Stage 1
- Addition of a Tornado attack by Lizard, similar to DDN’s Death Knight, BDN’s Punisher. This can get REALLY IRRITATING if the Lizard happens to be invulnerable after 2X. When the Lizard went Berserk, we burst it down quite fast so I didn’t get to see the horror stories that some people said about it.
- Spider gets a new irritating attack as well – Explosion. It will stop moving and suddenly cause an explosion that has a pretty large radius. Be very careful of this attack, it hurts a lot.
- One of them will be invulnerable after you down the Spider at 2X, which one it is being random. Personally I would rather have the Spider invulnerable, the Lizard’s Tornado will make you tear your hair off when it keeps interrupting your DPS windows (which is even shorter now due to Spider’s Explosion)
Stage 2
- You can probably observe the additional fireballs for every swing attack. One key point is to never stay in front of the boss. I have found moving side -> back of the boss for continuous swings to be very safe
- Additional attack of Fire Lines, similar to the X shape attack in BDN Punisher but with more lines and at a faster frequency. First demonstrated in the video at 0:57, that burst of fire around the boss is the prelude to this attack. Method of dodging is in the video, no need for tumble actually.
- For the Lava Golems, I would advise people to divide it in this manner, for some reason people get lost quite often. Imagine where the Portal to Stage 3 will be in Volcano Nest as the middle, then cut it into left and right. The Lava Golems will be exactly mirrored on each side from this pov, how people want to assign is up to them. (If your class can push more than 1 Golem, please help out. Some people really suck at this…)
- New attack where he leaps at you and keeps swinging. You basically just tumble to evade this… It is more of something you have to keep in mind might happen when he is at the edge of the map, than any really special mechanic. Demonstrated at 1:53. In Abyss mode this move has killed people instantly. If the Swing gets you into the Lava, it is 150k per burn tick.
(Also just saying, my habit of spamming Chakra of Energy at times is like a reflex from playing Light Fury, for the additional movement speed boost. When I am tired I tend to play on autopilot mode i.e. not really think about what I am doing but just reacting based on what is on the screen and doing what I am used to).
Stage 3
I died to a freak accident from lag, I didn’t even know how the rage bar filled up to the max, got hit by the party wipe AoE (not dead yet), then the boss spewed Lava from his mouth while I couldn’t move at all. (No real interest in pursuing perfect runs (they take too much concentration and time), I figured 2 revives should be enough for practising Stage 4 HP change mechanic anyway)
New buff wipe – First demonstrated at 5:19. Pretty harmless as long as you don’t get knocked back into a lava pool. So be careful of your position.
New attack – Map wide Lava Flood, demonstrated at 6:15. Correct procedure is to approach one of the crystals (no need to keep your weapon), forward jump and wait. Or as a Bringer you could just meditate similar to DDN Flower. I thought there would be another chance to demonstrate the jump, didn’t want to waste my clones so I decided to dodge it with HoC instead. It isn’t really that hard though… or you just play Bringers ^^
New mechanic – Destroy the purple crystal, demonstrated at 6:54. Any hit will destroy it (I think, I haven’t really tried any characters with under 35k p/mdmg). The most important thing to watch for here is if the boss chains this with Lava Flood, I have seen people get wrecked by this combination.
Stage 4
- I forgot to put the new buff wipe attack in the video. It basically looks like the new stomp without the breaths and the flames. When he looks like he is having a seizure really…
- The point of this run was mainly to get some practice for the HP change mechanic, so I placed in every single one of them regardless of success/failure so people can have a better gauge of the timing. The 12:01 and 12:47 attempts are the only ones I consider perfect.
- The final explosion if the mechanic fails does not get past Feint (i.e. it saves you, or I could have saved one revive. The thing is I felt it was pointless after getting hit twice…) It can also be tanked with damage reduction, same as Volcano Nest.
- The HP change mechanic fireball does not trigger a burn in Volcano Challenge Nest unlike VN
- New Stomp attack, first demonstrated at 9:31. That charge up animation is the precursor to his 3 consecutive breaths (tracks the character with aggro), and then unleashes a Stomp at the end. It doesn’t feel as impactful as most stomps, but it is a stomp regardless. Proper jump timing is shown a few times, under the delay debuff from Screamers it is 6x Breath -> NO STOMP. The stomp causes a burn
- I actually wanted to iframe the Fire Pillars with Illusion Strike EX at one point in time, but muscle reflex left clicked on the skill and panicked xD
Stage 5
- Imho, Phoenix is boringly easy after the rest of the nest…
- I have been told that Fire Circles after 2X grow larger and causes more damage, unable to really test/verify in solo
- Whoever said that Side Claw was hard to dodge was delusional. I have yet to been hit by it at all…
- HP Protection at map-wide Explosion / Blue Aura, can be broken by ice stack.
- HP Change mechanic a.k.a Rotating Breath can now vary in speed and direction. My method of handling it is demonstrated in the video
- At 2X, the Phoenix gains a buff (the one that will make fire elemental classes go !@#$), and gets some changes to its skills
- Gains additional teleport/teleport swipe moves
- Gains a larger AoE when doing its charge move (doesn’t deal damage, but gives a def reduction debuff. And breaks your skills of course. So irritating when I am used to dodging out of the standard range and buffing/summoning)
- Could be my misunderstanding, but the Tornado seems to be slightly more persistent than pre-buff
- 1X Lasers -> You can no longer attack the Phoenix without Ice Stack, different from VN previously. I have heard that people can no longer attack the Phoenix in VN without ice stack too, yet to personally verify since I haven’t run VN in awhile, not since the patch anyway. Yes, this means that Elestra got another indirect buff for Volcano Challenge Nest…