Hell's Precipice (mission)

Objectives
Stop the Lich from destroying the world.
 * Disable the Titan Portals.
 * Defeat Undead Rurik.
 * Destroy the Lich.
 * BONUS Destroy all three Armageddon Lords.

Primary
The mission itself is straightforward, but requires much preparation. Your main foes in this mission will be the Burning Titans, which you first met at the end of the previous mission. Unlike that docile creature, which you probably dispatched quickly, these Burning Titans are trouble. They inflict massive damage, and when destroyed, a Risen Ashen Hulk rises in their place. When that is destroyed, a pair of warrior creatures spawn: a Hand of the Titans and a Fist of the Titans. In addition, members of your party adjacent to burning titans and risen ashen hulks will suffer burning. The other common mobs in the mission are Sparks of the Titans, which can do massive damage with fire spells.

A typical battle will consist of fighting a few of these creatures, but each battle will drag on for a long time, as each creature breaks into smaller creatures. Sparks are generally the highest priority to kill, as they can deal massive damage, but die relatively quickly. Hands and fists are the next highest priority, as they do not spawn anything else when killed. Burning titans come next, and risen ashen hulks are the lowest priority targets.

None of the mobs in this mission can heal other mobs, so they only have fairly meager self-healing capabilities. As such, it does not take very much damage to eventually kill them. Conversely, even if you bring a very high damage build, they have so much health and break into so many other mobs that battles will still drag out a long time, and your party will take considerable damage in that time.

As such, it is vital that the party bring adequate defensive skills to survive as long as it takes to kill the mobs. Other than Mhenlo and Lina, henchmen supply little defense, but heroes can be immensely helpful. A monk or ritualist as a third healer can make the mission much easier. So can an elementalist with suitable wards, especially Ward Against Harm. A necromancer can nearly cancel the health degeneration of burning with Well of Blood or Well of Power once the first mob in a group dies. The battles against sparks can be made much easier by interrupting them. It is especially useful to interrupt Rodgort's Invocation, their most dangerous spell, which has a two second cast time.

Because Titans are resistant to Fire damage, it would be a good idea for the party's Elementalists to choose a different element such as Water. This gives access not only to skills which will cause good damage to the Titans, but also Ward Against Harm and Blurred Vision which are very effective at mitigating damage. Alternatively, use Winter to make all elemental damage Cold damage; this will almost double the damage taken by most of the enemies in this mission. You can also combine this with Greater Conflagration to help out your physical attackers.

Other characters can bring skills to blind or weaken mobs or make them miss. Most classes can bring defensive or self-healing skills. Mantra of Flame works well for mesmers. Melee classes can benefit from Frigid Armor or Avatar of Melandru for immunity to the burning caused by standing next to some titans. If burning is caused by standing next to titans and removed, it will be immediately reapplied, so if other conditions are to be removed, it may be necessary to bring skills that remove multiple conditions at once.

When you start the mission, just follow the path on the map in red. At the place where the red and green paths diverge, a boss will come shout something unintelligible, and several groups of titans in the area will follow him. It may take a while, but they'll get out of your way to let you move along the green path.

Beware of overlapping patrols of titans, as they are easy to dispatch in small numbers but can be devastating in large groups. As you fight your way along, the Lich Lord will be waiting and will usually summon Quickening Zephyr and then teleport away after a short time.

Continue on your path until you get to point 2 on the map, which is guarded by two Ashen Hulks. Make sure to lure them away up the path from which you came, because the pool of lava to your right will spawn quite a large number of Hands and Fists and also two bosses (fortunately one-by-one or in small groups only). After the second boss spawns, titans will stop spawning from the lava. They will walk by and gather in the area around the portals. Lure them away and take them out one or two at a time. If you do this effectively, you can clear out the whole area, and be left with only one large patrol, which moves in front of the three portals (points A, B and C) you want to destroy. You can either:
 * Time the patrol and destroy the portals after they leave, tackling only the Portal Wraiths.
 * Lure the patrol and engage it. Then destroy the portals at your leisure.

After destroying the portals, you will see a cutscene where the Lich Lord will introduce you to Undead Prince Rurik. Rurik is linked to two sparks of the titans, and there are two groups of four fists each. If you watch the entire cutscene, all 8 fists will deploy at the bottom of the hill in front of Rurik and will attack you when the scene ends. If you come just within range of Rurik, he will run around the ledge to come attack you while the sparks stay up on the ledge. Once Rurik is in range, back up and the sparks will also come, while the hands and fists will stay where they are. Kill them and Rurik to trigger a cut scene, which eliminates any remaining titan warriors.

