Deimos

Enrage: 12 minutes. When Enraged, Deimos will deal 200% damage
Requires: Dedicated “Handkiter”, Glider Basics
Tank: Toughness

In this encounter, players help Saul defeat Deimos. Players must break Saul free from his chains and protect him as they kill three enemy copies of Saul and Deimos himself. The fight begins when players approach the center of the arena.

It is recommended to bring at least one source of shared Aegis for each subgroup. Common sources are Guardians with "Advance!", Mechanists with Crisis Zone and Druids with the pet skill of the White Tiger. Sources of Immobilize are also useful in this encounter, such as a Druid with Vine Surge or Guardians with Chains of Light.

Tanking Deimos is not mechanically difficult but requires a proper understanding of the encounter in order to position the boss correctly. Any class can tank it, but groups may benefit from their tank also being a source of Aegis. It’s also beneficial (but not required) for the tank to have access to additional blocks.

When it comes to dealing damage, this encounter is not very restrictive in terms of what builds are able to perform well on it. Melee builds may momentarily struggle to maintain uptime on the boss, but proper positioning and handling of the mechanics will greatly minimize this issue. However, players may want to avoid bringing builds whose skills involve long animation locks or forced movement.

Initial Phase

When the fight starts, small ghosts (Greeds) and large ghosts (Prides) will begin spawning around the edge of the arena and walk towards the Shackled Prisoner, Saul. If they reach him, they will detonate and damage him. Players should focus on slowing Prides with immobilizes, cripples, and chills to prevent them from reaching the prisoner, as they do large damage to him. The ghosts will stop spawning when the four chains holding Saul have been broken, but they will reappear when Deimos reaches 40% health remaining. They have a high priority and should be killed before they can reach Saul. If Saul dies, the encounter will fail.

Once he has been freed from his chains, Saul can be healed but he gains health very slowly; players should aim to prevent him from taking damage rather than heal him.

Players caught by the flail swing will be knocked back, potentially off the platform. You can block this attack with Aegis or otherwise or Dodge, but Stability will not prevent the knockback.

Everyone will be teleported back to the main platform when a chain breaks, restarting the cycle. To speed the initial phase up, players should aim to kill as many chains at the same time as possible.

Boss Phase

When the chains are broken Deimos will teleport to the main platform, starting the main encounter.

Roughly 5 seconds into the fight, Saul will cast Unnatural Signet to aid the squad. This will place a debuff on Deimos, causing the boss to take 200% damage for 10 seconds. Power DPS classes can benefit from timing their bursts to this debuff. Saul will reapply this Signet roughly every minute.

The Hand Kite’s role is to keep hands away from the group and to not die. The Hand Kite should aim to keep hands neatly stacked, in groups of 5 hands to avoid cluttering the arena with damaging areas of effect. Hands will be pulled in by Deimos every 25% of his health; for each hand that reaches him, he will gain one stack of a buff that increases his outgoing damage by 2%.

To aid the Hand Kiter, Saul will periodically summon a healing banner on the furthest player from Deimos. The banner lasts for 20 seconds and heals players in its range for 5% of their maximum health each second. Saul will summon a new banner 7 seconds after the previous one expires.

Common classes for Hand Kiting are Soulbeasts and Heralds. Hand Kites should have a specialized build for this role.

In order to Dodge this attack, players should avoid dodging towards Deimos' rear as they may dodge into the next segment of the attack. Dodging towards his front or at the very least, dodging within one segment will prevent getting hit in this fashion.

Aegis can be useful for blocking this attack. However, if a player is standing on the edge between two segments they will get hit by both of them. If players are relying on Aegis they should make sure to stand on only one segment.

To aid the squad, Saul will summon a protective dome in the middle of the platform, preventing all players inside of it from being hit by the Mind Crush. Players can also block this attack using skills of their own; group Aegis is very useful for situations where going into the dome is not possible. However, any player who is not standing in the protective dome will be afflicted with a debuff that deals 70% of their maximum health as damage over 10 seconds, even if the attack was blocked by other means.

This attack is heavily telegraphed. Saul will yell “Stand in the ward! Quickly!” and Deimos will swing his flails while channeling the attack. Players should either go to the ward, block the attack, or use skills that prevent dying such as "Rebound!".

Note: Ghosts that reach Saul will not only damage him, but also damage nearby players when they explode. This explosion can strip Aegis.

Oil will deal heavy damage to any player standing in it and is one of the most dangerous mechanics of the encounter; a fully expanded Oil often leads to a wipe. However, Oils are recoverable. The group should quickly exit the oil, prepare to dodge any Annihilates, and use blocks or Aegis to block Mind Crush while the protective dome is inaccessible.

Players should aim to avoid spawning an Oil in the center of the arena, as that will prevent them from being able to access Saul's protective dome during Mind Crush. To accomplish this, the tank should avoid holding the boss in the middle of the platform once the Oils have started spawning; that way, the squad will be stacked away from the center and the safe zone will remain clear.

Sometimes, the timing might be such that Oils spawn while players are hiding in the protective dome. Players can utilize an Oil Kiter to avoid spawning an Oil in the center of the arena in such a situation. The Oil Kiter will stay on the boss together with the tank for the entire fight; they will not enter any greens or go to the protective dome for safety during Mind Crush. As such, it is advised that the Oil Kiter has access to a block to protect themselves. Ideally the tank will be sharing Aegis for the Mind Crush, but having a personal block for added safety is preferable.

In low DPS groups, tears can really build up. In general, players should grab these as soon as they spawn. Once a player has closed a tear, they will be unable to close another one for 1 minute. Inability to close a tear will be indicated by a icon over your head.

Saul's Clones

Known as: greens, going down

When Deimos reaches 75%, 50%, and 25% health remaining, a random player (excluding the tank and the hand kiter) will be targeted by a green circle. Like in the initial phase, any player standing in this circle when it empties will be teleported to the Demonic Realm. All players except the Hand Kite and Tank should stand in the green, unless the squad is also using an Oil Kiter. In this case, the Oil Kiter should stay up with the tank.

In the Demonic Realm, players will face one of three Saul clones. Once the Saul clone is brought to 50% health, the squad will be teleported back to the main platform along with the clone. The clone should be quickly finished off and ideally, cleaved together with the boss. The clone will aggro on the player with the highest precision stat.

Thief Saul (75%) will occasionally gain a defiance bar. If it isn’t broken by the squad, he will steal all of their boons.

Drunkard Saul (25%) will occasionally gain a breakbar. If this breakbar isn’t broken quickly he will teleport players randomly. When Saul and players are returned to the main platform this Saul should be killed quickly, otherwise players may be teleported into Oils.

Note: Not breaking the bar will increase the cooldown of the teleport, so some groups won't break the second (or first if DPS is very high) breakbar while in the Demonic Realm, postponing the teleport on the main platform.

10% Phase

At 10% Deimos will become Invulnerable. After some dialogue all players will be teleported to the Demonic Realm to finish off Deimos. Deimos’s attacks will push players down, potentially off of the platform. Players can move to the right or left respectively for the first two attacks, and dodge the third attack where Deimos slams with both hands. This attack reaches the end of the platform so the Hand Kiter should also dodge it.