Nightmare Coast: Shade of Akylios
Shade of Akylios
The Shadoe of Akylios (“Akylios”) is the second boss of the Nightmare Coast dungeon. He is found along the shore of Fortune’s Shore within Nightmare Tide.
Auto-Attack
Akylios has a 10k physical auto-attack that hits between ability casts (usually 3-4secs apart). Does around 15k to non-tanks if the tank loses aggro.
Waves of Madness
Large rows of red rectangles will appear in the encounter area constantly which shows where waves will appear. The red rectangles will also indicate which direction the wave will go and thus where the wave will appear. Getting hit deals 5k damage. Where the rows appear is random.
Deepsea Debris
Cast on a random player, Deepsea Debris is indicated be a very large, pulsing red AoE. After a few seconds, a large ice pillar will spawn with a blue AoE aura around it. This ice pillar will be used later on to hide against Crushing Tide.
Getting hit by Deepsea Debris (the red AoE) when the ice pillar lands will deal 7k fire damage and knock you back.
Beware of standing near the edges of the encounter as you might get knocked back by Deepsea Debris and then get stuck in the ice pillar.
Crushing Tide
Crushing Tide is a large, insta-kill ability if you do not avoid it. Akylios will emote “Akylios prepares to unleash the power of the sea. Hide!”. You get about 6-8 seconds to hide behind an ice pillar in the blue AoE; otherwise you will take approximately 60-80k damage.
Blighted Lesion
Akylios will cast Blighted Lesion on a random player (usually tank). This will spawn 3 tentacle adds that do around 3-5k water damage each. These are immobile, melee adds so if you stay away from them they won’t hurt you. They will also add a stacking 6-sec debuff that drains approx 1,500 mana every two seconds (and possibly energy for Rogues and Warriors) so healers will need to be particularly careful with avoiding these.
The Blighted Lesions will despawn after a short time.
Descend Into Madness
This is a stacking debuff that gets applied onto the tank with tooltip “Your mind is breaking.” The tank will get a large arrow above their head.
Green orbs will spawn on the ground that only the tank (or whoever has the debuff) can see. You need to get rid of the stacks of Descend Into Madness before the debuff runs out by running over the Green orbs or you will be mind controlled. [Thanks to Takame for the information on how this debuff works!]
As the fight progresses, Akylios’ abilities will come sooner and sooner with more and more Waves of Madness spawning.
Strategy – Shade of Akylios
Interrupt Not Necessary
Cleansing Not Necessary
- Deepsea Debris will be thrown at a random player’s location marked by a giant pulsing red AoE. Get out of the AoE asap or you take considerable damage and will be knocked back. An ice pillar will spawn with a small blue AoE. This is used to protect you against Crushing Tide.
- When Akylios emotes “Akylios prepares to unleash the power of the sea. Hide!”, you need to run behind an ice pillar and inside the blue AoE until the Crushing Tide moves past you.
- Red rectangles going from Left to Right and Right to Left will appear throughout the encounter, starting with two at a time. These indicate that waves will appear. Dodge the waves. They deal 5k damage per hit. As the fight progresses, more and more waves will appear in shorter and shorter amounts of time.
- Akylios casts Blighted Lesion at a random player, which spawns 3 immobile, melee tentacles that deal 3-5k damage each. They also add a stacking, 6sec debuff to players who are hit that steals 1,500 mana every 2 seconds. Healers stay well away from these things.
Tank-specific
- Tank boss.
- No interrupt necessary.
- You will get a “Descend Into Madness” debuff throughout the fight. Green orbs will spawn that only those with the debuff can see. Run over them to reduce stacks of Descend Into Madness. If the debuff counts down to 0 you will be mind controlled.
Healer-specific
- No cleanse required.
- Avoid Blighted Lesions (tentacles) at all costs.
- If you have an ability that can apply a runspeed buff to a target (like Cleric Sentinel’s ‘Urgency’ ability), use it whenever the tank gets the large arrow on his/her head to help them with running over the 5x green orbs in time. Sometimes they can be quite far apart from each other.
DPS-specific
- No interrupt necessary.
- Try to alternate between middle and back ‘lanes’ so you have multiple places where the ice pillar can spawn. This will prevent you from being in a situation where you’re trying to hide from Crushing Tide and end up getting hit by Waves of Madness.
You can check out the other bosses below:
You can also find other useful information related to the Nightmare Coast dungeon below:
Descent Into Madness is a stack of debuffs that start at five. If the stack isn’t gone before the debuff expires, the tank will be MCed. This can be troublesome because the boss won’t attack the tank during the MC and the tank might pull a player from behind a chunk of debris, making them get hit by Crushing Tide.
The way to counter that debuff is to collect five green orbs. What green orbs, you ask me? When the Descent Into Madness is cast (or shortly after), lots of green orbs will appear on ground. Only the tank is able to see and interact with them though; The rest of the group won’t see them. The tank simply has to run into five of these green orbs, and he won’t be MCed.
Also, the damage from Blighted Lesions can actually be LoS’ed. If they target the tank and the tank LoS’es them behind a piece of debris (the same you use to LoS Crushing Tide), they won’t be able to attack. They won’t switch targets either so they just get stuck.
Thanks for the info Takame! Updated the guide. Didn’t know about those orbs since I’ve never received the debuff.