DCUO LQ's Neron's Underworld Raid Guide

Discussion in 'Oracle’s Database (Guides)' started by TheLQ-DCUO, Nov 23, 2022.

  1. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    Walkthrough

    You start off in Neron's Underworld, and traverse through a series of staircases and hallways, killing Skeletons and other Demons in the way. Eventually you find Neron in a lava cave area, where he leaves your raid group to fight two demons, Hatred and Selfishness.

    First boss: Hatred and Selfishness

    Mostly straightforward fight in both regular and elite versions. Fairly tricky in the elite plus version and may require voice chat for best success.

    Recommended group setup for regular version: 5 DPS, 1 Controller, 1 Healer, 1 Tank.

    Recommended group setup for elite version: 4 DPS, 1 Controller, 1 Healer, 2 Tanks.

    On PS, Hold R1 to block

    Mechanics:

    (Elite/elite plus only) The elite version of this fight may require a 2 tank setup. It may be possible to finish this with 1 tank, but for best results 2 tanks are preferred. This is due to the fact that if Hatred and Selfishness are close together they will shield each other, increasing their defence from damage output dealt by the group and therefore prolonging the fight. Hatred will also restore health if he is close to Selfishness.

    Hatred:

    Burning Shroud: Reflect mechanic. (Indicated by skull icon above Hatred's head) Hatred will raise his hand in the air for a short time, before blocking with its shield. Do not attack Hatred while this is active or he will reflect damage back to you and spawn a fire AOE on/around you (Hate Field), which does moderate to heavy damage over time to affected players. There will be on-screen text when this occurs stating "Do Not Attack Hatred while Burning Shroud Is Active!".

    Hateful Charge: Hatred will punch the ground, grounding everyone in the group. A random player will receive a red face icon above their head. Hatred will then charge the player with the red face icon. This will do heavy damage or most likely KO anyone impacted by this, especially in the elite version. Upon impact this will leave a fire AOE on the ground, which does moderate to heavy damage over time if a player is affected by it.

    Raging Backhand: Hatred will shake his fist in the air while facing its target before teleporting to a random player and doing a melee attack. This will do heavy damage or KO the affected player unless they are blocking - again especially in the elite version. It is best practice to block when you see Hatred shake his fist in any case.


    Fireball: Hatred may sometimes clap his hands and shoot a fire projectile in that direction. This should be evaded as it may do heavy damage or KO on impact. Most likely to occur in the elite plus version, perhaps other versions depending on how quickly Hatred is defeated.

    Flightsnare: Hatred may sometimes do a fire attack on a random player, which will do heavy damage or KO. Can be interrupted by the tank who has Hatred's aggro beforehand but a very short time window for this.


    Whirlwind Strike: Hatred may do a skull icon before spinning around. Does heavy damage if he impacts players directly with this. Depending on single target damage it is possible to skip this mechanic in most versions of the raid. Most likely to occur in elite plus.

    Selfishness:

    Devastating Dash: Selfishness will roll and charge in a straight direction for a time. Anyone impacted by this will take heavy damage or most likely be KO'd by this, especially in the elite version. This is indicated beforehand by a slight delay and arrows on the floor telling you the direction of his charge. It might be possible especially as a tank to block through this but better to avoid it altogether. Make sure if you are tanking it that he isn't facing the main group when he is about to use his ability.

    Selfishness may do various projectile attacks that may do large damage or knock back to affected players. These should be blocked or evaded. Examples include: Ice Boulder Strike*, Static Discharge

    After Selfishness has taken some damage, he will periodically spawn a Hell's Hatred add, which will hard stun and do damage over time to a random player (Hatefire). DPS should prioritise KOing this add as soon as possible.


    Whirling Pummel: Selfishness may jump and do a shockwave. Does moderate damage, perhaps heavy damage at mid or close range, and knocks back players.


