Yffii’s Lucent Citadel guide

This trial guide was developed, written and recorded by our amazing Yffii with help of Kulk, Lilgabe, TingleTony and Minxin. Please be sure to support the effort by liking the videos and subscribing to her channel.

Please note, that everything in this guide applies to the hardmode fight. The general flow of the fight should be similar to non-HM encounters.

Count Ryelaz and Zilyesset

General mechanics

The arena for this boss has two rooms, separated by a glass wall that doesn’t let anything through it.

Throughout the fight, you will have to teleport between two rooms using one of 3 pads in each area to avoid a wipe. This is the Brilliant/Bleak Annihilation mechanic. It’s time-based, the first of them happens 25 seconds into the fight, then repeats roughly every 60 seconds. Pads start glowing, and you can see which pad to choose by looking at the glass wall. The group has 12 seconds to go to the right pad after start of the mechanic.

Throughout the fight, smaller and bigger adds will spawn on both sides. Stack them on the main boss and make them vulnerable to be able to damage. Tanks cannot chain small adds.

Bigger add, depending on the side, cast Bleak Lusterbeam or Brilliant Lusterbeam. This mechanic targets 2 persons per side, does damage over time to these players. The targeted players will see beam above their heads and small aoes around them. They need to bring the DoT to the smaller adds to make them vulnerable

• Count Ryelaz:
  • Meteors on everyone 🡪 don’t stack them
• Zilyesset:
  • Glass orb: Brilliant Ray 🡪 outhealed

Tanks

• Both bosses deal low damage with their light attacks. If there’s no additional pressure and nothing else in the arena, you don’t have to block them.
• Make sure to block Ryelaz’s heavy attack. He will spawn 2 sets of meteors which you need to either block or roll.
• On Zilyesset’s side the main problem will be the bigger add, the Shardborn Lightweaver. When the add is doing its fury attack, it takes a lot of stamina to survive. If you’re still getting comfortable with the trial, optimise your gear to survive this mechanic. Our recommendations are:
  • Infused + Prismatic cost reduction on jewelry pieces is enough especially if you are using a magicka costing taunt. This setup can be hard if you have a habit to permanently block
  • Depending on what buffs/debuffs you bring to the group (especially if you are a DK tank responsible for stagger) you could feel more comfortable using 3x Harmony + Prismatic cost reduction and asking for a synergy when ever i really need it.
  • If you don’t want to use Harmony or Prismatic cost/recovery glyphs, you can opt for several Sturdy pieces on your armor to reduce the cost of blocking.
  • The safest stamina setup for this fight is Sturdy armor pieces and Harmony + Prismatic cost reduction on jewelry. Remember that your resistance values are also very important, so make sure to hit that cap.

Healers

• In this fight you will be responsible for stacking the adds on the main boss, because the damage they do to players ramps up. They often spawn on the opposite sides so you taunt both. Run to one side and then run to the other. Running through the boss/in front of the tank is fine, just need to watch out for the occasional cleave.   
• For the Count’s side you’d wanna save some stamina to avoid stuns from meteors

Orphic Shattered Shard

General mechanics:

As in the first boss of Lucent Citadel, mirrors again play a big role in the fight. 

In the arena, you can find 4 mirrors at the start, in the left and right entrance and exit positions. Four more mirrors will spawn throughout the fight, to a total of eight. With those mirrors you can change the lighting of the room from light to dark and vice versa by using your synergy button.

Changing the color of the mirror will give you a heavy dot of almost 5k per second. This dot will last for 30 seconds, and if you swap a mirror again within this time, the damage ticks of this dot will increase.

Before the real boss fight starts, 3 trash waves will spawn. The first trash wave exists of 2 Sentinels and 4 Crystal Atronachs. All these are light adds, which means that the room has to be dark to be able to kill them. 

