Dear Testers,

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

This thread deals with the boss of the new area "Isle of Ada" the malicious former court warlock from Eldoran the Ambitious. You will fight his minions in several stages trying to avoid the increasingly dangerous environment and limited space you will be given to operate in later phases of the battle. Try to focus on fast disposal of his minions and don't let too many of them stay in the fight at once...!

- Michael the Stalwart: a tough guy to beat with a focus on raw strength and resilience, also the former owner of Michael's Torture Equipment & Souvenirs (opened daily, visitors keep north after entering the fortress gate, accepting gold, silver and carts... full of crystal)
- Adlerauge: a sharp-shooting master of the bow who will not only target those in his vicinity but also eye players all across the Adaean outskirts as long as he's alive
- Clavius: specialised on traps and holed up in the old ballroom of the castle, he will try catching you when you least expect it so watch your step
- Observer Osverger: the old overseer of the bastion guard is still roaming the area, don't end up a bullet point on his scheduled routine

As usual, the boss will have a 20-hour cooldown. On the test server, cooldowns can be reset. This time maybe in completely new ways (which might even be available on live servers, too)! Feel free to experiment with different setups and strategies.

You can use this thread to inform us about:
- Boss fight mechanics
- Difficulty and pacing
- Rewards and loot logic

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.

Please keep in mind that you can use the voodoo wand to reset these bosses cooldowns.

During the battle, keep an eye out for changes in the environment, the warlock turns large parts of the battlefield into dangerous fields that will hurt you if stepped upon. As always, have fun experimenting and enjoy the fight!

Kind regards,
Lionet

Official Replies

November 6th:
Warlock Woes

November 7th:
The Floor is Lava

November 10th:
Additional Floor Repairs, Deflections and Minions

November 11th:
Unpredictable Osverger and frozen minions

November 14th:
Loot Changes

November 17th:
Minion Pirouettes and Warlock Marionettes

@Aka Vel Szatek and Meex:
Congrats on beating the warlock, not one to be trifled with to say the least! We are taking a look at the teleports while the battlefield changes. I am currently working on addressing the situation. I will post any changes we make to the battle in this very thread. If everything goes well, there should be some news very soon.

Kind regards,
Lionet

Zaade: We are taking a very close look on the boss right now and we are talking about adjustments and changes. It is intended to be a challenge for a full group but the overall difficulty is still subject to change. We will gather some more feedback before making a definitive decision. As soon as we do, however, we will communicate the necessary details via this thread.

Vda Pedro Assombrando: I watched that stream and didn't see a Raubritter sitting there, talking to me. Since you had an excellent monk going... is there another cosplay to expect? In any case, thank you for your feedback on the disappearance of the warlock. We think we have found the cause for the empty room, and I have already submitted a fix before the weekend. It should be online with the upcoming patch today. This should fix the empty room as well as any situation were players are being teleported into damaging fields at the start or during changes of the floors. This is the part where we count on the players during the external test since bugs like this will only occur under specific circumstances on an actual game world. If you still encounter any of the mentioned bugs, report it and also use the thread right here so we can offer and test a fix as quickly as possible

Guizzz: Thanks for your feedback and the screenshots! We are currently looking into this one as well, so far it could not be reproduced but there are still some things we need to try. As soon as we find the cause for this behaviour, we will start working on a possible fix.

Kind regards,
Lionet

Vda Pedro Assombrando, Bachateiro: There is indeed still the possibility of taking damage as soon as the teleport happens. I have added a mechanism to prevent any early damage after teleporting which should already be online as I write. It would be interesting to see if this is still happening after the most recent patch.

Bright Daniel: Thanks for the suggestion, as far as I know there is nothing like that planned just yet but we're always open for feedback!

Picture: Thanks for your feedback, this should be addressed via one of the upcoming patches!

Efemeich and Efemeich: Thank you for the feedback! Damage output, loot and overall balance is still fine-tuned of course, the floor should not be harmful any more as already mentioned above. The fix for the damage/delay should be online as of now. We are also working on the minions of the warlock. Specifically their difficulty/challenge and number, so that part of the battle is not completely final yet and my change the perceived/actual perception of the fight.

Tigrokey: While the loot is not yet final, it's almost there as far as I'm informed. In any case, thank you for your feedback, we are still having a look at this.

Nieznosny Szkodnick: The damage of the floor is not based on the floor type, I revised this idea quite early in development and decided to opt for one kind of damage that is dealt in all possible cases. Relative and percentage based. Most issues are fixed now, including the unjust damage when being teleported by the warlock. Some things are still being adjusted so stay tuned

Kind regards,
Lionet

Sabarath: Thanks for the feedback, we'll take another look at Osverger, especially its spawn!

Guizzz and Vda Pedro Assombrando: There have been a few additions to the boss: the minions will charge up if their number grows, as soon as two or more minions of the same element are on stage, their power will grow (limited to 4). The number of possible minions at the same time has been reduced. Them getting stuck on the ice is quite an interesting find and we will have to look into it, thanks for the report!

Kind regards,
Lionet

Dark Black Magician: After additional tweaks and tests I am happy to say that we implemented several changes to the loot of the Warlock. We also included additional thematic items to his loot range. This change should be available on the test server with the next update!

Kind regards,
Lionet

Mathias Bynens: Osverger is indeed intended to appear not very often but we'll take another look at it.

Akuma Nikaido: Teleporting is based on static/set intervals but can indeed be unpredictable under certain (rare) circumstances. The majority of the battle should be telegraphed just fine and be predictable enough to find and apply suitable tactics for players. The initial spawn of the minions (right after one got killed when there were less than 10 in the room) was indeed not random in the past but has been adjusted with one of the previous patches before the weekend. So right now it will be completely random, which minion spawns next.

Phantos: Thank you for the feedback! We could not reproduce it completely but there were a few reports of no minion spawning at all when the battle starts. I have implemented a few fail safe fallbacks but those have been included before the weekend. So if you tested this during the last two days, it would mean the potential problem has not yet been fixed. We are looking into it once again. Also thanks for your suggestions, we are evaluating the balance until the last possible second and there have also been changes not yet online that will be available with the release version.

Herox and Dark Black Magician: That correct, the marionette has a special power that can reset the cooldown just once. This will also be available on live servers after release!

Kind regards,
Lionet

Herox: The marionette will reset the cooldown for the Warlock on the Isle of Ada, other bosses are not effected by its magic that is tied to him specifically Furthermore, if you find another one you can use it just as well and reset the cooldown again. Every marionette has one use and will disappear afterwards.

@all: This concludes this year's test server regarding the warlock boss for "The Order of the Stag". My thanks to everyone participating, testing everything out and sending us valuable feedback on all fronts! A lot has been fixed and we could implement a variety of changes based on your feedback. Not everything can be done during one external test of course and we will keep your feedback in mind for the final release! I hope you enjoyed the testing phase and we'll see you after the release, checking out all the new content at your own pace

Kind regards,
Lionet