Fan Raid Encounter: ST-6

[Bruch 1]

Hello all,

Wanted to submit another one of my raid ideas in the same format as the previous one. This encounter is with a time-traveling robot monk (I swear the idea didn't start out quite like that.) As always, any feedback, positive or negative, is welcome!



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1. Introduction:

    The encounter with the ST-6 is a single phase encounter that is largely a gear check. It will start as an innocuous tank and spank but gradually grow in complexity until peaking  in a chaotic burn phase. The fight will be particularly demanding for healers that will have to deal with high sustained amounts of damage practically throughout.

2. Background Lore:

    The ST-6 was originally created with benevolent intentions: A research drone equipped with the most magnificent of arcane technologies, allowing it to transport itself and its immediate surroundings backward in time; being able to record thousands of lifetime of experience in the blink of an eye. Little to no thought was ever put into potential combat applications thereof.
    Unfortunately, however, its misguided creator also made the decision to give the ST-6 free will and a sense of self. This quickly manifested itself into the personality of an indignant adolescent; bored and thoroughly disinterested with the procurement of knowledge. Being able to know every potentiality  of an event before it could ever occur, it seemed to prefer its abilities be used to cheat and win petty competitions, of which it did with blithe enthusiasm.  
    As yet more time passed, its valuing of organic life lessened as its control of time rendered it incapable of comprehending death's impact. This twisted it, turning it cruel. It soon preferred competitions only of mortal combat, training itself in the arts of the Pandaren monk to compensate for its lack of weaponry.
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3. Overview of the Fight:

    The encounter with ST-6 is, in essence, a very simple gear check requiring rather steep output requirements for every role of your raid but little else. This is all complicated, however, by a single ability called Temporal Reconfiguration that will both increase the difficulty throughout and buff the raid, allowing them to meet the otherwise impossible DPS and HPS requirements for the fight.

4. The Fight:

4.1. Abilities:

ST-6

     Accelerated Assault: A stacking buff that grants the ST-6 extra attack speed 
     per stack. He gains one stack every time he auto attacks and the stacks reset
     whenever he hits a new target. This functions as a tank swap mechanic.

    Time-Split Combo: ST-6 will periodically augment particular abilities with
    Time-Split wherein he displace copies of himself through the timeline, and
    causing the abilities behave differently. In almost every case, this simply means
    his abilities will be targeted on additional people.

    Hypersonic Kick: ST-6's channels all of his martial prowess into a powerful     
    roundhouse kick that sends his current aggro target flying as far back as
    possible (until being knocked into a wall), doing both a base initial physical hit
    and a second hit upon impact doing damage inversely proportional to the
    distance they traveled. Anyone caught in the target's travel path will also be
    knocked back and take the same amount of impact damage.
        
        Time-Split Combo: When the ST-6 time-splits the Hypersonic Kick, the
        ability will be cast on two targets in addition to his current aggro target.
        During the cast of the ability, projections of the ST-6 will appear to his two
        other targets, doing the same cast animation. When the cast finishes, he will
        kick the targets in the direction  that they are relative to the boss. This will
        deal reduced damage

    Lightspeed Uppercut: ST-6 instantly teleports to a random player's location
    and unleashes a devastating uppercut, causing the target to fly into the air and
    when landing, taking massive physical damage. The damage is split among all
    players within a 4-yard radius.
        
        Time-Split Combo: When the ST-6 time splits Lightspeed Uppercut, he now
         targets an additional random target (generally preferring someone far away
         from the initial target.) The spell is instant and just like the regular version, it
         is impossible to know whom will be targeted beforehand

    Fists of Fury: ST-6 channels all of his energy into a miasma of martial mayhem,
    dealing a series of rapid melee blows that randomly land on every target within
    its cone for 5 seconds. The exact number of blows scales proportionately with
    the ST-6's haste. Any target caught within its cone is rooted for the rest of its
    duration (undispellable.)