• The signature move of the Sentinels is their shield throw, similar to the Warrior in Hel Ra. This attack can be blocked but NOT dodged. This attack does damage to everyone in it’s path and will also knock you down. Keep an eye out to the sentinels and where they are looking.
• The Crystal atronachs throw out splintered glass attacks, which are single targets hits. Tanks can chain them towards the main boss so that they would die to cleave damage.

The second trash wave exists of 2 Ruinachs and 4 Gloom Shapers. These are the dark adds, thus make sure to turn the room to light.

• The Ruinachs spawn flame tornadoes after their heavy, followed by a spin attack. The attack spawn in their field of view, and will stun deal a lot of damage to everyone in its path. You can easily avoid Tornadoes by moving out of their way.
• The Gloom Shapers are similar to the Flame Atronachs on Ansuul. When they channel their ability they shoot inferno bolts that deal moderate damage to the group. Interrupt them, pulled them in, and kill.

After two waves of adds, the main boss fight begins. The boss has several mechanics. Fate pillar followed by Shockwave, Shard volley, and Color Change. 

• Shockwave is when the boss slams into the ground causing a shockwave. Roll-dodge it or walk out of it.
• Shard Volley, a kite mechanic AoEs appear on top of players. Make sure to place those a bit away from the boss, so there is room for the unaffected people
• Color change. The boss will charge to the middle. When in the middle, you will see him connect to different mirrors. Players need to turn the mirrors that the boss connects to.
  Make sure to not turn the mirrors before the boss connects to them. It’s a time-based mechanic that forces a wipe. You can assign players to specific mirrors or coordinate with your group in the voice chat.
  This mechanic happens at 90%, 60%, 40% and 20%
• Fate pillar. During this mechanic an orb spawns at a random location in the arena. Tanks need to bring the boss to the orb and make the boss hit the orb with the Slam or the Shockwave. Otherwise all 6 people with the connection to the orb will die. 

This boss has several phases, split by the color change mechanic. During each phase different adds and mirrors will spawn.

Trash waves

After every color change mechanic, different adds will spawn and additional mirrors will appear. During the first phase until 90% there are only the four mirrors that were there from the start, and no additional adds. Each add has a different color (Sentinels and Atronachs are light, Ruinachs and Gloom Shapers are dark). You need to turn the mirrors to kill them

• 90% 1 Sentinel (additional mirrors at 3 and 9 o’clock)
• 60% 1 Ruinach (additional mirrors at 6 and 12 o’clock)
• 40% 1 Sentinel + 4 Crystal Atronachs
• 20% 2 Ruinachs + 4 Gloom Shapers
• 15% 1 Ruinach + 4 Gloom Shapers

Mini: Xoryn

Besides the main boss, there is also a mini boss, Xoryn. Xoryn always has the opposite color of the main, which means you cannot damage the main boss and Xoryn at the same time. Luckily this is not necessary, as he will respawn after a certain time if kill him. You can just keep him alive and watch out for his mechanics though, as otherwise they might kill you.

• The first mechanic Xoryn does is Lightning Flood, a channel attack on the target, one of the tanks. This attack does AoE damage, tanks should keep Xoryn out of the group. Block it.
• The second mechanic Xoryn does is Thunder Thrall, during which he will jump to the furthest player, mostly a kite healer, which has to run out of the AoE. The mechanic happens every 25 seconds. After landing, 3 smaller AoEs will spawn out of the jump location. These AoEs deal a lot of damage and will one-shot a player in combination with the mirror drain. Avoid the AoE.
• The last mechanic Xoryn does is a Cone Attack. Xoryn casts this ability regularly after his jump, so there is always a risk of this attack ending up in the group, so keep your eyes open. Block it.

Tanking

Tanking the Main Boss

As a main tank in this fight your first priority is to tank the main boss. Also taunt the Sentinels and Ruinarchs that spawn in the different phases. It is also important to chain in the Crystal Atronachs and Gloom Shapers, so that they die to cleave damage before they get invulnerable at the next color change.

