Lair of the Mad Mage - How to handle the bosses (Guide)

kiraskytower · May 2019

WARNING! Spoilers Ahead!

This is a quick guide on how to beat each of the three bosses in LotMM (Legit, no exploits here). These may not be the only tactics which work, but they are the ones our alliance (Evolvent Alliance) has used repeatedly to bring down each of these bosses. Enjoy!

A few notes first -

Ideal party is a tank, 3 DPS and a Cleric. There are "DPS checks" within the dungeon so I recommend your DPS be around 21-22K,

There are chests within the dungeon - OPEN THEM. There is a chance for them to drop some cool vanity pets. If one person opens and gets the pet the entire party will apparently be awarded the pet.

I'm not going to detail the mobs between bosses - they really aren't anything special, just slaughter them as you wish on your way to the bosses.

First Boss - Arcturia

Arcturia is the hardest boss in the dungeon and getting past her requires quite a bit of teamwork. As the fight opens, she will fly around and start attacking the party. She's tough, but manageable at this point and you will beat on her until she is down to 85% health or so. At this point she will move back to the center of the arena and become invincible. Pillars of butterflies will appear at each of the 4 corners of the center fountain and mimics will start to charge out of the corners of the arena towards the butterflies. At this point, it's a good idea to have already assigned each DPS a corner of the room (The tank and healer combine to handle the 4th corner). You MUST kill the mimics before they reach the central fountain or they will turn into Butterfly Golems. The Golems hit hard and have a staggering number of hit points. Your group may be able to handle having 1 or 2 of them about, but if you miss any significant number of mimics, they will quickly overwhelm you. Anywhere from 2 to 5 mimics appear to spawn from each "lane". Once the mimics are finished, Arcturia will start moving again and you may resume beating on her. This mimic phase will repeat during the fight, so be prepared to run to your designated corners (It helps alot to decide before the fight who is handling which corner, they are color coded).

Arcturia has a couple of special attacks she can use during the fight (usually at the most inconvenient times for your party). One is a red circle that forms under a player's feet and follows them around. Like similar ones in CODG or SVA, move away from your party before the attack goes off. She also can cocoon a single player to the ground. If this happens, that player needs to say something in chat (Usually "ME") and the party needs to move quickly away from them as they are about to explode. One the person has exploded, the healer moves in and rezes and heals them with a power such as Intercession.

Second Boss - The Boreworm

The second boss is a modified Purple Worm, and for the most part fights alot like one. As the fight begins move in and attack. Watch out as he usually opens up with a spinning knockback attack. After a short while of beating on him he will retreat underground and the terrain will start to move towards the center of the arena where the worm was. You need to quickly move AWAY from the center (if you are caught in the center, you will be killed). Also at this point boulders will appear and start moving towards the center. Each boulder that moves towards the center charges up the worm, so destroy them (they have almost no HP, so any attack will break the boulder). It's handy to have at least several members of the party slotting a ranged at-will at this point for boulder breaking. After a minute or so this stops and the worm returns, but now he has several new attacks. Large red areas will now start to form and he will have a "hypothermia" like attack (Multiple arrows pointing at one player). Have the party get close to him and group up, them as red circles form move clockwise around the worm, attacking and avoiding red until the large red circles stop. Abuse the worm some more until he again retreats underground and the terrain starts moving towards the center of the arena (Again, do not get caught in the center). This time in addition to boulders there will be constructs as well. Destroy the bounders and try to NOT hit the constructs. After a minute or so the worm will return and any constructs you have hit will remain as well to fight you. At this point, just slaughter them all and finish the fight.

Final Boss - Trobriand

Oddly, the last boss is the easiest in my opinion, however this dight does contain a DPC check and if your party is marginal on DPS, it may simply be impossible for you to win this one. At the beginning of the fight, its just Trobriand. Let the tank get agro and have the rest of the party gather behind him for combat advantage and start beating on him. At various times he will summon several large metal scorpions to assist him. Kill these quickly as they actually do more damage than the boss does. The boss also has an attack where he can "Polarize" two players - one will get a "+" above them, the other a "-" above them and electricity will appear to connect them and try to pull them together. This is alot like Castle Never's "Green bands" - pull against it and do not hit the other player.

