Malice - Malicious Intent
Targets a random player with a tether. After 5 seconds, the tether will complete, applying a damage-over-time effect and spawning an add on the player’s location.
The add will start walking toward Cerus. If it reaches him, it will be sacrificed, and Cerus will gain 5 stacks of Empowered and 95k
Barrier.
Adds are immune to hard crowd control, and spawn with Resistance that cannot be corrupted or removed. The
Resistance lasts for 30 seconds, expiring just before the add reaches the boss.
Three players will be targeted by tethers, resulting in three adds spawning.
Adds have increased health and toughness.
- Affects the DoT applied by tethers.
- Prevents the tether DoT from being applied.
Extra Information
- Adds have 2252 toughness in normal CM, compared to the global standard of 2597, meaning that power damage is +15.3% more effective. In legendary CM, they instead have standard toughness.
- Adds have 630’960 HP in normal CM. In legendary CM, they instead have 1 million HP.
- If placed in certain areas on the east side of the platform, adds will pathfind to a point just north or south of the boss, instead of directly towards it, as shown in the figure.
- Adds are affected by all forms of soft crowd control once their
Resistance runs out.
- Players will receive a sound cue and their screen border will become purple-white when targeted by the tether. Additionally, the remaining time before the tether completes is shown as a timer above their heads.
- This attack has a maximum range, and if no-one is in it, no tethers will be applied and no adds will spawn.
- When Cerus does this attack he will use the voice lines: “To me, return…“ or “I hunger for power…“
Strategy
Malice is dealt with by spawning the adds far from the boss, usually using portals such as Scourge’s
Sand Swell or a
Mesmer’s
Portal Entre.
Once placed on the edge of the arena, the adds will start walking towards the center, and can be Immobilized and killed in melee once their
Resistance expires. Placing the adds within the zones depicted above, on the eastern edge of the platform, will ensure that they are as far as possible from the boss when they lose their
Resistance, giving the squad more time to comfortably kill them.
In some situations it’s instead convenient to proactively position the squad so that the adds are cleaved down before they can pose a problem.
With decent DPS, it is often possible to phase the boss so that the adds despawn without requiring further action on the squad’s behalf.
Blocking the damage over time effect is recommended, especially in the final 10% when the healers are already under pressure.