Written by Rackiera on May 16th, 2019
A look into each epic boss, its mechanics, weaknesses, allies, and how to best approach a fight.
- Introduction
- Greater Epics
- Falgut the Slaver
- General Reklar Plaguebearer
- Greater Anchor
- Memory of Elial
- Shaloth the Queen
- Son of Gigaroth
- Surtheim
- Valkor the Impaler
- Lesser Epics
Epic monsters are the final boss monsters in Istaria. They are seperated into two categories: greater and lesser. These do not distinguish levels of difficulty, but rather levels of reward. Greater bosses give a greater reward and are involved in the creation of epic weapons and armor, dropping essences required in these. Lesser bosses don't give any essences or have any related weapons or armor, but they still drop epic tokens, some crates, and count for their own daily and part of the weekly quest.
As of right now, the epics are categorized as such. Click the link to be taken to a page on the Istaria Lexica for the monster.
- Greater Epics
- Falgut the Slaver
- General Reklar Plaguebearer
- Greater Anchor
- Memory of Elial
- Shaloth the Queen
- Son of Gigaroth
- Surtheim
- Valkor the Impaler
- Lesser Epics
Each individual epic has its own set of abilities that make it unique and differentiates each fight. Most notable are the greater epics, who are the most different with specific tactics, but lesser epics are generally more alike. While there certainly are unique lesser epics, the majority of them are relatively samey.
In the upcoming sections, I will address what the general tactics are for fighting each boss, what is usually recommended for a group composition, and other details specific to each boss, beginning with greater epics.
In general, however, there are a few very good tactics you want to try to repeat across every fight. They are as follows:
- Snarl uptime. All of your dragons should try and chain Snarl, or at least keep the debuff up on the boss. Snarl makes the boss have a 65% reduced chance to hit, often causes them to miss critical attacks. Two dragons are enough to keep Snarl up on a boss at all times, so simply keep an eye on the bar and cast it if the buff fades.
- Staggering Howl, Dispirit Foe, and other delay/recyle modifiers. Bipeds and Dragons have major debuffs in Dispirit Foe and Staggering Howl, with the former increasing delay by 50% and the latter both recycle and delay by 50%. Keeping these sorts of debuffs up on a boss is extremely useful, as it makes them take 50% longer to use an ability/cast a spell and also 50% longer to get anything back while the debuff is up. Essentially, the boss is hitting you 50% slower in all cases, which means you're taking half the damage, and thus there is less stress on the healer.
- Dragon Breezes and Aura of Health. Dragons have three Breeze spells that are AoE - Refreshing, Rejuvenating, and regular Breeze. These stack with the biped healer Aura of Health, allowing a group to constantly regenerate a notable amount of health. Keeping these buffs up will help keep your party alive.
- Constrict Blood. While particularly useful in some fights, Constrict Blood is just a good thing to have overall. A Bloodmage ability, it reduces the max health of an enemy by 30%. They do not regain this health once they take damage, meaning you have effectively removed 30% of the boss' health in one hit. On a boss with nearly 1,000,000 HP, that's equivalent to doing 300,000 damage in one hit.
I also want to add one common misconception that I very often see in epic fighting groups - dual logging characters are not better than single-logged players. Count the person per fight, not the character. The reason for this is that you are only one person; if you have more than one character logged in, your attention on each will be divided between them. This fractional attention will lower your damage output and slow your reaction time to mechanics, resulting in the healer having to spend more time protecting you instead of other players. This can then detriment the hunt overall, as a domino effect rolls down the line - less heals for everyone means less health on everyone, meaning more susceptability to mechanics, and therefore more chance to die and wipe.
I am not against bringing a second character along by any means. I do so myself - but I always have the caveat that if my alt dies, leave it dead, and don't heal it. You don't need to be alive for participation and personal loot!
Disclaimer: I am not the be all and end all of epic fighting. If you have any observations, suggestions, or tactics you think are good here, feel free to suggest them to me and I will gladly add in any valid tactics.
| Health | Damage Types | Prerequisites | Resistances and Weaknesses | Notable Guards |
| 750,000 | Blight, Slash | Slivers, Shards, or Exceptional Shards of Freedom | Immunities: Blight Resistances: All elemental, Spirit, Primal Weaknesses: Life, Mind, Crush, Slash |
Slaver's Guards |
Falgut the Slaver is an epic added with the Niesa's Fate update in 2016. He has a few notable mechanics as well as a very sizable health pool (approximately 750,000 HP) and multiple followers known as Slaver's Guards (each with 87,300 HP). His resistances and weaknesses prevent you from using any damage crystals against him.
