Darkflame Cleft Mythic+ Dungeon Guide

Throughout the encounter the boss will occasionally summon Menial Laborers to assist him, which just like the trash mobs encountered earlier will apply a stacking bleed from Crude Weapons. Tanks should try to pick these mobs up, however be aware the random target DoT the boss puts out in Luring Candleflame will actually cause all Laborers to fixate that target, so be prepared to use things like knockbacks, slows, and stuns to stay away from them if you are fixated. While these laborers can be cleaved down, they are also killed by many of the other boss mechanics, allowing your group to keep their numbers under control without committing too much damage to them.

For example, minecarts will zip by on the train tracks intermittently, causing a High Speed Collision which deals heavy physical damage to players or kills any Menial Laborers, so make sure to avoid these mine carts yourself while potentially CCing the adds on the tracks to quickly deal with them.

There’s also the Reckless Charge ability, which targets a ranged player, dashing towards them after a delay. Players hit will take physical damage, while laborers hit will be killed. At the end of the charge multiple Cave-In circles spawn which you’ll want to avoid. I recommend baiting this charge onto a mobile ranged player and having them avoid the charge once it’s in motion to prevent any additional damage. Like the mine carts, you can also use CCs to force laborers to be hit by this ability as well

Other than that, you’ll want to be aware of Underhanded Track-tics, which causes a cart full of dynamite to spawn on the tracks. You’ll have 20s to destroy this cart, otherwise your party takes a large hit of fire damage followed by a 20s DoT, so make sure you have enough damage to deal with this in time. Tanks make sure to drag the boss over to these carts as well just to maximize cleave.

Also for tanks, there is a tank hit in Rock Buster which also applies a 25% physical damage amp to you for 6s, so beware of additional damage from laborers when this debuff goes out.

This is an interesting 1-phase boss encounter where the mechanics interact with the 8 candles spread around the outside of the room, where sometimes it's beneficial to have them lit and other times you want to extinguish them.

To start, tanks just be aware that this is a stationary boss so you need to remain in melee at all times, otherwise you’ll trigger the Blazing Storms party hit or have melee players smacked by the boss.

For abilities, shortly after engaging the boss it’ll use Dousing Breath, which deals a heavy hit of nature damage to the group and extinguishes all candles. This is the largest individual hit of the fight so make sure you use a defensive here. This ability is always followed by Wicklighter Barrage, which targets 3 non-tank players and creates a 6yd AoE under them every second for 6 seconds, which deal fire damage and ignite any candles hit.

When the boss reaches full energy, usually shortly after the Wicklighter Barrage channel ends, they’ll use Enkindling Inferno. This fires a cone from the boss towards any extinguished candles which you’ll want to avoid. Importantly, this also applies a stacking fire DoT to the party for each candle this ability ignites, which means players debuffed by Wicklighter Barrage will want to try and light as many candles as they can in order to reduce the group damage intake.

Following Enkindling Inferno the room will now have all 8 candles lit, and the boss will use Extinguishing Gust, shooting out a tornado in a line towards all 4 non-tank players. These tornados will deal nature damage to players hit and extinguish any candles, so just make sure the targeted players back away from the boss before the tornados shoot out to give them room to sidestep the line attack.

As you’d expect, you do actually want to aim these tornados at the candles, as the ability is quickly followed by Incite Flames, which fills any part of the room with an ignited candle with fire, meaning if all candles are lit there is nowhere safe to stand. That being said, you don’t want to hit with all the gusts because the Incite Flames cast is quickly followed by a second Enkindling Inferno cast, meaning the more candles you clear the more DoT damage you’ll take after the fire puddles disappear. To best handle this I recommend aiming your gusts at 1-2 candles that are next to each other, which allows you to create a slightly larger safe space for your group to be in. From here the fight just repeats again with the same ability cadence.

The main mechanic this fight revolves around are the wax statues created by Eerie Molds. These spawn near players and constantly pulse for fire damage every 2s, so you want to get rid of as many as possible to mitigate your groups damage intake.Be careful not to get too close to them though, as anyone who gets within 2yds is stunned by Cursed Wax.

In terms of how you remove them, there are 2 different ways. The first is through Darkflame Pickaxe, which is a line attack thrown towards a random player that deals heavy shadow damage and knocks back the first thing it hits. If it hits a wax figure it deals no damage and instead destroys that figure, so make sure the target puts a figure between them and the boss, and that no one accidentally intercepts the hit.

The other way to clear out wax is via the Throw Darkflame mechanic. This targets 3 random players and does a 5yd AoE around them after a delay, while also applying a healing absorb. Any figures hit by this AoE will be melted, turning them into a puddle for 45s but removing their pulsing damage, so any figure remaining after Darkflame Pickaxe you should aim to cleave with these circles.

Outside of this the boss just has an interrupt in Paranoid Mind, which will fear all players if successful, so just make sure everyone is watching for this cast.

I recommend having your group play relatively close together to try and cluster the wax statues, making them easier to clear. Then once wax puddles are on the ground, move as a group and play near existing puddles in order to maximize your space.

Similar to the minecart event earlier, the boss room is shrouded in Smothering Shadows outside of a few fallen Wax Lump circles around the room as well as a single Candlelight that players can interact with to pick up and move, which constantly loses heat over time. Again, just like the minecart, to refuel your candle you need to have a player run and pick up a Wax Lump, which makes them immune to the shadows debuff, then have them bring it back to the candle which automatically restores heat. It is very important to make sure your candle does not run out of heat as the boss will cast Rising Gloom if it does, which leaves a nasty 10 minute debuff on the party that increases damage taken by 10% and reduces haste by 5%, so you want to make sure this cast never happens.

There are a few abilities which makes this more difficult, further reducing your candles heat if it hits them. First is Shadowblast which target a random player and does a 10yd AoE around them after 6s. When this happens just have the targeted player move out of the candlelight and explode away from your party. Umbral Slash is another avoidable ability, which is a line attack the boss shoots directly at the candle itself, so assign a player to pick the candle up and move it out of this ability when it happens.

The boss also spawns some adds via the Call Darkspawn channel, which always calls 3 Wriggling Darkspawn immediately but will spawn more if the channel continues, so make sure to interrupt it quickly so you aren’t overwhelmed. These adds have the same Drain Light cast you saw in the minecart event, so make sure you use CCs and interrupts to prevent any of these from going off and cleave them down under the boss.

There’s also some unavoidable heat reduction which comes from the Eternal Darkness channel. This deals heavy shadow damage to your group over 4 seconds, with each tick also reducing the heat of your candle. When this channel starts you’ll want to make sure one of your non-healer players has some wax ready to refuel your candle as the heat dips part way through the cast, which will ensure it has some heat after this ability finishes, allowing you to avoid Rising Gloom.

In terms of positioning, I recommend tanking the boss near the centre of the room on the tracks, allowing easy access to the 4 Wax Lump spawns so that anyone can quickly dip away to refill your candle as needed.