Elite Dungeon Master Encyclopedia Volume 3: Shadow Reef Guide

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Foreword

Hi guys, it's Ster once gain with another comprehensive guide on every Elite Dungeon in Velheim.

This is it, the final and easily most anticipated one yet, and easily my favorite of all the 3. ED3- or The Shadow Reef. Easily the hardest one to solo, and one of the most rewarding to solo. At the time of making this guide, I have 698 full clears of this dungeon. Out of all of them, over 250+ have been solo. I get asked often how to properly complete this dungeon by yourself, and this guide will hopefully show you exactly how to do it, but will also show you how to run it with friends as well.

Why should you solo?

The final boss encounter of the dungeon, being The Ambassador, drops the parts to make the Eldritch Crossbow- a 2h Ranged weapon with perhaps the strongest special attack in the game. The Ambassador's drop rate for these pieces is significantly increased when less players are in the instance. Even for a 200x account, the pieces are roughly the same base drop rate as any Nex equipment drop.

Solo is difficult, and takes time to master. When you figure it out, though, you will reap the rewards in abundance!

So, let's just dive right into it, and make some crossbows!

Presets and Equipment

Spoiler

In ED3, you will be bringing a hybrid of Magic and Ranged. Magic for most of the routing/mobbing, and Ranged for every boss encounter. 

Footnotes: Equipment

• My go-to setup of Full Elite Tectonic, with Wand of the Praesul and Kalphite Rebounder. Rebounder is incredibly useful for certain areas of this dungeon, especially against the Necromancer mages. Praesul wand itself holds its own and does a good amount of damage, as well. 
• Essence of Finality (or) with Eldritch Crossbow special attack stored inside. I use this special all the time during this dungeon, but it's certainly not required, and more than likely you won't have it starting out here. Substitute the special attack for:

1. Magic Shortbow for strong burst damage against single targets.
2. Guthix Staff to reduce the defenses and affinity values of a single target.
3. Zuriel's Staff to annihilate a group of enemies.
4. Hand Cannon for memes.

• Completionist/Max/Skillcape to maintain hybrid stats amongst your switches. Nothing new here.
• Cinderbane gloves to maintain T85 hybrid stats and to increase the potency of weapon poison.
• Hailfire boots for the Best in Slot boot.
• Ring of Death to restore all the special attack bar I use while mobbing. Also helps a lot if you get put into a dangerous situation that you can't possibly survive.
• Illuminated Book of Chaos to do Area of Effect burst damage to whatever gets hit by me. 
• Ruby Bakriminel Bolts (e) to do damage on proc based on a target's current HP. The higher, the better. Bring an ammo swap in your inventory for when the target is below about 40% HP.

Footnotes: Inventory

• Your best overload you can make- highly recommend it's at least a Supreme Overload Salve. I will be using Elder Salves here, though.
•  Two ammo swaps. Black Stone Arrows, to reduce the armor of a single target up to a percentage. These things work wonders in the background, and do not get used up on proc if shot by a Seren Godbow. Onyx Bakriminel Bolts (e) for after our target has less than 40% HP, but can also be used to sustain yourself through healing without losing much damage (25% damage on activation)
• Enhanced Excalibur to passively heal ourselves in a fight. 
• Two rings. Asylum's surgeon Ring (i) for its unique passive of reserving special attacks.  As stated, I use ECB spec very often here, so I always need reserved spec. Hazelmere's signet ring to potentially double your rare relics, or the best outcome, ECB Pieces. 
• Adrenaline Flask to restore special attack where Ring of Death cannot. 
• Weapon Poison++ to do additional damage to everything that can be poisoned. It's free damage, can't go wrong.
• Seren Godbow + Ascension Crossbow mainhand and Kalphite Repriser off-hand. Use SGB spec often, and swap back to your crossbows after.
• Staff of Sliske to combo with dual wield wand and rebounder.
• Full Elite Sirenic with Flarefrost boots for maximum ranged bonus. 
• Xp Capacitor 5000 to passively level up during runs. Not necessary, but useful to have. 
• Steel Titan Pouch in your inventory, not actively summoned.   We will go over why down below.
• Salve Amulet (e) to do bonus damage vs the undead. Very useful to have during Area III, as most things there are undead. It is also effective against the 2nd boss encounter of the dungeon, Taraket the Necromancer.
• Spring Cleaner 9001 to passively alch rune salvage drops. 
• Rune Pouch with Blood and Ice Barrage runes. 
• Illuminated Book of Law to use against single targets that are standing still, or can be fully controlled movement wise. 
• (Super) Saradomin Brew flasks, or stackable food like Jellyfish, alongside a Divine Spirit Shield for emergencies and tanking certain hits. 

