What Kills Raids in the Venomous Abyss: Every Boss, by the Numbers

Since Season 2 opened on August 18, WowCoach users have uploaded 9,096 Venomous Abyss boss pulls on Normal, Heroic and Mythic: 1,932 kills and 141,374 player deaths. We counted every one, threw out the deaths that don't teach you anything, and ranked what kills raids in the Venomous Abyss, boss by boss.

Below: the abilities that kill raiders on each of the eight bosses, how that shifts from Normal to Mythic, and what our boss guides say to do. For the raid layout and release schedule, start with our Season 2 prep guide.

How we counted

Raw death counts lie, so we applied four rules.

Each pull counts once. When five people in a raid upload the same night, the same pull lands five times, so we matched copies by identical deaths (same player, same millisecond) and kept one. That turned 10,346 stored boss fights into 9,338 unique pulls, or 9,096 without Raid Finder.

Only deaths while the pull was still alive count. 47% of all deaths (66,250) happened after half the raid was already dead: the wipe cascade, the reset, the healer who stopped at 3%. Those explain how a wipe ended, not why it started.

Only hits that actually killed count. The combat log records whether the last hit was lethal. When it wasn't (a tick right before a fall, a kill the log doesn't attribute), we don't credit that ability. Deaths with no killing hit recorded at all are out (7,595), as are deaths the log pins on the player's own effects, like Purgatory, Stagger or a trinket tick.

And boss pulls only. No trash.

That leaves 64,288 deaths to a named, lethal boss ability. Every percentage below is a share of those deaths on that difficulty, and "first death" shares are out of pulls where someone died.

Raid Finder is left out: about 240 pulls, too few to rank. These are logs from WowCoach users, not the whole playerbase, and the Mythic samples are much smaller than Heroic. Where a number rests on a handful of logs, we say so.

What kills raids in the Venomous Abyss, at a glance

Two patterns first.

Tank mechanics mostly kill people who aren't tanks. Sever, Ravage, Possession Barrage and Mother's Wrath all aim at the tank. Together they account for 5,093 of the deaths we counted, and 93% of those players were not tanks. They were standing in a frontal cone, or paying for an echo that burst early or a tank who was out of reach.

The first death is a different list. The ability that kills the most people is often not the one that kills first. We show both where they differ, because the first death is usually the one that decides the pull.

1. Nek'zali the Soulcoiler

140 Normal pulls (97 kills), 420 Heroic (213), 216 Mythic (40).

On Possession Barrage, the active tank goes 30+ yards straight away from the raid, and nobody stands between Nek'zali and the tank, because an echo that hits someone early bursts harder on everyone. Vessel of Awakening means burning every corpse before the first intermission add wave, about 55 seconds in. It showed up in only 18% of Heroic pulls and still killed more players than anything else, because the pulses stack per corpse.

Latent Cultist deaths come from Essence Rend pools. Drop them on the outer edge, never stand in or path through one, and after each Phase 2 Invoke, check where they moved. For Soulcoil Rite, nothing reaches the well: every add or death in it is another raid-wide Rite and 5 energy toward her enrage. On Mythic, Grasping Depths is handled by the next well team, which drops in, kicks every Soulcoiler's Curse in a set order and burns the Drowned Echo.

On Heroic, Soul Transfer killed the first player to die in 20% of pulls, more than anything else. Stay out of the beam until it detonates.

If you fix one thing: on Normal, the tank's run. On Heroic and Mythic, the corpses. Kill adds in clumps on the boss and burn the pile before the intermission wave.

2. Entombed Sentinels

109 Normal pulls (97 kills), 640 Heroic (177), 440 Mythic (16).

No single killer passes 14% on Heroic or Mythic. This fight is death by a hundred small mistakes, each one landing on top of mark stacks.

