Changelog
Update: September 26th Hotfixes
Spittle and Carapace timings seem unchanged.
Egg spawn animation significantly increased (Don’t get caught out and use crash too early), hatching time increased to 20 seconds.
Boss HP is now 182m, was 195m.
Egg HP 7.8m, was 11m.
Intro
Let Me Solo Him is an achievement earned by defeating the Hard Mode level of the Bonus Delve Zekvir’s Lair. This level is unlocked after clearing any Level 10 Delve with lives remaining. This is the hardest challenge Delves have to offer and consists of a single boss fight with mutliple one shot mechanics and an extremely tight repeated DPS check.
Completing this achievement will earn you the “Ascension Breaker” title and Delver’s Derigible Void Airship customization.
As I completed this achievement I figured I’d do a full guide to help others achieve the same.
Preparation
- Item Level: 610~, though as low as 580 could do it with 2 Set Bonus and optimal play, just be ready for an extremely long fight.
- Brann: Level 35+ and Healer Spec
- Curios: Amorphous Relic, Porcelain Arrowhead
- Potion: Tempered Potion
- Flask: Flask of Alchemical Chaos
- Food: Eviscerated Muscle / Chippy Tea
- Drums: Thunderous Drums
- Weapon Oil: Algari Mana Oil
Talents
This talent build has a few notable choices.
- Phantasm: This enables us to break out of a slow every 20 seconds with Fade and clear Zekvir’s Enfeebling Spittle debuff every time it is applied.
- Last Word: Reducing the cooldown of Silence to 30 seconds from 45 allows us to interrupt Regenerating Carapace and Blood Infused Carapace every time they are cast.
- Voidweaver: Whilst not generally recommended for Shadow Priest. Voidweaver has excellent 30 second burst windows, which are exactly what we need for this encounter.
- Mindbender and Dark Ascension: As this fight is all about dealing with short burst windows every 30~ seconds, we want as many short cooldowns as possible to help cover them.
- Targeted Shadow Crash: This is excellent for targeting and DoTing the adds as they spawn throughout the fight without losing uptime.
Fight Overview
Phase One
In phase one, Zekvir has three main abilities that need to be avoided.
- Claw Smash: A Frontal Cone
- Horrendous Roar: A circle around Zekvir
- Angler’s Web: A thin frontal beam
In order to avoid these, position yourself 5-8 yards from Zekvir at all times. This lets you run out of the Fear Circle without being too far away that the Frontal Cone is too wide to escape from. Angler’s Web is the easiest of the three to dodge, just make sure you don’t point it towards Brann as he will be one shot and unable to help you for the next 30 seconds.
Zekvir also casts two spells that we can counteract using our toolkit.
- Regenerating Carapace: A long cast which if completed restores 10% of Zekvir’s Health.
- Enfeebling Spittle: A cast which applies an extremely strong DoT to both you and Brann for the next 20 seconds, the DoT also slows by 40%.
Regenerating Carapace is cast roughly every 35 seconds, and Enfeebling Spittle roughly every 20. This means we always want to interrupt the Carapace and use Fade to remove the Spittle from ourselves with Phantasm.
The final mechanic of Phase One is the most dangerous one. Zekvir will spawn a Web Cocoon at the side of the room in a random location. This cocoon has 7.8 Million HP and needs to be bursted down before it hatches. If it hatches a Web Terror will spawn, which will stun you and lead to a wipe.
In order to kill the Web Cocoon consistently every 30 seconds you will want to use the following sequence of spells and have roughly 45 Insanity saved before they spawn.
Remember to stay close to the boss during the add spawns and always be wary of what potential avoidable mechanics he might cast. You don’t want to be caught out dpsing the egg when a Claw Smash comes that you’re too far away from to escape.
In phase one you can use your other cooldowns to deal damage to the boss and get to phase two faster. You want to slow down to make sure you have all your cooldowns at the start of phase two though, which begins when the boss reaches 60%. You’re aiming for phase one to take 2-3 minutes. Do not use Potion or Drums in phase one.
