Murdantix Boss Discussion

[Brakkish]

Has anyone been aware of this?

With all of the buffs across your screen, and involved in the fight - I can see how it would easily be overlooked. I know I had no idea when/if I was ever "marked" as I just kept spamming away. But after running with everyone against this guy a few times; I can see that healing wasn't an issue, nor the dps of our group. It seemed we had a very good handle on the situation through the entire battle, except consistently right down to his last few percent mark, then it seems out of nowhere, people are dropping one by one from seemingly one-shot attacks by this guy. This implies to me there is one more step to the fight we're overlooking involving technique.

I know several times at the very end, I was one-shotted for no apparent reason. Wasn't next to anyone, wasn't aggro'd, wasn't standing in purple poop, healers had me at full health 99% of the time.



Is there a chance that at the end of the fight, this "mark" is placed upon some of us as a last ditch effort from the boss as a final phase of the fight, where it's a "do not attack or die" situation until that "mark" upon the person wears off?

Again, if this mark is applied right from the get-go, then just ignore the new guy to the fight here

[Kymer]

The raid boss is Murgantix. Murganis is a fire rift boss I think.

As for what killed you I'm going to guess Demonic Blast is what did it. You can get hit for 6k if you standing to close to someone when you get hit with it. I found I was to close sometimes to other people during the fight and had to move a distance to get to an open enough area. People get bunched up as the boss is moved and that may be leading to deaths.

Also I think there are more than the 7 ranged out during the fight. Shouldn't just the 7 people with numbers be out at anyone time. I know I saw people with out numbers on them during the fight dpsing or healing at range.

[ziboo]

I think we're getting close, that last 2-3% of chaos is what kills us. As we die at that time, he gets stronger, we have less dps/heals, he gets stronger and we wipe. But we're darn close. I think once we're all relaxed into the fight (look how fast GSB is now), we'll finish him.


Rift strats on Murdantix - Murdantix

Mangling Crush - Applies stacking debuff Mangled (must be taunted off at 4 stacks)
Demonic Tar - Tar pit ground AoE, simply move out of as quickly as possible
Demonic Blast - Deals 3,000 death damage in an AoE around a random ranged target
Strength of Souls - Increases Murdantix's physical damage over time, soft enrage mechanic
Soul Trauma - Must be interrupted!
Ferocious Pound - Unpreventable raid-wide knockback effect, deals 3,000 physical damage
Summon Tormentor - Begins summoning Soul Tormentor adds that hit for 300 physical damage each


First and foremost, you need to have at least 7 ranged players in your raid (including healers). These players must remain at ranged throughout the entire fight, and if any of them die (and reduce the total ranged number below 7), you need to have a melee temporarily run out until they can be resurrected.


Murdantix has a very large aggro radius, so be careful not to move beyond the stairs leading into his room until you are ready for the pull. Start by pulling him to the bottom of the stairs; position your ranged players closer to the inside of the room, and have melee towards the outside so they will be knocked back into the wall later on. The boss will be kited around the room in a slow clockwise fashion:


It is incredibly important that your ranged players never stack directly on top of each other. Use raid marks to mark all of your ranged players so that they are easier to see.


At the beginning of the fight, the boss behaves in a fairly simple tank & spank manner. Murdantix will periodically cast Mangled in a frontal-cleave direction. This is a stacking debuff that reduces the armor and toughness of anyone hit, which means two tanks are required, and whoever is not tanking should not be standing in front of the boss. Tanks should taunt off of each other at 4 stacks of this debuff.


Starting at 75%, the boss will occasionally target random players with Demonic Tar (a purple ground animation). If cast on a tank or melee player, the boss should be dragged out of it in the kite path pictured above. Only drag him just far enough for your melee DPS to be safe; if you kite him too fast you may end up running into a previous tar pit before it has a chance to despawn. If a ranged player is targeted by one of these tar pits, simply have that one single person adjust their positioning to move out of it, but be very careful not to stack on top of another ranged player. The frequency and quantity of these tar pits will increase over the course of the fight, but there is no significant change needed in strategy; it just becomes more chaotic.


And starting at 75% as well, Murdantix will begin casting a ground-based AoE spell at random ranged players. This spell damages the player targeted by it and anyone nearby that player. This means that if two people are in range of each other when targeted, they will both be hit for double-damage (which is guaranteed to kill both of them). If there are less than 7 players at ranged (that are eligible to be targeted by this ability), it will hit melee instead, which is likely to cause a wipe.


The boss gains stacks of Strength of Souls throughout the fight, which increase his damage done. A stack is gained whenever a nearby target dies, which means unnecessary raids deaths can cause the fight to become much more difficult than it should be. He gains stacks primarily from the Hammerknell dwarves that attempt to assist you in battle (but end up just being sacrificial snacks to Murdantix). This buff acts as a soft enrage, as he will simply do too much damage to handle after enough time passes. You should not reach much more than 60 stacks of this buff; if you do it means your raid DPS is probably too low, or you are simply having too many deaths.


At 50% Murdantix will begin casting Soul Trauma. This spell is interruptable and cannot be allowed to go off under any circumstances, as it essentially means an instant tank death and wipe. It is sometimes preceded by a knockback effect on melee, so if possible a tank should try to interrupt it (remove interrupt spells from your macros if needed!). Have multiple people responsible for interrupting it, as it is too unforgiving if one person misses.


Finally, at 25% Murdantix will begin summoning Soul Tormentor adds to assist him. These adds should not be killed, and simply serve as an additional soft enrage mechanic. They do not need to be picked up by a tank, just allow them to aggro whichever random healers they choose. The damage they do is not too threatening, and they can be easily off-tanked by even a mage. Do, however, watch the health of the players tanking them, as they will need some additional healing as Murdantix nears death.