For Mark of Blood and Mark of Acid, healers plan a raid cooldown in the 20 seconds before each Vitriolic Stasis, when stacks peak, and nobody stands between the Sentinels, where you take both marks at once. Blood Venom pools go at the room edge or on top of an old pool, and then you step out. Toxic Droplets and Noxious Blast are one problem: each team stomps the droplets on its own half, one per player and a second only when healthy, because every droplet left standing is its own raid-wide Noxious Blast.

With Living Venom, stomp, then sidestep at once, since the venom flies straight back to the Breath. It was the first death in 23% of Heroic pulls and 20% of Mythic pulls, more than any other ability.

If you fix one thing: stomp, then step sideways.

3. Vashnik the Malignant

119 Normal pulls (94 kills), 306 Heroic (161), 129 Mythic (14).

Plague Wave is the top killer on every difficulty, and the first death in 45% of Normal, 28% of Heroic and 44% of Mythic pulls. With Plague Froth, the targets run out so no wave line crosses the boss, and everyone else stacks behind the boss and steps off any line pointing at them. On Mythic, aim the lines at the Malignant Totems instead.

For Malignant Burst, kill every add before it reaches the center pool, Burning Venoms first. On Normal it happened in only 9 pulls, but it took several people each time. For Caustic Explosion, dispel the flame infections one at a time, a few seconds apart, with each target away from the raid. On Mythic, Malignance means clearing every totem with the two froth wave sets after each Imbibe. One missed totem is survivable; two is a wipe.

If you fix one thing: the froth targets decide this fight. Run out, and point your lines at nothing (or at totems).

4. The Lost Explorers

126 Normal pulls (90 kills), 495 Heroic (174), 288 Mythic (27).

Blast Wave killed someone in 45% of Heroic pulls. Wait beside a Bouncy Mushroom and jump on it just before the ring reaches you; on Mythic the whole raid jumps the single mushroom together, and nobody touches it early. A late fish is the top Normal killer, Final Ascension: the fish carrier stands in melee range of the chosen explorer from 90 energy and feeds the Disgusting Fish before the cast finishes. For Elemental Explosion, clear your Frostfire Volley debuff before the second volley: Burning Flames in a Frost Patch and Piercing Frost in a Fire Patch.

On Mythic, break every crate before it glows green, because one Relic Rupture wipes the raid. For Splinters, one assigned popper breaks crates in pairs and lets the raid-wide bleed drop before the next pair.

If you fix one thing: mushroom timing. Blast Wave alone is over a quarter of the Heroic deaths we counted.

5. Sszorak

188 Normal pulls (92 kills), 984 Heroic (121), 272 Mythic (2 kills).

Only the current tank stands in front of Sszorak, pointing Ravage away from the raid; 91% of the players Ravage killed were not tanks. Tempest asks you to dodge the vortices as they leave Sszorak, never walk, dash or float through one, and dispel the poison at once. On Mythic it was the first death in 34% of pulls. For Viscous Cyst, pop exactly one cyst per gale during Dig In and never two close together, and nobody touches a cyst outside Dig In, even while floating. Mutilate and Mutilated Gash, on Heroic and Mythic, need two soak groups of five or more taking turns so nobody soaks twice in a row, with healers carrying the group that just soaked through the poison.

Not in the table: Sszorak has more deaths with no killing hit recorded than any other boss, 3,383 of them. When we checked 65 of those Heroic deaths by hand for our guide, 51 were players blown off the edge during Dig In and 7 were unpaired Raging Crosswinds launches. So Dig In costs more than the table shows. Pair with the opposite arrow for every Crosswinds, and stack in the middle before Dig In.

If you fix one thing: Dig In. The cysts, the gales and the edge are one mechanic, so plan them as one.

6. The Twin Fangs

159 Normal pulls (83 kills), 547 Heroic (94), 68 Mythic (no kills yet).

For Eternal Venom, take one Ravenous Feast strike every cycle and dodge every optional stack, from splash circles and waves to spit lines and the Vile Flood beam. On Heroic, ten stacks kill outright. Feast takes three soak groups, one strike each. Leave after your strike and never run back in while Feasted, because a second strike removes nothing and hits far harder. Feast killed someone in 69% of Heroic pulls and was the first death in 38% of them.

