In the author’s opinion, the Undead Lair (UDL) doesn’t particularly favor any one class. Thus, to help you make a decision for yourself, classes will be categorized based on their weapon type, and corresponding strengths and weaknesses will be mentioned.
This is personally my favorite weapon type, in UDL it makes fighting Septavius much quicker, and many of the minions are dead in one hit. But sword users have a major disadvantage against traps, and they are crippled when they enter a room full of slimes. They just can’t really do anything at all against slimes except tank and rush through.
All staff users do really good damage for the range that they have. Their abilities all affect large areas as well which can help against anything in the UDL, and they are good for netting soulbound (the wizard especially). Their only problem is that they have low defense, but it shouldn’t be a problem if you can avoid projectiles.
A ninja is slightly good for an Undead Lair, as you can outrace even Lair Reapers using your shuriken if you backpedal. The actual use of the shuriken could be used on Septavius, those pesky slimes, the Lair Constructs, or maybe the lair specters. The pierce of the Katana and the DPS is amazing at shredding enemies and the boss and if you have some courage (lair traps are quite fatal) you can probably rush with max def.
Wands are almost ideal for UDL’s because they have the longest weapon range and are capable of piercing, which is great for fighting slimes, and great for baiting other minions to their doom. Any priest though can easily be crippled by quiet shots. If maxed you can still kill the boss decently.
Dagger users have just barely enough range to destroy traps, their range is better than a ninja, and their abilities are good for damaging someone without taking a hit, rogues and assassins are able to do loads of damage to Septavius without getting hit. Tricksters are good at distracting enemies which is also useful. Their disadvantages are that they have to regain mp a lot as they rely on it to fight, as well as the fact they don’t pierce unless you have the Bone Dagger, which even then doesn’t do particularly good damage.
It is good to have a bow that is T8 or above, as this can allow them to shoot every enemy in a room at once, their abilities are great for damage dealing and slowing enemies down as well. The bow’s disadvantage is that, for multi-shot bows, the defense is applied each shot, meaning considerably less damage to the boss compared to the minions. If you happen to have the Doom Bow, you can make short work of most of the enemies, but It is still recommend to carry a tri-shot or coral bow as well as a Doom Bow, which is primarily a bossfight bow, especially due to the Coral Bow and the buff to the tiered bows.
In godlands, the Ghost Gods you fight have a chance to drop a Undead Lair, just keep killing Ghost Gods until you find one.
First of all, UDLs are a guaranteed source of wisdom pots, secondly the minions in the dungeon have a higher chance than the gods of the realm to drop T8 weapons and armors, as well as T4 abilities. If you are building a character from nothing this is where you might want to go. There is also a very slight possibility that you could find a Doom Bow from the boss.
Depending on what is awaiting inside of each room, you will have to deal with a different but equally deadly monster group inside. Here are the parts of the dungeon that cause many problems for people. Listed from easiest to hardest.
In every room you enter, along with the other monsters that dwell within, there can be 1 or 2 trap tiles on the floor. You can destroy a trap before it fires at you, but it can be hard to notice a trap while fighting hordes of enemies. Traps explode when someone gets in a proximity of 5 spaces from it. (If you’re a sword user, your only means of destroying a trap are to set it off) If you have low defense, traps can do a whopping 80+ damage per bullet, so they are not to be ignored. There are also 2 different types of traps, usually 1 of each per room. The square shaped trap fires in an arc in the direction of the player, while the circle shaped trap is omnidirectional.
These brutes are slow moving, big, easy to hit targets that due high damage shots that are also easy to dodge. Though they are not to be underestimated, they also shoot out a shot that does no damage, but will inflict confuse on a player, which makes them a much deadlier foe. Their confusion shot is much harder to dodge, and if you get confused you could run into their other shots, or even worse, into unexplored rooms on complete accident. Try to use corners as cover when fighting them and you should be safe.
Unlike many denizens of the Undead Lair, Ghosts can not inflict status effects upon you. Ghosts are only deadly to those who are unfamiliar with them. They can do as much damage as a Ghost God, but while they are dealing this massive amount of damage with their shots, they are also throwing bombs at you, much like a Medusa. Those who have fought these ghosts before know that the very best way to fight a room of Ghosts is to charge in Leeroy Jenkins style and circle the room to avoid getting multi-bombed by every ghost in the room. Try and kill either the White Ghosts first (because they do the most damage), or kill the Black Ghosts first (because they have the least amount of health).
These guys are just the most annoying thing for Priests. Lair Vampires will slow you and/or quiet you with their attacks, and they also do about 45 damage each. Now this wouldn’t be so bad, but if you get hit by one slow, you are very likely to also get hit with a quiet. Then you will be hobbling away from an angry crowd of vampires, and they seem to have very high dexterity (for an enemy of course). The best way to kill vampires, is to try and lure them out of a room one at a time, otherwise you could easily be overwhelmed.