Enslavement Aura and the Freedom Buff. In order to fight Falgut, you have to use Shards (or slivers) of Freedom. He has an AoE aura called "Enslaved", which prevents you from doing anything - even recalling. The 'Freedom' buff counteracts this and is only available through the Shards or Slivers. The Slivers are dropped from monsters nearby Falgut's tower when using Inspire Freedom. 3 Slivers make a Shard, which has 10 uses that gives a 10-minute buff per use. Be sure to have a handful of slivers, or one shard, on you at all times during the fight to combat this mechanic.
Exceptional Shards and the Liberator. As of September 2019, there is now an Exceptional Shard of Freedom that can be crafted. This give the Freedom buff in a 10 meter radius. Therefore, the best tactic now is that you have one 'Liberator'. This Liberator has one to three Exceptional Shards of Freedom to buff the group with over the fight.
Enslave. Falgut's only unique attack is related to the Enslavement debuff. He has an ability called Enslave that can counteract the Freedom buff, stripping it from someone at random. When this happens, the Liberator or other places are expected that others "Use" their shard/sliver on the player that was stripped, replenishing the buff. If the Liberator has their buff stripped, they need to be freed immediately. Alternatively, the player may run out of the range of the debuff and re-uses their own shard/sliver.
Recommended Party Size: 10+, simply for the higher DPS to kill him faster.
Healers: As Falgut does not do much DPS, you should only 'need' one healer, if you require one at all. Larger groups can probably not even run a healer and instead have individual party members focus on healing themselves or stacking Dragon breezes.
DPS: As many DPS characters as possible is recommended. Falgut's high health pool makes the fight long and drawn out, so the more damage the better.
Other: A Bloodmage that can hit Falgut with "Constrict Blood" is extremely useful, as it drops his health by 20% immediately at the start of the fight.
Fighting Falgut himself is pretty easy, just very long. Focus all your high-damaging abilities on Falgut himself and use AoE abilities to cleave the adds; their damage is negligible as a whole and can generally be ignored, especially if you have a healer. When he strips an ally's Freedom buff, replenish it with your own shard or sliver. Watch for the Liberator going down or being Enslaved.
| Health | Damage Types | Prerequisites | Resistances and Weaknesses | Notable Guards |
| 430,000 | Slash, Blight, Pierce | Ethereal Shards for the Primal Boon | None | Fallen Plague-Dragons Fallen Plague-Warriors |
Reklar is often spoken of in fear for good reason; he is a more tactical boss, with a lot of higher DPS abilities, dispels, and a damage-convert mechanic that leaves your entire group relying on one party member to stay alive and keep a buff up.
His health, however, is not too high compared to some other epics and he himself is not too complicated to understand. Your best bet against Reklar is a good healer and a group that has updated armor.
Primal Boon and the Boon Caster. Reklar's primary mechanic is the spell Primal Boon. You get it from an NPC in a lair north of Dralk; it requires 1000 Primal and 1 Ethereal Shard to cast. The buff lasts 30 seconds and allows you to damage Reklar. Ethereal Shards are dropped by the creatures around Reklar's fortress. Per fight, you will need between 10 and 30 shards depending on your boon caster's skill and the length of the fight.
Your boon caster should be doing nothing but focusing on managing Primal Boon. The buff lasts 30 seconds, but it takes 3 or so seconds to go through a full cast of the spell. If you cast it off cooldown (evey five seconds), you will eat more than five times as many shards as you need. The boon caster needs to be extremely aware of the buff's timer, waiting until the Boon's buff has 5 seconds left. Only then should they begin to cast it again. Due to Reklar's delay modifier debuffs, you can end up spending up to 7 seconds casting; be aware of your debuffs and buffs in the moment to better time the cast.
In the meantime, the boon caster can fit in some abilities or spells to help damage. They should focus on keeping Alacrity up on themselves, as should the healer. If the Boon Caster is ever turned into a wisp, all attention of healing needs to be immediately placed on them to be sure they survive. (See Terrifying Roar) In case the boon caster is killed, or wisped, there should be a backup caster with extra shards ready to take their place if called upon.
Plague Breath. Plague Breath is a special ability unique to Reklar. It not only does a good deal of damage, but it applies a debuff that will try to dispel buffs on you. Left unchecked, this can cause your group to lose all of their buffs over time. A big enough group can ignore this and power through, but smaller groups will want to be cautious that they aren't losing important buffs such as Alacrity. Do note that the healer's Aura of Health can be dispelled, so make sure your healer is keeping that up!
Terrifying Roar. This is another unique ability from Reklar. It turns you into a wisp, colloquially known as being "wisped". It lasts 32 seconds and cannot be dispelled, leaving you helpless as you cannot do any actions or move. Healers and Boon Casters should call out if they are wisped, so the group knows to either stop DPS (for the boon caster) or focus extra heals on themselves and the healer. During this time, a backup boon caster will need to fill in the void to keep the group's damage up against Reklar.
Paralyzing Breath. While not as well known, this is another Reklar-specific ability. It causes a painful Life DoT with a 6-second stun and root in an area, which can cripple a group that's already low on health.
