Coiled Altar Raid Guide in the Venomous Abyss for Midnight Season 2

In this section of the guide, we will break down each individual mechanic of the fight and provide recommendations on how to deal with them, either individually or as a raid group.

• Positioning
  1. Stay near Zul'jan whenever possible. There is a high level of incoming damage, staying stacked will make healing easier.
  2. Place Coalesced Venom orbs in a designated area.
  3. Keep the planned venom stack clear of roaming Axegrinder axes so that the active tank can safely aim Sever through every globule.

• Fangs of the Coiled Altar (Raid AoE)
  1. Raid-wide damage and hits tanks with Twinfang Toxin in addition to the auto attack.
  2. Area denial from the sides of the room with Noxious Ground.

• Toxic Deluge (Poison Orbs)
  1. Green poison circles appear the room and leave behind Coalesced Venom orbs.
  2. Assigned players should step onto the orbs to pick them up, move to the designated stack point. Once the Volatile Venom debuff expires the orb will be dropped.
  3. Each destroyed orb triggers Venom Rupture and deals damage to the entire raid.
  4. Healers: Prepare for increasing raid damage when several orbs are destroyed together.
  5. Heroic: Venom Rupture becomes a stacking damage-over-time effect, so avoid destroying more orbs simultaneously than the healers can safely cover.

• Sever (Tank Frontal + Orb Clear)
  1. Sever deals damage to everyone inside of the cone and will apply a debuff making players take increased damage from the next cast.
  2. Any Coalesced Venom orb inside the frontal is destroyed allowing you to control the stacks on the raid.
  3. Tanks: Aim each frontal through the collected orbs and taunt swap after every cast.

• Guillotine (Group Soak)
  1. Has to hit at least 5 players.
  2. Run outside of the Widow's Kiss circle using Stampeding Roar / Demonic Gateway.
  3. Healers: Ensure people are healed before the Widow's Kiss detonates.
  4. Heroic: Soakers receive Guillotined, increasing their damage taken from another Guillotine by 500%. Two soak groups are required of half the raid each.

• Venomfang (Poison DoT)
  1. Applied to random players.
  2. Healers: Dispel players quickly to avoid unnecessary damage taken.
  3. Shamans: Poison Cleansing Totem is great for automating this mechanic.

• Axegrinder (Avoid)
  1. Spinning axes travel around the arena and deal a large amount of damage to players inside of them.
  2. Pay attention to where the axes are, especially while moving away from Widow's Kiss or carrying Coalesced Venom.

• Phase Transition (0% HP)
  1. Any remaining Coalesced Venom orbs explode when Zul'jan is defeated and Phase 2 begins.
  2. If a fresh set of Toxic Deluge orbs have spawned be ready to heal through a lot of damage. Nothing else is happening at this time so hybrid players should offheal.

• Positioning
  1. Stack behind Hex Lord Malacrass and position the group slightly towards one side of the arena.
  2. Instead of poison orbs in this phase, you will have Unnerving Fixation ghost adds. They can be destroyed with Soul Sever.

• Dreadmarch (Mind Control)
  1. Several players are targeted and will get Mind Controlled. They will gain an absorb shield and will walk towards the nearest edge of the platform and jump off.
  2. Breaking the shield creates Manifestations of Dread (Ghosts) that fixate on players through Unnerving Fixation.
  3. If the raid is stacked on the boss this will allow passive cleave to break the shields quickly.
  4. You are able to Crowd Control players who are Mind Controlled with Ring of Peace , Death Grip etc.

• Unnerving Fixation (Ghosts)
  1. Each Manifestation of Dread moves towards its fixated player whenever that player is not looking directly at it.
  2. Fixated players should guide their Manifestations to the assigned stack point, then face them to hold them in place before Soul Sever.
  3. If you have ever played a Mario game, these work the same as Boo's.
  4. The Manifestations are otherwise immune to damage and control effects.
  5. Heroic: A Manifestation that reaches its target reapplies Dreadmarch. Never allow an add to make contact.

• Soul Sever (Tank Frontal)
  1. This works the same as Sever in Phase 1 with an additional mechanic.
  2. Players struck by the frontal receive Gravebound and must reclaim their three Soul Fragments or they will die.
  3. Tanks: Taunt after every cast and ensure the active tank collects all three fragments immediately afterwards.

• Gloombomb (Run away circle)
  1. Several ranged players will get a big purple circle on them and explode when it expires.
  2. Move away from the raid before the effect expires and avoid overlapping another targeted player.
  3. Players hit receive Gloombomb and must collect three Soul Fragments before the effect expires.
  4. Heroic: Players hit by the explosion are afflicted with Gravebound, making accidental overlaps or lazy movement lethal.

• Heroic Spiritcackle (Interrupt Add)
  1. This add will repeatedly attempt to cast Wail of Terror and attacks random players with Retaliatory Malice.
  2. Ranged DPS should prioritise killing this add with 2/3 players assigned to interrupt it towards the end of each cast.
  3. Interrupting Wail of Terror causes it to teleport and it will begin casting again.
  4. If it teleports into melee range it will get cleaved down by Melee DPS.

