Malachai, The Nightmare

Malachai, The Nightmare
Malachai, The Nightmare
Level(s)	40
Location(s)	The Harvest
Quest(s)	The Eternal Nightmare
Resistance(s)	Resists Elemental Damage Resists Chaos Damage
Skill(s)	Slam Summon Blood Worms Teleport (with Slam) Tentacle Portal Monster Mortar Fire Trap TriBomb Ring of Fire

Malachai, The Nightmare is the final boss of Act 4, located in the Harvest's Black Core's final area: The Black Heart. Defeating him allows the player access to Act 5.

Abilities

Malachai has two stages with small changes in the spells he uses.

Phase 1

In this stage, Malachai is initially protected by a red shield that prevents all damage. Piety helps the player by disabling Malachai's shield with her Piety Beam. Standing in the lightning beam deals lightning damage over time and shocks the player.

When Malachai's health drops to 75% and 50%, he transforms Piety into her Piety, the Abomination form and regains his shield and invulnerability. Piety will become an enemy that uses persistent balls of lightning and autoattacks. Piety's health must be reduced to 0 to cause her to revert to her human form to disable Malachai's shield again. After "killing" Piety the second time, Malachai will impale Piety with his staff and move to a new arena, trigger Phase 2.

• Autoattack: If you stand adjacent to Malachai, he attacks you with moderately strong melee strikes.
• Summon Blood Worms: Small blood worms pour into the arena at regular intervals. They deal moderate damage, but have low life. Their corpses explode after a short delay, dealing moderate damage. They grant flask charges on death.
• Spawn TriBomb: Malachai conjures three red energy orbs in a triangle in the arena. After a short delay, each orb explode into three smaller orbs move slowly.
• Teleport: Malachai teleports to another location. Does not deal damage.
• Teleport Slam: Malachai sinks into a bloody portal and re-appears in another location, rippling with red energy. After a short delay, the energy explodes in a large runic circle around Malachai's location.
• Slam: Malachai lifts his weapon and smashes in front of him dealing moderate damage.
• Tentacle Portal: Malachai channels for a duration, dealing many small hits that can chill in a large cone in front of him. This skill can be easily dodged by moving behind Malachai or moving away from the cone.
• Mortar: Malachai throws balls of blood that create Rune Traps on the ground.
  • Rune Trap: Malachai throws 1-3 bloody traps. Traps are triggered when players and allies step on it or are summoned onto it, exploding for moderate damage. Traps last 9 seconds before expiring.

Phase 2

In this stage, the arena contains three Hearts of the Beast. At approximately 70%, 40% and 20% life, Malachai teleports to one of these Hearts and opens it, recovering about 30% of his Life and becomes invulnerable due to his shield. The opened Heart can then be killed to get rid of the shield.

Malachai retains most of his attacks from the first stage, with a few exceptions noted below:

• Malachai no longer uses Slam or Summon Blood Worms.
• Malachai will use more AoEs and teleports more often as his health gets lower.
• Rune Traps are larger and deal more damage. Rune Traps are now summoned directly instead of being left by Mortar.
• Degen Mortar: Malachai can throw 1 or 5 balls of blood that explode and deal persistent physical damage over time for 5 seconds in an area.
• Summon Primordial Creations: Summons humanoid monsters that act similar to zombies.
• Ring of Fire: Upon opening the third Heart, Malachai creates a persistent red ring that slowly tracks the player around the arena, dealing moderate fire damage over time to anyone inside it.

Strategy

Malachai's Tentacle Portal skill.

Most of Malachai's attacks are well-telegraphed. Watch him and learn what the animations for each attack look like, and you should be able to avoid most of his damage. Learning what the attacks look like and how to avoid them is the key to victory in this fight.

In general, fight cautiously - avoid his attacks and only damage him when you can do so relatively safely. Malachai has no energy shield or health regen, so all of your damage will add up.

Malachai's tentacle portal provides the best opportunity to damage him, assuming you can avoid the other AoEs he throws out. He is stationary for the entire time he channels, and maneuvering just to one side of the portal will let you attack him without taking any damage.

For the entire fight, but especially the end of the second phase, pay very close attention to the ground in the arena. Malachai's rune traps, blood pools, and the ring of fire are all very dangerous in the chaos of the fight.

The explosive teleport is easily recognized and gives you plenty of time to react, but don't mess around with it. The explosion can easily one-shot you. Get far away from Malachai and go back in after the explosion has gone off.

His Smash in stage 1 is quite quick, so if you are melee and are using slow melee attacks like two handed ice crash or any skill with multistrike, you might not have time to dodge. This attack deals a large amount of damage, so melee characters should play especially defensively during the first phase.

Transformed Piety is extraordinarily dangerous, and will require lots of dodging. She does not have the chaos beam attack from her boss version, but the chaos spheres she throws deal very high damage. An Amethyst Flask or some other source of chaos resistance will help immensely.

Lore

Malachai is the most prolific and accomplished thaumatuge of all time who was prepared to sacrifice his own humanity in the pursuit of thaumaturgy. At some point in time, Malachai even used a "sliver of his soul" to animate the first "Eternal Guardian". It is unclear what this is referring to.

It was a sliver of Malachai's soul

that animated the first Eternal Guardian.

Malachai was a master at manipulating those in positions of power into yielding to his demands. After the Purity Rebellion, instead of being burned at the stake like fellow thaumaturgist Doedre, Malachai convinced Emperor Voll into letting him live, in exchange for Malachai bringing about the "end of thaumaturgy". However, Malachai had no such intentions and began work on the Rapture Device, designed to bring about the Cataclysm. It is speculated that this is what HonourhomeHonourhome
Soldier HelmetArmour: (68-112)
Energy Shield: (16-27)Requires Level 12, 16 Str, 16 Int+2 to Level of Socketed Gems
Adds 1 to 30 Lightning Damage to Spells and Attacks
(100-150)% increased Armour and Energy Shield
(10-20)% increased Rarity of Items found
(10-20)% reduced Mana Cost of Skills"The craven mind is sharp with self interest.
The honourable mind is much easier to manipulate."
- Malachai the Soulless refers to.

