Lava Beast

Lava Beast
Information
Enemy Types	Boss
Lane Type	Free-Roaming
Appearances	Crystal Mine Expeditions 6th wave
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The Lava Beast is a giant mutated witherbeast boss only encountered in Crystal Mine within Expeditions gamemode.

Credits to this image from the Protobot Database for a good amount of info that this article uses.

Behavior and Mechanics

• Lava Beast is a free-roaming boss, meaning that the boss is free to travel or be lured to anywhere in the map as the fight will be mostly centered around surviving its abilities. The boss will always try to move towards the nearest player as they are the primary targets.
• The Lava Beast always spawns from "Ore Deposit" spawn point and will usually traverse through one specific path towards the core at the top level of the map unless aggroed otherwise.
• The Lava Beast's attack patterns mainly revolves around using 4 special abilities in random order while also trying to get closer to its target so it can use close-combat attacks.
• The Lava Beast has 46.835% damage resistance. However during its 7-seconds stun phase, it'll take additional 50% more damage.
• The Lava Beast is untargetable by most defenses (except Lightning/Frost Strikes Aura) and does not trigger traps but would still be vulnerable to defense damage. It is also unaffected by conventional crowd control effects.
• The Lava Beast's attacks are able to damage cores and towers or blockades.

Close-combat Attacks

The Lava Beast will perform these basic melee attacks randomly whenever a target is close enough. Each of these attacks is guaranteed to deal knockback that cannot be negated by Tenacity. Despite having three different styles of attack, there are no notable differences between them.

Left melee swipe.

Right melee swipe.

Headbutt attack.

Special Abilities

• Projectile attack mode - In this mode, the Lava Beast crouches, using the crystal spikes on its head to fire projectiles in a lobbed angle at its targets. The projectiles are homing but can be dodged (if done properly) or blocked by terrain. The amount of projectiles fired at once will depend on the amount of heroes in the map. Reflect Beam will be unable to repel these projectiles (as they cannot be reflected or will go over the beam due their lobbed trajectory). This mode lasts for 10 seconds and has a firing rate of around about a second (more or less).

• Crystal Hammer attack - Similar to the Adept's tower of the same name, this attack sends a piercing line of damaging crystal spikes which also travels quite a distance forward damaging anything in their path. If any heroes are near enough to the Lava Beast when caught in this attack, they will be stunned for 4 seconds (Can be negated by Tenacity). This attack is unable to be repelled by Reflect Beams too.

• Death Burrow attack - The Lava Beast burrows underground, using two seconds to track a hero (1st second) and locking-in (2nd second) before striking. Any heroes or core struck by this attack will be faced with instant death. The reach of the strike may exceed the range of the targeting circle. While towers/blockades may get damaged from a death burrow, for some reason any non-pawn based traps (such as Explosive Trap, Geyser Trap, Blaze Balloon, Oil Geyser, Snaking Sands or EMP Trap) caught will be outright removed.

• Summoning Lava Bug minions - The Lava Beast burrows again but instead going underground, it starts summoning up to 9 or 10 special Lava Bug minions and then resuming its other attacks once the process is over. Unlike regular Lava Bugs, these ones mostly just hovers around and are more focuses on attacking nearby heroes than doing anything else. When all summoned lava bug minions are killed, the Lava Beast enters a stun phase where it stops doing anything for 7 seconds and will be able to take 50% more damage for that duration.

Projectile Attack Mode.

Crystal Hammer Attack.

Death Burrow Attack.

Summoning Lava Bug minions.

Strategy

It is recommended to use Hero Damage-based builds to fight the Lava Beast as they are more effective in consistent dps. It is also highly recommended to equip at least a Speed Boost shard for a hero to be able to be fast enough to outrun the targeting of a Death Burrow and having Tenacity would be ideal for a little QOL against the stuns that come from Crystal Hammer attacks if you're using a melee hero for tank or DPS purpose.

Using World Tree with World Tree Mcbufferson, Obelisk with Empowering Blasphemy and Flame/Water Aura with Empowering Aura shard will also help increase damage done to the boss. And furthermore, Lava Beast can also be affected by debuffs (which increases his damage taken) from;

• Sundering Blow shard.
• Blessing of Poisons locked mod (from Ring of Poison).
• Ignite elemental combo.
• Melting Point Shard (for Countess)
• Incendiary Rocket (for Engineer's Bunker Buster)
• Wither Bubble shard (For Adept's Arcane Bubble)
• Initiate's Crippling Chi Wave
• Gunwitch's Book Drop (The Gunwitch that used bookdrop needs to stay active on field).
• Attacks from a Mystic with 100% Appeasement.
• Dragolich's Ghost Wail.
• Jackalope's Curse.

An example of using defenses as assistance against the boss.

Due to Crystal Mine's map layout - it is best to be aware of your surrounding and positions when engaging with the boss as you want to avoid situations where the core ends up getting collateral damage from the Lava Beast's abilities. Examples may include a Crystal Hammer attack reaching the objective due to a core being in the direction from a targeted hero's rear or Projectiles/Death Burrow ending up striking the core due to the objective being too near when targeted. Being aware of your behind is also something to keep in mind as you don't want to get knocked off the map when the Lava Beast uses its close combat attacks aside from dealing with crystal hammer attacks.

Having a scenario where all heroes dying with none active on field due to respawn timer should be avoided. This will result in the Lava Beast going for the nearest core and it'll be game over. If your DPS heroes aren't strong enough to deal high damage while also happens to be too squishy, these strategies can be used -

• Placing a blockade with a bunch of auras/nodes to block the Lava Beast in the middle of its travel path. The auras/nodes will assist with whittling down the boss and even if your hero dies, it'll still be preoccupied with attacking the blockade while you're waiting to respawn. Keep in mind to make sure the rear of the blockade isn't facing the core as to prevent damages from a crystal hammer attack.
• Having a second player as a hero (such as the Squire, Countess or Barbarian) with a tank build that's able to keep themselves alive drawing the attention of the Lava Beast while a DPS hero attacks the boss. There won't be a need to worry about a game over if the DPS hero ever dies since the tank hero will be keeping the Lava Beast preoccupied.

History

• March 30th 2023 : Introduced.