Ascendant Council Encounter Guide: Strategy, Abilities, Loot
The Ascendant Council is a dynamic battle that requires players to contend with a diverse array of elemental forces. Throughout the fight, players face off against four distinct elemental beings representing different elements of Water, Fire, Air, and Earth.
Role-Specific Tips for Ascendant Council
DPS Tips
- There are multiple abilities that need to be interrupted on this encounter, be sure to interrupt every time you are assigned to do so.
- DPS the bosses down evenly, you want both targets to be as close to 25% health as possible before phases one and two end.
- This fight involves a high amount of movement, be aware of your surroundings at all times.
Healer Tips
- There are tons of AoE spells on this fight that players will likely accidentally get hit by from time to time. Do your best to keep the raid topped up to prevent random deaths.
- Do not dispel
Heart of Ice or
Burning Blood before the target has spread the buff to nearby players.
- Healing players targeted with
Gravity Well is your main priority in phase three as they will take a massive amount of damage in a short time.
Tank Tips
- If you are tanking Feludius be ready to run as far away as you can
when he uses
Glaciate.
- Try to use a personal defensive buff whenever Ignacious uses
Flame Torrent if you are tanking him.
- You must be quick to drag Elementium Monstrosity out of the patches of ice to give your raid as much time as possible in phase three.
Ascendant Council Abilities
Strategy for Ascendant Council
This is a three phase fight where you will face Feludius and Ignacious in phase one, Arion and Terrastra in phase two, and then finally they will combine into the Elementium Monstrosity for phase three. On heroic difficulty the two council members that are not currently during phases one and two will assist their fellow Councilors by attacking the raid with certain spells. This fight largely revolves around elemental based attacks, most of which require you to counter them with the opposite element, for example a Fire debuff will be canceled by taking damage from a Frost spell.
In phase one you will face off against Feludius and Ignacious,
Fire and Water based bosses. Tank Feludius away from the raid while
melee DPS will stack up behind Ignacious. Ranged and healers can stack
together and will focus on damaging Feludius.
Feludius will frequently cast
Hydro Lance, which must be
interrupted or it will kill a random player. He will throw
Water Bombs
throughout the room, dealing damage to all players in the area and slowing their
movement speed with
Waterlogged. He will periodically use
Glaciate, dealing massive damage to all enemies, dealing higher
damage the closer you are to him; anyone near Feludius must run away
from him during this, including the tank. Anyone with the
Waterlogged
debuff will become
Frozen when hit with
Glaciate,
killing them; to remove your
Waterlogged debuff you must touch
the fire on the ground from Ignacious, more on that later. Lastly,
Feludius will debuff a random player with
Heart of Ice,
dealing Frost damage over time but buffing all nearby players with
Frost Imbued.
Frost Imbued causes you to deal extra
damage to Ignacious, so anyone with the
Heart of Ice debuff
should run into the melee group to spread
Frost Imbued to everyone
before dispelling the
Heart of Ice debuff.
Ignacious will frequently
Inferno Rush to a ranged player,
knocking back everyone nearby and then charging back to his last target. This
will leave a trail of fire along the patch, dealing damage to anyone in the area
and removing the
Waterlogged debuff if you touch the fire patches.
Ignacious will occasionally use
Flame Torrent, dealing
very high Fire damage to all enemies in front of him, so be sure to keep him
faced away from the raid. He will also periodically shield himself with
Aegis of Flame, absorbing damage and preventing spell cast interruption
as long as the shield holds; He will then begin to channel
Rising Flames,
dealing damage to all players every two seconds, increasing the damage dealt every
two seconds. When the
Aegis of Flame goes up, all DPS must attack
Ignacious to break the shield so the
Rising Flames can
be interrupted. Ignacious will debuff a random player with
Burning Blood, similar to
Heart of Ice from
Feludius. The player with
Burning Blood will need to run
to the ranged group and spread
Flame Imbued to all players before
dispelling the
Burning Blood debuff; players with
Flame Imbued will deal additional damage to Feludius.
On heroic difficulty you will need to deal with Static Overload
and
Gravity Core. Players with the
Static Overload
debuff will need to run away from others, while the raid will need to move away
from anyone with the
Gravity Core debuff to avoid the
Gravity Core slowing aura. After these debuffs wear off stack back
up.
Phase two starts when either Ignacious or Feludius reaches
25% health. Do your best to damage them down evenly as you want them both
to be as close to 25% health as possible to make the last phase as easy
as possible. In this phase you will face both Arion and Terrastra,
Lightning and Wind based bosses. You can stack both bosses together, but the
raid will need to spread out evenly around the room.
Arion will frequently
Disperse away from the tank to a
random spot in the room and cast
Lightning Blast on the tank. This
must be interrupted or the tank will likely die, so be sure your ranged DPS are
ready with available interrupts. He will also marks three random players with
Lightning Rod, casting
Chain Lightning on them
shortly after. The players targeted with
Lightning Rod must quickly
move away 15 yards away from anyone else or the
Chain Lightning
will bounce, quickly killing anyone hit. Arion will frequently spawn
cyclones with
Call Winds, knocking up players who touch them and
buffing them with
Swirling Winds; this is needed to survive Terrastras
Quake, more on that later. Lastly, Arion will sometimes
cast
Thundershock, dealing very high Nature damage to all players;
the damage of
Thundershock is reduced on players with the
Grounded debuff from Terrastras
Gravity Well.
