Dear Testers,

welcome to this year's test server for the summer 2025 update!

This thread deals with the three minibosses hidden behind magical paintings at various locations in Tibia. The Blight Mariner, Wrathful Archivist and Tropical Desolator. They are designed for one player at a time, use all resources at your disposal wisely to defeat them in time.

You can use it to inform us about:

• Mechanical or map bugs that require a more detailed explanation
  
• Issues with the battle or certain actions that got you stuck
  
• Inconsistencies during the fight or on the map
  
• The difficulty of certain parts or puzzles of the battles

It also helps us if you let us know when (e.g. before or after a specific change) and how you tested something so that we know which version you are referring to.

Please report obvious bugs via the bug report function ingame (press Ctrl+Z):

• Map bugs can be reported by right-clicking on a map field and selecting the entry "Report Coordinate" from the context menu.

All three bosses work differently, ranging from straight forward battles to puzzles.
Please keep in mind that you can use the voodoo wand to reset these bosses cooldowns.

During the battles, keep an eye out for obvious hints as to how to progress and see if you can figure out each mechanic on your own. Every miniboss represents a different difficulty level. And, as always, enjoy the fight!

Kind regards,
Lionet

Official Replies

25.06.:

Mushrooms, Rabbits and Levitation

27.06.:

Corpses, Paintings and Archivists

30.06.:

Banes and Archfoes, Bosses, Fixes and Changes

02.07.:

Bosses, Balances and Bridges to Deeplings

03.07.:

Additional Changes to Blight Mariner and Tropical Desolator

Amanarr: Thanks for your feedback! We are currently taking a closer look on the Blight Mariner, several issues including the remaining monsters after the battle as well as levitation to lower areas have been fixed. As for the battle itself, the Mariner might feel difficult at first but, as you already experienced yourself, it should be quite doable for the intended range.

Concerning the mechanics of Ghosts and Animals, that's a recurring problem. Faster and stronger players at higher levels might be able to speed up the fight quite a bit.

Zwitu: Thank you for the feedback! All necessary hints for the puzzles of the "Wrathful Archivist" can be found, seen or are telegraphed within the boss room. The food and the animals were chosen, to allow players to also use food that can be summoned. Rabbits eat various things besides carrots of course Thanks for your feedback concerning the tight intervals, we are still evaluating the timings and challenge of the battle and there may be adjustments based on the feedback we gather over the next few days.

Picture: Thanks for your feedback! The mushrooms will now be removed as soon as the Mariner is killed. It will also not be possible to levitate to the areas below the boss rooms anymore. These changes should be online with the next patch.

Kind regards,
Lionet

Nolan Grayson: The painting rooms have been fixed and as of the latest patch it should not be possible to enter their lower levels anymore.

Kind regards,
Lionet

Senhor Wands: That would fit the overall theme of "Between the Lines" indeed! However, for these bosses we wanted to emphasise the world behind actual paintings. As you can see on the map, the paintings themselves are painted in a natural style with perspective and differ from the illuminations of the previous tomes. The paintings themselves are magical and "alive", in the sense that the bosses behind them basically exist in their own limited dimension. The content within the frame basically comes to life and even spreads into the real world of Tibia, as you can see around the locations of the paintings. This contrast, in a nutshell, is why we opted for a familiar Tibia style for the paintings and the rooms behind.

Belerin: The painting of the Blight Mariner is located in the watch tower to the north-east of Venore. The one near the depot, right next to the swamp in the east and directly at the sea.

Nolan Grayson: The corpse of the Blight Mariner will now stay in the room after he has been killed and is lootable as expected. This fix should already be online after the most recent patch

Calus Elesar: Thank you for the feedback, this is one of several topics concerning the additional bosses we discussed during development. The current setup is what we opted for, however, I will forward this as we continue to monitor their balancing and challenge during the external test.

Dark Black Magician: Thanks for your feedback, there are still several things we are evaluating and adjusting concerning these bosses. The runes and their correct order during the battle with the Wrathful Archivist are displayed on the floor inside the painting. The idea behind the puzzles was that it's all based on creatures and riddles from certain books. The one with the runes is actually the designed as the easy one, followed by the ghost and then the animals.

I will take another look at the Blight Mariner, his mechanics should basically work as intended, even if high levels will have an easier time, it should be manageable for lower levels as well. We will check on that as well.

