Xul, The Blood Monolith Fellowship Dungeon Guide

Xul’vorith, Sentinel of the Bloodbound Gate Abilities

Exsanguinating Strike

Tank strike that hits for medium damage, applies a stacking debuff which increases damage taken from subsequent strikes by 10%. Every third strike is a 'final blow'.

Nullification

Targets the tank with a frontal attack which also disables any active conduit caught within the blast.

Gatekeeper's Judgment

Sucks all players in and then deals damage in an AoE around Xul'vorith after a few seconds. Also resets all Conduits, resets the Conduit Deactivated buff (+20% boss damage) and applies a new random Edict.

Gatekeeper's Edict

Xul'Vorith always has one of three Edicts active throughout the encounter, which changes whenever Xul casts Gatekeeper's Judgement.

Edict of Frailty: Reduces healing received of nearby players by 20%.
Edict of Burden : Slows the movement speed of players by 30%.
Edict of Isolation : Players deal damage equal to 10% of max hp to any nearby allies.

Conduit of the Bleeding Gaze

Summons eyes which spawn projectiles that damage players. Xul'vorith gains a stacking +20% bonus damage buff when deactivated until next Gatekeeper's Judgement cast.

Conduit of the Burning Circle

Targets a player with with a debuff that applies a magic DoT that explodes upon expiry or dispel and should be soaked to share the damage. Xul'vorith gains a stacking +20% bonus damage buff when deactivated until next Gatekeeper's Judgement cast.

Conduit of Striking Shadows

Deals ticking party-wide damage every 1.5 seconds until deactivated. Xul'vorith gains a stacking +20% bonus damage buff when deactivated until next Gatekeeper's Judgement cast.

Boss Strategy

Normal and Hard

Xul'Vorith has no new mechanics on Hard difficulty, just more health and deals more damage. Thus you can use the same strategy for both difficulties.

This boss fight is about managing sequential edict phases in which the tank needs to take the boss to each of three different conduits and aim the boss's frontal cone attack Nullification onto the conduits to deactivate them.

Xul'Vorith starts each phasing by pulling all players to him with Gatekeeper's Judgment, after which all players need to quickly run away to not get killed by the red circle area attack. After this, the boss immediately activates all three Conduits and applies an Edict to all players.

The tank must take the boss to each conduit and aim the frontal cone attack Nullification onto the conduits to deactivate them, while the DPS and healers deal with the conduit mechanics and whichever Edict is active for the phase. The next time Xul'Vorith uses Gatekeeper's Judgment, all three conduits activate again, but the Edict changes.

Edicts

There are three edicts, and the boss rotates through all three of them throughout the fight, but the order is random.

• Edict of Frailty: All players do 25% less healing.
• Edict of Burden: All players have 25% less movement speed.
• Edict of Isolation: All players deal 10% of their maximum health to nearby players.

The Edicts of Frailty and Burden are straightforward and not a big deal. During the Edict of Isolation, make sure the party is spread out. If two players get too close to each other, there will be a purple beam between them indicating that they are taking damage for standing too close.

Conduits

Each conduit has a different color and is in a different part of the room. The locations are always the same. When a conduit is deactivated with Nullification, the boss gains a stack of Unfettering Power, increasing his damage by 20% for the rest of the current phase.

Conduit Of The Burning Circle: This is the yellow conduit near the entrance of the room. This places a magic debuff on a DPS or healer which is a yellow circle that must be group soaked before it is dispelled or expired. This works just like the Corrupting Shot mechanic from the Everdawn Grove boss, however it expires in only 6 seconds. If the tank moves the boss to this conduit immediately after Gatekeeper's Judgment so it is deactivated by the first Nullification every phase, then you will never see the soak mechanic. This is a very good idea as the soak deals enough damage to one-shot the two DPS and healer if they are all soaking the debuff, even on Normal difficulty.

Conduit Of Striking Shadows: This is the purple conduit on the right side of the room while facing the boss. This conduit just deals pulsing damage to the entire party and should be deactivated second.

