Sszorak 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.

• Marking the Room at the start of the phase
  1. As you pull the boss and after each intermission the wind tunnels around the side of the room will have wind motes on them.
  2. This indicates the order the boss will push the raid during the intermission.
  3. You should have raid markers opposite from these so players with Venomous Surge can drop the cysts in the correct locations for you to survive the intermission.

• Apex Predator (Tank Combo)
  1. Sszorak performs five attacks in a random order: two Ravage casts, two Mutilate casts and one Tempest cast.
  2. The tanks should swap after the first Ravage or Mutilate cast and aim to take 1 Ravage and Mutilate each.
  3. Swapping after the first hit may seem risky but given that Tempest can never be first or last in the sequence, that gives you 18 remaining combinations. From these remaining 18 combinations there will always be a gap with Tempest during the cycle which will reset the taunt cooldown and diminishing returns.
  4. Ravage: Face this away from the raid and ensure that the tank is the only person hit by this. Use a defensive cooldown.
  5. Mutilate : Soak this with the raid to split the damage. If you have a Blood Death Knight, they can solo soak this with Vampiric Blood and Anti-Magic Shell.
  6. Tempest: Avoid the tornadoes that fire from the boss.
  7. Heroic: Soaking Mutilate applies a damage taken increase of 500%, meaning that you require two groups of soakers (Unless you have a Blood DK).

• Venomous Surge (Debuff Drop At Assigned Locations)
  1. The players with these debuffs need to pay attention to the winds at the edge of the room on pull to drop their Viscous Cysts.
  2. You should have raid markers on where to place them.
  3. Let the debuff expire at one of the raid markers and ensure you do not have more than one at each marker.
  4. Tanks: Position Sszorak away from these markers to avoid the cysts being popped accidentally by other players.
  5. Heroic: Sszorak also uses Caustic Claws during Venomous Surge, creating pools of Caustic Residue around you. Tank the boss towards the edge in a position where these pools would get pushed off the platform during the intermission.
  6. Heroic: Standing in Caustic Residue will make you take 30% more damage.

• Raging Crosswinds (Knockback Buddies)
  1. Most players in the raid will recieve a wind that is going to push them in one of two directions.
  2. Find a partner who has the opposite direction to you so you are lauching into each other when this expires.
  3. When you get launched, if you have a partner you will hit each other in the air and get knocked back to your original location.

• Tank Mechanics
  1. In addition to the tank combo Sszorak has a stacking debuff tank swap Corroding Venom.
  2. Swapping at around 6 stacks should let it line up with natural swaps during the Apex Predator combo.

• Howling Maelstrom (Pushed around the platform)
  1. The wind tunnels around the edge of the room will activate in order based on the number of wind motes on them.
  2. Get pushed into the Viscous Cyst opposite the tunnel to get knocked back into the middle.
  3. Ground pools which are pushed to the edge of the platform are removed.

• Dig In (Boss takes more damage)
  1. Sszorak takes 30% increased damage for 25 seconds during Howling Maelstrom.
  2. The intermission occurs approximately every 2 minutes, plan your DPS cooldowns accordingly.

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.

• Use Bloodlust or Heroism on the pull.
• Stay loosely stacked behind Sszorak in two assigned Mutilate groups.
• Tanks: Point Ravage away from the raid and place Mutilate into the assigned soak group.
• Tanks: Swap after the first Ravage or Mutilate in each Apex Predator combo and at roughly 6 stacks of Corroding Venom.
• Heroic: Two Mutilate soak groups are required.
• Dodge the tornadoes created by Tempest.
• Drop Venomous Surge away from the raid, opposite the active wind tunnels to spawn Viscous Cyst orbs for the Intermission.
• During Raging Crosswinds find a partner with the opposite wind direction to you and face them.

• Move to the middle before Howling Maelstrom begins.
• Get pushed into Viscous Cyst orbs opposite the tunnel one at a time.
• Stand so each cyst knockback sends the raid towards the centre of the platform.
• DPS: Sszorak takes 30% increased damage from Dig In during this intermission.

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.

• Serpent's Fury (Energy Control)
  1. Sszorak marks one player and continually gains rage. Reaching 100 rage triggers Unbound Ferocity which essentially acts as a wipe condition.
  2. Testing observation: During raid testing this looked to be the person who was the furthest away from the boss.
  3. When at least 14 players are within 8 yards of the marked player, Sszorak spends the rage and casts To the Slaughter.
  4. The targeted player should then move into the raid clump to trigger To the Slaughter.

• To the Slaughter (Charge Soak)
  1. After the stack is formed, Sszorak charges towards the player marked by Serpent's Fury.
  2. Players struck by the charge receive Virulence.

• Virulence (Spread Beams)
  1. 5 second debuff where you have visible beams.
  2. Spread out so your beams do not hit another player.
  3. If a player is hit they will get Virulence again.

• Raging Crosswinds (Knockback Buddies)
  1. These winds now go in the four cardinal directions making finding a buddy more difficult.