Grotto of Lost Souls (Hard)

First Boss: Nedra

  • The room and yourself will be surrounded in either Purple or Green auras. Periodically flowers will drop down from the sky; we’ll talk more about this in Key Mechanics.

  • Understand that getting hit by the flower explosion will swap your debuff. After all flowers are done dropping, you need to have an aura that matches with the color of the room.

Key Mechanics

Flowers - A text message saying :

ℹ️
A Strange Odor Fills the Air
  • Will show up and the outer area of the map will start glowing Purple or Green.
  • The entire party will also get a debuff which gives you a Purple or Green aura as well.

  • The room and yourself will have these auras until the :
ℹ️
Aren’t You Pretty?”

Text message appears, which indicates that the boss will go underground and flowers start falling to the ground.

  • During this mechanic, you **must make your aura match the color of the room. These flowers explode as they hit the ground and can be iframed but you don’t always want to iframe them.

  • Getting hit by an explosion will switch the debuff you have;

    Green will become Purple and vice-versa. To dodge an explosion, you must iframe. Either 1 or 2 flowers will fall.

Two flowers

One Golden flower - Under 40% HP of the boss, only one golden flower will spawn which has to be destroyed to change debuffs.

Basic attacks

Swipe - Simple 1-hit attack.
Bite - Simple 2-hit attack.

Charge - Charge Attack, hits 5 times.

Fart - Attack tank with hands, pause a bit, then fart behind which causes pushback.

Big Bite - Double hit in the front, shares animation with Fart – difference being in mouth starting to glow.

  • Blockable, but second hit hurts through block, preferably iframe it.

Plant Boom - 3 Blockable attacks in front of the boss, followed by an iframable flower explosion on everyone.

Special attacks

Who wants to feed me? - The boss will go underground with the message

 Who wants to feed me?

And does an AoE attack near the one with secondary aggro. This AoE stuns, and if anyone gets stunned, the boss eats him, killing him. Get away from the initial position of secondary aggro or iframe.

Thorn Hell - Boss does an AoE and then goes underground, releasing thorn balls in a specific circular pattern.

  • Getting hit by the AoE will put a cleansable & slowing debuff on you. Thorns cause bleed on hit. Walk around or iframe through them.

Thorn Wall - The boss quickly does two series of 2 bites then follows with an attack that spawns Thorn Walls on target(s) far away. Spawns one in Normal Mode and two in Hard Mode.

  • A small purple ring will appear under your feet if you are about to be targeted. These walls last around 1 to 2 seconds.
    • End of animation is identical to Plant Boom.
    • Standing in it does no damage, but moving or iframing into the walls will stun you.

Impaler - The claws of the boss start glowing and he will throw an iframeableAoE attack at the secondary aggro target. Will knock up if you get hit. Ress bait in Hard Mode.

Rock ‘n Roll - Rocks fall from the sky and roll from the front of the boss to behind the boss, then the boss rolls backwards. Can be iframed or facetanked.

  • The dirt animation will alert you to whether large or small rocks will fall. Large rocks have a larger amount & area of dirt falling. Hard to see in the videos.
Big rocks Small rocks

Second Boss: Ptakum

  • In this room there are 3 statues.
  • They’re purpose will be explained in Key Mechanics, however do take note that every statue slowly releases an expanding AoE that puts a debuff on the first target it hits. This includes the boss.

Key Mechanics

Statue lasers - The statues are the most important part of this boss fight. There are 3 statues in this room – their names are Bloody (Red), Radiant (White), and Cursed (Purple).

  • Each one of them produces a wave that puts their debuff on the first target it hits. The goal is to get all 3 of the debuffs on the boss. To do this, don’t get hit by the statue’s wave.
    • You cannot iframe through this wave, you must run from it.
  • Depending on how many debuffs are on boss / players, he will do different attacks during this mechanic:
    • All 3 on boss: the boss will be stunned for a short duration.
    • 0-1 on players: 30% HP damage to everyone and applying 1 bleed stack + powerup buff on boss
    • 2 on players: 50% HP damage to everyone and applying 2 bleed stacks + powerup buff on boss
    • 3 on players: 100% HP damage to everyone. This ignores shield so it’s just a wipe.

Statues can be destroyed with the Break Wave attack.This also degrades the mechanic to a lower tier and a wipe can be avoided.

  • In Hard Mode he will do 2 statues at same time below 50% like so:

In/Out - After the In or Out attack he will do either a large AoE around him or a small AoE on all players.

  • These need to be iframed.

Boss will be visibly winding up for a spin in the Outer AoE clip, while he does not wind up for the Inner AoE.

  • Getting hit by the second attack of the inner AoE will pushback. Getting hit by the second attack of the Outer AoE will throw you in the air and toss you.

