Hel Ra Citadel Trial Guide

Hel Ra Citadel was one of the first two trials ever released in ESO as a part of the Craglorn zone.

Drops

• Destructive Mage (light armor) 1/5
  Utility: Magicka DD
  The main bonus of this set is weak relative to what most other sets has to offer, nothing much to say about it for now, stickerbook material.
• Poisonous Serpent (medium armor) 2/5
  Utility: Stamina DD
  Heavy attack cast in ESO takes 1.6 seconds to fully charge, so the only way you can possibly use this set to its full potential would be to just spam heavy attack. It used to be a off-meta niche choice for PvP, but as of 2022, there are a lot of sets that do more damage or have better group utility to invest time into farming this. For PvE this set is pretty much useless.
• Advancing Yokeda (Berserking Warrior) (heavy armor) – 5/5
  Utility: Stamina DD/Magicka DD
  One of the best if not the best and most potent crit chance stacking set in the game. The only downside is that the stacks of crit chance appear from Martial melee damage, so if you’re a magicka character, you have to use dual wield (daggers), and on both magicka and stamina you’re forced into melee range with this set. This set drops in heavy armor, so there’s no point in collecting body pieces unless you want to compromise your passives.
• Infallible Mage (light armor) – 3/5
  Utility: Support (for no-warden groups)
  This set became somewhat outdated after the introduction of the warden class (their Fetcher Infection skill gives the same debuff) so you can use another set, but some solo-dps builds and groups without wardens still use the set sometimes.
• Vicious Serpent (Vicious Ophidian) (medium armor) – 4/5
  Utility: Stamina DD
  A better version of the Quick Serpent set, that gives Minor Slayer and increases your weapon damage. Useful for stamina solo-builds and sustain-heavy fights (sacrificing damage compared to damage stacking sets).
• Eternal Warrior (Eternal Yokeda) (heavy armor) – 2/5
  Utility: Tank
  Niche and selfish tanking set. Generally, if your fight plan as a tank includes your health dropping below 25% health, and your way of countering it is to hope for a proc with a 1 minute cooldown, you should be aware that there are better ways of dealing with/mitigating the incoming damage.

Group composition

There are different ways of tackling this trial.
Experienced/score-pushing groups: 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 parse-healer, 9 dds.
Intermediate groups: 1 tank, 2 healers, 9 dds
Beginner groups: 2 tanks, 2 healers, 8 dds (the off-tank technically can go DD until the last boss, but can also play a full tank and help with stacking add waves and go right on the split).

After the first boss, your group will need to split into 2 separate groups. If you’re going 1 tank, 1 heal, send the tank to the left, and your heal to the right (bonus points if your healer can taunt the adds and survive them) with an equal amount of dds on each side. For beginner groups, the right-side boss is a bit more challenging mechanically, so it’s better to send at least a couple of experienced dds there.

Confucius

The first wave of adds

The trial begins with an expository ride alongside a curvy road with the Warrior ghost appearing here and there and telling all sorts of mean things to the group. At the end of a road, there is a bridge. Usually, the group enters the trial and reassembles at the first torch around the middle of the bridge.

Once the group has assembled at the bridge, start running forward. Once you cross 3/4 of it, you will hear a horn, and several huge waves of adds will spawn from the ground.

Run to your right up the stairs and group up at one of the indicated positions (Group is behind a column, and Group v2 position can be easily found by using a solely standing tree as your landmark). If you get knocked off your mount, just dodge roll if you’re getting hit and try to catch the group.

Position 2 (by the tree) is a bit riskier because the group of adds at the gate are bannered and are not just your regular Soldiers/Archers but have some additional mechanics. On top of that once the initial wave of adds at the gate dies, several Flame-Shapers will spawn at the red marker, and once they die, the gate will open and the first boss encounter will start almost immediately (it’s really hard not to pull it), so if you decide to pull everything straight away, make sure to get rid of all the bannered adds by the time the boss fight begins.

