The Rift in E7 presents a series of challenging bosses that require strategic planning and execution. This guide provides a comprehensive breakdown of each boss’s mechanics, safety advice, and optimum strategies to help you conquer the E7 Rift.
Boss 1
Mechanics
This boss employs a potent Area of Effect (AOE) stun around itself, telegraphed by a visible red circle, allowing for easy avoidance. Throughout the encounter, it spawns adds encased in cages on both sides of the room. These adds heal the boss. Upon reaching 50% health, the boss summons immortal orbs that emit an AOE effect, converting all healing received by players into damage. Prolonged fights may trigger a mechanic where the boss drops threat on tanks and targets other players.
Safety Advice
Maintain distance from both the boss and the orbs to avoid unnecessary damage and stuns. Healers must exercise caution when healing players near the orbs due to the healing-to-damage conversion. Utilizing two tanks is advisable to manage threat drops, but if unavailable, non-tank players should avoid panicking and running into orbs, enabling healers to sustain them until the tank regains aggro.
Optimum Strategy
Initiate the fight by focusing fire on the healer adds to minimize boss healing. Once the boss reaches 50% health, shift focus away from adds. The tank should then maneuver the boss close to an orb, while remaining just outside its AOE range. This precise positioning, although challenging, is the most efficient method to defeat the boss by leveraging the orb’s healing conversion mechanic against itself.
Boss 2
Mechanics
This boss’s primary mechanics involve deploying bombs that detonate into persistent green pools of fire and summoning various adds. The boss has a dynamic buff that triggers when the add count becomes too low (below 3) or too high (above 6), increasing its damage output. Additionally, the boss exhibits unpredictable threat generation, occasionally selecting targets randomly, disregarding typical threat rules.
Safety Advice
Immediately move away from green fire pools to avoid continuous damage. Prioritize add control to mitigate the risk associated with excessive add numbers and the boss’s damage buff.
Optimum Strategy
The paramount strategy for this boss is rapid elimination. Focus damage on the boss to defeat it as quickly as possible. Add control should be limited to situations where adds are overwhelming individual players, as prolonged add management can extend the fight and increase risk.
Boss 3
Mechanics
This boss features unavoidable AOE attacks and summonable tornados that players can evade. One unavoidable AOE applies a debuff, decreasing magic resistance but paradoxically increasing attack power. Bubbles appear as an AOE element that can remove this debuff when players come into contact with them.
Safety Advice
Dodge the tornados to prevent damage. Utilize the bubble AOE to cleanse the magic resistance debuff for increased survivability.
Optimum Strategy
Counterintuitively, the optimum strategy is to avoid the bubbles and maintain the debuff. The increased attack power outweighs the reduced magic resistance for most team compositions, leading to faster boss takedown times. Focus on maximizing damage output while navigating tornados.
Boss 4
Mechanics
This boss summons Thrasher adds that inflict AOE pound attacks. Accumulating five stacks of damage from these pounds results in a long-duration stun. At 75% and 25% health thresholds, the boss becomes inactive and immune to damage, spawning two Craggies. These Craggies must be defeated to reactivate the boss. Craggies possess a powerful blasting effect and a protective ability that converts damage into healing. Falling rock AOEs during Craggie phases can also stun players.
Safety Advice
Evade Thrasher AOE pounds to prevent stun accumulation. If stunned, you become vulnerable to further hits. During Craggie phases, avoid falling rocks. Liberty Dram can offer minor assistance against stuns. Be mindful of the number of players attacking a Craggie at close range, as increased damage input amplifies the Craggie’s blasting damage. Take breaks from attacking and avoid close-range combat when possible during Craggie phases.
Optimum Strategy
While the boss is active, concentrate all damage on it. The longer the boss remains active, the more adds it will spawn, complicating the encounter. During the boss’s inactive phases, focus on eliminating the Craggies swiftly. While clearing adds during boss downtime is possible, it is generally less efficient. When attacking Craggies, consider damage-over-time effects and the timing of their defensive mode to avoid healing them unnecessarily. If multiple Craggies are active, switch targets to maximize damage uptime and minimize wasted DPS during their defensive phases.
Boss 5
Mechanics
This encounter features four NPCs on one side of the arena and spawning adds on the opposite side. If adds reach and kill the NPCs, all players receive a -20% combat speed debuff. Killing adds applies “Chilled Blood,” reducing maximum HP by 10% for all players. Periodically, a player will glow blue, followed by an ice bomb explosion that crowd controls (CCs) all players nearby the glowing player.
Safety Advice
If you glow blue, immediately move away from other players, especially healers and tanks, to minimize collateral CC. Healers should prioritize removing “Chilled Blood” debuffs, particularly from tanks, to maintain their survivability.
Optimum Strategy
Each surviving NPC effectively prevents a 20% DPS reduction, making NPC protection valuable. Committing up to 80% of total DPS (4 NPCs x 20%) to protect them can be justified. However, if NPC deaths become inevitable, it is more efficient to shift focus entirely to the boss and accept the combat speed debuff. A rule of thumb: if one NPC dies, abandon protecting the rest and focus on boss DPS. If healing for “Chilled Blood” is unavailable, avoid killing adds altogether. A slower victory without add kills is preferable to a wipe caused by stacking “Chilled Blood” debuffs.