Basic attacks

Right Left - A simple Right, Left hit.
Left Right - A simple Left, Right hit.
Left Turn - Boss turns to hit the back.
Right Turn - Boss turns to hit the back.

  • Applies bleed

Target swipe - Boss turns towards secondary aggro and swipes at them.

Special attacks

Double Right, Big front - Hits the tank twice with blockable attacks. Followed by a massive front hit. Getting hit by the massive will stun you.
Break wave - The boss will charge up a laser at a secondary target and then fire it.

  • Notified by message
ℹ️
I will break you!”
  • This laser can be used to break one of the statues.
  • You will only be targeted if you have one of the statue debuffs.

Back into Roll and wave -

Waves - The boss will do a wave attack in front of him followed by a wave attack behind him (unblockable).

  • This is the attack that happens when stunned by Double Right, big front.

Bad breath donuts - The boss will do 3 outer donuts AoE followed by frontal Breath.

  • This attack can be blocked, but can bleed trough block a bit in lesser gears.

Secondary Target Lasers - The boss shoots a barrage of lasers at a secondary target.

Last Boss: Kylos

The Awakening phases in Hard Mode are Awakening 1 at 80% and Awakening 2 at 30%.

  • The boss will do room wide silencing and pushback attack whenever a phase starts. Awakening 2 is visibly slower than awakening 1, shown below.

Key Mechanics

Stacks on boss - It’s recommended to count the stacks the boss has, but there are also visual cues:

  • If boss has at least 1 stack he will have purple buff in his buff bar, and his whole body will glow according to number of stacks he has.
  • When the attack is fully charged, there will be a red glow on his wings. 1 Stack:

Fully charged:

Chain Lightning Monuments - This mechanic will begin at at 75% and have a different variation below 40%.

  • Debris will fall from the sky onto each party member. Getting hit stuns so you must move or iframe once the location locks.
    • During this mechanic, a monument will spawn a far distance from the boss. In Hard Mode, two will spawn under 40%, where one is directly next to the boss.

To do this correctly, you must use Chain lightning to break the monument.

  • To do this, party members must line up (3 members for the far monument, one for the closer) so that the lightning the boss creates travels through the party members to the monument.

If this mechanic is done incorrectly, party HP will be set to 1 for several seconds. You cannot be healed with this debuff active.

  • Death will remove the debuff. It is notable that parties usually do not break the far away monument unless the healer prefers it, or it is a learning run.
    • In Hard Mode, failing both monuments is a wipe.

4 Stack Lightning - Once the boss has done 4 Empowered attacks during Awakening 1 or 2 Empowered attacks during Awakening 2, he will do lightning attack that needs to be iframed.

  • The distinct animation and message (Lightning!) is extremely quick so a fast reaction is needed.

Fly into Spin (left/right) - Occasionally the boss will fly up into the air with a secondary aggro target.

  • After the boss lands facing the target, he will spin on one side, casting an unblockable expanding AoE wave.
  • Depending on the direction of his turn, he will follow with an uniframeable & unblockable half-circle AoE. It happens on the side he spinned to.
    • The expanding wave goes faster during enrage.

Left:

Right:

  • He will also spawn 0 (Normal), 1 (Awakening 1), or 3 (Awakening 2) orbs on the side of the half-circle. These need to be destroyed.
  • Successfully breaking the orbs:

Basic attacks

Swipe- Simple 1-hit attack with left arm.
Double tap - Simple 2-hit attack with right arm.
Breath combo - Simple 4-hit attack. Breath pushbacks.
Backblast - Simple attack on dps. Blockable and iframeable.

  • Causes Chain lightning.
  • This is an Empowered attack.

Tritail - Second attack on dps, this one a bit more dangerous, care when dealing with this.

  • Causes Chain lightning.
  • This is an Empowered attack.

Secondary aggro/Ress bait - There are two different secondary aggro attacks, care about them. Both are unblockable but iframable.

  • Causes pushback if hit.

Special attacks

Basic hit + Wing slam + Back wing slam - Second hit is unblockable & uniframeable, and third hit is unblockable.

  • Causes Chain lightning on 2nd & 3rd hit.
  • This is an Empowered attack.
    • The boss can also fly up at the end and do unblockable & uniframeable expanding donut attack. The swipe happens in the direction the boss looks towards.

Lightning Combo - Tanks should be careful for this mechanic as the movements can be difficult to get used to.

  • The first two hits are blockable, but the 3rd and 4th hit are unblockable & uniframeable one shots that cause Chain lightning.
    • The breath is blockable but hard hitting. It is recommended to iframe.
  • This is an Empowered attack.

3 Frontal Wingslams - The boss will slam tank with 3 blockable wing attacks, then might follow up with AoE on damage dealers and an unblockable frontal AoE.

  • Causes Chain lightning on 2nd & 3rd hit.
  • This is an Empowered attack only if the long version is performed.

Sources