Completion Guide - Challenge Mode Everbloom

[Lockybalboa 618]

Attention: This is a rough guide for completing Everbloom on Challenge mode. As Challenge modes are the best way of acquiring raid level gear before the new raids come out it is important to many people that they finish their daily challenge mode - regardless of time taken. This guide will be updated in the next few weeks to help guide players through Gold level Everbloom, but for now the goal is helping people complete it.

 

 

Try to have as many buffs as you can as a little goes a long way. It is highly recommended that you have at least 2 good interrupts, 1 good CC option and one magic from enemy dispel. You can make do without CC, but you will NEED at least two interrupts and one magic from enemy dispel. Bloodlust optional.

 

Overall difficulty of completing this CM is a low 4 out of 10.

 

 

Trash to Boss #1 "Witherbark"

 

All through this zone the trash, as long as you don't pull more than 2 packs at a time, is fairly nonthreatening. Since the Challenge Mode only requires 30 mobs killed you can skip huge amounts of trash. 

 

The opening trash packs are only one and two mobs packs so CC is unnecessary on the two mob packs but can be employed if you wish. Dreadpetals and Twisted Abomination are the only trash mobs worth mentioning.  Dreadpetals do not count toward your total enemies killed count and they can almost always be skipped as long as you pull the large mob(s) near them with precision.

Twisted Abomination should be watched and pulled away from other groups of mobs when possible because of their Noxious Eruption spell. If allowed to cast, this will knock back anyone standing near them for a 10-15 yards. Allowing this to hit your party can quickly result in accidental pulls of other groups that will quickly wipe you. Although it cannot be interrupted, it can be stunned.

 

After two or three trash pulls you will be close to a short cut to the first boss:

 

 

Although this might be patched soon currently you can wiggle and jump your way up the right hand side of the hill and get to the ramp that leads down to the first boss. Using larger mounts to do so makes this much easier (Yaks and Mammoths are good). This will save you a lot of needless trash and time.

 

Once at the boss, there are three packs of three mobs and a patrol with 2 mobs. You may pull one pack at a time CCing one or two mobs in each pack for even smaller pulls. These are fairly uninteresting and nonthreatening.

 

Once the three packs are killed the boss will become active. You may back up to keep from immediately pulling.

 

 

Witherbark

 

Two phase boss that has two main abilities, both used only in phase one. Parched Gasp and Unchecked Growth.

 

Parched Gasp is a basic cone blasting of damage. Healer externals or tank personal CDs are recommended. If positioned correctly the DPS and healer should never be hit by this.

 

 Unchecked Growth will randomly target a healer or DPS. The player will be marked with a green arrow on their head and have a few seconds to move before roots fire from the boss toward them. Once the roots hit the player a root/vine void zone-esk area will be placed on the ground. Move out of these to avoid damage.

 

Strategy

Pull the boss a few steps away from the water toward the hill behind you - 10 or 15 yards is fine. Turn the boss so that he is facing the water. DPS and healer should then stack loosely behind the boss near the hill and DPS. 

 

30 seconds in to the fight, the boss will cast Brittle Bark on himself and enter phase two. The boss now takes 100% increased damage.  Large water orbs will spawn from the water and start moving toward the boss.  If four of these orbs hit the boss, he will re-enter phase one. If one of these orbs hits one of the root void zones left by Unchecked Growth, it will spawn a large add. This is why the Unchecked Growth should be dropped behind the boss and out of the path of the water orbs.

 

At this point your group has options - you may either kill the water orbs as they come in as to give you more time in phase two or you may let the orbs strike the boss and re-enter phase one fairly quickly. Unchecked Growth will continue to be cast during phase two.

 

I recommend that if you have Bloodlust, you should cast it and deal as much damage to the boss as possible, turn quickly and kill the first wave of orbs, and turn back to the boss and burn. Once the next wave of orbs spawn quickly turn and kill another 1 or two orbs so that it will require a third wave of orbs to fully charge the boss. After half of the second wave of orbs is killed return to the boss and burn with all your might. This will give you 30-40 seconds of uptime on the boss with 100% extra damage taken.

 

Without Bloodlust, this quick snap turning and killing may not be possible by your group, depending on your comp. You may consider allowing the first and second waves to hit the boss thus fully empowering him and returning to phase one.

 

Note that the water orbs can be slowed but not stunned.

 

When done correctly, you should only have to deal with one or two phase changes before the boss is dead. If any adds spawn focus them down quickly and return to burning the boss.

 

 

Trash to Boss #2 "Ancient Protectors"

 

Again, you will have 5 or 6 trash pulls before arriving at the boss. Do not pull Dreadpetals unless you must as they do not count to the final total and watch out for Twisted Abomination's knock back.

