The Queen's Court Strategy Guide in The Eternal Palace Raid

The Queen's Court is a single-phase encounter where the raid faces two bosses at the same time: Silivaz the Zealous and Pashmar the Fanatical, with Queen Azshara providing support by casting spells at the raid. To defeat them, your raid will have to spend the entire fight mostly reacting to the various positioning and movement constraints imposed by the many abilities. On Heroic and Mythic difficulties, properly timed DPS against the Potent Spark adds is also very important.

Below, we will go over everything your raid needs to do to manage all that goes on in the fight and, and then we will also go over handling the various abilities used by Queen Azshara.

• Tanks must make sure the two bosses are always at least 22 yards apart so that they do not take reduced damage.
• Tanks must also switch the bosses before Pashmar's tank reaches 10 stacks of Pashmar's Touch.
• DPS players must DPS the bosses evenly, so that they both die within 10 seconds of one another, or else they will heal.
• DPS players must make sure that the Potent Spark adds are killed one at a time, at least 5 seconds apart from one another.
• Players marked by Frenetic Charge need to move to an edge of the room to drop the void zone that will result when Pashmar charges them.
  • A number of raid members will have to stack on the Frenetic Charge player to split the damage the boss's charge does.
• Players targeted by Fanatical Verdict must move at least 6 yards away from allies when the debuff expires, to avoid damaging them.
• Everyone (except Pashmar's tank) must stack within the safe radius around Silivaz when she casts Zealous Eruption.
• Everyone will have to move at least 25 yards away from Pashmar when she casts Violent Outburst.

In addition to the requirements above, players must also take into account the abilities of Queen Azshara, and handle them accordingly. She uses one of the following abilities every minute.

• When Form Ranks is cast, one player will have to make sure to soak each of the resulting void zones, to reduce the amount of raid damage.
• When Repeat Performance is active, players must avoid using the same ability twice in a row. Abilities that are off the global cooldown (such as interrupts) are a good way to split up sequences of the same ability.
• When Stand Alone is active, all raid members must spread out at least 6 yards apart.
• When Deferred Sentence is active, all players must make sure to move often enough to keep the number of stacks that build up low, thus reducing the damage they take from this ability.
• When Obey or Suffer is active, all players must pay special attention not to take damage.

As you can tell, it is a challenge to handle all of the above positioning constraints. Simply put, some raid members will invariably take avoidable damage; this is something you should accept can happen, and unless the failures are chained together, your raid should still be able to pull through.

With that said, you must focus on the truly important tasks: making sure the bosses die within 10 seconds of each other, staggering the deaths of the Potent Sparks, and avoiding the most potentially damaging abilities (unsoaked Form Ranks explosions, unsplit Frenetic Charges).

The first positioning constraint your raid needs to deal with is having the two bosses at least 22 yards apart from one another, to prevent them taking 99% reduced damage due to Separation of Power. As your tanks swap the bosses they are each tanking, the bosses may move and get within range of one another, but this is not really a big issue if it happens for just a few seconds, and it will mostly simply frustrate your DPS players slightly.

When Pashmar's tank nears 10 stacks of Pashmar's Touch (but definitely before reaching it), the tanks will need to perform a swap. It is up to you if you want to keep the tanks in place and move the bosses, or vice versa. The Commander's Fury buff that Silivaz stacks on herself will also be reset by this tank swap, but this is not a debuff you need to worry about especially (although Silivaz's tank may need to use some minor cooldowns in the time leading up to the swap, when the stacks are at their highest).

Pashmar's tank should remain with the boss when Silivaz casts Zealous Eruption. This means the tank will not be able to get to the safe zone, and so will take a lot of damage; defensive cooldowns and attention from the healers will be required.

Finally, tanks should beware that during Obey or Suffer there will be times when they are affected by Suffer! and cannot receive healing. This is partly the responsibility of the healers, who must ensure that the tanks are topped off before Suffer is applied, but the tanks should also use some damage mitigation abilities here to help out.

If ignored, all 3 Potent Sparks will die at the same time due to their progressive health degeneration. If this happens, the raid will almost certainly wipe due to the concerted damage from their Potent Spark explosions.

