Changes: Ancient rock wraith

Revision as of 02:39, 20 March 2011

Background

An old, powerful and very resilient Rock Wraith of dwarven legend.

Involvement

After Bartrand leaves you to die in the deep roads, Hawke encounters the Ancient Rock Wraith guarding the exit to the Primeval Thaig, along with a large amount of valuable treasure.

Whether the Hunger demon's proposal is accepted or not, Hawke will have to defeat the Ancient Rock Wraith.

Skills

The Creature has two forms: One wields two rock blades and a Shield form.
In the shield form, the Creature transforms to a ball and will roll towards party members, doing damage as well as causing knockdown.
The Creature moves to the middle of the room and casts a form of chain lightning. The lyrium pillars shield party members from damage.
The Creature is immune to attacks during its chain lightning attack.
The Creature creates a vortex drawing your party towards him. Your party will lose footing, but can attack him after the stagger animation has finished.
Additional Profanes will spawn during the fight after chain lightning.

Strategy

It is important to note that the Rock Wraith has two forms: a Dual-blade style and a Shield style. When you first encounter the Rock Wraith, it is by default in its Dual-Blade style. Each style has its significant differences and will require a shift in strategy to keep your party alive.

The Dual-Blade form has the following abilities and attacks:

Default Attack: Swings blades and shoots lightning bolts. Both of these do damage and can hit separate targets.
Spike Attack: The Rock Wraith crumbles back, transforms into a spike that lunges into a party member. Causes Knockback and heavy damage. Nearby non-flanking party members will stagger.
Teleport: The Rock Wraith can teleport to any position in the map.

To counter this style requires heavily on your tank, while your archers and mages are out of the wraith's attention. If you can, make sure that the tank receives both forms of this damage by moving vulnerable members out of the wraith's view. The Spike attack can be avoided by strafing the tank to the side of the wraith. This requires close monitoring of the wraith's attack patterns, which is more difficult than it looks. The signature animation is the wraith's disassembly. If the Wraith crumbles back, and NOT straight down, you know a spike is incoming.

Once you've chipped its health down to 90%, the Wraith will teleport into the centre of the chamber. This attack is widespread and can only be avoided by moving your party into any of the four corners. Once this attack is finished, the wraith's core is exposed, only to be surrounded by weak Profanes. These can be easily handled with Hail of Arrows and AoE spells. When the Profane are dispatched, hit the Wraith with everything you've got.

The wraith will reassemble into a new form: the Shield form. The shield form attacks are:

Default attack: Swipes a target for damage. Deals damage to party members nearby.
Heavy Swipe: Has a wider angle than the default attack, causes stagger for all caught in range. This goes through the columns.
Rollin' : Forms into a ball and rolls into party members. Fun.
Explosion: Charges and explodes, dealing 360-degree heavy damage. When you see this, run to the corners. The pillars will block the blast.

If you do not have a solid tank and damage dealers in your party, this fight becomes one of attrition. Dual wielding rogues aren't helpful against the shield style and are better off with equipping a bow to join with the casters. Tanks are essential, and making sure they don't drop should be key. Since the shield form cannot teleport, but will rather choose make your party a chainmail pancake, there is time to move your archers and/or mage away from the rolling attack's trajectory. If you're lucky, the wraith will roll into one of the pillars and keep on rolling while your tank can dish damage safely.

Keep maintaining a safe level of health for all your party members and look after your tank. Spells like Barrier will help in the tight spots. The wraith can change its form anytime it wants, so keep changing your tactics. If you're confident, rogues can go dual-dagger against the blade form.

At the instance of dealing enough damage, the wraith will do its teleport and widespread attack again and Profanes will show up. In each round, more Profane show up, or less, but stronger Profane will spawn. Dispatch them and focus on the core.

The spell Hex of Torment is useful in this battle as it helps you deal more damage to the rock wraith.

Nightmare mode strategy

The strategy itself stays mostly the same in Nightmare mode: Group should consist of one Tank and 3 ranged Damage dealers, because the Wrath's abilities make him quite hard for a more meele orientated group. Depending on how much you are able to avoid damage in the Shield phases, you will need between 10 and maybe 30 (elfroot) potions. If Dog is present, he should be cast on "Self: Any", the group itself on "Hold" all the time, as positioning and movement are vital.

The 3 phases in Nightmare:

100 to 90% health: Phase 1, Dual-Blade form: Try to keep the Wrath looking in a different direction than the rest of the group. Spread the ranged members out to avoid the Lightning hitting all of them. Besides, use the strategy described above.
90% to 85% health: First Lighting Sphere: Make sure you place the group shielded from the Sphere, kill the Profanes and hit the Wrath again.
85% to around 60% health: Phase 2, Shield form. Keep the group members away from each other, dodge the rolling stone attack and stay focused! One error can kill a party member, making the fight truly a war of attrition. Avoid meele most times
50% health until the end: Phase 3, the Wrath will switch forms now. This phase begins as soon as the Wrath teleports into the middle of the room and uses his Lightning Vortex again. After you killed the Profanes, he will change to dual-blade form and using his new skill, a channeled spell which deals minor damage and draws all players in line of sight towards him. It interrupts casts every time you get drawn closer. One or two times the Wrath will teleport into the middle and cast his Lightning Vortex and afterwards draws the group closer. He may also use the explosion skill, so avoid meele.

Bugs

There seems to be a bug that if you use regroup with Anders and revive a comrade, that comrade regenerates health making him nearly invincible.

There is a glitch which seems to work with a sword and shield warrior. If the wraith turns into a ball and starts rolling, have the warrior shield bash the wraith. He may be in front of it, but does NOT get knocked back by the wraith's attack as you normally would.

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 At the instance of dealing enough damage, the wraith will do its teleport and widespread attack again and Profanes will show up. In each round, more Profane show up, or less, but stronger Profane will spawn. Dispatch them and focus on the core.
+The spell [[Hex of Torment]] is useful in this battle as it helps you deal more damage to the rock wraith.
-The fight may last anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes on Casual. It is recommended that you switch the difficulty to Casual if you do not have a tank in your party, as having no tanks in your party can make the fight harder than it really is.
-If you have Merrill in your party or (as a mage) have learned the Hex of Torment spell, be sure to remember to use [[Hex of Torment]] when it falls to the ground, becoming vulnerable. The spell increases all damage dealt to the Rock Wraith by 25%, which allows you to kill him ALOT faster than normal.
-On Casual difficulty, his health can be reduced by more than 50% when his heart is exposed by using Hex of Torment and then simply pummelling him with all your attacks. Using this technique, it is possible to kill the Rock Wraith with only 2 times falling to the ground with his heart exposed (note that if you damage him more than 50%, he will emerge from his weakened state then straightaway curling up and casting his lightning spell, and then falling AGAIN to the ground, allowing you to kill him without any hassle). This technique is extremely useful and recommended for those who have a hard time killing him, don't have a tank to boot, and want to finish the fight fast.
 ===Nightmare mode strategy===