Greetings, adventurers! Librarian Husky here, ready to help you tackle your next challenge. This guide provides a step-by-step process to soloing the normal version of Zeier, the big bad delve boss, for beginners. If you’ve unlocked the encounter but struggle to defeat the boss, this guide offers tips to help you improve. Clearing a tier eight delve with lives remaining unlocks this encounter, and we’ll cover the basics of how to approach it successfully.

Unlocking the Encounter

To unlock the encounter, you must clear a tier eight delve with lives remaining. A harder version of Zeier becomes available once you’ve cleared a tier 10 delve, though this guide will focus on the normal version. I’ll update with details on the harder version once I conquer it myself.

When to Attempt Zeier

You can try this encounter as soon as you unlock it. Clearing a tier eight delve shows that you can handle essential mechanics like proper pulls, line of sight, and boss management. Zeier’s fight involves a rotation of abilities, debuffs to manage, and a damage check, which will test your readiness.

Preparing for the Fight

Overwhelmed by overlapping mechanics and abilities? To prepare for the fight, consider bringing along consumables and helpful buffs, and utilize a specialization focused on high burst damage within a short period of time. Potions, though pricey, as well as hearty food and flasks that last for an hour, are valuable assets for this encounter.

Consumables and Buffs

Potions, flasks, and hearty food provide extra stats and ensure that you get many attempts while learning the fight. Certain stat enchants can also be helpful. You can filter by the current expansion on the auction house to find relevant enchants. Speed enchants are particularly useful for increasing run speed.

Drums and Specialization Tips

Drums, or budget blood lust, can greatly increase attack and casting speeds, but you might want to save them for later attempts when you’re more comfortable with the encounter. Item level is crucial for success: the more gear you have, the faster the boss and adds go down.

Final Thoughts on Specialization

Your specialization choice should focus on your ability to handle the encounter efficiently. While gear helps, your talent choices, particularly those that boost speed, can be key to a smoother experience.

Choosing the Right Specialization

If you’re a DPS character, it’s recommended to spec Bran as a healer since he provides cleanses, temporary immunities, and healing during the encounter. If you’re healing or tanking, spec Bran as DPS to help manage damage, as you can handle other mechanics on your own.

Curios for the Encounter

For combat curios, stick mostly to passives. Use the Porcelain Arrowhead if you want to deal more damage and Earth Mother for survivability. Under utility curios, the Amorphous Relic is ideal for throughput, and the Relic of Ascension is useful if spec’d as a healer.

Leveling Bran

Just like with gear, Bran’s level increases his damage and survivability. Keep his levels up by running as high a delve level as you can while it’s Bountiful. You can use alts to power him up as well, without needing bountiful keys.

Mechanics and Abilities Overview

The fundamentals of this encounter remain the same, regardless of your class or spec. From a DPS perspective, you’ll encounter a rotation of abilities, though not always in a consistent order. For example, Angler’s Web is a line attack that you can sidestep, or else it will pull you in and slow you if you survive. Sometimes this is followed by Claw Smash.

Key Mechanics to Avoid

The boss uses a long-range cone AOE that can instantly kill you without a massive defensive cooldown or immunity. However, it’s best to avoid this ability entirely rather than relying on cooldowns. Additionally, Horrendous Roar creates a circle around the boss. After a short cast, it will deal damage and fear anyone inside the circle, affecting both you and Bran.

Positioning and Movement

As a melee player, avoid standing too close to the boss to ensure you have enough time to run out of Horrendous Roar’s range. Ranged players should position themselves outside the minimum range but stay close enough to react quickly to abilities like Claw Smash.

Interrupting Abilities

Infeling Spittle is a cast that applies a damage-over-time effect and a slow debuff. You’ll need to interrupt this ability every time. Ensure your class is spec’d for interrupts, as this is crucial in the encounter. If Spittle lands and Bran doesn’t cleanse you in time, be ready to cleanse yourself.

Managing Cleanses

If Bran doesn’t cleanse the debuff after a tick or two, you’ll need to cleanse it manually. Always have abilities ready to deal with this scenario, as it can significantly impact your survivability.

Handling Web Terror and Egg Summons

During the fight, Zeir will cast Web Terror, summoning an egg with high health. If not destroyed within 15 seconds, the egg will hatch into an ad. The ad’s health depends on the egg’s remaining health, and it will cast Web Blast, a high-damage ability that stuns you for six seconds if not interrupted. The best strategy is to kill the egg before it hatches to avoid the ad entirely.