As a result, you will need to kill them in a staggered fashion. The easiest way of doing this is for the raid leader to mark one kill target at a time, and for DPS players to make sure that they take enough time in between kills to allow the raid to recover their health (and for the 5-second damage-increasing debuff to expire, in Heroic and Mythic modes).

Theoretically, you will "save" some DPS by ignoring the last Potent Spark and letting it die due to its own degeneration. At the same time, however, you may benefit from simply investing a bit of DPS into finishing it off, so that you can decide exactly when it dies and so that the damage does not overlap with something else going on in the fight.

If a Zealous Eruption happens during Form Ranks. To allow players to soak the Zealous Eruption void zones while also being in Silivaz's safe zone, she should be tanked near these void zones.

Stand Alone, which damages players who are within 5 yards of each other and requires players to spread out, interferes with stacking up to split the damage of Frenetic Charge and to stay in the safe zone for Zealous Eruption.

In both of these cases, taking damage from Stand Alone is preferable to taking damage from the other abilities by trying to avoid Stand Alone.

Since the fight is single-phase and does not get more difficult as it progresses, we recommend using Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp at the pull, in order to maximize raid DPS during cooldowns and potions.

• Tank the two bosses at least 22 yards apart from one another for the entire duration of the fight, to prevent them from taking reduced damage.
• Perform a tank swap before Pashmar's tank reaches 10 stacks of the Pashmar's Touch debuff.
• During the Obey or Suffer decree, healing on you will be prevented for 5 seconds at a time, and you should have cooldowns prepared for this.

• The player marked by Frenetic Charge must move to the edge of the room to drop the Mighty Rupture void zone before they are charged.
  • Other raid members must stack on this player to split the damage of the charge.
• Players affected by Fanatical Verdict must move more than 6 yards away from other raid members when their debuff expires.
• Move in around Silivaz when Zealous Eruption is being cast, to avoid taking damage.
• Move away from Pashmar when Violent Outburst is about to be cast.
• DPS the 3 Potent Sparks down in such a way that they die in a staggered fashion, more than 5 seconds apart.

Additionally, you must deal with Queen Azshara's decrees.

• One player must soak each void zone created by Form Ranks.
• All players must avoid using the same spell or ability twice in a row during Repeat Performance.
• All raid members must spread out more than 5 yards during Stand Alone.
• Players must move frequently during Deferred Sentence.
• Players must avoid taking any damage during Obey or Suffer.

The Queen's Court encounter is a single-phase encounter during which the raid must face two bosses at the same time: Silivaz the Zealous and Pashmar the Fanatical.

The bosses do not share health, and when either boss is brought to 1 health (basically "killed"), they will become immune and start casting Desperate Measures. This 10-second cast will heal the boss to full health if it completes, and the only way to stop it is to also bring the other boss to 1 health in time. In other words, the two bosses must be killed within 10 seconds of one another, or they will heal up.

The bosses are also affected by Separation of Power when they are within 22 yards of one another, which reduces the damage that they take by 99%.

In the sections that follow we will look at each of the abilities used by the bosses, as well as at some abilities that Queen Azshara (who is not part of the fight) uses to complicate the fight further.

Commander's Fury is a buff that Silivaz stacks on herself with each consecutive attack against the same target. This increases her attack speed by 8% per stack.

Frenetic Charge is an ability that Silivaz uses to mark a player, and then charge to them 4 seconds later. When Silivaz charges to the player, they and anyone else in an 8-yard radius around them are knocked back and take a large amount of Nature damage split between them.

Moreover, a Mighty Rupture void zone appears at the location where the player was charged. This deals high Frost damage every 2 seconds to player standing in it. Mighty Rupture void zones appear to last indefinitely.

Zealous Eruption is an ability that practically deals raid-wide Frost damage every second for 10 seconds, except for an area around the boss (about a 20-yard radius around the boss) which is safe from the damage.

Throughout the fight, Pashmar spawns groups of 3 Potent Spark adds. These adds have no aggro, do not melee and do not need to be tanked.