Equipment Perks

All perks follow the standard of the Ancient Invention Handbook (Topic 3435) with the inclusion of Undead Slayer fitted into your legs. 

That's all we should need to do a full clear. Hop in the boat at the Shadow Reef teleport, and prepare to begin. 

Floor I: The Shadow Reef Entrance

Spoiler

The Shadow Reef consists of 3 floors in descending order. beginning at the highest elevation. 

You will begin at 'Entrance'. Walk backwards as you enter the instance to activate the 'Shadow Reef Entrance' chest.

Directly ahead of you at the beginning are 2x Crassian Scouts, and 3x Crassian Scuttlers. Follow these arrow paths to lure them all into stacks to AoE down. The scuttlers should be the first to stack up, with the Scouts being second. Once all are dead, the gate will open and you will proceed forward.

3x Crassian Scuttlers and 3x Crassian Scouts. Run past the Scuttlers, and gain their attention. When you're in range, attack the center Scout to have your barrage hit all 3 of them. If the middle one dies too fast, simply route a step or two back from the endpoint of the arrow, and they will stack up. Kill the remaining scuttlers behind you. Proceed past the gate, and move up the hill.

Note: You should not have a familiar summoned this entire first part. Familiars will often pull aggro from certain enemies, ruining your clears. For example, the scuttler closest to me would take aggro from my titan, and it would secluded from the group of 2 next to him. It's just a lot more work for not much benefit. 

At the peak of this slope, there are 2x Crassian Scout, and 3x Crassian Warrior. Follow the arrow path, and throw an attack out at the most centralized one to gain all of their attention. Route backwards to stack them up. The scouts will likely die first, as warriors have a sizable amount of HP to punch through. Kill all 5 enemies, and continue forward past the gate.

Take care of the 2 mages directly ahead of you. They will spawn weaker variants of Crassian Warriors en masse if not dealt with quickly. Continue down the path after the gate opens. You will gain the attention of everything on path, but you only need to kill the 2x Scouts and 2x Zealots. Follow the arrow paths to route them into a position that looks like this:

You'll be able to hit nearly all of them at once here, with Aftershock likely taking care of the 4th of the group. Once these 4 are dead, proceed forward into the next area.

In this area is a large cluster of zombies, and Bossy McBossface, the miniboss that can possibly drop Swordy McSwordface. Follow the arrow paths, and gather up every zombie onto a stack. Alternatively, you can hit Bossy as well to serve as a giant hotbox to barrage around, without having to stop attacking due to the target dying. Once the zombies die, the gate opens. Walk across the ship mast into the next location.

At the end of the mast, there are a few zombies roaming around. Tuck into the corner at the gate, let them corral together, and kill them all. Proceed past the gate and activate 'The Crassian Leviathan' chest. The only enemies ahead that you need to clear are the 2 mages at the gate ahead, but it's generally a good idea to clear even the scuttlers before the first boss encounter of the dungeon. Once you feel content with your surroundings, proceed into the arena where The Crassian Leviathan waits. 

The Crassian Leviathan 

The leviathan will be located at the end of the arena, head sticking out of a shipwreck. He will be non hostile until provoked. When you're ready to begin the fight, position yourself against the wall to your right. 

