This is a multi-phase encounter with two intermissions. Despite the large amount of abilities and various interactions, the core idea of the fight is rather simple—don’t let Collectors collect, and destroy them all in the intermission before they reach full energy. The final phase is a burn against time before the raid is pulled into the Dark Singularity of the Void.

Abilities

Before I list the various abilities, I’ll speak briefly on the Arcane Collectors, which are the core mechanic of the fight.

Arcane Collectors begin the fight with a 99% damage reduction, and are not feasible to kill in the standard phase. There are three of them in static positions around the room, and they also are not all activated to begin with, as the boss must select one and activate it manually. This seems to be rather random and inconsistent, not necessarily choosing one based on distance, and the only logic seems to be that it will not activate a Collector it recently activated.

Now on to the abilities.

Phase One

Invoke Collector - Araz will trigger a Collector, initiating its Prime Sequence.
Astral Harvest - The Collector will target several players (as of this writing, it seems to always be three at a time), dealing moderate damage to them over 4 seconds. At the conclusion of the channel, each player will spawn an Arcane Manifestation underneath their location.
Arcane Manifestation - These do nothing but attempt to reach the Collector they manifested from. If they reach it, they trigger a large detonation of arcane energy, dealing high damage to the raid. These can be slowed and CC’d by anything that can affect Aberrations.
Prime Sequence - The Collector shoots out a spiral wave of arcane motes, which deal high damage to any player they strike.
Arcane Siphon - A moderate, short lasting damage event that lasts 2 seconds when the Collector is activated.
Arcane Obliteration - Araz charges a large blast of arcane energy at his current target, inflicting massive damage to all players. This damage is reduced by the amount of players that soak with the tank. All players who soak also receive a moderate healing absorb. On Heroic and higher, soaking this applies Astral Mark, preventing them from soaking for one minute and 20 seconds. This also summons an Arcane Echo at the soak location.
Arcane Echo - This add has a large amount of health and copies the casts of the boss, activating an additional Arcane Collector while it is out. On Heroic and higher, if this add is within 20 yards of the boss, they both take reduced damage and deal increased damage.
Silencing Tempest - Araz marks several players before raining down a barrage of energy at them, dealing moderate damage and pacifying any player struck. The pacify is a magic debuff and can be dispelled.
Overwhelming Power - The Forgeweaver blasts his current target, applying a stacking DoT that deals relatively light damage, but lasts 46 seconds.
Arcane Expulsion - Araz knocks back the entire raid a great distance when transitioning to a new phase, dealing moderate damage as well.

Intermission One

The Arcane Collectors are freely attackable in this phase, like so:

Arcane Convergence - Upon reaching full energy, an Arcane Collector will channel its overflowing arcane power into the iris of the forge, dealing large pulsing raid damage over 4 seconds.
Astral Burn - The manaforge inflicts a light DoT to the raid that lasts 10 seconds but stacks, dealing ever-increasing damage to the raid.
Unstable Surge - Bolts of unstable energy rain down throughout the phase, dealing high damage to any players struck.
Photon Blast - Collectors emit energy beams, dealing large damage in a line to any players struck, applying a moderate DoT to them that lasts 6 seconds.
Shielded Attendant - These spawn shortly into each intermission, and have a fair amount of health and also require tanks to pick them up. There are two, and so each tank can pick up one. As they melee the same target, they gain Ramping Power, attacking 8% faster with each stack. While not listed in the dungeon journal, or anywhere, Shielded Attendants also repel arcane energy, and if brought near an Arcane Collector that is casting Arcane Convergence they intercept the beam, taking massive damage.
Focusing Iris - The manaforge’s intense energy manifest in the center of the arena, inflicting massive damage every second to any player that tries to walk through it.
Mana Splinter - The destroyed Collectors feed their emitted energy back into the Forgeweaver, stunning him and increasing the damage he takes by 100% for 12 seconds.

The second Phase One has no changes, and the same is true of the second Intermission. Know however that these intermissions are time-based, but Phase Three is forcibly triggered upon reaching 25% HP or upon finishing the second Intermission.

Phase Three

Dark Singularity - A Singularity forms at the edge of the arena, the force of its gravity increasing as more mass is fed into it. This kills any player who crosses the event horizon extremely fast.
Void Harvest - Functionally the same as Astral Harvest. The Singularity selects several players, dealing moderate damage to them and spawning a Void Manifestation at their location that attempts to move towards the Singularity, dealing high damage to the raid if it achieves this goal.

Forgeweaver Araz retains Silencing Tempest and Overwhelming Power during this phase, and loses access to the Collectors and Arcane Obliteration.

Strategy (Normal and Heroic)

Again, while this fight may seem complicated due to the wealth of abilities, it boils down to a very simple execution loop.

