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 should only be attempted by players that have beaten and are familiar with the normal mode mechanics and hit decent numbers.

The last boss of this raid, Inflamed Sephotep, is absolutely brutal, and has only been beaten by a handful of guilds.

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

Mechanics
The mechanics of the crystals and clearing the frost stacks of normal mode still apply, with one important difference: The large crystal-shard will only light if exactly half of the party's crystals (rounded up) fall on it - that is five people on a full raid party. Not enough and the shard won't light, too many and it will shatter and disappear.

In addition, the boss also becomes faster if it is moved around for too long, making it impossible to kite it around to clear anti-heal stacks. Its speed returns to normal after it hits someone.

Attacks
Napur has the same attacks as on Normal Mode, but the boss hits much harder.
 * 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.
 * 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

 * 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 acts as the last backup.

→ Thrive's HM Cit Boss 1 Guide

Bugs and Technical Notes

 * The same bugs and notes as on normal mode apply.
 * 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.

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.
 * 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.

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

 * Poison pools may be invisible to some people.
 * 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
In addition to the mechanics of Normal Mode, a red sun-like bomb periodically spawns on top of a random player's head. After about two sun-cycles, the bomb exploded, 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: 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. During this phase, the boss does not take any damage.

Tips and Strategies
The strategies are not too different from normal mode. Just communicate which player has the bomb, and where they will go to clear.
 * 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 same issues with the suns from normal mode also exist in hard mode.
 * 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 ¾, ½ and ¼ 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 (that is in combat with the boss) 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 sizable 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
The strategy to beat this boss is very different from normal mode. 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.

→ Thrive's Boss 4 Guide

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, 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
 * Citadel Raider Mount (Brynjua)
 * Windup Enraged Sephotep Pet (Sephotep)