The Minstrel's Ballad: Nidhogg's Rage

The Minstrel's Ballad: Nidhogg's Rage, more commonly called Nidhogg EX, is an Extreme difficulty primal that was added in patch 3.3: Revenge of the Horde. It can be unlocked by completing the quest Nidhogg's Rage by Alys in Mor Dhona.

The minimum ilvl to enter this fight is i220, but I'd recommend having at the very least an i220 weapon, and having an average item level of i225 before attempting this fight.

Phase 1: Dragon Phase (100%-80%)

Nidhogg's Abilities:

• The Scarlet Whisper: Magical tankbuster, cleave, dealing ~15k damage to it's target. No cast time.
• Cauterize: Divebomb dealing lethal damage. Only seen during divebomb phases.
• Horrid Roar: Ground and player marked AoE dealing ~8k damage. Ground AoE also afflicts the player with Hysteria.
• Touchdown: Nidhogg lands after a divebomb phase, dealing ~4k damage to all party members.
• Deafening Bellow: Screech dealing ~6.5k damage to all party members.
• Hot Wing: AoE damage dealt everywhere except for through the middle of Nidhogg. Can be avoided by running under Nidhogg. Failiure to avoid this attack will result in ~12k damage and a stack of Burns, a DoT that ticks for ~ 2.5k.
• Hot Tail: AoE damage dealt through the middle of Nidhogg. Can be avoided by running anywhere except under the middle of Nidhogg. Failiure to avoid this attack will result in ~12k damage and a stack of Burns, a DoT that ticks for ~ 2.5k.

This is a fairly straightforward phase. I'd recommend pulling with a Deployment Tactics Adloqium to prevent damage from his first Deafening Bellow. Pull Nidhogg and face him away from the party, as he will cleave shortly after. This cleave is followed by a Deafening Bellow, and then another cleave. After 32 seconds, he will jump and preform his first divebomb phase.

Divebomb Phase:

After Nidhogg jumps, stack in the middle to bait Horrid Roar ground AoEs, and look for where Nidhogg is along the arena's walls. Nidhogg will then dive accross the arena in a straight line from where he his, covering about half the arena. (This is very similar to Leviathan EX. If you're having trouble finding Nidhogg, you pay attention to his shadow, or read the note below.) Nidhogg will also target 4 players with Horrid Roar. Make sure that no targeted party members are stacked and that everyone avoids the Divebomb. Stack in the middle and repeat, as he will do this twice. After the second time, he will land to the ground using Touchdown.

*Note: In this phase, the first Cauterize will always come from either the North or East side of the arena, and the second will always come from the South or West side of the arena. So an easy way to find Nidhogg is to face your camera toward the NE corner for the first Cauterize, and face your camera toward the SW corner for the second Cauterize.

Afterwards, he'll cleave and throw out another Deafening Bellow before he begins to cast either Hot Wing or Hot Tail. These attacks do not have AoE markers, so I'd recommend having Nidhogg focus targetted to more easily see what it's casting. Hot Wing means that everyone should be dodging under Nidhogg, while Hot Tail means that everyone should be dodging away from a line through the middle of Nidhogg. He'll later cast the other "Hot" move while also throwing out Horrid Roar ground AoEs. Wait until they spawn before dodging the second attack, to bait them away from safe spots.

After this, Nidhogg will follow up with more cleaves and AoE damage, and repeat his rotation until he is pushed to 79%.

Phase 2: Adds Phase

Enemies:

• Shadow Brobinyak: Must be tanked. Spawns on the west of the arena. Uses The Serpent's Apple, a tank buster which inflicts Physical Vulnerability Up. If not killed fast enough, it will also inflict it's target with Disease. A tank buster with 3+ stacks of Physical Vulnerability Up will inflict lethal damage.
• Shadow Falak: Must be tanked. Spawns on the east side of the arena. Uses Electric Predation, a tank buster which inflicts Magic Vulnerability Up. A tank buster with 3+ stacks of Magic Vulnerability Up will inflict lethal damage.
• Shadow Dragon: Ignores enmity. Spawns on the north side of the arena. Alternates between Fireball and Ripper Claw. All of it's attacks can be avoided, but if connect inflict Damage Down. After being brought down to ~ 65% (?), he will roar and inflict all party members with Vulnerability Up.

*Note: Fireball always targets the furthest player from the Shadow Dragon. Therfore, you can assign one person to always bait the Fireball away from the party. I'd recommend having a healer or a physical ranged DPS do it, as they have the most freedom of movement.

Have your tanks each take one of the tankable adds. I'd recommend having your WAR take the Brobinyak, and your DRK/PLD take the Falak. (If you run a DRK/PLD comp, I'd keep your DRK on the Falak because it does primarily magic damage). Burn down the Shadow Brobinyak as fast as possible. After the Brobinyak falls, have your tank provoke the Shadow Falak off the other tank, before he reaches 3 stacks of Magic Vulnerability Up. Burn the Falak. When the Falak falls, begin to burn down the Shadow Dragon. When the Shadow Dragon gets brought down to ~65%, he will roar, inflicting all party members with Vulnerability Up. Watch out, as all attacks from the Shadow Dragon will now be lethal.

