Lady Ashvane Strategy Guide in The Eternal Palace Raid

The encounter against Lady Ashvane is a two-phase fight, with the two phases cycling back and forth until the boss is killed. Each Phase One ends when the raid breaks through the boss's damage absorption shield (which is 50% larger with each new Phase One), while Phase Two lasts a set amount of time (around 60 seconds).

The boss can only be damaged during Phase Two, during which time select players from the raid will also be able to clear all of the Coral Growths that spawn during Phase One, and which make each Phase One more and more difficult.

All in all, the fight's difficulty increases over time, with each Phase One becoming progressively more dangerous.

During Phase One, your raid will have to destroy the boss's damage absorption shield as quickly as possible, all while performing a number of other tasks.

• The boss should be tanked near the edge of the room, and the tanks should try to position themselves in such a way as to minimize the amount of space taken up by the void zones Barnacle Bash leaves behind when it is cast on them. Tanks must also taunt off one another whenever the off-tank's Barnacle Bash debuff expires.
• The boss must be moved in such a way as to always be relatively far away from any Coral Growths that form around the room.
• When the boss casts Rippling Wave, the bubbles that spawn from the Coral Growths and move towards the boss must be intercepted by players.
  • Ideally, you should have a sort of rotation in your raid, ensuring that the same player does not need to intercept more than 2 bubbles before the stacking Waterlogged debuff that this applies can expire.
  • Note that each time a bubble is intercepted, the entire raid will take damage, so intercepting them in a staggered way is recommended.
• Players must be mindful of the areas marked for Upsurge, making sure to move out of these areas to avoid being damaged and knocked up.
• Players who are affected by Briny Bubble should stack together near melee range, but away from any other unaffected players. This should enable the raid to cleave down all the bubbles to free the players.

The above really does encompass everything your raid must do during Phase One.

We must mention that in each Phase One, the boss's absorption shield will be higher than the previous Phase One. This means that in each Phase One, there will be more and more time for added Coral Growths to spawn, which will eventually lead to your raid being overwhelmed by the number of Rippling Wave bubbles that must be soaked. This is a sort of soft enrage for the fight, and nothing can be done to mitigate it except to deal as much damage to the boss as possible, although rotating defensive cooldowns to mitigate the raid-wide damage caused by the bubbles being intercepted can help.

Moreover, it is important to note that the incapacitation that comes as a result of Briny Bubble can be prevented by immunities and other effects that prevent the application of magic debuffs, like Cloak of Shadows.

While Phase One was all about intercepting the Rippling Wave bubbles that spawn from Coral Growths, Phase Two is all about destroying these Coral Growths with Arcing Azerite in order to clear the room for the next Phase One. Here are the tasks your raid must perform.

• Take this opportunity to deal as much damage as possible to the boss.
• Continue to handle Barnacle Bash, Briny Bubble, and Upsurge in the same way as during Phase One.
• When Arcing Azerite is cast, each pair of marked players must position themselves in such a way as to place one or more Coral Growths between themselves, in the area where the line that connects them will appear, all while ensuring that this line will not touch any other raid members. The goal here is to have your pairs of marked players destroy all of the Coral Growths in the room.
  • Note that Arcing Azerite is cast twice per each Phase Two, so you do not need to clear all the Coral Growths in the first cast.
• Heal the raid damage from Exposed Azerite.

Since every Phase Two in the fight is of the same difficulty, and only each subsequent Phase One becomes more difficult (due to the increased duration leading to more Coral Growths and therefore more Rippling Wave bubbles that must be intercepted), you have two options for when to use Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp.

The first option is to use it during a Phase Two (either the first or the second), with the aim being to use the increased DPS to make sure you deplete the boss's health and kill her before another cycle happens.

The second option is to use it during the final Phase One you think you will reach, in order to greatly reduce its duration and, as a result, its difficulty, ensuring that the boss will die in the following Phase Two.

The only thing to avoid doing is using Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp on the pull, since no matter how much you shorten the first Phase One by, it makes no difference in the long run of the fight.

• Throughout both phases, tanks must perform a swap to deal with the Barnacle Bash ability.
• Positioning is important, making sure that the tanks leave the void zones created by Barnacle Bash close together, and also making sure that the boss is never tanked too close to any Coral Growths.

• Intercept the Rippling Wave bubbles; this leaves behind a debuff on the intercepting player, and players should aim not to have more than 2-3 stacks of this debuff.
• Move out of Upsurge areas to avoid being damaged and knocked up.
• Players affected by Briny Bubble must stack in melee range, but away from any other unaffected players. The Briny Bubbles must be cleaved down by the DPS.

• Deal as much damage as possible to the boss.
• Continue to handle Barnacle Bash, Briny Bubble, and Upsurge in the same way as during Phase One.
• When Arcing Azerite is cast, each pair of marked players must position themselves in such a way as to place one or more Coral Growths between themselves.
• Healers must heal the raid damage from Exposed Azerite.

As stated in the introduction of the guide, the fight comprises two phases, which alternate until the boss is killed.

At the start of the fight, Lady Ashvane is protected by a damage absorption shield ( Hardened Carapace) through which the raid must break. Once the shield is broken, the boss will enter Phase Two, lasting around 60 seconds.

When Phase Two ends, Phase One resumes, with the boss replenishing her damage absorption shield (in each new Phase One, the boss's shield is 50% larger), and this cycle keeps on repeating.

The most important part of this phase is the boss's Coral Growth and Rippling Wave abilities.

Coral Growth is an ability that creates several coral formations at random locations in the room, which are marked visually a few seconds in advance. Any players in the 10-yard radius will take damage and be knocked back when the coral formation appears.

These coral formations persist indefinitely (although, as we will see, the raid can and must destroy them during Phase Two), cannot be damaged, deal damage to players standing very close to them, and essentially do not do anything.

