This week's mutation is hazardous Hellfire
We don’t celebrate St Patrick’s Day in Aeternum but we do in Australia, so my apologies for the late article as we were out at the pub! Let’s hope the luck of the Irish rubs off onto New World.
Some nice synergy with the fire mutation and Ennead’s natural elemental damage. Fast M1 Enneads would be a good way to earn umbrals if you need them.
Contents
Mutation
- Ignited – 50% of all enemy damage is Fire.
- Fiery – Burn is applied on hit – M1: 4% Fire damage over time, M2 & M3: 8% Fire damage over time.
- Enflamed – Enemies with this title cast a Burn zone that deals Fire damage over time. M1: 20%, M2 & M3: 40%.
- Explosive – Enemies with this title explode on death, dealing 70% Fire damage.
Promotion
- Vampiric – Enemies heal a percentage of damage done. M1: 20%, M2 & M3: 40%.
- Phalanx – Enemies cast a shield that blocks ranged attacks.
Curse
- Blowback – Using abilities builds up to cause a zone of Silence that prevents the use of abilities. When it expires, the zone explodes, dealing 65% Fire damage.
- Truncated – During active periods of Silence, players lose natural mana regen. Standing in the Silence zone grants 25 mana per 0.75 seconds.
Consumables
- Flame Protection Amulet
- Rubies in Armor/Jewelry
- Desert Sunrise
- Fire Absorption Potion
- Honing Stone
- Attribute bonus food
Gearing up
- M1 – Opals in your armor is fine
- M2 – Add the Flame Protection Amulet
- M3 – Swap most of your Opals for Rubies
- Enchanted Ward – Aim for 4 or 5 pieces with this perk
- For more detailed advice on gear, check out our Gear Guide.
Dodge Explosions
Explosive enemies go boom! Not only does this do a big chunk of damage but it also throws you around, even off the edge of the dungeon, if you’re close. Look for the title and be ready to dodge or get out of the way.
The floor is lava
The Burn zone from Enflamed enemies can get pretty hot, so make sure you’re stacking on, and staying in, the heals. Leaving and returning to this space may cause an (unintended?) double stack of burn, so either stay with the clump or stay out of the fire.
M2 - Melee and chunder
There’s a penalty for using ranged attacks once again, with Phalanx enemies putting up a deflecting shield, so make sure you have at least one melee weapon. Vampiric slows down the time to kill on mobs that have it, so slotting your Bile Bomb Heartrune can help.
M3 - Strategic Abilities
Silence is incredibly annoying for every class. Tanks can’t taunt, Healers can’t heal, DPS can’t debuff or optimise damage. The excellent thing about Blowback is that you can see the gauge and can set off the silence deliberately, before entering a big fight. If you can’t help setting it off in the middle of a fight, try to stack and then move the group.
Starstone Barrows
Enemy Type: Ancient and Lost
Weaknesses: Ancient: 30% Lightning 20% Strike 15% Void. Lost: 30% Nature 15% Ice 10% Strike
Consumables
- Ancient Ward potion | Lost Ward potion – 10% damage absorption
- Ancient Coating | Lost Coating – 15% bonus damage
- Ancients Combat Trophy | Lost Combat Trophy – 3/4/5% bonus damage x3
- Strike damage – Hammer, Void damage – Void Gauntlet | Nature/Strike/Ice damage – Life Staff, War Hammer, Flail, Ice Gauntlet
- Topaz gem in weapon for Lightning damage* | Amber gem Nature damage*
Faction Missions: Oxboro or faction base in Everfall
Note: *Elemental damage gems in your weapons are simply recommendations based on the elements your enemies are weakest to. Your playstyle may suit non-elemental gems better and you are encouraged to continue using those if so.
Artifact: Blooddrinker Ring
Dropped by Greundgul the Regent.
- Ghoul’s Harmony: +25% lifesteal and all healing from lifesteal is increased by 5%. However, you deal -20% base damage, unless the target is diseased, then damage is only reduced by 15%.
- Empty Socket: Attach a gem to add its effect.
