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In the finale of this modified version of the Rohendel Main Story Quest Dungeon, players will be up against the Phantom Legion Queen, as well as two different encounters with Brelshaza, one of the more lore-important characters in the story. So, without further ado, it’s time to go over what players need to know in order to clear the Hildebrandt Palace Abyssal Dungeon raid in Lost Ark.

Quick & Compressed Refresher Guide

Those who have already cleared this Abyssal Dungeon before or already know all that they need to for Lost Ark’s Raid content are probably only looking up a Guide to get a quick refresher on the most important aspects to remember. Well, that’s exactly what this first section covers: a compressed version of the rest of the Guide that goes over the core aspects in one big chunk.

Hildebrandt Palace is broken up into four sections: the Phantom Legion Queen Bossfight, a rather long mob-clearing section, Brelshaza’s first phase encounter, and the second Brelshaza fight. The Phantom Legion Queen really only has one mechanic players need to remember, the teleporter mirrors. When the Queen goes to the center of the stage and mirrors spawn around the edge of the arena, it’s time. Players should quickly interact with the color mirror that has another mirror of the same color on the opposite side of the incoming wave of purple energy to get to safety. They should never interact with the purple mirrors, which just teleport players to the center of the arena, usually inside the deadly Energy Wave itself. Brelshaza’s first phase also only has one mechanic to remember, the Rolling Boulders phase of the fight. At 14 and 6 remaining HP Bars, Brelshaza tilts the stage, with spinning blades on the lower end and infinitely spawning Boulders coming down from the higher end. The player with the red indicator under their feet is the one that has to stay near her, and once the meteor hits both the player and Brelshaza, this phase is over. The second phase of Brelshaza’s encounter has two mechanics to keep in mind, The Stagger Check and the Flashlight mechanic. The Stagger Check is simple and players only need to know which HP bars it happens during, which is Brelshaza’s 34th and 26th HP bar. As for the Flashlight mechanic, this happens at her 16th and 8th HP bars, and is a bit more complicated. To keep it simple, if there’s a red X over a player and three empty orbs above their head, they’re the one who needs to stand still, while the rest of the party points their character directly at them. Once the red telegraph appears, they should run as fast as possible. Then, the second time this happens, there’ll be one player with the red X and orbs and one player with a black spotlight that follows behind them. The player with the black spotlight needs to stand still so that the player with the red X and orbs can move into the spotlight. Then, once again, they should run away as soon as the red telegraph spawns.

First Section: The Phantom Legion Queen

Unlike the format a lot of the past and future Abyssal Dungeons follow, Hildebrandt Palace actually starts with a Boss encounter right away rather than a mob-clearing phase. The Phantom Legion Queen is a bit of a tedious fight, as she has a lot of movement abilities and quick-cast attacks that knock players up. Thankfully, she’s not all too tanky, so players will likely get to her one Wipe system, the Mirror & Energy Wave mechanic before they know it.

Important Mechanic: Mirror & Energy Wave

At some point after the Phantom Queen’s 8th HP Bar, she’ll teleport to the middle of the arena and start this phase of the battle. Players should not worry about damaging her during this mechanic, as the Queen takes much less damage anyway while this is all going on. Rather, players should focus on the red, blue, yellow, and purple mirrors that are spawning around the edge of the arena.

Each color of mirror has a pair, making eight in total with two of each, and the key thing to know is that the colors denote which mirrors are “connected.” For example, interacting with a blue mirror will immediately teleport the player to the other blue mirror.

After these mirrors spawn, The Phantom Queen will then spawn a deadly wave/line of purple energy that can’t be dodged and covers the entirety of either the horizontal or vertical area of the arena. This wave will then start moving towards the players, passing through the Queen in the middle of the arena. At this moment, each player should take note of which mirrors are on the other side of the wave and move to the other mirror of the same color immediately. Players simply need to interact with the mirror once the wave has moved past its pair, and that’s it! That said, there’s not much room for error, as a player who even slightly touches the purple Energy Wave is instantly killed. Additionally, there are two things to keep in mind about this mechanic:

Do not touch the purple mirrors ever, they teleport the player to the middle of the arena instead, which is almost assuredly a death sentence given the way the waves of energy move. There’s a brief animation of the player character lifting their hand up to touch the mirror, so players should avoid interacting with it too early or leaving it too late.