Concerning the Tropical Desolator, we have been working on some additional changes. Compared to the other two painting mini bosses, this one has indeed proven to fall rather quickly. To bring him more in line with the others, we have also implemented the following balancing adjustments:

Tropical Desolator:
+ Increased hit points (15,500 -> 20,500)

bound iks aucar, bound ape and bound cave spider:
+ removed loot
+ increased dps

While the battle with the Desolator was designed to be the easiest one of all the tree, it also lacked an additional mechanic to also provide tactical challenge, similar to the other two bosses. We have added a system to spawn certain dangerous objects, while the battle is ongoing. The Tropical Desolator will drop those in intervalls during the fight with various consequences such as damage to the player, being feared or even healing the Desolator. The items have been made prominently visible and a short countdown will telegraph incoming danger.

These changes should be available after one of the next patches!

Fern Ferun: The timing of the puzzles is deliberately tight, however, we are still having an eye on the balance and challenge of the Archivist. Any further adjustments will be posted in this thread. As mentioned above, the battle with the Tropical Desolator has been expanded, feel free to try another round to experience the changes which should be online with one of the next patches.

Kind regards,
Lionet

Zwitu and Ezudux: There have indeed been inconsistencies conderning the fruit spells, these have now been sorted out and it should work properly with one of the next patches. The painapple now will cause a different effect!

Draven Lockhart: Thanks for your feedback, there will indeed be several balancing changes with one of the next updates, see below for more details!

Dragon Death Knight: Indeed, the bosses are a separate challenge and can be difficult, especially at the first try. However, it is designed with a bit of steeper difficulty in mind (not exactly a "spike") and as already mentioned, there will be some additional balancing changes with the next update, see below!

Zampp and Ioo: The bosses will be changed to "Archfoes", see below for additional details!

David in Inabra: This should be rectified with the change of the mini bosses from "Bane" to "Archfoe"

Anakin Skywalkin: So for, we did not implement any mechanics like this but it's indeed an interesting case, I will keep this in mind.

Calus Elesar: Thank you for the feedback, that is something I will try to rectify, as of now this is still possible but I will see what can be done.

Dark Black Magician: The food puzzle was designed mit food conjuring and day-to-day objects in mind. That's why the animals should "find" and eat them instead of using the objects on them

@all: Based on your feedback, we have reclassified all three painting minibosses from Bane to Archfoe. Each of these bosses can now be challenged once every 20 hours, and they will now appear in the cooldown tracker.
As part of this change, we have also increased their loot accordingly.

In addition, we have made several adjustments to the Tropical Desolator boss fight:
Explosive fruits now appear more frequently.
The blamana's healing power has been significantly increased.
The effect of the painapple has been changed from Fear to Superdrunken.
The Tropical Desolator has received a regular healing spell. The probability for summons has also been raised.

As usual, these changes will go live with one of the next test server patches.

Kind regards,
Lionet

Zampp: I will forward the feedback but as of now the Leonard is intended as "Bane".

Char ly: Indeed, we are not currently re-balancing the Deepling bosses. However, we are monitoring boss throughout, including Jaul, Obujos and Tanjis, however, any changes of those would be out of the scope of this test server

Dark Black Magician: We are still taking a look at the Blight Mariner and its balance, if there will be any further changes, I will announce them in this thread.

Draven Lockhart: As already mentioned above, we are currently taking another look at the Blight Mariner as well as his minions. They should now behave as they were designed to, however, we will sort out any remaining inconsistencies if we find them!

Kind regards,
Lionet

@all:

Based on your feedback, we incorporated additional changes concerning the mini bosses:

Tropical Desolator:
The range of the "Blamana healing" explosion has been raised and all fruits should drop more equally now.

Blight Mariner:
The HP of drowned deck hands has been reduced from 2.400 to 2.000. Furthermore, the attack range of the mushrooms has been reduced. They should also not stack into each other anymore.

These changes should be available with one of the next patches.

Thank you once again for your feedback and enjoy the updated encounters with the painting bosses

Kind regards,
Lionet

@Draven Lockhart: The bananas spawn more often now as the initial rate was so low, that it basically made not a lot of difference to the actual fight. We will continue to monitor the Desolator's mechanics and their might be additional changes along the way, however, the final version will come with a range and healing similar to what you are currently experiencing on the test server.

@all:
Thank you for taking part in this summer's test server! We are very thankful for your feedback, commentary and ideas! As you know, it's not always possible to implement every idea and some things may work out during the test but wouldn't on the long run in the live system. However, we tried to include as much of your reports as possible. Remember that no feedback is in vain, we're still reading every bit of it!

We hope you had as much fun on the test server as we had creating this summer's content and enjoy the rampage later today!

Kind regards,
Lionet