Citadel Raid (Hard)

The Hard Mode of the Citadel Raid is a 4-boss raid for a group of 10 players. This raid expands on the mechanics of the normal mode, featuring stronger bosses with additional mechanics.

This raid is for players that have beaten and are familiar with the normal mode mechanics and hit decent numbers.

The Citadel Hard Mode raid can be accessed via the red Hard Mode portal in the main portal room of the normal mode raid.

Layout
Unlike the Guild City Raid, the bosses in the Citadel Raid have to be completed in order, and the next boss won't spawn until the previous one is defeated. Once a boss is defeated, a portal in the area will activate and take players to the next area.

In the hall at the entrance, three portals that lead to the second, third and fourth boss serve as shortcuts, should the raid party wipe. These portals are only active if the previous bosses have been beaten.

Raid Trash
The add groups in the Citadel Raid are called "Sephotep's Minions". Most of them look and behave like the Corrupted Knights from the Guild City Raid:
 * Melee: Normal melee-type enemy without any special attacks.
 * Brute: Similar to Stafrutes, Necro Brutes or Scav Knights, with a powerful Smash attack.
 * Pistoler: Similar to Pistoler Scavs, ranged enemies that can slow or poison.
 * Mage: Similar to Marksman Scavs, using homing projectiles and DoTs.

In the cave leading up to the first boss, there is a group of spiders similar to those found in the Secrets of Mugwood MSP:
 * Octofang: Periodically spawns a group of small spiders.
 * Venom Arachna: Small spider enemy that can inflict poison DoTs.

The large group in Sephotep's room needs a bit of strategy to deal with - have a few tanks kite around the Brutes while the other players kill the ranged enemies first.

Enraged Napur
Like on Normal Mode, this boss tests your ability to coordinate as a team.

Mechanics
Napur will give all players in the raid Frost debuffs, which will deal damage over time and stack up. These debuffs will also greatly reduce your outgoing damage and incoming healing, with the debuffs increasing in potency based on how many stacks a player has.
 * After every two Crystal Rain attacks, a big crystal will drop on a random player (except the player that has aggro). If the Crystal Rain crystals of exactly half of the party (rounded up) drop on the big crystal, it will light with a green fire. Any player standing near the fire will get their debuffs removed. If the big crystal is lit, it will stay until the next Crystal Rain.
 * The party can usually survive without clearing their debuff once (if a crystal doesn't light), but most of the time the DPS will start dying after not clearing for two cycles.
 * If Napur is too close to the lit crystal, he enrages, increasing his speed and attack damage greatly.

In addition, the boss also becomes faster if he is moved around for too long without attacking anyone, making it impossible to kite him around to clear anti-heal stacks. His speed returns to normal after he hits someone.

Attacks

 * Normal attacks inflict anti-heal debuffs which decrease incoming healing by 10% each (stacks up to 10 times).
 * Tankbuster: A wide backhand sweep, accompanied by the usual sound effect. Napur does a Tankbuster after every three normal attacks.
 * Crystal Rain: A small red circle appears on the ground below every player, and after a short delay, a small crystal falls from the sky to strike anything in that circle. Group up on the big crystal before Napur casts Crystal Rain to make the small crystals fall on it.
 * Circles appear in the order in which the players logged in.

Tips and Strategies
→ Thrive's HM Citadel Boss 1 Guide
 * Keep grouped up and only split up when dodging Crystal Rain, to have the big crystal spawn in a spot where everyone can reach it quickly. You can group up on one player, a spot marked by placing down a Musketeer turret or the journal.
 * Stacking up on the boss like in normal mode does not work, because the boss enrages if he is too close to the lit crystal shard.
 * Form a "Shard Group" of people who are going to use their crystals to light the large crystal shards. If someone from the shard group dies, one of the the players not from the shard group will take their spot.
 * Determine the order the backup players jump in by giving them numbers.
 * The tank who does not has aggro at the moment can either help light the shard as a part of the crystal group from the beginning, or act as the last backup.

Bugs and Technical Notes

 * The large crystal may not always look like it's lit for some players, but they can still clear their frost stacks when standing near it.
 * Orbus occasionally does not read a player because of desync issues, if a player is desynced, they will not be able to help light the ice-shard. Relogging often solves that issue.
 * Mount speed in combat is an early sign that desync issues are cropping up.
 * In order to make sure Orbus updates your position (to avoid dying to crystals you have already jumped out of), double jump and slide a bit. Jumping late can also cause you to be out of your circle on your end, but the server registeres you as inside because of delay.
 * After a few attempts, the large crystal can start to spawn very quickly after Crystal Rain. Be quick when grouping up.
 * Sometimes there is a "shatter" sound even though the shard did not break (often after the next wave of crystals fall after lighting the large crystal-shard). Ignore it when that happens.
 * If the large crystal falls on a player that is very tall, it might not light.