While alive, these adds lose 2% of their health every second, and they have no other abilities. When they are killed, however, they cast Potent Spark, dealing a moderate amount of raid-wide damage. On Heroic and Mythic difficulties, this explosion also debuffs the raid to take 100% increased Potent Spark damage for 5 seconds.

Pashmar's Touch is a debuff that Pashmar stacks on her current target. This debuff does nothing, but if it reaches 10 stacks, the target will become charmed by Pashmar.

Fanatical Verdict is a debuff that the boss marks random players with. The debuff lasts for 8 seconds (or so it seems from the PTR), and while it is active it does nothing. When it expires, however, it deals a moderate amount of Nature damage to all players in a 6-yard radius of the target.

Fervent Bolt is an ability that Pashmar uses to target random players with. It deals a low amount of Nature damage.

Violent Outburst is an ability Pashmar uses to deal raid-wide damage. It has a 5-second cast time, and at the end of the cast, everyone will take an amount of Nature damage that is lower the farther away players are from Pashmar.

Throughout the fight, Queen Azshara will "pass decrees", which in most cases means that the raid will be debuffed by something and will need to perform a certain task to avoid taking damage.

Azshara uses her first decree ability 30 seconds into the fight, and then every 60 seconds after that (every 45 seconds in Heroic, and every 30 seconds in Mythic). She always uses the 5 abilities listed below in succession, after which point she re-starts from the beginning.

Form Ranks causes 3 void zones to appear in the center of the encounter area which, which explode after 5 seconds, dealing very high raid-wide Arcane damage. If a player soaks a void zone, then the amount of raid-wide damage is much lower.

After the void zones explode there is a 5-second break, after which 3 more void zones appear, and this repeats 3 times over a total duration of 30 seconds.

Repeat Performance is a 30-second debuff that Azshara applies to the entire raid, which punishes raid members who cast the spell or use the same ability twice in a row. Players who do this are silenced and pacified for 2 seconds.

Stand Alone is a 30-second debuff that Azshara places on the entire raid, which deals a low amount of Frost damage to any players who are within 5 yards of another player.

Deferred Sentence is a 30-second debuff that Azshara places on all raid members, which gains stacks when the players stand still. When players move, they take damage depending on how many stacks they have, and they also lose stacks while moving. At the end of the 30-second duration of the debuff, players will take a burst of damage depending on how many stacks they had at the time.

Obey or Suffer is a 30-second debuff that Azshara places on the entire raid, which causes players who take damage during this time to be debuffed by Suffering for 5 seconds, preventing them from receiving any healing.

It is important to note that the 5-second duration of Suffering is not refreshed by taking damage multiple times while it is active, nor can it be reapplied immediately after expiring (there is around a 5-second grace period).

In Heroic mode, the Potent Sparks leave behind a 5-second debuff on the entire raid when they die, which increases the damage taken from the Potent Spark detonations.

Also, Queen Azshara's decrees are cast every 45 seconds in Heroic, down from 60.

In Mythic mode, the decrees are cast every 30 seconds (down from 60/45 in the other modes).

Moreover, there are 5 flags located around the edges of the room, each associated with one of Azshara's decrees. When that decree is cast by Azshara, the respective flag activates (triggering a Sphere of Influence). Depending on the flag, it will either increase the damage or the duration of the respective decree, in a large area around the flag.

We thank Gildart for the screenshots we used.

Item>	Type	Slot
Court Dagger of Sentencing	Dagger
Stormtamer's Orb	Frill	Off Hand
Pashmar's Finial	Wand
Amice of the Reef Witch	Cloth Armor	Shoulders
Tunic of the Sycophant	Leather Armor	Chest
Ardent Worshipper's Boots	Leather Armor	Feet
Silivaz's Skullguard	Mail Armor	Head
Hands of the Fanatic	Mail Armor	Hands
Pauldrons of Fanatical Might	Plate Armor	Shoulders
Naga Executor's Armguards	Plate Armor	Wrists
Ring of the Highborne Courtier	Accessory	Ring
Edicts of the Faithless	Accessory	Trinket
Deferred Sentence	Accessory	Trinket
Aqueous Reliquary	Essence upgrades

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