Managing Boss Abilities

The boss alternates abilities between several melee swings, starting right at the pull. Prepare to take immediate damage, and healer Bran will drop potions for quick pickups. Pet classes should prioritize these potions as they restore both your and your pet’s health. The boss will rotate between Claw Smash, Angler’s Web, and Horrendous Roar, though never repeating the same ability twice in a row.

Dealing with Infeling Spittle

At mostly set intervals, the boss will cast Infeling Spittle, a cooldown-based ability depending on your class and spec. Ideally, you should interrupt it, but be prepared to cleanse it immediately if Bran doesn’t do so first. Make sure you’re always ready to handle this key mechanic to avoid the damage over time and slow effects.

Final Thoughts on Web Tear

Approximately every 40 seconds, the boss will cast Web Tear, summoning another egg. As with the first egg, focus on destroying it before it hatches. Failure to do so can lead to additional adds, making the encounter significantly more challenging.

Dealing with the Egg: DPS Check

When the egg spawns, it’s essentially a DPS check: can you deal enough damage to kill it before the cast is complete? Save your DPS cooldowns for this moment, as letting the egg hatch will slow the fight significantly. You’ll need to use interrupts, stuns, and crowd control to prevent the ad from casting while you’re still managing other mechanics like debuffs, shock waves, and AOE fear.

Handling Egg Placement

One of the main frustrations with the egg comes from its inconsistent placement. The visual indicator can be hard to see, and the egg might spawn anywhere from directly under the boss to across the room. This randomness can make it difficult to keep track of the boss’s attacks, forcing you to choose between chasing the egg or avoiding the boss’s shock wave.

Challenges for Melee and Ranged DPS

Melee DPS will face the most issues due to the egg’s random spawn locations and the need to move the boss carefully. While you’re slowly moving him, the boss could cast spittle or an AOE, making it harder to deal consistent damage to the egg. Ranged DPS, on the other hand, will have an easier time, as they can position themselves at around 20 yards and still avoid the boss’s AOE while handling the egg.

Luck and Improvisation

Ultimately, a lot of this fight comes down to both luck and improvisation. If the egg spawns in a manageable location, you’ll have an easier time. However, if the placement is poor or random attacks occur at the wrong time, you’ll need to rely on quick thinking and flexibility to adapt.

Improvising During the Encounter

When the boss’s cast order isn’t ideal, there’s room to improvise. Utilize your defenses, immunities, and stuns, though stuns will only work on the ad after it hatches. If the egg hatches too frequently, consider coming back with better gear. While min-maxing stats isn’t necessary at this level, focusing on burst damage through trinket and talent choices will help.

Navigating the Environment

Be careful when moving around the elevated ramp in the area. There are tricky spots where your character can get stuck while navigating up or down, which can be fatal if you’re trying to avoid an AOE. Additionally, the boss’s shock wave isn’t visually apparent on this elevation, but it will still hit you, so stay cautious.

Avoiding AOE and Maintaining DPS

Here’s a useful trick: you can move out of an AOE while still firing off abilities. Jump in the direction you want to escape, using your mouse to slightly turn your character towards the boss. This allows you to continue using abilities while keeping distance. It’s a small maneuver, but it can make a big difference in maintaining your DPS while staying safe.

Using Jumping and Strafing for Evasion

When facing the opposite direction, the game acknowledges your location through your jump, allowing you to avoid AOE attacks without needing to be directly facing your target. It’s enough for the game to register that you’re looking towards the boss. This is often paired with strafing, running sideways at an angle while aiming at your target. By adding jumping, you enhance this maneuver, acting as an evasive technique.

Mastering Movement in Combat

If you’ve been kiting enemies—keeping your distance while strafing and using abilities—then this tactic is likely familiar. It’s especially important when running from AOE fears and shock waves in this fight. However, practice remains your most important asset in mastering this encounter, as there are many variables based on class, spec, and shifting boss patterns.

The Importance of Class Tools in Delves

Delves reintroduce an older style of PvE combat from WoW, with tougher enemies that require careful use of class tools. This helps you control pulls and shift the battlefield in your favor. Zeir, the boss in this encounter, might not be as intense as Mage Tower challenges, but it teaches key lessons about damage checks, self-preservation, and improvisation when things inevitably go wrong. And they will.

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