You can choose to lust on pull, or lust on the first or second damage amp at the end of an Intermission, depending on your raid’s DPS. I recommend lusting on the first damage amp, as for any class that does greater than 200% of their normal damage profile inside of their offensive cooldowns, it will yield around a ~25% increase to overall throughput, whereas for classes with flatter damage profiles, they lose around ~3-5%, making this a significant raid DPS increase, unless you have many classes that burst for a great deal of damage.

Do note that the first damage amp is on an awkward timer of around 3 minutes 40 seconds, roughly speaking, unless you are quite quick. Either way, many 2 minute classes will have to sit on their second CDs for a long time. 1:30 CD classes will have comparatively a short time to wait. You should likely still pot on pull regardless, as you will get two uses this way, and it is not worth holding pot unless you can kill the boss quite fast.

Phase One

You may tank the boss where he stands or in the dead center of the room, wherever you feel comfortable.
When the boss picks a Collector, you can choose to pull him further away from it to give you more time to kill the Manifestations. The raid should simply all loosely stack in melee, and when a player is picked by Astral Harvest, they should all stack on top of the boss so the adds are cleaved down quickly and can be CC’d with ease.
You should have two groups to soak the Arcane Obliteration. Odds and evens works fine. This is not necessary on Normal, and the entire can just stand in melee and soak it each time. On Heroic and higher, the tank that did not have the Arcane Obliteration should taunt the boss out of the cleave stack until the Arcane Echo is dead.
While the Arcane Echo is alive, two Collectors will be active, so you will have 6 Manifestations out at a time. They should all still be brought to melee stack and dropped there.

Intermission

While you can utilize the Shielded Attendants to prevent Arcane Convergence, the simplest way of doing this is to simply run around in a death ball killing each Collector. Collectors begin accumulating energy upon taking damage (not confirmed, testing inconclusive), and you should remain aware of this and prioritize them.
If one Collector will not die in time, one tank should drag their Attendant to the Collector to soak the Convergence, which will also deal a great deal of damage to the mob.
Tanks should make sure to pick up one each, and swap as needed. One tank can also take two if they really need to flex their ego, doesn’t particularly matter, but they do hurt at high stacks.
When all Collectors are destroyed, the boss will be stunned and take 100% increased damage, at which point CDs should be popped and the Attendants dragged on top of the boss for cleave.

Phase Three

The boss should be pulled to the entrance and kept there. Gateways help for casters here as the pull increases. Movement speed increases should also be rotated as needed towards the end of the phase.
Void Harvest targets should drop their Manifestations under the boss as they did in Phase One.
Kill the boss before it kills you. Yeah, it’s pretty simple.

Mythic Changes

The changes on Mythic do not change the basic premise of the fight, but do increase the difficulty and pacing of the encounter by a noticeable amount.

Collectors will now spawn a Void Tear periodically at set points around the room. These are large zones of void energy that inflict massive damage to any players who walk over them. They also remove the protections given to Arcane Manifestations.
Arcane Manifestations now spawn with a buff that increases their movement speed by 200% and reduces all damage taken by 99%. This protection can only be removed when they travel through a Void Tear.
Astral Mark now lasts 10 minutes, so you will now need more than just two groups to rotate through to soak Arcane Obliteration, as each player can only soak once per fight, excluding tanks.
Arcane Collectors now radiate Containment Breach 3 seconds after death, dealing lethal damage to the entire raid until the Intermission ends.
In Phase Three, Araz will now cast Death Throes, dealing a large burst of damage and knockback to all players, originating from his location.

Mythic Strategy

Phase One

Collectors now cast Astral Harvest at a fairly accelerated rate, and the moving spawns of Void Tears require players to constantly adjust their positioning so that they can place their Manifestations behind the Void Tear. The Void Tear hitbox for actually stripping the protection of the orb is quite fickle, and you often need to be dead center behind it for it to work properly.
This results in significantly more movement for the entire raid throughout this phase.
Each player can only soak Arcane Obliteration once, so you just need to divide players into smaller soak groups. Five per soak seems to be the sweet spot.

Intermission

The intermission plays slightly differently now. You will want to get each Collector low, then finish all three off within a very short period. You can survive one or even two ticks of Containment Breach if you use raid cooldowns and personals, but you should strive to make certain they all die simultaneously.
Because you will likely need to stay in this phase longer in order to ensure an equal distribution of damage to the Collectors, it is very likely each one will cast an Arcane Convergence. You will need tanks to move a Shielded Attendant to each Collector that is going to cast this spell accordingly.

Phase Three

This phase plays pretty much the same. You just want to make sure you are on the side of the boss closest to the entrance when he casts Death Throes, or you will almost certainly be punted into the Singularity to be ripped apart at the atomic level.

Table of Contents

Feedback or opinions? Drop them here in the discord thread for this post!