The Devourer
Catacombs Finale Part 3

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The final dungeon added with the Fall 2019 test realm introduces the mighty (or should I say ravenous?) Devourer. One encounters this boss in the Lower Catacombs of the Wizard City Underground. It has quite a story as to where it came from and where it currently lurks. If you haven’t checked out the update yet, don’t wait any longer and certainly don’t miss out on the story!

Rank 18 Shadow Boss + 3 random minions

Devourer Resistance

The Devourer

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One will notice that this is no ordinary boss, or even an ordinary cheating boss. It has its own unique and creative mechanics which I must applaud Kingsisle for coming up with in the first place! As of now, it is a Rank 18 Shadow Boss with 80,000 HP and 22% pierce, but despite being Shadow it possesses a lot of diverse spells as you will see in the list below:

I’m pretty sure we may have missed some of his spells as of now. Thus we will update this as soon as we find new information. Now, I know that you initially think something along the lines of, “How is this boss even possible?”, “How can I ever defeat this boss on my own?”, and “This is impossible, I give up”. Well, today we will help to conquer  these pessimistic thoughts and perhaps give you a chance to conquer the devourer.

A Word of Caution

Let’s clear up a couple of things first. A soloist or very casual player will struggle to beat this boss, as its design demands a full team. However, if this describes you, don’t lose heart! This update contains purely side content and will not affect your wizard’s ability to advance in the questline going forward. That said, you will need to find a team to help you overcome this battle if you haven’t already. Ideally, find a death wizard for your team. I’ve found this a must and will explain why later on. An ideal team consists of at least 2 support wizards (including the death) and two hitters. One hitter will constantly deal with any minions and support the main hitter, who will purely focus on the boss. The other supports will deal with damage control, blading, and healing if necessary.

The Cheats

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This article will purely focus on preparing you on what the Devourer battle entails. We will release a separate strategy guide that focuses more on the specifics of how to beat the boss and more importantly, how to do it fast! Before checking out that guide, make sure you understand the below mechanics and tips on how to overcome certain elements of this battle.

The Devourer summons 3 random minions at the start of the battle. They can be any of the seven schools as you will see in the minions section below. We suggest defeating the first batch of minions as soon as possible as they will be an obstacle and a distraction if you let them live. If only one minion is left, you can deal with it later, but 3 are too many.

The Devourer, devours!

The unique cheat from this boss is the “devour” cheat, which removes your wizard from the battle for a few rounds before it is spit back out. Getting devoured means you are totally removed from the fight, and thus cannot pass flee, or (obviously) cast spells. Furthermore, you won’t take damage, obtain pips or receive effects from other spells while still devoured. When 2-3 rounds have elapsed, the Devourer will spit you back out dealing 4,500 shadow damage to the entire team, including the devoured wizard. This will also summon another random minion to the fight if the boss doesn’t already have full minions present.

This triggers at the end of round one and for any defeated wizards or tardiness for your team. We’ve observed an additional trigger to the devour cheat sometime around the death of the minions, but we are still exploring what it could actually be.

Shop for first!

Unlike in Darkmoor, you won’t get to cast spells first all the time. Therefore, make sure you actually go first or you will suffer some unpleasantries. Glowbugs on the round we intended to defeat the boss happened repeatedly throughout testing. Be warned as the Devourer devours everything including your blades with Glowbugs and then eats the Glowbugs…

As soon as any charm is cast on your team (positive or negative), it will trigger a timer that expires every three rounds. At this point the devourer will steal a blade from each wizard, so make sure that all your valuable blades are protected with either Aegis, Elemental / Spirit Blades, and Precision.

Only one protected Feint at a time is allowed. Use the Indemnity sun spell, acquired from Qyburn Stellargaze in the Arcanum to accomplish this. Also, make sure to cast it right before the main hitter launches their attack. Why? The Devourer occasionally removes all negative wards (traps) hanging around him, making trap stacking not an ideal course of action. Thus, casting your feint on the last round ensures you will avoid this cheat altogether. Each trap removed will result in a +100% Aegis protected BalanceBlade cast randomly on the boss or any active minion(s).

 

Minions – Random School Rank 17 Elite

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If the Devourer itself wasn’t tough already, they had to add random minions. When a minion is summoned into the battle for one  of the reasons already discussed, it can be any of the below possibilities. There is one for each school of magic, each with its own spell deck. You will find that some, like the storm minion, consistently use the same 3 spells. Others keep on surprising you with a variety of spells. In order to avoid these surprises, we tried to list as many spells as we could observe along with each minions HP stat.

Tip: Eliminate myth minions fast due to Earthquake.

Hazardous Bile
Balance 4,210 HP

Cat Thug, BalanceBlade (+30%), Weakness (-30%), Sandstorm, Ra, Empowerment, Magnify, Loremaster, Mass Hex

The Rewards

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First of all, you will be awarded the badge “The Undevoured” (even though for some of us it may not be true). Secondly, the Daybreaker and Nightbringer spellements drop from this fight, along with some other reagents, including the alchemical ones to craft the gear from the Catacombs. On top of that, we noticed some gear drops including tier 2 rings and other random tier 3 gear. We will keep you updated as we discover more!

What do you think of this battle?
Do you look forward to getting devoured?
Let us know in the comments below!

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