This boss encounter can be VERY unforgiving but also if well co-ordinated can feel very rewarding. It’s either a nice dance or a bar brawl, how you work together determines the outcome!

The boss needs to be taunted at ALL times and if possible facing a wall!

Heavy attack – This is NO joke. the boss hits with a heavy attack from time to time and it hits INCREDIBLY hard! The tank needs to be chunky and block it, OR dodge roll it. Bare in mind however if you dodge it too much you end up moving the boss around the room making it a bit of a messy fight. maintain discipline and don’t run around like a loon. Tanks are supposed to get hit 

Big BOOM! – VERY simple and obvious mechanic but 99% of players mess it up. Basically the boss will charge a spreading AOE under itself. When it goes BOOM, 4 aoes will fire out in random directions. This can be avoided in TWO ways.

Be ready for it, step back and look for a gap when it fires. OR simply dodge roll as it pops to COMPLETELY avoid it.

IF you try to block it or stand in it you will be stunned, and for getting hit with it, YOU turn into the BOOM aoe and send off 4x more aoes at the group. Each member that fails this mechanic will turn into a bomb, technically blowing up the group with multiple stacked versions.

Dodge it or avoid it at ALL COSTS!

Charge! – The boss will charge at the tank frequently. This is why the tank should have their back to the wall, the boss will cover a LOT of ground if not. Once the boss finishes his charge it will spawn 4x ghost adds. These CANNOT be taunted but they do need to be killed.

Each one will tether a beam to a individual group member, lessening their damage output, healing and damage mitigation. These must die as soon as possible and be considered primary targets.

Since they cannot be taunted they WILL chase players. Be sure to calm down and control yourself. Running away is the stupidest thing to do because they will simply chase you. TRY to stack up a bit so they stay together and focus on getting rid of them!

Each charge makes new ghosts, but if ONE is still alive, no new ghosts will appear until the wave is deleted!

Flame Shapers! – Primary mechanic that MUST be dealt with!

During the fight flame shapers will spawn. Generally 1 at a time apart from under 30% with the malcolm phase where you will get x3.

While these are not primary targets to kill and can be killed as and when you wish, they MUST be interrupted to prevent their flame channeling. it makes sense to kill them early of course to remove the mechanic but above all you MUST spot that channel and bash/interrupt it at all costs. failure to do so will put huge healing pressure on the group and most likely kill you.

Remember a tank with low health is DEAD to the boss heavy attack.

Malcolm! – At 60% and 30% the boss will spawn a huge Flesh Abomination (aka Malcolm) into the room while the boss leaves the room. Malcolm will put a large pulsing damaging aoe on each player in the room so you must apply a safe formation (demonstrated in the video) in order to NOT overlap them. Loose overlap is fine but if a circle of one player physically TOUCHES another player they will take double damage.

Malcolm also punches the ground with a large aoe hit and places poison on the ground (like Thurvakun) which must be avoided.

Once he is dead, the boss will respawn and you should reposition to your original places to continue the fight.

BOMB! – The boss after the first Malcolm phase will cast a bomb on ONE player. This must be mitigated by ONE other player standing inside of it as well. If you make it in time both players will share the explosion. If not, the player with it on will die. If you put more than two players inside the bomb, they will also die. Be careful!

Hard Mode – Hard mode The boss has a LOT more health, HITS a lot harder and also after the second Malcolm stage (30%) when the boss comes into the room, the bomb mechanic is DOUBLED.

meaning TWO people will get bombs. The players without bombs on them must stand ONE in each active bomb to help the tagged player. So for example if the tank and healer both have a bomb, one dps must stand on the tank and one must stand on the healer. do NOT overlap and do NOT let more than two people stand in each aoe.

During execute, don’t panic, don’t change what you are doing. If you can survive one bomb phase at 30% or under, you have seen all mechanics. nothing else will change.

This boss is quite dramatic but simple. however, will be a challenge for many groups especially the tank since she hits SO hard. Pay close attention to mechanics and don’t get caught out bar swapping during a heavy attack.

The boss needs to be taunted at all times and try to keep it turned away from the group. Most of the attacks will one-shot a dps or healer no matter what.

Wasps – Nice and easy, two wasps spawn during the fight multiple times, they have a heavy attack that should be blocked and a charge that should be blocked. They can be chained and CC’d so if the tank pulls them into the boss you can make pretty short work of them. Not a MAJOR issue, but should be dealt with so you don’t have too much going on in the room at once.