Conduit Of The Bleeding Gaze: This is the red conduit on the left side of the room while facing the boss. It summons eyes which shoot orbs throughout the phase. Each eye shoots four orbs in a fixed "X" pattern. More eyes keep spawning in as the phase progresses, but this mechanic is very easy to deal with and should be removed last as all of the orbs will keep shooting in fixed directions, so it is simple to find a safe spot to stand still as a DPS or healer.

Nightmare Difficulty

The only mechanical change for this fight on Nightmare difficulty is that two of the three edicts will be active each phase and the boss will rotate through the different combinations, so your party will just have to deal with Edict of Isolation and stay spread out more often. Otherwise, the tank should deactivate the conduits in the same order.

Han-Eth, Sentry of Xul Abilities

Palace Response Unit

Spawns 1 Crimson Abomination, then 2 Heskyr Broods then 4 Heskyr Broods then 4 Heskyr Broods and a Crimson Abomination.
Important: Han-eth is invulnerable while a Crimson Abomination is alive.

Judgement

Final phase which starts at 25% HP. Han-eth will deal damage to all players every 3 seconds until killed, with damage increasing by 2% every tick. Han-eth will also deal 10% of its current HP to itself with every tick, but cannot kill itself.

Draw Blood

Sucks in all Clot Spawns and Greater Clot Spawns, causing them to explode for party-wide damage.

Vein Seeds

Han-eth conjures orbs which fan out through the arena. Players hit by the orbs will receive a stacking Vein Sprout debuff. At 3 stacks, Vein Sprout will produce vines which deal damage and reduce the movement speed of players standing in them.

Summon Creations

Summon Creations (Clot Spawns): Creates 12 small pools which must be soaked (by running over them). Any pools not soaked will summon a Clot Spawn.
Summon Creations (Greater Clot Spawns): Creates 3 large pools which must be soaked (by standing in it for three seconds). Any pools not soaked will summon a Greater Clot Spawn.

Annihilation Protocol

Causes a beam to spawn across, and rotate around, the arena. Deals huge damage to any players it touches.

Boss Strategy

Normal

This boss fight focuses on managing small groups of adds and being able to quickly move around the circular platform. It is very important to pay attention to the ability timers during this fight so that you can pre-position to good locations to efficiently deal with the mechanics. As such, having the party in voice comms is very useful, including having a player make callouts based on the ability timers even if it means sacrificing some DPS, as the majority of this fight is not a DPS rush.

Palace Response Unit

The boss starts the fight immune to damage and spawns a few waves of adds composed of Crimson Abominations and Heskyr Broods. Every time one of these adds dies, the boss takes their health in damage, and so the goal for the majority of the fight is to kill these adds. After the second Crimson Abomination and last group of Heskyr Broods is killed, the boss will be at 25% health and the burn phase begins.

The Crimson Abomination has only one ability, an orange frontal cone cleave, so melee DPS need to be on their toes while moving around the tank. This cleave also applies Perishing Wounds to the tank, increasing their damage taken until the Abomination is killed.

The Heskyr Broods are just like the regular trash Broods in that their only ability is Gushing Wounds, leaping on players to apply a bleed that damages players when they move but is automatically removed when the player reaches full health. The healer must be aware of topping people off when they have this bleed so they are able to move around the platform to deal with the other mechanics.

The adds spawn at random locations around the platform, so DPS must be careful about attacking them before the tank has aggro, as well as being aware of when it is a good time to stay near the tank so that the Heskyr Broods do not leap too far away.

Vein Seeds

Throughout the entire time fighting adds before the burn phase, red orbs will be constantly shooting out of the boss from the middle of the platform. Getting hit by an orb applies a stack of Vein Sprout, and at 3 stacks the player drops a permanent slow zone pool.

All players must be constantly alert to dodge these orbs, as they wiggle back and forth along their path to the edge of the platform. If a player is at 2 stacks, they can try to let themselves get hit by a third orb in order to drop a pool at a good location at the very edge of the platform (or on existing pools) and reset their stacks.

Annihilation Protocol

The boss will create two massive beams that form a straight line bisecting the platform and rotate them around 180 degrees. The beams always start toward the entrance and exit of the platform, rotate as they come out, and can rotate in either direction.

Players near the entrance and exit must be aware and watching ability timers and how the boss is turning when this mechanic happens so they don't get unexpectedly hit, as the beams appear very quickly and will kill players in a single hit.

