The Dragon's Lair (mission)

Objectives
Gain audience with the prophet Glint.
 * Defeat the Facet of Light.
 * Defeat the Facet of Nature.
 * Defeat the Facet of Chaos.
 * Defeat the Facet of Darkness.
 * Defeat the Facet of Elements.
 * Defeat the Facet of Strength.
 * BONUS Defeat Glint.

Primary
To complete the Dragon's Lair mission, you must talk to Glint after defeating her six facets, one for each core profession. Each of these facets is in its own area which has its own distinct disadvantage. At the end of each area, you must defeat the facet, which opens a portal to the next area. Note that every facet has an elite skill that can be captured, so you may want to bring two Signets of Capture on this mission. The mission takes some time to do, but it is not very difficult and can be done easily with henchmen.

At the beginning of the mission, you will find yourself in a small crystalline chamber with one Forgotten Gate Keeper. Talk to him to have him open a portal. Proceed to the first area.

Facet of Light
While you are in this area, all party members will be under the spell Domain of Health Draining and suffer a Health degeneration of &minus;3. This will put your healers under constant stress, so advance carefully and give them time to actually heal. You will encounter solitary Forgotten Sages and pairs of Enchanted Swords and Enchanted Hammers here. Defeat the Facet of Light to open a portal to the Facet of Nature.

Recommended skills: Well of Blood provides partywide regen, and Recuperation at high Restoration Magic will completely counteract the degen, though it must be resummoned whenever the party moves. Heal Party helps to counteract it by healing everyone, and Light of Deliverance works fantastically here, as it costs little energy and is relatively spammable.

Tip: About midway down the ramp right before the ice (where you fight the facet) the degeneration is not active! Try to keep your whole party here to heal up before the big fight.

Facet of Nature
Here you will be under the influence of Domain of Slow, which will decrease your movement speed. You have to fight your way through trios of Enchanted Bows and pairs of Enchanted Swords and Hammers. Defeat the Facet of Nature to open a portal to the Facet of Chaos

Facet of Chaos
In this area, you will not be under the influence of a permanent effect. Instead, you will have to deal with the fact that the Crystal Spiders you will encounter in large numbers have the skills Shatter Enchantment, Shatter Hex and Hex Breaker. There are areas that are divided from the main path by clear crystal walls. Behind those walls, pairs of Forgotten Illusionists wait for players to come too close. It is possible to cast spells that don't have a projectile through those walls. Similarly, the chamber at the end of this area is divided by many low walls, allowing spellcasting and ranged attacks. Melee fighters will have to run around the obstacles; be careful not to aggro too many enemy groups at once when doing so. Defeat the Facet of Chaos to open a portal to the Facet of Darkness.

Facet of Darkness
Here you will be under the effect of Domain of Energy Draining. Everyone will suffer from Energy Degeneration of &minus;1. In addition, everyone (both players and enemies) will be enchanted with Death Nova at Death Magic 0. You will encounter Forgotten Cursebearers and Rock-Eater Scarabs. Defeat the Facet of Darkness to open a portal to the Facet of Elements.

Recommended skills: Dwayna's Kiss and Healing Light benefit greatly from all players being under enchantments at all times, and help counteract the energy drain by being more efficient or refunding energy.

Tip: Even if Death Nova is removed via Enchantment removal, it will be reapplied in a few seconds. Use this to your advantage with skills like Shatter Enchantment. Also note that Death Nova renders the elite skill of the Forgotten Cursebearers you will find in this area (Order of the Vampire) useless.

Facet of Elements
Here you will encounter Forgotten Arcanists and Crystal Guardians, powerful Earth Elementalists. Ward Against Elements is quite useful in this area, as the enemies deal only elemental damage. Watch the nearby pairs of Arcanists when attacking a group of Guardians; they will often attack you from behind while you are engaged in a fight. There are also areas in this facet where the elements are going crazy; you will be bombarded by effects similar to Elementalist spells while passing through (the circles cycle between Eruption, Fire Storm, Maelstrom and Chain Lightning before going inactive and restarting). These areas are easily recognizable by their glowing circles (similar to Elementalist's Wards). Obviously, you should not stay inside those areas while fighting; leave them as quickly as possible. Defeat the Facet of Elements to open a portal to the Facet of Strength.