         Time-Split Combo: When the ST-6 time splits Fists of Fury, he now targets
         one additional target. If they are both alive, this will always target both tanks.
         In addition, the ST-6 will gain a passive ability wherein he will periodically
         spawn an add (a copy of himself "Time Displaced Fury") that will spawn on
         top of a random player (though never a tank) and instantly begin channeling
         a weakened version of Fists of Fury. Unlike ST-6's Fists of Fury, however, the
         Time Displaced Fury will channel it indefinitely with ever stacking damage
         and can only be stopped by killing it. Thankfully, the adds do not have much
         health.

    Concussive Spread: Targets the location of a number of random players and
    fires missiles at their locations that land a few seconds later, doing high
    physical damage within a two-yard radius and reducing movement and attack
    speed for the next 6 seconds.

        Time-Split Combo: When ST-6 Time Splits Concussive Spread, he will
        project two copies of himself around the realm that will cast Concussive
        Spread in succession.
        
    Temporal Reconfiguration: ST-6 rips a hole in the space-time continuum,
    causing him and the entire raid to be transported 45 seconds back in time,
    restoring all health and  mana, and resetting all cooldowns.  ST-6 casts this
    ability every 45 seconds. Every time he casts it, ST-6 and the every raid
    member receives a stack of Temporal Displacement.
    
    Temporal Fortification: A buff that ST-6 receives after casting Temporal     
    Reconfiguration that reduces all damage taken by 10%. It is only applied if the
    ST-6 is not knocked below a certain health percentage before he casts Temporal
    Reconfiguration.
        
        Note: The buff does stack whenever it is consecutively applied but removed
        altogether if it can't be applied in consecutive Temporal Reconfigurations
        (e.g. if ST-6 receives one stack after casting Temporal Configuration #1 but
        then is knocked down low enough that he can not apply it before Temporal
        Configuration #2, then he will lose his initial stack)

Environmental:

    Temporal Displacement: A stacking haste buff that grants 3% Haste and
    movement speed per stack.

    Metabolic Burn Stage 1: A stacking debuff that causes fire damage every
    second per  stack. One stack is applied to every raid member after every
    Temporal Displacement, starting at the second.

    Metabolic Burn Stage 2: When Metabolic Burn reaches its third stack (on
    Temporal Displacement #4), it will change into Metabolic Burn Stage 2. Its Fire
    DoT will continue to stack as before but will also cause its damage to affect
    anyone within three yards of it. Every stack of the debuff causes the range to
    expand by one yard.
    
    Concussive Storm: ST-6's patience is at an end and the timeline be damned.
    Copies of ST-6 will now cast Concussive Spread every five seconds for the rest
    of the fight.
        
        Note: While technically this ability comes from ST-6 himself, he never
        actually casts it and it is simply a passive that happens. The ST-6 will also
        continue to cast Time-Split Concussive Spreads himself.

    Volatile Time Anomalies: The ST-6's repeated toying with the space-time     
    continuum causes rips into the fabric of reality itself called Volatile Time
    Anomalies. These are purple swirling void zones that will spawn on top of
    players. After a second, they will gain a pulling effect toward their centers and
    will do increasingly heavy damage, the closer they pull players. If any player is
    standing in its center, it will instantly kill them. They will also occasionally do
    raid wide pulse damage.
    Players that will spawn the Volatile Time Anomalies will be notified just three     
    seconds beforehand.

    
4.2. Strategy:

    While technically only a single phase fight, the complexity and difficulty in handling thereof will climb regularly. For this reason, the strategy section will be divided by each set of Temporal Displacements.

