Spirit Apparatus

The Spirit Apparatus is a boss in the Anvil of the Void. It summons Forgotten Spirits, Indignant Spirits, and Enraged Spirits. Forgotten Spirits have moderate health, moderate melee damage, and use Weapon and Shield talents. Indignant Spirits take a bit more damage, use ranged attacks, and tend to use Dirty Fighting on the first foe that moves in melee range. Enraged Spirits take the most damage, hit pretty hard, and possess Two-Handed Weapon talents. The Apparatus is surrounded by four Spirit Anvils that you can use to deal damage, but only after you kill the spirit that spawned there. The statue's four heads can only be damaged by the Spirit Anvils, and each hit changes what each head does.

Summary

• The Anvils are activated by killing the spirit that spawned at it.
• Using Anvils will deal 500 damage to the face which faces the Anvil. Anvils can only be used once before requiring reactivation. There is no other method of dealing damage to the Spirit Apparatus.
• Each face of the Spirit Apparatus has 1,500 health. Consequently, three hits from the Anvils will destroy each one.
• Initially, weaker Elite-level Forgotten Spirits spawn from each face. When a face takes 500 damage from an Anvil, a more powerful, ranged attacker spawns at the face. The ranged spirit has greater health, increased damage, and several Bow/Crossbow and Rogue talents. They have a habit of using Dirty Fighting on the first companion in melee range. The first Anvil hit also changes the damaged face's eyes into a glowing blue, which heals any enemy spirit in front of it for damage which scales rapidly depending on difficulty.
• The second Anvil hit makes the face's eyes fire spirit projectiles every 5 seconds to any party members in front of the face. Damage is nearly negligible on lower difficulties but very significant on higher difficulties. In addition, a third spirit type, an Enraged Spirit, spawns, which not only possess even more health and damage, but possess Two-Handed weapon talents and are more aggressive than the other spirits.
• The spirit projectiles and area of effect heal only affect those standing in front of the face which is using the heal/AoE damage. Party members are not healed by the faces, and enemies do not get hit by the spirit projectiles.
• The third anvil hit deactivates a face completely.
• When all faces are deactivated the fight is over.
• The spirits will only attack you once you attack them or get too close to them. Enraged Spirits tend to be more aggressive than the others, however, and it is not uncommon for a neighboring one to join the fray.
• Neither the spirits, nor completion of the trap/puzzle will give you experience.
• When an Anvil deals damage to the Spirit Apparatus, all spirits despawn after a few (roughly ten) seconds. The faces then rotate clockwise, and the spirits respawn with full health. It is possible to activate more than one Anvil in one rotation, but you must destroy the Spirits and activate the Anvils quickly.

Status:

• Purple - No effect. This is a face's default status. Spawns Forgotten Spirits.
• Blue - Area of effect heal, and spawns Indignant Spirits. The heal only affects spirits in front of the face, but it has a very long range. Occurs after 500 damage (one Anvil hit) has been dealt to the face. (Note: it is possible for these not to appear (tested on level 16 warrior, it went straight to from purple to black. Also tested on level 12 mage, they were not skipped)(ps3)
• Black - Continuous spirit damage pulses, and Enraged Spirits are spawned. The pulses only affect party members in front of the face, but it has a very long range. Occurs after 1,000 damage (two Anvil hits) has been dealt to the face.
• Closed - No effect. No spirits are spawned. Occurs after 1,500 damage (three Anvil hits) has been dealt to the face.

After all the eyes close it will stop spawning enemies and be considered "dead" although no loot will appear.

Strategies

Mage Advice

• One spell that is an absolute must for this fight is Curse of Mortality, use it when its eyes are blue and you are fighting a Forgotten Spirit or if you are fighting at close range to the Apparatus. Standing in one of the hallways is very useful, as it rotates allowing you access to all heads. Have a spirit healer and many lyrium potions as the combat takes a long time and allies do not revive (short of a Revive spell).
• Crowd-control abilities work well should you accidentally pull an additional spirit.

Positioning Advice

• Note: because the loot appears in chests instead of the corpse, you can loot some potions, poultices and salves from chests in the west-facing hallway. Holding your position in the westward hallway (the longer of the two) will give you a big strategic advantage if you have glyph spells or Shale (with Rock Mastery) as it goes into a bottleneck, and makes Earthquake/Earthen Grasp/Glyph of Paralysis/Glyph of Repulsion very effective, although you may need curse of mortality to beat ranged as they keep close to the apparatus.
• It is possible to use ranged weaponry and spells from the doorway.
• Ordering allies to hold position, then commanding them to attack one spirit as it spawns is an excellent method, as ranged attackers and mages in your party won't unnecessarily run to your controlled character every time the spirits despawn.

Trick For Easy (Though Lengthy) Victory

This strategy takes some patience, but will get you past the Spirit Apparatus with minimal damage.

Hold the party in the small alcove just to the right of the entrance. Move one party member with a ranged attack into view and attack the spirit that spawns closest. The spirit you attack will move to attack while the others remain stationary. Draw the spirit into the alcove and kill it. As soon as you strike the killing blow, send a party member out to touch the spirit anvil. Once you touch the anvil, move back to the alcove. Repeat this process 8 times.

Note: keeping the party in the alcove will mostly protect you from the "eyes" of the statue. You will still take some damage, but much less than standing in the open.

You can also station your party just inside the entrance door (which locks once combat begins) and use a stealthed rogue to touch the anvil and draw the nearest spirit towards your party to be killed. The entrance door is out of range of the faces.

General Advice

• Note that the faces rotate after a Spirit is killed. If a particular face is damaged by a spirit anvil two or three times, that face will be dead, and the face will not participate in any fights that take place in front of it. It also does not spawn new Spirits.
• If you do not have Curse of Mortality and you are trying to kill a Spirit in front of a blue-eyes (healing) face, you must pull that Spirit to another side of the apparatus. This can be tricky if the Spirit is an archer; try attacking him then hiding behind rocks to make him move. Once a face is dead, keep the party in front of it as it rotates, and pull Spirits as needed.
• It is not necessary to fight more than one Spirit at a time, but make sure your tactics do not cause party members to attack Spirits unnecessarily.
• Ensure that party members do not attack the statue.

See also

A Paragon of Her Kind, and The Anvil of the Void

A Golem's Memories

The Stone Prisoner