Enraged Brynjua
It is almost inevitable that people die on this boss - kill him quickly before he kills you.

Mechanics
The boss follows the same rotation as on normal mode:
 * Chains appear on two players, together with pools that deal damage over time.
 * The boss jumps on one of the two chained players, then walks back to the tank.
 * If Brynjua has less than 50% health, he will quickly chase a player (starts with a person that is not the main aggro holder), attempting to run them over and kill them. While he does that, he takes reduced damage. After a while, the boss returns to the main aggro holder and resumes to take normal damage.

Attacks

 * Chains: Brynjua creates chains connecting him and two players (except the main aggro holder) that deal a considerable amount of damage over time to the players chained up, and a lot of damage to any (unchained) player that touches the chains (usually deadly).
 * Jump: Brynjua jumps on one of the players chained up. All players hit by the jump share the damage.
 * Poison Pools: A large red poison pool that deals damage to everyone standing inside of it.
 * Pools usually appear on both chained players directly after chains appear.
 * Poison pools are permanent, and only disappear when the boss fight resets or the boss dies.

Tips and Strategies

 * Slow the boss when he is chasing players - for example, with Frost spells or Gravity Orb.
 * Use all damage-boosting buffs at your disposal, for example the Bard Super, a Runemage's Affinity-boosted Affliction, a Scoundrel's Break Shot, a Ranger's Hunter's Mark, or a Warrior's Blessing of Might.
 * Group up and soak up the damage from the first jump, then jump out quickly before getting killed by the poison pool, only then split up. This way, the chained people are able to stay alive.
 * If can't kill the boss fast enough before everyone dies: All players switch to Paladin and wait 10 minutes to build up their Plea of Divinity talent. Meet up in pairs give each other the Plea, before switching back to the other classes. While this method is time-consuming, the second lives gives you a decent chance at making it through this fight.

Bugs and Technical Notes

 * The chains can be invisible (to some players), believe your party members if they tell you that you are chained.
 * The poison pools can be invisible (to some players), keep track of where the boss lands.
 * If the boss does the phase change (reaches less than 50% health) before the first pair of chains appears, circles will drop instantly.

Enraged Geruvi
There are a lot of things happening on this boss. Good communication and managing the mechanics is key to beating Geruvi.

Mechanics
Regularly, two gears appear in random places in the sky, which contain a giant sun-like fireball each.
 * The suns can be shot at and will then explode. One of the Suns can fall on one random raid member (including the main aggro holder), dealing a lot of damage.
 * If the Sun hits more than one person, they will share the damage.
 * If not shot down, the suns will send down a beam of fire, spawning in a group of enemies (two melees, two mages, one pistoler).

A red sun-like bomb periodically spawns on top of a random player's head. After about two sun-cycles, the bomb explodes, killing every player in the raid group. The only way to get rid of the bomb is for the player with the bomb to stand in the fiery beam a sun creates when they are not shot down (in which case no adds spawn from that sun), or when the player dies.

Attacks
The attacks of this boss are the same as on normal mode, except the boss hits harder.


 * Consume: At 75%, 50% and 25% health, a purple Consume bar appears above Geruvi's head, together with two Brute-type Corrupted Knight adds. When the bar is filled, the boss will Consume the Knights, getting back a percentage of his max health for every Knight still alive.
 * If the boss refills his health this way, the Consume phase will repeat after his health is lowered again.
 * During this phase, the boss does not take any damage.

Tips and Strategies

 * Always stay grouped up (but at a distance away) to share the damage from the falling suns.
 * If the sun falls on the tank, they need to move back to the group immediately (or if they are a Paladin, use their Shield), because if they get hit by the falling sun while alone, they can and will get one-shot by it. The group should call out a sun falling on the tank with an appropriate amount of panic.
 * A Musketeer can use their Shield Orb on the group to help shield some of the damage from the suns.
 * Stay at a distance from the boss to kill the Knights before they reach the group and have the opportunity to kill you with their Smash attack.
 * The tank can grab one of the Knights while the party focuses on the other one, to prevent them from reaching the group at the same time and killing people with Smash.
 * Have a dedicated sun shooter (Scoundrel or Ranger), who stays away from the group and only attacks the suns, while staying out of combat with the boss to prevent the suns falling on them. The First Strike weapon affix is great for this job.
 * Prioritize killing Consume adds, then Sun adds, and only if there is nothing else to hit, the boss.
 * A Musketeer should avoid placing their Lifewell below the group. Healing this many players at once might cause them to pull boss aggro.
 * If a player with the bomb can't reach the sun-beam in time, they can kill themselves via the menu to prevent a wipe.

