User:Serillian/Qri'vexxi Elders

The Qri'vexxi Elders are the seventh boss in the Temple of Qri'vexx instance. They are the penultimate encounter on Normal and LFR difficulty. They do not share health and need to be killed one at a time to complete the encounter.

Background
The wise Qri'thik elders are the most respected mantid of the Qri'thik, second to Qri'vexx herself. They consist of Mindreaver Lith'nok, a mantid whose psychic powers developed since his birth to the Qri'thik and became the first Elder of the Qri'thik. Nil'talak the Wind Dancer controls the skies of Kypari La and his army of the air take down any aerial foe. Unfortunately, his favored pet Nil'siyak fell victim to Qri'vexx's dreaded powers of Fear and became insane. The stoic Judicator Zel'nik, first male mantid to be an heir to the Empress and her throne, seeks to bring justice to the "rebellious mantid cretins" within the Dread Wastes' center. When Shek'zeer fell, it was because of the elders that the mantid were able to quickly find another Empress to replace. Despite being too young and weak to fully lead the mantid, Qri'vexx sought out the mighty Elders for assistance. Upon their orders, the Elders commanded that the Empress siphon the power of Amber from many pools created from the ambersmiths and ambershapers. The Amber quickly aged the Empress, granting her unfathomable power but leaving her unaware of a corrosive power lurking beneath the temple. The very Sha that drove the mantid to aggression is the very creature responsible for flowing its evil energies into the bodies of the mantid's most powerful leaders and warriors. Qri'vexx herself has fell to the power of the corrosive Sha, becoming quick to spread the corrosion to her children. Following the resulting battles between the Qri'thik and the Klaxxi, the Elders seem to be the only mantid under Qrivexx's leadership to be unaffected by the horrific power of the Sha. These mantid soon plan on sending the Qri'thik army in full force against the Klaxxi and anyone else who gets in their way.

Encounter Abilities
The Qri'vexxi Elders have their own health pool which is returned to full upon an Elder's death. Any elder still alive will enrage after 10 minutes, quickly wiping the raid with ease.







Mindreaver Lith'nok
The mantid of telepathy, this Elder knows when his enemies will strike and has every counter for each attack made against him. He wields a powerful blade, Scion, that fuels his powers.















Nil'talak the Wind Dancer
The mantid of air, this Elder controls the skies around Kypari La, looking to defeat any who challenge him in a sky battle. He wields fist-weapons, Wind and Storm, to quickly dispatch his enemies.













Judicator Zel'nik
The mantid of sound, this Elder brings the voice of Qri'vexx and past Empresses to bear to inspire the Qri'thik troops in battle. His strength is supreme, unmatched even by Zor'lok and Vra'niss.















Strategy
This encounter is quite tricky but doable nonetheless. Similar to encounters like Assembly of Iron and Protectors of the Endless, the bosses of this council fight have separate health pools and each boss death results in the remaining bosses healing to full and gaining new abilities that challenge players.

Each Elder that dies results in Power of the Qri'thik healing the other Elders to full health and grants them new abilities in addition to their starting abilities. The order of which Elder is killed has a critical effect on how difficult the encounter becomes at later stages. Each Elder will also cast their Wrath abilities at different intervals, dealing AoE damage or some other form of damage. They will channel their Wrath ability until out of energy.

Since the Elders are located on 3 separate platforms, Battleguard Gri'mak assists with Wings of Gri'mak, which allows players to fly to the nearby platform upon reaching the edge of the entry platform and every other platform. However, certain abilities prevent this effect's activation for the purpose of killing the player if they are not careful.

Lith'nok
Lith'nok's main tank ability is his Mind Crush attack. This deals moderate damage but lowers attack speed and chance to hit by 80%. With this debuff, the tank will barely land an attack and may end up losing aggro. Therefore, another tank is required to pick up the boss until the debuff wears off, which is 8 seconds. Lith'nok's other attack is Scion Strike, which is targeted towards the tank's closest ally (which could be the second tank, or another plate wearer with high health if the offtank is dealing with another boss). The affected player will be silenced and pacified for a while, encouraging the offtank to taunt the boss until the next Mind Crush goes off. Constantly disarming Lith'nok until he is killed removes the threat of Scion Strike and any problems it may bring.

