GW2. The Lonely Tower Fractal Guide. PvE Dungeon Guide. Fractals of the Mists.
Fractal Guide
The Lonely Tower is a fractal that takes place in the Wizard’s Tower. Assist Isgarren and Mabon with evacuating the demons from the tower.
The fractal can be separated into three sections, the puzzle portion, a boss fight, and then a final boss encounter.
Purifying the Nodes
At the very start, Mabon and Isgarren will be blocked by a magical wall. Go the other direction, passing through the cluttered hallway with damaging ground areas until reaching a room with Astral Purifier Nodes.
When interacting with the Astral Purifier Nodes, you must perform a puzzle of pressing the 1-5 keys according to whichever one of the skills is different than the others. While one player is interacting with one of these, Avatars of Spite will spawn and approach them. If they reach the player, they will explode and knock them back, interrupting the Astral Purifier interaction. These Avatars can be killed using power burst damage or applying conditions to them and CC to stop them in their tracks.
One player with low CC or damage can interact with the purifier, and the rest of the party defend them by CCing or bursting the avatars. After several rounds if the person interacting does not mess up, it will be completed and you can repeat with the next purifier. Swap who interacts with the purifiers based on who has recently used their cooldowns, and if your party has very high CC and damage, they can do multiple purifiers at the same time.
Alternatively, one person can solo the Purifiers by performing a maneuver. Position so that you can dodge from one side of the Purifier console to the other and press the F key as soon as it becomes available. The idea is that you don’t want to be in range of the console before or after the dodge, only in the middle. This will allow you to do the puzzle without spawning any Spites.
After completing all six purifiers, the magical gate will open, allowing access to the other end of the hallway. Your party can /gg from one end of the hallway to return to the center and move to the other side where there will be one final purifier. This leads to the first boss room.
Deimos and Cerus
Both of these bosses fight you at the same time, but the mechanics are not as punishing as their original forms from raids and strikes. Whoever has the fixation of each boss is determined by the orange and blue icons that appear above players heads. Your team can either stack the bosses together to get more value on cleave damage, or split them up on either side of the room to make their mechanics more visible and easier to play around.
Deimos Mechanics
Black Oil – As in the raid wing encounter, the most important for Deimos is the oil he spawns on the ground. It is much more predictable in the fractal version because Deimos lifts his arms in the air and swings his maces around. This may be confusing for those who remember his raid mechanics, but that animation will now spawn the oil instead. If players stand in it, it will damage them and grow in size until it covers up most of the room. Avoid this at all costs.
Smash – An orange circle separated into triangles will tell that Deimos is about to smash the ground, knocking back any players hit by this. Time your dodge to avoid this or move out of the range. You can’t be knocked off a platform, so this is not too dangerous.
Hands – A kiter is not needed to manage these, but there will be hands that spawn around the room, creating less space to move around in.
Cerus Mechanics
Just like in the strike mission, Cerus gains stacks of empowerment when players fail mechanics, making him deal more damage. In general this is not relevant if your party has decent sustain, but can become an issue if the fight drags on too long due to low damage.
Rage – A large orange circle will appear around Cerus and deal damage and grant him empowered stacks for hitting players. While this looks slightly different, it is functionally the same as the smash from Deimos, just time your dodge or get out of the area.
Orbs – When these orbs that spawn above each player drop, they create a damaging area that adds more clutter to the ground like the Deimos hands. Players should move to the edges of the room to drop these so there is more space.
Malice – One player will have a shadow of them spawn and this clone will run towards Cerus. Kill it before it reaches him or it gives him stacks of empowerment.
With many mechanics taking up space in the room, it can become chaotic. Positioning and awareness are necessary to handle all of these at the same time, but none of the mechanics are too punishing if you fail them. When in doubt, just stick with your healers and hit the closest target.
Afterwards, take the portal outside to begin the final boss.
Eparch
Compositions
Superspeed/Mobility – The most important mechanics of this fight require movement, and because space is limited or you will be pulled involuntarily towards the boss, having extra mobility to be able to fight against these pulls to do the mechanics will be very helpful.
Condition Cleanse – The boss can corrupt boons often which results in having many different conditions on you. Resistance or straight cleansing will remove a lot of the pressure. Also try to avoid having stability in your comp naturally, because it can be corrupted into fear which will CC you.
Break Bar CC – The break bar that the boss has is large and gives permanent barrier during it, so the longer it takes to CC will cause the fight to be prolonged and allow the boss to keep getting more powerful. Make sure to have plenty of CC that can be used on a relatively short timer (around every 40-50 seconds).
Ranged Potential – Full melee builds will feel worse to play because of the constant need to move away from the boss to collect globules, avoid mechanics, and survive. Ranged or at least partially ranged builds will be able to upkeep more damage while doing the mechanics to make the fight much easier.
This fight is long and your decisions and adherence to the mechanics matter all throughout the fight. It requires good positioning, solid team composition, and obeying mechanics properly.