The environmental effects share the names of spells, but they have different icons and descriptions (which simply say "Spell: ":
 * Eruption: 35 damage per second vs AR 60 and blindness (unknown duration, only occurs AFTER the Eruption ends, like the old version of Eruption)
 * Fire Storm: 32 damage per second vs AR 60
 * Maelstrom: 35 damage per second vs AR 60 and interrupts spells
 * Chain Lightning: 71 damage vs AR 60 at the start of the animation, no effect afterwards

Facet of Strength
Every player (including spirits but not monsters) will be knocked down every 20 seconds for 5 seconds while in this area. Warrior skills that prevent knockdown (like Dolyak Signet or Balanced Stance) are very useful here. You will have to fight pairs of Enchanted Swords and Hammers. There are also groups of one Enchanted Sword, one Crystal Guardian and three Crystal Spiders; these can usually be avoided. Defeat the Facet of Strength to open a portal to Glint's chamber.

Recommended skills: Ward of Stability provides immunity to knockdowns for all players within it. Also, Supportive Spirit might have some use, as monks can predict when the next knockdown will be, and support players likely to be attacked while knocked down.

Note: If you skip this cinematic, you will miss an important part of the story. Unlike the six previous cinematics, where all that is seen is the party walking through the portal, this time Glint will explain what is going on, so you may want to watch it.

Glint's Chamber
When you have arrived in Glint's chamber, you have finished the mission. You can either end it by walking through the portal, which will take you to Droknar's Forge, or try the mission bonus.

Bonus
After you meet Glint, do not go through the portal. Instead, pick up a Dragon Egg. Enraged, Glint will turn hostile. Defeat her to complete the bonus. Should you fail, do not worry; she will resurrect you and send you to Droknar's Forge anyway.

Glint has a huge amount of hit points, and hexes and conditions last only half the normal duration. Glint has four monster skills, and switches from one to the next at certain thresholds in her amount of HP remaining. Her four skills can each be dealt with in separate ways.

Additionally, Glint's attacks are ranged and hit very hard, typically killing a character in about three hits. Her damage output can be greatly reduced by standard anti-martial tactics such as blinding, blocking, or moving out of the way to dodge. As Glint's only meaningful heal is easy to interrupt, having enough damage to kill her is not an issue.

Henchmen are lacking in useful defensive skills, so a party of one player and seven henchmen will likely take some deaths against Glint, but henchmen are strong enough to defeat her if you interrupt Crystal Hibernation.

Crystal Haze
From the start until Glint gets down to about 75% health, she will use Crystal Haze. This causes -1 energy regeneration, and more importantly, causes every skill that uses energy to cause exhaustion. While an AoE hex, it has no recharge time, so Glint can and will cast it repeatedly until it is on all members of the party. Removing the hex immediately does little good, as Glint will simply recast it. Once Glint uses her next skill, Jagged Crystal Skin, her health is low enough that she will no longer cast Crystal Haze.

The solution is to use few skills that use energy during this phase. Plain attacks can do adequate damage until she gets low enough to stop casting it. Unfortunately, henchmen and heroes are not smart enough to avoid unnecessary use of energy skills, and will have heavy exhaustion.

Once Glint moves on to her next skill, it can help to remove Crystal Haze. Using Inspired Hex or Revealed Hex works especially well for this, as a monster skill cannot be copied. Instead, the skill recharges immediately.

The use of defensive skills to either prevent or heal Glint's damage can cause severe exhaustion problems. Using Shadowsong to keep Glint blinded almost throughout this phase can reduce her damage to virtually nothing, as the spirit will not suffer exhaustion problems.

Jagged Crystal Skin
From about 75% health until about 50% health, Glint will use Jagged Crystal Skin. This stance will make it so that whenever Glint takes physical damage, all party members near her take 100 damage.

The easiest solution to this is to not deal physical damage. If martial weapon users switch to an elemental weapon or use a suitable damage conversion skill, they will not trigger the damage from this stance. Using Greater Conflagration will convert all party members' physical damage to elemental. Those who cannot convert their damage type can stop attacking for this phase.

Alternatively, the party can have no one stand near her to take the damage. Melee attackers can run away for this phase, while everyone else fires at Glint from far enough away to avoid taking damage.

The final solution is to end the stance promptly with Wild Blow or Wild Strike. With too many characters dealing physical damage, Glint is likely to take several hits and kill party members before someone reacts and ends the stance. If doing the mission with only henchmen, Little Thom can end stances. Avoid bringing Stefan, as he would be an extra character both dealing physical damage and taking damage from the stance.

Crystal Hibernation
From about 50% health until about 25% health, Glint will use Crystal Hibernation. This gives her +7 health regeneration, and more importantly, converts all non-physical damage to healing.

As this skill has a five second activation time, by far the easiest solution is to interrupt it. It is a skill, not a spell, which restricts which interrupts will work. As no henchmen have interrupts, either a player or hero will need to bring the interrupt(s). Heroes sometimes suffer enough exhaustion from Crystal Haze to lack sufficient energy to use their interrupts, so you may need to disable some hero skills earlier in the battle if relying on a hero interrupt here.

