Will of the Emperor

[Perspicacia]

The Will of the Emperor encounter is a two-phase fight that needs to be activated by interacting with the control panel located next to the fighting area. After the activation, you have to wait for 25 seconds before the fight really starts.

Phase One lasts for the first 90 seconds of the fight. During this time, your raid will have to handle three different types of adds.

Phase Two begins after 90 seconds, when the two bosses of the encounter, Jan-xi and Qin-xi, become active. The adds from Phase One will continue to spawn until the end of the fight.

Jan-xi and Qin-xi have a shared health pool, and the fight ends with their death.

The main difficulties are dealing with the adds, and successfully avoiding Jan-xi and Qin-xi's abilities.

Phase One
During Phase One, your raid will have to handle three different types of adds, for 90 seconds. A new wave of adds spawns every 15 seconds.

After 90 seconds, the phase ends, and the two main bosses become available. Keep in mind that Phase Two is merely an extension of Phase One, and the adds from Phase One will continue to spawn, in the same way, until the end of the fight.

Emperor's Rage spawn from the central alcoves. Their only ability is Focused which causes them to fixate on a random raid member, and do nothing except walk towards that target. Upon reaching their target, they perform mildly damaging attacks against them.

Emperor's Rage adds can be killed, slowed, stunned, and they are generally susceptible to all forms of crowd control.

Emperor's Courage spawn from alcoves located at the sides of the arena. Their only ability is Focused Defence, which causes them to fixate on one of your raid's tanks, and do nothing except walk towards that target. Upon reaching their target, they hit them with Impeding Thrust.

Impeding Thrust is a damaging attack which stacks a debuff on the target, slowing their movement speed by 25% for 10 seconds, per stack. At 4 stacks, the target is unable to move.

Emperor's Courage adds can be killed, but they can only be damaged when attacked from behind. They can be slowed, but other forms of crowd control do not work against them.

Emperor's Strength spawn from alcoves located half-way between the centre and the sides of the arena. They have normal threat tables, but do not melee their main aggro target. They regularly cast Energizing Smash.

Energizing Smash causes the add to hit the ground in front of them, dealing a high amount of Physical damage in 10-yard radius around the impact location, and stunning all affected targets. With each Energizing Smash, the 10-yard radius increases by 1 yard. Energizing Smash is cast about once every 7 seconds.

Emperor's Strength adds can be killed, but they are immune to all forms of crowd control.

Strategy
The raid will have to contend with all of the adds that spawn during this phase. Your goal is to have as many of the adds as possible killed (ideally all) by the time the phase ends.

The priority for killing the adds should be:
Emperor's Courage;
Emperor's Strength;
Emperor's Rage.

Emperor's Courage

These adds are the top priority at all times. They must be killed before they reach the tank that they have fixated on. The tanks will also have to move away from these adds if they get too close.

They have low health, but they must be damaged from behind.
Ideally, all casters should move next to the alcove from where they will spawn, so that as soon as the add spawns, it is possible to attack it from behind.
They are susceptible to slows, and this is something you should aim to keep up on them.

Emperor's Strength

Emperor's Strength are next in order of priority. While the tanks can pick these adds up, they can also easily be handled by melee DPS. It is important to kill them before the radius of their Energizing Smash increases so much that it is impossible for it to be avoided.

They should simply be nuked down when no Emperor's Courage are up.

Emperor's Rage

These adds are the least harmful. Players on whom they fixate should be careful to move away from them until the adds are killed.

Since they are susceptible to all forms of crowd-control, your raid should make ample use of stuns and slows to keep them in check until they can be killed.

Phase Two
Phase Two starts 90 seconds after the start of the encounter. This is marked by the two bosses, Jan-xi and Qin-xi, entering the fight (from central alcoves). All the adds from Phase One will continue to spawn and behave exactly as described above.

The phase ends with the death of the two bosses, who share a health pool.

The two bosses, Jan-xi and Qin-xi, share the same abilities. They each have an Energy bar, with a maximum capacity of 20. Their energy increases over time, at a rate of 1 Energy per second, completely independent of any player action. The two bosses' Energy bars are synchronized.

When the bosses reach maximum Energy, they each perform a Devastating Combo. A Devastating Combo is a series of 5 attacks, used over a period of 15 seconds, during which time the bosses no longer melee or move. Their attacks are a random combination of the following 2 abilities, although the first seems to be used much more than the second.

Devastating Arc causes the boss to swing his massive weapon and deal damage in a large area in front, to the left, or to the right of the boss. It is easy to tell which area the boss will strike, as blue lights flash in that direction. The boss' animation also serves to clearly indicate where he will strike.

When the boss swings his weapon back over his left shoulder, he will strike the area to his right.
When the boss swings his weapon back over his right shoulder, he will strike the area to his left.
When the boss holds the weapon pointing forward, he will strike the area in front of him.