4.3. Strategy for  Start - Temporal Reconfiguration #2:

    Because Temporal Reconfiguration will heal ST-6 to full HP every 45 seconds, this means, therefore, that your raid will have to be able to take outs its entire health bar within one of these 45-second intervals. This will be completely impossible in the early stages as ST-6's health pool is fairly large and will require unrealistically high DPS.  Nonetheless, a certain amount of damage must be done to the ST-6 to avoid his Temporal Fortification buff, and as such, Damage Dealers should not slack.
    With that being said, the early waves of Temporal Displacement are quite simple to deal with from a survival perspective. The tanks may tank ST-6 where on one end of the room with the entire raid besides the tanks  stacking loosely at ST-6's side. This is to prevent any raid members to get caught in the travel path of Hypersonic Kick as well as trivialize the split damage of Lightspeed Uppercut. The only movement that will be required at this point is from Concussive Spread.
    Tanks should tank swap whenever the Accelerated Assault stacks become unmanageable or whenever he performs a Hypersonic Kick. The off-tank should also be sure to move out of the range of the current tank whenever a kick is about to come out so that they are not caught in the travel path as well. They must also make sure to stack on top of each for Fists of Fury as the damage it does is quite unreasonable on a single target. However, they should be aware that the ST-6 always does the ability shortly after performing a Hypersonic Kick so the tank just kicked must either use a speed increase and intentionally be kicked a not too far distance away in order to get there in time. Failure for the tanks to perform these tasks effectively is the only thing likely to cause a wipe in the beginning.
    After the first Temporal Reconfiguration, ST-6 will gain a two-part time split on his Lightspeed Uppercut. This means it will now take two random targets but because your raid is always stacked up, the damage will still hardly be dangerous.

4.4. Strategy for Temporal Displacement #2 - #4:
    
    After the second Temporal Reconfiguration, the entire raid will have Metabolic Burn Stage 1 applied to them. This will result in a large increase in the amount of incoming damage. But this will have no effect on the strategy. Healers will simply have to begin using AoE heals more often (which should not be a problem due to the entire raid stacking.) The early stacks of Metabolic Burn will not do much damage anyway.
    After the third Temporal Displacement, the ST-6 will begin using three-part time-split Concussive Spreads. This will up the movement requirement somewhat significantly and if people fail to dodge any of them, they can die.

4.5. Strategy for Temporal Displacement #4 - #6:

    After the fourth Temporal Displacement, Metabolic Burn Stage 2 will be applied to the entire raid. This is the point when difficulty will start to set in and the strategy will be split among roles.

Tanking:

    From this point on, damage will increase exponentially. Not only will the ST-6 have increased attack speed making the stacks of Accelerated Assault stack faster, but both tanks will now be either forced to take Fists of Fury alone or do splash damage to one another. The former will require damage CDs as that damage plus Metabolic Burn is too much to handle solo.

Healing:

    This point marks the hardest difficulty jump in the fight for healers as now, everyone will have to spread out and efficient AoE healing will be impossible.  Tanks will also require more spot healing as they will be taking heavily increased damage. In addition, the spike damage from Lightspeed Uppercut will start to be actually noticeable as full raid soaking will be impossible, and the Metabolic Burn debuff will create substantial splash damage.

Damage Dealing:

    From a damage dealing perspective, this is only a minor increase in difficulty as it will require minimal raid awareness to not cause splash damage to fellow raid members and to move appropriately for each Lightspeed Uppercut.

    After the fifth temporal displacement, the ST-6 will begin using three-part time-split Hypersonic Kicks. This will be fairly significant issues for all non-tank players as they must make sure to be kicked in directions that are both far away and unlikely to cleave any other players. Huge, irregular spikes in damage will be something healers just have to deal with at this point as it can be difficult to not be cleaved by the kicks.
    The movement reduction debuff from Concussive Spread will now be noticeably detrimental as it can make moving for the Kicks and Uppercuts very difficult.

4.6. Strategy Temporal Displacement #6 - #8:

    After the sixth temporal displacement, the Concussive Storm will start. At this point, the fight will become incredibly punishing.

Tanking:

    Damage will not have increased significantly at this point but nonetheless, tanking will become even more challenging because now, regular movement will be required to avoid the Concussive Spreads.  As they are physical damage, they will not deal much damage to tanks but the attack and movement speed decrease can be very detrimental when combined with other abilities. Particularly if a tank is hit by one right before being kicked away and needing to come soak a Fists of Fury.

