Soulless Horror

Enrage: 8 minutes. When Enraged, Soulless Horror will deal 200% more damage.
Requires: Glider Basics Mastery or a Raptor
Tank: 2 tanks, determined by interactibles

Soulless Horror does not have any invulnerability phases, but is very mobile as the squad has to move out of the way of the many large AoE mechanics present throughout the encounter. Classes that animation lock frequently are not recommended here; conversely, as Confusion (due to the boss’s quick attack speed) and mobility skills are strong on this encounter, Condition Mirage is highly favored here.

In order to Knockback the Tormented Dead and keep them off the group and platform, most groups bring a Heal Alacrity Druid with the Marksmanship specialization, while Condition Scourges and other builds capable of ranged cleave damage clean them up.

Lastly, tanking in this encounter is not Toughness-based, but the tanks should wear defensive gear (such as Giver’s or Minstrel’s) regardless due to the buildup of Necrosis over time and Soulless Horror’s high damage output. Additionally, in newer groups, Druids may struggle to maintain healing output while handling their special mechanic, so the squad may benefit from two healing tanks. As such, Heal Quickness Firebrand is a great pick here.

 

Tanking

Before the encounter is allowed to begin, two players are required to interact with two glowing runes on the ground. The runes will give these players a special action skill known as Issue Challenge—using this skill will make Soulless Horror fixate on that player.

Every 12 seconds (except for the first tick of each fixation, which happens more quickly), the actively fixated player will gain a stack of Necrosis, which increases incoming damage by 40% per stack. These stacks will dissipate 30 seconds after the last application of the debuff once this player loses fixation.

The damage pressure from having four or more stacks of Necrosis is immense; in order to avoid death, the two tanks must juggle their Necrosis stacks by alternating uses of Issue Challenge.

Issue Challenge has a 45-second cooldown. This means each tank should use their special action key every minute, or as soon as their stacks of Necrosis dissipate.

Soulless Horror’s tank-facing attacks all deal heavy damage, and depending on the attack, can corrupt boons or apply heavy condition pressure to any players caught in their grasp.

Soulless Horror’s Attacks

Players should Dodge the inner circle sideways to avoid ending up in the outer ring. Preventative Barrier or Aegis can be used to mitigate this attack as well.

Arena Mechanics

The spawn rate and the number of segments in each Wall are not random, but their gap locations are—instead of trying to memorize the spawns, players should be prepared to handle any possible pattern.

This mechanic leads to some interesting squad composition decisions, most importantly making sure the group has access to Swiftness and Superspeed if possible. Bringing classes with resurrection skills can be extremely clutch if players are downed in the path of a Wall, and Scourges should consider bringing Sand Swell over Epidemic if the squad is consistently having trouble with the mechanic.

Notes:

• Any active Walls will despawn if Soulless Horror gains a defiance bar.
• This mechanic is notorious for not rendering properly when players’ Character Model Limit setting is set to Lowest. For this encounter in particular, make sure you change this setting to Medium or you might be killed by an seemingly invisible wall!

Flesh Wurms

The fight starts with eight Elite Flesh Wurms in the arena. These spit projectiles at players from afar. Typically, whenever a Wall spawns, the tanks can rotate Soulless Horror counterclockwise around the arena, allowing any ranged DPS classes to cleave them down.

Tormented Dead

Known as: TD, Golem, Dead

20 seconds after the Soulless Horror is brought to 90% HP remaining, and every 20 seconds afterward, a Tormented Dead will spawn in the center of the arena, fixating on the inactive tank.

Defeating a Tormented Dead will spawn a deceptively large red area of effect on the ground that deals high damage and corrupts all of a player’s boons into conditions.

To avoid both their high damage and the area denial that comes with one of these AoEs being placed in a central position on the platform, the most common strategy for handling this mechanic involves using a slightly modified Heal Druid build to Push the Tormented Dead off of the platform, while ranged DPS classes with high cleave, such as Scourges and Virtuosos, focus damage on it for a short while to ensure it dies before it runs back to the group.

Many groups will bring a Scourge or Harbinger with Epidemic here, which is used on the boss whenever a Tormented Dead spawns to ensure it will die when pushed off of the platform, however without more cleave damage from the squad, a single Epidemic usage will never be enough to kill it. Furthermore, using Epidemic too early can transfer Crippled and/or Immobilize to the Tormented Dead while it is still in the center of the arena, making Pushing more awkward for the squad’s Druid.

It is important that all classes that have crowd control skills that hit multiple targets as a part of their DPS rotation, such as Mechanists’ Jade Mortar, wait until the Tormented Dead is fully pushed out before using these skills, or else the Druid’s Knockback effects will be overwritten and the Tormented Dead will stop near the group instead.

If a Push is failed and the Tormented Dead dies on the platform, players should avoid walking through its damaging field unless absolutely necessary (e.g. to avoid a Surging Soul).

Challenge Mode

Soulless Horror doesn’t gain any HP when Challenge Mode is activated, nor are there any new mechanics to contend with, but the fight is made much more chaotic through some pernicious mechanical changes:

1. The Elite Flesh Wurms found at the opening of the encounter will now respawn, adding slightly more damage pressure to the fight.
2. Necrosis stacks on the two tanks build up more quickly, meaning that even when swapping as early as possible, both players will take considerably more damage from all sources. As mentioned in the introduction, Giver’s or Minstrel’s gear should be worn to increase survivability in Challenge Mode.
3. The arena will crumble once at the start of the encounter, meaning that once the final shrinkage occurs at 33% HP remaining, the only playable space will be the inner circle of the arena; bad handling of the Tormented Dead mechanic will make the final phase of the boss nearly impossible in Challenge Mode.