- [offense charm] Leeching II: Heal for 3.2-4% of the damage you deal (Does not trigger off persistent damage or DoT effects). [Max Stacks: 5]
- Keen Switch II: On weapon swap, increase crit chance by 7.1-9% for 3s or until the next hit (3s cooldown) [Max Stacks: 1]
- Empty Offense Slot
Strategy and tips
While it has the same name, this is not the Starstone Barrows you entered on your journey growing up in Aeternum so many levels ago. There is a break in the walls of the dungeon and you’ll find yourself in Amrine, fighting Lost, for a period of time. This is a fun dungeon full of nostalgia, twists and tricks. Be careful of the purple beams as they will kill you outright should you wander into one.
When you emerge from the Lost tunnels and return to fighting Ancients, the first reliquary can be used to let the group through both sets of beams to continue fighting, while the torchbearer goes up the stairs to turn the power off. This saves everyone from standing around just waiting.
Remember to carry extra consumables so you can swap wards and coatings in higher level mutations, it can mean the difference between life and death.
Main Damage Type: Strike
Simon Grey has grown up too and is level 70 in mutated expeditions. His attacks are scaled up accordingly and his Overhead Slam can outright kill a low con, under-geared DPS. Apart from that, this is a fairly straightforward fight.
- Overhead Slam: Simon raises both hands over his head and slams down, causing AoE Strike damage. Look for the movement and be ready to dodge.
- Minions: Simon will spawn 3 lost enemies. If you don’t kill them in time, he will suck them in for a life leech.
- Vomit: Simon’s vomit is pretty toxic and will cause a slow as well as reduce incoming healing.
Main Damage Type: Slash
Greundgul is an Ancient construct with a very large sword. Be careful of the backswing when fighting behind her. She’s quite mobile and will push the group around the arena. Make sure you have someone with a ranged attack to stop her when she gets to the jumping phase.
- Throw Bone: Greundgul throws a bone at the furthest player, that spawns skeletal minions. These are only a mild annoyance unless the fight takes long enough to create too many of them. This can be minimised by the group clumping close to the boss, so the bone and adds get destroyed by everyone’s attacks.
- Jumping Phase: After the first time Greundgul’s health reaches almost zero, she will reassemble herself in the centre of the arena and then leap at a random player, sending out a shockwave of damage with each jump. To control where she jumps, the group should all stack on one player. If you can hit her in the eye as she lands, she’ll stop jumping. The jumping phase repeats periodically until she finally dies.
Interesting Loot
- M3 – Simon Grey’s Set – Medium armour with Arcane Harnessing and Health, upgradeable.
- M3 – Stormbound weapon set for skins – Acutely Empowered, Gem slot, Keenly Jagged/Blessed, Weapon Ability Perk.
The Ennead
Enemy Type: Ancient and Corrupted
Weaknesses: Ancient: 30% Lightning 20% Strike 15% Void. Corrupted: 30% Arcane 20% Thrust 15% Nature
Consumables
- Ancient Ward potion | Corrupted Ward potion – 10% damage absorption
- Ancient Coating | Corrupted Coating – 15% bonus damage
- Ancients Combat Trophy | Corrupted Combat Trophy – 3/4/5% bonus damage x3
- Strike damage – Hammer, Void damage – Void Gauntlet | Thrust damage – Spear, Rapier, Bow, Musket, Blunderbuss
- Topaz gem in weapon for Lightning damage* | Sapphire gem Arcane damage*
Faction Missions: New Corsica Town, Wikala Al-Wahaha, and Taberna Mercatus in Brimstone Sands
Note: *Elemental damage gems in your weapons are simply recommendations based on the elements your enemies are weakest to. Your playstyle may suit non-elemental gems better and you are encouraged to continue using those if so.
Dropped by Heru.
- Shield Wall: Shield Wall: Gain 5% base damage reduction You cannot dodge and stamina regen rate is reduced by 10%, but have 33% more stamina. (While active or sheathed)
- Chromatic Ward: You take 13% less damage from all elemental sources, and have +10% elemental armor.
- Sturdy II: Receive 7.9-10% less Stamina damage while blocking. [Max Stacks: Unlimited]
- Keenly Fortified II: Gain 15% Fortify for 5s on critical hit (7s cooldown). [Max Stacks: 1]
- Empty Defense Slot
Strategy and tips
The Ennead is a bit of a maze and there are many different ways you can go and still reach your final destination. The fastest way is to take the first left in the passageway after the first room, kill all the beetles, then hug the wall on the right, fight the two sphinx and then proceed up to the mini-boss guarding the door. This does skip a lot of mini-bosses though, so if you’re wanting to complete faction missions or collect Azoth Crystal items from M2+ then you’ll have to go the long way.
