Nex: Angel of Death (referred to as AOD or Hard-mode Nex) can be found in a hidden chamber in the Ancient Prison. The requirements to access "normal" mode Nex are the same in this encounter. An instance is required to fight Nex; this instance is free of charge and only lasts for one kill.
Drops include tier 92 dual-wielded magic weaponry, the wand of the praesul and the imperium core. There is also the praesul codex to unlock level 99 prayers, and chests that unlock cosmetic robes.
While the instance can hold up to 50 players, it will decrease the drop rate of the Wand of the praesul and Imperium core. Teams searching for these drops should battle Nex in a team of 7 or lower in order to obtain the normal drop rate for these items.
If you die while fighting Nex, your gravestone will appear outside in the lobby area in the Ancient Prison, so there is a risk of dying on the way to your grave and permanently losing your items if you do not use the Max Guild's boss teleport portal or equip the Shard of Zaros before entering the God Wars Dungeon. For this reason, you should either use a ring of death if the reclaim cost of your items are 692,260 coins., or pay Death if it is lower than that.
Roles[]
- Base tank 1(B1) - receives all of Nex's melee and magic attacks; helps with amalgamations and keeping enrage stacks to a minimum. The tank should be prepared to endure significant damage with Nex's magic autoattacks, enrage stacks, and defensive ability resets. B1 is typically the melee debuffer.
- The B1 should use the Statius's warhammer's special attack at the start of the fight, at 1,800,000 life points, and at 600,000 life points, and Quake each minute to increase every player's hit chance.
- Base tank 2 (B2) - In charge of provoking Nex off of B1 before the first phase is complete, holding aggression until the minions are completely dead. Also responsible for running to smoke pools, provoking if B3 is Iced. B2 is typically the chinner.
- Chinner - In 7-man teams, the B2 uses Mechanised chinchompas to kill the four mages after they have been lured to the centre of the arena.
- Base tank 3 (B3) - After the minions are dead, B3 provokes Nex and will hold her aggression for the remainder of the fight.
- Free Mage - Every minute, one magic DPS should cast the debuff spells Vulnerability, and, optionally, Enfeeble, to increase all damage dealt to Nex by 10% and decrease autoattack damage received from Nex by 10%, respectively, in addition to Claws of Guthix special attack. Debuff spells can miss and will need to be recast again until they successfully land.
- DPS/Minion tanks/Entangler - 4 magic DPS should be in their own quadrant, each assigned their own minion to tank. It is highly recommended that DPS bring Nature runes for Entangle to bind blood reavers as soon as they spawn, preventing them from entering Nex without wasting damage on them.
Gear[]
Ideally, all DPS players should be in augmented power armour.
Like Vorago, melee can be used but is not recommended for those inexperienced, as it is much easier to manoeuvre around Nex's attacks with magic or ranged. However, the utility with melee debuffs such as the Quake ability and Superior Statius's warhammer's special attack Smash can prove very useful.
Augmenting your items will easily boost your DPS depending on what perks are used and should be utilized for this encounter. While any augmented gear can be used, it is highly recommended to use augmented tier 90 or 92 armour as all the enemies in the fight provide very little Invention experience, which means they will be significantly cheaper compared to any other augmented armour.
It is recommended to bring tier 4 luck (luck of the dwarves or Hazelmere's signet ring); equip the ring after Nex reaches 100,000 life points.
Optimal Gear Setup |
---|
Guthix staff for its powerful special attack Claws of Guthix.
|
Optimal Gear Setup |
---|
Off-hand Ascension crossbow or any other weapon that can be augmented for the Flanking perk.
|
Familiars[]
Beginning players should use a pack yak or pack mammoth to hold food - for experienced players, a nihil or steel titan can be used to speed up kills. Steel titans are preferred over nihils as teams require the use of Statius's warhammer, which increases Nex's affinities by 5. As there will also be one melee user with Quake and another with Guthix staff (both increasing affinities by 2 each) this results in an affinity increase of 9 which means Nex's high defence and low affinity is easily bypassed by high-levelled weaponry.
Starting the fight[]
Upon entering the instance, you appear on a balcony overlooking the arena below. A teleport pillar is placed in front of you and used to teleport to the arena. Players who die during the kill can come back to this balcony and watch the rest of the fight, but will not be able to rejoin. In the centre of the arena lies mysterious energy, which starts the boss fight. Clicking on the mysterious energy prompts a confirmation, and once started, everyone will receive a message stating the name of the player who began the fight.
At the start of the kill, Nex says Witness the true power of the elements. The pure power I have wrought into my will. Like all the messages during the fight, it is also repeated in the chat interface. Once the energy is released, it is a fight to the death; players cannot teleport out of the arena and can only leave if they are victorious or killed in battle, and no more players can join once it is released. It is possible, however, to log out during the fight, which returns them to the lobby area.