When tanking the Orphic Shattered Shard you have a personal mechanic to play, the Fate Pillar. You have around 7 seconds to bring the boss to the orb.

Whilst bringing the boss to the orb stay close to the boss to prevent it from enraging when it casts a heavy. The heavy itself will give you get a heal absorption but it shouldn’t cause any problems. 

Tanking Xoryn

When tanking Xoryn, there are a few things to consider. Firstly, during the lightning flood, make sure to stand out of the group to prevent the group from taking damage from the AoE blast. Otherwise, do actually try to stand relatively close to group to make the kiting of its jumps easier. This way, you are also able to help with chaining in the small adds. 

The challenge for the Xoryn tank usually starts in the final phase at 20%, tanking the 3 Ruinachs that spawn. They spawn in random locations, so you have to be fast and look around quickly.

As you are not in the group you get less healing.
It is recommended to not block the heavies which give you a heal absorption, but instead to roll them, even though you enrage them this way. From this point on it is just try to survive towards the end, whilst keeping the Ruinarchs out of the group.

It might be helpful to have a pre-defined sport where you are tanking this last phase so the healers can help you out easier when needed.

Healers

For healers, this fight is pretty straightforward. One healer will have to kite the jumps of Xoryn every 25 seconds. You can do this by running towards the wall when the jump is incoming. Otherwise, in this fight especially sticky hots like Vigor and Radiating Regeneration are very useful, as the group will have to split up synergise with the mirrors, and the incoming damage in this phase is relatively high.

Another phase to pay special attention to it during the Shard Volley mechanic, the kite, is active, because the group will spread out. 

DDs

As a damage dealer, this fight can be tricky to play because of the relatively high incoming damage. always try to stay together as a group as much as possible, and return to the group asap when you have to get out, to receive the most healing possible.

You will especially notice this when you come back from changing your mirror, as at this point in time you will have the DoT from the mirror on you, whilst also the newly spawned crystal atronachs and flameshapers might target you. Therefore, some blocks or rolldodges whilst going back into the group might safe your live. 

Focus on staying alive, especially as the danger comes from multiple enemies at the same time. Most of the additional mechanics from the adds or the mini boss are are, or almost are, a oneshot, and together with the almost constant incoming damage from mirror drain and possibly from some smaller adds as well will cause issues

Be aware, that after the color swap at 90% and 60% the boss will turn invulnerable until the 2 newly spawned mirrors have been turned. So be patient with your ultimate at these times.

Last but not least, always try to make sure to cleave the adds to lower the incoming damage as soon as possible, but you should definately make sure to kill them before the next color swap, as if not, these adds will be a continuous threat for the next phase as well. 

The Arcane Knot

The third boss of Lucent Citadel, the Arcane Knot is a unique fight.

The fight starts directly after having killed the second boss, and the goal is to bring the arcane knot, which you now have recovered by killing the Orphic Shattered Shard, back to the entrance. You have to do this by running back through the trial. On the way, you will encounter different adds and bosses, which I will talk over one by one in this video.

After killing the second boss 1 player in the group can pick up the Knot. This person can only hold it for 45 seconds on hardmode, or 60 seconds on veteran difficulty. The person carrying will have a ramping DoT on them, which needs to be outhealed. After 45 seconds the knot will automatically drop from the carrier and another person in the group needs to pick it up. The person dropping the Knot will create an AoE that will give EVERYONE INSIDE IT an 8 minutes status on hardmode, stopping them from picking up the Knot again, so make sure to drop it outside of the group.

Whilst running back through the trial, you will encounter several ice walls that block the path and will shatter after destroying Defense Prisms. There are single defense prisms, but also prisms in a group of two or three. If connected, the prisms need to die within a few seconds of each other. Otherwise they will respawn. 