Recommended Party Size: 8+
Healers: You will want at least one Healer for this fight. Two is a nice boost, but most groups can do with one good Healer. You will want at least one Healer per 9 other characters.
DPS: You will want at least 4 (experienced) to 8 (newer) DPS characters on Reklar. More DPS is helpful, but too many will cause the Healer to be stressed and spread thin across many characters; if you go over 9 DPS, it becomes more preferable to have two healers to share the load. This highly depends on your DPS output, as well, as you can potentially kill Reklar before you run out of resurrects for fallen allies.
If possible, bring Paladins along if any biped has the class available. Their extra damage towards Undead can shred Reklar.
Other: You need one Dragon as a dedicated Boon Caster. A secondary 'backup caster' with about 25% of the Ethereal Shards can be assigned in case the main Boon Caster gets wisped.
Outside of dealing with his specific mechanics (which is gone over in the mechanic section), you want to try to stack all of your group on one entrance of his castle. Utilize Resistance Crytals of Blight to try to minimize the damage from Plague Breath and have bipeds priorize Health buffs on all characters to soak up damage.
Pull Reklar to the corner you are stacked in and kill his adds as fast as possible. Do not loot them; once looted, their bodies despawn faster and thus respawn faster. (Possibly untrue; untested, but common belief)
Reorganise your group window so that your Healer is on top with the Boon Caster right below to give you easy access/awareness for when your Caster or Healer is dying or dead. Keep an eye on your buffs to make sure you are not losing important ones, like Alacrity.
Otherwise, focus on your role and keep an eye on your health, the monsters window, and your allies. The longer the fight goes on, the more likely you are to lose; try to end it as swiftly as possible with the amount of players you have.
| Health | Damage Types | Prerequisites | Resistances and Weaknesses | Notable Guards |
| 375,000 | None | None | Weaknesses: Life, Spirit | Undead Horde: Elite Horde Guard, Elite Fallen Conquerer, Horde Guard (Crossbowman, Warrior), Corrupted Voidcaster, Corrupted Voidsinger, Fallen Conquerer, Defiled Primalist
Fallen of Rachival: Blasted Automaton, Furious Master Engineer, Fallen Automaton, Furious Engineer, Faded Thaumaturge |
Anchors are the simplest of epic monsters that you can fight. They themselves do not do any damage or attacks; they exist only to be damage sponges, protected by their endless spawns of guards. The guards are your only real concern and can easily swarm and overwhelm an unexpecting player.
The Swarm. Anchors are mobile siege platforms for the Aegis and thus spawn tons of monsters beneath them. They do not move and do not attack, instead letting their adds do the work. This is the only mechanic, resulting in the fight just being a question of how to deal with many high-level high-damage allies.
Recommended Party Size: 3+
Healers: You generally don't need a healer for an anchor.
DPS: If equipped and experienced enough, you can take down an anchor on your own with high enough armor and a good enough AoE burst. Naturally, the fight gets quicker and easier the faster the more people you have.
The best way to take on an anchor is how you deal with any swarm of adds. You need a lot of AoEs. As a dragon, the best introduction to this group is using Primal Cast and Hero's Resolve, then Breath of Flame Burst or Combust (if you have it) to do a massive nuke in an area of effect. This should take out most of, if not all of, the guards in one fell swoop. Then your group can focus on the anchor and whittle down adds with AoE abilities. Continue to use more damaging AoE abilities, or swap targets, as more of the guards respawn over time; try not to use your hardest-hitting AoEs off cooldown in case you get a large respawn.
Use a Damage Crystal of Spirit to deal the most damage to the anchor itself.
| Health | Damage Types | Prerequisites | Resistances and Weaknesses | Notable Guards |
| 190,000 | Slash, Ethereal | None | None | None |
The Memorial of Elial is a copy of the Dragon Ancient Rite of Passage end boss, Elial the Mercenary. He functions in effectively the same way, but is a higher level, doing somewhat higher damage with more health. He himself has no direct followers, but Ghostly Dragons and Pale Hatchlings in the area will jump in the fray if he is fought too near to them. They are low level, but the hatchlings' Gold Rage is painful in groups, so be sure to clear them out.
Elial himself has very low health for an Epic, but he is well known for his one-shot mechanics that is not shy to use. Bring Ethereal Armor!
Berserker. Elial is a Berserker, which is a class that focuses heavily on hard-hitting attacks. When he spawns and first attacks, you will see augmentations like Improved Berserker's Rage and Ignore Pain. If these are up when you engage, wait for them to fade; they will both be gone in one minute, with the former becoming a debuff that makes him do less outgoing damage. This is an opportune time to strike.