The Fight[]
Nex uses melee and magic attacks. They are similar to the attacks in the normal encounter during her Zaros phase. Her melee attack has a 100% hit chance rate (although it may "miss", causing a second, unavoidable hit with half the damage it would have normally done), drains prayer points, and accumulates enrage stacks on her main target that disable Defence abilities. Freedom does not reduce the stacks, but all stacks are removed from her main target if Nex has not targeted them with a melee attack for 30 seconds.
Her magic autoattack targets every player in range. As tanking players will have Protect/Deflect Melee, there is not enough time for them to flick the magic attack and they will have to take full damage as a result.
In addition, a passive enrage stack is also present throughout the fight. This is indicated at the Zaros icon under her health bar at the top of the screen. As this stack increases, Nex's autoattacks deal more damage to everyone fighting her.
First Phase[]
Nex uses the following abilities:
- Power from the elements - Nex teleports to the centre and faces a quadrant. After a few seconds, ice stalagmites appear, dividing the quadrants (which deal heavy damage and stun players if stood on). 3 blood reavers with 50,000 life points spawn at the corners Nex is not facing. These reavers do not attack the players, instead advancing towards Nex. If the reavers touch Nex, they will instantly die, heal Nex by half of their remaining life points, and increase her enrage. After dividing the quadrants, she will yell WITNESS THEIR RAW POWER, hitting everyone who is in the quadrant she is currently facing for 3,500 damage for three hits. This damage can be reduced/blocked by defensive abilities; use Reflect, Debilitate, and Resonance to mitigate damage. If nobody is in the corner Nex was facing, 20 enrage is added.
- True Blood Sacrifice - If a reaver reaches Nex, Nex says Taste the true power of a blood sacrifice, resetting and disabling every player's defensive abilities. It also deals damage equal to 50% of the total health the reaver had remaining when it reached Nex, which is then divided between all players in the arena. For example, an undamaged reaver with 50,000 life points that reaches Nex deals 3571 damage to each player in a 7-player team. If all 3 reavers reach Nex with full life points, the team is dealt a total of 75,000 damage. Additionally, Nex is healed by half of their remaining health (up to 75,000).
- Shadow orbs - After calling the command Let the shadow engulf you. Give in to it. Nex will send three red shadow orbs at every player's location. Standing still will deal heavy damage. Moving one space away from your location for each spawned orb is enough to avoid taking damage. These orbs will remain on the floor as highly-damaging objects, even after being initially evaded. It is essential not to step back on them until they disappear later in the fight. However, they will disappear much faster if they were placed in one of the four cardinal directions, as a straight line (be mindful not to place them too close to where the Base Tank will be, however).
After five autoattacks have passed since the start of the fight, she will use her "power from the elements" attack, facing one corner at the same time. Players should try to avoid standing in where the icicles will pop up or they will take heavy damage and become stunned.
Nex alternates between the elements and shadow orb specials until she reaches 1,800,000 life points. She uses a special attack after a random number of autoattacks (4-14).
Tank |
---|
During reaver spawn, the tank should dodge to a quadrant Nex is not facing. Soulsplitting your health back during this time is recommended. |
DPS |
---|
During this phase, have an equal amount of people in each corner to deal with the blood reavers that appear. Players should return to their assigned quadrant to kill reavers. If Nex is facing in that direction, only one player should remain in the area, using Resonance, Reflect, Debilitate, or Reprisal to reduce damage while using Soul Split to recover health.
As the assigned role for the quadrant:
|
Praesul Minions[]
Minion | Umbra | Glacies | Cruor | Fumus |
---|---|---|---|---|
Photo | ||||
Pillar location | SE | NE | NW | SW |
As soon as Nex reaches 70% (2,100,000) of her life points, she will summon four amalgamations of the Ancient Magicks; Shadow, Ice, Blood and Smoke. Any player who stands within a few squares of where they spawn when they spawn will take 4000 damage, which can be reduced by defensive abilites. Each one has 40,000 life points and an orange/blue bar over them. While Nex is summoning the amalgamations, she will take reduced damage.
If the amalgamations are not destroyed before the adrenaline bar above them depletes, the praesuls (Umbra, Glacies, Cruor, Fumus) will appear with a combat level of 1000 and 300,000 life points with increased combat stats.
If the amalgamations are destroyed before the bar fills, the praesuls be significantly weakened, possessing lower combat stats, a combat level of 750 and 150,000 life points, in addition to saying one of the following quotes:
- "So be it. I'll do what I can."
- "Too soon, but more than enough to crush you."
- "I do not feel complete master, my contact with the elements have been cut short."
Regardless if weakened or not, the mages are capable of using abilities and can deal a lot of damage, so players should kept their health high. Upon spawning, they will immediately attack the nearest target with Combust.
