Hello fellow gamers, this morning I managed to defeat Nullaeus on ?? with my evoker at equipped ilvl 252. As some of you may know, this boss hits like an absolute freight train. He hits anywhere from 50% or more of your health per melee swing depending on how much stamina you have. Below I’d like to offer some tips on what I did to take down this monster before the M+ season started.
Talents:
Here is the talent build I constructed specifically for this boss: CsbBPJc41CfcseY0baneJ1IHrBAAAAAAAAAAgZmZgZ8AzwMDmBjZaMzMNjxyMmZmZGzMzAmZGYmZZmZgBMzMWglxs0YbmhJzkNw2wAzMGzYA
I opted in for Tailwind because there are moment where you’re falling behind on healing and this will 100% save you. This talent allows you to kite Nullaeus for as long as the buff lasts. If you wanted to have more kiting capabilities, you drop Strike From Above, switching it for Twin Guardian, and create a rescue macro for Valeera. I think baseline rescue was enough though.
Gearing:
Due to Nullaeus hitting so hard, get as many stamina enchants as you can. Lynx’s Dexterity and Sunfire Silk Spellthread being a few examples. Later in the season you’ll simply out-gear the fight so this won’t be as needed, but figured I would mention this regardless.
Valeera:
Valeera, as annoying as she can be, is critical to this fight. You will 100% want her as a healer if you are Devastation. If you plan to fight Nullaeus with low item level such as what I did, you will need to make up in that by levelling Valeera, there is no other way around it. He simply does too much damage for any other option to be viable. My Valeera was level 46 for my attempts. Bare minimum you might be able to get away with is 40, but I would recommend being as high as possible. For the Curio’s, she was equipped with Mantle of Stars for combat and Overflowing Voidspire for utility.
Valeera is critical to this fight because she is all that stands between the boss and you mopping the floor. She drops a pair of three healing orbs about every 30 seconds, with one always being on you. These healing orbs apply a stacking HoT on you (that stacks up to 4 times). You must keep this HoT up at all times, otherwise you will die. My cadence to picking up the orbs was one about every 5-10 seconds as needed. You can extend this out if she drops the purple or green circle under you. Avoid picking up more than 1 orb at a time otherwise you’ll risk the HoT falling off.
Another note is she will often throw the orbs in the purple stuff on the floor. Don’t worry much about that as it doesn’t really hurt – just grab the orb if needed and get out.
Nullaeus:
As I mentioned earlier, Nullaeus hits like an absolute truck. Read Valeera’s section above for how to survive that. He has only one real ability you have to watch out for, which is Emptiness of the Void. This ability must be interrupted 100% of the time, no matter what, otherwise you will die. All other abilities are forgettable because Valeera deals with them. At the start of the fight, I used dragonrage and potion of recklessness, then went straight into my rotation. Do not use lust, this must be saved for the end of the fight due to soft enrage.
Intermission 1:
These adds are very basic to deal with. No cooldowns are needed for them, even if you can’t kill them before Nullaeus activates. They are easily kitable and the bleed is cleansable via Cauterizing Flame. Avoid the leap, keep your distance, and save your bleed cleanse for if you have Nullaeus and the add active at the same time. Use a defensive if you must take a few melee hits from them. Otherwise the HoT from Valeera will just out-heal them.
Intermission 2:
These adds must be killed with cooldowns due to their stacking DoT. Use Dragonrage here and send everything you got (excluding lust and potion of recklessness). Spread out the stuns with your deep breath. Avoid getting into melee range because their melee hits do hurt.
Intermission 3:
I see a lot of people send everything they got here. I’m going to be honest, I really don’t think it’s needed. The casts this guy does hits like a wet noodle to the point you don’t even have to worry about interrupting him. I would recommend getting through as much of this phase as you can without cooldowns. Once Nullaeus reactivates, send everything you got and finish off the add. Save your interrupt for Nullaeus at all costs, do not use it on the add.
Enrage phase:
For the last 10% of Nullaeus, he will soft enrage and causes everything he does to be a little bit faster. Send your defensives one at a time here, drink a 2-star Amani Extract potion (alternative to the healing potion but this spreads out the healing over 20 seconds), then start kiting as soon as you run out of tricks. I did a big lap around the room while avoiding the void orb and grabbed Valeera’s health orbs. By that time he should be down.
That’s pretty much it. Let me know if you have any questions and best of luck on your attempts. This was a very hard encounter to be done so early.