The stronger adds in vHRC are:

1. Flame-Shaper. Mage with fire attacks. Ranged and needs to be outranged to get stacked. The most important mechanic about this add is the Inferno: the enemy raises the staff up, staggering everyone who’s close and starts shooting projectiles towards the group. Can be dangerous if several flame-shapers start doing this at the same time, so if you’re close, interrupt it.
2. War-Priest. These adds create an aura around themselves, healing enemies and slowing down player charactes inside of it, or heavy attack that will knock back players if not blocked
3. Destroyer. Equipped with a two-handed weapon this add has 2 important mechanics: Obliterate that creates a cleave a will knock back and deal significant damage if not blocked, and Shehai Overload that creates a medium-sized aoe around the targeted player that will deal medium damage to everyone inside of that aoe (needs to be taken out of the group and healed through/blocked).
4. Gargoyles. There are none in this pull, but we will encounter them soon. After being pulled always will do 2 cone attacks that stun players inside of the cone, and then will start stomping their fists on the ground, creating an aoe, dealing significant damage, potentially killing dds in 2-3 seconds. So avoid cones twice, then keep your distance while your gargoyle is throwing a tantrum.
5. Welwas. Not really posing a threat, do low to medium damage, will also encounter them later.

Ra-Kotu

This boss is hard-hitting but pretty straightforward. It spawns with two War-Priests and a Destroyer by its side. Tank taunts all the adds and turns the boss away from the group, and the group forms some sort of a stack around it. The most reliable way of doing it is to build two stacks (left group on the left buttcheek of the boss, the right group on the right with healers slightly behind) and stay in them for the duration of the fight.

This boss has 5 key mechanics, 2 of them are the tank’s concern, 2 are the group’s concern, and one mechanic is important for everyone.

1. Gusts. Small ground aoes that target and chase random players without taunt. It’s possible to outheal 2-3 of them at the same time, so if you’re standing in 2 stacks, chances are all the gusts will be more or less evenly distributed and can be ignored. If you have 3-4 chasing you, kite them, but don’t run away from healers
2. Six Sword Assault. The boss will throw its weapons, creating 4 diagonal aoes that will run away from the boss and then return, dealing damage both times they pass through the group. If you form one stack right behind the boss, this mechanic will deal no damage whatsoever, but it’s not that hard to outheal if you don’t overlap it with anything else.
3. Heavy attack. Hits the player with a taunt. Deals a lot of damage and will one-shot everyone but tanks even through block+shield.
4. Cleave attack. A conal aoe, that also targets the player with taunt, knocks back and one-shots dds if not blocked.
5. Sword Swirl. The boss creates a round aoe and starts spinning. This mechanic happens after the boss drops below 35% HP, and will kill all dds/healers in it within a second. There’s no need to try and outheal it, just step back and avoid aoe until the mechanic is over.

Raid lead notes

If your group is not too experienced, remind them that this fight will begin around 5-7 seconds after the last Flame-Shaper dies. So the tank needs to be awake, and dds need to switch between setups before the boss attacks.

After Ra Kotu is defeated, it’s time to remember your predefined groups and split. After both groups are ready, the left group goes past the citadel gate (together), which opens the door for the right group that also goes in together. The right group needs to go up the stairs and pull two levers opening the gates for the left group. Both sides will deal with several waves of already familiar adds and then encounter a boss on each side.

Left side (Yokeda Rok’dun)

Adds

In the first part of the courtyard, you will encounter several add waves. They don’t really pose a threat, just kill them. Around the end of the second wave, the right group usually pulls the first lever, and you can proceed to the next room.

The next room will have 2 gargoyles spawning one after another, face away, stack behind, avoid stomping aoe. At this point, the right side usually reaches the second lever, so kill the second gargoyle and go through the gate.

In this third bigger room, turn right first and kill the welwas and smaller adds that will go out of the stone sarcophagus door. Turn around and let the tank grab and stack the adds that will come from the opposite side of the room and from around the entrance. After that, the third wave will contain Flame-Shapers and can be stacked by the tank taunting all of them and running towards the exit.

After you kill the adds the boss will spawn.

Boss

This boss calls welwas to aid him, creates fire aoe in a cross shape, and repositions every 30 seconds.

1. Tank should taunt welwas and the boss and stack them together, moving welwas to the boss.
2. DDs stack behind the boss, tab-target him and focus him. Welwas will die to the cleave.
3. Mechanics can be ignored, nothing really poses any threat.

This is one of the easiest vet trial boss fights in the game as of 2022, so just enjoy your parsing and if you’re targeted by a welwa, let the tank know so that they could grab them.

After your side is done, wait for the second side to end their boss fight, pull the lever, and go to the next area, looting heavy sacks on both sides in the process.

Right side (Yokeda Kai)

Adds

On the right side, you will encounter several add waves. Kill them and proceed up the stairs. Pull the lever on the first large platform that you reach and the second one on the bridge. Upon crossing the bridge you will encounter a couple of gargoyles mixed in with other adds, you can pull them separately to play safe.

