A Guide to Fighting Linaliil

[posetcay]

Warning: This post includes stuff that could be considered spoilers.

For those who dont have time for the pleasentries:

• 1-)Have a lot of Fire/Physical/Cold res, some Arcane/Lightning res
  2-)Have dispersion gloves, use them on cooldown
  3-)Have some considerable Resist Pen
  4-)Stairscum
  5-)Use regen and shield to keep up with sustained damage, have a heroism rune as a panic button
  6-)Hit her until she dies 5 times while she gets stronger with each death

I wanted to write a guide about this, because I see a lot of people on chat that are struggling with the "real" final boss, Linaliil, the Supreme Archmage of Angolwen. Most of them see her as a means of suicide rather than hoping to actually triumph. This post aims to give a few tactics that are crucial to understanding and beating the fight. It also involves some cheesing but arguably most of them are mandatory to survive. The tactics are listed by order of importance. Also this guide assumes you have beaten the game before attempting the fight, so stuff like Stun Resistance wont be covered. Please note that this fight is a marathon, not a 100m race. No class in the game can burst down Linaliil in a few turns, so you have to focus on surviving first and killing later. Lets start:

Step 1: Dont get one shot
This is the most important part of the fight, since Linaliil can easily burst down those who are unprepared. It may even look unfair at times. But you can avoid getting one shot by getting some hefty Fire/Cold/Physical Resistance. These three are the most important resistances to have, since they make up the bulk of the damage thanks to Meteoric Crash with 0 cd and Freeze. Getting a solid Arcane/Lightning Resistance is recommended but optional.

A Heroism Infusion might come handy to save your skin when things go bad. Shield/Regen Infusions should be used on cooldown to keep up with sustained damage. Suprisingly, Linaliil can inflict basically zero status effects (assuming you have %100 Stun Resistance from Pearl of Life and Death) so the only use for Infusion: Wilds are for the damage reduction. I have no strict recommendation for Inscriptions, just go with what you are comfortable.

Step 2: DISPERSION GLOVES (or/and Spellhunt Remnants)
Thats right, this stuff is so important I felt the need to write it in caps. You can basically give up if you dont have any means to turn off sustains. Dispersion Gloves should be a part of your rotation and be used on cooldown. This is because it 1) Makes Linaliil a lot less dangerous by getting rid of powerful sustains like Essence of Speed. 2) Linaliil will %99 reactivate a sustain over doing anything else, giving you a few free turns effectively. This will be a very good oppurtunity to pull yourself together in case you need it (which you probably would). 3)Disperse Magic ignores all saves/resist, making it foulproof.
Special Mentions:
Dual wielders should equip Spelldrinker for dispersion on hit, which is pretty much the strongest on hit effect in this fight.
Archmages should grab Spell: Meta category for even more dispersion, leading to a much smoother fight.

Step 3: Have a sh*tton of Resistance Penetration
This one doesnt need much explaning, Linaliil has some crazy resistances to all (going as high as %120 I think?). A minimum of %50 Resistance Penetration is recommended but you cant really go wrong with too much Resistance Penetration. Ideally you should have %100 but its not crucial as long as you can dish out a meaningful amount of damage.

Step 4: Stairscumming (optional)
This might a little tricky to pull at first, but it makes the fight much more safer. Actually it makes it so safe that it takes away most of the thrill of the fight. Use at your own risk. If you decide to do it though, Linaliil has a very useful ability (for something you are trying to stairscum) of instantly teleporting next to you if you are not in her line of sight. Use this to bring her next to the stairs and save Relentless Pursuit to remove your debuffs before going back to the world map to catch your breath. You can use talents like Abduct or Mindhook to position her or use Stone Wall and wait for her to come close, you get the idea. Beware while stairscumming because this will cause her talents to get reset.

Step 5: Hit her until she dies (5 times)
Whats this? You followed the guide until know and finally reduced her HP to %0 only to see her resurrect herself? What a scummer! Not only do you need to kill her 5 times to really kill her, she also gains %30 HP and damage every death, stacking. This is where stairscumming really shines, or not depending on your choices.

Congratulations! You have killed the most powerful NPC in the game and impressed even darkgod! Hope this guide helped all those struggled, and dont forget, if you fail the first time, try again! You are welcome to let me know in the comments if I made a typo/said something wrong or if you have a suggestion. Have a nice day my fellow ToMErs! May your drops be plenty and your deaths be few.

PS:Fighting Linaliil on Insane+ is a pure matter of luck. If you get unlucky with the skills she can be simply unkillable. Check her talents before attempting the fight.

Bonus: How to access Linaliil if you went Antimagic
-You need to open the portal before going Antimagic for this tactic (or exploit?) to work-
You are going to need a mindstar with sand ego for this. (Wyrmics have Burrow talent as a baseline but seriously who goes AM as a wyrmic) Mindstar with sand ego will give you the Burrow talent. Go to Maze, use Burrow, exit to the worldmap and simply walk to Angolwen like its nothing. Even Linaliil wont see you coming.

Bonus 2: Link to my Linaliil Slayers
Insane Rougelike: http://te4.org/characters/176588/tome/5 ... 93497324a7
Insane Adventure: http://te4.org/characters/176588/tome/4 ... 495935b120

[grobblewobble]

The hardest part about killing her is my conscience. It keeps telling me that attacking an innocent who has been providing a safe haven for me and others who try to hide from the anti-magic lunatics and helping me against that crazy lightning guy is.. bad.

Sometimes I think about killing her for giggles, but then I look at her and I can't do it.

How do I deal with this?

[Tryble]

Just killed her in Insane, and I don't think she ever cast a single offensive spell at me. Turns out, there's a pretty simple way to completely lock her down...for some characters, at least. It abuses her behavior of always reactivating sustains.

With 5/5 Charm Mastery, 60% On-Hit slow from gear, and occasional procs of gloom-slow (I never got on-crit Cripple to land even once), Disperse Magic from gloves comes off cooldown about as fast as she can get her sustains up. She'll rarely gets a fourth up before you disperse her again.

You can 'front-load' dispersion by allowing her to build up sustains, then kill her before she finishes and starts casting. She'll start over from scratch post-revive, and your disperse will be fully cooled down, giving you a head-start on burning her refreshed health pool down. If you have spellhunts or any other kind of sustain purge then she's probably never going to get ahead. If she activates Essence of Speed or teleports, you'll probably have to deal with her finally getting ahead with sustains, but you can disable speed or pursue quick enough to try and curb that.

Don't know about Disperse, but Spellhunts can be used on her before attacking her to clear her sustains without aggro. She won't reactivate anything or respond at all until you launch your first attack.


I walked up to her and stood in one spot until she was dead (minus one teleport-chase). I never had to heal, block, or shield and actually swapped out resistance gear for crit mult stuff as she never found an opportunity to fight back.

[Velorien]

I suggest moving this to Spoilers. It's post-game content, and there are no circumstances under which somebody who doesn't want spoilers is going to read it.

[posetcay]

You are right about it being a spoiler, I will move it to Spoilers section or make a ticket about it. Sorry if I spoiled anyones fun.