Hungering Destroyer

Hungering Destroyer is a boss located in Castle Nathria. A devourer of titanic size, it breaks into the Purloined Stores to devour the anima which Sire Denathrius gathered for the Jailer.

This is a one-phase fight that is typically seen as a gear check, with very high tank damage and raid-wide damage, but also tests players' ability to move and react to mechanics quickly and cleanly.

Adventure Journal
''The devourers consume anima wherever they can find it. With drought afflicting the Shadowlands, it is no surprise that the hungriest and most dangerous of the devourers is drawn to the abundant store of anima here in the depths of Castle Nathria.''

Strategy
This fight requires 2 tanks, but can be done with more with alternate strategies. Bloodlust effects can be used immediately. The Hungering Destroyer should be tanked at the far edge of the room, as the raid will need to move far away from the boss quickly during the Consume cast. Melee DPS and Ranged DPS/Healers should be stacked loosely in 2 groups behind the boss, prepared to move mechanics out of the raid or stack up at a moment's notice.

Tanks: Tanks should swap regularly and quickly because of the boss' Growing Hunger stacks. Each consecutive melee attack against a tank will give the boss a stacking 8% damage buff that resets when the boss hits a new target. With regular taunting, this buff should never go above 7 stacks. In addition, the boss will regularly strike tanks with Overwhelm, which hits very hard and should be ready to mitigate it. Being hit by Overwhelm while the boss has high Growing Hunger stacks can very easily kill a tank. In emergencies, a DPS can taunt the boss to get rid of the Growing Hunger stacks, though this ideally should never happen.

General abiliites: The boss will regularly hit the raid with Desolate, dealing unavoidable raid-wide damage which needs to be healed through. Once he reaches 0% energy, he will also cast Consume, a 6-second cast where the boss will leech health from all nearby players while a suction effect pulls them towards him. This damage/leech is reduced by distance, so the players must be ready to run to the other side of the room when the boss is about to cast this ability.

The most notable ability of this encounter is the Gluttonous Miasma. This will debuff several players with a circle around them. If another player is within the circle, their health will be leeched into the debuffed player. However, since the debuff blocks all other healing done and slowly ticks damage onto the player, this leech is the only way to survive. You generally want at least 2, ideally 3, players in the circle to ensure the debuffed player's health is topped up so that they can survive the Desolate, Expunge, and Consume casts.

The Expunge ability will create circles around all raid members that will explode and deal damage to anyone else in the radius. Simply spread out to avoid it. Note that the size of the circle increases based on the amount of missing health the player has, meaning that healers should ideally top the raid up prior to this cast. DPS and healers should also stay away from the tanks, as the constant damage pressure they are under will likely result in very large circles.

Last to note is the Volatile Ejection. This ability marks several players, causing them to grow large and blue, and after a few seconds, fires a beam at their location which strikes them and everyone in-front and behind them. As the raid should be directly behind the boss, the sides of the raid should be clear at all times to allow those targeted by Ejection to move out to the side to safely drop the beam. If a beam is not successfully dealt with, everyone who is struck will have a debuff that increases the damage they take by Volatile Ejection by 500%, which will kill without an immunity. While the beam will never target a player who was previously targeted, if the targeted player accidentally hits other players, those players can potentially be targeted next and killed by the beam. The raid must be paying attention to ensure this ability is dealt with properly, as one stray beam into the raid can potentially spell a wipe if multiple healers happen to be targeted next.

So long as the healers are well-geared and the raid has a thorough understanding of the fight's movement mechanics, this fight can be won relatively easily.

Heroic: On Heroic, the only major change is that Expunge now drops orbs that explode and deal a burst of damage to the player that touches them. This is meant to act as a soft enrage timer, as without immunities the room will become too crowded and the raid won't have enough room to deal with mechanics. However, so long as the DPS is good and the raid once again understands the positioning requirements, the raid should be able to finish the boss before the room becomes a problem. Should the room become too full, a hunter's Aspect of the Turtle can be used to help clear, though this typically only a temporary solution if the DPS players damage is not high enough.

Alternate Strategy: Some raids have found that Heroic progression is easier if they bring 4 tanks and 4 healers instead. Since the boss' enrage timer is quite generous, less DPS is typically not a problem. Two tanks will deal with the boss as normal. The third tank uses their large health pool to give HP to those afflicted by the Gluttonous Miasma, helping the healers a great deal. The fourth tank runs around the room after Expunge and gets rid of all the orbs, effectively nullifying Heroic mode's most stressful mechanic.