Cradle of the Death God Strategy Guide: The Atropal

[blog_subscription_form]The “Cradle of the Death God” is the group content addition of Neverwinter’s Lost City of Omu update. As trial, the main part of the fight is against a single boss encounter, but there are a couple more phases before that. In this guide we walk you through all necessary hints and information to beat Acererak and his Atropal. In part one we already dealt with the elevator phases and move on the main boss encounter in this one.

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Phase III: Cutting Cords

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After beating the elevator phases the group finds themselves in the boss arena where they have to cut eight cords to advance. You should move as a full group from cord to cord and kill them together. Strong teams can even ignore the adds that spawn, but be aware that the ogres can push you off the platform. Since the phase immediately ends when all eight cords are killed, it’s not mandatory to deal with the adds. But if you get overwhelmed you might want to take a safe approach and kill them in between.

Depending on your DPS you may also need to kill the Souls that spawn. It’s a mechanic similar to the Ras Nsi one. Occasionally the group takes unavoidable damage that’s based on the number of Souls that are alive. Most groups I’m in simply ignore this mechanic however, because we kill the cords before the “annihilation” triggers for the first time.

Make sure to watch our for grabbing hands in this phase as well. While rushing from cord to cord it’s insanely annoying if you leave members behind that get grabbed. Your DPS have to be smart once again and pay attention, not just mindlessly sprint to the cords. Always stay together as a group unless you have a really experienced team that knows what its doing.

Phase IV: Atropal

The last phase starts with a lengthy cut-scene that cannot be skipped. This not only gets annoying after a few runs, but also actually becomes even more of a pain when somebody died right before completing the cord phase. As stated above, the phase immediately ends on cutting the last cord. If players are down at that point, nobody will be able to revive them because of the cut-scene. So it makes sense to at least check your own party before killing the last cord.

Then the group finally faces the main boss. The Atropal spawns in the middle of a round platform and throws a plethora of mechanics and attacks towards players. Instead of giving step by step advise, let’s just go through all of them and see how you should deal with every single one.

Hand Wipe

Occasionally the Atropal will swipe at the full group with his hand. It’s a lengthy build-up where he smashes his hand on the platform first and then takes the swipe. It knocks you over and in case you stand at the edge of the platform actually can push you off, but that’s rare. The damage is manageable.

Line AoEs

Sometimes the outer or inner rim of the platform will be covered in red and after a few seconds dish out moderate damage. In a potent team this can be ignored. I’ve not seen groups yet that really try to move back and forth, but I guess that’s what you should do if necessary.

Small Spitting AoEs

There are generally two types of telegraphed round AoEs happening during the fight. The first one usually affects three to five members of the group and has a smaller radius. After a few seconds the Atropal “spits” at the targeted area and deals high damage. Good groups can just pull through here, but it’s safe to dodge them just in case.

Bigger Debuffing AoEs

The second type of AoEs is much more dangerous. It has a larger radius and looks like the “ice spike” ones of Svardborg. After a few seconds, the AoE pops and leaves behind sort of a blue curly area that debuffs everything in it. So these AoEs should be brought away from the group just like the ones in Svardborg.

Acererak

At about 25% health of the Atropal, Acererak spawns at a random location on the platform and has to be killed as fast as possible. If you fail to kill him before his “Soulmonger Charge” is full, you’re dead. Otherwise a yellow bubble appears and the group has to huddle under it. This is similar to what happens before the last phase in Svardborg after you’ve killed the two Manticores. Just stay in the marked area and you’ll live.

“Hypothermia”

I’m not sure how it’s called in this one to be honest, but it works just like Hypthermia did in Module 10. A random member of the group is targeted and after a few seconds gets hit with a flurry of lethal damage. Nearby teammates however take a share of the damage as well, so all you need to do is group up. Since you technically shouldn’t be scattered around, this shouldn’t be as much of a deal.

Hand Grab

Another well known mechanic from earlier dungeons and earlier phases in the Cradle is the grabbing hand. Random members are grabbed and have to be freed. If your group fights nearby, this usually happens as side effect of the AoEs that the group dishes out, but make sure to announce the hand in queue chat and pay attention to your surroundings.