When fighting Lith'nok on his platform, players should take care to spreading out properly so that only one player gets hit by each Telekinetic Push at a time. This deals a high percentage of the player's health and knocks them back. Spreading out on Lith'nok's platform is the key to successfully defeating him as Telekinetic Push deals AoE damage centered on the targeted player. Spread out to ensure only one person gets hit. His Wrath ability comes every 2 minutes of the encounter, functioning similar to Nezir's full energy ability, Sleet Storm. This inflicts high damage to all players on his platform with the damage divided among all players present on the platform. Therefore, whenever Lith'nok is almost powered up, all but 1 player on the other platforms should head to this platform to split up the damage as much as possible (One tank can stay on Nil'talak's platform as he is the least threatening of all Elders but he melees fast enough to dispatch non-tank players).

If another Elder is killed, Lith'nok will be healed to full health, deal 25% additional damage and gain 1 extra ability. This new ability is the Telekinetic Slam attack. This stuns a target player for 3 seconds by lifting them into the air. Afterwards, the player is slammed into the ground, stunning nearby players while taking damage equal to half of their maximum health. Because of this, when facing Lith'nok second, players should remain spread out and keep everyone above 50% health.

When Lith'nok is the last Elder alive, he will now deal an additional 50% damage (making the majority of his attacks deadly) and gains a new ability once again. He gains the Disruption Nova ability which is always cast 3 times back-to-back. The damage from this ability (and the fact that it is effectively tripled each time) puts players at risk of dying on this platform. The attack will also interrupt any spellcasts and stuns anyone attacking him in melee range. Therefore, HoTs and absorb shields should be in place before this attack goes off. Instants can be used to bring players up as well, Healthstones help here too.

If no one is on his platform at any point during the encounter, he quickly wipes the raid with his Scion Blades. Lith'nok should be killed first when doing the encounter the normal way.

Nil'talak
The next Elder is Nil'talak the Wind Dancer, who is also the least threatening of all Elders. His main two attacks are Wind's Rage which is a buff that grant his melee attacks a chance to gain 2 extra attacks at reduced damage. Due to his fast melee swings, this buff will almost always go off whenever its on him. The extra attacks are not that threatening to a tank since it deals less damage. The other attack is Airwhirl, which is a whirlwind-type attack that also applies a bleed on players struck by it. Fortunately he doesn't move while channeling so melee can move out safely and go back in once the attack is over.

His Wrath ability, which occurs every minute, summons 10 tornadoes on his platform that will knock players in the air and deactivates Wings of Gri'mak for the purpose of causing instant death for players that fall off the platform. Simply move out of the way of the tornadoes. When one of the other Elders are killed, Nil'talak gains Wind Claw which causes him to apply a stacking DoT effect on his target. It is at this time in which tanks can taunt off each other at certain stack levels. Disarming him prevents both Wind's Rage and Wind Claw from having an effect on the raid.

When both Elders are dead, Nil'talak gains Cirrus Blast, which hits all players on the platform and causes them to absorb healing equal to their maximum health. This ability is not that threatening compared to the abilities the other Elders gain when they're the last one alive. The healing needed to break the debuff is easily removed if the raid stacks and multiple AoE healing spells are in effect at once.

Similar to Lith'nok, he will wipe the raid with his Hurricane of Agony if no one is on his platform. Due to the lesser threat of his abilities, including after the other Elders are defeat, Nil'talak can be left alive the longest and killed last.

Zel'nik
While dealing with the other Elders, at least one player is needed to take on Judicator Zel'nik. He does not melee which means he never moves but he will instead spam Sonic Bolt in place of his melee swings. Not much can be done about this attack other than heal through its damage (or attempt to lower the damage with cooldowns). Zel'nik will also cast a very avoidable Sonar Blast in the direction of the player and hits anyone within the 30 degree cone.

Zel'nik's Wrath ability, which comes every minute and a half, is the shortest in terms of duration. Another player may be needed to help heal the damage from this ability (or some sort of damage immunity). When an Elder dies, Zel'nik gains the Sonic Orb ability, allowing him spawn these orbs on the edge of the platform around him. They will slowly make their way towards him and upon touching him, will release an explosion that strikes all players present during the encounter, including those on the other platforms. Touching an orb also deals unresistable Physical damage so be sure to move in between the orbs before they close in. However, the explosion damage is reduced based on distance from him which means players on other platforms take the least amount of damage while players closer to him (those on his very platform) take the most damage. Staying near the edge of the platform at the time of detonation allows players to take the least amount of damage without leaving the platform, which will cause him to cast Sonic Shockwave and wipe the raid.