    *Tip: As it is possible to block through Ice Boulder Strike, the tank who has aggro of Selfishness can use that to the group's advantage and position so they are in line of sight of the boss and block through each Ice Boulder Strike. The ice boulder should be destroyed on impact, so should this be successful it shouldn't affect other players in the group. This may take some practice, and as such all players should be mindful and aware of when Selfishness is about to throw a ice boulder.

    Differences/considerations for elite plus:

    1. Hatred and Selfishness must be defeated within a similar timeframe or the other will re-spawn at approximately 45% health. While this may seem like a minor update from the other versions, there is a lot more mechanic overlap to consider and makes this fight significantly more tricky in elite plus. Voice chat will be highly recommended.

    - One possible strategy is to lower Selfishness' health first as he is a lesser threat to the group in the longer term. It is vital for the group to callout Hatred when he shakes his fist and ensure everyone blocks for this so they don't get KO'd by Raging Backhand. This way Hatred won't start doing Hateful Charge until later in the fight (when the group have lowered Selfishness to low health and move onto Hatred) as this only occurs after Hatred has lost some health.

    2. Selfish Demon adds will spawn after a while. They will raise their hand in the air, and stun all group members. To stop this players should lunge to counter them so they are unable to do this.


    3. Selfishness's shockwave attack may KO if players are mid or close range when this occurs.

    After both Hatred and Selfishness are defeated, the group proceed through more staircases and hallways to KO more adds. Midway through this the group will need to KO several adds in a room before the door will open. After a few more adds the group eventually reaches Neron in his throne room.
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  2. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    Last boss: Neron

    Mostly straightforward fight in both regular and elite versions. In elite plus somewhat trickier post-hot fix (20/12/2022).

    Recommended group setup for regular version: 5 DPS, 1 Controller, 1 Healer, 1 Tank

    Recommended group setup for elite version: 3-5 DPS, 1 Controller, 1-2 Healer, 1-2 Tank

    Mechanics:

    At the start of the fight, Neron will take very low damage. Players will need to activate cogs around the edges of the room to lift this shield and allow Neron to become vulnerable. This is stated in the on-screen text: "Destroy his Items of Power to make Neron Vulnerable!". While this phase of the fight is ongoing, demon adds will continue to spawn. They should stop re-spawning once Neron is vulnerable.

    Scorched Agony: Neron may shake his fist before doing a stomp, dealing a raid wide fire AOE attack. This will deal damage over time to affected players in the group.

    After Neron has taken some damage, Lava pattern AOEs will spawn in various parts of the room. Players should avoid these throughout the fight as they will spawn into Pool of Lava AOEs for a time - these will do very heavy damage over time (Lava Flow) or most likely KO on impact. These will respawn in other areas of the map for the remainder of the fight, so players will need to continue to evade these AOEs.

    Underworld Intruder: A random player may be form changed into a lava demon, with a different loadout. On-screen text will state: "Remove Demon Form with your Demonic Ability - but Use with Care!". Either the player can run around while in the form until it eventually expires, or they can use the first ability in their loadout several times to return to their normal form quicker. However, using the first ability in their loadout triggers Underworld Admonishment, which does raid wide damage to all nearby players in the group. This mechanic may be tricky if the group has a solo heal and/or solo tank, which is why some groups may consider 2 heals and/or 2 tanks, especially in the elite version.

    Fire Ball: Neron may spawn a fireball on the floor. Does some damage over time, however it will explode and do moderate to heavy damage to nearby players.

    Underworld Rebuke: Neron may give whoever has his aggro (ie. the tank) with a ring around them over a period of time. When that player has 4 rings around them they will lose their loadout for a time and won't be able to use any abilities. This mechanic may also warrant using 2 tanks during this boss fight as the tanks may need to swap aggro of Neron for when this occurs.

    Flame Breath: Neron breathes a cone of fire that deals heavy continuous damage in a long line. This can be countered by lunging the boss.

