Obikin89's Requiem for Neverwinter
MOD 21

Advanced Dungeons

Advanced Dungeons are mechanic heavy dungeons. You need 30k item level to be able to enter the Random Advanced Dungeon Queue, but the scaling for some of the dungeons in the queue is 36k (which means that if you enter the queue below 36k, you risk being significantly underleveled). There are 5 Advanced Dungeons, the last one, much harder, not being in the queue :

Tomb of the Nine Gods (T9G)

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Tomb of the 9 Gods requires 15k item level to enter the private queue, and 20k for the public queue. It is unlocked with the Jungles of Chult campaign. You can make a key for the chest at the end of the dungeon (the Chultan Key) on this campaign's page.

It scales your item level to 24k.

At the beginning, there are 3 ways, the right way is indicated by a face on a wall. You’ll then come into a big room in which there are pictures in the middle and sarcophages (and monsters) around. You just have to activate the sarcophages which have the same picture behind them than on the ground in the middle of the room.

There are enigmas along the way. If you get potions, people should drink them and indicate to others which color they are (we often use the first letter of the color, so P for Purple, B for Blue…). You just have to stand on the stale with the animal colored with the same color. There are 10 potions. It doesn’t matter who takes them. If you get relics on pedestrals, you have to find the correct sequence to activate them. It’s trial and error. Make a mistake, start again. Everyone can participate at the same time, it doesn’t interfere with others. If you do not care about the enigmas (for which you are rewarded), and cross the door (don’t be that guy), you will have a punishment game which is about as long (if not longer) but doesn’t get you rewards.

First boss : there are 3 pedestrals you can activate after turning around a big room. The left pedestral makes the user invulnerable : they will have to intercept green orbs that spawn in the corners of the arena and follow a player (they are linked with a green chain). If they touch someone, this person dies. Look at everyone to know where the orbs are and who they are targeting. As soon as you see a green chain, rush to the orb. Multiple orbs can spawn at the same time. The middle pedestral makes the user deal more damage against adds but less against the boss. The right pedestral makes the user deal more damage against the boss but less against the adds. As a healer, I always take the left one so that dps can focus on hitting the boss and tank doesn’t have anything to worry about (they take the middle one). But if someone else takes the left one, I take the middle one, so that nobody has a damage debuff against the boss.

Second boss : Break the capsule, and kill the boss. I wish it were that simple. There can be water. If there is, get out of the water and find the water dwarf, otherwise there will be electricity and you will be paralysed all the time, which makes healing very hard (if not impossible). Someone can get grabbed and you must free them or they die. It’s not an hard boss, but it’s the most annoying one because of the electricity.

Third boss : puts people on fire with its first attack (and any time it does it again), use Cleansing Light to make things easier. When a ghost appears on one side of the arena, rush to the other side and stay there until the ghost pulls everyone. When monsters spawn, focus the souls at all costs. If the souls are not killed, they fill a meter on the right side of your screen. If it’s full, it’s a party wipe. As long as dps focus the souls, it’s pretty easy. But healing can be tough because the boss will apply armor debuffs which cannot be cleansed… And people will take big damages if the debuff is too high.

Castle Ravenloft (CR)

Castle Ravenloft requires 20k item level to enter the private queue, and 25k for the public queue. It is unlocked with the Ravenloft campaign. You can make a key for the chest at the end of the dungeon (Stradh's Key) on this campaign's page.

It scales your item level to 30k.

First Boss

Someone has to take the book in the middle of the arena (if you have the aggro, do not pick the book, or leave it as soon as possible, otherwise all of the sisters will follow you, making the encounter impossible). They will draw the attention of the ghosts for them to not interfere with the fight (pull them to the other side of the arena with the at-will power).

On the other side, the tank will receive stacks of a debuff. At 10 stacks they must block, otherwise they will die from the next attack of the sister.

From time to time, people will get chained to the sister. When that happens, everyone must stop hitting her, or the damage will be transferred to the chained player.

Rarely, but it can happen, someone can be targeted by arrows pointing towards them. If you stay in the shadow, or far away from a light source, you will be assaulted by bats (and probably die). When that happens, rush towards the light and move away from the shadowy side.