Phase Two
At 60%, the boss goes immune and runs to the centre of the room to channel Black Blood which empowers several of his abilities, as well as grants one new one.
- Claw Smash: This remains unchanged
- Horrendous Roar: Becomes Infinite Horror, which shoots out orbs that have to be dodged.
- Angler’s Web: Portals will now spawn shortly before the boss casts this ability. When he does, the web will travel between all of the portals and hit you if you are caught between them.
- Regenerating Carapace: This becomes Blood Infused Carapace, which is the same except it heals for 25% as opposed to 10%.
- Enfeebling Spittle: Remains Unchanged
- Web Cocoon: Remains Unchanged
- Unending Spines: A new ability, Zekvir stands still and channels for a few seconds and causes spikes to erupt out of the ground in sequence that have to be avoided.
Begin this phase using all your cooldowns, but again hold Drums and Potion. The bosses cast sequence resets at the start of phase two.
The general idea of phase two is the same as phase one, however with more deadly / harder to dodge mechanics. The biggest difference though is that the timings for Enfeebling Spittle and Web Cocoon have changed, and both spells will now come sligtly more often than they did in phase one. This means you will may have to use Dispersion or Mass Dispel to remove the debuff if Brann is unable to dispel you.
It also means Void Torrent might no longer perfectly lines up with the add spawn. For this reason we have to handle their spawns a little differently sometimes.
If Void Torrent will not be available for an add spawn, use one of either Power Infusion, Dark Ascension, Tempered Potion, or Drums, as well as try to pool up as much insanity as possible and aim to burst it down. If Void Torrent comes back off cooldown during the cocoon, only use it as a last resort otherwise it will be even more desynced and completely unavailable for the next one when you have even less to deal with it.
When you get to roughly 10-15% health remaining on Zekvir, you can ignore the next web cocoon that spawns and instead cast Dominate Mind exactly as it hatches. This will let you skip the final add and burn the boss down with everything you have left.
Remember that the fight overall is a Marathon not a sprint. You will have enough damage for every single Web Cocoon if you space things out properly and don’t get caught out by any spawns. My kill took me roughly 7-8 minutes.
Macros
These are some useful macros to help speed up targeting throughout the fight.
Automatic Egg Cocoon Target + Shadow Crash
Focus Silence (Set Zekvir as your Focus Target before you engage him)
Automatic Target Web Terror Dominate Mind
Tips and Tricks
- Movement speed is extremely useful to dodge frontals throughout the fight. Picking up speed enchants, speed food, and the Speed Gem is extremely useful.
- You can fish for the movement speed + haste effect from amorphous relic by pulling the boss and resetting if you get the other effect.
- Try to position the boss towards the middle of the room, pointing him away from the web cocoon spawn. This Ensures you have the option to run through him if he casts Claw Smash without having to turn away and lose damage.
- If you’re not sure what ability is coming next and want to be prepared, it is absolutely fine to stop doing damage and wait. The fight is a marathon, not a sprint, and being caught mid cast when a key mechanic happens can easily lead to a wipe.
- Try to stay within 5-8 yards of the boss, only moving out to dodge the Fear circle and Angler’s Web portals. Move back into range immediately once these mechanics are over.
- After you Fade to remove Enfeebling Spittle, Brann will have aggro and the boss will chase after him. Remember to stay close by to not get caught out by Claw Slam.
- Use Brann’s healing to your full advantage by stepping over his potions one at a time and not letting them time out.
- Don’t panic if you let a heal cast go through, it’s not a wipe it’ll just take longer to get the kill.
- Try to aim Angler’s Web away from Brann. Brann can comfortably take melee hits and doesn’t really take that much damage from Zekvir’s other avoidable abilities. However Angler’s Web will immediately knock him out of the fight for 30 seconds.
- Direct damage on use trinkets such as Mad Queen’s Mandate offer an extra burst option for Web Cocoons to use as a last resort, though they’re absolutely not required.
Zekvir “??” is a challenge. I personally found progressing and completing it extremely rewarding. Best of luck to everyone out there who wants to give it a go and I hope this has helped.
Ellipsis…
