When I first started typing this guide, I was maybe 10 attempts in with no success. Partway through, I was brought in as a lane commander for the LoD/Att/NA attempt that ultimately succeeded in the world first. Even with a full organized guild map, this event was hard. There is no easy, exploitable pub strategy like the circle strat of Dragon’s Stand, and you don’t have the time buffer and general slack window of Tarir. You have 15 minutes or so to kill 4 legendaries - one in each lane - in 3 burn phases, with up to 3 checks for failure (12, counting all lanes) along the way. It is a hard test of DPS and general competence
Modeling after the successful Auric Basin guide by Andazeus.1928, this guide will be laid out in several parts:
- Map Layout
- Requirements & Recommendations
- Preparation Phase
- Event Phase
- Global
- Ogre Lane
- Hylek (“Nuhoch”) Lane
- Asura (“Rata” or “Novus”) Lane
- Charr (“SCAR”) Lane
- Boss
- Rewards
Map Layout
Tangled Depths is, as its name implies, a tangled hellhole filled to the brim with mordrem and chak. There are many levels to it, including a few open-air surface sections and a deep underground reservoir of water, but the main focus is the underground portion of the map. At the centre of this, you can find the Ley-Line Confluence, which serves as a hub for most of the meta event. Branching north, northwest, west, and east from the Ley-Line Confluence are various lanes of ley energy, full of the chak that are drawn to such things. SCAR is east; Rata Novus is north; Nuhoch is northwest; Ogre is west. Along the lanes, there are openings to 4 outposts with their own waypoints and event chains.
Requirements & Recommendations
There are no requirements for this fight, but because it is hard as heck, the more of the following you have, the better your chance of success:
- Ley-Line Confluence waypoint unlocked; as well as waypoints for the 4 lane outposts
- Nuhoch Mastery 2, to use the wallows at those outposts to speed runback after death
- Full DPS gear, traits, and consumables
- One commander tag for each lane
- 10 people per lane minimum to not fail objectives; ideally 15-20 to kill boss in time
- Ice Bows slotted on all Elementalists, to help break the boss’s CC bar
- Flesh Golems slotted on all Necromancers, to help break the boss’s CC bar
Preparation Phase
Each outpost has a chain of events to bring the outpost online and to maximum power. The further along these event chains are, the more defenses are available in the lane to assist in fighting the boss. You want all outpost chains to be finished before you start the event. Unlike Auric Basin, outposts will continue to spawn repeatable dynamic events - these do not have to be done, and will not impact the Meta Event.
Ideally, you want to be in the map 30 minutes before the event starts, because the prep phase is very slim. At the :20 minute mark, you get a 5 minute timer warning the chak gerent is coming. After that timer, another 5m timer begins. Whispers agents will meet at the Ley-Line Confluence, and then split up to the four lanes. If you’re late, that’s a whopping 5 minute window to get everything organized before pubs follow the NPCs like headless chickens.
Don’t be late.
Event Phase
WAYPOINT AND RUN BACK IMMEDIATELY IF YOU DIE. NO TIME CAN BE WASTED REZZING ANYONE.
With that out of the way…
Each of the four lanes has an objective they need to lure out the boss and damage it. If a lane fails its objective, all four lanes immediately fail, and the event concludes. Objectives are the #1 priority, and will be described in each section for the specific lanes.
When the objective phase finishes successfully, the boss emerges from underground and can be damaged. Once this damage phase ends, he burrows underground and moves up the lane, where the combatants will have to repeat their objective phase once again. There are three total burn phases before the boss reaches the cannons you are trying to defend; you must kill it in 3 burns. At the end of each phase, the area you were fighting in fills with poison, stacking a very damaging debuff on you, preventing you from returning to that area. Toxins mastery does not apply against this.
When an objective is finished successfully before the timer, a bonus objective bar appears, filled by doing the same thing as before. Filling this bar unlocks bonus support for the lane, which typically greatly helps on the boss fight. This bar can be filled multiple times. Stack this bar as high as it can go in Phase 1; future phases are much harder.
Now, on to the specific lanes…
Global - Chak Rush
Once during each objective phase, a wave of chak (normals, elites, and veterans) will spawn and rush down the lane to attack the cannons in the Ley-Line Confluence. 5 players per lane with heavy area damage and CC (cripple, chill) are recommended to combat this - Reapers are particularly adept at it.
With each successive phase, the chak rush will happen earlier. It occurs at 1:00 on the first phase, 0:30 on the second, and immediately on transition to the third.
Ogre - West
Objective: Smash chak eggs to lure out the boss.
Bonus: Smash more chak eggs to weaken the boss.
Details: One of the easier lanes, and the only one I haven’t seen in person. Split up among the clusters of eggs and smash them. Eggs will respawn over time, so do not abandon your post.
