Just wanted to give some folks a few pointers on how to get the most out of your spire runs.
Suggested groups: 2x mages, 2x archers or 2x mages, 1x archer, 1x knight
Party composition plays a very minor role until boss 10, so don't even be concerned with composition until you get this far consistantly.
1.) You are given FREE spire runes each day, so use them (and use them wisely - *Edit Coordinate Vulcan and/or burst on bosses 3, 4, 5, use them as necessary for bosses 12 and 13; Guardian Runes will want to be saved until 11+ if possible; revives are best used ASAP, but on bosses 11+ can prove useful to delay reviving until your recently deceased has had timers reset before reviving them; heals are best used on boss #9 due to the reflections - while they're decent and can save your team from using a revive, they can go wasted due to back-row members using them after an AoE hit them when they had plenty of time before the next time they would've been hit, so suntoria or blessed light could've done the trick.
2.) Bosses 3-5 each cause a +40% damage taken debuff that will last the entire duration of your spire run; you do NOT want to get this debuff even one time - with only 1 debuff, you can still do well, but if you get 2 or more, you'll find yourself having a very difficult time. These bosses will only use their debuffs once their health is low (roughly 1.2 HP bars remaining); and keep in mind that even if you die and get revived -despite the absence of the debuff icons-, the debuff still applies.
2 a.) Avoiding these debuffs is vital, and requires good group coordination/application of Vulcan runes in conjunction with heavy-hitting single target abilities, supplemented by several AoE's (3rd boss needs early AoE's since it will be a boss that COMES with 4 mobs then slowly damage him until he's ~ 1.2 HP bars remaining, then coordinate Vulcan + Burst damage). Best way to acheive this is to have everyone rage up on first boss, deal light damage to 2nd boss until he summons his minions, then have the team (or as many players are necessary) coordinate using vulcan at the same time; have 1 mage use RoF for the quick AoE to whipe the mobs, rest of team finishes the boss, use remaining Vulcan duration turns that carried over and just mop the floor with boss 4.
2 b.) After clearing boss 3, you'll want to deal damage very slowly on boss 4 if you don't have enough remaining vulcan buffed attack rounds to clear him instantly - if some of your group still have a single remaining turn on their vulcan rune, it'd actually be best for them to waste the remaining buff duration by either using a normal rune or non-damaging ability. After making sure you're not bursting down the boss's HP bar too quickly, you'll still need to stall your damage-dealing on the boss until everyone's vulcan rune cooldown timer is finished. Once the timers are done, everyone should rage back up, get the boss down to about 1.5 HP bars, then coordinate their vulcan rune usage again, and burst the remaining bosses down with a quickness (my group usually clears boss 3 with first coordinated vulcan rune - 2 people-, then we delay damaging boss 5 until vulcan cooldowns are gone, then we clear bosses 5 and 6 with our 2nd charges of vulcan).
3.) Boss 7 causes a slow debuff when he's at low health - you may actually WANT to let them get the slow debuffs on your team for use with boss 12 - see "6.)" for why. Boss 8 does heavy front-most single-targeted attacks + moderate-to-heavy AoE attacks.
4.) Boss 9 deals moderate AoE damage (hits every teammate) which isn't bad unless you have the damage taken debuffs from bosses 3-5; biggest problems with lv. 9 boss come from its 50% damage reflect. Trick is to time it so that everyone activates their remaining vulcan rune charges and finishes boss 8 with vulcan rune buffs remaining - then, nuke the **** out of boss 9 with our very first attacks since the boss doesn't activate his deflect until 2nd round. After this, we all "turtle-heal"/skill in order to buy time for healing cooldown timers to return. If desperate to nuke the boss while her deflect is up, designate one person to do the heavy damage healing so that heals and the revive runes can be focused on them. Deflection astrals, reverse damage, bubble, heals, and poison arrow are your friends here. *Edit Coordinated usage of heavy-hitting attacks in conjunction with scatter shot work best here.