This add phase serves as a soft DPS check. You must kill all three adds before Nidhogg casts Mortal Chorus, which will be about 85 seconds into the phase. Mortal Chorus will inflict ~ 7k damage to all party members, and remove Vulnerability Up. Nidhogg will then follow up with his ultimate attack, Final Chorus. It must be shielded. I'd recommend using a Succor/Aspected Helios (Noct) + Sacred Soil/Collective Unconscious in order to safely get through this attack.

After this attack, Nidhogg will gain Heart of Man, and move into his next phase.

Phase 3: Heart of Man (79%-40%)

Nidhogg's Abilities:

• Drachenlance: Physical tankbuster, cleave, dealing about 15k damage to it's target. No cast time.
• Geirskogul: Rectangle AoE aimed at a player.
• High Jump: AoE targetted at a player. Deals ~11k damage and leaves behind a puddle. Stepping in this puddle will inflict Bleeding.
• Soul Tether: AoE tether that originates from a High Jump puddle. Must be intercepted by a tank. Deals ~15k damage. (Think drainage from A3S).
• Ala Morn: Physical tankbuster. Deals about 19k damage.
• Flare Star: Orb dealing AoE splash damage to any player that runs into it. Deals ~11k damage.
• Eye of the Tyrant: AoE marker placed on one person. Must be split with other party members. Does about 26k damage unmitigated to a single person.
• Darkdragon Dive: Nidhogg will summon four towers. At least one player must be in each tower. Leaves behind an AoE that inflicts Burns after going off.
• Super Jump: Proximity based attack targeting a player's position. Damage is determined by how close a player is to the point of impact.

After landing, Nidhogg will quickly follow with a Drachenlance, so be wary of that. Soon after, he'll mark four players with High Jump. I'd recommend having all marked players stack on the east and west edges of the arena and then stack in the middle behind Nidhogg. A Soul Tether will appear from one of the High Jump, while 5 Geirskoguls go out. (One from each High Jump, and one from Nidhogg himself). The tank must intercept the Soul Tether and run away from the party as to not splash them with the damage. The Geirskoguls go out about 2 seconds before the tether explodes, so keep that in mind.

Nidhogg will continue his rotation and eventually summon two nails, Nidhogg's Fang, and Nidhogg's Claw.

Fang and Claw:

In this mini-phase, your goal is to kill both nails before they self destruct. The blue nail will tether to three players (one of them always being the tank currently holding enmity on Nidhogg), and inflict them with Fangbound. The red nail will tether to another three players and inflict them with Clawbound. A set of 3 Flare Star orbs will also spawn. Now, the red nail is invulnerable to all attacks, and can only be damaged by having players with Clawbound take damage. The blue nail spawns at 50% HP, but is healed every time a player with Fangbound takes damage. For this reason, your tanks will always have to provoke off each other every time the debuffs get applied. Eye of the Tyrant will always target a Fangbound player, so have them and all Clawbound players stack with them to minimize the healing done to the blue nail. An Adloqium on the player with the blue debuff who is marked does wonders, greatly reducing the amount of healing the blue nail gets. After Eye of the Tyrant, the Fang and Claw will tether to different players, forcing another tank swap, spawning another set of 3 Flare Stars, and later following up with another Eye of The Tyrant.

After both nails are destroyed, Nidhogg will continue his rotation until he jumps again, moving into his next mini-phase. I'd recommend throwing out a Deployment Tactics Adloqium before the Intermission begins in order to reduce damage on all players.

Intermission:

Nidhogg begins this intermission by targetting both healers with High Jump, and summoning four Darkdragon Dive towers. At least one player must be on each tower, or the tower will explode, dealing damage to all players and likely wiping the raid.

I'd recommend assigning each player a specific corner for them to go to.

NW: Healer + Tank (in tower)

NE: Healer + Tank (in tower)

SW: 2 DPS (Only one has to be in the tower)

SE: 2 DPS (Only one has to be in the tower)

Position yourselves similarly to the diagram below.

After Darkdragon Dives and High Jump lands, Nidhogg will select four other players and mark them with High Jump. There will also be a Soul Tether attached to each healer coming from their High Jump puddles, which must be intercepted by each tank. He will also send out four Geirskoguls, originating from the Darkdragon Dive AoEs. I'd recommend following the diagram below for positions, although you might have to adjust depending on Geirskoguls.

Nidhogg will then target one player's position for Super Jump, and send out another four Geirskoguls coming from the High Jump AoEs. Your goal here is to avoid Geirskoguls and move as far away as possible from the Super Jump point of impact. There's a significant amount of time between Geirskoguls going out and Super Jump landing, so I'd recommend focusing on dodging Geirskoguls first, before moving to dodge the Super Jump.

After Nidhogg lands from his Super Jump, he will continue with a Drachenlance -> Ala Morn -> Drachenlance, and once again jump, to move into his last phase.