The most hated enemy in the entire dungeon, slimes. Slimes are basically a 5 foot high speed bump. They have a range of 8, deal huge amounts of damage, and when you kill them, some smaller ones pop back in their place and flee to the nearest large slime of the same color. If you are a Priest or a Sorcerer, these should be no problem as the wands have superior range to the slimes. Otherwise, I recommend using whatever ability you may possess, or (especially if you’re a melee class) try to rush right past them if you are able to tank some of their shots. When fighting the slimes, make sure if you kill a big one, you try and kill the little ones that come out instantly afterwards before you have to run back and regain some health.
Example Layout:
When you first enter the dungeon, be mindful of how many different directions you can already go, if you have more than one direction to go it is very important that you clear one of the rooms out immediately, and hope that it is just skeletons in there. You need to make sure you have a safe room to run to at all times. Engaging 2 different sets of mobs with one person can be a bad experience for the less confident. As you are moving through the dungeon, make sure to clear some side rooms you don’t plan on exploring further; this is just to make sure that while you are running away from a vampire mob, you are not stabbed in the back by another lingering enemy. Say you are going through the dungeon and you plan to move further down, but there is also an unexplored side path, you should clear the side path first, if the side path goes further, you don’t need to explore it; you just need that first room cleared of enemies, then you can continue to head down. There are no treasure rooms in UDL so you need not explore past the main boss unless you absolutely need the extra equipment. Once you have made it to the boss room, make sure there are no enemies behind you before entering it. When you enter the boss room, walk around the wall to make sure there aren’t any extra rooms that you might need to clear out; you can clear those rooms without triggering Septavius if you hug the edge of the boss room well enough. Unless there are other people rushing in on the boss, you can also clear out all the minions around Septavius by walking around the wall, making it easier to get damage in during his spin phase. Once you have circled the whole boss room, and cleared out all extra rooms, you are ready for the boss.
One way to tell when Septavius is changing attack phases is when he flashes green for a couple seconds. Keep this in mind so you know what to do when you have to.
The moment you approach Septavius, he will start his spiraling bullets attack. This phase will deal 75 armor piercing damage per bullet. This phase can be hard to dodge to some, but just try not to eat the whole “line” of bullets, and especially do not stand on top of Septavius during this phase. This is made a bit more difficult with his minions chasing after you, but keep your fire on the minions, and they should be disposed of without too much trouble.
Septavius’ next phase is his bullet ring phase. During this phase, Septavius will unleash a ring shotgun of projectiles that each do 160 damage. Meanwhile, Septavius himself will move erratically around you. It is possible to damage him during this phase. However, standing close to him during this phase is extremely risky; if he hits you with the entire attack at once, death is almost certain (key word: almost; see trivia below).
As soon as Septavius is done “exploding,” he will go into the quiet and confuse phase. This is a phase where he is constantly shooting out quiet bullets that are very difficult to dodge. They deal around 40 damage each to those with minimal defense. During his quiet phase I suggest you circle him, tank the quiet shots, and get some hits in, because during this phase he likes to move towards you and shoot a shotgun of confusion bullets at you. If you circle him, you will only get hit by the quiet shots.
After the quiet phase is over he will move into his ghost spawning phase. During this phase he will spawn minions, while shooting another shotgun at you. You should circle Septavius and shoot at him while ignoring his minions. This is one of the best phases to get damage in, especially near the end of it; once he starts flashing green (longer than usual), he is vulnerable; deal as much damage as you can. If he still isn’t dead he will start to repeat the phases you have already gone through. The less health Septavius has, the faster he will run through most of his phases.
Once Septavius has been slain, you may proceed to kill his spawned minions (if you have not already done so), and claim your prize. If you’re extremely lucky, you may wind up with your own Doom Bow!
There are ways to survive the full brunt of a Septavigun (if you will):
This attack does a total damage of 1920 to a character with 0 defense if all shots hit at once. A high DEF can reduce this attack to as low as 288 damage, requiring at least 136 DEF. A Knight built for either highest HP or highest DEF is theoretically capable of surviving one attack, but should they survive, they would still be reduced to two-digit HP numbers.
The most effective way of negating the Septavigun without resorting to drinking tinctures or effusions is as a Warrior with the Juggernaut Helm; the Armored effect it provides can allow many Warrior builds much more than enough strength to make an entire Septavigun survivable.
Another way to survive the attack is to become Invulnerable. Paladin’s Seal of Blasphemous Prayer is the only item that can grant the Invulnerability to a player class. This means that an entire Septavigun would do zero damage to an Invulnerable Paladin.
The best way to survive the Septavigun, of course, is to simply avoid tanking it altogether. If it means that you must stand far away from Septavius to avoid death, so be it.
