The Desolate Host Mythic Strategy/Tactics

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Contents
  • 2. Lore
  • 3. Outline
  • 4. TL;DR
    • 4.1. Tanks
    • 4.2. Healers
    • 4.3. All Players
  • 5. Positioning
  • 6. Bloodlust/Heroism/Time Warp
  • 7. Changelog
• +Abilities
  • 1. Overview
  • 2. All Realms
  • 3. The Corporeal Realm
    • 3.1. The Engine of Souls
    • 3.2. Reanimated Templar
    • 3.3. Ghastly Bonewarden
  • 4. The Spirit Realm
    • 4.1. Soul Queen Dejahna
    • 4.2. Fallen Priestess
    • 4.3. Soul Residue
  • 5. "Phase Two": The Desolate Host
    • 5.1. The Desolate Host
  • 6. Changelog
• +Normal/Heroic Strategy/Tactics
  • 1. Overview
  • 2. Positioning
  • 3. Corporeal Group
  • 4. Spirit Group
  • 5. The Desolate Host
  • 6. Tank Concerns
  • 7. Healing Concerns
  • 8. Raid Concerns
  • 9. Bloodlust/Heroism/Time Warp
  • 10. Changelog
• ×Mythic Strategy
  • 1. Mythic Mode Abilities
    • 1.1. Bound Essence
    • 1.2. Unrelenting
    • 1.3. Spiritual Fonts
  • 2. Strategy
  • 3. Changelog

General Information

On this page, you will find a list of changes between Normal/Heroic modes and Mythic mode, as well as a working strategy to defeat The Desolate Host in Tomb of Sargeras in Mythic mode.

The other pages of our The Desolate Host guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

Bound Essence is a passive applied to all adds in the encounter. This causes them to be transported to the opposite realm upon death, where they will need to be killed again. Bound Essence only activates once per add, meaning the raid will have to kill every add twice (once per realm).

Soul Residue adds now stack a passive buff on themselves periodically called Unrelenting. This increases damage and movement speed.

On Mythic difficulty players may only interact with the Spiritual Fonts when the players are at or below 50% health. Once The Desolate Host spawns, all Spiritual Fonts are destroyed, preventing the raid from further traversing between the realms.

The positioning on this encounter is very similar to Heroic, however, the composition itself has some notable changes. The fight can be done with a normal raid composition without issues, however, it is easiest to approach the fight with 3 tanks and 5 healers. This is largely a "control fight", with no real hard damage checks. The raid relies on coordination and add management in order to prevail, which encourages the use of additional utitlity roles to smooth the encounter out.

Per usual, the raid should be split into roughly even groups for both the Corporeal and Spirit Realms. It is best to keep as many immunities as possible in the Corporeal Realm while still ensuring an even split of your DPS.

If you have decided on using 3 tanks and 5 healers, your extra tank should stay in the Corporeal Realm while the extra healer should be assigned to the Spirit Realm. The extra tank will perform a "cheese" strategy, taking the Reanimated Templars to the back of the room on the stairs, where they will remain, ignored by the raid for the remainder of the encounter. This makes the remainder of the encounter much safer for the rest of the raid, as Rupturing Slam can be ignored and the Spirit Realm will never have to deal with Templars (due to Bound Essence). This job can very easily be handled by a DPS in their offspec, and some classes can even sustain with no need for healing whatsoever.

The rest of the adds in the Corporeal Realm can be cleaved down without much thought. Soul Residues represent the highest priority due to their new Unrelenting buff, which can quickly result in one shot deaths and the blanketing of the room with Soul Rot. The rest of the adds, excluding the Reanimated Templars if you are 3 tanking, should be stacked atop the Engine of Souls. The hierarchy for target selection in the Corporeal Realm is as follows:

1. Soul Residue
2. Ghastly Bonewarden
3. Fallen Priestess
4. Engine of Souls

Spear of Anguish must also be soaked by a minimum of 2 players per cast, or it will instantly kill the player(s) hit. This damage can be immuned, however, which is why it is preferable to have as many immunities as possible available in the Corporeal Realm. Rogues are ideal for this purpose as they have Cloak of Shadows available frequently, and should a player without an immunity be targeted, they are ideal to split the damage due to their use of Feint. If the Spear is not immuned, you will be sent to the Spirit Realm (just like Heroic) with the healing absorb and ticking damage effect. If possible, this player should interact with the Spiritual Fonts immediately as they will likely be below 50%. If they are topped by the healers too quickly, they will likely have to wait until Wailing Souls is cast to return to the Corporeal Realm.

The Spirit Realm, on the other hand, is quite simple. The tank should stack the adds on Soul Queen Dejahna while the raid cleaves them down. Most groups will have too much damage, however, even if you run an extra healer. Therefore, a Fallen Priestess must be removed from the cleave stack and allowed to live for an extended period. The reason for this is the Bound Essence passive; twice as many Bonecage Armors will need to be removed, and thus there must always be a Fallen Priestess alive in the Spirit Realm. Add priority for the Spirit Realm is identical to the Corporeal Realm:

1. Soul Residue
2. Ghastly Bonewarden
3. Fallen Priestess
4. Soul Queen Dejahna

When Wailing Souls is cast the Spirit Realm group should stack up and heal through the damage. Healing cooldowns are a necessity for most progression groups to make the damage manageable. Any remaining Ghastly Bonewardens in the Spirit Realm must be eliminated before stacking due to their Grasping Darkness.

When the boss(es) reach 30% health, the Spiritual Fonts are destroyed and The Desolate Host is spawned. It is extremely important, therefore, to ensure everyone is in the realm that they are assigned to before pushing the final phase. This phase is more or less identical to Heroic mode. Priortize the targets in the following order:

1. Clean up any remaining adds, excluding the Reanimated Templars if you are using 3 tanks.
2. Kill the Engine of Souls and Soul Queen Dejahna.
3. Kill The Desolate Host.

The most important aspect of the fight is surviving. While this may seem intuitive and obvious, it is an imperative on this fight, as the raid is split into smaller groups, where an indivual makes a much larger impact than in a conventional 20-man Mythic encounter. At the end of the fight, when the realms are splitting damage from Doomed Sundering and Sundering Doom, having only 1 or 2 players dead can result in the split damage being lethal and a wipe being assured. This is the primary reason why we refer to this as a "control fight" and recommend you proceed with the 3 tank/5 healer setup.

• 09 Jul. 2017: Mythic page added.