When one boss is down, everyone must rush to the middle of the arena to destroy the portal of power that spawns there. It’s a party wipe if it’s not destroyed fast enough. Repeat until all 3 sisters are dead.

Second Boss

While moving in the dungeon, you will meet two Black Executioners. They will point an arrow over one of the players and stun everyone close to them. Kill the Executioner before that player gets axed.

The second boss is a dps rush. But the tank can make things easier by making sure to get hit by the big overhead attack. If the boss misses, he will start whirlwinding and becomes immune to damage.

When that happens (and not earlier, otherwise you will run out of pillars), pull him to a pillar to stop him. If all 4 pillars are broken, it’s your last chance before a party wipe.

If you are a Damage Dealer or the Healer, just don’t stand in front of him, nor right behind him when he's wielding his sword over his head, and things should be fine (his attacks are very wide).

Third Boss

A Damage Dealer has to take the sword and carry it to the last fight. Before going in, everyone can use the sword to get a buff. Then one Damage Dealer is charged with charging the sword's daily power (there's a bar on the right side of your screen in the quests' section, everyone can see). It is charged by hitting the boss with at-wills, but it decreases if the person wielding it takes damage or dies. At the end of the fight, when the boss pulls everyone at the center of the arena, the one wielding the sword has to use its Daily power when the boss says "raise me to the heavens". If the sword is not charged enough (a full bar is not required, so press the button regardless of how much Action Points you have), it will be a wipe.

Always stay together in a corner on the side of the arena. You will have to face big bursts of damage. If someone has an aoe with arrows towards them, they have to move close to the candles on the sides of the room to avoid being attacked by the bats (do not wait, as they deal lots of damage), the damage is shared with everyone around (if you are alone you will take a lot more damage than with the full group), but even with a full group, it's particularly hard to heal, so move to the light.

At some points, someone will be teleported in a room with Executioners. Do not hurt them, run away. Hide behind a pillar, then another… stay there if they stop following you. They will kill you if they manage to find you.

During that time, the others will have to kill 4 monsters around the arena to liberate their friend. There will be lots of aoes. Red flames indicate where big aoes will strike (so move away if one appears close to you, and better be fast), there can still be bats during that time so prepare yourself to jump to a candle if necessary. There are also big X aoes moving from one side to the other, so not only look at your feet, but also look at the room itself. When the 4 monsters are killed, you will be reunited.

During each phase, you will have to get the sword back, hit the boss, sustain damage, kill the 4 monsters again a couple of times… At the end (25%), everyone will be pulled to the center of the room. Stay close to one another in the middle and the one with the sword has to use its daily power at the right moment (when the boss says “raise me to the heavens”) to protect everyone. Then you finish the boss.

Lair of the Mad Mage (LoMM)

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The Lair of the Mad Mage requires 20k item level to enter the private queue, and 25k for the public queue. It was unlocked with the Undermountain campaign. You can buy a key for the chest at the end of the dungeon (the Inexplicable Key) in the Wondrous Bazaar for 2500 AD.

It scales your item level to 30k.

First Boss

Everyone has to pick a corner, tank and healer will be together (usually at green corner).

From time to time, mimics will spawn in these corners, and your duty is to kill the mimics in your corner before they reach the middle of the room. They will spawn one at a time, but there may be 2 or 3 one after theother. If you do not kill them, very resistant monsters will spawn and submerge you.

After the mimic phase, someone will be pulled by the boss, and put in a cocoon in which they will have 1 HP left. They must be fully healed right away or they will die and take everyone around with them in a big explosion. You can survive if you are far away enough, so do not stand too close to the cocoon to avoid taking damage.

And that’s about it, just killing your mimics and healing the cocooned person, until the boss is defeated.

Second Boss

Hit the boss until it goes away. When the boss is absent, you will be constantly and slowly pulled towards the center of the arena where the boss was. If you get there, you will die instantly (instant perma death).

During that time, move away to the side, and break all of the boulders falling in the arena before they reach the center. If you don't, the boss will get stronger and it will makes things more difficult.

