Heorot – The Age of Winter Boss Guide

Heorot is a multi-phase fight that tests players' anticipation, mobility and sustain. He has several high damage skills, minions, and CC that serve as both a gear and skill check.

In this guide, we cover the rewards, boss mechanics, and provide a strategy for defeating this boss.

For more information on the Timeline this boss is found in check out The Age of Winter Timeline Guide.

Rewards

All timeline bosses have a pool of exclusive Uniques that can drop. They also provide the player with a Blessing, which is a permanent buff to either power or farming/leveling efficiency. Just like Uniques, each boss has their own exclusive Blessing pool.

Uniques

Heorot can drop 4 different Uniques:

• Call of the Tundra has a 50% chance to drop. It is mutually exclusive to Reign of Winter, meaning you always get one or the other, but not both. It can drop from both normal and empowered versions. The drop rate is not affected by corruption.
• Reign of Winter has a 50% chance to drop. It is mutually exclusive to Call of the Tundra, meaning you always get one or the other, but not both. It can drop from both regular and Empowered versions. The drop rate is not affected by corruption.
• Yulia's Path is a rare drop. The drop rate is increased by higher Corruption. We recommend farming this on Empowered.
• Faith of the Frozen is a rare drop that can only be found in Empowered. Increases in Corruption improves the drop rate of this item.

See the Monolith Beginner Guide for more info on Corruption.

Blessings

The Blessings of this Timeline are themed around Physical, Cold, and Defense. Some generally useful choices are: Bulwark of the Tundra, Protection of Heorot, and Resolve of Grael.

Blessings

Normal

• Bones of Eternity
• Bulwark of the Tundra
• Defiance of Yulia
• Fury of the North
• Heart of Ice
• Maw of Artor
• Protection of Heorot
• Rage of Winter
• Resolve of Grael
• Vigor of Jormun
• Winds of Frost

Empowered

• Grand Bones of Eternity
• Grand Bulwark of the Tundra
• Grand Defiance of Yulia
• Grand Fury of the North
• Grand Heart of Ice
• Grand Maw of Artor
• Grand Protection of Heorot
• Grand Rage of Winter
• Grand Resolve of Grael
• Grand Vigor of Jormun
• Grand Winds of Frost

Boss Mechanics

Heorot fires a beam that deals low Cold Damage and Freezes. The damage increases over the duration of the beam.

This is a combo skill. Heorot starts by placing several pillars that do moderate Cold Damage. If his health is above 75% he also fires a Frozen Orb that deals moderate Cold Damage with a high hit rate that also fires shrapnel. The shrapnel can be avoided by standing behind one of the pillars.

Heorot quickly stabs in front of him, doing moderate Cold and Physical Damage.

Heorot fires a spear at the player that deals low Cold Damage. He only uses this ability if the player is out of Melee Range.

Heorot explodes the ground around him three times in quick succession. Each explosion is larger, deals more damage and is farther away from Heorot than the last.

Heorot charges away from the player. He moves more than a screen away if he doesn't hit a wall. While it deals no damage this skill can be deadly when combined with Blizzard.

Heorot summons a large swirling Blizzard around him that deals Cold Damage and Shreds Cold Resistance. The damage increases each second you're in it, becoming deadly quickly. While Blizzard is active only the space near Heorot is safe to stand in.

Heorot jumps back a short distance. Dangerous when combined with Blizzard.

Heorot entombs himself in ice, becoming invulnerable. He uses this skill twice throughout the fight: at 55% and 35% health. The first time he summons Grael and Spirit of Jormun, who must be killed to break Heorot's Ice Guard. The second time he summons Ice Wolves and will continue summoning them after Ice Guard is broken and until Heorot is killed.

Modifiers

When you go into a timeline boss fight, you carry any modifiers that are active from running echoes. Some of these modifiers can be especially dangerous, while some can actually bring value with little or no downside.

