Zuk guide

[Wendt]

TzKal-Zuk is the general of the Ful Front of the Elder God Wars. This encounter is the third version of the Fight Caves/Fight Kiln, in that you fight waves of enemies before taking on the main boss.

This guide will covered either normal mode and hard mode. The only difference between both are that hard mode all mobs and bosses have the double of HP.

Spoiler

⬥  Obsidian blade - Part of the t95 2H weapon (hardmode flawless only)
⬥  Magma core - Part of the t95 2H weapon (hardmode flawless only)
⬥   Ancient hilt - Part of the t95 2H weapon (hardmode flawless only)
⬥  Igneous stone - Used to upgrade kiln capes to Igneous capes (flawless normal mode or hard mode)
⬥  Scripture of Ful (pocket slot) (flawless normal mode or flawless hard mode)
⬥  Tzkal-Zuk's armour piece (Pet)

 

Spoiler

This encounter has 17 waves of enemies, and then the final boss, TzKal-Zuk. Normal mode has checkpoints after waves 5, 10, 15, and 17.

Hard mode has one checkpoint after wave 17.

The arena has some ledges in it that can be used to lure/safespot various mobs. You can choose and develop different ways of luring mobs. 

Gonna show below some players preferences for it. Feel free to blend and choose whatever feels better to you.

My personal suggestion for safe spots:

@Diogo suggetion for speed kills:

@Seisen suggestion for all waves safespot:

 

Some videos for examples by @Diogo Moder and @Noobs Own

 

 

Spoiler

Mobs from Waves:

 

Normal Waves (1-3, 7-8, 12-13) and Igneous Waves (4, 9, 14)

NOTE: TzekHaar-Kih takes priority focus over everything.

Igneous Waves 4, 9, 14

⬥ 3 Large Igneous variants of mobs will spawn along with many normal versions of that mob.
    •  Igneous TzekHaar-Hur
        ⬩ Weaken by stunning, then kill normally.
    •  Igneous TzekHaar-Xil
        ⬩ Weaken by stunning, then kill normally.
    •  Igneous TzekHaar-Mej
        ⬩ Weaken by stunning, then kill normally.
⬩ You can stun using  bolas /  sticky bombs /  Ice barrage /  entangle.

    • Only the 3 Igneous variants need to be killed. The rest of the mobs can be ignored.
        ⬩ After killing the last Igneous mob of the wave, an extra action button will appear on your screen. Click that and attack TzKal-Zuk until you deal 5k (normal mode) or 10k (hard mode) damage to him.
        Note: If you fail to deal the damage to TzKal-Zuk, the phase repeats itself and you must do the remainder of the hp to trigger the next phase.

 

Challenge Waves (5, 10, 15)
These waves are challenges for the player. They must be completed successfully to achieve a flawless run.

Wave 5
⬥ You must kill the 5 Volatile TzekHaar-Hur before the bar fills above their head.
    • Failure to do so will result in large typeless hits for each one left alive.

Wave 10
⬥ You must kill the Unbreakable TzekHaar-Ket before the bar fills above its head.
    • Only hits that deal 300 or more damage will hurt this mob.

Wave 15
⬥ You must survive several attacks from three Fatal TzekHaar-Yt-Hurkots. Each one attacks with a different combat style, and for a flawless run you must not take damage.
Attacks order:    

Jad Waves (6, 11, 16)

Wave 6
⬥ This is the first wave with a Jad. Kill it as soon as possible then focus on the other mobs.

Waves 11 and 16
⬥ Wave 11 has 2 Jads and various mobs.
⬥ Wave 16 has 3 Jads but no other mobs.

TzekHaar-Aken:

Wave 17
⬥ This is the last enemy before fighting TzKal-Zuk. He has a lot of tentacles (Mage and Ranged) which will constantly attack dealing small damage.
    • You do not need to kill any tentacles to finish the phase. Just the head needs to die.
    • He has a mechanic that shoots a blob to your location.
    ⬩ When his head is exposed, he only fires 1 blob at a time.
     ⬩ When he submerges, he fires blobs that expand into a 5x5 X shape at your players location. These can be dodge by moving out of the way.
 

 

Spoiler

He primarily attacks with melee in melee distance, otherwise with magic.

Mechanics:
Zuk performs a mechanic after every 3 auto attacks. The mechanics appear in order as follows, and will repeat once all mechanics have happened.
Note: Zuk will skip the first 3 auto attacks and go into the Geothermal Burn mechanic as soon as the encounter starts. In addition, when Zuk hits 10k lifepoints, he will restart his attack rotation, starting with the Geothermal Burn.

