Har'Lakk the Riftsplitter



Har'Lakk the Riftsplitter is a boss encountered in Daemonheim, requiring 35 Dungeoneering. He can be found on the Furnished floors, ranging from floors 18 to 29.

Summary of the attacks

 * Melee attack - The demon swipes at the player, which is a single targeted crush attack.
 * Magic attack - Targets single person, in which grey sludge is shot out from it. When praying Protect from Magic/Deflect Magic, this will drain prayer points instead of dealing damage.
 * Portal attack - Har'Lakk opens three different kinds of portals with area effect, resembling coloured rain. They can be avoided by running away from the portals. All portals disappear after a period of time. It is possible for three-quarters of the room to be covered by portals at any one time, so beware.
 * Flame - Noted by the demon mentioning "A flame portal will flush you out!" and summoning a red portal. It will deal incremental damage to players in it over time.
 * Miasma - Noted by the demon mentioning "Taste miasma!" and summoning a purple portal. In members worlds it deals incremental poison damage over time. In free worlds it will deal incremental damage to players in it over time, similar to the flame portal. The poison will be automatically cured once you've killed him. This poison effect can stack, unlike other poisons, which means it is a very bad idea to stand in a miasma zone for long because the poison can get to the point where it deals hundreds of damage in a single poison hit.
 * Downsize - Noted by the demon mentioning "This will cut you down to size!" and summoning a grey portal. It will reduce all combat stats of players in it over time.
 * Prayer disabling attackHarlakkSpec.gif - The demon swoops its arms together in a wide arc, disabling any protection prayers, similar to the effects of the Dragon scimitar special attack, and delivering two simultaneous crush attacks. These attacks can be blocked as usual, but they can not be protected against with prayer. At high levels and with some misfortune, this attack combo can instant-kill high levelled players at full health. Har'Lakk will use this special when, and only when, a player is standing under him or seems to be only one square away, the normal melee distance being two squares.

Fighting the Riftsplitter
Har'Lakk's main melee and magic attacks target a single player. When praying Protect from Magic or Melee or the corresponding Deflect curses, he will only use magic as his main attack, neglecting melee. When praying Protect from Magic, this will drain your prayer if it hits instead of dealing damage. Other prayers do not result in prayer drain. Without protection prayers he will evenly distribute magic and melee attacks against players within melee range, but at a distance he will usually stick with magic rather than approach and use melee. However, if you move behind obstacles where it is impossible for him to reach you with melee, he will immediately use his portal attacks as soon as you come to a halt.

His special attacks are not affected by protection prayers. The negative effect of the portals will increase quickly if you do not escape. The fire portal will increase its direct damage over time, the miasmic one will poison you more severely and the stat drain one will drain your stats more rapidly if you don't quickly move. Har'Lakk will occasionally use portals throughout the fight, however, some situations are liable to provoke additional portals, e.g. standing behind a stack of props or when two players stand close enough together that a single portal can damage both of them. Note that if a player enters an existing portal, the damage compounds according to the actual time, not time of damage to player. A player evading a flame portal but accidentally re-entering it soon before it ends can be dealt over 400 damage per game tick (0.6 seconds) at high levels! Familiars cannot be harmed by portals (nor can Har'Lakk, by the way).

For members, it is highly recommended to bring Antipoison potions, Cure potions or runes for Cure Me (requiring 71 Magic and completion of Lunar Diplomacy) against the poison and some Stat restore potions against the stat drain. Be aware that while casting Cure Me, you will be immobilised briefly as the spell takes effect, and you will take damage from any portals cast on you during this time.


 * Using melee - Meleeing players will be defending against magic and crush attacks. Praying Protect from Magic will prevent any damage, but only for a short time, since the Riftsplitter will focus on using magic attacks to drain prayer. When choosing armour, meleeing players can opt to
 * focus on crush defence. With a good base defence and high tiered full armour with chainbody, plateskirt and possibly a shield, Har'Lakk's melee attacks will only very rarely hit. His frequent magic attacks will unfortunately hit all the more often. Another drawback is that because his magic attacks hit prevalently, prayer will be drained all the faster when praying protection. It may therefore be worth considering praying offensively instead. Be sure to bring a lot of good food if you choose this strategy.
 * focus on magic defence. This strategy is recommended for players with a high base magic defence (i.e. high magic level, as the magic skill makes for 70% of magic defence). Players can wear high tiered ranger or mage armour (with ranger armour granting better magic defence at similar tier), possibly combined with gautlets and melee boots for their strength bonuses. The main advantage of this strategy is that when praying Protect from Magic, Har'Lakk's magic attacks will miss more often, thus failing to drain prayer points. This can extend protection time considerably. It may be possible to use rejuvenation potions (or teleports to altars) to uphold Protect from Magic for the entire fight. Once prayer does run out, ranger and mage armour will offer moderate defence bonuses towards both magic and crush attacks. The drawback is that range and mage armour have a small negative attack bonus. These should be compensated by an accurate weapon, such as a spear. Another drawback is that preparation can consume a lot of time, since meleers will normally not acquire such equipment during floor completion. Combining regular melee armour with any ranger/mage armour you happen to come across for a slight advantage against magic can be feasible, but only if it is of high tier, otherwise it's not worth the negative attack bonus.