Vital Information

Follow either one of the arrow paths when you enter into the arena. Where I am located is the 'safe zone', and said location is parallel to the opposite wall. Each of the Xs marks a Hydra head that comes out of the wall. These will periodically attack you, and when they do, they will deal heavy poison damage, and stun you for up to 6 seconds straight giving them just enough time to almost stun you again afterwards. Pay attention to what is going on if the Leviathan switches sides during the fight, as you will have to walk past the Hydra heads- equipping defender/shield as you run will make sure you make it to the next safe zone with no problem. 

The rectangle in the center of the arena is roughly the hitbox size of his poison breath attack.

Poison Breath

One of the first attacks the Leviathan will do is this torrent of poison in the center of the arena. It will reach all the way down the middle, but you are safe on the sides of the arena. If you have a familiar out, dismiss it immediately before this attack comes out.  If your familiar gets hit by this attack, you will be infected by poison that hits rapidly, and will not go away until the Leviathan dies. This poison is not to be underestimated. It is heavy DPS towards the player, and you will end up consuming your resources to survive, or even very quickly dying. 

Head Sweep

The Leviathan will launch an auto attack out, and then proceed to his next special attack. He'll choose a random side, either left or right of him, and sweep his entire head across the arena in front of him, dealing heavy typeless damage rapidly to whoever is in range.  As long as you are in the 'safe zone' areas, this will not hit you. However, if you're using melee, it's a complete guessing game which side he's going to pick as of currently due to his animations. He will do this sweep twice, and the second sweep will always be opposite of the first one. (1st sweep comes from the left, 2nd will come from the right)

The Leviathan will also passively heal himself throughout the fight. This heal can be largely negated by poisoning him. 

After the head sweep special ends, he will swap sides of the arena, and reset his attack rotation.

Continue doing damage until he reaches 0 HP, and proceed through the shipwreck he had his head at, taking a left once you exit the other side.

Follow the path down until you see something like this. Aggro the Crassian Warriors, and attack the 2 Scouts next to eachother ahead with AoE. Turn around and deal with the warriors once the scouts are dead. Push up to the scuttlers and the mage, advancing to either side of the mage, and barraging the entire cluster of scuttlers with him. Once all the enemies here are dead, the gate will open.

Past the barrier resides another barrier, occupied by a large group of zombies. Nothing crazy here, just tuck into a corner at the gate, and kill them all at once. Proceed past the gate, and follow the path down until you are able to jump down the cliff. Proceed to jump down, but keep in mind there is no way back up outside of teleportation.

Upon landing, path around to where the arrow is pointing to gather up every mob on one spot. This is located right next to the necromancer, and all the other enemies here are melee. Barrage them down, and proceed past the gate into the stone structure.

Left or right, the only enemies you'll have to kill in this room to proceed forward is the 3 zombies inside the rectangle. Here is a good location to have your wand & rebounder ready, as necromancers will cast Asphyxiate on you, and stun you on the spot. This, combined with the mass amount of enemies they spawn, can result in a very quick death. Continue deeper into the dungeon by entering the doorway.

 

Floor II: The Temple Entrance

Spoiler

The mid-section of the dungeon, consisting of mostly undead enemies. You will begin at 'To Floor 1'. Activate the 'Temple Entrance' chest, and proceed down the stairs into the next room.

One of the most interesting rooms to route around, we have the double artefact room before the bridge. I still don't believe I've 100% mastered the technique here, but this is about as good as I can find so far. Start by making your way into the room, and tag Necro #3 with a hit, and follow the path arrow to the side of Necro #1. Necro #2 will follow you without even getting hit.

If Necro #2 and #3 were lured properly, they will both end up on the X mark. You can either pull all of the summoned undead over to them to gain the most aoe healing/damage at once, or finish Necro #1 off first, then focus on them. I prefer the first option more, as all of the summoned adds can be very overwhelming after only a small amount of time. Once a certain amount of skeletons, armored zombies, and necromancers die, both gates next to Necro #3 and #1 will open. 

In each of these side rooms is a Black Stone Artefact. You must activate them both to open the gate to the bridge. There is a 4th Necromancer in the room but it can entirely ignored and even not hostile if pathed around in a specific way.