    Hellfire Curse: Neron will have a skull icon and wait for a brief time before pulling all players in the group towards him, perhaps 1-2 times. This will usually occur when Pool of Lava AOEs are not active. Neron marks players with a big red circle indicator (proximity marker) at their feet and after a few seconds they explode, doing damage to themselves and nearby players. This can even target and damage players who are already out of the fight. After getting pulled to the boss and receiving the red proximity markers, all players should spread out away from each other while minding other AOE mechanics in the fight to mitigate incoming damage.

    Fireball Spread: Neron may sometimes throw several fireballs around him, which can do heavy damage to affected players especially if they are melee or midrange from the boss. This can be countered/lunged usually by the tank but this only mitigates some of the fireballs being thrown.

    Backdraft: Neron may have a skull icon above his head before lifting in the air with a fiery vortex, pulling players in range towards him (unless the tank has popped immunity). This does moderate to significant raidwide damage. This can be interrupted if the boss is countered by a lunge (usually by the tank).

    Differences/considerations for elite plus:

    1. Neron is much more likely to use Hellfire Curse - again there will be periods where Pool of Lava AOEs are not active and this is where Hellfire Curse is likely to occur.

    2. Later in the fight a random player may lose their loadout (not as a result of Underworld Rebuke). This player will also receive a red/green chroma material over their style. On the left/right side of the room are vials, some of which may contain blue souls. You will need to activate a vial that has a blue soul inside it (do this 7 times for a feat) in order to get your loadout back.
    - If you activate an empty vial, not only will you not get your loadout back, but when Neron is at 20% or lower health he will summon adds to his side. The adds can be tricky for the group as the tanks may not be ready for them due to Underworld Intruder/Underworld Rebuke mechanics or other ongoing mechanics in the fight. The more empty vials that are activated while an affected player has this, the more adds that will spawn at the end of the fight and the more difficult it will be for the group. The player will get their loadout back if they activate a vial with a blue soul in it after having activated an empty vial previously - but activating an empty vial will cause adds to spawn later.

    3. Occasionally Neron will spawn a Fire Field AOE, which does heavy damage over time if affected players are stood in it for too long. This is more of a red colour and is not to be confused with the Pool of Lava AOE spawns, one of the primary mechanics of the fight.

    4. Hex Totem: Neron may spawn green targetable AOEs. These may do damage over time, and drain an affected player's power and supercharge. They will also debuff affected players, for example an affected player will do considerably lower damage output for a short time. It is possible to target and KO these AOEs, or they can be destroyed by Pool of Lava/Lava Flow AOEs if they happen to spawn on them.

    5. Fire Ball (when it explodes) will KO players in range if they aren't blocking. Players can even block while stood directly next to the Fire Ball as it explodes and should survive the mechanic, provided there aren't other mechanics affecting that player also.

    6. Underworld Admonishment will KO any nearby players who are not blocking. It may be easier if you get transformed to stay in form throughout, as there is no exclusively elite plus feat requiring you (at this stage) to get out of form as soon as possible, and stomping to break out of form (which causes Underworld Admonishment) will add further difficulty for the group overall. Be especially careful if you use an ability that is on the same loadout slot as Underworld Admonishment as getting transformed and misclicking that loadout slot may be a considerable risk for the group.
    - Another alternative idea is if a tank or heal gets the Underworld Intruder form that they can go to a corner of the room well away from other players (while minding ongoing mechanics) and activate Underworld Admonishment a few times until they breakout back to their normal form. This will require group co-ordination and timing however.

    7. Pool of Lava/Lava Flow AOEs spawn a little faster in elite plus than in other versions of the raid while active.

    Once you have beat Neron you have cleared the raid.
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  3. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    Elite plus updates coming later. I will also at some point re-write up the Source Wall guide as it didn't look very presentable before and there have been updates since then which I have updated on the DCUO Wiki.
  4. Henoshock Well-Known Player

    Couple things:

    Selfishness does not heal when in close proximity with Hatred, though it will be shielded (increased defenses), so it can be solo tanked. The roll's skull/windup will continually juggle you if you're nearby (and it's hard to break out of), which makes it really easy to get hit by the actual roll that comes right after. The roll will deal much less damage if blocked (will not oneshot in elite).