Globules – All throughout the fight, different colored orbs representing an emotion will be flung out of Eparch and land on the ground. Enable “Show All Usable Object Names” in your general settings to more easily see these. Each orb will spawn at the same time as another mechanic, making them predictable. When they spawn you need to immediately run over to them and pick them up. These orbs each have different effects depending on its name, and the boss can even gain these orbs for similar effects.
| Emotion | Color | Corresponding Attack | Player Effect | Boss Effect |
| Despair | Blue | Ground Fire | Decrease damage taken and dealt | Decrease damage taken |
| Malice | Purple | Spikes | CC is more effective | Attacks inflict conditions |
| Rage | Red | Shockwave | Increase damage taken and dealt | Increase damage dealt |
| Envy | Green | Arrow Wave | Boons improved but conditions hurt you more | Attacks corrupt boons |
| Gluttony | Orange | Spin Pull | Take damage over time but steal life | Gain health when consuming any emotion |
When you pick up an orb, you gain stacks of the emotion’s effect, but when you pick up a different orb it will reduce the stacks of your previous emotion before adding stacks of the new one. This means you can’t have multiple effects at one time, but also serves as a way to balance how many the boss can get. The boss will gain these emotions during his break bar animation. Any orbs not picked up will be sucked up by the boss, but also one random player will be chosen and any emotions that they have will be taken by the boss.
Some of the effects, like the Envy emotion can be very detrimental if they stack up. Picking these orbs up is necessary to deny them from the boss, but also negating them with another emotion can be safer if the boss chooses to consume your emotions during the break bar animation.
While it can be optimal to give specific orbs to certain roles since you can’t have more than one effect, it is even more important that the boss does not get these orbs if they are left on the ground for too long. So regardless of which orbs they are, you should get them.
Fissures – These red lines dividing the area into hexagonal shapes will inflict agony when you walk over them. They can be jumped over to avoid the damage. At first they are not dangerous, but they can apply the emotional effects Eparch gains later on.
Spikes – Small circles will appear beneath players and follow them, damaging those who stand still after a short delay. Avoid moving towards others while you have this mechanic on you, but keep moving to avoid the damage.
Ground Fire – Many small orange circles will clutter the ground, and while these do not have much of an effect at the start, as the fight progresses and the boss consumes emotions, these circles will start applying effects such as boon corruption and condition application.
Break Bar – Eparch gains a break bar and will channel barrier until it is broken, making any damage useless. However, conditions can still be applied while the barrier is there which will deal their damage afterwards. Eparch also consumes globules from players during this. Breaking the bar will remove some of the buffs the boss has accumulated, so make sure to break it before the animation finishes.
Shockwave – Eparch will rise into the air and attack directly beneath him, dealing massive damage to those inside the boss and then creating a shockwave that also deals heavy damage but can be jumped or dodged over.
Spin Pull – Eparch will create a red circle around himself and spin for several seconds, dealing damage to those inside the circle and pulling everyone closer towards him. Use dodges and mobility skills to get outside of the red circle and face away from the boss so you can move outwards as fast as possible to keep out of the danger zone. The pull inwards can also prevent you from collecting the globules quickly, so make sure to save your mobility skills for this.
Arrow Wave – Four arrows will point out in perpendicular directions, and then Eparch will spin, shooting out waves of magic which will corrupt boons on any players hit by the wave. If you are too close to the boss you can not avoid these waves even if you are between the arrows. To avoid them you must move away from the boss as soon as you see the arrows and then position in between the waves, or if you have good timing you can dodge inwards through the boss so the wave passes you as it spawns.
This is a battle of attrition, boons will constantly be corrupted so staying near your allies to reapply them is necessary. However, there are many mechanics that require you to move and split from your team. Remember to reconvene with your allies and prioritize getting the globules first.
Gameplay Final Boss Battle Tier 4
Challenge Mode
To be able to access the challenge mode, the normal mode meta-achievement must be completed by one person to interact with the challenge mote.
The challenge mode is almost exactly the same as the normal mode until the final boss. The puzzle portion and the demon duo will deal a bit more damage so it may require you to be more strict with the mechanics, but they are more or less the same.
The main differences between normal mode and challenge mode come from the final encounter with Eparch:
- The break bar will no longer remove emotions that Eparch has collected, instead you must break the bar faster to prevent losing stats permanently throughout the fight. Bring lots of CC to instantly break the bar.
- The emotions that the boss gains are also permanent throughout the fight, meaning you must be much more strict with how you collect and negate the orbs. You can’t just have everyone collect any orb, organization is necessary.
- At 66% and 33% there will be new phases where Kryptis Rifts spawn and must be closed while also preventing the Avatars of Spite from reaching Eparch that give him permanent buffs.
Emotion Management
Because every orb must be collected, but the boss cannot be allowed to consume them from the party, a strategy of balanced orb management must be planned. Every attack the boss does will spawn 6 of the corresponding emotion orbs. Therefore one emotion that you get stacks for can be negated by another emotion entirely. Here are the effects of each emotion which is now much more relevant:
| Emotion | Color | Corresponding Attack | Player Effect | Boss Effect |
| Despair | Blue | Ground Fire | Decrease damage taken and dealt | Decrease damage taken |
| Malice | Purple | Spikes | CC is more effective | Attacks inflict conditions |
| Rage | Red | Shockwave | Increase damage taken and dealt | Increase damage dealt |
| Envy | Green | Arrow Wave | Boons improved but conditions hurt more | Attacks corrupt boons |
| Gluttony | Orange | Spin Pull | Take damage over time but steal life | Gain health when consuming any emotion |
The most important emotion to avoid is Envy, but it can occur twice per sequence which complicates potential ways of handling them. There are three potential strategies.