The line that intersects the path indicates his aggro range. Stay on path with the route arrows to remain completely untouched. Proceed past the gate onto the bridge. 

At the end of the bridge is 1 Necromancer, next to 2 Sea Horrors. It's recommended that you pull the necro backwards a few tiles, then get next to him with the sea horrors to aoe. Sea horrors occasionally will go berserk, and hit you for typeless damage upwards to 1000+ (100+ in 718). In small amounts, this is trivial, but multiple horrors doing this at once could add up quickly. 

The barrier will open when the necro and horrors die. Ahead is one Sotapanna and another horror. Neither one has to die to open the gate to the west of them, but you will want to kill the Sotapanna due to him dead sprinting at you, and having the ability to stun. 

At the next gate are 3x Sotapanna. Attack the one in the center and they'll all collapse onto you, conveniently creating a stack of melee enemies to barrage down. Proceed into the next room.

Ahead are 4x Sotapanna, in a diagonal line. They cannot be ignored, and cannot be outran. You have 2 options to take them out- the first is following the arrow path towards the staircase, and tagging the X marked target with a full attack cycle. This will hit every Sotapanna in the line, and may even kill a few of them.

Otherwise, you can follow the arrow path towards the stairs, then follow the branching path to the side of the 4th Sotapanna in line. They will all corral next to eachother when you end up there, and you barrage them down until they drop dead. Continue by going down the stairs and around the corner into the next room.

The last gate before the 2nd boss encounter of the dungeon. 2 Necromancers and 2 Huge Skeletons are required to die to move forward. Above, there are 2 seperate ways to go about doing this effectively- The necro pull, and the necro push. The southern arrow path will have you walk underneath the necromancer it is pointing at (right clicking 'walk here' on his location). This will displace him and force him next to the other necromancer, creating a barrage stack with the skeletons. This is the Necro Push, and is the most popular way to clear this section.

Otherwise, you would take the northern set of arrow paths, where you tag either of the necros, then route backwards to stack the skeletons and necromancers up while they're in motion. This is the Necro Pull, and is a safer but much less consistent way of doing this section. Whichever way you decide, the gate will open after all 4 of the mobs are dead. Activate the 'Necromancer's Amphitheatre' chest, and get ready for the 2nd boss encounter- Taraket The Necromancer.

Taraket The Necromancer

Vital Information

(1) Where Taraket will be for the majority of the fight outside of occasionally moving to the crystals on the sides of the arena.
(2) Bloated Monstrosity's starting point.
(3) Corpse Carrier's starting point.
Taraket is considered by many to be the hardest boss in the dungeon to successfully and consistently solo. He can be very overwhelming with the skeleton spawns, and his minions can quickly create unbeatable scenarios if not planned around carefully. Taraket will be non hostile until provoked. When you're ready, start to attack him.

Taraket attacks with Magic primarily, of which these attacks are quite accurate and hit up to 2,000[200]HP in damage. You should use your Black Stone Arrows as your first few sets of attacks in order to lower his defenses for the fight. He will auto attack 6 times before his first special attack in rotation, Rift of Undeath. 

Rift of Undeath

Taraket will summon a Rift of Undeath nearby, marked by a yellow blinking arrow above it. This will have 2 health bars, one for its actual HP, and the other being a timer for its detonation. These rifts have 15,000 HP (+15,000 per additional player in the instance) so during a solo, they will have 30,000 HP in total. While they are active, skeletons will periodically appear from it in groups of three at a time. Players should try to get rid of these rifts as fast as they possibly can to alleviate themselves of a painful fight full of adds + Taraket hitting you. 

As mentioned above, it has 2 bars for HP and its detonation timer. The detonation will occur when this bar reaches the end, and when it does, it can deal up to 7.5k (750) typeless damage to everyone in the arena. Try to always prioritize getting rid of these when they appear, as they can make the difference between a clean and a very messy fight experience. 

