Lord of Blades

The Lord of Blades is the upcoming raid boss of the Lord of Blades raid introduced in Update 11. You first encounter him in the Eldritch Site Prime.

Lord of Blades

 * CR:
 * Type: Living Construct
 * Race: Warforged
 * Title: Commander of the Mournlands
 * Alignment: Neutral Evil
 * HP: approx
 * AC:
 * DR: Adamantine + Good Amount:
 * Fortification: 80%
 * Saves: Fort: Massive, Will Save: ?, Reflex Save:
 * Resists/Immunities: Living Construct Traits, Normal: ~30 Resistance to all four elements (acid, cold, fire, electric) and to light damage; his resistances scale with the difficulty. Takes full damage from force, sonic and negative energy only.
 * Spell Resistance: ?
 * Intimidate DC: (-4 Size Penalty as he is considered Large)
 * Attack Bonus:
 * Attack Damage: Trident - Slashing. Basic melee attack damage varies massively depending on his current buffs:
 * Normal: ~60-120
 * Hard: ~90-150
 * Elite: ~100-200
 * Epic: ~120-220
 * Note: Most, but not all of his attack animations result in two hits.

Spells Known

 * Save DC ~?


 * Blade Barrier (Frequently)
 * Cometfall (Frequently, targets a random party member)
 * Symbol of Stunning (Occasionally casts, random nearby target)
 * Necrotic Ray (Targets a random party member, Deathward Negates)
 * Tactical Detonation (Rarely cast)
 * Fire Storm (Rarely cast)
 * Divine Punishment (Only cast on players in the water)

Phase One: Initial Special Abilities (100% to 75% Health)
The Lord of Blades has a huge variety of devastating special abilities. Some are only gained when he reaches various health percentage marks which keeps the battle interesting.
 * Power of the Forge: This is a special buff that both the players and the Lord of Blades can acquire. It's power comes from the pillars, so destroy those if you wish to end it.
 * Player Version: To get this buff, head towards the center while the power links are at full strength and you see a bluish holographic aura appear, which will later glow yellow indicating its charged and ready. It will grant you approximately ~50 seconds (Warning no timer is displayed and the duration is semi random), of the buff. It allows you to float over the plasma water, move faster, and grants you +25% damage output, -40% spell point costs, DR15/-. This is useful to allow melee players to attack the pillars (Power Links). Be warned - when you get the buff, you will also get a 120 second debuff. This debuff just warns that you if you attempt to get power of the forge again within that 120 second window, something bad will happen: EG: You will get stunned for ~12 seconds by a unresistable/unremovable stun called "Mind Probe".
 * Boss Version: The Lord of Blades get this buff by heading to the center if you don't get it before he does. For him it provides much more devastating benefits: Massively increases his strength, damage output on all his attacks, speed and thus overall difficulty. It can stack up on him up to five times, each new buff increasing its intensity. Due to this it's highly recommended that you have a party member get the power of the forge before he does, and also destroy all the pillars early on. And again later on, unless you wish to complete the optional (as destroying the pillars during the second spawn will end the raid.)
 * Touch of the Mournlands: "The Lord of Blades taints each wound with the power of the Mournlands." This special attack applies to every melee attack he performs. Each hit has a chance to proc this debuff, the chance varying based on difficulty. It's quite a low chance on normal, and almost 100% chance on epic. What it does: Each successful proc lowers your current maximum hitpoints by 5%. It can stack indefinitely and each successive application resets it's duration back to full - 80 seconds. You can negate this by shield blocking, or simply having him miss you. Cloudkill is a useful spell to increase his miss chance.
 * Mighty Blow Stun + Backspin + Mighty Slam: Occasionally the Lord of Blades will attack his current target with an extremely devastating stun + attack combo. There is no save on the stun and it seems to have an unlimited range, however it can be blocked if your timing is extremely good, as there is an audio tell before he does it. It also cannot be removed like a normal stun. After the stun he will start spinning his trident in the air behind him, which will severely damage all flanking party members if they do not quickly get out of the way, be sure to watch your tank and move out quickly if he gets stunned, or listen for the audio cue. The spin up lasts for about 5 seconds.

After the backspin, he will perform a very powerful slam attack, this effect will also knock back several feet anyone he hits (it should only be the tank). The slam attacks deals massive slashing damage. Damage varies from 300-600 depending on difficulty, and status of his Power of the Forge buffs. This attack cannot be avoided as he performs it on you while stunned. But he does have a very small chance to miss.
 * Binding Chains: This ranged special will hit only his current target. It binds them in chains severely slowing movement by -75%, melee attack rate by -50%, reducing the tumble and jump skills by 40 points (tumble is in fact disabled entirely). Recommended strategy during this attack is to shield block and endure.

