My First Nemesis

Edit: As of the hotfixes on Sept 13th, Brann seems to deal significantly reduced damage in this delve and there seems to be some weird scaling and damage issues.
Edit 2: As of the hotfixes on Sept 26th, Zekvir's lair has had significant nerfs. I have updated the info below for accuracy.

Thought I'd write a bit of a guide/info thread for those who are looking to attempt this.

Zekvir is a pseudo end-boss for season 1 of the new Delves feature introduced in The War Within. He is located in the 'hidden' 13th Delve called Zekvir's Lair, which is found in the western-most section of the City of Threads in Azj'Kahet.

There are two modes for Zekvir. A normal mode, called Tier ? and a hard mode, called Tier ?-?. To unlock Tier ? and access to the delve, you need to beat any delve on tier 8 with lives remaining. To unlock Tier ?-? you need to beat any delve on tier 10 with lives remaining. The My First Nemesis achievement is awarded for beating Zekvir on Tier ? difficulty, either on your own or in a group.

The delve itself has no trash or other enemies whatsoever. You walk in, there's a room to prepare Brann, then you unlock a door and Zekvir is right in front of you in the next room.

On Tier ? difficulty, Zekvir has around 81M health (when solo) and has 5 abilities.
- Angler's Web is a narrow frontal cone aimed at his current target that grips you in and deals damage (can be dodged)
- Claw Smash is a wide frontal cone aimed a you or Brann that deals massive damage (can be dodged)
- Horrendous Roar is 15 yard AoE around the boss that deals damage and fears you for 4 seconds if you are in the circle when the cast finishes (move out)
- Enfeebling Spittle is an interruptable cast that puts a 20 second DoT and slow on you that trucks your health. Note - this is a magic effect and a snare, so can be magic-dispelled or can be removed by abilities that remove snares (eg: Warlock Teleport).
- Call Web Terror summons a cocoon with 4.3M health (when solo) that will hatch into a spider if not killed in 20 seconds. The spider will repeatedly cast a 5 second stun on you, which is interruptable/cc-able. The spider spawns with the same percentage the cacoon had, but has more health overall.

The fight is overall relatively simple in concept for Tier ?. Dodge the two frontal cones. Move out of the fear circle. Switch to and kill the cocoon when it appears so spiders don't spawn. Interrupt the Spittle cast, or if unable, dispell/remove it if you can, or pop defensives/healing CDs to get through the DoT. That's it! There's some terrible overlaps of abilities at some point, so some of it is just about positioning and maybe a little RNG.

If you're like me and looking around wondering where the Delve for this guy is.

/way #2255 33, 76

Solo'd as an ilvl 599 Beast Master Hunter.

Brann: My Brann was lvl 25, he was set to Healer, and his abilities were Idol of Final Will(rank 3) and Time Lost Relic(rank 2).

Gear & Consumables: I did not hunt any specific gear. I did not have my 2 or 4 set bonus. I did not use any consumables.

Positioning: Try to stay right behind Zekvir as much as you can, around 5-10 feet behind him. Being close makes dodging the frontal cones a lot eaiser and you can get Brann's Idol of Final Will to land more often. Be ready to run out of the fear.

Interupting: Your interupt will not be available to stop Zekvir every time he casts his DoT. Luckily as others here have mentioned, it's a magic debuff that also counts as a movement impairing effect. This means Disengage can remove the debuff, if you spec into the talent Posthaste. With two options to stop/remove the DoT you can switch back and forth from interupting one cast and removing the debuff with Disengage on the next. Do not use Counter Shot to interupt the add, if it hatches! The adds are able to be hard cc'd meaning you can use stuff like Freezing Trap, Bursting Shot, or Implosive Trap to interupt an add that is casting. Do not waste Counter Shot when you have so many other options.

Pet : Your pet will die a lot, I was using Mend Pet on cooldown, but the boss gives a lot of chances to revive them. Wait for a frontal cone ability, move out, revive pet.

Killing The Add: I Saved Beastial Wrath, Explosive Shot, Dire Beast, and Black Arrow for the add. They should be up for every add spawn. I also used Call of the Wild, if it was available. After a few runs, you will begin to understand when the add will spawn. I got in the habit of popping Beastial Wrath, Dire Beast, and Call of the Wild slightly early. By doing this I could start DPSing the add as soon as it spawned, and not need to waste a couple GCDs after the add spawned.

Damaging Zekvir: As weird as it may sound, actually dealing damage to Zekvir is the lowest priority of the whole fight. I would only do heavy damage to Zekvir after killing the add, while I still had some buff uptime from popping cooldowns to kill the add. Otherwise, I was doing a very basic rotation so I could focus on dodging abilities and keeping my pet alive, or reviving it. So long as you can stay focused and alive, Zekvir will die over time.