 

 

Ancient Protectors

 

The Ancient Protectors consist of three bosses that you fight at the same time. Life Warden Gola, Dulhu, and Earthshaper Telu.

 

Your kill order will be Life Warden Gola --> Earthshaper Telu --> Dulhu.

 

Dulhu is just a jerk and will annoy your group as you fight the two far more threatening bosses. He will cast Grasping Vine pulling your group to him and then cast Noxious Eruption knocking you all back and dealing damage. He will also cast Rending Charge on random targets, charging you, and leaving a small DoT. Tank and ignore him till the end of the fight.

 

Throughout the fight, Earthshaper Telu will cast Bramble Patch and Nature's Wrath. Bramble Patch will leave a root void zone on the group that slows players in it and does damage to them. Move out of it. Nature's Wrath is just a random target DPS spell that can be healed through.

 

Life Warden Gola is the first on the kill order. Two important spells cast are Revitalizing Waters and Water Bolt. 

NEVER interrupt Water Bolt.

ALWAYS interrupt Revitalizing Waters.

When anything Life Warden Gola casts is interrupted Gola will gain Shaper's Fortitude and will become immune to interrupts for 8 seconds. This is why you should never waste an interrupt on Water Bolt.

 

Life Warden Gola will also sometimes gain the buff Briarskin from Earthshaper Telu. This can be interrupted when Earthshaper Telu is casting it or dispelled once it is on Life Warden Gola.

 

Once Gola is dead, the next kill target is Earthshaper Telu. No longer casting Briarskin, you can use interrupts on Nature's Wrath to mitigate damage. Keep moving out of Bramble Patchsand tank and spank the boss.

 

Dulhu, having been left for last, is just a quick tank and spank. The only thing that can go wrong now is that your healer will be very low on mana and may run out. Be ready to assist a low mana healer with external cooldowns to finish the fight.

 

 

Trash to Boss #3 "Xeri'tac"

 

 

There is one spider. Kill it. It does nothing interesting.

 

 

Xeri'tac

 

 

Although Xeri'tac is optional in normal and heroic, she is required in Challenge Mode. There is nothing new or strange about the boss. To start the fight you need to click on the one of the Toxic Eggs in the room.

 

Once started, there is a trash gauntlet before the boss will spawn. All that is required is that you kill the spiders and Pale Orcs that spawn and stay out of the green gas. During the gauntlet, Xeri'tac will cast Descend 3 or 4 times.  As far as I could tell, there was no warning where she would come down. Don't go near her when she is hanging from her web.  Try to focus killing all of the gauntlet mobs on top of each other.  This makes all of the poison clouds left behind take up a much smaller portion of the room that you fight Xeri'tac in.

 

Once Xeri'tac spawns, there is not much you need to worry about aside from killing adds. Gaseous Volley will be cast at random party members, just move out of it and try to not spread it around the room to much so you have lot of area to work with.

 

Pale Orcs will spawn in the room - once about every 30 seconds. They will either move to the toxic fog and cast Inhale or move to Xeri'tac where she will cast Consume. If the Pale Orcs are far from the boss you can CC them and ignore, Ice Trap, Poly, etc. You may kill them if you wish but CC will save time.

 

If the Pale Orc gets to Xeri'tac, you need to stun and kill it very quickly as allowing Xeri'tac to heal for 25% max HP prolongs the fight by a significant amount.

 

Other than these few mechanics, there is not much to this boss. So far, this is the least complex boss found in CMs.

 

 

Trash to Boss #4 "Archmage Sol"

 

 

Here, we finally find some trash packs that take some consideration, although not much.

 

CCing as many of the casters in each pack near Archmage Sol makes the trash a lot easier. Remember that nearly all of the trash near her will create a duplicate once after you kill it, so each pack is sort of double the size of the pull.  Killing the mages one by one is recommended in order to deal with these mirror image type mobs.

 

Make sure to interrupt Dragon's Breath

and deal with Frozen Snap. This leaves a blue cone like animation on the ground before exploding for damage and freezing anyone in the area of effect. Move out of these as soon as it starts to be cast and all will be fine.

 

 

Archmage Sol

 

 

The Archmage has three phases that she can move through. These phases are controlled by Parasitic Growth, If interrupted you will cause her to change from Fire to Frost and then to Arcane. If allowed to cast it, she will stay in her current phase and gain a buff increasing her haste by 50% and damage by 25%. All stacks of this buff are removed by interrupting another cast of Parasitic Growth.  This will cause her to enter the next phase and summon an image-type add that must be killed.

 

 

Phase 1 - Fire.

 

Firebloom is only found in this phase. When cast, it will cause a ring of fire to go out from the pillars of orange light.  If hit, players will take heavy damage. You can jump over the ring to avoid damage.

 

Phase 2 - Frost.

 

Frozen Rain will be cast laying a large Blizzard-esk animation out that will deal heavy damage to anyone standing in it. Move out of it quickly or die.