When Zel'nik is the last Elder alive, he gains Spirit of Shek'zeer. This allows him to summon the spirit of Grand Empress Shek'zeer to assist him. She cannot be attacked and will cast 1 of two abilities each time she is summoned forth. The first ability is her Calamity which strikes all raid members for Shadow damage equal to half of their maximum health. This adds to the pressure of trying to keep the raid up, especially during his Wrath ability. The other ability is Amassing Darkness, which hits an increasing number of players every 3 seconds until all players are hit. Both abilities are affected by Zel'nik's +50% damage increase from Power of the Qri'thik which makes healing much harder (Calamity's damage hits player for more than just half of their total health and Amassing Darkness runs the risk of killing players). Due to the damage from his new abilities and how powerful they are, Zel'nik can be killed second after Lith'nok. All of Zel'nik's abilities except his Wrath attack that deals Physical damage ignores Armor so tanks will need to use cooldowns to survive the hard hits from Sonic Bolts and Sonic Orbs.

The "normal mode" way of killing the Elders would be defeating Lith'nok first to get his annoying tank abilities (and his Telekinetic Push) out of the way and allow more raid flexibility since his Wrath ability will no longer be a problem. Next to go would be Judicator Zel'nik to remove the need of having a player alone (a tank and healer can handle Nil'talak) and with nearly no one else to help survive his Wrath. Finally, the last Elder would be Nil'talak due to the fact that he possesses the easiest abilities to counter. The only concern would be in killing him quick enough before the enrage. Any other potential problems are countered with cooldowns and avoiding tornadoes during Wrath of Nil'talak.

Heroic Changes

 * Each time an Elder performs their Wrath ability, they will gain 10% haste per stack.
 * Nil'talak the Wind Dancer will move around his platform whilst performing Airwhirl.
 * Judicator Zel'nik's Sonic Bolts will render his target increasingly vulnerable to the bolts with each successful attack that lands. This forces at least two players to deal with him in order to trade debuff stacks.
 * Sonar Blast will knock any victim far off the platform, preventing Wings of Gri'mak from triggering.
 * Zel'nik gains the ability to cast Empress Fury which adds extra AoE damage to a random Elder's platform. This damage benefits from Power of the Qri'thik.
 * Shek'zeer's spirit will also gain the Heart of Fear ability, which benefits from Power of the Qri'thik which in turn amplifies the damage going out during the "final phase" of the encounter.

Quotes

 * Intro
 * yell
 * yell

Mindreaver Lith'nok

 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Wrath ability
 * yell


 * Alone on his platform (Scion Blades)
 * yell


 * Elder(s) defeated
 * yell


 * yell


 * Both Elders defeated
 * yell


 * Elder kills player
 * yell


 * yell


 * Player killed
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Berserk
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell


 * yell

Nil'talak the Wind Dancer

 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Wrath ability
 * yell


 * Alone on his platform (Hurricane of Agony)
 * yell


 * Elder(s) defeated
 * yell


 * yell


 * Both Elders defeated
 * yell


 * Elder kills player
 * yell


 * yell


 * Player killed
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Berserk
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell


 * yell

Judicator Zel'nik

 * Aggro
 * yell


 * Wrath ability
 * yell


 * Alone on his platform (Sonic Shockwave)
 * yell


 * Elder(s) defeated
 * yell


 * yell


 * Both Elders defeated
 * yell


 * Elder kills player
 * yell


 * yell


 * Player killed
 * yell
 * yell
 * yell


 * Berserk
 * yell


 * Death
 * yell


 * yell

Achievements

 * Heroic: Qri'vexxi Elders - Take down the Qri'vexxi Elders in Temple of Qri'vexxi on Heroic difficulty.
 * Elderly Love - Defeat the Qri'vexxi Elders in the Temple of Qri'vexx on Normal or Heroic difficulty after having the raid emote /love on the final Elder.
 * The Chosen One - Defeat the Qri'vexx Elders in the Temple of Qri'vexx on Normal or Heroic difficulty with Judicator Zel'nik as the last member alive.