After reading the Book of Sorrows, we now have 2 more massive Hive immortals as potential raid bosses. Xivu Arath was my favorite out of the 3 and I immediately thought of my perfect encounter for putting her down once and for all. Raid Encounter: Xivu Arath, God-Knight of War Room: [spoiler]Encounter room is a large room with rubble, rocks and boulders scattered about the room. Large scars from a massive sword ornate the room. Towards the center of the room, there are 3 triangular alters of jagged rock. In front of each rock is an Ultra level Knight, named “[b]War General[/b]”. Each of these knights are encased in stone at the beginning of the encounter. These 3 altars form a triangular pattern (one north, one west, one east) and are spread out about 30-40 yards each. In the middle of these three altars is a rock with a Hive/Hybrid sword sticking out of it (think Excalibur). On the very far side of the room (North) is a large throne with 2 pillars on either side. These pillars have spikes and rocks sticking out of them in random places all the way up the pillars. Seated in the throne is [b]Xivu Arath, God of War[/b]. Sticking out of the ground next to her, as tall as a pillar adjacent to the throne, is her Sword. This area has a massive shield surrounding the Throne and is impervious to damage and cannot be passed through.[/spoiler] Starting the Encounter: [spoiler]To start the encounter, one player goes up to the sword in the middle of the 3 altars and holds square to pick up the Relic sword. All other players instantly become tethered to the Relic holder and lose their supers. After a few seconds, a notification appears stating [b]Xivu Arath awakens her Generals[/b]. At this point, one of the War Generals break free from its stone encasing.[/spoiler] Phase 1: [spoiler]Phase one consists of a few things: -Charging the sword -Weakening the active General -Cleansing the Altar The War General is immune to gunfire, but rarely charges and attacks players unless the player is extremely close. The War General will summon his armies to kill the Fireteam instead of directly attacking. These armies consist mostly of Thrall and a few instances of Acolytes, but the Thrall are extremely numerous and require constant fire from the team members who are not wielding the Relic. To charge the Relic, the tethered team members must pay a “[b]tribute[/b]” of their light to the Relic holder. To do so, they hold square/X and whatever light is in the players super bar is instantly drained and tribute is paid to the Relic holder (Strategically choosing when to tribute and when to keep to use your own super is key). Roughly 4 FULL supers that are used as tribute will charge the Relic. The person holding the Relic cannot charge it any other way (their super bar is their charge bar when holding the Relic). To weaken and immobilize the War General, the Relic holder must use the sword to damage the General, simple as that. The War General has about 10,000 health and its own attacks take about 30% of the players health upon a hit. Once the War General hits 1% of its health, it takes a knee and stops attack/summoning its armies. It cannot be damaged any further beyond this point. After the War General Falls, the altar it is assign to cracks and is ready for Cleansing with light. To cleanse the Altar, the Relic must be completely charged. Go up to the altar and hold square to slam the point of the Relic into the crack (Hold square/X). After a few second, the Altar cracks again and white light starts shining through the cracks. At this point, the notification Xivu Arath awakens her Generals appears again and the next General breaks out of its stone, starting the next Altar phase. Once all three Altars are cleansed, the notification [b]Xivu Arath accepts your challenge [/b]appears and the shield around the Boss drops as Xivu Arath begins to stand up.[/spoiler] Phase 2: [spoiler]This is the phase used to damage the boss. After grabbing her sword, the notification [b]Xivu Arath calls upon her Tribute[/b] appears and she starts trying to pull from her stores of power from the 3 Alters you just cleansed. Since you filled the Altars with light instead of darkness, Xivu Arath absorbing this tribute will crack and open a weak spot in her armor. This weak spot can be found in one of 4 places: [u]Left forearm, Right forearm, Left shin, or Right shin[/u]. There will be a large crack and light shining through this crack. That is where the Relic must attack to deal damage to the boss. After Xivu Arath has consumed all the tribute, she will smash her sword in a downward swing to the middle of the room and will begin charging her attack. All players must be clear of the area she swings her sword before she begins charging her attack as it will kill anyone who gets hit. After