Welcome to our first look at the Mythic version of the Aberrus encounter in the Shadowed Crucible raid. Keep in mind that this is based on the PTR and subject to change, but we will go over what's new on Mythic, how to fight changes, and potential approaches.
Shadow and Flame Debuffs
The big news on Mythic is that Shadow and Flame debuffs you get from each boss now last forever and can only be cleared by having two players with the opposite marks hug out. Doing so will deal damage to players within 6 yards of them, clear their stacks, and for each stack removed, give a stack of Lingering Shadow or Flame, depending on which type of debuff you had before. These new lingering debuffs deal Shadow or Flame damage over 20 seconds, with the damage increasing per stack. However, they also increase damage taken by 10% per stack from either Shadow or Flame, depending on which you cleared.
This means that rather than rotating the entire raid without hugging, you now want them all to hug, but due to the 6-yard AOE, you're going to want to do this in a controlled fashion. You could assign everyone on the Shadow side a fire body to clear with that X amount of stacks, or you could do it in a staggered fashion, like Group 1 and 3 clear, Group 2 and 4 clear, which would make it a tad less hectic. There isn't really a need to clear stacks at a specific moment. It's fine if you clear a few, then a few more a bit later.
That being said, there are some abilities that help or screw you over if you try to clear during them. The Shadow Convergence, which spawns near the Shadow boss and deals less damage the further away you are, lends itself to be a great moment for Shadowside to just run over. On the other hand, during Fiery Meteor or Molten Eruption, Flame side needs to be near the Fire Boss, so doing a swap there will certainly spice things up a bit. Your poor tanks will need a clear body that runs to them, unless you want to stack the bosses and instantly wipe the raid.
On top of this, there's also more fire swirl spawning from the Flame Slash, and everything in Phase 1 hurts a lot more now.
Phase 2
Moving into Phase 2, the added mechanic on Mythic is well, the same as above. Previously on Heroic, you got a combined buff that just stacked indefinitely, but now, supposedly, six players get Shadow and the other six get Fire, according to the Dungeon Journal. However, while testing, only players that got hit by a Shadow or Flame ability got a stack, but assuming six players or after it gets Shadow or the other gets Fire, you will need to stay spread at all times and find a debuff body with a different debuff and clear when stacks get too high.
This will, of course, be made a lot harder than it sounds since you constantly have to run around due to all the other mechanics. Or, it's going to end up being that you don't clear at all, and the opposite marks just have to avoid each other for the rest of the fight to not stack up Lingering Shadow or Flame during this, which would also make sense since you have to soak stuff like the frontal soak or small soak circle. So, having to do that without running into a marked player is going to be a lot trickier than the opposite.
These debuffs also reduce your HP by 1% per stack, just like on Heroic. On the other hand, if the encounter works as intended, and players only get debuffed when they get hit by an ability, that would make for a spicy encounter.
Let us know what you think of the new Mythic mechanics. If you have any questions, hit us up here or become a patron or Twitch sub and get access to the Tanky Gaming Discord, which is the fastest way to get a hold of us. It's also filled with a lot of useful info and helpful people if you need any help PVE wise, and it also helps us be able to create more videos.
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