Bloated Monstrosity

Upon reaching 200,000 HP (20,000), Taraket will fly (walk) over to the right side of the arena, and will have immense damage reduction while he moves. When he reaches the crystal, it will Uber Heal him, and The Bloated Monstrosity will spawn on the field.

As long as it is alive, Taraket will do additional damage with every auto attack he does. In teams, this can be ignored and fought through, but it is highly recommended you dispatch of the giant immediately in a solo encounter. You should try to do as much damage as you can to the monstrosity before Taraket reaches his initial spawn point and begins attacking you again. 

The giant has 45,000[4,500]HP (+45,000 per player in instance) adding up to 90,000[9,000]HP in total in solo.

Corpse Carrier

Upon reaching 200,000[20,000] HP once again, Taraket will move to the western side of the arena, once again gaining damage reduction. He will absorb the crystal, uber heal, and the Corpse Carrier will come with it. 

The Corpse Carrier is effectively a much more durable and moving version of a Rift of Undeath, that very frequently spawns skeletons. You must prioritize damage on the carrier as soon as possible. As long as the carrier is alive, skeletons will seemingly continuously spawn, which can lead to an onslaught of attacks all at once- resulting in a quick death that cannot be sustained.

Deal as much damage as you can to the carrier before Taraket reaches his initial spawn point on the walk back. 

Skeletal Siphon

 

When Taraket reaches a certain HP threshold (Roughly 300,000[30,000] HP), he will account for every skeleton currently alive in the arena, and siphon all of them for their HP, killing them in the process. Each skeleton siphoned will heal Taraket by 4,000[400]. In the picture above, you can see why Corpse Carrier is so dangerous- before he died, he managed to summon 15 skeletons, all of which attack you at the same time.

It is important to note that Taraket will not use this ability unless there is at least 10 skeletons active in the arena. One should attempt to keep track of how many skeletons are alive at any given time period to know exactly how to force a heal out. Taraket will always perform this ability after the Corpse Carrier has spawned, and he has reached his initial spawn point once again. 

Players should take advantage of the fact they can force heals to take the heat off of themselves from all the adds in the arena. It could make your kill take longer, but it is a safe way to secure kills if done correctly. 

Shroud of Darkness

Taraket will cast a shroud around him, making into a static target, meaning you cannot interact with him if you click off of him, and will have to wait for the shroud's duration to end. When inside of the shroud, Taraket will temporarily use ranged attacks that have increased damage over his magic attacks. They can hit up to 4,200[420] damage, and should be respected for such.

When the shroud's duration ends, you may freely click on Taraket again, and he will begin attacking with Magic once again. 

You should continue DPS against Taraket, while prioritizing rifts as they come out to ensure he cannot heal back the damage he's taken. Players should continue to keep count of how many skeletons are currently active to avoid any chance of siphons. If the skeletal body count is up to 6+, its time to start clearing some of them, or kill him as fast as possible- as the next rift that spawns will more than likely cause a siphon. When Taraket finally dies, the gate behind him will open, and you will proceed deeper into the dungeon. 

Specific Situations & Scenario Priority

Taraket is largely a fight based around split second decision making. I thought up of some scenarios I've had to deal with in the past, and will give solutions to all of them.

1. Corpse Carrier spawns, and a rift spawns after. This is the only time you should not prioritize the rift but rather the Corpse Carrier. Rift will spawn up to 9 skeletons over its entire duration, but Carrier continously spawns sets of 3. You can avoid this happening entirely by letting the rift spawn before Taraket reaches his HP threshold to go summon Carrier. 
2. Corpse Carrier dies while Rift is out, but its about to detonate. If this happens, just grit your teeth, get your spirit shield out, and tank the hit. There is nothing you can do at that point, and it's okay to just let the rift blow up. 
3. Corpse Carrier dies, and there is above 15 skeletons on the field at once. What do I do? The simple solution is immediately start DPSing Taraket down above all else. You will have to go through resources during the initial onslaught, but once you force the heal, it's pretty much a guaranteed kill.  
4. Bloated and Corpse Carrier are alive at the same time. This is a scary scenario, honestly. I think I've only had this happen a couple times in teams, but definitely once in solo to see how it was. I think in this scenario, you should prioritize Carrier at first while Taraket is walking back, then swap over to Bloated while Taraket siphons the skeletons on field.
5. Bloated, Corpse Carrier, and a Rift are all active at the same time. Just teleport out, its FUBAR at that point. 
6. Shroud of Darkness gets cast while a Rift is out, what should I do? It sucks, but you should click off of him onto the rift. Even if you one shot the rift, you'll have to wait until the shroud is gone. Clear any skeletons that made it out of the rift, and back on Taraket when you can. 

