Raid Guides for Midnight Season 1: Complete Walkthroughs

Season 1 Raid Bosses Guide

Season 1 of Midnight introduces several challenging raid bosses that players will confront. This guide covers strategies for the Dream Rift, Void Spire, and March of Queldonos bosses, based on our experience testing in the beta version.

Dream Rift: Chimeis

Chimeis is the sole boss in the Dream Rift raid, bringing a unique mechanic where ads spawn within a rift. To defeat these, a coordinated approach is required:

1. Rift Emergence: Half the raid descends to tackle ads in the rift, allowing the rest of the team to defeat them in reality. Ads like colossal horrors, which unleash damaging discordant roars, are high-priority targets.
2. All Dust Upheaval: Upon entering the rift, players are knocked up and obtain sight to deal with manifestations. Successfully breaking these ads' shields allows them to be killed outside the rift.
3. Managing Negative Effects:
   • Haunting essences may cast fears or essence bolts, requiring quick dispels.
   • Consumable miasma creates large circles around players that, when dispelled, can remove surrounding all dust puddles but also risk players being knocked off the platform.

   Key threats include Costic Flem and Rendering Tear, both causing periodic widespread damage. Players should focus on utilizing raid cooldowns effectively during these phases.

Avoiding Raid Wipes

Failure to manage ads effectively can lead to detrimental consequences. If manifestations consume Chimeis’ energy during the consume cycle, it heals and amplifies its damage, leading to potential raid wipes. Chimeis’ intermission phase should be navigated carefully by continuously clearing ads and interrupting fear-inducing spells.

Void Spire: Imperator Averian

This encounter is centered around positioning and fast reactions. Key mechanics include:

1. Dark Upheaval and Shadows Advance: Averian employs tic-tac-toe mechanics throughout the fight. Players must destroy void shapers with umbil collapse to prevent the formation of ‘claimed spaces’ that empower Averian.
2. Void Shaper Management: Quick succession of umbil collapse cast onto tanks necessitates the raid to move swiftly and stack on the void shapers to destroy them, avoiding the boss entering these areas.
3. Ad Control:
   • Interrupt Enhancements: Voidbound annihilators cast a protective shield that must be interrupted.
   • Tank Responsibilities: Tanks must be cautious of blackening wounds, managing ad spawns, and efficiently swapping to mitigate damage.
4. Crowd Control: As void spawns attempt to retreat, low-health ads should be controlled using crowd control tools like AoE stuns to prevent healing.

Overview of Key Challenges

The complexity of Midnight's bosses relies on understanding these unique mechanics and effectively utilizing team strategy and coordination. This guide will help players navigate these challenges, but success will ultimately depend on practice and teamwork.

Key Mechanics and Strategies

In this intense raid encounter, understanding and mastering several complex mechanics are crucial for success. Let's break down these mechanics and the strategies required to overcome them effectively.

Shadowclaw Slam and Dark Crystals

1. Shadowclaw Slam: This ability targets tanks with a massive frontal attack that applies the "smashed" debuff, increasing the physical damage they take by 150%. Tanks should avoid reaching more than two stacks of this debuff without adequate defensive cooldowns and should swap off the boss before the stacks get too high.
2. Dark Crystals Formation: After a Shadowclaw Slam, dark crystals appear at the arena's sides. Destroy these by killing Blister Creeps, which spawn during the encounter. Coordinate this task based on the difficulty level:
   • Normal: 1 Blister Creep per wall
   • Heroic: 2 Blister Creeps per wall
   • Mythic: 3 Blister Creeps per wall

   Ensure Blister Creeps are spread out to effectively dismantle the wall.

Parasite Expulsion and Aftershock Circles

• Parasite Expulsion: Occurs one minute into the encounter, spawning Blister Creeps that need to be guided to the void crystal walls for destruction. This phase introduces high damage as multiple circles need dodging. Use mobility tools and healing cooldowns here without requiring players to remain stationary.

• Aftershock Circles: Following a Shadowclaw Slam, aftershock circles must be dodged. On higher difficulties, players should maneuver the Blister Creeps towards the arena's edges without stepping into leftover goo.

Void Breath and Add Management

• Void Breath: Observe the boss’s hand for void energy to determine the breath's initial direction. Move sideways to avoid this devastating ability once the walls are broken.

• Void Convergence: This ability spawns orbs around the arena that, if not destroyed before contact with the boss, will deal significant damage due to void exposure. On heroic difficulty, spaced kills of these orbs are vital to manage the resulting ticking damage.

Raid Coordination and Tank Strategy

Managing Despotic Command and Twisting Obscurity

• Despotic Command: Marks several players with circles. Once these expire, they leave a healing absorb, necessitating immediate defensive cooldowns.

• Twisting Obscurity: A 23-second phase of raidwide damage, amplified by orb detonations. Coordinate raid healing cooldowns to handle this sustained damage efficiently.

Handling Tank Abilities and Shattering Twilight

• Destabilizing Strikes: Applies a stacking shadow damage-over-time effect on tanks. Swap tanks once reaching 9-12 stacks, maintaining motion to prevent orb contact with the boss.