Hylek (Nuhoch) - Northwest
Objective: Stomp on mushroom nodules to lure out the boss.
Bonus: Stomp more nodules to gain chak allies against the boss.
Details: The hard lane. The one I commanded and am most familiar with. Spread out among the shroom tops and stomp on the nodules found there. Doing so will spawn sporelings and other mushrooms that will try to knock you to your death; blinds and stability help greatly here. Beware: Not only do they hurt and chain CC, but they will also explode on death.
It is highly recommended that you kill the shrooms that spawn on stomp as soon as you’re finished stomping; this seems to make the nodules themselves respawn faster, which will increase your chance of success.
Phase 2 and 3 are very difficult for the Hylek lane. Leave the boss 20 seconds early to get in position for the nodule spawns. Phase 2 has a small ‘cranny’ reached by a second bouncy shroom on the southern (right side, facing towards mid) side where several nodules spawn. Phase 3 has several nodules spawn on a lower ‘ledge’ of shrooms. Do not neglect these little detours; they’re essential to success.
Because of the time-intensive nature of the Hylek lane’s objective, it is highly recommended that its commander establish a 5-man “Chak Team” in the lane before the event begins. When the chak spawn (once per objective phase), this team and only this team will descend to deal with them, while everyone else focuses on stomping nodules.
Also note that the bonus objective for this lane will cause allied chak globbers to appear. They will stack the Goo debuff on the boss like any other player, and when this hits 10 stacks, it turns into a debuff that amplifies incoming damage by 150%. This makes Nuhoch one of the easier lanes for damage despite its technical difficulty.
Asura (Rata/Novus) - North
Objective: Smash open ley energy containers and use the contents to power the nearby golem and lure out the boss.
Bonus: Power the golem up further to unlock additional abilities and damage.
Details: Smash open nearby containers of ley energy (a sort of ‘stand’ with 3 pods attached to it, scattered along the lane) and deliver that energy to the golem. When carrying energy, you can use 1 to throw it at the golem and power it from a distance.
When in a boss phase, kite the boss towards your golem to help it stay on target and deal damage.
Charr (SCAR) - East
Objective: Defend the charr engineers as they man a megathumper to lure out the boss.
Bonus: Continue defense of the charr engineers to amplify the megathumper, pulsing a powerful daze effect that will help break the boss’s defiance bar.
The most straightforward of lanes; pure, 100% combat and defense. As far as I know, healing is not necessary for the NPCs provided you have enough people in the lane.
The SCAR lane bonus appears to be bugged, currently; while it shreds the boss’s defiance meter during its rock fall attack, it will not trigger the Exposed debuff for bonus damage, making it one of the harder lanes for straight DPS.
Boss
The boss is relatively straightforward compared to some of the objectives.
He has an evade and a charge attack that both move him a fair distance. Because of this, all DPS should be facing up the lane (that is, towards the Ley-Line Confluence) to bait him as close to their Phase 2/Phase 3 area as possible, to save time on the transition.
Periodically he will stop and thrash his tail against the ground (which will hurt if you’re behind him), causing small avalanches of rock to fall all over the place. Being hit by this is a heavy amount of damage and a lengthy stun, plus potential knockback; stunbreaks are highly advised, as is being on your feet in general. His breakbar is open during this attack, and he will continue channeling it until his bar is broken.
He will also spawn little pools of pheromones. These look like small, translucent bluish-purple whirlpools on the ground. They’ll kill you in seconds if you stand in them, and the pool will grow in size 3 or 4 times before fading away. These pools, combined with chained avalanche hits, are the main cause of death for pubs.
NOTE that the pheromone pool graphic sometimes bugs; people refer to it as a ‘jelly donut’, but sometimes it hugs more closer to the ground, almost like a mist, and can be very hard to see. If you have issues with seeing pheromones in general, or the bugged ones, I highly recommend you avoid any water puddles in your lane, as they can obscure the pheromones.
Rewards
Assuming all 4 chak gerents are dead, you win and the reward chest will spawn in the Ley-Line Confluence, near the waypoint. This chest has a chance to drop the chak egg items needed to purchase chak weapons at Nuhoch mastery vendors.
Completion of this event will also blow open an alternate entrance to Dragon’s Stand. While this functionally changes nothing on its own, the revealed area has the “Plains of Golghein” Strongbox for loot, an achievement, and mastery point. There are also four crystallized caches in the area; they do not seem to drop any more loot than normal when opened. A merchant is inside for convenience - he does not sell any new items and they are not any cheaper.
Revenants in particular want to finish this event, as it’s necessary for their Mistward Headwrap collection, which will give them the “Mistwarden” title on completion.
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