Both Siphon and Natural Instinct affect the four mages as if the battle was PvP, the Leech Adrenaline, or Sap Spirit curses, however do not.
All players |
---|
Kill remaining reavers while building adrenaline and familiar's special attack points (using Summoning potions) for amalgamations.
Tank the praesul with Devotion and Anticipation, and focus on damaging Nex to 1,800,000 life points before killing the mages. This will prevent Nex from summoning reavers or shadow orbs which can severely impede the DPS of the team. The order of how you kill the praesul will determine how the crystals in the corners will unlock. The praesul should be killed counterclockwise starting with Umbra (due to the shadow crystal being very tedious to deal with), since the ice crystal's effect can be negated with Freedom; the shadow traps from the shadow crystals can be extremely deadly, especially if you are frozen by icicles in the previous phase or from the ice crystal itself. There are two main strategies to killing minions:
|
Escalation[]
After reaching 1,800,000 life points, Nex will discard her abilities from the previous phase in exchange for the ones below. She initially chooses one special atack at random and uses a different, random special attack after every 4-9 autoattacks. The same special attack is never used back-to-back.
- Smoke Wall - Similar to Vindicta's dragonfire wall attack, Nex will target two players with a visible popup warning of power being called from either the North or East. After a few seconds, two lines of smoke will appear where the targeted players were standing in a "+" formation. Players hit by the smoke wall will be dealt with rapid hits of 1500-2000 magic damage, which cannot be blocked. Upon receiving this message, take note of which direction in the smoke has targeted you and run to an adjacent wall that is opposite the direction of the smoke. For example, if you are targeted by a smoke wall from the North, stand next to either the east or west walls of the arena; for smoke from the East, stand on the north or south walls. If the players stand directly next to the correct wall, the smoke will not appear at all. Players who are targeted by the smoke walls should indicate which direction it is coming from to allow other players to quickly change positions if they are unwilling to move, especially the base tank.
- Smoke Pool - Nex sends a small black cloud in a random direction. Upon landing, a smoke ring spawns. When someone moves into the ring, an unstable crystal will appear in the middle, which can be clicked on. If no one activates the crystal, everyone will be hit for damage equal to 37,500 split over the number of players in the arena. Grabbing the crystal will deal 14,000 damage split evenly to everyone that was in the smoke ring when it was grabbed. This disables all defensive abilities. Nex announces this attack with the line Even I can not control the element of smoke... Let us see if you can. This is followed by the following message in the chat interface: Nex casts a thick black smoke towards the centre of the arena.
- "You... stay... DOWN!" - Nex picks and stuns one or two targets, causing an icicle to collapse on them a few seconds later, putting defensive abilities, Surge, and Escape on a 20 second cooldown (Preparation and Anticipate are not affected). Stalagmites will also appear from the ground in a 5x5 area around the trapped targets. Players standing adjacent to or directly underneath the trapped target at the time will take 5,000 damage (2,500 if 2 steps away; 1,666 damage if caught on the outer edge). All players caught by stalagmites will be stunned momentarily. This icicle has 100,000 life points. If this icicle is not destroyed in time, when the victims are free, they will take a 2,000 bleed for 6 hits which increases to 3,000 if they are close to another player. Freedom and Anticipation will prevent the initial stun before the icicle spawns and but have no effect on the bleed.
In small teams, the icicles are ignored as it lowers the team's overall DPS against Nex - in addition, there is usually not enough time to destroy the icicle.
Tank |
---|
If players are in the southeast corner killing minions, it is essential to drag Nex away from the southeastern corner, as being in range will result in DPS receiving auto attacks from Nex in addition to the attacks from minions. Make sure to call all pools that spawn and return Nex to the centre of the arena after minions are killed. Call backup to provoke if targeted by an icicle. |
DPS |
---|
Players should drag minions/surge to the southeastern corner if that was the agreed strategy. Otherwise, keep killing minions. At this point, use AOE abilities and Mechanised chinchompas to increase damage rate and clear minions in the assigned order, before returning to Nex. Kill the praesul in this order: Umbra, Glacies, Cruor and finally Fumus. This will help greatly in the final phase.