Healing:

    The constant movement requirements will make healing much more difficult. In addition, damage spikes will be much more regular as players are bound to get hit sooner or later. If the wrong players are hit, this can also interfere with the soaking of the Lightspeed Uppercuts which can also result in huge spikes in damage.

Damage Dealing:

    This will mark the first big difficulty increase in damage dealing as now, regular movement will be required. Casters will be especially challenged as they will have to regularly interrupt casts to move. Fortunately, however, the haste buff ought to reduce all cast times substantially by this point. Nonetheless, any talents they can take to allow casting on the move are greatly desirable. If there are a lot of melee damage dealers, they may also have trouble finding spots wherein they can dodge, damage the boss, and avoid splashing fire damage onto each other.

Concussive Storm Note:
    
    Note that even though the ST-6 is spamming Concussive Spread passively, he will still cast a time split version himself on the same timer. This can easily be a trainwreck as nearly every member of the raid can be targeted multiple times in a row in quick succession. Being hit to a single one can easily escalate into a combo of abilities that will kill players within seconds.

    After the seventh Temporal Reconfiguration, the ST-6 will begin doing time-split Fists of Fury.  This can be hugely detrimental for tanks as it's very unlikely they'll be able to be stacked right after a kick. So certain players will have to be prepared to enter the strike cones (with damage reductions) in order to keep the tanks alive.  Melee can be assigned unproblematically to this for the tank that wasn't kicked. But for the tank that was kicked, they must make sure to be sent in a direction close to other players in order to be reached in time.
    The Time Displaced Fury that will now occasionally spawn on top of players to channel Fists of Fury can also be dangerous if left unattended. The damage indeed, does not start out high at all but the longer the player is rooted, the more likely they are to get hit by a Concussive Spread which in the best case scenario will be a DPS loss and at worst, will result in death. There is also no warning or way to control which direction the add channels the Fists so it is fully possible for multiple people to be caught in the channel and force splashed fire damage on each other. Therefore, it is always best to kill these adds as soon as possible.


4.7. The Rest of the Fight:

    The last new change that occurs is after Temporal Displacement #8 when the Volatile Time Anomalies will begin to spawn. This also marks the most brutal part of the entire encounter. Since the raid is and has been mostly spread for some time, running out as they spawn is not very difficult in itself (though this is significantly more problematic when they spawn on members in melee.)  The problem lies rather in their combos with other abilities.
    It is possible for them to spawn during an attempted soak of a Lightspeed Uppercut which can easily result in multiple deaths. If the spawn timer does line up with that of a Lightspeed Uppercut, soakers will have to wait until it has spawned to ensure that it will not spawn on top of the soak zone, probably needing speed increases to reach the location in time. If a zone does spawn, then the best players can do is try to outrun the center of it until the target lands and then everyone exits the zone.     
    More problematically, however, is their potential combo with Hypersonic Kick. It is fully possible for the ST-6 to kick a player directly into or through a void zone, which will instantly kill them. It's for this reason that the raid must now try to loosely stand within one side of the room to help make sure the Volatile Time Anomalies all spawn grouped up and reduce the chance of being kicked into one.
    Finally, their overlap with Fists of Fury can easily lead to a wipe. If the player that will spawn one is in melee and simply stands on the boss, the tank (and anyone else caught in the strike cone) will be rooted and then pulled into the void zone where they will be immediately killed. It's for this reason that melees must be incredibly quick to run out if they are about to spawn one.  
    Note also that the Volatile Time Anomalies are permanent for the rest of the encounter. This then acts as a soft enrage as space will grow ever smaller and the chance of instadeath combos will only grow. However, your raid will generally be wiped from the massive amount of damage going out first rather than the space constraints.
    As progression content, your raid should be able to kill the ST-6 by wave 8 or 9 with decent DPS, and it is unlikely you will see past the 10th. On-farm however, the ST-6 killable even before this point, perhaps even on wave 6.  
 

[Bruch 1]

I guess no one is interested in these after all. Well, thanks to anyone who did read this!