Riftrender. Elial has a sword known as the Riftrender, which converts his attacks into Ethereal damage. Ethereal damage is hard to mitigate as it ignores your regular armor and instead focuses on your Ethereal armor. This makes his hard-hitting attacks do even more - quite insane - amounts of damage, resulting in quick one shots and clean group wipes if you aren't quick to react.
Recommended Party Size: 7+
Healers: One healer per ten people is recommended to help mitigate deaths and bring extra resurrections.
DPS: At least four (experieced) DPS should help take down Elial. For less experienced or well-geared parties, the larger the party size, the better for Elial, because he has low health and the quicker he dies the less chance he has to one shot your party.
Other: If possible, you can try to discern a tank for Elial. A dragon with multiple scales techniqued with Ethereal Salve, a Ceremonial Chest Scale, and the Saris Stone of Friendship can take a lot of hits from Elial before dying. Alternatively, a Knight of Creation armed with the Demon's Aegis, Ethereal Salve, and Saris Stone of Friendship can tank. If they use the ability Protection and, for dragons, Menacing Presence, they can pull most of Elial's aggro as well as take the brunt of his hits. This is the cleanest way to deal with Elial.
Use as many Ethereal Armor increasing buffs as possible to try to mitigate Elial's damage. This includes abilities like Armor of the Watcher and equipping items like the Ceremonial Chest Scale. The quickest way to approach him is to simply swarm him with a ton of high DPS players to kill him before he can kill your party. If you don't have access to lots of players, then you will need to try to increase your ethereal defense and health as high as possible to survive his incoming attacks. Be ready to rez your allies regardless as he is very likely to knock down your allies.
| Health | Damage Types | Prerequisites | Resistances and Weaknesses | Notable Guards |
| 750,000 | Spirit, Flame, Slash | Boss Fighter: Galderos' Heart (Active) from Gaileach: The Myloc Queen (Part 4) Add Duty: Dralnok's Doom (Chapter 2): The Torturers to attune to Dralnok's Doom |
Resistances: Blight Weaknesses: Spirit, Ice, Life, Mind |
Myloc Gatherer Myloc Veteran Myloc Harbinger Myloc Hierophant |
Shaloth is a tougher epic boss. She dishes out a lot of damage, has a lot of health, and has mechanics to be aware of. A group needs to be aware of how she works to succeed or else they will end up losing the battle against her regeneration or extending the fight nearly indefinitely.
She is unique in that she cannot take damage from any sources without the Galderos' Heart buff activated, but those without Gladeros' Heart can still assist the fight by destroying adds as they spawn.
Hierophants. The most important mechanic of Shaloth's fight are the Hierophants. These allies respawn every so often and will heal Shaloth for a large percentage of her health. They need to be taken down as quickly as possible or stunned as soon as they spawn to avoid them getting their heal off on Shaloth, which will greatly extend the fight.
Galderos' Heart. Shaloth cannot be damaged if you do not have the item Gladeros' Heart, which gives you a buff that allows you to damage Shaloth. Be sure to use it prior to starting the fight and every time you get killed - the buff will fade on death!
Volcano. Shaloth's biggest attack is Volcano, a spell that does massive Flame damage to you. This is her only Flame damage attack, but it is significant enough to justify adding Flame as an overall damage type.
Spirit Bomb. Another hard-hitting attack, it does over a thousand ethereal Spirit damage to each party member. Using buffs like Armor of the Watcher mitigates the damage.
Recommended Party Size: 7+
Healers: One healer per ten people is sufficient to heal back the damage sustained by Spirit Bomb and Volcano. Experienced groups can run without a healer, but a healer makes things easier.
DPS: A large amount of DPS characters will help take down Shaloth faster, leaving little openings for her to heal. More damage also helps counteract her healing, as you may be able to outdamage one burst of healing if the Hierophants are missed.
Other: A Bloodmage with Constrict Blood can make the fight go quicker due to her insane amount of health. Bloodmages also output a lot of Spirit Damage, which can assist in whittling her health down.
It is generally suggested to pull Shaloth to one side of her arena, away from the center and entrance, to avoid aggroing the large bands of Mylocs that walk around the outside of her chamber. She spawns with a lot of allies to start with, so taking them down as quickly as possible is highly recommended.
Once the fight starts, all DPS should be focusing on taking down Shaloth and occasionally looking for any Hierophant spawns. As soon as one spawns, it needs to be stunned and taken out - left alive, it will heal the boss back to full, rendering all your work for nought.
Generally, groups will assign one or two players that do not own Gladeros' Heart to be on add duty. This means their entire role is waiting for the Hierophants to spawn and killing them as swiftly as possible, leaving the rest of the group to focus on Shaloth alone. This style of coordination works best if the players assigned to add duty scale down everything in their immediate area using setscale to make it extremely clear when an add spawns. (It will be the only normal sized thing in your periphery.)