Terrastra frequently uses Eruption, spawning spikes to
emerge from the ground around himself, dealing high Physical damage and knocking
up anyone hit. Melee should focus on attacking Terrastra and simply
move away from the boss for a second whenever he uses
Eruption
while ranged DPS deal with Arion. Terrastra will cast
Harden Skin, which should be interrupted; if you miss the
interrupt you will need to damage through the shield to break it. He will
periodically use
Gravity Well, spawning an orb in a random area
that pulls nearby enemies towards the center. Touching the orb gives you the
Grounded buff, which is needed to survive Arions
Thundershock spell. Lastly, Terrastra will use
Quake, dealing lethal Physical damage to anyone in the raid
who doesn't have the
Swirling Winds buff from running into the
Call Winds cyclone.
This phase is mostly about managing your buffs, frequently requiring your
entire raid to get Grounded from the
Gravity Well to
survive the
Thundershock, and getting
Swirling Winds
from the
Call Winds cyclone to avoid dying to the
Quake.
It's worth noting that you can not have both
Grounded and
Swirling Winds buffs at the same time, getting one buff while you have
the other will remove it. This means you need to constantly be aware of which
ability,
Quake or
Thundershock, is coming up and
get the appropriate buff to survive it.
On heroic difficulty you will need to deal with Flame Strike
and Frozen Orb.
Flame Strike will target a random player
and deal lethal Fire damage to anyone in the area after a few seconds; simply
move away from this location and avoid the patches of fire left on the ground
afterwards. The Frozen Orb will target a random player and chase them
down; if it reaches that player it will explode, immediately wiping the raid.
The player being chased by the Frozen Orb must kite it around the room
until there is a patch of fire on the ground from
Flame Strike,
then you must guide the Frozen Orb into the patches of fire to cause it
to pop harmlessly.
Phase three starts when either Arion or Terrastra reaches
25% health. Do your best to damage them down evenly as you want them both
to be as close to 25% health as possible to make this last phase as easy
as possible. In this phase all four bosses will combine into the
Elementium Monstrosity, with health equal to however much health all
four bosses had. This phase is a DPS race as
Electric Instability
will quickly ramp up in damage the longer this phase lasts. Have the ranged
split into multiple groups to reduce the damage taken by
Electric Instability chaining. The tank will need to drag the boss
around the outskirts of the room as it will frequently spawn a pool of ice
beneath itself, dealing Frost damage to all enemies in the area and reducing its
damage taken. These ice patches do not go away and will rapidly expand while the
Elementium Monstrosity is standing in them, giving you another DPS race
mechanic in this phase.
Players will need to be on the lookout for Lava Seeds as they
will explode for very high Fire damage to all nearby enemies; quickly move away
from these when they drop near you. Lastly
Gravity Crush will
target three players and lift them into the raid, crushing them for 9% of
their max health every half second for 6.5 seconds total. Healers must be quick
on their feet to top these targeted players up as this will deal 117% of
their total life, and they will take some minor fall damage after the effect
ends. The fight is a pure DPS race at this point as the raid will take more and
more damage the longer this phase continues, as well as more and more of the
area being covered in patches of ice.
Ascendant Council Loot
Below you will find all of the loot available for this boss encounter. Use the different buttons to view the different loot between both Normal and Heroic difficulties.
Normal Difficulty Loot
Item | Type/Slot |
---|---|
![]() |
Cloth Feet |
![]() |
Leather Hands |
![]() |
Leather Waist |
![]() |
Mail Head |
![]() |
Mail Shoulder |
![]() |
Plate Head |
![]() |
Plate Hands |
![]() |
Plate Legs |
![]() |
Back |
![]() |
Trinket |
![]() |
Trinket |
![]() |
Off-Hand |
Below you will find all of the loot available for this boss encounter. Use the different buttons to view the different loot between both Normal and Heroic difficulties.
Heroic Difficulty Loot
Item | Type/Slot |
---|---|
![]() |
Cloth Feet |
![]() |
Leather Hands |
![]() |
Leather Waist |
![]() |
Mail Head |
![]() |
Mail Shoulder |
![]() |
Plate Head |
![]() |
Plate Hands |
![]() |
Plate Legs |
![]() |
Back |
![]() |
Trinket |
![]() |
Trinket |
![]() |
Off-Hand |
Ascendant Council Achievements
Achievement | Description |
---|---|
![]() |
Defeat the Elementium Monstrosity in the Bastion of Twilight while only allowing it to create a single Liquid Ice patch. |
![]() |
Defeat the Ascendant Council in the Bastion of Twilight on Heroic Difficulty. |
Further Reading
Ascendant Council is just one of the five encounters present in the The Bastion of Twilight raid of Cataclysm. If you would like to learn more about the others, please see our other pages for the raid below.
Changelog
- 30 Jul. 2024: Page reviewed for phase two.
- 30 May 2024: Added page.
This guide has been written by Abide, TBC veteran for nearly a decade. Abide is a Warrior tank and multi-class expert currently playing on Faerlina as Horde. You can find him in the the Icy Veins Discord. You can also see him live on Twitch.
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