A Time for Heroes

Objectives

 * The Great Destroyer awaits you outside the Central Transfer Chamber. Speak to High Priest Alkar to commence the attack.
 * Defeat the Great Destroyer.

Obtained from
 * Automatically added upon completing Destruction's Depths
 * After first completion, can be obtained from:
 * High Priest Alkar in the Central Transfer Chamber
 * Scrying Pool in Hall of Monuments (select "I seek guidance" option)

Requirements
 * Destruction's Depths

Walkthrough
The Great Destroyer resides in a large pool of lava that will make party members who step in it burn for a few seconds. Scattered arounds the room are seven hardened crusts of lava that can be stood upon without burning, but each has an immobile Destroyer of Lives on it. There are two additional destroyers that spawn near the Great Destroyer and will aggro from somewhat further away. The Great Destroyer itself will first aggro when you come within about two aggro radii of it, and while you can run away, after being aggroed once, it will subsequently aggro from much further away.

The mission is most easily done if you do not fight the Great Destroyer and other destroyers at the same time. It can help to clear enough other destroyers to get to the Great Destroyer and fight it without aggroing any additional destroyers. If your party is sufficiently disciplined about not running into the path of other mobs, you can clear only the two destroyers of lives between your initial path and the Great Destroyer, while leaving the other five destroyers of lives alone. It may also be useful to kill the third destroyer of lives near your starting path. Even unflagged henchmen are unlikely to accidentally wander into range of the other four destroyers of lives.

It is also useful to kill the two mobile destroyers that spawn near the Great Destroyer. They are readily pulled and cleared if they are warriors. If a Destroyer of Deeds spawns there, it will often back off while fighting, which can easily pull henchmen, heroes, or pets into range of the Great Destroyer and aggro it prematurely. Some players like to restart the mission until no destroyers of deeds spawn at the start to avoid this.

As you clear the room, the Great Destroyer will periodically use Lava Ground to turn one of the hardened crusts into lava, so that standing on it will make you burn. It will also use Lava Blast to occasionally knock down your party members standing in lava (often your entire party) and deal 75 fire damage. It will use both of these skills both before and after it is aggroed. If the mission lasts long enough, the former skill will eventually eliminate all of the lava crusts, so that your party will burn anywhere in the lava pool from which you fight the Great Destroyer. Therefore, unless you have burning immunity from Frigid Armor or Avatar of Melandru, it would be prudent to assume that your entire party will be burning for essentially the entire mission. You should thus bring adequate party healing skills such as Light of Deliverance, Heaven's Delight, and Divine Healing to heal the health lost to burning, in addition to the healing needed to counter the damage dealt by mobs.

Nearly all of the damage that mobs deal in this mission is fire damage. Skills such as Ward Against Harm or Mantra of Flame that counter fire damage are useful to mitigate the damage you take. Note that the damage dealt by the Great Destroyer is adjusted from the listed values for level differences, so the damage against a character with 60 armor level is about 71% greater than the listed values.

Once you engage the Great Destroyer itself, it will periodically use Searing Breath, which deals 80 fire damage to foes in a wedge-shaped area in front of the Great Destroyer, and 40 additional damage for each enchantment on them. This is readily countered by the large amounts of party healing skills that you bring.

More dangerously, the Great Destroyer will use Lava Wave, which deals 100 fire damage to all burning foes, summons a destroyer, and submerges the Great Destroyer in the lava for 12 seconds, during which time it is immune to all damage and has +10 health regeneration. This skill does not block the effects of lifestealing or health degeneration. This skill can both make the battle drag on for much longer, and also bring in an extra destroyer to cause trouble, so it can be useful to interrupt it.

The Great Destroyer may also use Call of Destruction to summon several additional destroyers. The extra destroyers can be trouble, so this is also a useful skill to interrupt.

If you interrupt the Great Destroyer, it will use Enraged Blast, which knocks down and deals 115 fire damage to all foes in earshot. If interrupts are lightly used, this damage can be healed by the usual party healing skills, but this skill can cause big problems if you try to interrupt everything. For this reason, it is probably best to interrupt only Lava Wave and Call of Destruction, and let the Great Destroyer cast whatever else it wants.

Having to choose carefully what to interrupt means it is best to have interrupts that you trigger manually, rather than letting henchmen or heroes freely pick what to interrupt. Interrupts by heroes can handle this provided that the skills are disabled and triggered manually.

After killing the Great Destroyer, a cutscene will play, and the party will be transported to the Epilogue.

Hard mode
The other destroyers are stronger in hard mode, which is pretty inconsequential if you pull them separately. The Great Destroyer does not have an increased level for hard mode.

The big difference is that the Great Destroyer uses a slightly different skill set in hard mode. It will not use call of destruction, but instead, gets Flame Jet, which deals 600 fire damage to a single target, or half that amount if the target is enchanted. Note that the Great Destroyer's level makes this deal over 1000 damage against a 60 armor level target without other defensive measures. Unless your party has considerable skills to mitigate the damage, this will often instantly kill a character, even one with full health. So long as you quickly resurrect the fallen party member and prevent the Great Destroyer from summoning additional destroyers and making the fight drag on with lava wave, the battle shouldn't last long enough for this to be a major problem.

Monsters

 * Destroyers:
 * 28 (30) Destroyer of Bones
 * 28 (30) Destroyer of Flesh
 * 28 (30) Destroyer of Sinew
 * 28 (30) Destroyer of Deeds
 * 28 (30) Destroyer of Hope
 * 28 (30) Destroyer of Lives

Boss-like foes

 * Destroyers:
 * 31 (31) The Great Destroyer

Dialogues
Briefing from the Scrying Pool.