This boss is ALL about the group fully understanding the mechanics individually, because without team work, you are dead. ONE person messing up can wipe the WHOLE group.

While the mechanics on the surface are very straight forward, panic will kill you all. So learn these individual mechanics, and nail them one by one!

The tank will suffer a lot here because the boss hit’s like a steam train!

NON hardmode the adds have a lot less health, the boss has a lot less health, the mechanics hit no where NEAR as hard, the Werewolf phase is very weak and at the end only TWO people get lightning aoes. (that will make more sense as you read on). However of course the mechanics for the most part are the same, but the scaling in difficulty on the hardmode is…well quite frankly bonkers! Practice practice practice! 99% of people try hard to change their gear on this fight thinking that is the major issue with their group making excuses for failure. I can assure you the vast majority of problems in here, are All About Mechanics!

NOTE: There are 3 major phases to the fight and 2 mid phases(so technically 5). There are two walls full of Stone husks in the room and you should fight the boss between the two so you are prepared for the side phases (two werewolf phases between the 3 main phases). This can be rough on the tank and standing still is not ALWAYS the best option depending on you as a player, but i will explain below the way to break up these mechanics to make very clear sense of them and to teach you some tricks to make your practice a lot less painful!

Frontal fire – The boss will with a moving ground based fire attack which will fly across the room and split up bouncing around. This does apply a fire dot if hit but doesn’t hit too hard however is followed up straight away by a stab. The tank needs to either BLOCK this (if they are chunky) or dodge it. It hurts like hell so if you are not full health, you maybe in trouble.

Heavy attack –  A very obvious heavy attack with a long wind up, Block it or dodge it as the tank. It is not the same as the above one but it can hit just as hard. Be careful. Just bare in mind of course a chunky tank can stand up to this but a squishy one may need to move more, which means you will have to control your resource spending and positioning a lot more and could cause some problems if running around the room.

Phase ONE! – From 100% health down to 60% health the boss will have a FIRE mechanic which will be in the room the WHOLE time. Basically after his frontal fire he will cast multiple fire dots on the ground which will spread, then pop, and then stay on fire for a further 10 seconds. once they fizzle out he will instantly cast another (look at his hands, he will cast them, you can see it coming). While there are multiple fire attacks going off they actually come in 3s, so one cast, then 2 then 3. 1 second apart. The tank and other players will have them under their feet, and the trick to this as the tank is to simple step out of them when they pop and then stand still once the 3rd pop has finished.
As described in the video, the tank should move backwards/sideways and see the mechanic as “pop, pop, pop STOP”…

So simply put, let the 3 pops of fire happen while moving away, and then when the 3rd has gone off, stand still with the boss.

Once they are gone, they will happen again over and over every 10 seconds.

If you maintain this strategy you should never get caught by it. If you Do get caught you will be hit with fire damage initially and then a damage over time fire affect which will make ANY damage you take hit so much harder since you are battling this horrible debuff.

Adds! – Every 10% health so 90%, 80%, 70%, the boss will spawn an add in the room, each one has their own heavy attack and when they are mid to low health and/or if they are alive too long they will cast a magma shell type effect where they will hit with HIGH damage on the tank. These must die.

The main focus of the fight is the add killing, not the boss, there is no dps check for the boss. So either have high damage and burn the adds as your main focus fast, OR…simple pack for HIGH mitigation and big heals.

As suggested in the video, if you can pace it, have barrier on multiple players in your group and cast it each time an add goes magma and you will be fine. This especially helps the tank.

At 60% the first Werewolf phase kicks in.

Werewolf phase 1 – The boss will disappear and 4x synergies will be on the ground. Each player must take one.

Upon doing so each player will turn into a massive Werewolf with 5 specific abilities and an ultimate.

Each player must grab ONE stone husk each and take it away from the group (if they are close they will enrage each other on hardmode).

When you are all separate you should kill your own Husk and then help anyone in your group with the remaining ones if yours is dead.

In Werewolf form you have some VERY specific skills and they MUST be used at the RIGHT time, and not spammed for the sake of it, else the cool downs will put you in some seriously bad situations.

Werewolf Skills –

1) Taunt – Use this to keep aggro of YOUR target and can be used with light attacks as a spamable, also generates ultimate.

2) Gap closer – Also can be used as a spamable because it only has a 2 second cool down but essentially is to get you from one place to another FAST if you have a target.

3) SLAM! – This must NOT be used UNLESS the add is channeling (explained below).

