Unlike previous Delve nemesis, we were able to test the Azta’rec fight in ?? difficulty on the Patch 12.1 PTR. The fight is simple, but it requires you to play Simon Says three times.
Note that everything below was observed/completed during the Patch 12.1 PTR cycle. This means it will possibly be changed before it is released.
Azta’rec ?? Difficulty Fight Overview
There are four mechanics that happen throughout the fight:
Noxious Bile – The boss casts a poison frontal cone that drops pools in its area.
Void Toxin – Debuff, reduces damage done by 40% and deals damage. Dispelable.
Serpent’s Strike – Tank buster. Only happens against characters in a Tank specialization.
Soul Extinction – Deadly spell cast. Interruptible.
Intermission
When the boss reaches 90%, 60%, and 30%, he will stop what he’s doing, summon an Echo of Azta’rec, head to the middle of the room, and start casting 
Sermon of Ula’Tek. Sermon of Ula’Tek divides the room into quadrants, covering three of them in venom and doing a deadly cast on them after three seconds. This repeats five times.
While Sermon is happening, the spawned Echo of Azta’rec will be attacking you, performing the same mechanics as the boss.
Once Sermon is finished, the boss starts casting Echo of Ula’tek. Echo repeats the same pattern that Sermon just did, but without the warning signs.
Azta’rec ?? Difficulty Strategy
Before the encounter starts, I highly recommend putting down four world markers to make each quadrant obvious. It will help a ton during intermissions. These should be placed at the cardinal points, North, South, East, and West. Also, I’d avoid using Triangle. There’s a lot of green in the room already.
Delve Nemesis Regular Phases
Due to the nature of intermissions, you will want to stay out of the center of the room during regular phases. Try your best to aim Noxious Bile towards the edge of the room or towards areas with pools of poison already. Note that Noxious Bile will always be cast at you, even if you have a tank pet or Tank Valeera.
If you’re a DPS or tank player, Void Toxin basically forces you to use Healer Valeera so she can dispel it from you. In contrast, healers will likely choose DPS Valeera to kick Soul Extinction.
Intermission – Simon Says
I hope you’ve practiced doing The Relic’s Emanation daily from Ogri’la, because it will come in handy now.
As the intermission starts, the Echo will immediately start attacking you. Your goal is to kill it before the boss finishes Sermon of Ula’Tek and Echo of Ula’tek, otherwise you’ll likely be overwhelmed by double Void Toxin or double Soul Extinction. This gives you ~35 seconds to kill an add with 2.7 million health during testing. Azta’rec takes about 90% reduced damage while the Echo is alive.
Note that, unlike Azta’rec himself, you can CC the Echo to help out with bad timings on kicks or Bile. I highly recommend dealing with Echo’s Soul Extinction with stuns or other methods to save your kick for Azta’rec himself because he can come out of Echo of Ula’tek and cast right away, even if his Echo just finished a cast.
One of your main causes of wipes will likely be missing a kick/dispel while playing the Simon Says mini-game, or having the Noxious Bile covering the quadrant you need to move towards next.
Here is how Sermon looks for its five casts:
And here is a video showing the full Simon Says minigame. Sermon leaves a sequence of 5 quadrants open, in this case, Diamond, Square, Diamond, Circle, and Diamond. Then, Echo repeats the same sequence, but without the warm-up animation.
Addon Helper – SnakeSays
For those looking to do the fight when it releases and become “Fabled Slayer of Azta’rec”, I’ve created a quick addon to help during the memory game. It displays a HUD while inside Azta’rec’s delve and allows you to click on which section of the arena is safe, so you don’t need to memorize it.
The addon supports attaching a keybind to each section as well, so you can use a keybind instead of clicking its HUD. You can also change the colors of each section, plus the sequence resets after 40 seconds of the first click.
You can get SnakeSays on CurseForge
Azta’rec Delve Nemesis Rewards
Defeating Azta’rec unlocks many different rewards, a title, a back transmog, and a mount.
My Venomous Nemesis – Defeat Azta’rec in his lair before the release of the next season of delves.
- Rewards Apophic Patagia
- Rewards
Purging the Poison – Defeat Azta’rec in his lair on Tier ?? before the release of the next season of delves.
- Rewards “Name, the Poisonous” title.
Let Me Solo Him: Azta’rec – Defeat Azta’rec in his lair on Tier ?? without any other players in your party, before the release of the next season of delves.
- Rewards the Apophic Soul Crusher mount.
- Rewards the
Fabled Let Me Solo Him: Azta’rec – Defeat Azta’rec in his lair on Tier ?? without any other players in your party, within the first week of the season.
- Rewards “Name, Fabled Vanquisher of Azta’rec” title.