The party should figure out how they want to position the portal from Humming Portalstone as it is an extremely useful tool to get from one end of the platform to another, as well as cross over to the other half of the platform while the beams are up.

Summon Creations

The boss will spawn orange soak circles around the platform that must be soaked very quickly, or else they will spawn Clot Spawn adds. If these adds do spawn, they must be killed quickly as they will try to reach the boss to deal party-wide damage. However,

Note: Clot Spawns also explode for party-wide damage when killed, so if multiple are alive, the DPS need to make sure to stagger kill them so the healer can heal up the party between explosions.

There are two different sets of soaks that can appear when this ability happens. There will either be 12 small circles that players just to need to run through to clear, or 3 large circles that a player needs to stand in for 3 seconds to clear.

The large circles are an absolute priority to clear quickly, as failure to do so will spawn a Greater Clot Spawn that can outright kill players with its death explosion. The healer and ranged DPS should be aware of the timer of this ability so they can spread out and pre-position to good locations for soaking circles away from the tank, especially as this mechanic can happen while the beams from Annihilation Protocol are up.

If the party is caught off guard and grouped up near the tank when the soaks appear, that would be a good opportunity to use Bloodrite Drums to help players quickly run to any distant circles.

Judgement

Once the boss reaches 25% health from killing enough adds, he immediately transitions into the burn phase and is now able to be damaged directly. There are no movement mechanics during this phase, not even the Vein Sprout orbs. The players just need to damage the boss as much as possible before they die to the ramping rot damage. This is a perfect place to use Sinbinding Stone.

Hard

In addition to increased health and damage, there are two more mechanics on Hard difficulty.

Vein Seeds

The boss will occasionally put a 30-second dispellable magic debuff on all four players, indicated by orange circles. When the debuff expires or is dispelled, all players in the circle take moderate damage. When the healer dispels the debuff from a player, they just need to make sure that player is healthy and not on top of everyone else so the damage and risk of death is minimized.

Annihilation Protocol: Overcharge

If any player gets hit by a beam from Annihilation Protocol, it deals damage to the entire party and will likely cause a wipe. Thus awareness of the timing and location of the beams is even more important.

Nightmare

In addition to increased health and damage, there are two more mechanics on Nightmare difficulty, on top of the ones from Hard difficulty.

Palace Response Unit

After the first Crimson Abomination but before the second, the boss will spawn a Heart of Rot and two Sanguine Echos, the exact same mobs from the trash. Just as dealing with them as trash, the Heart of Rot's Consume cast should be kicked, defensives need to be used for its Blood Boil, and the Sanguine Echos' Shake It Off cast should be kicked or stopped.

The major concern of these adds is playing safe while players have the Blood Boil DOT as it deals significant damage and can result in deaths when overlapped with other mechanics from the fight.

Judgement

During the burn phase at 25% health, the beams from Annihilation Protocol will be permanently active and rotating. Players closer to the center of the platform will not have to move as much to keep up with the beams' rotation while DPSing.

Vel’korath the Sanctified, Vision of the Covenant Abilities

Tormenting Visions

A channel that pulses heavy damage around the tank.

Truesight Corruption

Obtained by interacting with one of the Blood Altar in the corners of the arena. Grants the player True Sight to allow them to see the Blood Creation Illusions (Blood Wave) but also applies a DoT effect that deals damage every two seconds. Can be dispelled, and is lost each time One True Path is completed.

One True Path

At 70% and 50% HP, Vel'Korath will spawn a blood maze that must be navigated by all players within 30 seconds. All players will temporarily gain True Sight and each player will have their own (different) maze to navigate. End the maze by all players reaching the end.

Repent

Applied to all players if the Blood Maze is not completed. Deals high damage every 3 seconds for 20 seconds.

Blood Sermon

Final Phase (25%)
Vel'korath spawns three Runes. Players with True Sight will be able to determine the 'safe' Rune which will have a golden glow. All players must stand in the correct Rune or else the party will receive a DoT which deals high damage and also the party will be unable to gain True Sight for the rest of the final phase.