5.) If you've made it past boss 9, good job, you're now about as far as most of the good teams have gotten, here comes boss 10: boss 10 spawns with 2 mobs in front of him, these mobs will throw deflection buffs on themselves fairly early (either their first or second rounds) so open up with some heavy AoE's and knock them out before they can do it or you'll soon have a big problem but they drop fairly quickly. The boss himself does a nasty AoE attack, a fairly heavy front-most single-target attack, and a random single target DoT debuff that says it deals 10k damage (seems buggy on how much you actually take from the DoT - u can sometimes SEE 10,000 damage float above your head, but it doesn't always seem to actually deal 10k damage *edit - appears to function as intended now) - the DoT is random target with moderate duration, he'll probably end up cycling it throughout your group. *Edit: Purification removes the 10k DoT, but is not entirely necessary to puri the DoT if you still have spire heal runes, however.
6.) Level 11 boss is our "old faithful" friend, the big floating eyeball. This one is quite different from all the previous forms, since his usual AoE/stun move no longer has stun and is actually a front-most single-target attack. He does a physical AoE debuff attack that causes all defense stats -50% (Puri is needed). *Edit: Purification is your biggest asset here; as is using the Guardian Shield defensive spire rune in conjunction with letting boss #7 apply his slow debuff. Trick is to have your front-most tanker (preferably mage) pop the Guardian Shield Rune if you can't puri the debuff, then have them wait until just before auto-attacking would occur THEN use an ability with a long cast time (if you do this properly, boss can attack 3 times to your 1); if front-most tank goes down, and you have 1 person in the middle, have THEM use the same exact trick (in other words, leave your recently deceased tanker lying on the ground for a bit until this secondary tanker's guardian shield duration is about to expire, THEN revive him - this will buy a great bit of time for your main tanker's guardian shield rune's cooldown timer to reset) - puri as often as possible, but time it to immediately follow when he does the debuff.
Boss's Cycle:
Opens with front-most target single-targeted attack (moderate-to-heavy damage) one time.
Then begins his basic cycle:
a.) AoE debuff (puri ASAP);
b.) front-most target single-target attack twice in a row (if you can't puri the debuff this can be devastating, so use that Guardian Shield Rune trick mentioned above or have archer use IS and make sure your tank gets a restoration after each of these attacks if puri isn't an option). After both of the single targeted attacks, he restarts the basic cycle (so back to "a.)").
After a while (either the boss reaches a certain point of HP ~1.8 HP bars remaining or possibly just after a set # of rounds - ~20 -, the boss will begin a different cycle:
c.) Finishes off any remaining front-most single-target attacks remaining in his old cycle (if any actually remain for him to have done) but at significantly weaker damages. If he happened to have just finished his basic cycle, you might not even get to see this occur;
d.) AoE debuff twice in a row (puri after 2nd).
e.) Front-most single target attack x1, sometimes x2 (seems random) - dealing somewhat less damage than they did in the basic cycle; then restarts from "c.)".
7.) Boss #12 causes a random targeted 15k DoT - puri is necessary. Does random single-targeted magic damage (pretty heavy) and front-most single-target physical damage (moderately). Problem with this boss: just like in Necropolis, after a while, he'll get a 1000% damage boost, so... burst-DPS him down ASAP with mages using puri and tossing heals while rotating heal/puri duty for each other to vulcan. He's not the sturdiest boss, but as often as he throws the DoT on targets and uses his magical attack, your mages will be quite busy throwing heals and using purification, so it can be difficult to successfully burst him down via Vulcan runes without proper coordination.
8.) Boss #13 - Blue Void Ghost looking guy. MAD hp, great defenses, very painful, and also gets a 1000% damage buff after a set number of rounds like Boss #12. Opens with Front-most Single-targeted attack (heavy damage), then begins his normal cycle:
a.) AoE + Debuff: moderate damage (about 1/2 as much damage as the single-target attack) + applies a -30% damage dealing debuff to all members (needs to be puri'd or you're not likely to burst him down in time before getting his damage boosting buff).
b.) Front-most Single-targeted attack (heavy) x 3 (might be 4?). Then returns to "a.)".
Timing/coordination + Vulcan Rune Bursting are key here (time using Vulcan when the boss does his AoE debuff so long as a mage is immediately using Puri to follow so that your attacks will hit for full damage, have a mage dedicated to maintaining heals while the rest focus on the heavy damage - usually the mage that used puri does this job).