Geothermal Burn:
⬥ Zuk shouts You will break beneath me! and applies a magic bleed that lasts for 20 seconds.
Sear:
⬥ Zuk shouts Sear! or Suffer! and hits you with a melee hit and 2 magic hits, and lowers your constitution level.
    • You need to travel 15 total tiles to stop the hp drain, and drink super restores to clear the debuff.
Quake:
⬥ Zuk shouts Tremble before me! or Fall before my might! and causes the floor to crack in small areas around him that deal a lot of damage and apply an escalating magic bleed if stood in.
Empowered Magic:
⬥ Zuk shouts Die! Begone! or Ful's power flows through me! and shoots a projectile at you that deals high soft-typeless damage.
    • Switch to divine to reduce damage.

Igneous Rain (Pizza Phase):
⬥ Zuk shouts Flames consume you! or Burn! and jump to the middle of the room, becoming immune to attacks, and covering all but one section of the arena with fire that ramps up damage the longer you stand in it.
    • Get to the safe part of the arena, where an Igneous mob will be waiting for you to kill.
    • Kill these the same way as in waves 4, 9, and 14. Use the extra action button to interrupt the mechanic.

If you fail to interrupt it, it will instakill you.

 

Spoiler

OBS: These are not minimum requirements. These are my recommendations for getting good kc’s. That said, let's take a look at what we can use.

PS: PRESETS ARE OUTDATED

Mage/Range Brid:

Mage for waves
Range for challenges/Haar Aken/Zuk.
Aura:  Vampyrism or  Dark Magic
Summon:  Unicorn or  Steel titan
Rune pouch: Runes for  Blood and  Ice barrage
EoF:  ECB /  Decimation

          

Melee/Range Brid:

Melee for waves and challenges.
Range for Jads/Haar Aken/Zuk. 
Aura:  Vampyrism
Summon:  Unicorn 
EoF:  DDS /  ECB /  Decimation

 

          

 

Mage/Range Brid with Refined Sliske Armor (allows bring more food): 

Mage for waves
Range for challenges/Haar Aken/Zuk.
Aura:  Vampyrism or  Dark Magic
Summon:  Unicorn or  Steel titan
Rune pouch: Runes for  Blood and  Ice barrage
EoF:   ECB /  Decimation

 

          

 

Obs:

Can also use  Pack Yak if you learning and feels it's necessary. 

 TokKul-Zo ring buff works only in mobs, it doesn't work at Zuk. For Zuk use the  Asylum surgeon's ring.

 Illuminated Book of Chaos it's the better option for waves, but the  Grimoire can be used to Haar Aken and Zuk.

 

 

Hope this guide helps everyone to get their Zuk kc's. Huge thanks to @Diogo, @Seisen for helping me with the strategies.

Huge thanks also to @Arcadiez who made the really cool images in the guide!

 

[Xero Rng]

Nicely written guide! Thank you for dedicating the time to do this for everyone! i'm sure going to tweak my runs after reading this.

[Almost Done]

Both best players doing a guide? LOL what could go wrong? Nothing in my perspective 

Who else could it be? Thank you very much for this guide, it'll help a lot Zuk learners! Very detailed and simple to follow, I think that someone that knows how to read will be able to do it with this one! 

As always, a big cheer out for both of you to take some of your "free" time for doing it, @Diogo for testing every safe spot and mechanic possible & specially you @Wendt that wrote everything and even put images for every mob and item!
Simply the best 

Cheers<3 

[Topi]

Taking some tips from this guide I managed to do hard mode flawless run, awesome job with this!

[Nhs]

Thanks for taking the time to write this guide @Wendt!!

Great job. Can't wait to put it all into practice.

[Wendt]

Added some gucci images to it! Thanks to @Arcadiez!

[Guillexe]

Do u need BiS perks for zuk?

[Almost Done]

21 hours ago, Guillexe said:

Do u need BiS perks for zuk?

No, it's not needed. You can do the easy mode very easily with T80s weapons for range and mage.
And for armour, normal sirenic or even seasinger from ports.

But imo, you should have a spec weapon, at least for kiln phase, like decimation, while using dual cbows.

[Pyro]

Very helpful guide

[Taiga - Muk]

cant wait to do this on the GIM 

[Darkbishop]

Visual Guide

[Arcadiez]

 

 

[Kang_Dynasty]

Going to be using this, this weekend. Wish me luck!

[k3ito]

Amazing as always bro!

[Arcadiez]