When Volcano or Spirit Bomb go off, be sure to heal yourself as quickly as possible. Make sure your Healer is not struggling before returning to the fight.
Use a Spirit Damage crystal; Shaloth is weaker to Spirit than Ice, and Ice damage will cause you to take more incoming Flame damage, which is a killer against Volcano.
| Health | Damage Types | Prerequisites | Resistances and Weaknesses | Notable Guards |
| 600,000 | Blight, Crush | None | Immunities: Flame Resistances: Blight Weaknesses: Nature, Pierce, Life |
Son's Shield |
Son of Gigaroth is a relatively simple, but slow to kill, epic. His health is on the higher end, so be sure to bring your highest-damaging skills. SoG has the largest wandering range of all epics and can be tough to find, so be sure to spread your group out far to catch sight of him!
Life Void. This ability is an anti-healer ability. Most classes won't feel it as more than a damage-over-time, but for healers, it limits their Life skill to 0 for 30 seconds - effectively disabling them for that time. It can, however, be dispelled.
Blighted Brambles. Son of Gigaroth's other signature move is the brambles. These root you in place and do a rather hefty damage-over-time with quick ticks, which can result in death if combined with a disabled healer or a low-health squad.
Call upon the Cabal. SoG's self-heal - it regenerates a lot of health over a long period of time in quick ticks, requiring you to have a lot of damage to outdamage it. It artificially makes the fight a lot longer than his health implies.
Recommended Party Size: 5+
Healers: Generally helpful to have a healer. Son of Gigaroth's damage is not intense enough to require one, but an inexperienced or smaller party will benefit from the help.
DPS: You will want at least two DPS (experienced) to try to fight him, though this will take a very long time. Son of Gigaroth is an epic where 'more is better', as he takes a while to go down - especially since he can self-heal.
Other: A Bloodmage with Constrict Blood reduces his max health, making the fight quicker.
Pull SoG off the path into a region with no enemy spawns to not deal with the Eastern Deadland's creatures. Take down the initial Son's Shield using AoE blasts if possible, but don't focus heavily on them - they will be cleaved down by AoEs before they cause enough of a problem.
On Son of Gigaroth himself, beat him until he's dead. There's not much specifically to watch out for, other than if your healer is hit by Life Void. If they are, dispel it off of them with purifying spells as quickly as you can.
For the healer, it is helpful to have Detoxify Self mastered from Druid. It is a near instant-cast dispel that will take Life Void off of yourself quickly without needing to rely on your party. It does have a chance to dispel other random debuffs, however, so be wary and watch what dispels.
To make the fight quicker, equip the crystal The Bromeliad of Tazoon for a free nature damage converter. Do not use the Damage Crystal of Nature unless you are sure you can take the extra damage.
| Health | Damage Types | Prerequisites | Resistances and Weaknesses | Notable Guards |
| 500,000 | Flame, Crush | None | Immunities: Flame Resistances: Blight, Energy, Pierce, Primal Weaknesses: Ice, Mind |
Surtheim Fragments |
Surtheim is considered a tough boss for groups. The reason for this is that Surtheim becomes more deadly the larger your group is. Past a certain point, extra characters are dead weight and more likely to drag you down!
Combust. Surtheim's most notable ability is Combust. This spell hits you with a massive initial hit of flame damage, then burns you afterwards with a deadly DoT. It also gives you a flame resistance debuff, that reduces your protection against flame - resulting in increasing incoming damage.
Flame Bursts. Surtheim and his allies have Breath of Flame Burst just like the Dragon ancient ability, along with other Flame Burst attacks. If used in tandem with each other or other abilities, it can spell death for an unprepared player.
Auras of Flame. While not a massive problem on its own, Surtheim has an aura that ticks flame damage on you over time. His allies also have a lesser aura that stacks with the original, ticking damage on you. Unchecked, this can sap your health.
Recommended Party Size: 4-10
Healers: One required; two for group sizes larger than 10
DPS: 3-9; going over 10 total players (per one healer) makes the fight harder.
Other: N/A
Surtheim scales in difficulty the more players you have in most situations. If you have a large group with only one healer, and your group does not do a lot of DPS overall, you will find that your group mates will drop like flies. A Healer can only keep up with so many Combust ticks. With ten players, the healer will be at their limit trying to keep up your health, assuming the players are not cleansed. With each additional player, the heals are stretched thinner and thinner across each person. At a certain point, your Healer becomes overwhelmed and runs out of spells, leaving everyone for themselves.
To avoid this situation, bring your own cleanses - spells teched with Cleanse V are especially useful. This can dispel the Combust DoT, taking you off the Healer's watch list and letting them focus on others who have not yet dispelled it. With no dispels, a group larger than ten will likely suffer greatly from the DoT and lack of healing.