After roughly 2/3rds of his health are gone Trobriand will move to the side and start to "recharge". At this point you need to destroy the four towers around the arena (They look like giant tesla coils .. something from a mad scientists lab). I recommend having the party all start at one and destroy it, then move around the outside of the arena together to destroy each one in turn. This is timed and if Trobriand's charge gets to 100% its a wipe. Once the last tower is destroyed Trobriand will move back to the center of the arena. Wait a moment before rushing back in, he will set off a nasty electrical attack. After the attack, move in and finish him off.

Loot the chests and pat yourself on the back, you have just finished lair of the Mad Mage!

Thanks to Chaldo for figuring all of this out, and to Curry, BetDatHuurt and Spartan for putting up with my healing :-)

Unknown · May 2019

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soaroki · May 2019

"...." Let the tank get agro and have the rest of the party gather behind him for combat advantage and start beating on him "...."

Honor for you O.O
PS:
Good guide, i have to admit, everything looks in order.

philvk7 · May 2019

ty for the guide, just one question for the general public.. have you or your friends noticed a DPS class being incapable of completing any of the "DPS checks" in LOTMM, not due to player skill or Item Level, but rather due to Cryptics "Balance".

Excluding all the bugs and broken content, should we be worried that even one class at least is so poorly balanced that no matter what, it can not participate in LOTMM? So far we've had no way of "properly" comparing DPS classes, because it was either end-game in MEs which have no DPS chart or it was scaled content which is out of whack.

kinamara · May 2019

So basically the min item level is set to low realistically.... thanks for the guide, would be nice if they either tweak some of these checks to be doable by a minimum il group or just up the minimum. To me that is the most annoying thing about this game, they give these minimum item levels for queues and areas but when you try it you find it is essentially impossible at that level.

valyana · May 2019

Arcturia attacks:
Draining Brambles, black branches erupt from the ground 3 times in ~5 sec. Base damage of 200-300k, looks AoE but isn't. This will kill the tank if you aren't careful.
Life Drain, basically wizard ray of frost doing 40k base per tick.
Festering/Transmogrifying Swarm: clouds of butterflies doing 50k base per tick. I don't know the difference between them.
Necrotic Strike, 50k base damage.
Miasma, the usual arrows overhead attack used during mimic phase, only 5k damage but sucks you in.
Arcturia's Wail, the usual arrows from the sides attack. Seems to be 666k base damage spread between everyone nearby.
Necrotic Smash, 200k base AoE.
And Cocoon of Death.

Golem attacks:
Leap, Quick Bite, Necrotic Claw all about 50k base.
Slam, about 30k base.

celthon · May 2019

Thank you for sharing this information and hints/tips...very helpful and appreciated.

kiraskytower · May 2019

philvk7 said:
ty for the guide, just one question for the general public.. have you or your friends noticed a DPS class being incapable of completing any of the "DPS checks" in LOTMM, not due to player skill or Item Level, but rather due to Cryptics "Balance".

Excluding all the bugs and broken content, should we be worried that even one class at least is so poorly balanced that no matter what, it can not participate in LOTMM? So far we've had no way of "properly" comparing DPS classes, because it was either end-game in MEs which have no DPS chart or it was scaled content which is out of whack.

So I haven't taken every DPS class through the dungeon, but from what I have seen from this and other dungeons I would expect any well geared DPS who had a loadout optimized for single target and met the stat caps (68K) on Armor pen, Accuracy and Crit and had a decent amount of power 90-100K+) should not have an issue with the mimics. Our first run a couple of the CWs struggled with them, but I know they were in builds which were more AoE than single target. Later runs the Barbarian and HR had no issue killing the mimics and on an earlier run my DPS Fighter also had little trouble. I'd expect TRs and SWs would be fine here too (Assuming they were in a single target loadout).

I can say as far as healers go, having "Giardian of Life" and "Intercession" available certainly made the Cleric the preferred healer for this dungeon.

quickfoot · May 2019

kiraskytower said:

philvk7 said:
ty for the guide, just one question for the general public.. have you or your friends noticed a DPS class being incapable of completing any of the "DPS checks" in LOTMM, not due to player skill or Item Level, but rather due to Cryptics "Balance".

Excluding all the bugs and broken content, should we be worried that even one class at least is so poorly balanced that no matter what, it can not participate in LOTMM? So far we've had no way of "properly" comparing DPS classes, because it was either end-game in MEs which have no DPS chart or it was scaled content which is out of whack.

