Part 3: The Ghost Flame
Entering the portal from The Mountain Keeper will bring you to a chamber inside the volcano itself. You spawn in on the West side. Before you will be many floating skulls, 4 Tormented Souls in each corner of the area, extremely deadly lava surrounding the area, as well as the Ghost Flame herself resting upon a giant skull above more lava in the middle of the area. There are invisible walls blocking the large floating skulls and the various rock structures around the outside of this area.
The lava is particularly deadly. Not only will it do about 1000 fire damage (on normal) before resistances/absorptions, but it is also infused with evil energy that debuffs anyone touching it with
An Evil Heat. This debuff reduces your Fire Absorption by 7 per stack, lasts for 10 seconds (refreshed on getting a new stack), and can stack up to 25 times (that's -175 to your fire absorption if you stay in the lava for that long).
Each corner of this area features a writhing purple skeleton (Tormented Soul) on a raised rune inscribed platform. There is also one of these platforms just off the lava pool in the middle of the area (instead of a writhing purple skeleton, there is an inanimate skeletal corpse in the middle of the central platform). Standing on any of these will give you the
Shroud of Secrets debuff. This does a number of things. First, it reduces your healamp (positive, negative, and repair) by -900. Second, it gives you a 50% fail chance for all spellcastings (this includes divine magic as well). Third, it makes you immune to Sonic damage. This effect will become very important later.
These Tormented Souls were once adventuring companions. To the North East is Kelas. To the North West is Gorth. To the South West is Osfield. To the South East is Alaric. The resting corpse on the center platform is Lindal.
All of the Tormented Souls must be freed from their torment (aka: destroyed), but they can only be hurt one at a time. Furthermore, all of the Empowered Skeletons (trash) that spawn and each of the Tormented Souls have the
Sorcerous Shield buff as detailed in part 1. Thus they must be hit with melee attacks to remove it, else they will take reduced spell damage and have deflection against ranged attacks. The trash spawn in groups of 4, and each group of 4 is tied to one of the Tormented Souls. While one Tormented Soul is active, the 4 trash skeletons tied to it will spawn, and when that Tormented Soul is not active, the trash tied to it will not spawn. While active, all linked trash will respawn 40 seconds after being destroyed. It is still good practice to destroy the trash however, as they can overwhelm the party or the tank/kiter if left to their own devices.
Phase 1
Approaching Kelas in the North East will start things off. Undead scream, and the Ghost Flame gets angry. She does not attack yet, but skeletons will spring up form the ground and start attacking. Four skeletons spawn near Kelas: Two Empowered Dread Bones, One Empowered Dread Bones Archer, and One Empowered Dread Bones Mage. Shortly thereafter, Kelas will become targetable. He does not fight back. Once Kelas is reduced to 85% HP, he deactivates and a new Tormented Soul becomes active.
The next Tormented Soul to activate is Osfield in the South West. Four Empowered Dread Bone Archers spawn around him, and four Empowered Dread Bones (melee trash) will spawn around the center lava pit. The Archers are tied to Osfield, while the regular melee trash spawning in the center are not tied to any Tormented Soul (except maybe Lindal), so those four will continuously respawn (every 30 seconds) until Death's Teeth spawns. As with Kelas, once Osfield is reduced to 85% HP, he deactivates and the next Tormented Soul becomes targetable.
Next is Alaric in the South East. The trash linked to him are two Empowered Dread Bone (melee) and two Empowered Dread Bone Mages. As before, once he is reduced to 85% HP, he deactivates and it's on to the next one.
Finally, we head to the North West to face Gorth. The trash tied to him are three Empowered Dread Bones (melee) plus one Empowered Dread Bone Mage. As with all the others, reducing him to 85% HP deactivates him.
This order is static, meaning it will always be this order when you run this raid.
Phase 2
Once Gorth is brought down to 85% HP, the next phase begins. The Ghost Flame realises what we are doing, and is not having any of it. She calls upon the spirit of Lindal, currently in the form of Death's Teeth, to deal with our intrusion! Death's Teeth spawns in very close to where we did, to the West under the large lava spewing skull, though a tiny bit south of where we actually came in.
Just like in the beginning, Death's Teeth is immune to all damage, bites hard, and leaves behinds a purple miasma called The Void which does untyped damage as a DoT that stacks up to 10 times. This is where you want a tank with a good movement speed to kite him around and away from the party, or face tank Death's Teeth while healing through the damage. Kiting is often safer, as Death's Teeth has to run up to bite you, and The Void DoTs wear off after 8 seconds. However, Death's Teeth movement accelerates to catch up to whoever he's chasing... but after one bite, he slows down again, allowing the tank to get some distance again before the next bite.
While that is going on, the Tormented Souls continue activating one at a time, so everyone else will continue to beat them down and keep trash in check (you do not want the tank/kiter to get hamstrung by an archer). In this phase, the Tormented Souls will be active one at a time until their HP is reduced to 70%, at which point they deactivate and the next one activates.