Beware the Horus Guardians, as they teleport backwards away from the fight. Try to position them so they have a wall behind them and cannot get too far away. Some of the mini-bosses have attacks that do high damage, including Shai in the first room. If you are dying to this, consider taking your Con up to 100. On top of the mutation elemental damage, many of the attacks here are Fire or Void, so if you need somewhere to put your resistance over the 50% cap, these are good choices.
After the first boss, the enemies become Corrupted instead of Ancient. In M2 and M3, you may consider rebuffing at this point or even changing weapons. After the second boss, we return to Ancient for the final section.
Main Damage Type: Fire
This giant beetle is the first boss you will face. When you first enter the arena, there is a chance Khepri will charge, so be ready for it. As well as the physical attacks, Khepri emits a Solar Blast that does Fire damage. Watch out when the beetle launches into the air, because it is going to land with a slam. This gives you plenty of time to prepare a dodge. In the early part of the fight, it will do one slam but as the fight progresses, it will do two and then three, which is harder to dodge successfully.
Periodically, a solar beam will be targeted at each player. In most cases, you should be able to just fight through this, with good heals. For M3, you may want to use one of the pillars in the room to hide behind, which will stop the beam from damaging you.
Main Damage Type: Void
The General is Corrupted, so most of the elemental attacks in this fight are Void, including the corrosion blobs on the floor. There are a couple of Fire attacks, from the Archer phase, so try to stay out of those. General Crassus takes three different forms in this fight, each with their own signature moves.
Legionnaire Phase
This is the opening form, where General Crassus uses a spear. He begins flanked by two Signifiers and some trash mobs. It’s always good to clear Signifiers first, as they have a large area of effect Rend debuff. Watch out for the Phantoms – a row of ghostly soldiers that can hit hard. If this phase takes too long, additional enemies will spawn from a plate at each end of the arena. This is too far for the tank to taunt both of them, so DPS will need to manage these mobs and kill them or bring them to the clump.
Sagittarii Phase
At about 70% health, Crassus will return to the centre of the arena and his weapon will transform into a bow. He’ll also summon 4 allies around him. The bow attacks do fire damage, so make sure you keep moving around. Adds will continue to spawn on the plates and need to be kept under control or the healer won’t be able to heal.
Signifier Phase
In the final phase, at about 40% health, Crassus transforms into a Signifier with a staff. Two cyclops are spawned at the same time. Rather than fight these, DPS should move on to the boss and allow the tank to kite the Cyclops around the arena. It’s important to kill Crassus as fast as you can to finish the fight.
Main Damage Type: Fire
So, you’ve probably already noticed that Ennead has an extra boss fight, and to top that off, the final battle is with not one but two bosses. First we fight Anpu and then Heru, but when Heru dies the first time, they both rise up and we have to fight them together. The final deaths need to be within 10 seconds of one another, or else they will both respawn. So when one gets down to 1-2 bars of health, change your target to the other one.
Anpu
The big guy is Anpu and he spawns at the back left corner of the arena. On entering, the whole team should run up and fight fairly close to the pillar he spawns near. The tank should keep him on the far side of the pillar, and the furthest player needs to keep the pillar between them and Anpu, so that when he charges the pillar blocks him.
- Fire circle – when Anpu lifts his leg, he will spin fire around himself. Step back until this is over.
- Fire charge – Anpu will charge at the furthest player. Use a pillar to block him. He will leave a trail of fire which causes a fire DoT, so it’s best to reduce this by making him hit the closest pillar rather than charging across the arena.
- Cleave – Anpu will slam the ground and cause a line of seismic damage to head toward a player.
- Bolt – Apnu will throw two fast projectiles at a ranged player. These can be dodged if you’re quick.
Heru
Once Anpu is killed the first time, Heru will spawn near the glyph at the back of the arena. At this point, players need to be prepared to move toward the four pillars in the arena, so a ranged weapon can be useful.
- Judgement of the Gods – you will get a beam on you that causes a stun – make sure you’re not standing in fire when it takes effect.
- Divine Doom – a beam of light targets each player, causing fire damage. Just move out of it.