Most professions have adequate interrupt skills in their primary profession, but not all. Note that Crystal Hibernation has a 10 second recharge, so a single interrupt with a much longer recharge time will be insufficient. If relying on an interrupt from a secondary profession, Disrupting Dagger or Distracting Shot will provide sufficient interruption from a single skill. While the latter will require you to temporarily switch to a bow, it also disables the skill for an extra 20 seconds.

It is possible to defeat Glint without bringing any interrupts. The tactics required are sufficiently unorthodox that it is probably easier to bring an interrupt.

Crystal Bonds
From about 25% health until Glint is defeated, she will use Crystal Bonds. This will slow the party member, remove one enchantment, and prevent the party member from being a target of further enchantments. This does not block party-wide enchantments or self-only enchantments, as these do not require targeting the party member. Crystal Bonds is not enough of a threat to require special tactics.

Hard mode
The facets of light, nature, and darkness are pretty easy so long as you don't aggro more than two groups at a time.

In the facet of chaos, mobs have interrupts, enchantment removal, hex removal, energy denial, and substantial damage outputs. They're quite manageable if you only pull one group at a time, but this may require flagging heroes and henchmen back repeatedly. Henchmen and heroes sometimes like to run around the wall to chase the Forgotten Illusionists at the start, and run right into a bunch of Crystal Spiders. The spiders come in linked groups of three, but it isn't always obvious which are linked to which others, so pull carefully.

In the facet of elements, it helps immensely to bring Ward Against Elements, as the mobs can deal considerable elemental damage. Some interrupts for the Forgotten Arcanists using Earthquake can help, though the Crystal Guardians are hard to interrupt effectively. You may have to pull mobs through the damage wards at some points to only pull one group at a time. Target the Facet of Elements at the end before its accompanying arcanists, as the boss not only has a higher damage output, but dies more easily.

For the facet of strength, you can avoid fighting all groups of five mobs except for the second one. The Crystal Guardian is the most dangerous mob in that group.

The battle against Glint is not meaningfully different from in easy mode.

NPCs

 * Dragon
 * 31 Glint
 * Forgotten
 * 20 Forgotten Gate Keeper
 * Human
 * 5 Ascalon Warrior (dead)

Monsters

 * Dragon
 * 31 (31) Glint (bonus only)
 * Enchanted
 * 20 (26) Enchanted Sword
 * 20 (26) Enchanted Hammer
 * 20 (26) Enchanted Bow
 * Forgotten
 * 20 (26) Forgotten Sage
 * 20 (26) Forgotten Cursebearer
 * 20 (26) Forgotten Illusionist
 * 20 (26) Forgotten Arcanist
 * Golem
 * 20 (26) Crystal Spider
 * 22 (26) Crystal Guardian
 * Scarab
 * 20 (26) Rock-Eater Scarab

Bosses (Elite skill captures)

 * Dragon
 * 26 (30) Facet of Light &rarr; Shield of Regeneration
 * 26 (30) Facet of Nature &rarr; Melandru's Resilience
 * 26 (30) Facet of Chaos &rarr; Mantra of Recall
 * 26 (30) Facet of Darkness &rarr; Grenth's Balance
 * 26 (30) Facet of Elements &rarr; Lightning Surge
 * 26 (30) Facet of Strength &rarr; Gladiator's Defense

Dialogues
Briefing from the Forgotten Gate Keeper.

Follow-up

 * Upon completion of the mission players will find themselves in: Droknar's Forge, where they should take the primary quest Seeking the Seer.

Additional Notes

 * If a player enters a portal while under the effect of a Form skill (Avatar of Melandru, Avatar of Balthazar etc), it will disappear after getting out in next domain.
 * The player is advised to bring two Signets of Capture, as there can be two elite skills that they can capture on their first run through the mission, unless they are playing an Assassin, Ritualist, Paragon or Dervish.
 * Very often it happens that a player accidentally steps into the portal before the rest of the party can capture the elite skill from the facet. To avoid this it is recommended to lure the facet away from its initial position before attacking it. Also, the Signet of Capture can be activated from a reasonable distance away from the facet's corpse. Be sure to ask your party members if any of them need to capture a skill before approaching the portal.
 * If Signet of Capture is activated and somebody else steps through the portal before you've selected which skill to capture, you can still capture the skill after you've been transported.
 * In Hard Mode all creatures will be Level 26, and the bosses will be Level 30.
 * This is the first mission along the Prophecies Campaign storyline which allows a party size of 8.
 * This is also the first area of the game that features max level henchmen.