After the boulder phase, rush to the entrance gate and stay together. The boss will unleash all of its accumulated charges at you (you can see them in the quests panel on the right of your screen). That’s where the healer has to use all they’ve got to make everyone survive the consecutive attacks. If people are away from the aoe, they make the others take more damage, so always stay together. If you are alone in the aoe, you are dead. Nowadays, the tank has to take the aoe on their own, as healers cannot heal properly in an aoe anymore and heal better with their aoe spell used on a single person (yes that's very stupid), which means : stay away from the tank (as they'll mitigate damage much better than you, that means less to heal for the healer) ! If a damage dealer or the healer are targeted, then everyone should get close to them, to mitigate the damage. Then you can start hitting the boss again.

The second time after the boulder phase, monsters will spawn. You have to kill most of them (leave one or two alive, this stops the boss from attacking when its attacks hit the monsters), while staying together. If there is a big red aoe on you, move away and try to dodge it. If you are hit, people close to the boss will take damage (it’s not much but every little thing helps).

Third Boss

There are scorpions all around the arena which will wake up and attack you when they are hit by electricity. Scorpions are particularly deadly, so all of the Damage Dealers should focus them as soon as possible. The Tank can position themselves to wake the scorpions up with the boss aoes.

If you fail to wake the scorpions early, or if there's too much damage done on the boss, all of the remaining scorpions will wake up, and that often triggers a wipe... So take your time killing the boss (slower is safe), and keep your powers for scorpions.

From time to time, people will be chained together with a + or – sign. If it’s the same sign, they will be pushed away from one another (stay close to the middle to avoid being pushed too far away). If it’s a different sign, they will be pulled to one another, and if they get too close, they will take damage and get a debuff to damage (it can and must be cleansed by the healer).

At some point, the boss will come back to the middle and charge itself from the 4 pillars around the arena. It’s a dps race to destroy the pillars. Once they are destroyed, everyone will take lots of damage, proportionnally to the time it took to destroy the pillars. It’s time for damage mitigation, use your Daily power, artifacts... Then you can kill the boss, but beware of the scorpions, as they will continue spawning if you are not fast enough.

The Infernal Citadel (IC)

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The Infernal Citadel requires 25k item level to enter the private queue, and 30k for the public queue. It is unlocked with the Descent into Avernus campaign. You can craft a key for the chest at the end of the dungeon (the Hellfire Key) on this campaign's page.

It scales your item level to 36k.

First Boss

3 demons will give you their powers to “help” you. You must choose which will help you.

It is very recommanded to have everyone in the party use the same power, otherwise you will be split and a bug may occur that will prevent the boss from spawning. In which case, you will have to wipe and start again. People generally take the power from Urzuuroch : it makes breaking the chains much faster and the other powers are unneccessary anyway.

Then you will have to choose which path you will take. You can either break a portal or a spore. Breaking both portals or spores will prevent them from spawning during the boss fight. It is largely preferable to break portals so that adds do not spawn during the boss fight.

The fight itself is quite easy (though hard on the tank). If you're not the Tank, never stay in front of the boss : it can charge and all of its attacks will cleave and deal damage to everyone it faces.

The boss will often attack three times in a row with its claws. The Tank must keep their stamina to block the third attack, as it deals tons of damage. From time to time, it will attack with its dart. It can be avoided by moving on the side during the animation, or it can be blocked. It deals lots of damage, so it's better to not take full damage on this.

When the boss launches into the air, everyone should stay close to it and don’t move : this should be enough to avoid taking damage. From time to time, it will bump away and deal some damage to those behind it : this is very manageable, so do not worry about it, simply heal everyone.

As long as the tank can sustain the damage and block when necessary, it’s quite an easy fight. Damage Dealers can also destroy the spores when they spawn so that there’s not poison everywhere to make things easier.

Second Boss

The hardest one, to some extent. The way the tank will move is crucial to the fight. If Damage Dealers are running in every corner, the Healer won’t able to save them all : they should focus on healing the tank first and foremost. Tank should circle around the arena (people generally do it clockwise) while others follow the boss.

The boss must not face anyone but the tank, or people will die. The tank must always be visible from the boss or the boss will target someone else.