- Sun Beam – circles of fire move around the arena, be careful not to stand in them.
- Pillars – Heru will teleport to the middle of the room and hover in the air. Each pillar will start glowing and need to be disabled via interacting with it. While there are any pillars that haven’t been disabled, a wave of damage will periodically sweep the room. There is enough time to disable a pillar before the wave, if you start as soon as its available, otherwise you will need to dodge the wave or heal through it. Group coordination is key here and it’s best to assign pillars before the fight begins.
Interesting Loot
- M3 – Sun Lord’s Set – Light armour with Grit Ward and Refreshing, upgradeable.
- M3 – The Pharaoh’s weapon set for skins – Acutely Empowered, Gem Slot, Keen/Desperate Prayer, Weapon Ability Perk, Random Perk.
- Powerful Solum Mount Charm – +14% dash speed when off-road
Savage Divide
Enemy Type: Beast
Weaknesses: 20% Thrust
Consumables
- Beast Ward potion – 10% damage absorption
- Beast Coating – 15% bonus damage
- Wildlife Combat Trophy – 3/4/5% bonus damage x3
- Thrust damage – Spear, Rapier, Bow, Musket, Blunderbuss
Faction Missions: Last Light in Elysian Wilds
Dropped by Mahantaram.
- The Thirst: Healing consumables are 33% stronger, but Survival and Mana Potion cooldowns are 25% longer.
- Empty Socket: Attach a gem to add its effect.
- Empowering Toast: On Potion Drink: Gain 9.4-12% Empower for 8s (10s cooldown).
- Fortifying Toast: On Potion Drink: Gain 16-20% Fortify for 8s (10s cooldown).
- Empty Defense Slot
Strategy and tips
Even after running it a few times, it’s still easy to get lost in the Savage Divide. The pathways look very similar and there are repeated mechanics throughout. To open doors, someone will need to pick up a ball and place it on the pedestal beside the door. If they get hit, the ball will usually reset. Fun fact about Savage Divide, it has two gypsum nodes that yield a gypsum orb each – keep your eyes out for them!
As well as the standard Thrust damage weakness that Beasts have, elemental enemies in the Savage Divide are weak to their opposing element. So Ice Mammoths and Ice Hurlers have a 15% Fire weakness, Nature beasts have a 15% Lightning weakness and Lightning beasts have a 15% Nature weakness. Plants, such as the Razor Lotus, are Angry Earth rather than Beast.
Main Damage Type: Elemental
Both boss fights in Savage Divide employ all the elements, to keep you on your toes. Kurok is a large gorilla, with no weaknesses. His arena has four shrines, for the elements Fire, Ice, Lightning and Nature. When he leaps to a shrine, he will activate it, and an AoE attack of that element will periodically spawn at the shrine and move around the room. After the element has been up for a short time, the shrine becomes active and a player can interact with it to become an antidote for that damage type. They will have a small elemental disc at their feet and when they stand on the AoE attack zone, it neutralises it.
After a player has activated the antidote, Kurok will move to a different elemental shrine and start that one, requiring another player to get the antidote disc and clean up any AoE damage zones. Groups will often hold off activating the antidote to minimise the amount of different elements spawning, especially if the first shrine is Nature. While an element is not being neutralised, Kurok will build stacks of that element. At 10 stacks, he does an AoE attack, which you can dodge if you’re watching. For the last 10% of his health, he does Void damage and builds Void stacks. This is the most dangerous part of the fight and someone often goes down.
If you see a red target appear above your head during the fight, Kurok is about to throw something at you, so be ready to dodge.
Main Damage Type: Elemental
Mahantaram is a mammoth who spawns various elemental conduits while he tramples all who dare enter his cave. Like Kurok, he has no weaknesses and commands all elements. It is important that the DPS destroy the conduits as quickly as possible before returning to damage the boss. The tank can maintain aggro and move Mahantaram around the room to keep out of elemental damage zones.
If you see a red target appear above your head during the fight, Mahantaram is about to charge at you, so be ready to dodge.
Interesting Loot
- M3 – Primal weapon set for skins – Acutely Empowered, Gem slot, Keenly Empowered/Blessed, Weapon Ability Perk, Random perk.
- Powerful Cavalier Crest – Mount charm – +50% mount summon speed
- Wasteland Display Shield Skin