Regular Attacks

The Phantom Legion queen has a lot of standard attacks, but the only one actually worth worrying about is the Dark Wave Pizza-Formation attack, as it’s by far the deadliest.

Second Section: Defeat The Phantom Legion Pawn

As a sort of palate cleanser to give players a breath of fresh air before they head into the tough-as-nails Brelshaza fight, there’s a brief mob-clearing section to go through next. Players simply have to wait for these stone enemies to become targetable (which they do in groups over time), while also focusing down the Elite near the end of the arena, the Phantom Legion Pawn.

Players should be sure to dodge the lines of purple lasers during this phase, but that’s about the only difficulty there is for this section.

Third Section: Brelshaza Phase 1

Finally, players have arrived at their first multi-phase Boss battle, one of the best aspects of Lost Ark’s endgame, complete with Battle Workshop sections in between to repair Gear, switch out consumables, or go over mechanics beforehand. Brelshaza’s first phase has a lot of different attacks that are helpful to memorize, but only one “key” mechanic that players should know about beforehand in order for things to go smoothly. This is, of course, the Rolling Boulders phase of the battle.

Important Mechanic: Rolling Boulders

At both 14 and 6 HP Bars remaining, Brelshaza will start this phase. Like all of the other Boss mechanics, Brelshaza teleports to the center of the arena first. After doing so, she’ll tilt the entire stage diagonally with her magic, with the southern side (the side the party entered from) being the lowest point and the northern side being the highest.

Next, an endless series of Boulders will start rolling down towards players from the northern side of the arena in an attempt to knock them into the spinning blades that are on the southern side. The spinning blades won’t insta-kill players, but their damage isn’t a joke either.

The sequence these Boulders roll down in usually makes them avoidable with some careful positioning, but, sometimes, it can be a bit unfair. In those situations, players can use movement abilities or their Dodge (their dash, roll, etc) to dodge right through these Boulders, so players should use those options carefully. Additionally, the wake-up roll after getting knocked down also works as a way of getting through these things.

To end this mechanic, players will need to watch their character’s feet until a reddish aura appears underneath one of them. Once this happens, the player it appears under needs to stick as close as they can to Brelshaza immediately. After a few seconds, a meteor comes down and strikes an area around the player’s red aura.

If this hits Brelshaza, she’s staggered and this mechanic ends. If the player couldn’t get close enough in time, it continues and another red aura appears randomly a few seconds later. Moves with Push-Immunity or things like the Artillerist’s Barrage Mode are perfect for this.

Regular Attacks

Outside of the Rolling Boulders, Brelshaza’s first-phase fight is pretty chaotic visually, but not all that difficult mechanically.

Fourth & Last Section: Brelshaza Final Phase

After the brief intermission, it’s time to head into the final encounter with Brelshaza, and she’s much more mechanically complex than the Main Story Quest version. Basic attack-wise, Brelshaza has a few new tricks and upgraded moves, but it’s mostly the same as Phase 1. The real danger of this phase is the fact that Brelshaza has four wipe mechanics to clear, two Stagger Checks, and two Flashlight & Giant Meteor sections.

Important Mechanic: Stagger Checks

So far, all the Stagger Checks that both stages of Ancient Elveria and the first section of Phantom Palace presented were incredibly easy. Players weren’t really “pressed for time” as long as they were actually using Skills that dealt Stagger Damage. However, Brelshaza’s are the first where things can get dicey. If the party isn’t just about immediate in their response to Brelshaza’s Stagger Checks at her 34th and 26th HP Bars, they can easily get wiped. Thankfully, they’re somewhat easy to pre-empt due to their cutscene intros.