During the running phases, you encounter beams. They do significant damage when fully grown. If you see a ground AoE you can still run through but when the ground AoE has disappeared, you will have to roll-dodge through. 

Crystal Atronach: 

• Every time the Knot is dropped, a Crystal Atronach will spawn. At the start, they will have about 6.5M HP. If you drag them into the Knot after spawning, they will grow bigger and gain more HP up to around 10M increasing both their tankiness and damage. For full-sized atros, tanks can still block their heavy attacks if there’s no additional damage incoming. If you have additional damage on you, roll dodge.
• After each Heavy Attack, the Atronarch will do a stomp on the person who has taunt on them. Everyone should dodge this attack. If the stomp is on you, make sure that you don’t make any unexpected movements, as otherwise you will kill everyone inside the aoe not dodging.
• The Atronachs will teleport towards you if left behind, thus you cannot outrun them

Boss 1: Mirrormoor Manticora

There is nothing special to say about this fight. The only tricky thing is that it can be hard at times for the tank to taunt it in time before it does its first attack. Therefore, it is better to roll-dodge or block when this first attack goes out. Besides that the Mantikora also has a melee attacks, they do moderate damage but tanks don’t even have to block.

Boss 2: Dariel Lemonds

After you killed the second defense prism, the second boss, Dariel Lemonds, will spawn. His special mechanic is a tether between the two players furthest away, the Arcane Conveyance. Everyone who touches this tether will die. You will know the tether is on you when your screen turns blue. After the tether the boss will jump to the tank who has taunt on him.

Boss 3: Baron Rize

The third boss fight, Baron Rize, takes place in the same arena as the first boss fight of the trial. Just like that fight, where Count Ryelaz summons 2 sets of meteors that you can block or roll dodge, Baron Rize does the same but instead summons 1 set of meteors, though at a faster rate after each other. This boss likes to move a lot but since he doesnt have any cleave, the tank can stand wherever to minimize movement.

Boss 4: Mzrelnir

After having killed another prism, the boss will start casting its mechanics, which are necrotic rain and necrotic barrage.

• Necrotic barrage is an aoe spawning under the knot bearer, which was me in this video. A few seconds after the aoe has spawned, a necrotic skull will fly in and kill everyone in that aoe. 
• Necrotic rain, targets everyone in the group creating small AoEs under each player. Make sure to make a loose stack, so your aoe’s do not overlap.
• The easiest way to deal with the necromances is to have one tank going down to grap them and stack them on top of the stairs. This way the group can kill them quickly, though watch out for the ghosts that stun you. When all necromancers are dead, Mrzelnir will stop casting it’s mechanics.
• When going down as a tank, your main focus is to bring in the necromancer furthest back, standing on the last defence prism. Get close to him, taunt, and maybe also cast a skill with a long dot, like ele sus, so you keep doing damage on it and have a lower chance to lose agro. Wait for him near the first prism and then come up at the entrance side as this will improve the stack. The most difficult part is dealing with the necrotic rain in combination with a heal debut, so don’t forget to shield and heal yourself.
• After the necromancers have been killed it is time to kill the 3 defense prisms below to be able to advance further. Again there are different ways of doing it for example splitting into groups or bringing the first ones low and leave people behind to kill them, and probably several other ways. Just figure out what works for your group best.