Contrite

Tank slam ability which applies the Contrite Weakness debuff causing subsequent casts to deal +20% stacking damage.

Apotheosis

Final Phase (25%)
Randomly summons puddles all around the arena that explode and deal damage to anyone caught in the blast.

Marching Vessels

Spawns a wave of Blood Creations that pass through the arena, applying a DoT to any player that is hit, dealing heavy damage every 2 seconds. Players with True Sight can see which Blood Creations are an illusion to guide the party safely through the wave.

Sinister Vessels

Ilusions target each player with a beam that deals high damage when finished casting to any player in the path. Players take double damage if hit by a beam that is targeted at an ally. Can be avoided by using an interrupt or stun.

Hungering Vessels

Illusions cause party wide damage every two seconds until interrupted. Can be avoided by using an interrupt or stun.

Boss Strategy

Normal

This boss fight focuses on being able to very quickly and reactively move to desired locations and use kicks and CC on adds that spawn throughout the fight. Similar to the Han-Eth fight, the Vel'Korath fight benefits greatly from being in voice comms so the party can coordinate movement and usage of kicks and CC abilities.

The fight is divided into six phases:

1. Regular phase
2. Maze intermission 1 at 70% boss health
3. Regular phase
4. Maze intermission 2 at 50% boss health
5. Regular phase
6. Burn phase at 25% boss health

There are four primary mechanics during the 'Regular Phases':

Truesight Corruption and Marching Vessels

In each of the four corners of the boss room there are large bowls with large blood orbs floating above them once the fight begins. Interacting with one of these will grant that player Truesight Corruption for 20 seconds, giving the player Truesight of the Marching Vessels mechanic, as well as creating a dark red circle around them that allows other players to also gain Truesight for 5 seconds by stepping into the circle.

Anyone in the circle, including the player with Truesight Corruption, will take significant continuous ticking damage, so usually only the tank should get Truesight Corruption from the bowls, and do so before every set of blood waves, while the other players can briefly step in and out of the circle to gain Truesight when they want without taking damage. The healer can also get Truesight Corruption from the bowls if the tank isn't able to get to a corner in time, but the DPS should not be relied on for this as they already need to be moving around to kick and CC adds.

Truesight allows the player to see which blood waves from the Marching Vessels mechanic are real and which are fake (the fake waves are not visible at all with Truesight). About every 15 seconds, a line of seven untargetable adds will spawn along one side of the room, each creating a blood wave that rolls across the platform.

Any real wave will one-shot players, and thus it is critical that players are constantly aware of these waves spawning in and either gaining Truesight for themselves, or relying on their teammates to know where to stand to not get hit by a real wave.

Tip: The portal from Humming Portalstone is extremely valuable in this fight if placed diagonally across the room so it can be used to teleport through any wave, and as the cooldown on using a portal is 20 seconds, it can be used for every other set of waves.

The line of real and fake waves is always one of five different configurations. It is very valuable to have someone with Truesight always call out in voice comms which of the configurations a set of waves is so the entire party immediately knows where to move to.

If the party is on one side of the room and needs to quickly run all the way to the other side due to a Left or Right configuration, that is a good opportunity to use Bloodrite Drums. The five configurations are:

1. Left: The two waves on the left side (when facing the waves) are fake
2. Right: The two waves on the right side (when facing the waves) are fake
3. Center: The three waves in the middle are fake
4. Alternating Center: The second, fourth (center), and sixth waves are fake
5. Alternating Edge: The first (left edge), third, fifth, and seventh (right edge) waves are fake.

Hungering Vessels

Every 40 seconds, two Vessels will spawn in random locations in the room and immediately begin channeling Gorging Pool, which pulses for significant party-wide damage as well as creates a large slow zone around them.

These adds should be kicked or stopped immediately, as letting them channel for too long will result in a wipe. These Vessels immediately disappear when their cast is interrupted. The party should coordinate how they will rotate through their CC abilities to quickly deal with these adds.

Sinister Vessels

Every 25 seconds, a Vessel will spawn on each of the four sides of the boss room and begin casting Eradication on a player, which shoots a wide beam at that player when the cast finishes. Each player will have a Vessel casting on them, but will only take moderate damage from their own Eradication beam. However, if a player gets hit by another player's beam, they will be killed.