Beyond this, simply attack Surtheim with all of your high-damage attacks and cleave the adds down with AoEs. There is no need to focus on them unless more than a handful spawn at once; when four are up at a time, it can become a little troublesome.
If possible, use a Damage Crystal of Spirit to increase your damage output. Do NOT use a Damage Crystal of Ice - the increased incoming Flame damage will spell your death! A Resistance Crystal of Flame will also increase your survivability against him.
| Health | Damage Types | Prerequisites | Resistances and Weaknesses | Notable Guards |
| 400,000 | Slash, Spirit | Urn Hammers to break Blood Urns | Immunities: Elemental and Mystic, excluding Flame Resistances: None Weaknesses: Flame |
Death Guards |
Valkor, originally the easiest greater epic, received an update in July, 2018 that made him far more formiable and added mechanics to encourage group play. You now must create Urn Hammers to smash Blood Urns, or face reduced damage to Valkor and taking increased damage from him. He also features a deadly unique spell named Bats that siphons your life and deals massive damage to a group.
He has a very clear known weakness (flame), so once you manage the mechanics, he himself is relatively easy to take down still.
Blood Urns and Blood Flow. Scattered across Valkor's arena are Blood Urns. These Urns give Valkor a buff called Blood Flow, which makes him attack faster, do more damage, and take a quarter of incoming damage. While he can be faced with this buff on, it's a lot more frustrating than dealing with the urns - and most groups probably won't survive the higher damage. These Urns need to be destroyed using Urn Hammers to take the Blood Flow buff off of Valkor. There are up to four at a time, respawning every few minutes. Valkor's buff on his bar has the same symbol as xGenerate Health, if you are familiar with that augmentation, giving you something to look out for when an Urn spawns.
Urn Hammers. Two people should be assigned to be Urn smashers - people who wield Urn Hammers and smash the urns. Their job is to fight Valkor while the urns are down, but keep an eye out for when his buff returns and kill them instantly. It is recommended the people on Urn duty have at least two hammers to be fully sure all urns can be killed if the fight goes on too long. Usually, one each is enough.
Bats. Bats is a spell casted by Valkor often and is broadcasted by loud squeaking bat noises and various bats flying around your model. This spell does tons of damage and siphons your health, healing Valkor. When this happens, the healer needs to immediately focus on topping off the group to minimize or prevent deaths.
The Sacrifical Lamb. In the start of the fight, Valkor has a multicast augmentation up - meaning he will cast whatever spell he uses first multiple times. This is usually bats, and if it hits, will instantly wipe a group. Therefore, one person is sent in first - known as the sacrificial lamb - and will get his aggro and take the hit. Death is not guaranteed, but it is very likely. To minimize the chance of dying, send in a dragon with Primal Casted Snarl - this will nearly guarantee Snarl hits and reduces his accuracy, giving a possibility of survival.
Recommended Party Size: 5+
Healers: You will want one healer to help outheal Valkor's bats. If you are taking more than ten people, a second healer is helpful to reduce the deaths from Bats as one healer will quickly get overwhelmed with more than 10 people to focus healing on at once.
DPS: At least four DPS characters are recommended to fight Valkor. Any less and you'll draw the fight out and risk failing due to a lack of urn hammmers or due to a badly timed bats wiping out your small group. DPS includes your urn smashers.
Other: If possible, find a group member with Moss Club to make Valkor trivial. Bring a Mage or a class that has mastered Burn Armor and have them use it on Valkor to reduce his flame resist even further.
After your sacrificial lamb takes the hit from Bats, pull Valkor to the very edge of his arena, but not to the stairs. If he is on the stairs, he will likely run away - at the very top of the stairs, he will stay still. This takes him out of range of the furthest urn, potentially reducing how often you have to deal with urn respawns if you are lucky.
Keep an eye on his buff bar for the Blood Flow augmentation and call it out when you see it so your urn smashers can quickly take care of the urns. Your damage will be greatly decreased during this time, so focus on healing yourself and others.
If you have a group member with flame debuff abilities, hold your highest damaging attacks until the debuff goes off, then use your best attacks. Be sure to also use a Violet Crystal of Flame or ask your healer to buff you with Flame Attack.
Additionally, a Resistance Crystal of Spirit and/or Spirit Resistance/Ward buffs will mitigate the damage from bats. Bats is also ethereal, so Armor of the Watcher and other Ethereal armor increasing buffs will guard against it.
| Health | Damage Types | Prerequisites | Resistances and Weaknesses | Notable Guards |
| 380,000 | Blight, Spirit, Slash | None | Immunities: Blight Resistances: Elemental Damages, Nature, Primal, Spirit Weaknesses: Crush, Life, Mind |
Death Dealer Ogre Bodyguard Ogre Rock-Hauler Enraged Aegror Blighted Cleric |
The Avatar of Pain is an epic that ranges across a large area near the Staging Grounds with a large band of enemies. This enemies are specific types of creatures it picks up as it runs, rather than things it spawns on its own. Once these allies are killed, they do not respawn. The allies are more dangerous than AoP himself.