For Vile Flood, read the spinning orbs, move against the beam's rotation and cross it early, since everything behind the beam is safe. Mythic's Visceral Burst means kicking every cast in a fixed order, with backup kicks, for the whole pull. Toxic Fumes is the background pulse. It finishes players who are already low from venom, so the fix is the venom, plus healers keeping the raid topped.

If you fix one thing: your venom stacks are a budget, and Feast is the only way to pay it down. One strike each, then out.

7. The Coiled Altar

393 Normal pulls (85 kills), 1,055 Heroic (107). No Mythic pulls in our logs yet.

Gravebound killed someone in 68% of Normal pulls. The moment you get it, stop casting and walk over every one of your soul fragments before they fade; a missed fragment kills you outright, at any health. Sever was the first death in 54% of Normal pulls and 29% of Heroic pulls, and 90% of the players it killed were not tanks. Only the tank stands in front of Zul'jan when it goes out.

For Eternal Nightfall, save damage cooldowns for Veil of Twilight, when every DPS breaks the shield, and the assigned interrupters kick the cast the instant it drops. A finished cast wipes the raid. For Venom Rupture, clear the globule pile on every Sever so each cast pops only a few, and keep a raid cooldown for the end of Phase 1, when every leftover globule explodes at once. For Guillotine, stack at least five players on the marked player, and on Heroic, alternate two soak groups.

One more: Unworthy, Malacrass killing players outright, accounts for 236 Normal and 476 Heroic deaths. Our guide documents it as a raid kill about 10 seconds in when the pull starts wrong, and the fix there is to engage Zul'jan the moment the encounter starts. It also turns up later in pulls, and we don't have a confident answer for that yet, so no advice on it here.

If you fix one thing: walk your fragments. Gravebound is a reading test, not a healing check.

8. Ula'tek

352 Normal pulls (80 kills), 1,650 Heroic (68). No Mythic pulls in our logs yet.

On Heroic, every snapped tether puts Blight Vein on the whole raid. Snap them two at a time on the raid leader's call, and wait for Blight Vein to fall off before the next pair. On Normal it only hurts the player who snaps. For Mother's Wrath, swap tanks on every Caustic Waves cast, and the target runs straight back into the red pool in front of Ula'tek with a defensive up. If the target is out of reach, every player takes the bites, which is why 95% of the players it killed were not tanks.

Caustic Waves was the first death in 37% of Normal and 26% of Heroic pulls. Watch which wing she pulls back, run to the opposite side, then dodge the tail's waves. Necrotic Vapors is usually the last tick after a bigger hit, so fix that hit and heal the raid back up before the next one. For Unchecked Rage, keep a tank there whenever she isn't casting, and if both tanks are dead, anyone steps in.

If you fix one thing: someone is always in melee. Mother's Wrath and Unchecked Rage are both what happens when nobody is.

Reading your own raid

Three things hold across all eight bosses. First, fix the first death, not the biggest number: almost half of all deaths happen after the wipe is already decided. Second, stay out of the tank's business, since cones aimed at the tank killed far more non-tanks than tanks. Third, raid-wide pulses like Toxic Fumes, Necrotic Vapors and the constant boss pulses are usually the last hit, finishing players something else left low. Find the something else.

These are averages across a lot of raid nights. Your raid isn't an average. Maybe your Sentinels pulls die to Blood Venom and nobody else's do. The only way to know is your own log.

Or install the free desktop app (Windows today, macOS in progress). It uploads while you play and puts a coaching card on screen after boss pulls.

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Numbers come from Venomous Abyss boss pulls uploaded to WowCoach from August 18 to October 4, 2026: duplicates removed, deaths after half the raid was dead dropped, and non-lethal or unattributed last hits not counted. Advice comes from our authored boss guides. For boss order and release dates, see the Season 2 prep guide.