The Ebony Citadel of Mallyx (mission)

For information on the citadel itself, see The Ebony Citadel of Mallyx (building).

The Ebony Citadel of Mallyx is the final part of the Elite Mission of the Nightfall campaign.

The mission forms the final fight in the quest "Mallyx the Unyielding." Having finished steps from 1 to 6 of that quest, you will be able to do this mission.

Mission Objectives

 * Protect High Priest Zhellix while he performs the opening ritual on the Ebony Citadel.
 * Defeat Mallyx the Unyielding.

Rewards
After finishing the mission, Primeval Armor Remnants will appear in party members' inventories. In addition, an unlocked Citadel Chest spawns, holding one of Mallyx's unique items for each party member.

Furthermore, finishing the mission allows players to complete the Mallyx the Unyielding quest, and claim the reward for that as well.

Follow-up
The mission is repeatable, but only in combination with the quest "Mallyx the Unyielding." Having finished the mission switches the status of the quest to "completed", and Zhellix will not perform the opening ritual any more, so the mission becomes inaccessible. In order to gain access to the mission again, players must claim the quest reward and do the quest again.

Defending Zhellix
The first step of the mission is to protect the High Priest Zhellix while he performs the opening ritual. Eighteen (18) waves of the following monsters either spawn or arrive at the area where the priest is:
 * Margonites
 * Stygian Veil creatures
 * Titans
 * Torment Creatures

Pay close attention to when the waves spawn as some groups will spawn on the death of the Titans that came with the wave and not on the death of the Titans that spawn after these are slain. For example: if a wave is formed by 4 Rage Titans, as soon as the last Rage Titan of this wave is eliminated, the next wave will spawn no matter how many  Dementia Titans are still alive.

The waves come in the following order:
 * 1) From the south and west:
 * 2) *1 Margonite Anur Ki
 * 3) *1 Margonite Anur Su
 * 4) *1 Margonite Anur Kaya
 * 5) *1 Margonite Anur Tuk
 * 6) *1 Margonite Anur Vu
 * 7) *1 Margonite Anur Rund
 * 8) From the east, soon after the first wave and regardless of, whether or not, any foe of the first wave were eliminated:
 * 9) *1 Misery Titan
 * 10) *2 Fury Titans
 * 11) *1 Tortureweb Dryder
 * 12) *1 Greater Dream Rider
 * 13) From the west, as soon as the second wave is gurgle gurgle (Titan spawns and first wave do not count):
 * 14) *2 Anguish Titans
 * 15) *1 Tortureweb Dryder
 * 16) From the west, as soon as the third wave is eliminated:
 * 17) *1 Heart Tormentor
 * 18) *1 Mind Tormentor
 * 19) *1 Water Tormentor
 * 20) *1 Soul Tormentor
 * 21) *1 Flesh Tormentor
 * 22) From the south, as soon as the forth wave is eliminated (Call to the Torment spawns do not count):
 * 23) *1 Mind Tormentor
 * 24) *1 Earth Tormentor
 * 25) *1 Flesh Tormentor
 * 26) *1 Sanity Tormentor
 * 27) *1 Spirit Tormentor
 * 28) At the center, as soon as the fifth wave is eliminated:
 * 29) *1 Stygian Fiend
 * 30) *1 Stygian Brute
 * 31) *1 Stygian Horror
 * 32) *1 Stygian Hunger
 * 33) *1 Stygian Golem
 * 34) At the center, as soon as the sixth wave is eliminated:
 * 35) *1 Stygian Fiend
 * 36) *1 Stygian Brute
 * 37) *1 Stygian Golem
 * 38) *1 Stygian Hunger
 * 39) *1 Stygian Golem
 * 40) From the south, as soon as the seventh wave is eliminated:
 * 41) *5 Greater Dream Riders
 * 42) From the west, as soon as the seventh wave is eliminated (they spawn at the same time as the eighth wave):
 * 43) *2 Tortureweb Dryders
 * 44) *1 Rage Titan
 * 45) *1 Despair Titan
 * 46) From the south, as soon as the eighth wave is eliminated and regardless of, whether or not, any foe of the ninth wave was eliminated:
 * 47) *1 Heart Tormentor
 * 48) *1 Soul Tormentor
 * 49) *1 Margonite Anur Vu
 * 50) *1 Margonite Anur Tuk
 * 51) *1 Flesh Tormentor
 * 52) At the center, as soon as the 10th wave is eliminated:
 * 53) *1 Heart Tormentor
 * 54) *1 Water Tormentor
 * 55) *1 Stygian Horror
 * 56) *1 Stygian Brute
 * 57) *1 Stygian Golem
 * 58) At the center, as soon as the 11th wave is eliminated:
 * 59) *6 Dementia Titans.
 * 60) From the east, as soon as the 12th wave is eliminated:
 * 61) *2 Misery Titans
 * 62) *2 Anguish Titans
 * 63) From the south, as soon as the 13th wave is eliminated:
 * 64) *1 Margonite Anur Ki
 * 65) *1 Margonite Anur Ruk
 * 66) *1 Margonite Anur Su
 * 67) *1 Margonite Anur Tuk
 * 68) *1 Margonite Anur Vu
 * 69) At the center, as soon as the 14th wave is eliminated (Dementia and Fury Titans will NOT spawn after these Titans are slain):
 * 70) *2 Rage Titans
 * 71) *2 Despair Titans
 * 72) *2 Dementia Titans
 * 73) At the center, as soon as the 15th wave is eliminated:
 * 74) *5 Stygian Fiends.
 * 75) From the west, as soon as the 16th wave is eliminated:
 * 76) *1 Heart Tormentor
 * 77) *1 Mind Tormentor
 * 78) *1 Flesh Tormentor
 * 79) *1 Water Tormentor
 * 80) *1 Soul Tormentor
 * 81) Final wave, from all the directions, soon after the 17th wave is eliminated:
 * 82) *From the east:
 * 83) **1 Misery Titan
 * 84) **1 Greater Dream Rider
 * 85) **1 Tortureweb Dryder
 * 86) *From the south:
 * 87) **Heart Tormentor
 * 88) **Flesh Tormentor
 * 89) **Water Tormentor
 * 90) **Spirit Tormentor
 * 91) *From the west:
 * 92) **Margonite Anur Ki
 * 93) **Margonite Anur Ruk
 * 94) **Margonite Anur Rund
 * 95) **Margonite Anur Su
 * 96) **Margonite Anur Tuk
 * 97) **Margonite Anur Vu