This phase can be pushed early by bringing Nidhogg down to 39%.

Phase 4: Heart of Dragon (39%-0%)

Nidhogg's Abilities:

At the beginning of this phase, Nidhogg will gain Heart of Dragon, signifying the beginning of his last phase.
Nidhogg keeps the same abilities he had in his first Dragon Phase, plus these:

• Bloodrage: AoE damage on all party members at the beginning of the last phase. Deals ~7k damage.
• Akh Morn: Massive magical tank buster which hits multiple times in quick succession. Starts at four, but adds an extra hit every time it is cast. Will hit a maximum of seven times. First hit always hits for double of what the rest of the hits do. Assuming all 8 party members are stacked, each hit does about ~4k damage. The first hit does ~8k damage.
• The Sable Price: Nidhogg summons 3 sets of bombs. Each bomb explodes in a cross pattern (Much like A5), and deals damage in the form of Flame Blast, dealing ~15k damage and inflicting Burns.

This phase will begin with a Bloodrage, followed by a Divebomb phase identical to the one in Phase 1, except Nidhogg will only dive once and target 6 players with Horrid Roar (Marked). After the first Cauterize, he will immediately Touchdown and begin his final phase.

In this phase, Nidhogg's attacks inflict a Bitter Hate stack to it's target every 10 seconds. When a player is inflicted with 8 stacks, they will suffer lethal damage and die.

Nidhogg will immediately begin casting Akh Morn, which will begin at four hits. Every time Akh Morn is cast later in the fight, it will have an extra hit added until it reaches 7 hits. Have your whole party stack and prepare mitigation to easily get past this mechanic.

Bomb Phase 1:

Here's a dumb paint gif I made to somewhat easily explain this phase:

(Nidhogg won't actually stay in the middle like this, It just makes it easier to explain.)

Two sets of bombs will appear in two corners, and one set will later spawn in the middle of the arena. These bombs are similar to A5S bombs, as they explode in a cross pattern from where they spawn. You should already be stacked because of the previous Akh Morn. Stay stacked at the arrow of Nidhogg's hitbox until you see the Hot Wing cast. At the end, Horrid Roar (Ground) AoEs will appear under the party. The only real place you can move to safely dodge is under Nidhogg. Wait until the corner bombs explode, and then move into your designated corner, where you had previously gone in the Intermission during phase 3. That's it!

Get ready for a (Whisper + Bellow) x2, and prepare for another Akh Morn. I'd recommend tank swapping here, after the first Scarlet Whisper. Remember that each subsequent Akh Morn will add one extra hit to the attack. Soon after the Akh Morn, Nidhogg will begin his second bomb phase.

Bomb Phase 2:

Yay I made another little gif:

This bomb phase is a bit more complex than the first one, but still fairly simple once you figure it out. Begin by loosely stacking close to the middle, and look at where the second bomb set spawns. Run to the opposite corner of the second bomb set, as that's where the third bomb set will spawn. Stay in the far corner to bait the Horrid Roar (Ground) AoEs, and then move away to dodge them, far enough to not be in range of the Horrid Roars, but not far enough to be hit by the middle bomb set, which will be exploding shortly. When the middle set explodes, run to the middle to dodge the two corner bomb sets, and then run away from under Nidhogg to avoid Hot Tail.

*Note: Some groups don't bother dodging hot tail, and instead stay in the middle to mitigate the Hot Tail hit. This is perfectly acceptable, and a scholar using a Deployment Tactics Adloqium works wonders mitigating the damage.

Nidhogg will continue his rotation, throwing out some more Whispers and Bellows. He will alternate between Bomb Phase 1 and 2. Be prepared to see more Deafening Bellows, Scarlet Whispers, and Akh Morns after.

The fight will continue until Nidhogg's HP hits zero, or 11:00 passes, in which he will cast a 10 second Deafening Bellow that will instantly kill all party members.

This fight honestly isn't very difficult, and can be very easily recoverable, so don't let a few deaths get you down! I've had my fair share of Healer LB3 clears. You can usually get away with getting hit by one mechanic if you're shielded, and quickly topped off after. Good luck getting your Horde Weapons!

Loot

Weapons:

• Horde Blade & Horde Shield
• Horde Axe
• Horde Guillotine
• Horde Cane
• Horde Codex
• Horde Star Globe
• Horde Knuckles
• Horde Spear
• Horde Daggers
• Horde Rod
• Horde Grimoire
• Horde Bow
• Horde Handgonne

Items:

• Horde Totem: Guaranteed drop for all players. Turn in 10 of these for a Horde weapon of your choice.
• Nidhogg's Card: Uncommon drop. Used in Triple Triad.
• Nidhogg's Scale: Rare drop. Used to craft the Horde Barding and the Miniature Nidhogg.
• Faded Copy of Revenge of the Horde: Uncommon drop. Used to craft the Revenge of the Horde Orchestrion Roll.
• Dark Lanner Whistle: Rare drop. Used to summon the Dark Lanner mount.

If you have any comments, thoughts, questions, or concerns, please don't hesitate to leave a comment below.