• Eternal Nightfall (Boss Interrupt)
  1. Malacrass gains the Veil of Twilight absorb shield and begins casting.
  2. Destroy the absorb shield and interrupt Eternal Nightfall before it completes.
  3. Avoid the purple shadow circles on the ground.
  4. If possible you should delay the interrupt to the last few seconds to gain more DPS.

• Phase Transition (0% HP)
  1. Before defeating Malacrass, clear all remaining Manifestations of Dread so that they do not disrupt the transition.
  2. Move away from the edge before his health reaches zero to avoid being knocked from the arena.

• Soulbinding (Damage Amp)
  1. Malacrass links himself to Zul'jan and applies Ghastly Regeneration, causing Zul'jan to regenerate health throughout the intermission.
  2. Zul'jan takes 100% increased damage during this cast.
  3. Use Bloodlust, damage cooldowns and potions.

• Fragment of Malacrass (Add Soaks)
  1. Fragments move towards Zul'jan and trigger Reclaim Essence if they reach him, healing the bosses.
  2. Spread around Zul'jan and intercept every Fragment before it reaches the boss.
  3. Stepping on a Fragment triggers Spirit Erasure, dealing raid-wide damage.
  4. Stagger the soaks rather than intercepting several Fragments simultaneously.
  5. Tanks: Prioritise soaking Fragments. Damage from other players is more important.
  6. Healers: Rotate cooldowns across the full intermission and delay additional soaks whenever the raid is too low to survive them.

• All mechanics from Phase 1 and 2 are active.
• The bosses do not share health.
• When one boss dies the other will be enraged. DPS them evenly and keep both bosses stacked for efficient cleave DPS.

Here we will list the most important aspects of the encounter. Keep in mind that we will not be listing every mechanic here, instead focusing on the ones that we deem the most important and impactful.

• Stack loosely near the middle and assign mobile players to collect Coalesced Venom orbs.
• Place the orbs together and destroy them with Sever.
• Tanks: Aim Sever through the orbs and swap after every cast.
• Alternate two groups of at least 5 players for Guillotine.
• Move out of Widow's Kiss after the soak.
• Dispel Venomfang and avoid roaming Axegrinder axes.
• Coalesced Venom orbs left over when the boss dies detonate.

• Stack to one side of Malacrass to control Dreadmarch movement and add spawns.
• Break the Mind Control shields.
• Fixated players should gather their Manifestations in the middle and face them until Soul Sever.
• Tanks: Aim Soul Sever through every Manifestation and swap after each cast.
• Spread with Gloombomb and collect all three Soul Fragments.
• Interrupt and kill the Soulcoiler summoned by Spiritcackle.
• Break Veil of Twilight and interrupt Eternal Nightfall.

• Use Bloodlust when Zul'jan gains the 100% damage-taken increase.
• Spread around Zul'jan soak Fragment of Malacrass.
• Each soak deals raid wide damage. If the raid is on low health do not soak.

• Stack both bosses and balance their health so that they die together.
• Repeat Phase 1 and Phase 2 mechanics.

Below you will find information on the most important changes on Mythic difficulty. Naturally many abilities will deal more damage or affect more players, while enemies have more HP, so we will be focusing on mechanical changes.

• Virulent Cyst:
  1. One Coalesced Venom created by Toxic Deluge mutates into a Virulent Cyst.
  2. The Cyst repeatedly uses Caustic Secretion to launch 2 additional Coalesced Venom orbs every 6 seconds.
  3. The raid will need to prevent the Cyst from continuously increasing the number of active orbs.
  4. A likely approach is to prioritise the Cyst while assigned collectors continue consolidating its additional venom, but its precise damage requirements and interaction with Sever require encounter testing.

• Virulent Mutation
  1. Some Coalesced Venom orbs instead become Virulent Mutation, which deal continuous raid-wide Nature damage.
  2. Picking up a Mutation applies Mutagenic Venom rather than Volatile Venom.
  3. The affected player damages allies within 8 yards and causes nearby venom orbs and Mutations to explode.

• Tainted Blood
  1. When Volatile Venom expires, it applies Tainted Blood for 10 seconds.
  2. This increases the damage taken from Volatile Venom by 200%.
  3. Rotate venom collectors so that the same player does not pick up another ordinary globule while Tainted Blood remains active.

• Guillotined
  1. The increased damage taken from Guillotine becomes permanent.

• Axegrinder
  1. The roaming axes no longer despawn.
  2. Place early axes carefully and preserve clean movement routes, as the available safe space will continually shrink throughout the phase.

• Unnerving Fixation
  1. Manifestations of Dread can only be seen by the player they are currently fixating.

• Malevolent Resonance
  1. When two Manifestations of Dread touch, both repeatedly damage their fixated targets for 5 seconds.

• Spirit Shield
  1. The Mythic Spiritcackle summons a Spiteful Soulcoiler protected by Spirit Shield, reducing its damage taken by 99%.
  2. Hitting the Soulcoiler with Gloombomb weakens the shield until it is removed.

• Spirit Erasure
  1. Soaking a Fragment of Malacrass increases the damage all players take from additional Spirit Erasure effects by 20% for 2 seconds.