After the all these waves are eliminated, the door to the Citadel of Mallyx opens and the priest will be removed as an ally from the party list. As soon as any party members steps past the door, a short scene is played and then the party is transfered in whole inside the Citadel with the door closed behind them.

Mallyx the Unyielding will be standing on a pedestal and will be non-hostile, as will be the four spirits behind him. As soon as any party member gets close enough to Mallyx (about 1.5 times the aggro radius), Mallyx will give a short speech and then, he will turn hostile and attack.

Defeating Mallyx
Four "Soul" spirits reside behind Mallyx which are responsible for the 4 environmental effects in the room, known from the four sections of the Gate of Anguish explorable area:
 * 1) Repressive Energy: lose 2 energy for each attack or use of a skill
 * 2) Enduring Torment: lose 10 health for every second of movement
 * 3) Shroud of Darkness: all attacks have a 50% chance to miss
 * 4) Demonic Miasma: take 50 damage for every block, or dodge

Killing each spirit removes the respective environmental effect. When taking out the spirits the following tactics are useful:
 * Unnatural Signet and Spiritual Pain should activate their instant-recharge effects against the spirits, and can easily eliminate them quickly. Gaze of Fury works well against spirits but is only useful for this part of the mission.
 * Consume Soul is another viable option, but remember that this is elite and largely useless once the spirits are gone.
 * Demonic Miasma is a blessing compared to Mallyx's ordinary attacks, and should be removed last.
 * If your party contains a Paragon, consider using "Fall Back!" to counteract the effects of Enduring Torment until it goes down.
 * Do remember, however, that Mallyx easily recreates these spirits through the use of Unyielding Anguish, so be prepared to deal with them throughout the entire fight.