• Shattering Twilight: Casts shadows spikes at the tank, spreading out on completion. Dodging is essential, especially since on higher difficulties, extra players are targeted after the tank.

High-Difficulty Considerations

Entropic Unraveling and Coordination with Veilor and Ezarak

• Entropic Unraveling: Max energy ability that causes umbil beams and immense raidwide damage every two minutes. Layer healing cooldowns appropriately over this 20-second window to sustain the team.

• Veilor and Ezarak Encounter: This requires tight coordination due to the mechanics of Twilight Bonds and individual health pools. Preventing health disparities between the dragons avoids a 100% damage increase. Ensure raid proximity to Velore for abilities like Dread Breath, and tanks must be poised to swap and manage powerful attacks like Veil Wing and Rack Fang according to phase durations.

Successfully mastering these mechanics involves continuous practice and flawless team communication. Employ these strategies to dominate the encounter and emerge victorious.

Managing Midnight Raid Mechanics

In the raid, it's crucial to execute precise strategies for each mechanic to ensure success. One significant challenge is the Gloom Mechanic, where players must soak gloom orbs and manage the resulting damage over time. In heroic difficulty, this task becomes harder with a 500% damage increase from the gloom touch, necessitating the use of at least two groups of five players to efficiently soak these orbs. After dealing with the gloom mechanic, tanks should swap to avoid further debuffs.

During the Intermission Phase, the bosses rise into the air and unleash midnight flames, causing extensive area damage. Players should gather within the barrier of the Lightbound Vanguard to mitigate this damage. Additionally, Zatath spawns and casts midnight manifestation, posing further challenges by weakening players.

Here are some key points to manage these mechanics effectively:

1. Stack in the Barrier: Reduce incoming damage during the AoE phase by utilizing the barrier.
2. Spread Void Zones: Prevent overlap to minimize unnecessary damage.
3. Focus on Tank Healing: Sustained massive damage requires vigilant tank support.

The Lightblind Vanguard's Auras

Understanding and managing the unique auras of the Lightbound Vanguard is essential. Each paladin of the vanguard uses a different aura that affects combat:

• Bellamy: Her devotion aura creates a 40-yard ring that greatly reduces the damage taken by enemies. Upon ending, she unleashes a consecrate, requiring careful positioning.
• War Chaplain Sen: Activates an aura of peace, pacifying attackers and leaving consecrate areas that need to be avoided.
• Commander Vanel Lightb Blood: Uses an aura of wrath to boost holy damage of allies. Her Avenging Wrath further increases damage dealt by 30% and taken by 20%, making it an opportune moment for focused damage on her.

During this encounter, it's crucial to rotate the position of the bosses to avoid their auras overlapping, as illustrated below:

Essential Abilities and Threat Management

The vanguard’s abilities demand a coordinated approach:

• War Chaplain Sen: Uses exorcism frequently, necessitating mitigation from tanks.
• Bellamy: Casts judgment, debuffing tanks for immense follow-up damage. Prompt tank swaps are crucial after judgment.
• General Bami: Deploys Avenger's Shield, leaving a dispellable damage over time effect. Multiple priests are advantageous for dispels.

Mechanics such as throwing divine hammers, execution sentences, and sacred tolls consistently apply pressure. Executing precise positioning and timing defensive cooldowns is key to survivability. Moreover, managing the retribution buff is crucial; if a boss dies prematurely, the surviving bosses gain increased damage every few seconds, ramping up the encounter’s difficulty.

Finally, the fight’s overall coordination hinges on balancing damage mitigation, efficient healer positioning, and the calculated use of mechanics to ensure the raid group remains stable and survives the increasingly punishing environment.

Coordinating Mechanics and Surviving Bellerin's Phases

In the Bellerin encounter, seamless coordination among players is essential. A key aspect involves soaking void orbs to ensure allies have space to navigate past orb walls. Approximately every 20 seconds, the boss casts Eternal Burns, debuffing the raid with void or light burns. Healers must rapidly cleanse these negative healing absorbs, as they continuously inflict damage until removed.

Special Considerations on Heroic

On the heroic difficulty, watch out for infused quills, represented by large light or void spears. These quills target players with the opposite color, potentially resulting in instant death unless absorbed by a player of the same color. It’s vital to intervene if you spot a quill honing in on a player of the opposite color.

Rebirth Phase

When Bellerin's health hits zero, a Death Drop launches, marking the room's center for a significant impact. Standing further away reduces both damage and the knock-up effect. Following this, the boss assumes an egg form, and its health and energy levels become the target. Destroying the egg concludes the encounter.

During this intense rebirth phase, players must dodge alternating void and light slices. Aligning with your color group eases healers' tasks in maintaining the group's health. Additionally, the Void Light Convergence spell restarts, potentially changing player colors and increasing the encounter's complexity.

Defensive Strategies

As the fight progresses, the ticking damage escalates by 50% due to the Burning Heart effect, coupled with a 10% healing reduction from the Ash and Benediction debuff. Prioritize using defensive abilities strategically—whether marked by opposing dives or absorbing extra orbs—ensures team survival during these critical moments.

This detailed understanding of Bellerin's phases and the need for precise coordination will enhance your readiness for the challenges within these battles.