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Just like most of the other Abyssal Dungeons in Lost Ark, both Stages of the Phantom Palace Abyssal Dungeons are modified versions of the Dungeons seen in the Main Story quest, with Rohendel being the setting this time. However, for Hall of the Twisted Warlord, players will need to worry about beating the Phantom Legion’s Rook and Bishop as well as the Phantom Legion King before even thinking about taking on Brelshaza, the final “big bad” of the Phantom Palace (as well as the big bad of some future endgame content not released in the West yet).

Quick & Compressed Refresher Guide

This first section is mostly for those who have already cleared the Phantom Palace previously and only need the shortest of reminders of what the main mechanics of this Dungeon are. Or, alternatively, this section can also be used by players who are confident in their MMORPG Raiding knowledge and don’t require a lot of explanation in order to understand the mechanics.

The Hall of the Twisted Warlord has four sections, two mob clearing ones and two boss fights: the Phantom Legion Rook & Bishop and the Phantom Legion King. For the Phantom Legion Rook & Bishop, the player with the crosshair above their head should put the Bishop between them and the Rook when it’s charging up its gigantic orb projectile. The second time it does this, they should make sure all the chess-piece structures are broken so they don’t get in the way. The Phantom Legion King is where most of the mechanical complexity lies, and this is where players need to assign turn order. Players should use the randomly assigned numbering of the party members as the order for grabbing the Illusion Swords, as well as for where they’ll stand during the Illusion Sword Stagger Check phase (1 = North, 2 = East, 3 = South, 4 = West). Players should remember that each player is required to have the Illusion Sword debuff active before hitting the boss, as the debuff disappears for a minimum of two seconds between each Illusion Sword Grab. For those who are still struggling to understand the mechanic or don’t know why the Phantom King’s Wipe Mechanic is still activating, continue reading below for a more in-depth explanation.

First Section: Sealing The Monsters

The reason why the Phantom Palace Abyssal Dungeon is one of the more fondly remembered pieces of endgame content in Lost Ark is largely because of the high amount of fanfare, and the start of the Hall of the Twisted Warlord is no different. The party starts this section by running forward through a hall of constantly changing scenery with buildings springing up out of nowhere and landscapes changing in the blink of an eye.

While running through these obstacles, players will be asked to “seal” a variety of monsters a couple of times in order to open the gate forward, but this really just boils down to clearing out any mobs that spawn.

Second Section: Phantom Legion Rook & Bishop

These two primarily purple Chess Piece Golems are the Phantom Legion Rook and the Phantom Legion Bishop, and they’re the first tag-team Boss Battle players will encounter in the Abyssal Dungeons, though certainly not the last. There’s only really one actual “mechanic” that players need to remember for this fight: the Wipe Mechanic.

Wipe Mechanic

After a couple of minutes (or an absurd amount of damage is done), the Wipe Mechanic will start. When it begins, the Bishop will move to an area of the arena and will begin gathering energy for an attack, stopping all movement altogether while the Rook will move to a random spot at the edge of the arena and start charging a deadly projectile orb.

After they’ve moved, three out of the four party members will notice a large purple circle underneath their feet that damages and knocks back any allies within it. The fourth member should notice that they don’t have a circle like the rest of their party and instead have a crosshair icon above their head. Once the outlier player has identified themselves, they’ll need to start moving.

The goal here is for the player without a purple circle to move to a spot where the Rook’s projectile (which moves in a straight line) will hit the Bishop before it hits the party member. Essentially, they need to put the Bishop between them and the Rook. If done properly, the Rook shoots the Orb, hits the Bishop, interrupts the Bishop charging up their party wiping attack, and staggers them as well. If done incorrectly, the projectile won’t hit the Bishop, and they’ll unleash an arena-wide attack that instantly wipes the entire party.

Then, near the end of the battle, this mechanic happens a second time, with the slight difference being the Rook summoning chess piece-shaped stone towers around the Bishop in the center. The three party members with the purple circles should immediately break these towers while the fourth party member gets in position. Worst case scenario, the party only has to break the stone towers that would get in the way of the Orb hitting the Bishop. Once correctly done a second time, that’s the last of this mechanic.

Regular Attacks

Third Section: Defeat The Illusion Legion

Thankfully, unlike the Ancient Elveria Abyssal Dungeon, the mob-clearing sections of the Phantom Palace are pretty short. After defeating the Rook and Bishop, the party then enters the castle and spends a bit of time clearing out waves of the Illusion Legion in the wide-open room they’ll walk into.