Essentially the Ancient Flame Elemental, Ephernia, is really ticked off at Brelshaza and shows up to slam its tail and claw down on her during these Stagger Checks. The party is then attempting to deplete her Stagger Bar so that her barrier against Ephernia’s attack breaks, causing her to get staggered by the flaming beast.

If the party fails to stagger her in time, Brelshaza repels Ephernia’s attack while also sending out a wave of energy that instantly wipes the party. Also, it’s good to know that Brelshaza will always teleport to the center of the stage for the Stagger Check at 26 HP Bars left.

Important Mechanic: Flashlight & Giant Meteor

This is the big mechanic that many players struggle with during Brelshaza’s fight, and it’s understandable why. This mechanic occurs at Brelshaza’s 16th and 8th HP Bars and is also a mechanic that just “happens” without Brelshaza teleporting to the center of the stage or any sort of lead-up.

Once this mechanic starts, one player will notice that there is a bright red X covering their entire character model (turn friendly particle effects off to make this easier to see). This makes them the key player for this phase. Once identified, the other three party members should be immediately aware that they’re not the red X player, which means they’re the “Flashlights.”

The red X player should take a few steps away from Brelshaza and stand entirely still. In response, the other three party members will need to take a few steps away from the red X player and then turn directly at them so that their beam of light is shining on them. If needed, players can use basic attacks to fine-tune this aiming.

If enough light was shone on the red X player in time, a gigantic red telegraph will appear and slowly start to fill underneath the red X party member. This is a gigantic meteor, and there’s barely enough time to get out of the telegraph, so players should start moving as soon as it appears. Once the meteor hits, the mechanic is over and players can go back to wailing on Brelshaza. If done incorrectly, Brelshaza traps everyone in magical orbs until they’re hit by the meteor instead.

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The second time this mechanic happens (at 6 HP bars remaining), things are slightly different. Instead of three flashlights and one red X player, there’s a red X player and a player with a black spotlight on the ground behind them. This time around, the red X player has to stand in this spotlight for a certain amount of time to complete the mechanic.

This black spotlight moves with the player it’s attached to and will always stay directly behind them, so it’s better for the black spotlight player to stay still and for the red X player to move into the spotlight. Once again, if done correctly, the red telegraph will appear with just enough time for players to escape.

All-in-all, it’s not too difficult of a Wipe mechanic to master, though it’s surprising how many players attempt to surrender after one failed attempt. Some other important bits of information to know about this mechanic are:

If the Flashlights are too close to the red X player, they may not “count” because of some faulty hitboxes, which is why the Flashlights should stand a few steps away. The Black Spotlight doesn’t always appear the second time this mechanic occurs and, sometimes, it’s just the three Flashlights again. Players should therefore be ready to adjust if it doesn’t happen to trigger.

Regular Attacks

This section will only go over the new and upgraded attacks that Brelshaza does exclusively in this final phase, as the rest of her moveset is mostly the same as in Phase 1:

Again, similar to the other Abyssal Dungeons explored thus far, players don’t need to bring a ton of different Consumables. Sure, they can bring Swift Robes to make Brelshaza’s Rolling Boulders section easier or the gigantic Meteor in phase 2 easier to dodge, but that’s up to each player. The only Battle Items or Engravings that are highly recommended are the following:

HP Potions (obviously, but still needs to be said) Whirlwind Grenades (For any and all Stagger Checks) Time Stop Potions (To live through the Phantom Queen’s cone wave attacks or Brelshaza’s wipe mechanics) This is also the first Abyssal Dungeon where players should probably have their preferred Class Engraving at Level 2 or higher, and maybe even Grudge at Level 2 or higher as well. With properly Faceted Ability Stones, that’s more than possible at this point in the endgame without spending any money, let alone thousands of dollars.

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

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