So I haven't taken every DPS class through the dungeon, but from what I have seen from this and other dungeons I would expect any well geared DPS who had a loadout optimized for single target and met the stat caps (68K) on Armor pen, Accuracy and Crit and had a decent amount of power 90-100K+) should not have an issue with the mimics. Our first run a couple of the CWs struggled with them, but I know they were in builds which were more AoE than single target. Later runs the Barbarian and HR had no issue killing the mimics and on an earlier run my DPS Fighter also had little trouble. I'd expect TRs and SWs would be fine here too (Assuming they were in a single target loadout).

I can say as far as healers go, having "Giardian of Life" and "Intercession" available certainly made the Cleric the preferred healer for this dungeon.

I've been trying to get past those mimics, as a 23k cw, it's not easy, you can one shot em with ice knife, so save that, and you can burst em down with your encounter powers, but once you get one where all you have are you at-wills, you're pretty much screwed, all of our at-wills are rather weak or slow and clunky. I can sometimes get em with at-wills, but it all depends on if I crit a lot or not. At least that's been my experience.

The gwf, tr, and hr I've seen haven't had the same problems, and some were just barely 20k.

arazith07 · May 2019

Arbiter has no problems with the mimics.

draugkir · May 2019

nvm they fixed augments now

~~Use comps. helps a lot too. When fighting theese 3 bosses, augments seem to be kinda buggy sometimes not giving their stats tot he player.~~

skizz · May 2019

Well Played guys

Hahaha
funny at first others were like bugged just because thet couldn't figure out a way.

majorcharvenak · May 2019

kiraskytower said:

philvk7 said:
ty for the guide, just one question for the general public.. have you or your friends noticed a DPS class being incapable of completing any of the "DPS checks" in LOTMM, not due to player skill or Item Level, but rather due to Cryptics "Balance".

Excluding all the bugs and broken content, should we be worried that even one class at least is so poorly balanced that no matter what, it can not participate in LOTMM? So far we've had no way of "properly" comparing DPS classes, because it was either end-game in MEs which have no DPS chart or it was scaled content which is out of whack.

I can say as far as healers go, having "Giardian of Life" and "Intercession" available certainly made the Cleric the preferred healer for this dungeon.

That's somewhat disheartening but in a way not at all surprising. Anyways, many thanks for the guide and congrats on getting through the dungeon. Hoods off to you and your crew.

Unknown · May 2019

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kiraskytower · May 2019

pariswinters#7118 said:
it would be nice if cryptic gave hints on how to do the mechanics of this dungeon....they have always gave them before, but now they decide "just figure it out"?

and the dungeon is buggy, you lose half your stats/bonding/augmentation and any companion benefits (HP from augments) as soon as the 1st boss fight starts. and you are in combat so unless you relog you cannot get your stats back.

and the cocoon will kill 1 person, nobody or everyone completely at random.

The cocoon does seem to be placed on a random person, but if you follow my guide above it should only kill one person, and you should be abel to revive them and continue on.

pariswinters#7118 said:

It's just like the CR k-team....yea sure a few of you did it....but most of us couldn't...or tales of old even

this game has nothing to offer the average player anymore, its all about the elites

First day of a new dungeon? New Level cap and everything? Sure ... it's not going to be easy for the majority of the player base. But as more and more people gear up from expeditions and pick up their alabaster weapons and the like it will become easier and easier. You do need some decent bonding stones and an augment for LotMM, but with the way stats are in Mod 16, the difference between having mid grade enchants and top end ones is pretty small now. Much of what made the "elite" so much more effective than the normal players in Mod 15 is much less important now.

Unknown · May 2019

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krumple01 · May 2019

kiraskytower said:
The cocoon does seem to be placed on a random person, but if you follow my guide above it should only kill one person, and you should be abel to revive them and continue on.

The person trapped does not need to die. If you have a cleric in the party they need to heal the trapped person to get their HP to full as quick as possible. If their health can successfully be topped off, they won't die.

eolee · May 2019

Actually we successfully passed arcturia and cocoon phase without having to rez anyone in the cocoon, for like 3 runs. It happens that the person got One Shot insta-death and nothing possible (bug?) and every other time i was shielding with divine touch/critical touch everyone and healing the cocoon with Lay on Hands on Oathkeeper if i ran out of divinity, or simply divine touch itself and not a single problem. And if really this is panic time, well there's always the Paladin Sigil that might be helpful and used right under the cocoon as a safety too.