Roving Band. The roving band of allies, or the 'boy band' as friends have taken to calling it, is a bunch of enemies that AoP picks up in his travels. As he runs past these certain mobs - Death Dealer, Ogre Bodyguard, Ogre Rock-Hauler, Enraged Aegor, and Blighted Cleric - he picks them up and they follow him. The more AoP runs around, the more allies he picks up, to a potential uncounted maximum. These allies are deadly on their own and even moreso in groups.
Recommended Party Size: 3+
Healers: Unnecessary.
DPS: 3+
Other: Be sure bipeds are playing in classes with lots of AoEs. A Sorcerer can be helpful to keep crowd control on the allies when they are burst down.
AoP loves to run through walls and over cliffs, so once he is found, be quick to keep up with him and pull him aside when he's not in the middle of a crowd. Be sure to take him to a quiet area to avoid getting more heat than wanted.
AoP only has one clear mechanic - kill his band. To do so, employ the same tactic used with Anchors - Primal Cast, Hero's Resolve, and Breath of Flame Burst. Done by two or three dragons, this will annihilate the entire band in short order. Bipeds can use Multicast II and Hero's Resolve on Combust to take out these enemies as well to similar results.
Once the allies are down, simply take AoP out.
| Health | Damage Types | Prerequisites | Resistances and Weaknesses | Notable Guards |
| 225,000 | Crush, Mind, Spirit | None | None | Kwellen Berserker |
Daknor is a mez-happy monster with a dangerous band of kwellen allies. Once alone he is easy enough, but with allies, he is dangerous.
Area Spellbind. Daknor has access to a spell named Area Spellbind that mezzes every person in the area for 30 seconds. It is broken after two hits, but Daknor attacks too slow to break anyone out.
Kwellen Berserkers. The Kwellen Berserkers that follow Daknor are far more dangerous than he is. With a good amount of health and insane damage output, they can crush an unprepaired character.
Recommended Party Size: 3+
Healers: Unnecessary for larger groups; any class with healing could assist with smaller groups. A true healer isn't needed.
DPS: Any DPS and as many as you can get.
Other:A Sorcerer with Clarity is exceptionally helpful against Daknor as it breaks everyone out of the mezz. Without a Sorc, you'll have many 30-second downtimes where you stand and do nothing.
Pull Daknor off of his path into a secluded and clear area. Once he is within range, blast him with intense AoE attacks - e.g. the Multicast/Hero's Resolve Combust - to damage his cohorts as fast as possible. Focus on the Berserkers and take them down as fast as possible. If they are still up with Daknor uses his first mezz, you risk having group members killed before they are broken out of the mez.
Once the adds are down, simply focus on Daknor and take him down. Be sure to take out any other intruders as they come in, as the long mez can put you in danger of anything - even normal creatures you could ignore prior. If you have a Sorcerer, be sure they stay out of range of the mez (30 meters) and run in when it pops to cast Clarity. If done right, a Sorcerer could also watch for Area Spellbind being casted in chat and quickly use Clarity before it goes off, but this window is exceptionally small.
| Health | Damage Types | Prerequisites | Resistances and Weaknesses | Notable Guards |
| 275,000 | Slash, Blight, Spirit | None | Resistances: Blight, Energy | Blight Hound |
Fafnir is a Blight Hound that wears a metallic claw and appears larger than other hounds. He causes a rain effect in his region, unlike most other epic bosses other than anchors, making him easy to spot outside of the Staging Grounds. He is usually followed by two regular hounds, but can sometimes be alone.
Scorch. Fafnir's unique ability is called Scorch. When he is about to cast it, his paws glow a bright green and he gets a buff on his bar that has an icon with the word "Boom" on it. From then, you have 7 seconds to clear out of the range of the ability before you are hit by 3000-4000+ damage.
Recommended Party Size: 2+
Healers: Healers are not needed.
DPS: As many as you can muster, but you can easily take him down with as little as two people.
Other: Any character with a rooting spell is exceptionally useful when Scorch is being casted, as they can stop him from running after an unlucky soul.
Pull Fafnir off of the road away from other Blight Hounds to avoid being attacked by additional hounds. Once he is alone, take out his followers then focus on Fafnir himself.
Keep a close eye on his augmentation bar and watch for the 'Boom!' icon. Once this icon is up, run away as fast as you can - sprint, fly, however - to avoid it. If you have a rooting spell, use it before running. (Primal Chains, Root, etc) This may save your life, or the life of an ally.
