Heroic Ra-den Boss Guide

BY Andrew Miesner / January 17, 2020

Dude yeeted out of ToT and decided to submit to the one true God, N’zoth.

Ra-den is a two phase fight. You start in Phase 1, and transition into Phase 2 at 40% hp.

Phase 1

  • Nullifying Strike
    • At 100 energy, boss does a big tank smack for 214k Shadow damage, and reduces that tank’s HP by 20% for 25s
  • Vita & Void Essences
    • At 0:10, then every 45 seconds during Phase 1, the boss spawns orbs on opposite sides of the room, one Vita (lightning) one Void
    • These orbs move from their spawn point directly to the boss
    • Each orb has a health pool and is attackable
    • When you kill one orb, the other becomes non-targetable
    • When an orb reaches the boss, he gains an empowerment from it and gives him new abilities
    • If he soaks the same type of orb twice in a row, he gains a 300% damage dealt buff
    • Each Empowerment lasts 40 seconds
  • Vita (lightning) Empowered
    • When the lightning orb hits the boss, he immediately blasts the raid with a lightning AoE ability, dealing 214k Nature to everyone
    • Unstable Vita
      • Debuff placed on a random target, person1. After 7s, this jumps to the furthest person possible, person 2, dealing 178k Nature damage to person 2 and anyone standing between person 1 and person 2.
      • Jumps 3 times total
      • Anyone who takes damage from this gains Instability Exposure, increasing damage taken by any “Unstable” ability by 300% for 30s
    • Crackling Stalker
      • Add that spawns, casts Chain Lightning every 6s while it’s alive
  • Void Empowered
    • When the void orb hits the boss, he puts a healing absorb shield on every player which absorbs 214k healing. While this shield is active, everyone also takes 18k Shadow damage every 3s
    • Unstable Void
      • Soak circle appears on the ground, with a void missile launched at the location
      • After a few seconds, the missile lands, dealing 196k Shadow to anyone hit and applying Instability Exposure to those people
      • If this is not soaked, it’ll deal 157k to the entire raid, apply Instability Exposure to everyone, and Silence the raid for 8s
      • After impact, the Missile will bounce to a new soak circle
      • Impacts 5 times total

    • Void Hunter
      • Shadow add that spawns. Casts Void Collapse
        • Group soak circle. Deals 1.4 million Shadow damage split evenly among everyone within 8 yards
        • Everyone hit is also debuffed with Void Defilement, reduces healing taken by 50%

Phase 2 – 40%

  • Ruin
    • Ra-den deals 53k Plague damage to the raid every 2s for the rest of the fight
  • Decaying Strike
    • Replaces Nullifying Strike
    • At 100 Energy, smacks the tank for 89k Physical, and applies the Decaying Wound debuff
      • Deals damage every 2s for 10s
      • Damage is equal to 75% of the affected tank’s HP when this effect is applied. The higher health you were when you got hit by Decaying Strike, the heavier this DoT is
  • Void Eruption
    • Ra-den creates several large purple swirlies
    • After 4s they explode, dealing 196k Shadow to anyone hit

  • Charged Bonds
    • Tethers multiple players together
    • Deals 25k Nature every second
    • Increases by 20% every second
    • Breaks when you move 40 yards away from who you’re tethered to
  • Gorge Energy
    • Cast every 30s in Phase 2
    • Applies a stack of Lingering Energies each cast, increasing damage dealt by 10%

Strategy

  • Phase 1
    • Tank the boss where he stands, with everyone stacked behind the boss in melee range
    • Pre-assign a 6 person Unstable soak group. These people will handle all of the Unstable abilities
      • Unstable void is pretty straightforward, assigned group takes turns soaking
    • Set up two world markers behind the group, one to the left one to the right. These should be 10 yards away from the stack point, in different directions
      • These will be used as drop points for Unstable Vita
      • The first person affected is random, but you can have the rest handled by your pre-assigned group
      • If one person in your order is the random person picked, just remove them from your set rotation
      • It should be handled as follows:
        • Player X gets Unstable Vita. They run to the Left marker.
        • Player Y is assigned first in the rotation. They run to the Right marker
        • Unstable Vita jumps from Player X to Player Y
        • After that jump, Player Z is the next assigned person. They move to the Left marker, and wait for the jump from Y
        • Keep repeating that through your assigned player rotation until the debuff ends
    • Void and Vita Orbs
      • Make sure you alternate which Orb you let hit the boss, or you’ll wipe
      • While the order you do these in is irrelevant to the difficulty of the encounter, we STRONGLY suggest you always do these in the same order every pull, just for simplicity sake as you progress this boss
      • When the orbs spawn, Ranged dps swap immediately to the assigned Orb target
        • Melee swap as the orb gets closer to reduce downtime
      • Once the assigned orb dies, everyone should get back to the raid stack point
      • You may want to use a healing raid CD for every time an Orb reaches the boss
    • Tanks will want to swap every stack of Nullification Strike
      • The adds that spawn after an orb hits should be taunted by the tank who’s not currently holding Ra-den, and all DPS should hardswap and nuke the add
      • Tank the add right under the boss for cleave
    • When the Void Add casts Void Collapse, the affected player should just stay at the raid stack point to split the damage
  • Phase 2
    • Once the boss reaches 40%, you reach Phase 2, which is a hard burn phase
    • You’ll want to use Bloodlust either when you enter this phase, or at 30% if you have a lot of classes with Execute-style effects
    • Don’t stand in Void Eruption swirlies
    • Healers should keep the tank holding Ra-den at around 50-60% hp. Any higher than that, and it’s likely they’ll die from the Decaying Would DoT
      • Remember, this ticks for 75% of the affected player’s HP at the time of application. At 50% HP, this’ll tick for 37.5% of the tank’s HP every 2s, versus 75% of the tank’s HP if they’re at full.
    • Players affected by Charged Bond need to spread out ASAP to break the chains. Use movement abilities here
      • There’s already a LOT of damage going out this phase, so breaking these ASAP is important to your survival
    • Healers will want to coordinate and rotate raid CDs during this phase. Ruin ticks for 53k every 2s, but that’s increased by 10% per stack of Lingering Energies the boss has
      • The longer you’re in P1, the more stacks you’ll start with
      • He also gains a stack every 30s in this phase
      • It’s likely that by the time the boss dies, you’ll have 8 or more stacks, meaning the raid will be taking close to 100k damage every 2s. Without raid CDs, that won’t be healable
      • Start rotating CDs after Bloodlust ends
    • Nuke the living hell out of this old Titan Keeper fella, thank your healers once he dies, and get ready to fight an Old God
      • Sk’tek agth nuq N’Zoth yyqzz.

Positioning

This graphic shows your general positioning throughout the first. Put raid markers at Star and Circle to handle Unstable Vita. The X markers represent roughly where the Orbs spawn.

Video Guide