 

Post Taraket, go down the stairs into the room with some zombies and an Undead Witch. The witch doesn't move in melee distance like the zombies do, so stand next to her and barrage them down accordingly to open the gate.  In the next room are some more zombies and a Kal'gerion Demon. Tag the demon, and stand roughly where I am at the doorway. The zombies will naturally corral themselves over to you, and you can barrage them alongside the demon. When all are dead, the gate up the stairs will open. Proceed through it, equipping your shield or defender before so.

Ahead of you is a room full of Kalg Demons, including a miniboss. Equip a shield or defender when going through this, as they often stun you. Follow the arrow paths up to the one nearest the gate. There are 2 Necromancers, one at the beginning of the hallway (where I am), and one at the end behind a wall. Both must die to continue past the barrier. 

Proceed past the barrier, and take a left toward the lone Necromancer, not toward Oreb, The Magister. There are 2 necromancers ahead, and both need to die in order to open the gate nearest the 2nd Necro. When both are dead, proceed past the barrier and click on the ledge of the cliff to your right. Your character will jump off the cliff, and float down to the final floor of the dungeon.

Floor III: The Abyssal Depths

Spoiler

The final and shortest floor of the dungeon. You will begin at 'to Floor 2'. This is a good time to bank, whether from the Elite Dungeon chest or having to teleport out, as you are very close to the final boss encounter of the dungeon. When you are ready, proceed down the path, having already activated 'The Abyssal Depths' chest. 

Hug the southern wall while moving forward, as to not gain aggro of the Black Stone Scuttler miniboss circled in the picture. Follow the arrow path to run into a whole bunch of crabs that have to die in order for the barrier to open. Continue forward after the barrier falls.

Down the hill are 2 Warped Skeletons. These guys hit hard, accurately, heal from hitting you, and have a huge amount of Magic defense. They also have minds of their own, and will simply roam away from you. I recommend swapping to Ranged just to get rid of these guys, or you're going to be here for a minute. Following the arrow path, you will see an X mark at the end of it. This is where you should stand in order to aggro all of the 3x Zealots ahead. Barrage AoE them, or try SGB Spec on the far left one. If you're fast enough, you can SGB Spec into your magic setup without losing too much time and damage. Once they're taken care of, continue to follow the arrow path forward.

Ahead of you is the final barrier before The Ambassador encounter. There are a few Warped Skeletons, 2x Crassian Scouts at the gate itself, and 3 possible miniboss spawns. Spawn 1 and 2 will always aggro you, while Spawn 3 will not as long as you hug the wall, and nothing gives him a reason to become aggressive. In speed runs, I ignore the miniboss spawns entirely by having my familiar take aggro by making it attack only the miniboss. As long as you don't attack back, it'll hop onto your familiar instead. Use that time to run down the hill into the arena, and hit Ambassador before they reach you. Otherwise, simply kill the miniboss before continuing into the arena. 

Follow the arrow path, and kill the 2 Scouts only to open the barrier. Be sure to toggle the chest off before you go into the final boss encounter. The possibility of getting an ECB piece doubled is too good to ignore, and Ambassador's normal loot is also fantastic to have double. 

When you are ready, proceed down the hill and into The Ambassador's arena.

The Ambassador

The Ambassador has a total of 1,000,000 HP[100,000] and attacks with all 3 combat styles, only Ranged and Magic from a distance. He resides in the center of the arena and will remain there the entire encounter. He will always begin the fight with a melee/magic hit, then proceed to use Ranged auto attacks for the 5 in rotation before his first special.