The Lich Lord comes accompanied by two hands or fists. There are two more further back which will stay out of the way, so that you don't have to fight them. Kill the hands or fists with the Lich first, as the Lich will take a while to kill. The Lich has very low armor against all types of physical and elemental damage, but a huge amount of health. None of his skills are significantly dangerous, but Soul Vortex will warp a character far into the lava, which can be a nuisance. If a party member, he should run back to rejoin the party. If the Lich warps himself out into the lava, wait for him to return.

When the Lich dies, he will recharge two, four, or six of the soul batteries scattered around the bloodstone. It is unknown what determines how many batteries are charged upon his death. Charging all six soul batteries completes the mission. If killing the Lich leaves some batteries uncharged, then he will respawn, along with one titan hand or fist for each battery charged. Kill the titans first, then kill the Lich again.

Bonus
To acquire the bonus you need to follow the green path to point 1 on the map. At the point where the green path splits from the red one you will encounter a Burning Titan and a Titan Boss who will walk towards you shouting strange words ("Shith Mal Hacto!"). This will summon mobs from the immediate surrounding area to their position, clearing the path towards the bonus. Just stay well away from the now very strong group of opponents who will slowly wander southeast.

At point 1 you will find a Burning Titan and an Ancient Seer who will give you the bonus. You need to take it slowly; make sure to take out the group of Ashen Hulks and Sparks in front before getting near to the Burning Titan and the Seer. Do not rush for the Seer, as upon approaching, the Seer will engage the Burning Titan. Although the Titan doesn't fight back, the Seer will take damage from burning so if you don't take care of the group of Hulks and Sparks before this happens, the Seer will very likely die. Speak with the Seer and you will get the bonus objective. Note: approaching from the south often allows one to fight the Titan alone, without having to go through the group of Ash Hulks and Sparks north of the Seer, but this strategy can also backfire - the Seer may have died from burning before you can reach him.

When you acquire the bonus, three Armageddon Lords spawn at point 2 in the lava pools from which many titans emerge. Their damage-dealing capacity isn't much to worry about and they drop quite quickly. As the Armageddon Lords are not bosses, you can expect them to have the usual chain of spawning (Armageddon Lord &rarr; Risen Ashen Hulk &rarr; Hand+Fist of the Titans) after they are defeated. Note that the three Armageddon Lords are not linked, and that their spawns need not be killed to achieve the bonus.

Tip: When you save the Seer, you do not need talk to him immediately. This will cause the bonus to be triggered earlier than you may want it. At the area where the Armageddon Lords appear, there is a pool of lava which will spawn several hands and fists of the titans and three bosses, over a long period of time. If you do not trigger the bonus, the Armageddon Lords will not be there and you can kill the normal titans as they spawn. Then you can return to the seer and trigger the bonus, which causes the lords to spawn, then you can kill them. If you do not do this you may have to wait for the monsters to stop spawning to kill the Lords. All the creatures that spawned will gather en masse at the portals making them take slightly longer to kill.

Note: If the Seer dies before completion of the bonus you will not receive credit for the bonus even if you kill the Armageddon Lords.

Hard mode
As with most hard mode missions, bringing adequate defense matters greatly, and bringing heavy damage doesn't matter that much. This mission takes that principle to the extreme, however. Mobs still have no healing apart from some fairly meager self-heals, so it doesn't take much to outdamage their healing.

Mobs do, however, hit very hard, and will last long enough to do quite a lot of damage before you can kill them. As such, it is vital that you bring many defensive skills in order to survive. Bringing three healers is strongly recommended. All players and heroes regardless of their class should bring at least a couple of defensive skills.

Depending on the class, a character may prevent mobs from dealing damage by interrupting (including by dazed), blinding, or blocking them, making them miss, or disabling their skills. He may also dampen the damage that mobs deal by extra armor, weakening the mobs, or using skills such as Protective Spirit, Shelter, Life Barrier, Mantra of Flame, or There's Nothing to Fear!. Finally, he may heal the damage after it occurs, whether by healing skills, gain health skills, health regeneration, or lifestealing.