Smoke Wall - assigned players should move outside the blue trim to position the smoke outside the fight area. For example, if receiving "power from the East," run north of the northern blue trim so the horizontal smoke line is north of players. If players are in the way, you need to run farther. If standing by the appropriate wall, the smoke will not spawn. Smoke Pool - Players not targetted by a minion should run into the pool after it spawns. In a 7-player team, the pool deals 5357 damage to each player if it is not activated in time.
|
Last Stand[]
Once Nex reaches 600,000 life points, she becomes invulnerable and the crystals in the corners will need to be destroyed. Nex will no longer use melee attacks, meaning that she will be unable to reset defensive abilities. She will gain enrage stacks if she is near an attackable pillar. In addition to this, the abilities from "Escalation" are replaced for the following:
- Elements instant kill - Nex targets a random player with the message "Nex has marked you to take the full force of the elements," with large amount of smoke, shadow, blood and ice energy.A blue bar will appear above the targeted player. This is also indicated by a distinct audio cue that sounds like Nex whispering something to the affected player. The player needs to stand in the blue dome barrier in the centre of the room, which appears at the start of this phase. If they are not standing inside the blue dome before the timer bar fills, they will be instantly killed. Immortality does not revive the player from this attack; a message box saying "The sheer force of the pillars smash through your Immortality effect!" will appear if this is attempted.
- Pulse follow-up - If the player manages to reach the centre of the arena and survive the instant kill, they will be informed that the elements are boiling inside them. Like the instant-kill attack, a second blue bar appears over them, filling over time. Once this bar fills and disappears, a large elemental pulse will appear at the location the player was standing, dealing rapid damage of 3,000 each hit per tick if its radius is entered. This damage can be reduced/blocked with defensives. The pulses last indefinitely until Nex is killed. Affected players should run from the centre of the arena to a wall or to a depleted pillar in the corner to release the pulse, then return to killing pillars or Nex.
- Virus (Smoke crystal) - The smoke crystal allows Nex to send viruses out at players, which drains their stats and overload timers. At the end of this virus, the player's prayer points will be massively drained. This is weakened if the crystal is destroyed while the player is infected. Nex's magic attacks will also gain the ability to poison players, which deals around 1600 damage per poison hit at maximum. Antipoison potions or the Venomblood perk are recommended, as the total damage exceeds 12,000 health.
- Shadow traps (Shadow crystal) - The shadow crystal allows Nex to place shadow traps (similar to the shadow phase traps from the original encounter) underneath players, which will follow them around. After 3 ticks, you will take rapid hits of typeless damage (up to 4800) if you are standing on a shadow trap. Multiple shadow traps are placed for set players, so one should continually move until they ensure there are no more shadow traps under them. Players can take damage from another player's shadow trap. Players will not be notified of traps appearing, so they should look to see if any traps are under them.
- Freeze (Ice crystal) - The ice crystal allows Nex to have the ability to use an attack similar to the icicle prison from the previous phase. An icy overlay similar to the Wyvern's cave will gradually appear on their screen; the more opaque it is, the closer it is to stunning the player. Using Freedom will immediately remove the icy overlay and the freeze attempt. If the freeze is not prevented, the player will be stunned, will have their defensives reset and be bled for 2,000 damage 5 times, which increases to 3000 if they are near another player. If you cannot use Freedom, use Anticipate when your screen is almost fully frozen so you can still eat out the damage. If the crystal is destroyed while the ice effect is taking place, the screen will gradually return to normal. Players will be instantly bound by Nex's magic autoattack for 3 seconds if Protect/Deflect Magic is not enabled, which could result in an instant death or high damage taken if this occurs during the insta-kill mechanic or shadow traps.
- Blood crystal - Until it is destroyed, Nex will be able to heal herself from her attacks.
The order of the crystals to attack is based on the order of the praesuls' death. Ideally, this order should be as follows: Umbra, Glacies, Cruor and Fumus. This allows for a fairly simple rotation, as teams simply need to go counterclockwise from the shadow crystal. This also removes the two most dangerous crystals for everyone quickly.
Once the last crystal is destroyed, Nex can be damaged again. Try to destroy the crystals quickly, as the more pulses there are on the map, the more dangerous the fight becomes. Once Nex dies, any drops are placed in the middle of the room, and a teleport shard spawns next to the rewards to take you out of the chamber. The shard will drop you back into the lobby room in the Ancient Prison, where you may rebank for another kill. This teleport crystal can also be searched by right-clicking it to obtain The Praesul and The Promised Gift books.
Tank |
---|
Quickly lure Nex to the southwest corner - this will ensure that her attacks cannot reach the other players, which will also prevent the shadow and ice crystals' effects from being used on them. When the fourth pillar is almost destroyed bring Nex back between players and the arena centre for the remainder of the fight. If Nex is in attack range from players standing in the room centre then players will be able to continue killing Nex while managing the instakill attack. If minions are killed out of order, the tank should attack a nearby pillar and inform the team if it is active or not. |
DPS |
---|
Clear pillars as quickly as possible to limit pulses, while building to 100% adrenaline after the final pillar. Ideally, the tank will have lured Nex away from the group, so the pillars can be attacked with Soul Split to restore lost health. Use Devotion and Resonance against Nex's magic attacks whenever they are available to reduce food usage.
Pulses do not deal any damage if they far away enough from Nex, which means that players can
|