Rain! – The boss will channel multiple poison-type rain hits from the sky which must be avoided as they deal high damage, but usually, during this stage, she fires secondary LARGE aoes at individuals (usually two at once) THESE will stun you and/or one-shot you. If you are a dps/healer avoid these at all costs or die. They are very easy to see, don’t panic, just step aside and get out of the way. They spread before they burst so you have plenty of time!

Winds – At low health (under 30%) the boss will occasionally cast purple winds around the room. These are not specifically targeted at the group they just fly around for a few seconds. Avoid these as they deal moderate damage and slow you down. not ideal to mess with during stacked mechanics.

Heavy attack – The boss will spin her staff at the tank much like Relequen in Cloudrest, and then hit with a HIGH-hitting heavy attack. If the tank doesn’t block this or have full health while blocking, they are dead!

Cone Attack – The boss does have a frontal cone attack usually followed by or connected to several small aoes that move across the floor. They don’t hit THAT hard but you want to avoid these if possible.

Lurcher – The lurcher is a large add which will spawn during the fight usually 70% health! The lurcher should be considered your primary target. There is no RACE to get him down but the sooner he is out of the room the better for the sake of simplicity. Be aware he follows the mechanics of the other lurchers in the dungeon so he can have a shaking fit and fire aoes and also has a HUGE spread shot in front of him. If you see it, taunt it and kill it.

Stranglers – As soon as the first boom phase is over and the adds start spawning, stranglers will start spawning on a timer, almost every minute. There are generally 2 placed randomly in the room. These must be killed immediately. They stun and pull and the last thing you want is for a tank to get stunned during a heavy attack or a dps to get stunned during the boom phases, so focus these asap!

Immunity Buff – After the first boom phase the boss will summon a ground aoe which has a purple color inside spreading. Once it reaches its full size (very quickly) it will become solid. If the boss is standing in it at this time it will be immune to ALL damage for the duration. This does run out over time but then another will spawn and so on, throughout the fight.

As demonstrated in the video, you can deliberately allow her to be immune so you can deal with health % mechanics while not pushing her over the edge. OR you can simply move backward out of the aoe and the buff will be removed. keep her feet out of it and it will never be a problem, or be clever about it and use it to your advantage. Some people can use this as an ultimate building opportunity.

Bear in mind the boss DOES hit harder during immunity if she is glowing purple.

RED RED RED!!!! (Aka BOOM phase) – Typically it is common knowledge that the boss goes into this phase at 70% and 30%. Technically this is not true. The FIRST phase happens at 80%, and THEN it is on LOOSE health percentages AND a timer. It TRIES to push about 80,60,40,30 BUT it also tries to fire roughly once per minute give or take a few seconds.

What you are looking for is the boss will slam her staff into the ground and red roots will shoot under the floor in 3 different directions. Each one will spawn a red creature that must be killed within 12-13 seconds else the cone aoe it is spreading will blow up. The trick is to kill a couple of them and make a safe space to stand-in.

Regular vet or regular normal difficulty you can survive the boom if you are buffed heavily but be careful. Hardmode however? BIG difference!

HARDMODE – The boss has a LOT more health, the Lurcher has WAY more health, and everything hits harder but the majority of the mechanics are the same. Except for ONE!

The RED RED RED BOOM phase is MUCH harder and although the game generally doesn’t have many “DPS checks” this one is HIGH!

Instead of 3 creatures spawning with big explosion mechanics, you get 4! YOU MUST kill TWO of them and they MUST be polar opposites of each other position-wise. That way there will be two safe spaces to stand-in. If you only kill one, you will have nowhere to stand and if you kill none, the same applies.

This mechanic on regular vet you can survive, on hardmode you will all die no matter what. NO way out!

You MUST when this mechanic happens, apply as much damage as possible. Technically they have just over 430k health each and two must die. Over 12-13 seconds or so you could argue that both players need 33k dps each, but it is not as simple as that. Applying that with current group buff variables alters what you can and cannot bring AND you are avoiding other mechanics while jumping from one target to the other. It’s not like a dummy hump stack and burn. This will take some tactical application of your skills to get the most burst in a short period of time.

Work together, if you kill two dogs, you will live, if you don’t you will die.

33k on paper looks low (technically 66k per dps if you split up, which I do not advise). But believe me, in mechanics it is a struggle.

This ONE phase (not the rest of the fight) ***IS*** a DPS check!

Good luck!