Temple of Immortals (Balrog)

(via maplestory2guide.com)

You need a minimum of 2100 Gear Score to enter this dungeon. The ideal composition for this dungeon is 1 Priest, 2 DPS, and 1 Knight. Most likely you will need 1 or 2 epic gear at level 50 to have enough GS to enter the dungeon.

The main platform is surrounded by a pit of lava which does a ton of damage to you, so try not to go into the lava unless necessary. Something to keep in mind is that for some reason, Balrog can crit, which can lead to some unlucky deaths out of nowhere.

Phase 1

In this phase, Balrog only has two attacks. As long as you get used to these attacks, you should be able to go through the phase 1 pretty smoothly. However, if you’re doing Balrog for the first time, you will most definitely die a lot, especially do his triple swing attack, especially if your defense is too low, as you may die to just two swings.

Triple Swing

This is one of Balrog’s most deadly attacks, and he will use this throughout the entire fight, so you better get used to it if you want to clear this dungeon. The attack starts with him facing towards someone, then quickly bringing up his weapon before doing his first swing to his left. You barely have any time to notice the animation before he does his first swing, so you should expect to get hit by his first swing if you are facing him.

After his first swing, he does a swing to his right. Finally, he will bring his weapon above him and smash the area right in front of him. No matter what, you MUST dodge this third swing/smash, as it will most likely result in a 1 hit kill. The hitbox is also a bit bigger than you think, so play safe and dodge away or into him depending on your position.

You can dodge this final swing if you are close enough to him. If you have enough defense, you can actually tank the first two swings and hug him in melee range, and rely on your healer or your potions to keep you healthy enough for the last attack, since you won’t have to worry about the third swing/smash since you are in melee range and won’t get hit by it.

If you don’t have enough defense though and think you will die from the second swing, you must dodge the second swing as soon as he does his first swing. Probably the safest way is to dodge through him. Dodging to the sides may sometimes lead you to instantly getting hit by the second swing, and dodging away from him will leave you vulnerable to the final swing/smash.

Also, the third swing/smash will leave an AOE on the ground that will leave you with a damage over time debuff if you touch it, so try not to run into it.https://streamable.com/s/9mhge/auiawe

Dash

Balrog will bring up both his arms and rear back before roaring in a direction with a hitbox in the shape of a cone. This shout will slightly damage you and knock you away from him while also leaving you with a debuff that slows you and reduces your attack by 50%. This is then followed up with him glowing red and hunching over before he charges forward quickly in that direction, dealing damage and knocking you back.

The breath’s knockback damage can be ignored, but you have to be careful that you won’t be knocked into the AOE that is left on the ground from his smashes or into the lava. Luckily, the dash can be easily dodged by dashing to the side. Even though the shout doesn’t do a lot of damage, you want to dodge it because the debuff that reduces your attack by 50% is really significant.

https://streamable.com/s/1mpdk/jvvadh

Phase 2

At 85% health, Balrog will jump to the center and scream roar outwards, making rocks fall from the ceiling randomly. There will be indicators for the rocks before they fall, so try to dodge them as they do hurt a lot. After the rocks have fallen, he will raise his weapon for around 5 seconds before doing a huge swing that will hit anyone on the platform and kill anyone hit by the swing.

To dodge this swing, you must either stack on top of a Knight and hide under their bubble shield, or jump on top of the pillars that spawn. You must be on the very top platform on the pillars to avoid the attack, and ranged characters can DPS from the top platform while they’re waiting for the swing to pass. You can also stay on the middle platform if it is too difficult to reach the very top platform, and then jump as Balrog swings, avoiding the attack.

Dragon Spawns

Balrog will occasionally stop and shout “Burn them alive” or “Aid me”, resulting in three dragons to spawn in the elevated platforms on the top left and top right. After summoning them, Balrog will walk towards the centre of the platform before focusing on the closest target and doing a breath/shout attack.

It is the job of someone (usually the knight) to go in melee range of Balrog to get the aggro while doing damage, and pull Balrog away from the rest of the group who will work on the dragons, but anyone can do this same job. These dragons will start throwing fireballs that cannot be dodged and apply a stack.