the sword hits the ground, the Relic holder no must climb the boss (think Shadows of the Colossus) to the cracked area and attack that area constantly while she charges her attack up to when she unleashes the attack. The player can climb the boss by either using the pillars on either side of the boss, climbing up the bosses legs or running up the sword. Xivu Arath's charge attack cannot be blocked or stopped, but the damage can be avoided (will cover that in a bit). She will begin to drag her sword across the ground and wind up another, more powerful swing that is amplified by Darkness. This attack takes 1 minute to fully charge and unleash. In order for the Fireteam to avoid dying from the attack, the remaining members of the team must split up and stand in the light emitting from the Altars. What this does is creates a massive, constant stream of light being fed to the Relic holder and the rest of the team which will keep them safe when Xivu Arath unleashes her charge attack (which also will send the Relic holder flying off of her towards the rest of their Fireteam). Once the Relic holder touches the ground, the Relic is dropped and the holder gains a debuff labeled [b]War God's Curse[/b]. This debuff prevents that person from picking the Relic up the rest of the encounter, so the Fireteam has essentially 6 rounds to DPS the boss before they are forced to wipe. After the relic is dropped, Xivu Arath returns back to her original position (seated in the Throne with her sword in the ground at her side) and returns the shield around her area. During this entire phase, Thrall will spawn in large numbers for the rest of the Fireteam while they are trying to hold the Altars. If one Altar is not held by a team member (if they died, fell off, etc), none of the Fireteam will be protected and the charge attack will wipe the entire team.[/spoiler] Repeat Phase 1/2 until Phase 3 is incorporated. Phase 3: [spoiler]This phase does not happen until Xivu Arath hits 50% health. After the DPS phase (phase 2) that drops Xivu Arath at or below 50% health, once the Relic is dropped and before Xivu Arath returns to her throne, she will summon a Knight and a sword directly below her. This knight will pick up the sword and become shrouded in Darkness. Once the knight emerges, it changes to an Ultra, named [b]Xivu Arath's Vengeance[/b]. This Knight will freely move about the area and attack the players, but is aggro'd the most toward any player that is holding the Relic. If there are no Relic holders, any player that does not have the War God's Curse debuff aggros the Ultra. If a player dies to Xivu Arath's Vengeance, upon respawn, they will have the War God's Curse debuff, removing one more DPS phase available to you to damage the boss. This Ultra can be damaged by any source, so focus fire the Ultra, but BE CAREFUL at the same time as this Ultra will be moving and attacking during the army summoning stages of Phase 1. The Ultra's health is around 50,000, so it will take a bit of damage to bring it down. Once the Ultra knight is defeated, there will be a 30 second time period before the boss summons another knight and sword to form another Xivu Arath's Vengeance. This Knight will keep spawning the rest of the encounter.[/spoiler] Repeat all 3 Phases until... End of the Encounter: [spoiler]Once Xivu Arath's health reaches zero, there will be one final “attack” of sorts the Fireteam will have to avoid. The last hit that takes the bosses health to zero will stager the boss, throwing the Relic holder from the boss and towards the Fireteam. After this, the boss will drop her sword. This sword (almost as long as the room) will fall on its edge, then fall again onto its flat side. Either of these parts of the sword hitting the ground will kill any team member that gets hit by the blade. Once the sword is on the ground, Xivu Arath falls to her knee, then throws her fist onto the area around your Fireteam, which will also kill anyone hit. Those are the last attacks (fairly easy to avoid, but a wipe on these attacks will wipe the team and reset the encounter). After the last attack, the boss will slowly recoil back while cracks form rapidly all over her armor with white light pouring through them. After a few seconds of these cracks forming, Xivu Arath explodes in a bright flash of Light, any remaining enemies despawn and the encounter ends.[/spoiler] Let me know what you guys think! I personally feel this captures the character pretty good (based on what we have available), as it shows her fear to engage directly (all 3 of them started having this fear, leading to their "pyramid scheme" of tribute) and her anger/rage (summoning the Vengeance Ultra. Best she can do at that moment since being weakened by light and using most of her power on her attack).