What’s up, it’s Jimfro from Ready, Check, Pull and this is our official boss guide for Normal and Heroic Artificer Xy’Mox.
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Artificer Xy’Mox is yet another option you can go to right after Shriekwing, and it’s the portal
boss! There are three phases in this fight, and they all basically require you to use these fancy portals to deal with the phase-specific mechanics.
So first of all, let’s go over the way the portals actually work: two random players will occasionally get a yellow mark above their head and a circle around them. After a few seconds, each player will drop a portal on the ground at their feet.
When any player walks into one of these portals, they will be instantly transferred to the other portal and after a few seconds you’ll be able to use a portal again.
These portals despawn when a new set is coming out, so you’ll have to replace them several times throughout the fight.
There’s a lot of room for creativity with the placements of the portals, but we’re gonna recommend the simplest option, because ultimately this fight is pretty simple. Every single time, put one in the very middle of the room and the other one far away toward a wall. This placement works for every phase-specific mechanic, so you won't have to change the placement for every phase.
Phase 1
In phase one, several of these untargetable spirits will occasionally spawn and fixate random players. If they reach their target, that player will be mind-controlled and will have to be broken out by other players damaging them. The spirits will despawn after 12 seconds,
but they move super fast, so the only way to avoid them until they despawn is by using these portals.
Each fixated player will need to step into a portal as their spirit is getting close to them, wait a couple seconds, and then step back into the portal again. If the portals are far enough away, the spirits should despawn on their way back to the original portal. Just be ready to use movement abilities if you need more time.
Phase 2
At 70%, phase two will start.
The spirits will stop spawning, and instead these blue seeds will occasionally spawn around the room, they all explode at once after a few seconds, doing lethal damage to anyone in 50 yards, but you can move the seeds far enough away to avoid the explosions.
There can be up to 8 seeds based on raid size, and they always spawn in the same places. So we suggest assigning up to 5 people ahead of time to handle the seeds on the opposite side of the room as your portals.
Each person will need to pick up a seed, run into the portal in the middle of the room, drop
the seed, and take the portal back to the middle of the room, while everyone moves away from the telegraphed explosions.
Outside of that, you’ll just want to keep the boss toward the middle of the room to make placing the portals easier.
Phase 3
At 40%, phase three will start.
The seeds will stop spawning, and instead a giant weapon will occasionally spawn in the middle of the room, the weapon will strongly pull everyone toward it for a few seconds and then explode for a ridiculous amount of damage to anyone within its circle.
The pull is super strong so you’ll need to use whatever movement abilities you have as well as the portals. For example, you can run against the pull for a few seconds, and then let yourself get pulled into a portal that’s in the middle of the room just before the explosion, which will then transport you safely out of the blast.
Again, there are slightly better portal positions for each phase, so feel free to experiment with different options, but this way keeps things real simple.
Aside from those phase-specific mechanics, there’s only a couple more things to worry
about that happens throughout the whole fight.
Xy’mox will occasionally cast a very short debuff on the current tank. This tank will have 4 seconds to get as far away from the raid as possible before the debuff explodes on the raid, which does less damage to players that are farther away.
The tanks can use the portals to get this debuff away from the raid, as long as no one else needs to use the portals at the same time. Otherwise, the tanks will have to use movement abilities to get away fast enough. The explosion does a ton of damage to the tank and applies a long debuff that makes them more vulnerable to the next explosion, so the tanks will need to use defensives for each cast and taunt swap every cast to alternate who gets the debuff and to keep the boss from moving.
There are also these randomly aimed white beams on the ground that everyone will need
to dodge, as well as some frequent raid-wide damage that’s unavoidable.
And on Heroic, there are these traps that occasionally spawn under random players’ feet. If anyone steps into a trap, they’ll be stunned and will need to be broken out by other players’
damage. You can just avoid these, of course, but we recommend assigning players with immunities to run through and clear them out every once in a while, because they can start to fill up the room and cause a bunch of unnecessary problems.
You could also have people purposefully step on to them at good times and just break those players out quickly, but that's a little more dangerous.
Alright, so quick recap.
Throughout the fight:
- Always place one portal in the middle of the room and one toward a wall.
- Tanks need to quickly run the debuff away from the raid.
- Everyone should avoid the beams as well as the traps on Heroic.
Phase one:
- Fixated players need to use the portals to avoid the spirits.
Phase two:
- Move the seeds away from the raid using the portals.
Phase three:
- Use movement abilities and the portals to stay away from the weapon explosion.
And that’s pretty much it!
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