The deadliest part is the sparks. As before, Ward Against Harm, Power Block, There's Nothing to Fear!, and dazed work especially well to dampen their damage output.

While hard mode does mean that you need much more defense than before, it does not change the basic tactics. If you wipe apart from flagrant stupidity or pulling multiple groups at once, it almost surely means that you brought inadequate defensive skills.

For the bonus you may already find the group of Ashen Hulks and Sparks attacking the seer as you approach him, so it is important to put up some defenses and/or start healing him as soon as possible. You may be lucky to get a spawn where this mob does not appear or is nowhere near him.

NPCs

 * Avatar
 * Vision of Glint (cutscene only)
 * Seer
 * 30 Ancient Seer

Monsters

 * Titan
 * 24,28 (26,30) Fist of the Titans
 * 24,28 (26,30) Hand of the Titans
 * 28 (30) Burning Titan
 * 28 (30) Risen Ashen Hulk
 * 28 (30) Armageddon Lord (bonus only)
 * 28 (30) Spark of the Titans
 * Undead
 * 24 (26) Portal Wraith
 * 30 (32) Lich Lord

Bosses - elite skill captures

 * Titan
 * 28 (30) Tortitudo Probo - Eviscerate
 * 28 (30) Valetudo Rubor - Greater Conflagration
 * 28 (30) Maligo Libens - Aura of the Lich
 * 28 (30) Moles Quibus - Panic
 * 28 (30) Scelus Prosum - Mind Burn
 * Undead
 * 28 (30) Undead Prince Rurik - Hundred Blades

Dialogues
Briefing from Jacob Salinger.

Inside the mission
Lich Lord: ''Ah, my friends, how nice of you to stick around. You see I have much work to do. I bid you all adieu. The Mursaat are being quickly swept away as will all those who stand before my legions.''

Bonus objective:

Ancient Seer: ''Unchecked, the Titans will rend Tyria asunder. Stopping the Lich is the only real way to defeat them. But there is more to this problem than you know. Among the Titan horde are their champions, the Armageddon Lords. If they are not stopped, these demons will surely bring an end to both man and beast. Most likely, the Lords will be the last ones through the portals that have been opened.''

Lich Lord: ''Away with you! You are no match for my almighty power.''

First intermediate cutscene
Lich Lord: ''This meddling is nothing more than a minor annoyance. You're only delaying the inevitable. Thanks to you, I command an army powerful enough to conquer all of Tyria. And now I intend to use it. But before I go, I have someone here you might like to talk to. Perhaps this will slow you down long enough to let me finish my work.''



Lich Lord: ''I'll leave you to get reacquainted. I'm sure you have much to talk about. I am the Flameseeker. All of Tyria shall bow to me or be destroyed.''

Undead Prince Rurik: ''Forgive me. It is not my will to fight you. But I have little choice in this matter.''

Second intermediate cutscene
Undead Prince Rurik: ''Listen to me. The Door of Komalie must be closed. Kill the Lich while he stands atop the Bloodstone inside the caldera. If you do this, his spirit will recharge the soul batteries, and the Door will close again. You have served Ascalon well. I beg of you...do one last duty for your prince.''

Player: Anything, my prince.

Undead Prince Rurik: ''End my misery. Release me from the Lich's spell.''



until we meet you again in the Hall of Heroes.''

Ending cutscene
Vision of Glint: ''Long into the Season of the Scion, Tyria is revived again. Over the bones of the bird of prey, the fire is put out and the diabolic gathering is closed off once again. The Flameseeker Prophecies are now complete. The Door of Komalie is closed, and the Titans are once again safely locked away behind it. You have saved Tyria, but now you must also save yourselves. The volcano is about to erupt. There is a ship in the dock just inside the Mursaat stronghold. Unless you wish to suffer the same fate as Vizier Khilbron, then I suggest you make a run for it. Your deeds have earned you a place among the heroes of legend. Let us hope today is not the day your spirit joins those ensconced in the Hall.''

Follow-up

 * Upon completion of this mission, players will be taken to the Droknar's Forge area to celebrate their victory as well as get access to special items and crafters. See the area article for details.
 * To continue the storyline players should take the quest Defend Droknar's Forge from the Vision of Glint in Droknar's Forge. Though this is not technically part of the mission chain of Prophecies, it does continue the story.