Getting hit by this attack, in addition to the damage it deals, also applies a stacking debuff that reduces the target's armour by 10% for 30 seconds, per stack.

Stomp deals damage to players in a 12-yard radius around the boss, also stunning them for 2 seconds. It is easy to tell when a Stomp is about to happen from the boss' animation. He will lift the weapon up above his head.

While these two abilities are damaging on their own, avoiding them has another, very important benefit. Whenever a player avoids taking damage from all abilities in a Devastating Combo, they gain the Opportunistic Strike ability, in the form of an extra action button. This ability can only be used once, and it deals 500,000 damage to the target.

Each boss also applies a debuff to his main aggro target, called Magnetic Armour. This debuff is harmless when the tank is within 15 yards of the boss. When the tank exceeds this distance, however, he will be instantly pulled back to the boss.

Every 2 minutes and 30 seconds, the room will fill up with Titan Gas. The first 3 Titan Gases last for 20 seconds each. The fourth (and final) Gas lasts until the bosses are killed. Titan Gas has several effects.

It deals raid-wide Frost damage every second.
It increases the damage done of all melee players and tanks by 25%.
It increases the damage done of all enemies by 25%.
It stops all adds from spawning for the duration.

When Titan Gas is cast for the final time, the adds continue to spawn during this time. This Titan Gas remains in the room until the bosses have been killed, and it acts as a sort of enrage mechanic.

Strategy
The strategy for this phase revolves around several key aspects.

All adds must be kept under control and killed in a timely fashion. The same priority order applies as in Phase One.
Emperor's Courage;
Emperor's Strength;
Emperor's Rage.

The tanks and melee DPS players must avoid as many of the Devastating Combos as possible.

Healers must be prepared for the very intense moments when the room is covered in Titan Gas Icon Titan Gas.

The phase does not get progressively more difficult in any way.

Positioning
As soon as the two bosses spawn, the two tanks should pick them up. The bosses should be tanked a fair distance apart from one another (roughly 60 yards), in order to avoid overlapping Devastating Arc.

The ranged DPS and healers should be in such a location that their position and the two boss tanking positions form a triangle. This will allow the healers and DPS to be in range of both bosses (and the tanks), without being in danger of being hit by Devastating Arc or Stomp.

Naturally, these positions will be off-set somewhat when random players have to move in order to avoid being hit by adds that fixate on them.

Adds
All of the adds should be dealt with in the same way as during Phase One. Even though it may be tempting to DPS the bosses, maintaining proper control of the fight is crucial, so killing the adds remains the top priority.

It is especially important to kill the Emperor's Courage adds quickly, because if they manage to reach the tank and slow them, it will be impossible to avoid being hit by the Devastating Combos.

The Emperor's Strength must also be killed quickly, because as the radius of their Energizing Smash increases over time, it will be impossible for the melee DPS or tanks to avoid being stunned.
The Emperor's Rage, while not very problematic, must also be killed so that too many of them do not accumulate.

Devastating Combo
Tanks and melee DPS will quickly learn the animations of the various ways in which Devastating Arc can be cast, and avoiding them should only be a matter of concentration.

For tanks, it is especially important to avoid these attacks. This is because the armour-reducing debuff that getting hit by Devastating Arc applies can prove quite dangerous, if the number of stacks is high. Note that the debuff will not have time to expire between Devastating Combos, so avoiding being hit by Devastating Arc is mandatory.

Tanks have an added challenge, here, that DPS players do not share. Because of Magnetic Armour, tanks cannot simply out-range the attacks of the bosses. For the Devastating Arcs, the tanks can quite easily move to the side of the boss that will not be affected. However, in order to avoid the Stomp, tanks will have to move away from the boss, between 13 and 15 yards, where they will not be hit by the Stomp, nor pulled back by Magnetic Armour.

Titan Gas
While Titan Gas is active, everyone must be prepared for the increased damage, from both sides.

On the one hand, melee DPS players should try to use their cooldowns during this time. Additionally, this is the ideal time for using Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp.

On the other hand, tanks and healers must be prepared to use cooldowns to counter the increased tank damage, as well as the raid damage.

Healing Concerns
If everyone in the raid plays perfectly during this phase, there should be no raid damage at all outside of Titan Gas. However, healers should still be prepared to heal those raid members who are careless enough to be hit by the Emperor's Rage or by Devastating Combos.

The tank damage should be fairly moderate most of the time, unless the tank has stacks of the armour-reducing debuff applied by Devastating Arc.

An event of particular importance is when the room is filled with gas, due to Titan Gas. Healing and raid cooldowns should be used here in order to mitigate the damage. Because the mobs also do increased damage at this time, healers should coordinate with tanks for proper cooldown usage.

When to Use Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp
Heroism/Bloodlust/Time Warp is best used during Phase Two, when Titan Gas has just been released into the room. This is because at this moment, the raid is benefiting from increased damage, and no new adds are spawning to distract players from attacking the bosses.