Bosses with their own decks: cycle, cold, test strikes

Bosses with their own decks — this is how every dungeon, raid and world boss plays now. Each of the 166 bosses has its own deck: a boss no longer draws from a shared pool, and it has no Onslaught and no generic party-wide strike. It goes round its own cards — and you can learn the fight.

Where bosses play like this

• All 166 dungeon, raid and world bosses: normal mode (in dungeons below level 60 — at the place’s level), heroic raids and dungeons, mythic raids, world bosses and Mythic+ keystones.
• A guide to every boss — phases, the turn cycle, every card with its numbers by mode and tips for the tank, healer and damage dealers — is in How to beat; every mechanic in detail — Boss mechanics. Wave guards and open-world enemies play as before — Boss fights.
• In normal mode there is no cold, no test strikes and no “no tank — through shields” rule: a party without a healer can clear it.
• Heroic, mythic and keystones are built for a party with a tank and a healer: without them the fight cannot be won. A world resident can be the tank or the healer; on mythic, a mercenary.

The boss cycle

• There is no randomness: every turn the boss plays the next line of its cycle. Each phase has its own cycle.
• The phase changes with the boss’s Health — the threshold is written by the phase (“from the start of the fight down to 70% Health”). On entering a phase the boss may play a card at once.
• Strong cards are charges: the boss announces a hit one or two turns ahead. Some charges can be interrupted: during the countdown take off the share of the boss’s Health written in the card tooltip (“Take 5% of its Health and there will be no hit”).
• All of a boss’s phases, its turn cycle and every card with its numbers and how to answer it are in the “How to beat” window at the boss and in the How to beat section here, with tips for the tank, healer and damage dealers.

What you see in combat

• The boss portrait shows its next turn (“Next turn: …”) or a charge countdown (“⚡ … · in 2”); one turn before the hit the countdown turns red.
• Above your hand — a warning one turn before a heavy hit: what is coming and how to answer.
• The boss card tooltip — school, what the card does and how much it takes from you: “Hit on you: about N” — already after your Hardiness and stance.
• Icons on the boss (cold, timed shield) and on you (marks, stacks) — with a tooltip and numbers.
• When a charge fires, large text appears on the board.

Card schools

Every boss card has a school with an icon. It hints at how to answer; it is not a resistance — there is no protection against schools.

Cold

On heroic, mythic and in keystones every boss has its own cold, with its own name (“That Very Winter” for Onyxara).

• Every enemy turn cold hits every fighter in the party for the same number, through shields. Hardiness reduces it — so better-geared heroes take less.
• The number is set per boss and per mode. For example, for Onyxara, the Black Sovereign: 1,060 to each before Hardiness on mythic, 600 on heroic.
• In keystones at +10 cold is about a sixth weaker than on the same dungeon's heroic; from +7 it is the same as at +10, below +7 it is weaker.
• There is no cold in normal mode.
• Whether a boss has cold and how much it takes is shown in the “How to beat” window and on the ❄ icon on the boss in combat (“You take about N per turn”).
• The answer is healing every turn: shields do not stop cold. Healer cards handle it best — they heal Health only.

Test strike

Once or twice per fight (on heroic, mythic and in keystones) the boss hits very hard on whoever has its attention — usually the tank.

• One turn before the hit there is a countdown on the portrait and a warning above your hand naming the target. You have one turn to answer.
• On heroic, while the party’s tank is alive — a resident or a player — the hit goes to it, even if the boss’s attention is on someone else right now. On mythic and in keystones it goes to whoever has its attention.
• The answer: whoever is targeted plays a defensive card on themselves — a shield on self, damage reduction or “cannot be killed”. Then the hit is 40% weaker. Once the answer counts, the warning says so: “Your defensive card counts”. A card another fighter plays on the target does not count.
• Shields do not stop this hit: the healer raises the tank’s Health in advance.
• The strength is one number for all tanks: 9,000 before Hardiness on mythic, 7,000 on heroic, 8,000 in a keystone from +7 to +10 (weaker below +7). Which boss turns it comes on is written in the “How to beat” window.