Avoid These Modifiers

• Critical Strike Avoidance - If you're a Crit based build and have sufficient Crit to be noticeable.
• Enemies have +X Critical Strike Chance - Avoid these if you don't have capped Critical Strike Avoidance.
• Enemies have a chance to Dodge - Any builds that rely on Hitting the enemy (including DoT builds that apply Ailments on Hit) should avoid this modifier (except for Rogues with Focus Fire).
• Enemies heal if they have not been damaged recently - Only take this if you're confident you'll never go 4 or more seconds without damaging the boss (after phase 1).
• Frenzy and Haste + Berserk - Individually these are manageable (although you may still want to avoid them if you can). Together they can make a boss very difficult to deal with as they significantly speed up the mechanics of the fight. Don't take these unless you're comfortable with the mechanics and confident that the additional speed of the fight won't be a problem.
• Increased Elemental Damage - This scales almost all of the damage in the fight and scales higher than other damage modifiers. The damage can get out of control quickly, especially at higher Corruption.

Take These Modifiers

• Anything that affects Rare enemies - Bosses are not considered Rare enemies, so those modifiers do not apply to the encounter. However, the rewards do. This is an easy way to boost the value of a fight for any build without increasing difficulty.
• Enemies have +X Critical Strike Chance when Crit capped - If you're Crit capped, then this modifier provides no extra difficulty.
• Critical Strike Avoidance on a DoT build - DoTs can't Crit, so this won't matter.
• Enemies have a X% chance to receive a Glancing Blow when hit on a DoT build - Similar to Crits, Glancing Blows only apply to Hits.
• Enemies have a chance to Dodge on a build that uses a DoT skill - Ailments generally need to Hit to be applied, so don't take this if you're relying on Hits to stack your DoTs. However, some skills have the DoT tag, meaning they don't Hit. DoTs can't be Dodged, so your damage is unaffected.

Boss Strategy

Heorot is technically a single phase fight. He has two short periods of immunity with add spawns, but there are no arena changes and his overall skill set remains largely the same. Damage is mostly Cold with some Physical so make sure to cap both Resistances. Heorot has two attack combos (Frosted Eruption with Frozen Orb and Charge with Blizzard) that are the cause of most of the deaths in this fight. Here are some general strategies:

• For the first quarter of the fight be ready to hide behind the pillars created by Frosted Eruption. The pillars block the shrapnel from Frozen Orb, which Heorot casts immediately after creating the pillars. Once he reaches 75% HP he no longer uses Frozen Orb.
• AT 75% HP Heorot casts Blizzard. For the rest of the fight there is an aura around Heorot that forces players to stand within close proximity of him or take very high Cold Damage and Cold Shred. This is usually not a problem, but Heorot can also use Charge which can quickly send him more than a screen away placing players inside the Blizzard. There are two strategies to deal with this: 1) have a movement ability ready, or 2) try to position Heorot so that he charges into a nearby wall. Strategy 1 is more reliable but 2 prevents any damage from being taken without requiring you to react quickly. Ultimately the best strategy is to try for 2 while being prepared to use your movement ability if it fails.
• Heorot has two invulnerability phases: the first at 55% HP and the second at 35%. For the first he only spawns two adds that need to be killed in order to break Heorot out of his Ice Guard. During the second he spawns a series of wolves. You need to kill several waves of wolves to break him out, but even after Heorot reengages the wolves will continue to spawn until the end of the fight. They aren't a considerable amount of damage for builds with adequate defenses but they are another thing to account for.

This fight largely comes down to avoiding two mechanics. By using the pillars from Frosted Eruption to avoid Frozen Orb shards in the first quarter of the fight and staying out of Blizzard during the last 3 quarters the rest of the fight will be more than manageable.

Video

Coming soon!

Summary

• The Blessings for this are Physical, Cold, and Defense.
• Heorot is technically a single phase fight. He has two short periods of immunity with add spawns, but there are no arena changes and his overall skill set remains largely the same.
• Use pillars from Frosted Eruption to avoid shrapnel from Frozen Orb.
• Once Heorot casts Blizzard be prepared to use a movement ability or position him to Charge into a wall.

Credits

Written by McFluffin.
Reviewed by Facefoot, Lizard_IRL, Raxxanterax.