Boss 6
Mechanics
This boss leaves trails of green filth on the ground that heal it and damage players standing in it. Adds around the room fire linear projectile attacks at players. At 75% and 25% health, the boss becomes stationary, summoning wandering acid clouds and Skitter mobs. Skitter mobs explode upon death, dealing 50% of maximum HP damage to all players.
Safety Advice
Avoid standing in the green floor filth to prevent boss healing and player damage. Dodge linear projectiles from adds. During acid cloud and Skitter phases, avoid proximity to the boss and the lingering acid clouds. Do not kill Skitter mobs; refrain from using AOE or multi-target abilities during this phase.
Optimum Strategy
The tank must immediately reposition the boss away from the green filth to prevent healing. Kite the boss around the room during filth phases to minimize its healing. During the 75% and 25% phases, focus solely on surviving the acid clouds and Skitter explosions by avoiding accidental Skitter deaths and managing player health.
Boss 7
Mechanics
This boss disables players and creates clones of them. Area of effect attacks are present throughout the fight. Upon reaching 20% health, all clones die, and an area effect covers the entire room. Five pads in the room cycle through a glowing sequence, repeating the pattern throughout the encounter (the sequence differs each time). Standing on glowing pads grants players a buff that bypasses enemy armor and resistances, and applies a debuff to enemies, increasing their damage taken.
Safety Advice
Evade area of effect attacks. Prioritize killing clones, especially tank and healer clones, as quickly as possible. At 20% boss health, ensure you are close to healers to manage incoming damage from the room-wide AOE.
Optimum Strategy
The tank should memorize the glowing pad sequence. Lead the boss to each glowing pad in sequence. All players must follow and position themselves on the glowing pads to benefit from the damage buff and apply the debuff to the boss, maximizing damage output during these phases.
Boss 8
Mechanics
This boss summons two large demons that shield it at 85%, 50%, and 25% health. These demons must be defeated each time to continue the fight. At 50% health, these demons deploy fire area effects under players. At 25% health, the two demons become linked; if their health difference exceeds 15%, they fully heal each other. Fell Hounds spawn and apply a debuff that reduces crit rate by 65% for 15 seconds, but deal no direct damage.
Safety Advice
After the 50% phase, avoid standing in fire AOEs. Be aware of fire areas placed under other players as well.
Optimum Strategy
The majority of the fight is straightforward; avoid Fell Hounds. After defeating the demons at 50%, the tank should reposition the boss approximately halfway to a door (excessive closeness can bug the boss due to Fell Hounds trapping in walls). This positioning optimizes space for the final phase. At 25%, precise demon health management is crucial. Avoid burst damage that might cause significant health disparities. Continuously check both demons’ health bars. If one demon’s health is lower, focus damage on the healthier demon until its health is approximately 1% lower than the other, then switch back and forth as needed to maintain health balance and prevent full heals. Rely on visual checks rather than solely on callouts due to potential lag and subjective perception.
Boss 9
Mechanics
This boss fight features numerous mini-stuns from area effects and add attacks. Adds spawn in blue and red colors. The boss randomly applies red or blue debuffs to players. Players with a red debuff must kill blue adds, and vice versa. Attacking adds of the same color as your debuff will fully heal them. Successfully killing adds applies a damage increased debuff on the boss.
Safety Advice
Liberty Dram can be helpful for mitigating stuns, but is not essential for this encounter.
Optimum Strategy
If you have a debuff, prioritize killing adds of the opposite color. After clearing adds, focus damage on the boss to capitalize on the damage increase debuff. Avoid attacking adds if you have both red and blue debuffs simultaneously, as there is a 50/50 chance of fully healing them, making it inefficient.
Boss 10
Mechanics
The boss starts with a buff of 20 charges that reduces incoming damage by 25%. This buff is intended to be removed by killing spirits near the boss, but this mechanic appears to be bugged and may not always function reliably. In another phase, the boss summons two types of plants: Mana Sappers and Cursed Sappers. If a Mana Sapper is left alive, it buffs the boss with damage reflection and heals it for 2% of its health. If a Cursed Sapper is killed, all players’ mana costs increase by 20% for a short duration, and the boss also heals for 2%. The boss teleports around the room.
Safety Advice
Prioritize eliminating Mana Sappers to prevent damage reflection. Otherwise, maintain distance from the boss and spirits to avoid unnecessary damage.
Optimum Strategy
The crucial aspect of this fight is managing the Sappers. Focus fire on Mana Sappers to prevent the damage reflection buff. Avoid using AOE or multi-target attacks during Sapper phases to prevent accidental Cursed Sapper deaths, which trigger mana cost increases. During spirit phases, attempt to damage spirits between boss actions, even if the debuff removal is inconsistent. The potential benefit of removing the damage reduction buff is significant enough to warrant attempting to kill spirits when they spawn.