Pull/Push

Here comes the fun! During several times of the fight, the Atropal sinks into its hole and initiates a pull/push skill test. For roughly four seconds, you first get pulled towards the Atropal. Then there’s a tiny pause before the boss pushes you into the other direction. It’s hard to graph how to deal with this mechanic to be honest. The overall approach is to position yourself at the outside edge of the platform and move against the pull. Count to four, do a 180 and in the tiny pause you have to get as close to the inner edge of the platform as possible to not get blown off by the push. The devs already nerfed the severity of the pull and push and it’s very manageable now. You still need some training and this is where teams struggle the most.

Also there’s a random chance that a team member is getting grabbed by the hand right before the pull/push. That’s basically game over for the unlucky one unless someone is in range to one-hit the hand. There’s nothing you can do about it, it’s just bad luck.

[su_quote cite=”John” url=”https://blog.nwo-uncensored.com/cradle-of-the-death-god-strategy-guide-the-atropal/#comment-8059″]In the cardinal directions there’s big green faces on the walls. During the push/pull phase, they blow out/suck in air, and if you’re standing in front of those the push and pull is much stronger. It’s worth looking at the walls to make sure you’re not standing in front of one of those.[/su_quote]

Conclusion

It’s a long list of mechanics, but the good news is that you probably won’t have to pay attention to all of it. In case you’re playing with the usual setups, you should have enough healing and tanking to ignore everything but the hands, debuffing AoEs and pull/push. There’s still a lot going on and it might take some time until you figure out what to react to and what to ignore. Overall however it’s a fun fight and as you might know I do like true skill checks like the push/pull. It can get pretty annoying though to see yourself or your group constantly struggling with it.

If you need some more visual input I’ve attached an instructional video of Galactic Underwear under the article. Have fun watching it and (hopefully) kicking the Atropal’s butt!


This is our Atropal guide for the Cradle of the Death Gods trial. Have you already beaten it or are you struggling like many others? Share your experience on our social channels, in the comments below, or the corresponding thread on our message board!

[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0xmJe2ozIs” https=”yes”]

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j0Shi

j0Shi plays the Neverwinter MMORPG since the open BETA in 2013 and is a regular contributor to the blog and the whole UN:Project. Originally a Guardian Fighter, he has built up ALTs of all classes and plays on BIS/near-BIS level.

6 thoughts on “Cradle of the Death God Strategy Guide: The Atropal

  • March 28, 2018 at 2:41 pm
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    Did it 3 times 1 on dc, 1 on op and 1 on dps .. will not do it again killing a baby in a cradle after cutting its umbilical cord is what I refer to as being sick and disgusting

  • March 28, 2018 at 7:14 pm
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    One thing you’ve missed about the push/pull phase: In the cardinal directions there’s big green faces on the walls. During the push/pull phase, they blow out/suck in air, and if you’re standing in front of those the push and pull is much stronger.

    It’s worth looking at the walls to make sure you’re not standing in front of one of those.

  • March 31, 2018 at 3:24 pm
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    That’s no cradle there is a reason it bobs up and down causing a pull and push effect. In fact we are standing on the edge of a giant toilet rim and at the end we get to flush the fetus down the toilet. Cryptic really lacks proper direction for the developers as it seems they all have sick minds or are just completely clueless and what they do. Just like over 50% of the bugs they fixed are done without therm even knowing they did. But east to do when they make 500% more bugs with each mod and change they make.

  • May 9, 2018 at 9:59 am
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    LOL i dont know how cryptic has sick minds i would have to say the person who though up this monster in dnd is the one with the sick mind cryptic just going by things that have already happened in dnd lmfao

  • May 9, 2018 at 11:42 am
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    There’s another mechanic not mentioned in the write-up above, but visible in the video. Randomly through the fight (including during pull/push phases), a larger pink circle will appear that doesn’t turn into a blue swirl (the aoe marker is larger than the swirl marker, which is how you can tell – it also doesn’t follow the target or produce the double down arrow indicator, both of which are visual cues for the swirl). Instead, it does a knock up mechanic along with some moderate damage. When this happens during pull/push, you need to move out of the circle as the knock up mechanic will make you unable to resist the pull/push and you will likely be thrown off the platform. This can be as frustrating as the claw grab as there is little you can do other than run and hope you make it out of the AOE before the knock-up happens.

    You can see the mechanic at 6:34 in Galactic’s video, though he runs out of it, so you don’t see the knock-up then. It also shows up again at 6:42, at 6:55 (under the line AOE), at 7:28 (you can actually see the knock-up effect in this one), at 7:43 (knock-up visible in this one as well), and at 8:02 in other portions of the platform.

    • May 9, 2018 at 1:44 pm
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      Thanks! I’ll make sure to add that.

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