After crossing the bridge you will also see interactable catapults, if you burn them down, you will reduce the number of fire aoes raining down on the left group. It’s not necessary but can help in less experienced groups. After clearing two more squares you will encounter the boss.

Boss

This boss is an alpha Flame-Shaper, so he will have all mechanics associated with that add + additional ones:

1. Inferno. Same as before, you see the boss shooting projectiles, interrupt it. Each will hit for around 3-5k unblocked so if multiple copies do that mechanic it can accumulate quickly.
2. Copies. Throughout the fight the boss will run towards the middle of the arena, disappear for a second and spawn several copies of himself. All “fake” copies are immune to damage and will disappear after they cast their own Inferno attack (and are interrupted), the group can just focus on the actual boss (the copy that takes damage) and just be sure to interrupt the copies
3. Meteor. A ground based aoe targeting a random player. Can be dodged out of, but that requires good reaction and awareness, so it’s easier to just block it. Does around 10k unblocked.
4. Impulse. An fire explosion that the boss charges around the boss. Deals around 6-11k if blocked and 15-24k if not, so make sure to block it.

Sometimes you can cancel all the listed mechanics by running into the room where he comes from. If you do it quickly enough, the boss will get confused and will give up on doing any of the mechanics. But it’s unreliable and isn’t recommended.

After your side is done, pull the lever, run through the gate, jump down and go to the next area, looting heavy sacks on both sides of it.

Adds by the Horn

Kill the lonely add near the chests, loot the chests and turn around. You will see a huge group of adds protecting the entrance to the citadel. You can either pull them manually or can blow a large war horn, which will grant you a minor achievement and will trigger all the adds.

No matter what strategy you choose, make sure that the tank takes the gargoyles away from the group to avoid unnecessary deaths to stomping, and the rest of the group interrupts multiple flame-shapers. You will have a mix of all the tougher adds in that pack, so with one tank in the group, it can become a little hectic. If you’re playing with two tanks, ask one of them to grab all destroyers and war-priests and face them away from the group, and the second one to take the gargoyles. Kill the bannered adds first, then proceed to kill the gargoyles. Go up the stairs, enter the citadel, and loot everything that you see.

At the end of the road, you will reach a room with 3 interactable statues. If you destroy all of them it will turn the hard mode for the last boss on. The change is irreversible (the only way to turn it off is to restart the trial). Loot all the chests and heavy sacks in the room and get ready to pull the last boss

The Warrior

On non-hard mode, the fight contains two main phases: 100%-35% – regular phase, 35%-0 – execute phase.

You will see a blue aura on the right side of the boss and a yellow aura on the left side. The blue aura increases your damage done, and the yellow increases healing received.

The main tank will usually hold the boss in the middle of the arena on its pedestal, facing towards the yellow zone, and the group will be tightly stacked behind the boss, getting the damage buff and being safe from cleaving attacks of the boss. If the whole group stacks close enough to the Warrior, it will stop him from doing the jump mechanic, so hug him tight.

During this phase of the fight, the boss will randomly target one player with the Shield Throw attack, creating a wide rectangular aoe, dealing damage twice: when the shield flies away and returns back to the boss. You can side-step this attack and come back to the stack, or stay inside and block it, even though you will be stunned if you decided to stay. It does around 10-12k if blocked and 19-22k if not.

At the beginning of the fight, two Destroyers will spawn, the tank should taunt them immediately and stack them on the main boss. A bit later 2 flame-shapers will spawn, stacking them with the main boss, while solo-tanking is unnecessary, but if your group has 2 tanks, the off-tank can run around and stack the adds in the middle.

The most important mechanic during the first part of the fight is Channeled Swipes. It’s a sequence of heavy attacks doing 6-15k through a block and around 30-35k unblocked to the player who has aggro, that will cleave everything in front of the boss, usually one-shotting stray dds. To deal with that mechanic, the tank is supposed to hold block throughout all 3 hits (don’t swap bars either!), and after that restore stamina by heavy attacking to make sure that you have enough for the next time the mechanic happens.

At some point, the boss will jump around and destroy one buff area, then another one. Don’t chase him around the room, just wait for him to return, turn him around and continue parsing

At 35% the Warrior will explode and drop his weapons, knocking everyone back and summoning a two-handed sword. This is the signal that the execute phase begins.