The boss's Rippling Wave ability is cast regularly throughout Phase One (around every 25 seconds), and it causes a water bubble to form from each existing coral formation, which then travels (rather slowly) towards the boss.

If a Rippling Wave reaches Lady Ashvane, the raid will take moderate amount of Frost damage, and the boss will have 10% of her damage absorption shield restored. If a player comes in contact with the Rippling Wave bubble first, it will detonate, dealing the same amount of raid-wide damage and debuffing the player with Waterlogged, a stacking debuff that deals Frost damage over 20 seconds.

Below, you can see what a Rippling Wave bubble looks like as it heads for the boss.

The boss will regularly use Barnacle Bash against her current target, dealing a moderate amount of Physical damage to them, debuffing them to take 150% increased damage from Barnacle Bash for 35 seconds (stacking), and leaving behind a large damaging void zone ( Cutting Coral). These void zones appear to last indefinitely on the PTR, although this could change for the live version of the fight.

Upsurge marks the locations under several raid members, which then explode about 2 seconds later, dealing high Frost damage to anyone still standing there and knocking affected players up in the air.

Throughout Phase One, the boss will mark several raid members (including the current tank) with Briny Bubble. 5 seconds later, these players will become trapped in an attackable bubble, taking moderate Nature damage every 1.5 seconds until the bubble is killed.

On Heroic and Mythic difficulties, when the bubbles form, targeted players will trap any other raid members within 12 yards of them in the bubble as well.

Pictured below is a set of 3 players trapped inside Briny Bubbles.

Phase Two begins when Lady Ashvane's damage absorption shield is depleted and takes 60 seconds to get back up, during which time the raid can deal damage to her.

Lady Ashvane uses all of the same abilities from Phase One, except for spawning new Coral Growths and using Rippling Wave. In addition to this, she uses two new abilities.

Arcing Azerite is used twice per Phase Two. This marks up to 6 raid members with symbols above their heads, in pairs of 2, each pair having a different symbol. After 10 seconds, a line will connect each pair of marked players for a split-second, dealing extremely high Arcane damage to any players touched by it (although the 2 marked players themselves do not take damage), as well as destroying any Coral Growths it comes in contact with. Note that it is possible to destroy multiple Coral Growths with the same line.

Below, you can see three images, one showing two marked players on either side of a Coral Growth, the second showing Arcing Azerite going off, forming a line between the players, and destroying the Coral Growth, and the last one showing the destroyed Coral Growth.

Throughout Phase Two, the boss will use Exposed Azerite to deal unavoidable Arcane damage to random raid members.

There are several differences Heroic mode brings over Normal/LFR.

• 3 Coral Growths spawn each time (up from 2), which naturally increases the difficulty of the fight.
• Briny Bubble chains to other players within 12 yards when the bubbles form.
• The void zones left behind by Barnacle Bash last indefinitely.

Mythic mode brings a number of changes over Heroic mode.

• Each time Rippling Wave is cast, the Coral Growth farthest away from the boss will spawn a larger bubble. This bubble must be soaked 3 times in order to disappear, and each soak will apply a stack of Waterlogged and damage the raid the same as regular Rippling Wave bubbles do. If this large bubble reaches the boss, it restores 30% of her damage absorption shield.
• The Waterlogged debuff lasts 20 minutes (up from 15 seconds) and persists through death. That is not a mistake, the intention being that the debuff lasts indefinitely.
• During Phase Two, each time Arcing Azerite is used to destroy a Coral Growth, the several zones around the destroyed growth will be marked on the ground, and 5 seconds later new Coral Growths will spawn there unless at least 1 player is standing in each marked zone. Players who soak these zones in this way will take damage.

Aside from this, as with every Mythic difficulty encounter, the boss deals more damage and has more health than in Heroic mode.

Phase One is likely to present the greatest challenge, since Waterlogged does not expire in Mythic mode. This means that everyone in the raid will have to have to take turns intercepting the Rippling Wave bubbles.

The overall raid-damage will increase greatly, especially since the larger Rippling Wave bubbles will take more soaks to despawn on Mythic difficulty and, overall, this will lead to everyone having very high stacks of Waterlogged.

The actual tuning of the Mythic version of the fight will be very important, and that remains to be seen. Overall, though, the higher your raid's DPS will be, the shorter the fight will be, and therefore the less damage will be taken overall. This is likely to be the first heavy DPS-check in the instance.

Healers will also have to be on top of their game to deal with the increased Waterlogged damage, and heavy cooldown rotations will need to be employed, particularly towards the end of the fight.

Phase Two will play very much the same as during Heroic mode, with the only difference that the raid will need to make sure to soak all zones that appear next to destroyed Coral Growths, in order to prevent additional Coral Growths from spawning (additional Coral Growths will result in added bubbles to soak during Phase One, and therefore even more damage).

Item>	Type	Slot
Current-Weaver's Gavel	Mace	One Hand
Robes of Sunken Nobility	Cloth Armor	Chest
Priscilla's Fishnets	Cloth Armor	Legs
Helm of Hideous Transformation	Leather Armor	Head
Cultured Pearl Armbands	Leather Armor	Wrists
Shoulderguards of Crushing Depths	Mail Armor	Shoulders
Tanglekelp Waistwrap	Mail Armor	Waist
Barnacle-Crusted Breastplate	Plate Armor	Chest
Coralshell Warboots	Plate Armor	Feet
Boralus Noble's Seal	Accessory	Ring
Aquipotent Nautilus	Accessory	Trinket
Ashvane's Razor Coral	Accessory	Trinket
Bloodthirsty Urchin	Accessory	Trinket
Lightless Ambusher	Pet

For more information, please refer to our Eternal Palace Loot and Essence guide.