These casts can be kicked and stopped to reduce the chance that a player is killed, however preventing these vessel casts is not an absolute priority because each player can just move to make sure they are not standing in someone else's beam and no one else is standing in their beam. These Vessels also immediately disappear when their cast is interrupted.

Contrite and Discovered True Sight

Contrite and Discovered True Sight are the two tank-buster abilities. Contrite is a 6-second stacking debuff that increases damage taken by 20% per stack. The tank should be aware of how many stacks they currently have if they are going to be hit by an Eradication beam. Discovered True Sight is a channel that pulses heavy damage around the tank and can very easily kill other players if they and the tank are not careful about moving around each other during the channel. As such it is important to watch the ability timers for Discovered True Sight.

Maze Intermission: One True Path

At 70% and 50% health, the boss will immediately cancel all currently active mechanics and send all players to a corner of the room to begin the maze intermission. Each player will have a unique path to get to the opposite corner of the room, and must do so within 30 seconds. Players cannot use any abilities while moving across the room.

Each player will have a small dark circle around them, indicating that they will kill (and be killed by) any other player they touch while outside of the safe zones during this phase. The party should coordinate the order of who leaves the starting safe zone so you don't wipe from everyone stepping out at the same time.

There will be blood waves in the alternating configuration moving across the room throughout this phase, so you may have to stay still or back track to allow another player room to move forward or wait for a set of blood waves to pass.

Once a player reaches the safe zone, indicated by a golden dome at the opposite corner, they can use their abilities again and damage the boss floating above while waiting for the other players to catch up. The phase ends once all players reach the safe zone, but the tank should make sure to interact with the bowl right next to the safe zone to get Truesight Corruption again for the next regular phase before leaving the corner.

If at least one player fails to make it across within 30 seconds, then all players will gain a dispellable magic DOT that deals heavy damage. This is when mass dispel from Ancient Wardstone should be used if this ever happens.

Blood Sermon

Once the boss reaches 25% health, he will cast Blood Sermon, creating three large red runes in the center of the room. Each rune will have a different symbol above it, either a cross, eye, or sword. Whoever has Truesight will be able to see which of the three runes is the "correct" rune, initially glowing bright red. The correct number of players need to step into the rune, and then it will switch to glowing bright gold. If the correct number of players stand in the correct rune by the time the Blood Sermon cast ends, then all players will gain Truesight for the rest of the burn phase.

• Rune with Cross: All four players need to stand in the rune.
• Rune with Sword: One player needs to stand in the rune, everyone else should stay out of all runes.
• Rune with Eye: One player with Truesight Corruption needs to stand in the rune, everyone else should stay out of all runes.

The burn phase is the same as the regular phases, but with one more mechanic: Apotheosis will constantly spawn large dark cracks on the ground that explode for significant damage, potentially killing players. Players must be constantly aware of where they are standing so they do not get hit by these explosions, while also handling the other regular phase mechanics.

Hard

In addition to increased health and damage, there are two more mechanics on Hard difficulty.

Tired Eyes

Whoever has the Truesight Corruption debuff from interacting with one of the bowls will gain a stack of Tired Eyes every 2 seconds, increasing their damage taken by 1% per stack. Depending on how tanky the tank is and how much damage the DPS do, your party may be able to transition the boss out of each regular phase before the tank dies to gaining too many stacks of Tired Eyes.

If the tank is not able to survive letting Tired Eyes stack up really high, then you can let the tank go a set of waves without having Truesight Corruption. This can be accomplished using Humming Portalstone to have the entire part portal across a set of blood waves, or having a DPS or healer interact with a bowl to provide Truesight to the party for a single set of blood waves before switching back to the tank.

Lingering Eradication

Players hit by their Eradication beam will now gain Lingering Eradication, an 8-second dispellable magic DOT that deals moderate damage. In addition to the increased damage of Hard difficulty, this DOT makes getting hit by an Eradication beam very dangerous, and so defensives should be used when a player knows they are going to get hit by their beam.

Nightmare

This guide will be updated with mechanics and advice once we have more information on the Nightmare difficulty version of this fight.