Mallyx himself uses a few particularly nasty monster skills, spoiling the "classic" party setup with tanks in the frontline and ranged attackers, spellcasters and healers in the backline:
 * 1) Summoning Shadows is used to bring all foes to him. He will use this skill basically whenever he pleases: if you are under attack, don't bother running, he'll just activate it and bring everyone else to him.
 * 2) Shadow Smash is used to deal massive damage to any foes near to him, and (if they survived the smash) to move them away from him. If this happens, party members need to kite to re-establish aggro on the desired party tank.
 * 3) Consume Torment purges all hexes and conditions and converts them into a strong source of healing. Don't bother to trying to disable it with Diversion or similar skills, as it will still only take 7 seconds to recharge.
 * 4) Banish Enchantment strips all enchantments from a foe and on top of that disables one skill (unless it has already been disabled) for every party member for every enchantment removed. Especially the second effect is devastating for the party, so the use of any kind of enchantments against Mallyx should generally be avoided. Bonding is suicide even more so than trying to fight Mallyx normally is.
 * 5) Wild Smash ends stances and disables them. It also knocks the target down.
 * Because of these two skills, the party should try and use bonuses that cannot be removed or exploited, such as Spirit effects, Weapon Spells, Wards, Wells, Shouts, etc., or plain skills.

Also, groups of demons spawn as reinforcement when Mallyx's health drops below certain thresholds:
 * at 80% a group of 4 random "Anur" Margonites
 * at 50% a group of 4 random Torment Demons creatures.

NPCs

 * High Priest Zhellix
 * Spirit of Truth (spawns after Mallyx has been killed)

Monsters

 * Anguished Souls ( Spirits)
 * 10 Listless Soul
 * 10 Tormented Soul
 * 10 Demonic Soul
 * 10 Shrouded Soul
 * Demons
 * 30 (33) Mallyx the Unyielding
 * Dryders
 * Tortureweb Dryder
 * Margonites
 * 28 Margonite Anur Vu
 * 28 Margonite Anur Tuk
 * 28 Margonite Anur Ki
 * 28 Margonite Anur Kaya
 * 28 Margonite Anur Su
 * 28 Margonite Anur Rund
 * 28 Margonite Anur Ruk
 * Phantoms
 * 28 Greater Dream Rider
 * Stygians
 * 28 (30) Stygian Brute
 * 28 (30) Stygian Horror
 * 28 (30) Stygian Fiend
 * 28 (30) Stygian Hunger
 * 28 (30) Stygian Golem
 * Titans
 * 28 Misery Titan
 * 28 Despair Titan
 * 28 Anguish Titan
 * 28 Rage Titan
 * 28 Fury Titan
 * 28 Dementia Titan
 * Torment Creatures
 * 28 Flesh Tormentor
 * 28 Spirit Tormentor
 * 28 Heart Tormentor
 * 28 Soul Tormentor
 * 28 Mind Tormentor
 * 28 Water Tormentor
 * 28 Sanity Tormentor
 * 28 Earth Tormentor

Bosses and Skills
None

Defending Zhellix

 * A technique that makes fending off the waves much easier is to pull the priest away from the spot where he is performing the ritual, which is the end point for all the incoming waves. This can be achieved by having the priest chase a foe down to the gate of the citadel, and then killing that foe. The priest will remain in that spot and will not try to return to his original spot. The best candidate for this technique is one of the two Fury Titans that come as part of the second wave. Since they are original members of the group, the following spawns will not trigger until they die. And because they are the smallest titans, they will not spawn any more after their death. Therefore, the party should leave one Fury Titan alive, bring him close to the priest such that the priest starts attacking him and then have his target slowly back up all the way to the Citadel door and wait for the priest to catch up. If done correctly, protecting the priest will not be a factor in defeating these monsters.

Defeating Mallyx

 * Mallyx has heavy armor (80 AL), and can shrug off ordinarily devastating blows with ease. Because of this, Air Magic spells and other armor-penetrating skills are particularly effective against him (Air spells do 100% damage against him).  Even more effective are spells that ignore armor entirely, as are some elementalist skills such as Obsidian Flame and necromancer skills like Shadow Strike.
 * Ritualists are perhaps the best class built to deal with Mallyx, as they do not rely on enchantments. He has no way to deal with Spirits or Weapon Spells, making these useful for defeating him. Displacement and Shelter are very potent in containing Mallyx on his own.  Of course, he'll be more than happy to squish spirits in one hit, especially with Summoning Shadows, so don't rely too heavily on them.
 * Paragons, with their irremovable Chants and Shouts, can be just as helpful. The most useful skills are probably Angelic Protection, which reduces Mallyx's 500-damage hits to much more manageable levels; and Defensive Anthem, which helps block his attacks.
 * Be aware that Mallyx's skills cannot be disabled for longer than their stated recharge, even through skills such as Diversion.