkeyBrainSlug

Might be because your settings are turned down to potato level

[Deleted]

Might be because your settings are turned down to potato level

which setting specifically?

[Deleted]

which setting specifically?

Edit: Seen Proj Textures was turned on.

Stop recording/streaming and up your GFX setting if it's a hardware limitation.

[Deleted]

Project Textures (must be Enabled)

and Particle Density.

both are high already. These are the settings i pvp with.

[Deleted]

Is there actually a workaround to having the AoE zone in the first phase (Comet Storm) tick on you after leaving it? I did a few attempts last night on my Survival Hunter and even when 1 shotting the crystals (thanks, Butchery!) and immediately leaving, I still take over 1.6 million damage after I'm clearly out of the circle.

[Deleted]

I a 890 Ilvl dk! and i cant see how i should be able to do this. My best trys are 60% as frost, and 40% as unholy..

Would say unholy is fine.

But FROST! WTF. When i see the videos form people who have done this fight. It looks super easy. they dont really take any dmg. But i only need to stand in the aOE for 1 sec, and i go from 100% to 20%. INSTANT.


This fight dosent look like it 100% skill based, but it looks like you need a High ilvl 905+, and have all the Golden traits. As i dont do as mutch dmg as them, and dont suv as mutch.


Blizz fix this, it should be 100% skill based and not ilvl based.

[Rotted]

884 Frost DK.
It's quite literally impossible because I don't have the right legendaries. I'm really tilted.
If it's when you're trapped in the ice, it's because you run into the ice.

I havent attempted any of them yet, but I seriously doubt you need a specific legendary to deal with the encounter.

[Lolsteak]

I havent attempted any of them yet, but I seriously doubt you need a specific legendary to deal with the encounter.

So don't comment as if you know how they are?

[ornichi]

Blizz fix this, it should be 100% skill based and not ilvl based.

I feel for you. Been trying it as a 874 ilvl demon hunter. Was dying not to mechanic issues, but to overall impossibility to resist the incoming damage. Kinda dissapointed they didn't make it ilvl scaling.

[Deleted]

This really needs to g et ILVL scaled. and they SHOULD not count legendary in.

[Rotted]

So don't comment as if you know how they are?

I know blizzard isn't completely incompetent to base a challenge that anyone of those classes can attempt at any point, then to make it legendary dependent.

Granted, a specific legendary like prydaz would be a great help, but it's not dependent.

OT,

I haven't attempted, how do you know I've not researched, watched the guides and theorycrafted it out of interest?