His magic attacks are to be taken seriously, as they have a detonation radius, and can hit up to 3,500[350] every hit. Stay away from teammates if you have any, and be prepared for these hits when they come out. 

Vital Information

In the picture above, Numbers 1 to 6 indicate roughly where the Sinister Fragments will spawn.

The lines coming from The Ambassador show where the Energy Beams will originally be as soon as the special attack starts. 

The square outline is where you should place the Purple Corruption when it lands, as to be completely out of your way while pathing around. Simply step under him as its about to drop, then run back to your original location.

Purple Corruption

After The Ambassador does his initial Magic attack + 5 Auto Attacks, he'll mark you with corruption. A secondary HP bar will begin to fill, and when its full, purple smoke will drop underneath you. While you are inside of it, you will take rapid 2,000[200] hits. This special has a unique interaction where it will track where you go and trail behind you. If you wish to not have it trail, you will need to tank at least 2 hits from it, then move off your spot. 

Be sure to not place the corruption in your forward pathing area, or where your teammates will go if you have any. 

The Ambassador will do this special attack twice before the Energy Beam special attack occurs. 

Black Hole

Shortly after you place the Corruption down, The Ambassador will summon a black hole (+1 for each player in the instance). The black hole has incredibly high HP, and cannot be killed before it detonates. You only have two options to counteract it.

As it says in the picture above, all these forms of crowd control can immediately make the black hole cancel. Entangle, Ice Barrage, and Bolas are good examples. 

If you have no crowd control available, you can only run from it. The explosion is about half of the arena wide, so if you plan on doing this strategy, its a good idea to pre-emptively run to the sides of the arena, and let it place there.

If someone is caught in the explosion radius, they will take 8,000[800] to 10,000[1,000] damage. Play it safe with these, and swap to your crowd control after you place your corruption down to give yourself plenty of time to stun it. All else fails, run to the edges of the arena before it appears, then run to the opposite side as fast as you can.

The Ambassador will do 5 auto attacks after Black Hole, tag you with Corruption once more, then will begin his next special in rotation if the HP threshold of 550,000[55,000] is not met. 

Energy Barrage + Sinister Fragments

The Ambassador will fling out 6 fragments from himself in a hexagonal pattern, surrounding the arena. He will then fire an arena wide beam north, south west, and south east from him that will slowly rotate counterclockwise around the arena. 

This special will immediately begin if the 650,000[65,000] HP threshold is met, and can be skipped entirely if you get to the 550,000[55,000] HP threshold, but this will be very unlikely in most teams, and extremely unlikely solo. You will want to place yourself in the location that Fragment #1 and #2 are to have a comfortable location before the special starts. 

Players must move with the rotation of the beams, while dealing with the 6 Sinister Fragment spawns. The energy beams themselves deal up to 6,500[650] soft typeless damage every tick. It is crucial that you kill each of the 2 in every section as you pass by them, because you will not be able to go back and hit them again. There is one exception, being Sinister Fragment #1 and #6 (Vital Information), where you can double back on them before the full rotation ends.

The Ambassador will absorb all remaining fragments at the end of the Energy Barrage. If he absorbs none of them, he will repeat his Phase 1 rotation until he reaches 550,000[55,000]HP.

For each one absorbed, The Ambassador will gain temporary damage reduction, with a shockwave attack that can hit over 6,000[600]+ damage with no damage soak. This attack will happen once for every fragment absorbed, several seconds between each other.

Crassian Ritual Keepers

When 550,000[55,000]HP is reached, The Ambassador will send out a set of Ritual Keepers, all of which have very long attack range, and very high damage reduction toward them. Outside of doing moderate amounts of damage, these can largely be ignored and one should focus on damaging The Ambassador down to 400,000[40,000] HP to proceed to the final part of the fight.

Seiryu's Intervention

When The Ambassador reaches 400,000[40,000] HP, Seiryu will appear from the shadows. He will heal all players to full in the instance one time, and immediately kill all ritual keepers, alongside cleansing corruption in the arena. 