    Hatred will face toward where he's going to teleport. Sometimes it's NPCs or pets. He may also randomly clap someone (think combat log says Flightsnare), probably oneshotting them in elite, which can be cancelled if lunged almost immediately. He does some combos which can be countered (namely ranged claps - lunge this or roll dodge - and a lunge).

    Neron - I'm pretty sure his rings are on a timer, whoever has aggro at the timer's ticks will get a ring. All rings will disappear from you if no new rings are added in X seconds. Every skull he does can be lunged (fire breath and a Backdraft). Fireball Spread can be lunged. Group is most likely to die to either Lava, LoS from Tank (Fireball Spread), Scorched Agony + solo Healer is a demon, the Fireball (meteor/meatball), or solo Tank gets repressed. The meatball is kind of hard to see in the moment, drops suddenly from the sky, has a fairly large explosion radius, and will leave a 4-5 tick DoT that does like 45% of your maximum HP each tick.
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  5. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    Thank you! I will need to test the roll more as I haven't observed blocking through it in a group yet.

    I don't usually include counters from weapon combos by a boss in my guides (I may when we get elite plus as it may be much more important at least for a time), only mechanics/mechanic names. I will investigate some of Neron's abilities.
  6. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    Elite plus updates for first boss done.

    There may be future minor updates to the guide due to how deadly and cheap Flightsnare can be on random group members, and also if a player is stunned by Hell's Hatred - Hatefire they can't block Hatred's Raging Backhand if they are targeted by Hatred, resulting in an unavoidable KO. The latter I have already brought up in the dev discussion thread.

    Besides scaling I haven't seen much difference in the Neron fight for elite plus but will verify when I run this for feats. As such I won't update the Neron fight walkthrough with elite plus updates just yet.
  7. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

  8. lamourboy001 Well-Known Player

    Soul Purpose [Elite Plus]
    In SoBA: Neron's Underworld (Elite Plus), defeat Neron after your team have retrieved souls at least 7 times without any mistakes.

    Which attack of Neron is that? How does this feat work, anyone can explain pls?
  9. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    I haven't tried that feat yet, have only been in the fight briefly once since hot fix.

    When I do I will update the Neron post with appropriate information.
  10. lamourboy001 Well-Known Player


    Thank you, appricate it!
  11. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    Most updates at this stage done, apart from the soul mechanic in the Neron fight in the elite plus version. (The second note in the elite plus section)

    Once I have done the Soul Purpose (Elite Plus) feat I will update on here accordingly and then most of the guide should be complete.

    If there is any feedback for anything on here besides the soul mechanic I am open to suggestions. I will likely do small updates/amendments here and there as I do with the other guides I have done.
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  12. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    Should have been fixed recently.
  13. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    This guide is almost complete. There may be minor updates here and there (as with other guides) and I may amend the description of the soul mechanic somewhat.

    Also if there are any future hot fixes I will update accordingly.

    If there is any feedback please let me know!
  14. lamourboy001 Well-Known Player


    Hey, any clue on the feat?
  15. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    For the feat make sure you activate 7 vials with a soul inside, and don't activate any empty vials.

    You will know if you have failed as adds will spawn when Neron is low health.

    Also try not to die when you have an empty loadout as a result of this, as it can interfere with the feat.
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  16. lamourboy001 Well-Known Player


    Wow, amazing guide. Thank you very much!
  17. TheLQ-DCUO Loyal Player

    These were in the archives on my PS5. Hope they help also.

    - 2 times where I lost soul and feat pop for Soul Purpose (Elite Plus)

    - what to do when you lose your soul in NUE+ Neron fight. (Short clip)