Phase Two: New Special Abilities (75% to 40% Health)

 * Return my Hounds: At this stage he will immediately restore his Hounds of Blades to full health, and reset their aggro/AI.
 * Neo/Superman Leap: This ability allows him to escape combat and perform a massive leap to the ceiling of the Forge. This ability will also reset his aggro list. Once he drops down he will perform either of these specials:
 * Pouncing Strike: He will target 1 random party member and lead down slamming his Trident into their body, dealing massive damage enough to outright kill many party members. (~250-500 damage depending on difficulty/power of the forge status)
 * Powerful Double Charge': If he instead lands on the very outside edge of the arena.. He will perform a powerful double charge. This one isn't too bad as it simply knocks down players that get in his way, and deals moderate damage. It does show a saving throw, but even rolling a 20 generally won't negate it. Simply dodge it or shield block to avoid some damage.
 * Whirlwind: Perhaps his most devastating special. This attack has very short tell - he will swing his weapon around in circle above his head as a sort of wind up. The attack itself is a very devastating AOE attack so if are flanking and don't have agro, move away quickly! It deals ~75-260 damage per hit (Depending on difficulty/power of the forge), and hits EXTREMELY fast, every ~150 milliseconds and goes on for several seconds.) Each hit will also hit all nearby players in a 360 degree arc, and cause a powerful knockback with no save.
 * If your the tank: Recommended Strategy is to jump/get knocked directly into the water - Ideally you are tanking him nearby the water. If you are too far away just jump straight up - there by getting knocked quite far into the plasma water and hope you can survive that. Jumping helps even if you are far away as the knockback distance is greatly amplified if your airborn, especially with featherfall on. Be warned though - you can easily lose his agro if you jump into the water too soon after seeing the tell, which can result in the whirlwind killing several of your party members. The water also deals heavy initial damage plus moderate damage over time so executing this strategy and surviving is very difficult, especially on the higher difficulties.

Phase Three: The Final Devastating Special Ability (40% to 5% Health)

 * Return my Hounds yet again: He will once again re-summon his hounds to full health.
 * Rain of Blades: At 33% he gains one final, very devastating special attack. This one has an easy tell, he will crouch down and small blades will fly out of his back, then a couple of seconds later the special attack will hit. It deals massive damage over time, it's similar to the Black Abbot' Inferno in the it engulfs the entire platform except 1 small area. Though the damage is quite survivable by high hp players with good healing - thus the tank should stay out to avoid having the party get cleaved by the lord of blades in the center. Deals slashing damage. Reflex save for half, but for most characters even half damage will be enough to kill them if they remain in it too long. There is one safe area: The exact center of the platform. Also keep in mind if power of the forge is active while you dodge, the center will deal some minor electrical damage while the forge power charges, some healing may be neccesary.

Phase Four: Reinforcements! (5% Health tell the Quori ambush)
Once all these waves are defeated they will not respawn and the final phase will be triggered.
 * The Hounds' Last Assault: At this point he will return his hounds yet again (if they are dead) for a final assault. Killing the hounds at this point completely disintegrates their corpses, preventing further resurrection. It is recommended to kill them during this phase.
 * Evade and Summon Reinforcements: At this point he will continuously perform his Neo/Superman leap to avoid taking serious injury (Occasionally doing a single charge, pounce attack or spell.) and instead he will keep you busy by summoning several waves of Bladesworn Warforged reinforments. These include:
 * ~30 Bladesworn Assassins (spawning a small amount in several waves)
 * ~6 Bladesworn Artificers (spawning a small amount in several waves)

Final Phase and How to complete the raid (5% to completion)
A short time after this phase begins a portal will appear and dozens of Quori monsters will continuously spawn and attack you.

At this point you can either choose to continue to attack the Lord of Blades and knock him down. But he cannot be defeated, as the Power of the Forge will be back and prevent him from dying (The amount of health he gets back varies with difficulty). You can choose to "Mark" him. EG - Knock him down him several times to complete an optional, or simply go for completion by destroying the newly attackable pillars. Once you destroy the pillars, the raid will be complete and he will stop attacking you, regardless of his current health.

If you mark him three times you'll have no choice but to destroy the pillars as the DM will inform you of this and a new required objective will appear. Do so quickly before you are overwhelmed by the Quori invaders.