Taking Turns
One player can be assigned to odd groupings and another to even groupings. Since the orbs spawn in a linear manner as the boss performs its mechanics, one player can collect the first two sets of orbs. This will stack the orbs and then immediately negate them. Then the second player can go get the next set of orbs and the ones afterwards to negate them. This can be done with a sequence of two, three, or more players depending on what your team is capable of.
Burst and Hope for Good Luck
Because the boss gains more damage reduction over time, it is beneficial to have good DPS uptime. Managing the orbs in a meticulous way can dampen your team’s overall damage quite a bit. Instead, your party can just assign one person to collect every orb (preferably one who can contribute while doing so) and they will collect and negate the orbs as nonstop, but that player may eventually end up with uneven stacks of one emotion or become overwhelmed with the mechanics overlap.
The plan is to hope that the boss does not choose them during the break bar, and instead choose any of the other party members who will be avoiding orbs anyway to focus on DPS. Eparch cannot consume any emotions four out of five times this way. With high enough DPS, your team can minimize how many break bars will occur to brute force the statistics in your favor.
Player Specific Orbs
Assigning specific orbs to a player can come with added risks but also benefits. Since specific emotion buffs will benefit certain roles better than others, giving the relevant buffs to each role will increase your team’s effectiveness. It will also make it more predictable for when they need to get orbs. Knowing that the Rage orbs spawn after a shockwave, or that the Envy orbs spawn after the arrow wave can provide players assigned to get that orb a clear sign of when to get them.
Blue is great for healers and Red for DPS, for example. Since Green (Envy) spawns twice, you can organize who gets which Envy spawn. Players may also need to adapt to negate their stacks sometimes because the attack pattern can change throughout the fight. More coordination may be required to pull this off.
Kryptis Rift Phases
At 66% and 33%, Eparch will ascend into the sky and Kryptis Rifts will spawn. Two of them at 66% and three at 33%. These spawn a Kryptis boss and will continuously spawn Avatars of Spite. These Avatars of Spite must be killed before they reach the center area below Eparch where he will consume them for extra buffs. While stopping the Avatars of Spite, players must also progress killing the boss Kryptis to be able to close the portals. Since there are two portals summoning at the same time, the party is intended to split. However, this is currently overtuned and seems impossible with three rifts at the same time, so a potentially unintended strategy where a player with high attack speed collects the orbs of Gluttony which allow them to hit the Rifts with lifesteal before the Kryptis is dead, allowing you to skip these phases for the most part so long as you can reliably keep the Gluttony buff up when the phase occurs.
Achievements
Lonely Tower Fractal – 5AP
This is the meta achievement for the Fractal, you must complete 5 achievements from this category. The reward is an Endless Midnight King Combat Tonic which allows you to roleplay as Eparch.
Wizard’s Tower Is Ours, Eparch – 2AP
Complete for the first time the Lonely Tower fractal on any difficulty.
Wayfind Yourself Out – 3AP
Complete for the first time the Lonely Tower fractal on the Master tier (T4).
Brothers, Together – 3AP
Defeat Cerus and Deimos within 5 seconds of each other in their encounter. Have each player fixated by the bosses move away from each other to separate the bosses so you can kill them in a more controlled fashion. Swap targets when one gets lower than the other and save cooldowns to finish the second immediately after the first dies.
Emotionless – 3AP
Defeat Eparch without allowing him to reach 20 stacks of any emotional attunement. This should be obtained by completing the encounter doing the mechanics cleanly and collecting the orbs as soon as they spawn. As players improve at this encounter, this achievement should be obtained automatically.
Fissure Walker – 3AP
Defeat Eparch without taking any damage from the Fissure mechanic. This can be completed on any difficulty, and is recommended to do on tier 1 because the Fissures are not permanent and they take up less space. A build with extremely long range can do this safely, and focus on moving precisely during the pull attack which can move you into the fissures.
Secrets of the Tower – 5AP
Complete the Lonely Tower Fractal on Challenge Mode.
We’re Never Alone But We’re Isolated – 5AP
Complete the Lonely Tower Fractal on Challenge Mode 25 times. This unlocks the Empowered Eparch’s Sword and Empowered Eparch’s Greatsword skins for purchase from the BLING-9009 merchant in the Fractal lobby.
Wavering Ward – 5AP 
Kryptis Exorcist
Complete the Lonely Tower Fractal on Challenge Mode without a single player dying. This means completing the first puzzle portion and demon duo as well. You must reset the entire fractal if you fail an attempt on Eparch.
Editor of GuildJen, full-time streamer and Youtube creator. Enjoys meaningful RPG’s for their storytelling and decision making capabilities.