On a side note, while i main a cleric devout or should i say was maining one because she makes me fall asleep when i play her, i wouldnt say clerics would be favorite healer for this dungeon. oathkeeper is just fine aswell.

jonkoca · May 2019

If no-one has already mentioned it, check your stats after the cutscene on the first boss, but before anyone attacks. Sometimes you will have been inexplicably downscaled. For example I somehow lost 30k power. Re-log to cure it.

Unknown · May 2019

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talon1970 · May 2019

Also to mention

Be careful with activating smth like Tymoras lucky coin or the Pocket Pet.

You can't switch loadouts on the campfire if they are on cooldown.

I thought this was fixed in the past..

So let the slots empty or fill it up with heal pots/stones..

halo0816 · May 2019

pariswinters#7118 said:
> @jonkoca said:

> If no-one has already mentioned it, check your stats after the cutscene on the first boss, but before anyone attacks. Sometimes you will have been inexplicably downscaled. For example I somehow lost 30k power. Re-log to cure it.

you lose bonding and augmentation as well as HP transfer from augments. you are "in combat" so unable to toggle your companion. relog is the only fix.

so i ask, is this WAI??????

you dont need to relog. afer 1 or 2 secs you get your stats back. so no problem on that side

hawkeyel · May 2019

Thanks for the guide. I do find it rather silly that the first thing they make is a dungeon that with ideal set up 1 tank, 1 healer and 3 DPS makes you need to cover 4 places for a DPS check. If they want to have such a check then it should be 3 places to cover for such a check, for the 3 DPS players on the team. This must be that new common core math. So it is of little wonder as to why they cannot balance anything.

Unknown · May 2019

This content has been removed.

krumple01 · May 2019

hawkeyel said:
Thanks for the guide. I do find it rather silly that the first thing they make is a dungeon that with ideal set up 1 tank, 1 healer and 3 DPS makes you need to cover 4 places for a DPS check. If they want to have such a check then it should be 3 places to cover for such a check, for the 3 DPS players on the team. This must be that new common core math. So it is of little wonder as to why they cannot balance anything.

According to the devs on the damage spread for the dungeon is based on a strange 5 party build

1dps = 25% of the total damage required for the dungeon.

so 3ps is in theory suppose to supply 75% of the damage.

The last 25% is supplied by the Tank and the Cleric between the two of them together.

So its 100% doable to fight the first boss having the cleric assisting the tank on 1 mimic.

tassedethe13 · May 2019

@jonkoca

Instead of relog, you can swap companion in your companion bonus slot( not your active invocated one) it somehow recalculates your corrects stats.

tassedethe13 · May 2019

More over, depending on which corner of 1st boss you are, mimics don't seems to have the same number of HP, yellow corner looks like the hardest.

Anyone see a difference between mimics or is it just my mind ?

fogcrow · May 2019

Ty for the great guide^^.

Despite having made it through a few times already, theres a few questions I hope someone here can answer:
1. how exactly do we avoid Trobriands one time AoE after all tesla coils were destroyed in time? (staying at max distance enough? block/dodge? other?)
2. how much healing is nessesary so a player doesn´t perma die from Arcturias cocoon?
3. Can any meaningful boss powers be neutered by the debuff removing healer class powers like "cleansing touch", "warlocks bargain" or whatever the DC one is called? (cocoon? arcturias 3 hit power with the black brambles animation? any of the arrow thingies? Trobriands + and - signs?)

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

@fogcrow
1) you either scatter around the boss at the edge or huddle in 1 spot and use various area defence buffs/protections.

2) The cocooned player needs to be fully healed. So it depends on the cocooned player.

3) No.

fogcrow · May 2019

@obsidiancran3

ty for your answers^^.

Regarding 2) well...I was once on DC healer(with lots of power and +outgoing healing comps), someone got cocooned, his hp bar looked full, so I assume we´re working against a hidden number...since intercession was on CD I landed 3 Bastions of health just in case...apparently it wasn´t enough...
since that hidden number is enough healing to get a player from zero to full health, it means the devs have built one boss fight, where building the characters(esp. tanks) right for the whole rest of the game, including the rest of said dungeon, works against us...such awful game design

fogcrow · May 2019

Regarding Arcturias mimic phases: are they triggered only on thresholds of her HP, or also by time elapsed? If its hp tresholds, wouldn´t it make sense to kill thouse butterfly golems in order to play it safe, if one lane is struggling, but the parties total dps is high enough?

Lair of the Mad Mage - How to handle the bosses (Guide)

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