-SinWill
*Edited to include additional information.
Suggested groups: 2x mages, 2x archers or 2x mages, 1x archer, 1x knight
Party composition plays a very minor role until boss 10, so don't even be concerned with composition until you get this far consistantly.
1.) You are given FREE spire runes each day, so use them (and use them wisely - *Edit Coordinate Vulcan and/or burst on bosses 3, 4, 5, use them as necessary for bosses 12 and 13; Guardian Runes will want to be saved until 11+ if possible; revives are best used ASAP, but on bosses 11+ can prove useful to delay reviving until your recently deceased has had timers reset before reviving them; heals are best used on boss #9 due to the reflections - while they're decent and can save your team from using a revive, they can go wasted due to back-row members using them after an AoE hit them when they had plenty of time before the next time they would've been hit, so suntoria or blessed light could've done the trick.
2.) Bosses 3-5 each cause a +40% damage taken debuff that will last the entire duration of your spire run; you do NOT want to get this debuff even one time - with only 1 debuff, you can still do well, but if you get 2 or more, you'll find yourself having a very difficult time. These bosses will only use their debuffs once their health is low (roughly 1.2 HP bars remaining); and keep in mind that even if you die and get revived -despite the absence of the debuff icons-, the debuff still applies.
2 a.) Avoiding these debuffs is vital, and requires good group coordination/application of Vulcan runes in conjunction with heavy-hitting single target abilities, supplemented by several AoE's (3rd boss needs early AoE's since it will be a boss that COMES with 4 mobs then slowly damage him until he's ~ 1.2 HP bars remaining, then coordinate Vulcan + Burst damage). Best way to acheive this is to have everyone rage up on first boss, deal light damage to 2nd boss until he summons his minions, then have the team (or as many players are necessary) coordinate using vulcan at the same time; have 1 mage use RoF for the quick AoE to whipe the mobs, rest of team finishes the boss, use remaining Vulcan duration turns that carried over and just mop the floor with boss 4.
2 b.) After clearing boss 3, you'll want to deal damage very slowly on boss 4 if you don't have enough remaining vulcan buffed attack rounds to clear him instantly - if some of your group still have a single remaining turn on their vulcan rune, it'd actually be best for them to waste the remaining buff duration by either using a normal rune or non-damaging ability. After making sure you're not bursting down the boss's HP bar too quickly, you'll still need to stall your damage-dealing on the boss until everyone's vulcan rune cooldown timer is finished. Once the timers are done, everyone should rage back up, get the boss down to about 1.5 HP bars, then coordinate their vulcan rune usage again, and burst the remaining bosses down with a quickness (my group usually clears boss 3 with first coordinated vulcan rune - 2 people-, then we delay damaging boss 5 until vulcan cooldowns are gone, then we clear bosses 5 and 6 with our 2nd charges of vulcan).
3.) Boss 7 causes a slow debuff when he's at low health - you may actually WANT to let them get the slow debuffs on your team for use with boss 12 - see "6.)" for why. Boss 8 does heavy front-most single-targeted attacks + moderate-to-heavy AoE attacks.
4.) Boss 9 deals moderate AoE damage (hits every teammate) which isn't bad unless you have the damage taken debuffs from bosses 3-5; biggest problems with lv. 9 boss come from its 50% damage reflect. Trick is to time it so that everyone activates their remaining vulcan rune charges and finishes boss 8 with vulcan rune buffs remaining - then, nuke the **** out of boss 9 with our very first attacks since the boss doesn't activate his deflect until 2nd round. After this, we all "turtle-heal"/skill in order to buy time for healing cooldown timers to return. If desperate to nuke the boss while her deflect is up, designate one person to do the heavy damage healing so that heals and the revive runes can be focused on them. Deflection astrals, reverse damage, bubble, heals, and poison arrow are your friends here. *Edit Coordinated usage of heavy-hitting attacks in conjunction with scatter shot work best here.