Once Scorch is off, reconvene on Fafnir and continue the fight. If you don't want to run, you can be sure that he has the Snarl debuff on him and hope that he misses - or tank the hit entirely, if you've enough health, armor, and resistances.
| Health | Damage Types | Prerequisites | Resistances and Weaknesses | Notable Guards |
| 145,000 | Many; Crush and Blight primarily | None | Immunities: Radiation Weaknesses: Pierce |
Enraged Aegror Ogre Bodyguard Blighted Cleric |
Gruk is the easiest lesser epic, behind Project X, due to his very low health and little ability to defend himself alone. He has a similar mechanic to the Avatar of Pain in that he gathers allies as he walks around, but there is nothing else to him.
Roving Band. Just like the Avatar of Pain, Gruk picks up random allies from the paths he walks on. However, he pulls much less deadly allies than the Avatar of Pain, and generally less, leaving him more open to attack.
Recommended Party Size: 2+
Healers: Not necessary.
DPS: Any amount.
Other: N/A
Pull Gruk aside and slaughter his adds, then slaughter him. There's really nothing to it; just make sure you take his adds out first, generally by using the combination mentioned a few times in this guide. (Primal Cast or Multicast + Hero's Resolve + Combust or Breath of Flame Burst).
| Health | Damage Types | Prerequisites | Resistances and Weaknesses | Notable Guards |
| 225,000 | None | None | Weaknesses: Life, Spirit | Undead Horde: Elite Horde Guard, Elite Fallen Conquerer, Horde Guard (Crossbowman, Warrior), Corrupted Voidcaster, Corrupted Voidsinger, Fallen Conquerer, Defiled Primalist
Fallen of Rachival: Blasted Automaton, Furious Master Engineer, Fallen Automaton, Furious Engineer, Faded Thaumaturge |
Just like Greater Anchors, Lesser Anchors are the simplest of epic monsters that you can fight. They themselves do not do any damage or attacks; they exist only to be damage sponges, protected by their endless spawns of guards. The guards are your only real concern and can easily swarm and overwhelm an unexpecting player.
The Swarm. Anchors are mobile siege platforms for the Aegis and thus spawn tons of monsters beneath them. They do not move and do not attack, instead letting their adds do the work. This is the only mechanic, resulting in the fight just being a question of how to deal with many high-level high-damage allies.
Recommended Party Size: 1+
Healers: You generally don't need a healer for an anchor.
DPS: You can take down an anchor on your own with high enough armor and a good enough AoE burst, resulting in only needing one DPS character - yourself. Naturally, the fight gets quicker and easier the faster the more people you have.
The best way to take on an anchor is how you deal with any swarm of adds. You need a lot of AoEs. As a dragon, the best introduction to this group is using Primal Cast and Hero's Resolve, then Breath of Flame Burst or Combust (if you have it) to do a massive nuke in an area of effect. This should take out most of, if not all of, the guards in one fell swoop. Then your group can focus on the anchor and whittle down adds with AoE abilities. Continue to use more damaging AoE abilities, or swap targets, as more of the guards respawn over time; try not to use your hardest-hitting AoEs off cooldown in case you get a large respawn.
Use a Damage Crystal of Spirit to deal the most damage to the anchor itself.
| Health | Damage Types | Prerequisites | Resistances and Weaknesses | Notable Guards |
| 100,000 | Slash, Blight | None | Immunities: None | During Forcefield (Spells): Energy, Life, Nature, Primal, Spirit Resistances: Slash, Pierce, Ice Weaknesses: (During Forcefield: Non-spell) Life, Energy, Crush, Nature, Primal, Spirit |
Risen Mechanics |
Project X is the easiest and simplest epic, lending himself to solo farming a lot. His immunities and resistances make him exceptionally irritating for casters trying to fight him, and for melees without a damage converter.
Forcefield. Project X uses an ability called Superior Forcefield which is available every 45 seconds. This makes him immune to energy, life, nature, primal, and spirit damage from spells for 30 seconds. This leaves only a 15 second gap for casters to do real damage to him, so it is highly recommended to just use melee attacks with a damage conversion.
Blight Infusion. This augmentation makes him heal 5% of his health every time he is hit with Blight spells. Don't use blight spells!
Recommended Party Size: 2+
Healers: Not needed.
DPS: Any.
Other: Bring melee, not casters.
The simplest method is to jump down on Project X in his central arena and clear out the adds around him. Then focus on the boss himself. He does a lot of damage with his Buzz-Saw ability, so be prepared to heal yourself the instant it hits. Otherwise, just attack him until he dies.
Make sure to kill the Risen Mechanics as they will heal him if left alone. Always use a damage conversion spell or crystal to do the best damage!
A more involved, but better, method is to pull Project X aside from his central platform towards one of the broken circular machines oozing green goop. In this corner, there are fewer automatons and mechanics wandering around on their own, meaning less will join the fight and threaten you. Project X is also an extremely slow-moving epic, so if you pull him, he will arrive much later than his allies, giving you time to clear out the allies first.