If possible, meleeing players should take advantage of the Riftsplitter's weakness against stab attacks. This is especially true if they have negative attack bonuses from magic defence armour. Spears are highly recommended; they have high stab accuracy and deliver a high damage per minute due to being as fast as most one-handed weapons with a higher strength bonus.

Players that are under attack can attempt to run through the Riftsplitter to the other side; if timed well, he will fail to attack, although if timed badly, he will launch his prayer disabling special. The gained time can be used to heal, or simply let other players deal damage. If done repeatedly in a team, the Riftsplitter will eventually focus on an other player. Team players should not stay too close to each other, otherwise the Riftsplitter is liable to launch a portal. Evading his specials should remain a priority at all times. Never stand too close to him, as the resulting prayer disabling special attack is not only dangerous for you, but for all players within his melee range.


 * Using Ranged / Magic - The Riftsplitter is prone to both ranged and magic attacks. Ranged combat is possibly the best choice against this boss, if stats and equipment allow it. Magic can be similarly effective, but mages have to be careful that Downsize portals don't reduce their magic level beyond the point where they can cast their combat spell of choice, this has since been made obsolete by an update since you will continue to cast the spell as long as your base magic level is high enough. Rangers and Mages should wear the best armour they can acquire and shoot/cast the best arrows/spells their skill allows, with fractite arrows/blast spells being the very least. Maging members' spells of choice will usually have higher skill requirements, so it is highly recommended that they bring Stat restore potions. Rangers with high ranged levels (70+ at the bosses lower levels) can consider using a shortbow for a higher damage per minute rate, depending on the Riftsplitter's combat level; otherwise a longbow is recommended. Rangers can pray Protect from Magic, profiting from their magic defence (which will slow down the drain, see Using melee with magic defence above), or opt to pray offensively. Mages' boost prayers only boost accuracy; they should therefore pray Protect from Magic, but save several prayer points for Rapid Restore. Rangers that feel they are hit by magic too often can switch to using chainbody and/or plateskirt (with a longbow) and move within melee range, this can result in taking less overall damage. Otherwise if a distance is kept, there is little need for an emphasis on crush armour (or Protect from Melee); Ha'Lakk will only rarely close in on a player to melee and instead use magic. Simply move away from him or run through him (see Using melee above) if he does close in. Important: Do not attempt to "safe-spot" from behind the stacks of props! If you (even nearly) come to a halt anywhere where the Riftsplitter cannot reach you, he will immediately cast a portal on you. Stay in the open or close to a wall between stacks, and if you must go behind the stacks, run through them quickly. Make sure you keep dealing damage, keep an eye on your health, but concentrate foremost on evading portals.

Alternative strategies
Tanking - In a team, a melee tank with high defence, optimal crush armour and defence boosting prayer can maneuver the Riftsplitter up against a wall and then stand close to him, provoking him to constantly use his (protection prayer disabling) double melee attack, while the other team members range/mage him. Though dangerous at high levels because of the chance of two simultaneous high hits, the attacks have a very slow attack speed and are quite often blocked with sufficient defence. Note that the tank cannot attack during this time as she/he would move away from Har'Lakk when doing so. Also note that other players using melee will also be targeted by the special. Instead, other meleers can aid healing the tank and/or take turns to tank. This strategy is only feasible if the team has enough ranged/mage power to deal significant damage. It has yet to be thoroughly play-tested.

Teleports - As with other bosses, it is possible to enter the room, make a single attack and teleport out again before Har'Lakk delievers a counter attack. This is a slow and tedious method of fighting him (or any other boss) and should only be used if he cannot otherwise be dealt with.

Drops

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Trivia

 * Har'lakk was originally purple and resembled K'ril Tsutsaroth before K'ril was updated. However, after the warped floors update on 2 November 2010 he was redesigned, along with To'Kash and Bal'lak, to his current form, the same style as Yk'Lagor and Kal'Ger.
 * After the Occult floors update, his icon tabs were updated to a newer image, an early hint that the Kal'Gerion demons would receive a graphics update.


 * Har'Lakk is potentially the most poisonous creature on RuneScape, as his poison stacks (his poison can potentially deal over 900 damage if you are not paying attention). Unlike the previous record holder, K'ril Tsutsaroth, Har'Lakk was not initially immune to poison. A hidden update changed this and gave Har'Lakk immunity to poison.
 * It is possible for Har'lakk's rain attacks to continue falling for up to approximately 20 seconds after he has died, and can potentially kill unsuspecting players during that time. This is a glitch, and has yet to be addressed by Jagex.
 * Running out of the flame portal attack and back into it will NOT reset the damage done by the portal. The damage starts counting when the first damage is dealt but does not reset until the rain ends, moreover the potential damage increases even if player is away from rain. A player running away from starting rain would be dealt 30, 60, but he will be dealt 120 if he returns just after or 240 if even more time has elapsed.
 * He is the demon that appears on the most floors out of all the other demon bosses.

Har'Lakk the Riftsplitter Har'Lakk the Riftsplitter