Lord Vanaduke
From SpiralKnights
Lord Vanaduke is the Duke of the Almirian Empire, a world fractured and strewn across the Clockworks. His flag can be seen in the Royal Jelly Palace, and the Scarlet Fortress. He resides in the Throne Room of the Firestorm Citadel, deep down near the Core.
He is intensely hostile to intruders into his kingdom, and assume all are after him. When you first step on the party button, a dialogue box will appear, with Lord Vanaduke saying, "What's this? More wolves hungry for the blood of Almire?"
Note that while he is not actually undead, he is marked as one simply because of the fact that he 'died' according to the history of the Firestorm Citadel.
Contents
Battle
Vanaduke has five phases, alternating from body stage, to mask/bullet stage. His body has a slight weakness to piercing, and is slightly resistant to everything else. His mask, however, is resistant to any damage type besides Normal. Vanaduke does not appear to belong to any monster family.
PHASE 1) His first stage has two attacks. He will swing his mace overhead towards a player, which can cause fire and stun if it makes contact, and creates a mild quake that breaks overhead supports. Patches of ground will immediately light up to an orange hue at random, and debris will shortly hit those spots with a chance of causing fire and stun as well. He can also dash towards a player, and may immediately follow up with a mace. He summons four Slag Walkers to fight by his side, and will spawn more should all of them be killed.
PHASE 2) After taking enough damage, he will retreat to the back of the room, fall to his knees, and hide his face as his mask detaches from his armor and begins to float around in a blaze while shooting bullets all around. Two giant red bullets will also orbit around his mask. His mask will be immune to damage, as well as constantly shoot bullets, as long as it's on fire. Using the waterballs provided, the player must temporarily "put out" Vanaduke's mask to be able to damage it. Waterballs can also destroy bullets, including the large, orbiting ones. His mask will re-ignite in five seconds, and the orbiting bullets will re-appear in time.
PHASE 3) After dealing enough damage to the mask, the mask will return to Vanaduke's face. The first phase will resume, except with four large orbs of flame orbiting his body. Vanaduke's mace swing and debris can now spawn Shadow Fire around the area it lands.
PHASE 4) The mask stage will then repeat again, however with more and faster bullets. Agile Knights who get past this stage will have successfully destroyed Vanaduke's mask and move on to the final stage.
PHASE 5) The final phase is like phase 3, except Vanaduke will now have two waves of orbiting flame orbs, spawn Slag Guards instead of Slag Walkers, and can cast a fire stream attack, which causes no damage but can inflict fire if a Knight comes into contact with the flames. Although Vanaduke's flame orbs can block bullets, a gun is strongly recommended for the final stage (it should be noted that the fire balls that defend Vanaduke in his body stages can be temporarily extinguished with water balls)
Video: Spiral Knights - Lord Vanaduke
Strategy
The hardest part of the battle is dodging the Shadow Fire that spawns when Vanaduke strikes the ground. Ultimately, the main goal in the battle is to kill Vanaduke, but staying alive is also important in this process. Shadow Fire should be extinguished every time it spawns in the active battle ground to prevent accidental run-ins with it later on. Another option is prevention, which requires the player (who has Vanaduke's agro) to stay out of his line of sight at all times. This can be done by freezing him or kiting around to stay behind him at all times throughout the battle. Note that his agro does shift to the player dealing more damage to him.
Killing the beast
Vanaduke can be held (frozen) in place by a freezing bomb, so players can simply kite around him while he is frozen in place. Note that in the final stage, only a Shivermist Buster can reach him from outside the radius of his orbiting fire orbs. They can be extinguished so a lesser bomb can reach, but the orbs reignite periodically without warning.
The orbs surrounding Vanaduke can be constantly extinguished so he is reachable by sword in later stages. The main problem with using swords in the latter stages is navigating through the maze of Shadow Fire that no doubt surrounds him.
Some users will trap Vanaduke between the water well and the wall, allowing them to attack him (with ranged weapons) while staying out of reach of his mace or charge attacks. Note that he will still strike the ground of he sees you, causing debris to fall and Shadow Fire to spawn in later stages.
Dealing with monster spawns
Some parties will designate a player to handle the monster spawns while the rest focus on Vanaduke. This is done by controlling the monsters' agro, freezing them in place, or simply shield-bumping them away from the battle.
To prevent the monsters from spawning, many parties will shield-bump at least 2 zombies from the start of the battle into the top corners of the room, where they will be out of range of the players and idle for the duration of the battle. When 2 Slag Walkers are left alive, Vanaduke will not spawn more walkers or Slag Guards for the duration of the battle.
Tactics
That said, he is weak to piercing attacks in bodily form (odd stages), and his mask (even stages) slightly resists everything but Normal. For this reason, many players will bring a Leviathan Blade with them to the fight, as well as a Piercing gun to reach him in the later stages where he is surrounded by fiery orbs. Argent Peacemaker and Blitz Needle are the two popular choices for this battle. Weapons are usually charged up while the player is kiting in order to release a stronger attack on him when ideally positioned.
In this battle, almost everything can and will inflict Fire on the player. Because of this, armor with a protection from Fire is highly recommended, though not a necessity. A shield with Elemental, Shadow or Fire protection is also highly recommended.
Many parties choose to freeze Vanaduke in place for the duration of the battle, making the fight easier. For this reason, a Shivermist Buster with a higher Charge Time Reduction is recommended--one player will stand in place, continuously freezing Vanaduke, while the rest kite around and attack him.
Warnings/Known Issues
Vanaduke currently has two broken elements to his fight that can instantly damage you without any warning or time to prepare or react appropriately. These are the lava blocks spawning from falling debris, and Slag Guards abusing the camera angle. Lava blocks do not need to spawn exactly where debris has fallen, and if you're nearby, can spawn inside of you and keep you from moving at all if centered enough, even if reviving. Slag Guards, who only have a charging attack, can come up from the bottom of the screen and, due to their speed, hit the player in half a second of coming on screen.
While there is a workaround for the Slag Guards, being trapped inside lava blocks or having them spawn on you at all can severely hamper your goal of defeating Vanaduke.
Drops
- 1-4 (5 Unconfirmed) Almirian Seals.
Notes
- A Recon Module can be obtained in front of the lift right after killing Vanaduke.
- Lord Vanaduke does not actually belong to any monster family, although his lore leads to the belief that he is an undead. He does not, however, share the same resistances or weaknesses as common undead.
History
Video: Spiral Knights - Vanaduke - Preview Event
