Heroic Council of Blood Guide

BY Andrew Miesner / December 3, 2020

Written and produced by Crzypck

Special thanks to our consulting team: Tagzz, Xyronic, and Ftbubbler

Council of Blood

Three phase fight. You start by fighting 3 bosses with independent health pools. When any boss reaches 50% HP, you enter a short dancing intermission. When one dies, the surviving bosses gain a new ability. When the second dies, the final boss gets another new ability. You can choose which order to kill them in. This fight is so great, Blizz had to test it 4 times to get it juuuuuust right!

Encounter-Long Mechanics

Oppressive Atmosphere
- Stacking DoT. Deals 300 Shadow per second, per stack
- Gain a stack every 10 seconds
- This is reset during every dancing intermission
The Danse Macabre
- This is the intermission mechanic
- Occurs whenever a boss reaches 50% HP. The bosses will disappear and you get to have a dance party!
  - Every player will see their own spotlight. Run to your spotlight. Failure to do so results in a progressively more powerful DoT called Wrong Moves
  - After a few seconds, a whole bunch of little dancing NPCs spawn throughout the room
  - Starting in your spotlight, you must move in the same direction as them.
  - They will do 6 total directional moves
- Fancy Footwork
  - Properly following the dancers applies 1 stack of this buff to you
  - Increases haste by 3% for 30 seconds
  - Since there’s 6 total moves, doing the dance correctly gets you 18% increased haste for 30 seconds! Awesome stuff, you get to go for the phat orange parse!
- Wrong Moves
  - Failing to reach your spotlight, or not following the direction of the dancers, gives you a stacking DoT
  - Deals 900 Shadow per second
  - This increases in power until you correctly follow a direction
  - Wrong Moves also immediately removes any stacks of Fancy Footwork you had. Bye bye orange parse, hello grey parse!
  - Just follow the lil dancing dudes. It’s pretty simple. They aren’t very advanced dancers tbh
Here’s a screenshot of the lil dancing dudes:

Boss Abilities

Each boss has several unique abilities. When you kill a boss, the remaining two gain a new ability. When you kill a second boss, the final remaining one gains an additional new ability
- Any time a boss dies, the surviving ones are immediately healed to full. Because of this, cleave/aoe damage on the bosses is wasted. Don’t be a filthy padder
- To make things simple, Empowerment 1 below means “this boss is alive when the first died.” Empowerment 2 means “this is the last boss alive.”
Baroness Frieda
- Drain Essence
Drains 3 players. Deals 4600 Shadow per second for 4s
Dreadbolt Volley
- Casted AoE ability. Deals 6200 Shadow to everyone in the raid
- Also applies a DoT to everyone, deals 2k Shadow every 1.5s for 12s
- This can be interrupted
- This should probably be interrupted, unless you just dislike your healers
Empowerment 1
- Prideful Eruption
  - Causes all players to explode, dealing 14k Shadow within 6 yards
Empowerment 2
- Twisted Pain
  - All abilities Frieda does now also leave a puddle called Manifest Pain under the afflicted players
  - Puddle lasts 30 seconds. Deals 2300 Shadow every ½ second.
- Soul Spikes
  - Summons 4 spikes that impale the tank for 4.5s
  - Each spike deals 23k Physical, and increases the damage of subsequent spikes
  - Also deals radiating AoE damage to all players
  - The values of the damage increase and AoE component are unknown. This boss was horrible to do last, so we just didn’t see this.

Castellan Niklaus
- Duelist’s Riposte
  - Deals 23k Physical to the tank, and increased damage taken by subsequent Duelist’s Ripostes by 100% for 25s
  - Forces a tank swap
- Summon Dutiful Attendant
  - Spawns a Dutiful Attendant who casts Unyielding Shield
  - Puts a protective barrier on the lowest-HP boss, making them immune to damage for 10 minutes.
  - These guys have a small HP pool and just need to be blown up
Empowerment 1
- Dredger Servants
- Spawns a couple Begrudging Waiters
- They cast Throw Food, literally throwing food at random people
  - Deals 4300 Nature
- These guys also have small health pools and can be blown up
Empowerment 2
- Castellan’s Fury
  - Whenever any adds are killed, all remaining adds within 12 yards, plus the boss, gain 100% increased damage for 18s
- Castellan’s Cadre – calls forth a Veteran Stoneguard
  - Veteran Stoneguard
    - Does a tank smack called Sintouched Blade, deals 25k Physical and applying a permanent debuff, causing subsequent Sintouched Blades to deal 50% increased damage. Stacks.
Lord Stavros
- Evasive Lunge
  - Teleports behind the current tank, then jumps forward in a line 20 yards
  - Deals 23k Physical to anyone hit
  - Also applies a debuff to anyone hit, causing them to take 100% increased damage from Evasive Lunge, stacking. Lasts 25s. Cast every 18s
- Dark Recital
  - Assigns several players randomly in pairs for 8s
  - If you go further than 8 yards from your partner, deals 1400 Shadow every ½ second
  - Also throws gunk at the affected players each ½ second, red swirlie on the ground.
    - Swirlie deals 12k Shadow if you get hit
- Empowerment 1
  - Waltz of Blood
    - Calls several Waltzing Venthyr to dance across the dance floor. Deals 12k Shadow + a 1s stun if you get hit
    - They just kind of slowly move around the room. Don’t get hit. See screenshot:
- Empowerment 2
  - Two Left Feet
    - While moving, you gain a stacking debuff. Reduces movement speed by 2% per stack
    - Gain 1 stack every 0.3 seconds
    - Standing still reduces your stacks
  - Dancing Fools
    - Stavros calls the Waltzing Venthyr back to the dance floor
    - After a few seconds, they all scream really loud, with anima apparently, making gigantic swirlies around themselves
    - Swirlies then explode for 155k Shadow damage. 11 yard radius.
    - There’s one called a “Dancing Fool” with a large health pool
      - The Dancing Fool is the only one that can be killed, and doing so creates a safe zone
      - Nuke this add down ASAP, or you wipe
    - Go to the safe spots. Don’t stand in the somehow anima empowered yelling
    - Standing in the bad here kills you

Strategy

Many possible kill orders were tested. Below, we’ll go over the recommended kill order.