4) STOMP! – This one stomps the ground and in the direction you are facing multiple aoe attacks cut across the room. This must NOT be used unless you are aiming at a lightning mine (explained below)

5) Heal/breath – This should be activated as a heal whenever possible because it will buff you making your attacks heal you in return. This is especially useful for winding up heavy attacks since they hit the hardest and give the most return, also they are AOE. When the heal is gone it will turn into an ice breath. I would only recommend using this if you have taken a friendly synergy (coming up with the ultimate) as it does have a channel time and you don’t want to get caught using it while something needs interrupting. Activating the heal also generates ultimate.

ULTIMATE – The ultimate is a BIG pounce. It will stop specific mechanics (explained below) but at the same time others can take a synergy from it making ALL of their abilities 100% crit chance. VERY good for burning the adds nice and quick but be sure to use it at the right time and/or be sure to co-ordinate it with your group. The ultimate will also resurrect people if need be when cast.

Husk  Mechanics – Each husk has the same mechanics.
The will channel spitting into the air which MUST be interrupted (number 3 skill) else everyone in the room will die RAPIDLY, be sure not to waste this skill and put it on cool down at the wrong time.

They will sometimes channel a HUGE aoe skill which will take more than half of your health. The way to stop this is to jump on them with an ultimate, OR gap closer to one of the adds in the room to get out, and then come back in again.

Lightning will spawn in the room when the room lights up blue, and place mines around the area. ANYONE that can reach this must kill these by looking at them from range and hitting the STOMP ability (number 4 skill). If you kill it, the group will be safe, if not they will burst and do HUGE damage to players. Usually these spawn two at a time.

Phase TWO! – This is identical to the first phase, every 10% you will get one add to kill, treat it exactly the same. There will be one at 50%, 40% and 30% and then at 20% the boss will go to the NEXT werewolf phase.

The fire however is the major change. The “pop, pop, pop, stop” fire mechanic is no longer in the room. Instead he will place 2x poison aoes on the ground (potions) which will spin and spin until they have done a full cycle, and explode. During their cycles they will spread poison across the room at players stunning them if they stand in it. This is pretty simple and much less stress than the fire phase. If the poison is coming to you, block it, then carry on as normal.

Werewolf Phase Two! – This is exactly the same as the last one but with ONE major twist. The swap!

If YOU or someone else realizes that the add they are on has his head hovering in the air and the screen has gone GREY, you need to SWAP with someone else fast! Gap closer to their target and taunt THEIR add instead. Failure to do this will result in a one shot. So pay attention!

Advanced tip for werewolf mode: IF you are very experienced in this fight and you want to make the werewolf section faster, you can. BUT this requires you to save your ultimates through phase 1 and/or 2. Basically if you all have full ultimates, you can stack all of the adds together. YES they enrage but what you do is simply use an ultimate once every 3-5 seconds in the group, take synergies as soon as another player has used their abilities and heavy attack/breath attack into the stack of adds. Before any of them cast any aoe attacks or channels, another player must stop them with another ultimate.

This is demonstrated in the video BUT will take a bit of co-ordination. failing that, the mechanics above work perfectly fine. The choice is yours!

Phase THREE! – This time instead of fire, instead of poison, you have LIGHTNING!

The boss will heal up to 40% health when he enters and you will get an add every 10% so 30, 30, 10. After that there are no adds, so you CAN pace this.

However this is the trickiest and sometimes simplest mechanic of all but will take some practice.

When the boss casts lightning, every player (on hardmode it’s all players on non hardmode it’s 2) you will ALL be followed buy a large lightning aoe. If it touches you, you are going to die fast. SO, run away, together until it is all gone.

During this time, ONE player will be pinned every 3-5 seconds. They need to be synergised by a friendly player FAST in order to be picked up (much like Ozara in Sanctum Ophidia). If you don’t pick them up, the lightning will catch them and they will die.

Much like most mechanics, this follows the rule of 3. Basically the pin will happen 3 times, and then all the lightning will be gone.

The very simple way to get this mechanic down is to all run together, almost stacked but paced. Stay as far away from the lightning as possible but HUG each other. While moving be sure to literally SPAM the synergy button so that you will be DEFAULT pick someone up as soon as it happens rather than having to run back for them and risk dying.

Once the 3rd pin is gone, you can hold the boss still.

Important point for the tank: Be sure to maintain a taunt on the boss and any adds.

As well as these mechanics there are a couple more.

Frontal Lightning – This cone effect will be aimed at the tank, be sure to not spin the boss too much but also this can be interrupted.

Charge – occasionally the boss will charge at a random player. When this happens, dodge it or block it or be stunned.

Final note: While this fight is tricky, split it up into 3 phases, fire, poison, lightning. Master each one individually and you will complete it in no time. Be sure to watch your feet, and above all, understand that this is NOT a dps race. You can take as long as you like so long as your mechanics are clean. This is one of the tougher hard modes so it will take a few runs to get it right.

Good luck!!!