There are a couple of annoying Elite mobs to beat here, but, other than that, it’s a section that’s barely even worth mentioning. Once the Illusion Legion is defeated, players can simply walk through the double doors into the room directly before the encounter with the Phantom Legion King

Fourth & Final Section: The Phantom Legion King

Now it’s time for the final boss of the Twisted Warlord’s Hall, the Phantom Legion King. The Sigmund Boss fight in the Ancient Elveria dungeon forced players to communicate a bit and assign directions before the fight, but The Phantom Legion King goes one step further with its wipe mechanic.

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Thankfully, outside of its wipe mechanic, the boss is pretty simple, making the fight pretty enjoyable overall except for this one key section. In any case, the Phantom Legion King has two important mechanics, the Illusion Sword Stagger Check and its default Stagger Check.

Important Mechanic: Illusion Sword Stagger Check

This is the premier system of this encounter, and the one players will need to commit to memory if they plan to re-run their Abyssals weekly for that extra chunk of Gold or those potential Card Packs (one of Lost Ark’s many examples of time-gated content). How it works is pretty simple, at its 16th and 6th remaining HP bar, the Phantom King will teleport to the center of the stage and start this mechanic. It will begin to channel energy, surround itself with a purple barrier, and summon four Illusion Swords. These Illusion Swords each follow a player until they’re picked up.

Essentially, when an Illusion Sword is picked up, the entire party gets the Illusion Sword debuff, and while that debuff is up two things can happen:

A player hits the Phantom Legion King, gets rid of the debuff for the party and is then able to hit the Boss from that point on without worry. Another player picks up an Illusion Sword while the debuff is active or attacks the Boss without a debuff and the whole party is immediately wiped out.

To prevent the second situation from happening, this is where the “order” mechanic comes into play. Basically, each player is meant to trigger the debuff by running into their Illusion Sword, start hitting the boss to deplete its Stagger Check bar, and also get rid of the debuff. Then, the next player grabs a sword and repeats this process. Meanwhile, the other party members are expected to kite the floating Illusion Sword following them around until it’s their turn to complete this process.

To put it into simpler steps:

Before starting the fight, the party assigns an order for who goes first, second, third, and fourth (party order usually works to auto-assign this). Players should also expect to stand in the cardinal direction tied to their order number as well (NESW = 1234). Once this is established, players should go in and start the fight. As soon as the Boss gets to 16 or 6 HP bars left, players should immediately head to their assigned direction. The Boss will summon the swords, and the first player should immediately grab theirs and start wailing on the boss. The rest of the party should kite their Swords while moving clockwise, making sure not to get too close to each other. After the debuff disappears when player 1 hits the Boss, player 2 can grab their sword (takes about 2 seconds on average). Player 2 starts wailing on the boss. Player 3 grabs their Sword as soon as the debuff vanishes and then starts hitting the boss. Finally, player 4 grabs their Sword and starts hitting the boss, though usually the Stagger Check has been cleared by this point.

If the Phantom King seems to be making it until its energy is fully charged and is wiping the party, it may be better to switch up the order to put the heavier Staggering classes first before throwing out a much-too-early surrender vote.

Important Mechanic: Standard Stagger Check

The Phantom Legion King also has a normal Stagger Check that can happen during the fight, but this one is much less punishing than the Illusion Swords one. Players can tell this Stagger Check is coming when the Phantom King gets this red barrier around it and stabs its sword into the ground.

After stabbing the sword, the Phantom King then summons two large cones of constantly exploding cracks in the ground that deal heavy constant damage to anyone standing in them. These cones spawn either north/south or east/west of the Phantom King and will switch to the opposite side after a few seconds. During this time, players should see the yellow Stagger Check Bar appear under the Phantom King. When they do, they’ll need to drain this using Stagger Skills to end this move early as well as open the Phantom Legion King up to some uninterrupted chain-combo damage.

Regular Attacks

Finally, the Phantom King has a good number of visually distinct attacks, which can make the fight seem chaotic similar to something like, say, Alberhastic. Thankfully, none of them hurt all too much, and the visual tells for how to avoid them are usually common sense as well.

Recommended Consumables & Engravings

Similar to the other Tier 1 Abyssal Dungeon, players won’t need to worry too much about what Consumables to bring just yet. No Elemental HP Potions, Destruction Bombs, or even Sleep Bombs are needed at the moment. Rather, they’ll do best if they bring:

HP Potions (preferably the blue-rarity ones) Whirlwind Grenades (for the Phantom King’s Stagger Checks) Time Stop Potions (for emergency use against any unavoidable attacks) Optimal Class and Combat Engravings using their Engravings slots, their Faceted Ability Stone, or their Accessories

Lost Ark was released on December 4, 2019, and is available for PC.

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