The phase 2 order starts with Osfield in the South West. As before, the trash linked to him spawn while he is active. Next is Kelas in the North East along with his trash. Next is Alaric in the South East, along with his trash. And finally, phase 2 ends with Gorth again in the North West.
Phase 3
Once Gorth is brought down to 70% HP, the voice of Vecna can be heard angrily addressing the Ghost Flame via a disembodied red hand with an eye in its palm.
Compelled to take us more seriously, The Ghost Flame lowers the barrier around her and joins the battle. At first, she stays on top of her giant skull, casting spells at range. She cannot be harmed in this phase, but she can hurt you. At this point in time she will do the following:
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Magic Missile
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Delayed Blast Fireball
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Arcane Blast
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Arcane Bolt
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Burning Blood
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Meteor Swarm
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Necrotic Ray
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Energy Drain
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Rend the Soul - Negative energy DoT
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Word of Silence - lasts for 6 seconds
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Death Mark Curse - your negative energy absorption is reduced by -7% per stack, stacks up to 10 times. It can be removed by both Remove Curse and Death Ward.
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Evil - If you are her target but are far away from her (if she is on an edge and you are on the other side of the middle lava pool, or approximately 60% the length of the main arena and farther), you will take Evil damage every 2 seconds (around 400 per tick on normal)
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Claw of Vecna - targets one random player (further from Death's Teeth, more likely to be targeted). A semi-translucent red claw appears above your head, and an icon appears with a 10 second countdown. At around 3 seconds left the claw attacks and causes around 400 evil damage on normal. Blocking will prevent the damage. It looks like this above your head:
The Ghost Flame is also a "Master Necromancer", and as such is able to remove Death Ward from characters and turn negative energy against its users. This means that Pale Master wizards, Dark Apostate clerics, and Abyss Form warlocks must be careful when The Ghost Flame is active (other forms of undead, such as allies animated by Pale Masters, or those self rezzed via jibbers, will also be affected by this). If an undead character uses negative energy to heal, The Ghost Flame will afflict them with
Death to the Undying, causing them to take damage from negative energy for 20 seconds. If the negative energy spell is cast by the afflicted character, it uses their own spellpower to calculate damage. Break Enchantment will remove this effect, but will not make you immune to future applications. However, Break Enchantment will likely not be of any use, as on normal I rolled a 20+21 with Break Enchantment (on a 32 bard) and it still failed to remove any effect created by The Ghost Flame.
Once again, the Tormented Souls activate one at a time, and must be hurt to progress. Trash continue to spawn as before. This time the active Tormented Soul changes when brought down to 50% HP. This round it starts with Alaric in the South East, then Gorth in the North West, then Osfield in the South West, and finally Kelas in the North East... however, Kelas will stay active after 50% and can now be beaten all the way down until he is destroyed completely. When Kelas is destroyed, phase 4 begins.
Phase 4
Several things happen once Kelas is destroyed and phase 4 begins. Death's Teeth stops attacking for a while and starts transforming into a new form. The shield that makes him immortal fades away and he becomes green in color, and his open wounds drip with green fire. He loses The Void, but gains several new attacks.
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Stomp - slashing damage, and can cause the
Unsteady debuff, reducing movement speed by -50% and lasts for 3 seconds
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Tail Spin -causes knock back and possibly knock down as well
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Soul Bitter - Bite attack now causes several effects beyond just damage. These effects last for 60 seconds, and each bite adds a new stack and refreshes the duration, with a max of 6 stacks. Those bitten (in addition to damage) lose 10% of their max HP per stack, lose -25 Heal Amp per stack, and lose -10 fortification per stack.
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Heart Burn - Belches pools of lingering Green Fire, and sometimes breaths it out as a jet.
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Soul Shattering Roar - Rears up and does a little wiggle dance for 8 seconds. At the end of this 8 second dance, Death's Teeth lets out a massive roar that will do thousands of sonic damage three times in quick succession that will hit everyone in the raid (even to characters in previous areas of the raid), as well as three bursts of fire damage to anyone close to Death's Teeth.
The "wiggle dance" looks as such: Death's Teeth will stop, move his head up and down and side to side, while waving his tiny claws around.
While the sonic damage from the Soul Shattering Roar (just Roar from now on) is raid wide and is blocked by standing on a platform, the fire damage will hit anyone within close range of Death's Teeth. The distance is approximately the diameter of the large central platform. Anyone that distance or closer to Death's Teeth when he roars will take the 3 blasts of fire damage. Those further away will not take the fire damage.
Note that Death's Teeth's transformation looks like the wiggle dance that precedes the Roar, but this is not the actual roar. Once he is fully green, the wiggle dance means the Roar is coming, but while he's purple and transforming, it is just a painful transformation.
Furthermore, while Death's Teeth is close to the corpse of Lindal in the middle of the central platform, he gains the Old Bones buff, which gives him a small boost to the damage of his physical attacks by around +20% (on normal, need to check hard. Need to confirm exact distance from corpse that this buff activates).
The green fire lingers on the ground, causing a small amount of fire damage while standing within it. It causes a debuff
Green Fire to appear and stacks up to 3 times, but the effect of the stacks is currently unknown.