Bugs and Technical Notes

 * The suns never completely un-load - doing too many attempts on this boss can make everything involving the suns very buggy. Leave the instance, re-form party, and enter the raid again to fix this.
 * Bombs can randomly clear on their own. Shoot the sun after the bomb disappears, to prevent adds from spawning in case of a glitch-clear.
 * After a leash or wipe, if a player had a bomb at that time, it might not disappear. To make it go away, either let it explode, or someone needs to start combat with the boss and the player with the bomb needs to go to graveyard during that.

Inflamed Sephotep
This boss fight is absolutely brutal and the longest fight in the game - with most kills taking around 20 minutes. Good luck.

Mechanics
Sephotep will gain a colored shield at 75%, 50% and 25% health, which will prevent any damage dealt to him. The shield must be removed by doing certain things to open a portal, which will lead to an area with a group of monsters. Sephotep will attack the portal with Destructive Volley, that must be blocked, and if the portal's health bar reaches zero, all players will die immediately. After all the monsters are defeated, the shield will disappear, and party members in that area are transported back into the boss room.

Attacks

 * Normal attacks inflict anti-heal debuffs which decrease incoming healing by 10% each (stacks up to 10 times).
 * Tankbuster: A large backhand sweep with his spear, accompanied by the usual sound. Also inflicts an Affliction DoT that can be decursed.
 * Purple projectile: A quick, non-dodgeable projectile that hits a random player for a medium amount of damage.
 * Purple orbs: Sephotep spawns two purple orbs every 20 seconds that fly from near his face to one random player each (not including the main aggro holder). They can be shot down by damaging attacks.
 * If a player is hit by it (and lives), they also apply an Affliction DoT that can be decursed.
 * Orbs can be frosted by the player that is targeted by it.
 * If there are only two people in combat with the boss, one of the orbs will target the main aggro holder.
 * Red circles: Two big red circles appears around two random players (that are in combat with the boss) every 10 seconds. A purple sphere will drop in the middle of the circle, dealing a large amount of damage to players standing inside it. If more than one person is inside the circle, the damage is split between them.
 * Add Spawn: A group of adds spawns every 20 seconds in the middle of the area (one normal melee, one elite melee, one elite pistoler). The timer stops while the portal is open.
 * Destructive Volley: Sephotep creates large red orbs that fly towards the open portal.
 * If it hits the portal, the portal will lose health. If a single orb hits the portal it explodes, killing all players in the process.
 * The orbs can not be killed, but can be blocked by players. On impact, they deal a good chunk of damage.

Notes:
 * The timers for the spawning of the adds stops during the hell phase - meaning, if the portal opens 5 seconds after the adds spawned, the next group will spawn 15 seconds after hell phase is over.

Tips and Strategies
All mechanics do a lot more damage on this boss, and while a strategy similar to that of normal mode is possible, most groups use a strategy that is very different from normal mode and takes a lot longer, but is more resistant to mistakes, bugs and desyncs.

Every group does it a bit differently, but you will find that they all have some things in common:
 * Only three players are in combat with the boss (usually 1 Paladin and 2 DPS), getting passive healing and decurses from a Bard.
 * The rest of the party stays out of boss combat, deals with the adds, opening portals, and killing the enemies inside of the portals.

Bugs and Technical Notes

 * If a player desyncs, it may become impossible to open the Red portal until they re-log.
 * A purple orb can fly to the zone origin (coordinates 0,0) if the player it targets is desynched.
 * If any player closes their game and logs back in (due to crashes or on purpose), they appear at origin for a split-second. If there are orbs at that position, the player dies immediately (but appear in the correct position anyway). This can also be used to open the Blue portal.

Loot

 * Special Level 30+6 Equipment (Liberator sets) with special blue foil, unique to each class
 * Napur: Gloves and Shoulders
 * Brynjua: Helmet
 * Geruvi: Chestpiece
 * Sephotep: Weapon (can be 30+7)
 * Napur Frost Major Dye
 * Chaos Lavender Accent Dye
 * Windup Enraged Sephotep Pet (Sephotep)
 * Citadel Raider Mount (Brynjua)