Shields against a deck boss

• Cold and test strikes go past shields — against them you need Health.
• Hits on everyone, charges and chains are held by shields by half: the shield takes half the hit, the rest goes to Health. That goes for healers’ shields too, and for overhealing that turns into a shield.
• Ordinary hits on a target are held by the shield in full.
• The boss card’s hint says how a shield meets its hit, and shield cards in such a fight carry the line “Cold and test strikes go past shields; hits on everyone and charges — half”.

No tank — through shields

On heroic, mythic and in keystones, if the party has no living tank (it fell or there was none), the boss’s hits on whoever has its attention go through shields. The combat log says: “No living tank in the party: the hit goes through shields”. A resident tank counts as a tank. There is no such rule in normal mode.

Hit and turn caps

On normal difficulty (dungeons, raids and world bosses, levels 1–60, parties of 3 and 5) the caps apply: one hit takes no more than 59% of a fighter’s Health, a whole enemy turn no more than 75% (a tank without stance 80% and 90%, a live tank in Tank Mode 60% per turn). The “window to heal” and “control and a heavy hit never share a turn” apply with them, and the Health bar shows the safe line.

On heroic, mythic and in keystones there are no general caps: “no more than 59% of Health per hit”, “75% per turn”, the “window to heal”, “control and a heavy hit never share a turn” and Tank Holds the Line do not apply in this fight. Charges and test strikes with a warning take their place. There is no safe line on the Health bar in such a fight.

The tank’s Defender’s Stance and Last Bastion work as usual. The card tooltip tells you how much a hit will take — on normal difficulty with the cap already applied.

Enrage

• Mythic: from the 22nd party turn every boss turn is 25% stronger, and the stacks build up. Onyxara on mythic starts from the 28th turn: her fight is longer.
• Heroic: from the 40th turn — 8% for each boss turn.
• In normal mode and in keystones — as before: enrage starts if the fight drags on longer than it was built for.

Other boss cards

• A minion with a task: it empowers the boss, heals it, explodes if it survives, or covers the boss (less damage to the boss while it lives). Kill those first. There are also “avengers”: for each one killed the boss grows stronger until the fight ends — there is no point killing them.
• Timed shield: a shield for a few turns; its number is set per boss and per mode and shown in the card tooltip. Fail to break it and the next card follows, often a hit on everyone.
• Self-heal: a prayer, a meal, a burned card — the boss heals itself by a number set per mode, also shown in the tooltip. If the heal charges over a few turns, you can break it: take a share of the boss’s Health during those turns.
• Window: for a while damage to the boss is higher — save your strong cards for that turn. Guard is the opposite: damage to it is lower.
• Mark: the boss marks a fighter, and a few turns later hits them. A cleanse removes some marks.
• Stacks and blight: hits cut the target’s healing, sometimes to zero — the healer needs shields.
• Chain: the hit jumps between fighters, each one stronger.
• Crystal penalty: every unspent crystal hits its owner — spend everything.
• Swallow: a fighter cannot act or be healed for a few turns and takes damage; take off a share of the boss’s Health and it spits them out sooner.
• Boss question (“One Question” and others): the target chooses in a window before their turn ends — give up a card (it is gone until the fight ends, but until the end of the turn everyone hits the boss harder) or stay silent (a heavy hit on them at the start of the enemy turn). No answer counts as silence. For some bosses every card given up strengthens their hit on everyone — the window says so.

Residents in these fights

• Residents and mercenaries answer the boss’s question and the test strike by themselves, kill minions with a task first and remove poisons.
• A healer run by the game (a resident or a mercenary) is tougher and heals more: Health ×1.5, healing on allies ×1.5, and plays healer cards. Its icon is “Party Healer”.

Mythic — with food and potions

Mythic fights are built for a party that has eaten (Well Fed) and drinks potions — one of each kind per fight. Without them even a strong party almost always loses. How consumables work — Consumables in combat.

Hardiness cap — 65%

In fights against creatures the Hardiness cap is raised from 54 to 65% (570 points). Resilience stays at 54%. More in Hero stats.