Boss 5: Jresazzel and Xynizata

• The same applies to the 2 defense prisms at the entrance side in the next room. You can either kill them before you kill the two bosses, or kill them after. With the advantage of the first being not having to deal with the aoe’s that the prisms cast in their neighbourhood, and the advantage of the second option being that you can focus fully on the bosses first.
• About the two bosses, they are calles something like Jresazzel and Xynizata. Jresazzel is the melee boss, and following his heavy he does a shield throw, similar to the sentinel on the second boss in Lucent Citadel. It is best if the tanks are making sure that this shield throw is directed towards the wall. Xynizata is a range add that needs to be dragged in. He does a channel attack which, if not interrupted, will make the tank to be very slow. Xynizate also casts a big lazer beam similar to the beams you encounter when running through the corridors. This beam can be controlled by the tanks but hits very hard, so they again have to make sure it is not going through the group.
• On the other side of the room you will find two more defence prisms that need to be killed simultaneously. After that it’s time for the last encounter, Xoryn. Before I start talking Xoryn I want to give a big shoutout to Lilgabe, Kulk, Tingletony and Minxin for sharing their footage and knowledge, without them, I would not have been able to make this guide in this way, including all different perspectives and details for their roles. 
• About that, a few things worth mentioning for the healers. Consider the use of 1 or 2 swift jewelry pieces to be better able to keep up with the group during the running phases, as you do not have the speed buff from medium armour. It is also good to cast some healing orbs during the running phases, so people can recover some resources. Otherwise, during everything you have seen so far, your main priority is to heal the knot bearer, which is especially needed in the last seconds before exploding.  

Boss 5: Xoryn

Now onto the last, and also most tricky fight in this encounter, Xoryn. This boss has several mechanics which can overlap badly, so bringing a self-shield is recommended. It is also a pretty static fight in the way that the timings of the abilities he casts are always the same.

• Chain lightning. Happens every 15 seconds. This attack starts with the charge attack on the tank. After the channel has finished, the chain lightning will go through every other group member, and has to be blocked, otherwise it deals a lot of damage and can one-shot. Chain lightning is never applied to the Knot carrier
• Fluctuating current, is first cast after about 15 seconds. A person standing the furthest away gets a blue cage around them. The current does damage that increases over time.
  The maximum duration someone can keep the current is 15 seconds, if it is kept longer, this will result in a one-shot.
  Another person has to come and take it over by walking through the cage. Player released out of the cage will get a 1.5 minute status effect that will stop them from taking the cage again. Per cast, the cage has to be juggled for a full minute, which means that theoretically at least 4 people are needed to pass over the current, but in practice you need time to spare, thus 5 people are needed to pass 1 current.
  If you have the cage on you, don’t run through the group, because it will one-shot people with the status effect on them.
  
  After this minute, the mechanic will spawn again only a few seconds after it is gone. As the first five people still have the debuff, this means that another group of 5 people will have to pass over this second cage.
  
  The carrier of the Fluctuating Current cage can also get targeted by the chain lightning, so make sure to block and shield it. Whilst carrying the cage, make sure to not run into the group, as you will kill everyone with the debuff.
• Tempest assault. After every other chain lightning, the lines will spawn on every group member except for the Knot bearer and the Xoryn tank.
  The lines deal oblivion damage and cannot be shielded.
  Players have to make sure they only get hit by their own line, as two or more mean certain death.
  The lines originate from the mirrors you see at the sides of the arena. Every person will get a random mirror assigned. 
  
  There are different ways to deal with this mechanic. If you can find your mirror in time, you can hide behind it, so your line is not going through the arena.
  However, doing this as a group is close to impossible, therefore, most groups spread out throughout the arena, with everyone having an assigned area.
  If your spot is not free of other lines, you can move along your line, so you do not change its direction, until you found a safe spot. I’ve also seen a group standing in a line in the middle.
  This is possible, as there are no lines originating from the entrance and exit, thus all lines will cross the line of people without hitting people twice. As with the prisms, there are multiple ways of dealing with the lines, and it’s up to you to find out what works best for your group.
• Taunt swap. As every accelerating charge attack will cause a debuff on the tank with taunt, which means that tanks have to swap taunt of the boss after every heavy. Easiest is to also swap taunt with the atro’s, if alive, so you have one tank tanking the boss, and the other tanking the atronarch. The tank having the atro will also have to play the line mechanic. As you can’t freely move during this mechanic, you got to play defensive when you get the heavy or stomp from the atronarch at the same time. Make sure to block and shield to be able to survive this combination.