The second zone following the Illuminati starting area of Kingsmouth is The Savage Coast. Nestled in the once bucolic New England countryside you’ll find the Overlook Hotel. But this isn’t the sort of hotel where you’d like to spend your honeymoon; this hotel contains a portal to Hell. (And no, that’s not just a metaphor for marriage.)

Just inside the zone-in from Kingsmouth you’ll come across the Overlook. Step up to the front desk and pick up your mission. (The purple colored quests are always for dungeons.) You’ll be directed to room #13. (It’s the one with the strange orange glow emanating from the slats between the boarded up windows.) Make sure you’re running with a full group in at least quality level 5 (QL5) gear--Hell will hurt even more than usual if you’re not thus prepared.

Entering Hell

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As you enter Hell, you’ll encounter some of the few trash mobs found in The Secret World’s dungeons, the Rakshasha Cur. They’ll be fairly easy to dispatch. Dungeons in TSW are less about slogging your way through weaker mobs to get to the good stuff and more about, well...the good stuff: complex boss fights with challenging mechanics.

Moving on, you’ll encounter some rocky spires. (And, of course, everything’s glowing like a burning ember. This is Hell, after all.) The spires present a challenge for the unaware--they glow purple at the base and send out a wicked AoE that you and your party are going to want to do your best to avoid. The trick is to run through quickly. You’ll take damage and anger some mobs along the way, but don’t stop to fight them within the spires--pull them through and fight the mini boss and his friends out of the reach of the spire’s damage area. (In case you hadn’t already guessed, that purple glow on the ground and the electricity filling the air are both bad things.)

Antimony Ministrix

After clearing the mini boss and his friends you’ll encounter the Antimony Ministrix. As you size up the fight from a distance, you’ll notice that there are more spires, with more AoE effects. This means that you’re not only going to have to fight a rather challenging boss, but you’re also going to have to remain alert so that you can pull her around and move out of the damage area of the spires as they go off.

As with most boss fights, unless you have a tank build you’ll want to stay behind the big baddie to avoid her ire. Check out our narrated video footage for more on boss fight mechanics.

[video]http://video.tentonhammer.com/secretworld/TSW_HellRisingDungeonRun.flv[/video]

The Corroder

The Corroder is big and nasty. He also has the unfair advantage of living in a room full of randomly burning platforms. As you’re fighting him, you’ll need to jump from platform to platform as they flare up (there’s an effect before each flare up that gives you a visual cue that it’s time to move), pulling the Corroder with you.

TSW - The Corroder

The Corroder will keep you hopping...from one burning platform to the next.

To add to the fun, there’s also lava on the floor. Yep, you heard me--the floor is lava! It’s like your childhood games suddenly made reality. It should go without saying that you’ll want to do your best to avoid that lava, just as you did the pretend lava of your youth.

The key to winning many boss fights in The Secret World, as our team discovered, is damage, damage, and more damage. The faster you can DPS, the better off you’ll be. If you fight the Corroder too long, you’ll begin to run out of safe places to battle him as more and more of the platforms progressively flare up. Killing him as quickly as possible is the key.

Hardwired Fleshtank

Our next boss encounter (after defeating another mini boss and his friends) is the Hardwired Fleshtank. Once again, you’ll need to watch out for the turrets and their affects. The hallway in which you fight this boss will randomly pop effects, and it’s your job to watch for them and get out of their way, all while DPSing the boss.

Again, speed is of the essence. Should you glance over your shoulder, you’ll notice that there are flames quickly approaching from behind. Your job is to take out the Fleshtank before you’re completely enveloped.

Recursia - Many-in-One

This succubus is a real bitch. (Nope, that’s not a marriage metaphor, either.) Again, speed is crucial, because Recursia will summon minions to really mess up your day, and she’ll summon them faster and faster if you don’t take her down.

TSW - Recursia

Recursia calling her minions.

There are two major elements to this fight. First, you’ll need to stay close to Recursia, within the yellow circle you’ll see on the floor, lest you take damage. And while you’re fighting, DPS the hell out of her. (See what I did there?)

The second element is the adds Recursia summons. She’ll stop and call to her minions, and you’ll see them spawn around the perimeters of the room. During that time, you can’t damage her, so that’s your cue to rush the minions and take them down quickly. Our group moved around the room taking them out one at a time during our first encounter, but we quickly figured out that we needed to split up to work both sides of the room and clear them faster. When the summoned minions get to the center of the room they’ll lay a hurting on your group, and you may just want to avoid that.

Machine Tyrant

The final boss is vicious, and the mechanics are tricky. He’ll shield himself, and you’ll need to pull him into a ground effect area to remove the shield. He’ll also start calling down effects and you’ll be bombarded by flaming meteors. As with other fights in the Hell Rising dungeon, the damaging effects will escalate is the fight goes longer. So yep, you guessed it, the group that can DPS the fastest stands the greatest chance of success.

TSW - Machine Tyrant

If you don't DPS fast, the Machine Tyrant will put you through hell.

This is a fairly straightforward race to DPS the boss down before your situation gets more tricky than your group can manage. And there’s a lot of moving around with this fight, so ranged abilities are incredibly useful, too.

Parting Thoughts

Once again, The Secret World proved to us that dungeons can be deadly. Fortunately, if you pay attention and observe the mechanics of some of the trash mob fights, you’ll learn how to handle the larger, longer fights. Funcom has done a decent job of making sure that savvy groups learn the potential for the mechanics of various fights before they encounter them head on.

With QL5 gear, and the number of AP and SP that comes with having reached this point in the game, this dungeon is going to be quite a challenge. Expect to die in TSW dungeons. And probably often. But with our pointers you’ll be better prepared and ready to face the dangers that wait in Hell.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our The Secret World Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Karen is H.D.i.C. (Head Druid in Charge) at EQHammer. She likes chocolate chip pancakes, warm hugs, gaming so late that it's early, and rooting things and covering them with bees. Don't read her Ten Ton Hammer column every Tuesday. Or the EQHammer one every Thursday, either.

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