While dealing with all of this, Variss will cast Mind Rend, a decently heavy magic nuke, and will occasionally cast Drain Life, which does decent damage and heals him.
They only banish and reactivate when “killed” and serve to hit you with Smash, a frontal-line knockback that can launch you off the platform, but which weakens in effect the more damage they have taken (represented by their physical size). The Nether Fiends spawn 4 at a time regularly, stacking a debuff that increases arcane damage taken, and for some specs, using an ability called Netherstorm, a channeled cast that deals substantial Arcane damage and synergizes far too well with the debuff. They have tiny amounts of health, so they are typically either killed via ranged abilities, or for Prot Warriors, used to build rage for Ignore Pain and killing blows for Victory Rush. If they channel to completion and you are not facing them, they will send you flying. He spawns 3 types of adds – Tormenting Eyes, which engage you with a beam that requires you face them. Most specs get a similarly sized aura, except Guardian Druids, whose aura is probably over 2 times the size (to prevent ranged Thrash and Swipe from being able to hit at the edge – although the right legendary loadout can fix this and make Phase 1 comically easy). It forces you to spend some time in this phase, as you are limited by the amount of ranged DPS you can do and the effect of any DoTs you can put on the boss for the limited melee engagement time you are able to eke out. Fun! Variss has an Aura of Decay around him that reduces your max health and stacks indefinitely, meaning you can eventually whittle your own max health to nothing, and self-healing will do little to save you from this. For the other specs, if you get popped by these, you’re done unless you have a Goblin Glider on-hand. For some specs (Vengeance, Brewmaster, Protection Warrior) this is almost too easy, as your movement mechanics allow you to purposefully cheese through them, particularly for Vengeance. The first phase is a positioning-heavy fight, requiring you to be aware of your position and facing for two different knockback mechanics designed to end the fight if you fail by sending you flying off into space. The core beats of the fight, for those without a tank, are pretty simple. For my alts, they ranged from 915-933 average item level, and usually between 60-66 points into their tanking artifacts, with the appropriate Netherlight Crucible traits unlocked. I did Vengeance as my very first successful challenge, dying at 0.5% health on Kruul, which thankfully the useless NPCs managed to damage before they died. Prot Warrior was 70 pulls, Guardian Druid was 30, and the others were all just under 20. The majority were spent on my Demon Hunter, my first kill, at near 100. Across all six tank specs, I probably put in just around 300 total pulls to get all six appearance unlocks. While they all get the same basic encounter – Highlord Kruul as the main event with Inquisitor Variss holding down the first phase, the fight is, in many cases, drastically different depending on the class you are using. The tank challenges are fascinating, and I did use the plural purposefully. So I can start writing a new series, because I have finished not one, but two entire role’s artifact challenges.
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