What this page is
The Wowutils plan for Nek'zali the Soulcoiler: Guide for how to approach Cooldown Planning, and the jobs covered in the assignment planner. It is assumed that you already know the basics of the fight. For full boss guides, see the links in Full mechanics.
It covers
- CD Planning and Personal Defensives
- The Wowutils Assignments
- Raid-night quick reference
It skips
- Basic boss strategy
- Tank/Dps stuff
- The stuff other guides already cover
Nek'zali runs three stages: Stage One, the Ritual of Awakening with its two Echoes of Jawae, and Stage Two to the kill. Rot ticks on the whole raid from pull to kill: the Rite stacks, corpse rot from every add pack that dies, and the Drowned Echo in the well. The hits land on top of it and pile up on the second Possession Barrage of each boss stage. Stage Two gets heavier toward the kill as its Drowned Echo keeps climbing.
- 1Stage One (0:00): The Rite on the pull, the first Barrage at 0:36 and the first Drowned Echo in the well at 0:43. Corpse rot, the second Barrage at 1:12 and the second Rite at 1:17 then land on the Echo's climbing ticks, the heaviest stretch of the stage.
- 2Ritual of Awakening: Nek'zali channels and raises two Echoes of Jawae, one after the other. Each Echo's Pyre is soaked by half the raid while flames chase the other half. Light until the second Echo's first Pyre, then heavy to the end of the stage.
- 3Stage Two: Uncoiling pulses the raid from the start and every Invoke adds to the Rite. The Drowned Echo that rises after the first Invoke climbs until the kill, so the two Barrages and the final stretch are the hardest part of the fight.
The Rite stacks, the corpse rot and the Drowned Echo in the well tick on the whole raid through most of the fight. Together they are most of the damage and can spike quite high, so steady throughput matters more here than on most bosses.
The second Possession Barrage of each boss stage lands on the most rot and takes the raid DR, Stage Two's the most of the fight. In the Ritual, the second Echo's first Hungering Pyre is the heavy moment.
The Ritual of Awakening forces near constant movement. Cooldowns spent there need to work while moving, channelled or stand still cooldowns are a bad fit. Raid movement cooldowns go on the start of the Ritual, each Echo's arrival and the first pull toward the well.
Personal defensives
Ability timeline
Your Cooldown Plan
Nek'zali fires a barrage of ghosts at the active tank, who runs away from the raid. Each ghost bursts on the whole raid, less the farther it travels, and anyone standing in the line sets them off early for far more damage.
- Stage One: the first lands while the pull Rite is still ticking, and healing cooldowns carry it. The second lands on corpse rot and the climbing Drowned Echo, 5 seconds before the second Rite: raid DR on the Barrage, then healing cooldowns spread through the Rite after it.
- Stage Two: the first lands on a corpse rot window with the Drowned Echo climbing and takes a DR and a healing cooldown. The second lands on even more of the Echo and is the hardest moment of the fight. Stack raid DR there.
- Plan for two per boss stage. A third means the stage ran long, with the big cooldowns already spent.
- The rot means the raid is rarely topped when one lands, so cover it rather than react to it.
Each Echo of Jawae erupts on the active tank during the Ritual. The hit is split among the players soaking it, and flames seek out everyone who did not soak, ticking on them and then exploding. Both halves of the raid take damage from every Pyre.
The first Echo's first Pyre lands in a light stretch and a short cooldown carries it.
The second Echo's lands with corpse rot and the Drowned Echo already ticking, and corpses the flames missed are repossessed soon after and pulse the whole raid. That makes the tail of the Ritual its heaviest part.
Each Echo's later Pyre on the timeline only comes if that Echo lives long.
Favor cooldowns that are instant or usable while moving, channelled or stand still cooldowns are a bad fit here.
Nek'zali stirs the well and stacks the Rite on the whole raid over four seconds: a hit with each stack, then about 45 seconds of ticking. Each Rite also adds a Burn stack that makes the next one hit harder for a minute. In Stage One it comes on the pull and about every 75 seconds after. In Stage Two each Invoke adds one more stack, far lighter than a Stage One Rite.
The first seconds of each Stage One Rite hit hardest, while the stacks land. The pull Rite lands on a full raid with opening cooldowns, and the second sits inside the second Barrage window and is covered by its plan.
A third Stage One Rite means the push ran long, and the boss is close to her enrage.
There is basically always rot damage running between the Rites and the Corpse Blight, so leftovers are never wasted.
A Drowned Echo awakens in the well and, until it dies, ticks on the whole raid every second, harder the longer it lives, and keeps pulling everyone toward the well. A squad goes down to interrupt and kill it. Leaving the well marks them to take more damage there for a minute, so squads rotate.
In Stage One and the Ritual the ticks climb for close to a minute before the squad kills the Echo, so a slow squad makes the second Barrage of Stage One much heavier.
In Stage Two the Echo after the first Invoke keeps climbing until the kill, under both Barrages, and the final stretch is the heaviest of the fight. Spend whatever is left there.
The squad in the well has one healer and is apart from the raid. If its damage is tuned hard, set aside one healing cooldown for it. It has to be strong for a group of around five players and usable under forced movement.
Other boss mechanics
Essence RendDebuffs, MovementPlayer debuffs with forced movement. Healing follows the debuffed players, nothing to plan. Dispel only once a player reaches the edge of the room, where the puddle should land.
Corpse BlightRaid DOT, Raid DamageEvery add pack that dies erupts on the whole raid and leaves a stacking rot that ticks for about 20 to 30 seconds. It can spike quite high when a pack dies at once, so being topped before the planned hits matters. Leftover cooldowns are well spent into it.
UncoilingRaid DOT, Ramping RotStage Two's rot, a steady pulse on the whole raid until the kill. The ramp toward the end of the phase comes from the Drowned Echo on top of it.
InvokeAdd SpawnStage Two's Rite cast, which also moves the Essence Rend puddles. Mythic: it interrupts anyone casting as it goes off and silences them for 3 seconds, so start channelled cooldowns right after an Invoke, never just before one.
Ritual of AwakeningPhase ChangeNek'zali channels the Ritual at half health and raises two Echoes of Jawae, the second once the first dies. The intermission lasts until the second Echo is dead.
see Assignments →The jobs we settle on for Nek'zali the Soulcoiler, and the reasoning behind each. Slot players on the planner; this page is the why.
Two groups take turns diving into the Soulcoil Well to kill the Drowned Echo that Grasping Depths awakens. Coming back up leaves 60 seconds of Soul Exhaustion, so the same two groups alternate all fight and nobody dives twice in a row.
Each cue fires 5 seconds after the well opens, which is when kills actually send people down.
Actual time for entering can vary, but we have set the most common time. You can adjust the timer with the config of each row of assigned people.
Kills send 5 players down per dive, so list about five per group even though the rows hold more.
We deliberately don't re-teach the pull here. For first-timers, exact add pathing, and the complete ability list, these cover it better than we would.
A mechanics video for this boss is coming soon.
Hand-picked sources for this boss are coming soon.