 

Phase 3 - Arcane

 

Archmage Sol will start casting Arcane Blossom at the group. Each cast will hit all party members and will deal very heavy damage.

 

 

How much DPS and HPS your group has will determine when and what phases you push.  Frost phase is the easiest mechanically and has the least party wide damage, but left to long in this phase and the stacks gained from not interrupting Parasitic Growth will quickly become unhealable on the tank and one shot anyone found in a Frozen Rain.

 

Arcane has zero mechanics to it but is by far the most damaging phase.  Unless your healer has CDs ready and can push a lot of group healing, it is recommended that you spend as little time in this phase as possible.

 

Fire phase is almost totally on individual players as to how much damage they take. But can be tricky since unfair things like latency can heavily effect the jumping.

 

The basic strategy recommended is that you spend a little over 1/3rd of the fight in Fire, a little over 1/3rd of the fight in Frost, and the last 15-20% of the bosses HP in Arcane. This will prevent the stacks of Parasitic Growth from growing too high and will keep you out of the heaviest AoE damage part of the fight the longest.  This can be modified by your group as your needs fit. If you have a lot of AoE healing and CDs, then spending more time in Arcane might work well for you. If healing is more tank centered with weaker AoE healers, then spending more time in Frost will be helpful. If your group is bad at jumping or has high latency issues, spending a shorter amount of time in Fire might be needed - on the other hand, if your group is awesome at jumping, then staying in Fire longer will do you well.

 

 

Trash to Boss #5 "Yalnu"

 

 

By now, you should be well over the 30 mob count. If not, there are three more mobs left before the final boss, one on the left, two on the right. These do not pull together so you can choose to pull one mob, two mobs, or no mobs. These are the same types of mobs that were found right before Arcmage Sol.

 

If you are at your mob count and want to skip these pulls, just CC the mob on the left and run past him as you ignore the two mobs on the right hand side of the path.

 

An NPC will run ahead of you and open the portal to the final boss. Note that you are normally put in combat as soon as you enter the portal so pre-potting or eating should be done before entering the portal.

 

 

Yalnu

 

 

Although this fight might feel like a total mess when you enter it, it is very simple and quickly brought down.

 

Main spells cast are Colossal Blow, Entanglement, Genesis, and Germinate Arborblade.

 

 Colossal Blow is mostly a tank mechanic.  Move out of the cone AoE when cast. Healers need to be ready to top off the tank and the party.  Entanglement will fire at the friendly NPCs and at party members.  Break Entanglement ASAP at all times.  Germinate Arborblade summons a large tree like add.  Genesis will spawn 20 or so small flowers on the ground and players need to run over theses to "trample" them and prevent them from growing into adds. The adds do a good bit of damage if allowed to spawn, can create a lot of chaos, and most likely cause a wipe if more than one or two spawn.

 

 

 Tank will grab the boss and face it away from the group.  The friendly NPC's will cast a fire AoE on the ground - this is safe to stand in and should be used to help kill adds as the fire ground effect will deal heavy damage to them and kill them quickly.

 

Tank will need to pick up add spawns and tank them on the fire AoE.  AoE from the party will kill the adds even faster but is not required as the friendly NPC fire will do a lot of the work.

 

Break out anyone, party members or friendly NPCs, that are trapped in Entanglement.

 

Use speed boosts to run over the Genesis flowers quickly. The tank, healer, and DPS will need to help with this to get all of the flowers in the 15 seconds. If done properly, it should only take 5-6 seconds to get all of the flowers.

 

Other than this there is no real trick to the boss. Work the mechanics and stay sharp. 

 

 

Questions and comments are welcome, I hope this helps.

[Lockybalboa 618]

Please forgive spelling and grammar errors, normally when I write a guide I take a couple of weeks to do it and proof read it 40-50 times. Since these guides are much more urgent then normal I only take a day or two to write them and only proof read 10-15 times. Once these are updated for Gold they will be cleaned up much more.

 

 

Change Log: 11/21/2014 - Grammar, Spelling, and Spacing Issues corrected by Zagam

[nico2000nl 0]

The problem I have with this last boss fight, Yalnu,  (doing it single as a mage) is that close to the end I get stunned. But when the stun timer runs out, the stun isn't lifted and I can't do anything anymore , and then, of course, I get killed...

Is this a bug???

Edited August 27, 2017 by nico2000nl

[Valks 2,375]

On 8/28/2017 at 0:59 AM, nico2000nl said:

The problem I have with this last boss fight, Yalnu,  (doing it single as a mage) is that close to the end I get stunned. But when the stun timer runs out, the stun isn't lifted and I can't do anything anymore , and then, of course, I get killed...

Is this a bug???

I don't think it was ever adjusted to be soloed, so I think you need someone else there.