Each of these stacks reduces your defense, so it is vital that you kill them as soon as possible before they start doing too much damage. The players who have to kill the dragons will have to stand on top of the red elevated blocks will deal a decent amount of damage over time (but not as much as lava), and you will have to sit on them while you DPS down the dragons.

While the DPS goes to kill the dragons, the Priest should be healing the DPS and assisting. Before going to help the DPS though, Priests can throw down their cross-shaped heal ability in the center for the tank/person who is taking aggro.

Dash x2

During the second phase, Balrog will dash two times consecutively instead of a single dash like the first phase. The second dash will target the closest person after the first dash has ended.

https://streamable.com/s/kd9v5/mxiqth

Phase 3

At around 65% health will phase and start off with a new attack…

Pulsing Stun

Balrog will jump to the center and glow red before doing an attack that pulses, with the pulses dealing damage and stunning you. When he does this attack, everyone should immediately group to the center where there are two ways to survive this attack. First, is that everyone’s health must be topped off at 100% by the Priest and spamming their heal until you get stunned, and you tank through the pulses.

Tanking all the pulses from 100% will leave everyone at around 20% health if the Priest manages to heal the first pulse (since only the second pulse stuns). The Priest can also throw down their cross-shaped heal before everyone gets stunned in the center, but it’s not necessary since there’s time to heal everyone once the stun goes away before the next attack. The other way is to use the Knight bubble shield to block the pulses and DPS Balrog while the attack is going on.

https://streamable.com/s/mfpq6/phsgqzhttps://streamable.com/s/8aka6/baddze

Dash x3

In phase 3 and from thereon, Balrog does three dashes instead of two after his roar. After the third dash, he will be stunned for a few seconds. Once again, he will target the closest person after the previous dash.

https://streamable.com/s/b2s75/mqzzqa

Phase 4

At around 45% health he will go into another dragon spawning phase and start off with the same attack at the start of phase 2 where he creates the pillars.

Phase 5

At around 30% health he will transition into his final and toughest phase. In this phase, I believe that he only dashes once after his roar knockback. This phase is the hardest because of a new attack…

Combined Attack

This is the attack that you will have to master dodging if you want any chance of clearing the dungeon. He will jump to the centre and start glowing a violet pinkish colour. He will throw down three rocks at each person that you need to dodge. After the third rock has fallen, he will deal AOE damage that will most likely one shot you. If you somehow survive the hit, the AOE will stun as well.

There are two methods of surviving the attack. First is to dodge the first rock and then gather around the Knight immediately (if you have one) who will then use his bubble shield which will block the 2nd and 3rd rock, as well as the AOE. The second method is to go into the lava to the South and start jumping as you go into the lava (you spam jump to reduce the damage you take from the lava).

You can use a potion and go back onto the platform right after the AOE has passed, but this requires precise timing, so instead, it’s a better idea to keep jumping to the South and land on the small platform from where the bridge entrance was at the start of the dungeon. Make sure that when you reach this small platform that you do not touch the teleport portal until the AOE has passed. After you get onto the platform, you simply wait until the AOE has passed before you take the portal to go back onto the platform. The Priest can heal while you guys wait, or heal when everyone takes the portal.

Make sure your Knight lets you guys know when his bubble shield is on cooldown since that is when you guys will have to use the second method.

At around 25-30%, an NPC named Tristan will spawn to aid you. He has an ability that stuns Balrog, and you can look out for this by the animation where Tristan will raise his sword upwards and it will shine a few times.

This is extremely helpful because it can interrupt Balrog when he does the combined attack and you won’t have to go to the lava or hug your Knight if you manage to keep an eye out for when Balrog will get stunned. One thing to note is that Tristan will have a 100% chance of stunning Balrog on the first AOE that he does after Tristan spawns.

As a Knight, it may also be helpful for you to tell your team beforehand that you will always bubble at a specific place, for example, “I will bubble in the centre” or “I will bubble on Tristan” so that your teammates will know where to go.

Knight Block

https://streamable.com/s/fe96e/ulvrsq

Lava Escape Route

https://streamable.com/s/npgno/jrma

Tristan Stun

https://streamable.com/s/7k7zh/zmwfhm

And that’s basically it! Just survive his falling rocks, his triple swing, his dashes, and the stunning AOE and you should be able to kill him.