The shield that protects The Ghost Flame also fades away, and she no longer stays on top of the giant skull in the middle. Instead she will now teleport around the arena. Every time she teleports, her aggro resets.
For both Death's Teeth and The Ghost Flame, this transformation takes time. During that time they do not attack... however, a 3rd thing happens at the start of this phase that will become your top priority at this moment... Dark Secrets spawn around the arena. Dark Secrets are floating spectral demonic skulls with green fire burning in their mouths. On their own, they don't seem to do much... but they are very deadly time-bombs. In 45 seconds, they will suddenly grow in size. 2 seconds later, they explode. Each one that explodes will cause several ticks (tested leaving one to explode, I've seen both 1 tick of damage, and 2 ticks of damage from that single explosion) of evil damage, doing around 200-400 damage on normal. This will hit everyone in the final arena (anyone in previous sections of the raid will not take this damage). But wait, there's more! Each time one dies from being damaged by players, they also do this damage to everyone in the finale arena (only one tick per killed skull). 12-14 spawn all at once (2-4 along each side of the arena). As such, these skulls need to be destroyed within that 45 second time limit, but also NOT too quickly, so that everyone can heal through the damage. If there are solid ranged characters, it is recommended that the party (minus the on dealing with Death's Teeth) huddles around each other so that the healers can easily AoE heal while the ranged characters shoot the skulls one at a time. This will usually happen just off the platform of the recently felled Tormented Soul so that everyone can quickly get onto the platform should Death's Teeth roar. Without ranged characters, the party can travel together around the arena to kill the skulls and heal as a group, or a single strong melee can run around and destroy them one at a time while the rest huddle and heal. Regardless of method, the group should agree on which way around the map to kill the skulls (clockwise or counter-clockwise). The main thing is to watch the party and tank's HP and adjust your killing speed so you don't kill your fellow party members, while also not going too slow in order to avoid taking massive damage all at once if they are allowed to explode.
(The secret optionals for the "good ending" can now start being done. Details on this will be provided later in Part 4: Freeing Yarrow).
Once all of the Dark Secrets are destroyed, the transformations of Death's Teeth and the Ghost Flame completes and they go on the attack once more. However, they are still not the top priority. Instead, the remaining Tormented Souls must still be dealt with. They still can only be damaged one at a time. Like with Kelas, they can now be fully destroyed. Each time one falls, a new set of Dark Secrets (skulls) will spawn and needs to be taken care of as before, within 45 seconds but not all at once... but from now on Death's Teeth and The Ghost Flame continue to attack. Of particular danger is the Roar. When anyone notices the wiggle dance, they should call out the roar in voice, or spam r in chat, to let everyone know it is coming. Again, you have 8 seconds to get onto a rune-inscribed platform to become immune to the raid wide sonic damage, move away from Death's Teeth himself to avoid the fire damage, and stop killing Dark Secrets (as while on a platform you have -900 heal amp, so you can no longer heal through the damage that killing the Dark Secrets will cause). You will have to judge if it's safer to stop killing skulls for the duration of the roar, or continue killing skulls (to beat the time limit) and take the Roar's damage. If the roar happens when the Tormented Soul is close to death, it is advisable to stop DPSing the Tormented Soul until after the roar ends, so as to not overlap the mechanics.
Four archer skeletons will also spawn around the center, and will respawn after 30 seconds when killed. This continues while Death's Teeth is active.
The kill order for the final Tormented Souls is Osfield in the South West, then Alaric in the South, and finally Gorth in the North West. As before, each one will spawn another group of Dark Secrets/Skulls to be dealt with.
Now that the Tormented Souls have been put to rest, it is time to deal with Death's Teeth. In order for him to stay dead, he must die on the central platform where the corpse of Lindal rests. If Death's Teeth is brought down to 12.5% health and he is not on that platform, he will heal back up to 50% HP a few seconds later and continue to fight.
Upon successfully felling Death's Teeth, it is time to make a decision: finish the raid now and achieve the bad ending, or perform the extra tasks in order to attempt the good ending? If you chose to end it now, all that remains to do is attempt to kill The Ghost Flame.
Until Death's Teeth is put to rest, The Ghost Flame will draw upon his strength to heal herself. Whenever she is brought down to 25% HP, she will use his power to heal back up to 50% HP. Thus she cannot be killed until Death's Teeth is put down. Once he is taken care of properly (as above), The Ghost Flame will no longer be able to heal, and thus she can be properly destroyed. Vecna swoops in at the very last second to save her, by sending her to a pocket dimension to heal and come back at a later time. This happens when she is reduced to 15,000 HP (on normal, or 0.917% her max. When I tested on normal her max hp was just over 1.6 million. As that is such an unusual number, I think it's safe to assume it's a flat 15k trigger). For the purposes of this raid, that is a win. You can now loot one single chest and return to the village of Tanaroa.
However, if you wish to attempt the good ending, you will need to keep The Ghost Flame alive. She will continue to attack you... just ignore her. If someone has both Deathward and immunity to Energy Drain, it is best for that person to try and keep her aggro so that she doesn't kill anyone at this point.