Seiryu serves purely as a quick bit of support before the final phase begins. (a true hero)

Players should continue doing damage to The Ambassador while Seiryu intervenes. 

Twelve Black Hands + Magic Barrage

The Ambassador will subdue Seiryu, and begin his ritual by summoning twelve black hands that surround the arena. They will immediately heal him for 30,000[3,000] HP, and will continue to heal in small amounts as the fight continues. The only way to counteract the heals is to rotate around the arena with the hands that are firing orbs out. They rotate clockwise, so you should follow.  You need to be in front of the hand's path before the hand tosses the orbs out. You will take typeless damage by blocking the heal, but will make him not heal in the process.

After roughly 3 auto attacks from when the hands appear, The Ambassador will target someone in the arena. Whoever he targets, he will say their name in the chat.

He will then launch out a sequence of 5 orbs, all which can hit up to 9,000[900] HP each. You cannot survive this attack without some sort of damage reduction. There is no shame in mage praying with a divine on to tank this attack, because even with all of those, you'll still take a lot of damage. He will do this every 10 auto attacks in the final phase. 

Note: The Ambassador does not follow his standard auto attack rotation during this phase. Any if not all of his attacks can be either ranged, melee if you're close, or magic.

Players should focus on trying to do as much damage as they can before the next magic barrage attack occurs, or they'll quickly go through all of their remaining resources. 

Continue doing damage to The Ambassador, while somewhat paying attention to the hands in rotation. Once he dies, he will drop all of his loot directly below him.

Congratulations on your completion of The Shadow Reef!

Conclusion

And that's it. The final Elite Dungeon guide is finished! This one felt like a HUGE info dump, but I'm happy about it and the new subsections I tried with this one.

ED3 is definitely my favorite one to run, with the highest reward of them all. You will see below just how many crossbows I've made in all my full clears- although I only got about 2 of the 3 pieces constantly for a good while there. 

I hope you guys learned a lot from this three part series, and I expect to see more full clear milestone broadcasts in game because of it. 

I'd like to give thanks to everyone that's ran this dungeon with me. Being able to share our strategies together is what made this possible, and why I even became the Elite Dungeon Master in the first place.
Thank you! @foxx @shiny shinx @Fulltimewife @asgardian @NubonmyPC @Esker @Eila 

If I didn't include you it's because I couldn't @ you, or just simply didn't remember to. Sorry if that's the case!

If you guys want me to make any more guides in the future, let me know in game or over Discord. I'll definitely consider making more of this sort of thing!

Until then, good luck and have fun.

- ster

 

Final Collection Log & Pet Showcase

(This is the picture taken as I completed log. Since I still do ED3, this doesn't match the live collection log. I will provide the current one further below.)

Ambi

Edited October 30, 2021 by sterling
Formatting

[NubonmyPC]

I think its safe to say that you put a huge amount of time into these guides.

Considered you pushed out 3 amazing guides in 3 days.

 

i appreciate you for that and im pretty sure this will help out alot of players that are new to the game!

[Eila]

big nut 

[Brazil]

Amazing guide Sterling my bruh! 

[517]

These guides are much better than some of the professional Work Instructions/SOPs I have to deal with at work. The way they are visually and laid out is amazing! Thank you for these!

[Dwarf Kush]

Really helped me in learning and optimising ED runs with all your guides. Thanks for these! Always helpful for anyone trying to learn elite dungeons

[kong]

Really helped me with learning to solo all ED's, Hopefully pet's come now for myself and everyone should 100% give this a read

[07Knight]

Sick guide, thanks for this!

[Almost Done]

Very nice guide Ster! You talked pretty much about everything we need to know to be able to run and solo ED.
Ex: me that never done it solo, with the map you posted with all the journal pages will help me a lot to get my comp cape!

Thank you good sir <3

[Darki]

Nice guide!

[Ruin]

Useful guide for doing your first ED3 run.

[stumpeyy]

nice

[GIM Lmaka]

Great guide

 

[Glories]

Great guide for new players!