"The craven mind is sharp with self interest.

The honourable mind is much easier to manipulate."

- Malachai the Soulless

Map variants

Stronger versions of Malachai, The Nightmare serve as map bosses:

Map	Level	Name	Notes
Core MapCore MapMap Level: 69 Map Tier: 2 Guild Character: ûBlack monstrous bridges cross oily rivers, leading nowhere. Nothing as it should be.Travel to this Map by using it in a personal Map Device. Maps can only be used once.		Eater of Souls
Primordial Pool MapPrimordial Pool MapMap Level: 71 Map Tier: 4 Guild Character: ÂA dough of bad blood. A yeast of ill will.Travel to this Map by using it in a personal Map Device. Maps can only be used once.		Nightmare's Omen	Phase 1 only but without Piety
The Shaper's RealmThe Shaper's RealmMap Level: 84 Map Tier: 17 Guild Character: ¥Travel to this Map by using it in a personal Map Device. Maps can only be used once.	84		As one of the outcome of the random mini-bosses phase

Dialogue

Malachai is voiced by New Zealand actor John Leigh.

Achievements

Name	Description
End of the Nightmare	Kill Malachai, The Nightmare.

Related items

• Malachai's ArtificeMalachai's Artifice
  Unset RingRequires Level 5Has 1 SocketSocketed Gems have Elemental Equilibrium
  -20% to all Elemental Resistances
  +(75-100)% to Fire Resistance when Socketed with a Red Gem
  +(75-100)% to Cold Resistance when Socketed with a Green Gem
  +(75-100)% to Lightning Resistance when Socketed with a Blue Gem
  All Sockets are WhiteWhen the wind blows,
  Know which way to bend
  and watch the others break.
• Malachai's LoopMalachai's Loop
  Harmonic Spirit ShieldChance to Block: 23%
  Energy Shield: (179-231)
  Movement Speed: -3%Requires Level 65, 159 Int(10-15)% increased Spell Damage(210-250)% increased Energy Shield
  +2 to Maximum Power Charges
  20% chance to gain a Power Charge on Hit
  (12-16)% increased Spell Damage per Power Charge
  Lose all Power Charges on reaching Maximum Power Charges
  Shocks you when you reach Maximum Power ChargesThaumaturgy has no limit.
  It is our fragile reality that imposes boundaries.
• Malachai's SimulaMalachai's Simula
  Iron MaskEvasion: (48-60)
  Energy Shield: (11-14)Requires Level 17, 21 Dex, 21 Int+20 to Strength
  +(20-30)% to Lightning Resistance
  Spells have a 20% chance to deal Double Damage
  Blood MagicIt was a sliver of Malachai's soul
  that animated the first Eternal Guardian.
• Malachai's AwakeningMalachai's Awakening
  Iron MaskEvasion: (48-60)
  Energy Shield: (11-14)Requires Level 60, 21 Dex, 21 Int+20 to Strength
  (15-30)% increased Spell Damage
  +10% to all Elemental Resistances
  Adds (42-54) to (78-88) Cold Damage to Spells while no Life is Reserved
  Adds (54-64) to (96-107) Fire Damage to Spells while no Life is Reserved
  Adds (5-14) to (160-173) Lightning Damage to Spells while no Life is Reserved
  Blood MagicThere is no cost too great to pay for power.
  Merely men who lack the conviction to pay it.
• Malachai's MarkMalachai's Mark
  Murder MittsEvasion: (217-278)
  Energy Shield: (45-56)Requires Level 67, 51 Dex, 51 Int(80-100)% increased Evasion and Energy Shield
  +(60-80) to maximum Life
  Gain (15-25) Life per Enemy Hit with Attacks
  Gain (15-25) Energy Shield per Enemy Hit with Attacks
  Grants Malachai's Endurance, Frenzy and Power for 6 seconds each, in sequenceWhat man does not wish for immortality?
• Malachai's VisionMalachai's Vision
  Praetor CrownArmour: (161-185)
  Energy Shield: (201-258)Requires Level 68, 62 Str, 91 IntAdds (13-17) to (29-37) Chaos Damage
  +(150-200) to maximum Energy Shield
  +(32-40)% to Cold Resistance
  +(15-20)% to Lightning Resistance
  Regenerate 400 Energy Shield per second if all Equipped items are Corrupted
  Regenerate 35 Mana per second if all Equipped Items are CorruptedCorruptedWicked men chase power like stray dogs chase a rat.
• Malachai's LungsMalachai's LungsMy lungs breathe the same air as
  the foolish and the weak. May I be
  yet another step removed from them.
• Malachai's HeartMalachai's HeartMy heart forces blood through my veins.
  But one who may bleed may die, and
  death is no fitting end to genius.
• Malachai's EntrailsMalachai's EntrailsMy organs tether me to mortality
  like a chain. This chain holds me
  from my true potential.

Concept Art

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  Concept art

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Version history

Version	Changes
3.9.2f	Fixed a rare bug where Malachai in The Harvest and Core MapCore MapMap Level: 69 Map Tier: 2 Guild Character: ûBlack monstrous bridges cross oily rivers, leading nowhere. Nothing as it should be.Travel to this Map by using it in a personal Map Device. Maps can only be used once. could sometimes fail to transition to his second arena.
3.8.2	Fixed a rare bug that prevented various bosses from using skills or transitioning correctly after being Frozen or Stunned.
2.0.0	Introduced to the game.