Aspects of Cerus
Cerus has six aspects: Envy, Malice, Gluttony, Despair, Rage and Regret. Each aspect corresponds to an add that can spawn throughout the fight in fixed locations, shown in the figure below. Adds resemble miniature versions of Cerus, and are Invulnerable, except during split phases.
Cerus’s Aspects are always present on the map, even when not visible. Their model is still loaded and occupies the same position as always, which means that their hitboxes will still block projectiles.
Aspect Attacks
Each Aspect of Cerus is associated with its own individual mechanic, totaling six mechanics. These attacks will be performed at set times by Cerus, and will additionally be performed by the Aspects whenever they are summoned, which also happens at set times. Cerus and his Aspects can and will perform separate attacks at the same time, and learning to deal with these overlaps is a large part of encounter progression.
The six Aspect mechanics are, in no particular order:
- Envious Gaze (Envy) - rotating wall that strips boons.
- Malicious Intent (Malice) - adds spawning on random players.
- Insatiable Hunger (Gluttony) - orbs converging on the boss.
- Wail of Despair (Despair) - spreads that leave lingering pools.
- Crushing Regret (Regret) - green circle.
- Cry of Rage (Rage) - massive damaging AoE.
More information will be presented for each of these mechanics later.
Since the boss and his aspects always execute their attacks at the same instants each run, the encounter is overall very deterministic. Through practice, players should eventually memorize these sequences and be prepared to react to them.
Split Phases and Empowered Aspects
At 80% and 50% health, Cerus will gain a Defiance Bar. Once this is broken, he will disappear and all his Aspects will become visible and vulnerable in their usual positions. Cerus will not reappear until the squad kills one of them.
Three Aspects will gain the Empowered effect (which is different from the
Empowered effect). These can be quickly identified due to being noticeably larger than usual.
- Envy, Rage and Regret will always empower in the 80% split phase.
- Despair, Gluttony and Malice will always empower in the 50% split phase.
Empowered buffs the Aspect’s characteristic skill, making it much more difficult to deal with. The only way to make an Aspect lose
Empowered is by killing it during a split phase. Vice versa, Aspects will gain
Empowered if you kill their de-powered version. Killing an aspect during a split phase will not stop it from doing its attacks as usual.
At the end of every split phase, all living Aspects will transfer their unique buffs to Cerus. This includes both types of Empowered. This means that at the end of the 80% split, at least two of Cerus’s skills will be buffed, which increases to at least four at the end of the 50% split.
Since Empowered skills affect the squad in a much different way compared to normal skills, the choice of which Aspects to kill is one of the cruxes of encounter strategy.
First Split Phase Choice
In the first split, Rage isn’t a compelling choice, since its difficulty does not increase much when empowered, so it comes down to eiter Envy or Regret. Strategies that kill Envy are usually called Triple Green strategies, since they have to deal with the punishing Empowered Regret mechanic. Strategies that instead kill Regret are called Double Wall strategies, since they will play the
Empowered Envy mechanic. UNIT strat, the ubiquitous strategy used by PUG groups, is a Double Wall strategy.
Second Split Phase Choice
In the second split phase, almost all groups will choose to kill Empowered Gluttony. Gluttony is far too punishing to be left alive, since it permanently accumulates unavoidable damage on the entire squad.