AFTER WEEK 1, we recommend killing Baroness Frieda > Castellan Niklaus > Lord Stavros.
- This is the most manageable order mechanically
FOR WEEK 1, you may want to consider killing Baroness Frieda > Lord Stavros > Castellan Niklaus
- This is due to being relatively undergeared. Once you are 205-210 ilvl, killing the Dancing Fool won’t be difficult. Week 1, you’re floating around 185-190 ilvl. Because of that, the Dancing Fool is significantly more difficult to kill. Instead, kill Stavros 2nd and Niklaus last.
  - Niklaus is mechanically difficult to kill last. Between the Stoneguard add, the buff applied when things die, and the Dutiful Attendants regularly spawning, this is a really tricky last phase. However, it doesn’t seem to have the same DPS requirement as doing Stavros last, and may be more management for your raid group.
Positioning in this fight overall isn’t too huge a deal. Tank the bosses at the front of the room near where they start. Ranged should be loosely spread.
Your DPS should do little to no cleave at the start of the fight, unless cleave builds resources that can be funneled into single target DPS
Phase 1
- You’ll be fighting all 3 at the start of the fight. All 3 bosses have just their base abilities
  - Tanks will need to swap off threat on Niklaus and Stavros after every Evasive Lunge
  - This’ll also deal with Duelist’s Riposte, two for one!
    - The tank holding Stavros should move away from the group about 5 seconds before Lunge is cast, so it only hits the tank and not anyone else.
- When Niklaus summons the Dutiful Attendant, blow the living hell out of it
- Make sure you go hang with your Dark Recital partner. Do NOT stop moving if you’re one of the targets, or you’ll get death by swirlie. Much less fun than death by snu snu.
- Frieda’s Drain Essence just has to be healed through, no biggie
  - Her Dreadbolt Volley needs to be interrupted. If you don’t interrupt, your healers might parse. That’s not good for anyone.
- When you get Frieda to 50%, you’ll enter the dance intermission. Just follow the little green bros, and you get an 18% haste buff. Woo!
  - Use that haste buff to put Frieda down and move onto Phase 2
Phase 2
- Stavros and Niklaus will both get healed back to full and gain their Empowerment 1 abilities
  - Tanks should swap here so they can both reset stacks
  - When Niklaus spawns the Dredger Servants, pull him on top of them and AoE them down. Servants aren’t especially dangerous, so you don’t have to hard-swap to them. Just cleave um till they go poof
  - When Stavros spawns Waltz of Blood, just keep an eye where they are. They were relatively easy to dodge in testing.
    - FYI, this can overlap with Dark Recital. Make sure you and your partner stay together while you dodge the Waltzing dudes
- Continue handling the tank swap like you did in P1
  - If you were able to handle Phase 1 with the “keep Stavros away” strat, continue doing that in Phase 2. However, the tanks will have to swap as you enter P2 to reset stacks, so the opposite tank will now get to play keepaway
- Blow up the Dutiful Attendant when it spawns. That’s #1 kill target priority
- Dance intermission happens when Niklaus gets to 50%. Do your dance, get your buff, use it to blast Niklaus into oblivion
Phase 3
- Lust when P3 starts. This is the most difficult phase, you wanna blast through it quickly.
- Melee need to be careful to dodge the Evasive Lunge. If you aren’t a tank, getting hit while already having the debuff will almost certainly kill you
- Handle the Dark Recital like you did in p1 and p2. Hang with your friend!
  - Like in p2, this can overlap with the Waltzing Venthyrs. Just be careful
- Two Left Feet forces you to limit your movement. Keep your butt planted unless necessary to dodge mechanics
- Dancing Fools is an extremely easy ability to die to
  - The way this works, the Venthyrs will go throughout the room and find somewhere to stand
    - One will be the Dancing Fool and be targetable
    - All DPS need to hardswap and blow this add up as quickly as possible, or you wipe
  - After a few seconds, each Venthyr will have a giant red swirlie surround them
  - After a few more seconds, all the swirlies explode
  - If you’re in one, you die
  - Here’s a screenshot of what the swirlies look like, along with the Dancing Fool:

- Since you’ll lust at the start of this phase, you should reach the intermission relatively quickly, which is good
  - After the intermission ends, use your new shiny haste buff to pump into the boss
  - Don’t stand in bad stuff. Keep yourselves alive. Kill this boss, get your purps, and ggs!

Positioning

For Phase 1 and 2, if you plan on trying to have Stavros just completely away from the group, the positioning below will work. Idea is to just move Stavros away so his Lunge cannot hit anyone other than the active tank holding him. The rest of the raid will be moving fairly regularly, so don’t expect to have your feet set for long. In P1, you’ll need to move around with your partner for Dark Recital. P2 you’ll need to also dodge the Waltzing Venthyrs.

When you get to Phase 3, fighting Stavros alone, move him to the middle so you can more easily adjust around the room.