The attack pattern will change a bit. Now the Warrior will alternate between Swipes, the Dummy attack (similar to the Shield Throw, but more damage and one-way), a massive cleave heavy attack (Shehai Vengeance) that is really quick and can happen right after Dummy, while the boss is still facing the group, and the most important of them all: Shehai Storm aka Starfall.

Starfall starts with the boss raising his sword up in the air. When that happens, dds need to form a loose stack around the boss with healers standing behind that stack on both sides and spamming burst aoe heals to support the group through this phase. The mechanic creates little aoes under players’ feet that follow them around, so you can not avoid this damage, but you can mitigate it by blocking, shielding, and never overlapping your aoe with someone else. This attack lasts around 5 seconds and each blocked hit will deal around 4-10k damage, while unblocked ones will do 8-20k, so the safer approach to deal with it would be to slot shields before the fight (Annulment and its morphs for magicka characters and Bone shield or Brawler for stamina characters, or any other class-specific shield, e.g. Conjured ward for sorcerers or Radiant ward for templars), and just block+cast this ability while the mechanic is happening.

After Starfall is over, resurrect your fallen teammates and come back to the stack until the boss is defeated.

The Warrior hard mode

Hard mode for this fight requires better group coordination and situational awareness.

Upon entering the room, you will notice the main difference: there are several gargoyle statues scattered around the arena now. If not destroyed, they will eventually come alive and start doing gargoyle things (turning people into stone and stomping).

Most groups try and get rid of the gargoyles before they come alive.

Experienced groups ignore that mechanic altogether, and just ask the off-tank to taunt them all and kite them away from the pedestal with the main boss closer to the entrance, which makes the fight significantly easier for the group, but slightly harder for the off-tank (they have to keep taunt on all the gargoyles and kite them around avoiding damage).

There are two ways to get rid of the statues: make the boss jump on top of them (slow and inefficient), or make him destroy several statues with his shield throw. Tank positions the boss in front of one of the statues, the group stacks tightly behind it so that a shield throw aoe (no matter which player is targeted) would create a line hitting two gargoyles in its way. After that, the tank moves the boss to the next pair, and the group moves with them.

Between two Shield Throws, the boss will randomly Fossilize a player, and that player will be stun-locked, not being able to move or use their skills with the only available action: to use a new synergy “Destructive Outbreak“. When used, this synergy released you from the stone prison but creates a medium-sized undodgeable aoe that charges in 0.5 seconds and will one-shot everything inside of it. That means that if you pop it, while still stacked with the group, you will one-shot the whole group.

There are three ways of safely getting out of the fossilized state without killing the whole group.

1. If you have people around you: be patient and wait for the shield throw. If you’re inside of that aoe, it won’t deal any damage to you, but will release you from the stone prison.
2. If the group repositioned to the next group of gargoyles, and there’s nothing around you: make sure there’s no one around, call out where you’re breaking free and press the synergy.
3. If you’re the main tank or the off-tank: call out where you will explode (“Exploding in middle in 5…4…3…2…1…”) and break free. The group needs to move away from “stoned” supports, because they need to break free as soon as possible.

Under ideal circumstances, you either wait and get released from the shield throw, or you just wait until the group moves away from the destroyed statues to the next pair, and use the synergy without killing anyone.

If you missed one of the statues in the group, you can either stay in the same spot and wait for the next shield throw, or you can move around the room, destroying the statues as quickly as possible, and then make the boss jump on top of those statues by luring him into a jump.

If a gargoyle comes alive, it’s not the end of the world, just ask the off-tank to grab it and hold it away from the group and continue the fight.

If you’re too slow with pushing the main boss to execute, and the fight drags out for longer than 8,5 minutes, at around the 8:40 mark other statues will come alive, and 10 Destroyers will spawn as a punishment, so the off-tank will need to grab them and try to survive. If the main boss is far from 35% at this point, kill the adds, if the main boss is around 35%, push him, because he will kill all the adds upon transitioning into the execute phase.

NB: It’s not a forced wipe mechanic, you can survive it.

All the gargoyles that weren’t destroyed by the beginning of the execute phase will come alive. The off-tank needs to grab them all away closer to the entrance and kite them until the fight is over.

During the execute phase, we recommend assigning positions before the fight and forming a loose stack around the boss with healers slightly behind. You will get the same mechanics as on non-hm, together with Fossilize. Just call out your position and let people run away from you and break free. During the “Shehai Storm“, healers should be able to cover their respective groups, but if you want to help them, block-cast your abilities or just block-cast shield.

Keep parsing the boss until the fight is over. GG 🙂