Spellblade Aluriel Strategy/Tactics for Normal/Heroic
Table of Contents
General Information
On this page, you will find a working strategy to defeat Spellblade Aluriel in The Nighthold for both Normal and Heroic modes, which usually only differ by the tuning of the boss.
Here, we assume that you have read our descriptions of the abilities for this encounter.
The other pages of our Spellblade Aluriel guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.
Positioning
It is best to begin the fight on the staircase in the courtyard, if possible, to give your raid group the most space possible. Spellblade Aluriel will patrol around the square. Wait for her to come to the group before engaging her.
The tanks should position Aluriel midway up the stairs and face her away from the raid. Both tanks should be ready for Annihilate. Aluriel will begin with a 3-second cast, giving the tanks time to correctly face the boss and stack together. At the end of the cast, she will begin a 4-second channel, dealing heavy damage split between the tanks.
Master of Frost
Aluriel will immediately enter her Master of Frost state, granting her the Frost augmentations to her abilities. Her first cast will be Mark of Frost, which will mark 2 players. The raid should be loosely spread in anticipation of the cast to avoid instantly detonating the marks. The 2 players with Mark of Frost should stack on either side of a predetermined raid marker, outside of the raid group. Aluriel will cast Replicate: Mark of Frost approximately 15 seconds later, marking a second set of players with Mark of Frost. A separate raid marker should be designated for these new marks to stand near, also outside the raid group.
Approximately 30 seconds after her replication cast, Aluriel will cast Detonate: Mark of Frost and clear all the current Mark of Frost debuffs. 15 seconds later, Aluriel will cast Animate: Mark of Frost and spawn Icy Enchantments. The raid should quickly AoE down the Icy Enchantments and avoid stunning themselves when the Frozen Tempest channel begins. The melee and tanks do not need to get out of the dome, though they will need to run against the push back effect.
Dealing With Mark of Frost
When the stacks of Frostbitten become too high to sustain further, the pair of players with Mark should collapse on each other and detonate the Mark, passing it to the nearest allies that are not afflicted by Frostbitten. The number of stacks to swap Marks at is flexible; the more your healers can take, the higher number of stacks you can swap at. If your group isn't sure, a good number of stacks to swap at is around 8-9 stacks of Frostbitten.
There should be assigned priority list of players that the Marks should be passed to in order to avoid confusion. Highly mobile classes, such as Hunters and Mages, make the best choices for this duty. This priority list also needs to be flexible in the event that some of the assigned players are the targets of the initial Marks or the replication. When it is time for the players to collapse and trade Marks, these players need to ensure they are the closest targets so that the Marks will jump to them.
Master of Fire
A few moments after casting Animate: Mark of Frost, Aluriel will enter her Master of Fire state. The timings of this phase will essentially mirror the previous phase, though the abilities themselves are quite different.
The ranged should fan out around the boss. It is important that none of the other ranged overlap in a line between the boss and each other. Aluriel will begin to mark players with Searing Brand. The melee will have to be especially careful of Aluriel's charge when Searing Brands go out to avoid being killed. When Replicate: Searing Brad is cast there will be a total of 6 Brands active.
After 45 seconds in the Master of Fire phase, Aluriel will cast Detonate: Searing Brand. All players afflicted with Searing Brand should spread at least 8 yards apart so that none of the Burning Ground zones overlap.
15 seconds later Aluriel will cast Animate: Searing Brand, which will raise Fiery Enchantments from the Burning Ground. They will begin casting Pyroblast, deals high Fire damage to a single target. These casts are interruptible and they should be prioritized by anyone with an available kick. These adds should be killed as quickly as possible to avoid deaths. If any of the Fiery Enchantments are within 8 yards of each other, they will empower each other with Bound in Flame, increasing damage and cast speed of Pyroblast by 100%.
Master of the Arcane
After casting Animate: Searing Brand, Aluriel will enter her Master of the Arcane state. Players should be wary of the Arcane Orbs she will begin to spawn, and again during Replicate: Arcane Orb. This phase is fairly uneventful mechanically, provided all players avoid standing in the pulsing damage from the Arcane Orbs.
After 45 seconds in this phase, Aluriel will cast Detonate: Arcane Orb, sending all the Arcane Orbs flying into the air. The raid should quickly move out of the Arcane zones before the Orbs crash back to the ground; anyone caught in a zone will take lethal Arcane damage. Players should make an effort to move away from the zones even if they are not directly inside of the circle, as they still deal raid wide damage reduced by distance. The raid group should stack right before detonation and move as a group to bait the Arcane Orbs to land close together, as it makes dealing with the adds significantly easier. Healing cooldowns are important to mitigate the raid damage here.
15 seconds after detonation, Aluriel will spawn Arcane Enchantments from the zones with her Animate: Arcane Orb cast. The Arcane adds need to be killed as quickly as possible or they will wipe the group with their Armageddon cast, which is not interruptible. The adds will not move from where they spawn.
If Aluriel is not killed after the Arcane phase concludes, she will return to the Frost phase and repeat her cycle.
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