Hello everyone!
TLDR: Fight is extremely hard but tuned to be doable in delve gear for dps, however the inconsistent spell queueing and reliance on brann’s abilities makes some parts of the fight super RNG and annoying. Tanks and healers need a tailored version of the encounter.
There’s been a lot of discussion recently about Zekvir, both on ? and ?? difficulty, following the changes to Brann. I, like many, was concerned about the difficulty of the finale of delves for season 1 and if it would even be possible. Now that I’ve done it I wanted to talk about how the fight plays out, as well as give feedback on the encounter itself as I want to see it be improved.
Differences between Zekvir ? and ??
- The fight has significantly more health. 195m compared to the 85m~ of ?
- The eggs have significantly more health, roughly 11m
- The eggs recover 50% of their hp when they turn into spiders if they aren’t killed in time
- Zekvir has a second kickable cast. A heal which recovers 10% of his HP
- Every avoidable mechanic 1 shots
- Zekvir has a Phase 2, in which he gains 1 new ability and all of his current ones are empowered.
Zekvir Phase 2
In phase 2 Zekvir keeps all his phase 1 mechanics, gains one extra one, and some of his phase 1 mechanics are empowered.
- The eggs remain the same, however their cadence increases slightly
- The fear now shoot orbs out of the boss at 90 degree angles that have to be dodged
- Before angler’s web, Zekvir spawns portals that the web will travel between. Being hit has the same effect as it does in P1 (Death). As long as you get far away from where he spawns the portals you should be fine.
- The heal now recovers 25% of his HP, as opposed to 10%.
- The claw attack and enfeebling spittle remain the same
- Zekvir has a new ability, in which he stands still and channels to cause spikes to erupt from the ground in sequence that you have to dodge.
Strategy
For dps specs the fight feels tuned around 615 ilvl. Maybe a bit more or less depending how bursty the dps spec you play is. I was 617 as a Shadow Priest, the confirmed Fury Warrior kill was closer to 610.
- The eggs are the primary danger on hard mode. You need to plan your cooldowns around how to kill each one every 30 seconds.
- Interrupt the heal every 40~ seconds.
- Have some way to remove the spittle, or kick it as a priority over the heal if you have no other choice.
- Dodge dodge dodge. The fear can be ran out of from melee range if you move quickly, the claw smash can only be dodged if you’re within 10 yards of the boss due to its cone shape unless you have a displacement ability. For this reason as a caster you want to try to play around 5-8 yards from Zekvir at all times.
- Grind it down. The fight has no enrage and the DPS check is just the eggs. If you can assign your cooldowns in a way that you get the first one back on the egg after you use the last one you can theoretically play the fight forever.
- Assign brann as a healer, and use the Porcelain Arrowhead and Amorphous Relic Curios. Brann will not really be helping you to kill Zekvir or the eggs with any degree of consistency, but at least for me he was able to keep me alive through Zekvir’s Melee attacks.
- Once you have planned everything out and are able to kill the eggs, speed is the most important thing to seek out. I used movement speed gem and speed food to get to around 120% base movement speed. The timing for dodging is very tight.
Problems
Whilst practicing, I came across a number of problems with the encounter.
- Brann’s kick and dispel were extremely inconsistent and not a viable option to remove / kick the spittle cast. This makes the fight significantly harder / more RNG for specs that don’t have both an interrupt and the ability to remove slows.
- The boss spell queueing was inconsistent, making it extremely hard to tell what was coming next or plan things out. Needing to dps the egg at an angle to deal with claw smash without losing uptime, only to have the boss cast fear instead and trap you against the wall.
- In phase 2, the spell queueing was bad enough that it sometimes caused the egg spawn to come 3-4 seconds early, desyncing it from cooldowns and causing wipes.
- The fight as it’s designed is not possible for a tank or healer, their damage is simply too low to beat the dps check.
Suggestions
- Fix the spell queueing so the fight is at least consistent with the timing of its major mechanics. Especially in Phase 2.
- Add an option for Brann’s Interrupt / Dispel to be a player controlled extra action button, instead of automatic. This would stop situations where Brann kicks / dispels something you otherwise could have handled, leaving you dead to the next one you were relying on him for.
- This fight needs at bare minimum custom tuning for healer and tank specs.
Conclusion
One of my major worries with the Zekvir encounter was that it would be tuned such that those who only do delves would not be able to complete it, needing average ilvls far above the 616-620 range Delve only players will cap out at. I am happy to say that with items between 610 and 619 ilvl, and a 636 crafted weapon (Long term possible but probably also unnecessary) I was able to defeat it, meaning the fight is at least tuned appropriately to be an extreme challenge for exclusively delve gamers later on in the season.
However, whilst the tuning is fine, there are some major issues with the design of the fight requiring tools some specs don’t have, and Brann does not himself provide those tools consistently enough to make the fight feel fair or enjoyable on those specs.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed progressing Zekvir this week, I know as a Mythic raider I’m going to outgear it in a few weeks. As are many who enjoy heroic raids and mythic+ as crests cap out and players see more and more weekly vaults. That’s fine by me, as for those who only do Delves the fight is within their reach.
If you play a spec that for one reason or another does not have the tools to complete the encounter, that’s a problem, and I fully hope Blizzard make the changes necessary to either Brann or the fight itself to make it doable.
Best of luck to everyone getting into the gear ranges where they feel comfortable giving it a go in the coming weeks, and Blizzard please learn from this to make sure future Delve end bosses are challenging in ways that feel fair and accessible to all specs.
Ellipsis…