As soon as the Tank takes the aggro, they must move to a corner until the boss puts a big fire aoe under their feet (and all 4 pillars). When that happens, the Tank shall move slowly to the next corner. The fire comes with an attack that the tank must block. The boss attacks twice, the second attack being upward. The third attack must be blocked (and this is the one that puts fire on the ground).

Then, after two more attacks, there will be big red AOEs on the ground that will spawn under everyone’s feet. These are deadly. And I mean really, whatever your HP and defensive stats. When they spawn : move away. At that point, the Tank shall be close to the next pillar, but not in the corner, so that they can put themselves in the corner when the aoe comes.

This cycle will repeat itself until you reach the 75% HP threshold on the boss.

At 75/50/25/7%, the boss will teleport to the middle and 2 imps will grab players. Players should be saved from the imps and hide behind pillars. The boss will explode and, unless you are very tanky and very lucky, you won’t survive if you're not behind a pillar. Only the Tank shall take the attack, to be targeted directly by the boss. Otherwise there could be issues with the aggro.

During phase 2, starting with the first boss explosion, a new attack will be placed in the boss' rotation. After the boss puts fire at the feet of the Tank, it will attack twice, then everyone will be targeted with a small aoe. When that happens, simply count to 3 : position yourself so that at 3 you are somewhere where it’s okay to have fire until the next threshold/boss explosion (if you can sustain the damage, put them where there’s already fire, close to the pillars). At 4, fire will spawn where you were the previous second. Just get the proper timing and/or keep moving to avoid the damage. Then the boss will do 2 attacks and there will be the big red aoes at the feet of everyone again. And the rotation will restart with all 3 attacks.

This boss is tough, but it can “easily” be finished by just a tank+healer, so do not despair if your Damage Dealers are dead and there’s not too much life remaining on the boss (otherwise it would take ages). The only problem is you will probably have to use a scroll on the next threshold because of the imps. But there’s no time limit.

One interesting thing to note, is that if the boss cannot see you, you will not be targeted by any aoe : nor the big red deadly ones, nor the small annoying ones. This means that, as a healer, you can easily hide constantly behind a pillar. Healing the Tank will be a bit harder, but not being targeted by anything is nice. Note that doing this is not always a good idea. It really depends on the group. And simply following the boss with everyone works fine, generally.

The main thing is to stay very close together (or far away enough) so that you can easily escape the big red aoes and they are not all over the place.

Third Boss

Now, this is the tough one. The strategy is simple : avoid the attacks, and do not break the ground too fast. But the execution is a bit harder and you will need good team efforts to make it. That one cannot be beaten with half of the team dead from the start.

During the whole fight, everyone will be targeted by small aoes (bombardment attack). Just like for the previous fight, you can move to place the aoe where you want it to land. As soon as the aoe is ready to land (it will be fully darker red and you will hear a sound), move or you will die. These aoes break the tiles on which they land, so always make sure to make the aoe hit a single tile, otherwise the arena will be destroyed faster. If you move on a destroyed tile, you will die. A tile can sustain 1 hit before breaking. If the whole group is targeted, everyone should regroup on a single tile (preferably one in a corner, which is already damaged). If a single person is targeted, they should move on an undamaged tile, preferably in a corner, so that the arena does not become smaller. The goal is to kill the boss before the arena is destroyed.

Now, the attacks you will have to avoid (they are cyclical) :

The main thing to remember is that the boss will always use its laser(s) attack after a group bombardment (so always regroup behind the boss right after a bombardment), only the tank shall be in front of the tank (and move away as soon as the boss starts its attack). And right after the laser(s), it will chain the tank.

As soon as you are capable of avoiding all of the attacks, it’s really about coordinating with your team and making sure that the bombardments only destroy a single tile as often as possible.

The Vault of Stars (VOS)

This dungeon is not in the random queue.

The Vault of Stars requires 40k item level to enter the private queue, and 45k for the public queue. It is unlocked with the Sharandar campaign. You can buy a key for the chest at the end of the dungeon (the Twinkling key) on this campaign's store page.

It is not scaled ! This means that both good stats and very high item level are important for this dungeon.

Sorry I'm not covering the mechanics of this dungeon, as I've never done it. But you can watch videos on Youtube.