Rift Expert Dungeon
Guide: Caduceus Rise

Expert
Caduceus
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Nestled deep in the jungles of Ember Isle, Caduceus Rise is home to a
sect of the Golden Maw that is bent on creating a new body for their
malevolent deity; Laethys, the Dragon of Greed.  This is the
first new dungeon since Rift
launched and it is full of color and sound, with a wide open non-linear
feel.


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Group Configuration:



Using the group-finder tool will always net you with a tank, healer, 2
DPS and a support class. If the healer is new to level 50 or in sub-par
gear, you may want to have the support assist in healing on a couple of
the encounters, but for the most part you would be better served with 3
DPS.    

Quests

style="text-shadow: none;">Lust of Fire and Gold

style="text-shadow: none;"> style="font-weight: bold;">Starts: Caduceus Rise
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From: Zone
In

Deafeat the 5 bosses of  Expert Caduceus Rise plus Caduceus

Bosses:

Coalgut

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Coalgut is the closest boss to the entrance as the crow flies in expert
mode CR, but he is up on a hilltop so groups typically do him first or
second to last depending on their whims. Coalgut is a movement based
encounter that uses two crystals to help defeat the encounter and make
it more manageable. Each crystal is inert to start the fight and will
remain so unless damaged down to zero health, at this point they will
do damage to the boss if he is in range of them when they die, they
will also slow the boss which can be an important element. Coalgut is
an angry fellow and his rage tends to cause him to become unstable and
explode - players have to run from this explosion or face certain doom.
Post-explosion Coalgut isn't a very fun guy to be around either as he
is enraged for around 30 seconds. In his enraged  form he will
one to two shot any tank. Groups will need to react to this by either
ignoring the crystal and burning him down before he enrages (or shortly
thereafter) or having a crystal ready to pop when he gets to that
point. If your DPS isn't strong enough to kill him outright, assign a
ranged DPS to bring a crystal to around 5% health, have the tank kite
him to the crystal and then finish it off as he becomes unstable. You
only have two crystals so it is a bit of DPS race, but most groups
won't need to use the second crystal.

High Thane Hergen

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Caduceus Rise is non-linear for the most part, so you can do any of the
first three bosses as you would like, but most groups will kill High
Thane Hergen second on expert mode as Coalgut is technically closer to
the entrance.
This overstuffed hunk of hate is a pretty straight forward fight that
only uses a couple of abilities. The most crucial aspect of the expert
encounter with the High Thane is that players see and react to his
ground based AoE. Failure to move out of this quickly will either cause
the players death or cause the tank to splat because healing is drawn
away for too long.  High Thane Hergen also likes to cleave the
tank and empowers it with three quick spell casts, you need
to interrupt
these when possible. 

Faultwalker Alraj




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Faultwalker Altaj is a bit more entertaining on expert than he was in
the normal mode encounter. In addition to casting a random purple
splotch of AoE damage on the ground, Faultwalker is now also surrounded
by red, green and blue circles. Standing in one color causes the stacks
of the other colors to increase on your character.Each of these debuffs
makes you less resistant to a particular form of damage from
him. Allowing one stack to get too high can be deadly if he
employs his Tainted Spirits target ability that will unleash damage of
one of the three colors. Be mindful of your stacks and continue to move
around the boss throughout the encounter to make life easier on the
healer.

Ashcaller Zael

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Ashcaller Zael is a alternating 2 phase encounter that can spell
disaster for a disorganized group. The first phase is a fairly
straightforward tank and spank with a moderate amount of spike damage,
but nothing a decent tank and healer combo should have an issue with.
The second phase is marked by Zael splitting off part of his mass into
several smaller versions of himself. These adds cannot be taunted,
don't move and will generally hit the closest person to them. Any add
that isn't killed by the end of phase 2 will be consumed back into Zael
and will heal him for a portion of his health. A well coordinated party
will focus fire each add down and rip through them in plenty of time to
prevent any healing. Repeat these two phases until the boss goes splat.

Hookmaster Palos

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Hookmaster Palos blocks the path to Caduceus and is typically killed
last. The major hurdle to overcome with Palos is his Blood Pact
ability that randomly targets one member of the group and transfers all
damage done to him to that player. Stopping DPS for the duration of the
pact is the easiest way to ensure that everyone stays alive. The only
tricky part about this is that there is no forewarning, and any
abilities enroute to him, such as Rapid Fire Shot, will hit the
effected player. Murphy’s Law states that this will usually happen in
conjunction with a cooldown ability, ensuring that one of your friends
will take a dirt nap. Hookmaster Palos also employs three other mildly
annoying abilities on expert; a hook ability that pulls a random player
to the boss - move out quickly as he does cleave, thrashing stomp that
does a bit of PBAoE  damage and sucker punch - a single target
 dazed effect that is usually cast on a melee target.
 None of  his minor abilities will wreck your day
quite like blood pact, so make sure to spam your escape key when it
goes off.




Caduceus


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The Final encounter is the zones namesake, Caduceus. As the players
approach our not-so-gracious host they find him deep in conversation
with members of the Golden Maw cult. The cultists are working on
convincing that your party is there to plunder and spoil his tranquil
jungle paradise. Sadly, he can’t be convinced otherwise and has to pay
for the mistake with his life. After the dialogue the cultists attack,
and you need to quickly dispatch them.
The tank will make initial aggro on Caduceus and should spin
him so that his back faces the group. The rest
of the party should then move in to stack on his
backside. After a few seconds
of combat you will see smoky trails moving randomly along the floor,
these do a small knockback and can interrupt casting, they can be
dodged – but the butt stack method seems to minimize exposure. Caduceus
will also hit all players with a cleansable fire-based DoT, keep it
cleansed to help with the next parts of the encounter. Caduceus has an
add phase on expert mode that consists of two types of adds. The first
are Erupted Embers, wispy looking orbs that hover about and molest
players with ranged attacks - ignore them as they will respawn if
killed. The second type of adds, and by far the most deadly, are the
Erupted Cores. Erupted Cores are little ore-lings that need to be
gathered up by the tank and then quickly AoE burned down, failure to
kill them all before Caduceus re-enters the fray will likely mean a one
shot to an unlucky party member.


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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