5.) If you've made it past boss 9, good job, you're now about as far as most of the good teams have gotten, here comes boss 10: boss 10 spawns with 2 mobs in front of him, these mobs will throw deflection buffs on themselves fairly early (either their first or second rounds) so open up with some heavy AoE's and knock them out before they can do it or you'll soon have a big problem but they drop fairly quickly. The boss himself does a nasty AoE attack, a fairly heavy front-most single-target attack, and a random single target DoT debuff that says it deals 10k damage (seems buggy on how much you actually take from the DoT - u can sometimes SEE 10,000 damage float above your head, but it doesn't always seem to actually deal 10k damage *edit - appears to function as intended now) - the DoT is random target with moderate duration, he'll probably end up cycling it throughout your group. *Edit: Purification removes the 10k DoT, but is not entirely necessary to puri the DoT if you still have spire heal runes, however.
6.) Level 11 boss is our "old faithful" friend, the big floating eyeball. This one is quite different from all the previous forms, since his usual AoE/stun move no longer has stun and is actually a front-most single-target attack. He does a physical AoE debuff attack that causes all defense stats -50% (Puri is needed). *Edit: Purification is your biggest asset here; as is using the Guardian Shield defensive spire rune in conjunction with letting boss #7 apply his slow debuff. Trick is to have your front-most tanker (preferably mage) pop the Guardian Shield Rune if you can't puri the debuff, then have them wait until just before auto-attacking would occur THEN use an ability with a long cast time (if you do this properly, boss can attack 3 times to your 1); if front-most tank goes down, and you have 1 person in the middle, have THEM use the same exact trick (in other words, leave your recently deceased tanker lying on the ground for a bit until this secondary tanker's guardian shield duration is about to expire, THEN revive him - this will buy a great bit of time for your main tanker's guardian shield rune's cooldown timer to reset) - puri as often as possible, but time it to immediately follow when he does the debuff.
Boss's Cycle:
Opens with front-most target single-targeted attack (moderate-to-heavy damage) one time.
Then begins his basic cycle:
a.) AoE debuff (puri ASAP);
b.) front-most target single-target attack twice in a row (if you can't puri the debuff this can be devastating, so use that Guardian Shield Rune trick mentioned above or have archer use IS and make sure your tank gets a restoration after each of these attacks if puri isn't an option). After both of the single targeted attacks, he restarts the basic cycle (so back to "a.)").
After a while (either the boss reaches a certain point of HP ~1.8 HP bars remaining or possibly just after a set # of rounds - ~20 -, the boss will begin a different cycle:
c.) Finishes off any remaining front-most single-target attacks remaining in his old cycle (if any actually remain for him to have done) but at significantly weaker damages. If he happened to have just finished his basic cycle, you might not even get to see this occur;
d.) AoE debuff twice in a row (puri after 2nd).
e.) Front-most single target attack x1, sometimes x2 (seems random) - dealing somewhat less damage than they did in the basic cycle; then restarts from "c.)".
7.) Boss #12 causes a random targeted 15k DoT - puri is necessary. Does random single-targeted magic damage (pretty heavy) and front-most single-target physical damage (moderately). Problem with this boss: just like in Necropolis, after a while, he'll get a 1000% damage boost, so... burst-DPS him down ASAP with mages using puri and tossing heals while rotating heal/puri duty for each other to vulcan. He's not the sturdiest boss, but as often as he throws the DoT on targets and uses his magical attack, your mages will be quite busy throwing heals and using purification, so it can be difficult to successfully burst him down via Vulcan runes without proper coordination.
8.) Boss #13 - Blue Void Ghost looking guy. MAD hp, great defenses, very painful, and also gets a 1000% damage buff after a set number of rounds like Boss #12. Opens with Front-most Single-targeted attack (heavy damage), then begins his normal cycle:
a.) AoE + Debuff: moderate damage (about 1/2 as much damage as the single-target attack) + applies a -30% damage dealing debuff to all members (needs to be puri'd or you're not likely to burst him down in time before getting his damage boosting buff).
b.) Front-most Single-targeted attack (heavy) x 3 (might be 4?). Then returns to "a.)".
Timing/coordination + Vulcan Rune Bursting are key here (time using Vulcan when the boss does his AoE debuff so long as a mage is immediately using Puri to follow so that your attacks will hit for full damage, have a mage dedicated to maintaining heals while the rest focus on the heavy damage - usually the mage that used puri does this job).
-SinWill
*Edited to include additional information.
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