[Bullarky]

Something happened in last patch to his Soul Trauma interrupt. Others have noticed it too. From Rift Forums:

We seemed to have been having a strange issue this week with regard to Soul Trauma on Murdantix. When it was interrupted late in its cast bar, it was still casting anyway. At first we just chalked it up to people missing it, and just having a bad connection, so they saw it interrupt on their screen, but it actually did cast. Then as we noticed it occurring more frequently, we found that it was even showing the cast as being interrupted on everyone's screen, yet someone was still being hit by Soul Trauma.

Quite obviously this problem is solved by just interrupting it sooner, and we did so, just wondering if anyone else has had this happen.

Also, should we move this to the strat section or leave it here for our Silent Strike partners?

[Darconus]

we will move it shortly. The rest of the silent strike crew still needs to request group access to the rift team forums.

I found this part interesting. especially the last sentence.

Finally, at 25% Murdantix will begin summoning Soul Tormentor adds to assist him. These adds should not be killed, and simply serve as an additional soft enrage mechanic. They do not need to be picked up by a tank, just allow them to aggro whichever random healers they choose. The damage they do is not too threatening, and they can be easily off-tanked by even a mage. Do, however, watch the health of the players tanking them, as they will need some additional healing as Murdantix nears death.

It appears that the soul tormentors increase in damage when murdantix gets close to death. I wonder if that swarm is what we are missing during our last few percent against him.

[Saleny]

I agree with Ziboo. I think our fall down is positional awareness in that last 25%. There's so much Demon Tar on the ground that melee starts getting mixed in with ranged and then the extra damage effect starts wiping us out which then adds the stacking buff to Murdantix causing him to do more damage which kills more of us and then it's a wipe.

We're soooooo close. I think it's just a matter of the ranged people making sure their positioning is always where it needs to be - (the strats I've read said that it is the folks in melee range that should be the primary dps so the ranged people can focus on their position more and dps less). The melee people have to be a lot more aware in that last phase, particularly when avoiding the Tar. Make sure you aren't creeping into ranged territory.

The other thing to remember is Demon Tar does it's major damage when it hits. Walking through tar after it's on the ground will do some damage, but it's better to be walking through a fading tar puddle than being too close to someone else when another Demon Tar is about to hit.

It's a lot like learning Infiltrator Johlen. Once we get our own personal positioning down, we'll be able to knock him out every time, unless the good ol' Random Number Generator has it in for us.

[Tyrand]

I think another part of what might be making it difficult is that in the ending phase, pretty much the entire group has to be constantly moving aside from the people who are staying out in range. I know that at about 15-20%, that I need to cast Downpour (6-sec channel), so I'll move out and make sure I'm away from people when I channel it. I'm wondering if the movement is something that's causing us to get down that low, like maybe people are just falling behind (which causes demonic blast to hit them while they are near other people?), just a thought.

[ziboo]

Here's another site with info on Murdantix. It's very similar to RiftStrats, but there are a couple of videos too.

Phase 4 – 25% on
Murdantix will begin summoning Soul Tormentor adds. These adds do not need to be DPSed, but the tank who is not currently on the boss should pick them up. Soul Tormentors only do about 300 damage per hit, but they may interfere with your healers if allowed to roam free.



Rift: Hammerknell - Murdantix

** Also spoke to Poni about this fight and she said from her experience, alot of the last 5% is luck based (like Infiltrator) on who he throws his poo on. So it's important for the ranged to really be aware of their distance to each other and for the melee to stay together.

[Brakkish]

This info was very helpful especially now that I have the right name, and the right boss lol *brakk, you are so noob*

[Ponigirl]

It's not just the last 5% that is luck based... the entire Murdantix fight is luck based as far as purple poo goes. Just keep him moving slowly, and that will help control the poo a bit. It's very important to be aware of where your ranged are, how they are spatially located to each other, how close (and esp how far) the melee is to Murdantix's legs (I would suggest standing next to the back legs, in a single group, moving sides as needed), and to have replacement range ready to move in a heartbeat if one of the ranged goes down. I would suggest keeping your healers in the melee group, if at all possible. They are safer there, and there is enough less movement that healing is a bit easier. They are also at a slightly lower risk of getting killed.

The ranged replacements should know who they are ahead of time, and be ready to run out when needed. Their job sucks, because they have to run out immediately, and not kill any other ranged when they go (and the original ranged need to adjust for them as well, and adjust back if the dead ranged is rezzed). I've done it, it's a crappy job (both the original and replacement). Ranged must be absolutely aware and communicative about their positions, and if they need room, or have room to adjust for someone else. It's a constant adjustment, communication, and movement job that is the key to success regarding Murdantix. It also sucks, because it's very much luck based regarding where he decides to drop his poo. It is not easy, so make sure to hug your local ranged player, cuz they are putting themselves at risk of being poo slimed for you. It's stressful, annoying to get pooed, and very much a difficult job due to the sheer awareness factor of it. Constant vigilance!

Murdantix is a luck nightmare. All it takes is one badly placed poo drop, and it can wipe you, esp in the last 25%. He tosses out even MORE poo, faster, adds jackass mobs that love to beeline the healers, and hits harder. In any case, from what Ziboo has told me, you guys sound like you are right there to take him out. Don't give up, just remember, RNG is completely random, and there isn't anything anyone does wrong when it takes you out. It's simply RNG luck, and Murdantix is an ass about it.