Agreth, The Nether Spider Guide
Agreth, The Nether Spider appears in Rotation 1 and 2 in the Doom Tower. This challenging encounter will force you to build a team specifically designed to counter her mechanics. Let’s break it down.
Ability Breakdown
Envenomed Strand
Attacks all enemies. Places 5% [Poison] Debuff for 4 turns. Will repeat the attack 1 time for each Spiderling without any active buffs. These [Poison] Debuffs cannot be resisted or blocked.
Brood Feast – 3 Turn Cooldown
Spawns 4 spiderlings then places a [Counterattack] buff on all Spiderlings for 3 turns. Will team up with all Spiderlings to attack all enemies if a Spiderling is spawned by this skill. This skill will take place at the start of the round and before you are able to take a turn.
Elder Lurker [Passive]
Counterattacks when enemy decreases Agreth’s Turn Meter. The damage inflicted is equal to the amount of Turn Meter lost. Will ignore 100% of the Target’s Defence.
Tide of Toxins [Passive]
Attacks all enemies at the start of each turn. Deals damage from all [Poison] Debuffs on each enemy instantly. When attacked by an enemy under a [Poison] debuff, increases the duration of all debuffs on the attacker by 1 turn, then places a 25% [Poison Sensitivity] debuff on them for 3 turns. When attacked by an enemy that has no [Poison] debuff, places a 5% [Poison] debuff on the attacker for 4 turns. This debuff cannot be blocked or resisted.
Almighty Immunity [Passive]
Immune to [Stun], [Freeze], [Sleep], [Provoke], [Block Cooldown Skills], [Fear] and [True Fear] debuffs. Also immune to HP exchange effects, HP balancing effects and cooldown increasing effects.
Almighty Strength [Passive]
Damage from skills that scale based on enemy MAX HP cannot exceed 10% of the boss’ MAX HP when attacking the boss
Almighty Persistence [Passive]
All Turn Meter reduction effects are decreased by 50% when used against the Boss.
Spiderlings
Attack Skill
Attacks all enemies. Places a 5% [Poison] Debuff for 2 turns. Cannot be resisted or blocked. Heals Agreth by 10% each time spiderling counterattacks. Places [Ally Protect] on Agreth whenever counterattack is removed or expires. [Ally Protect] cannot be removed.
How to beat the boss!
Although Agreth brings many allies to this fight, they don’t actually hit very hard – the thing you need to be careful off is the Poisons they will place when you attack them. Agreth will explode all poisons at the start of her turn, converting those placed poisons into a significant burst of damage on your team. Each poisons is 5% of your HP and these cannot be reduced by defensive buffs. This means you should avoid any champions that AoE on their A1 as spiderlings are buffed with counterattack and will lead to your quick demise.
When you start the fight, Agreth will summon her allies and trigger them to attack meaning you will start with a significant number of poisons. Remember you cannot block or resist these poisons so the only solutions are to either outheal or cleanse the poisons. As Agreth will cause those poisons to do instant damage – we recommend you consider cleansing the poisons by bringing a champion who can remove debuffs.
Additionally, bringing decrease attack on a single target skill will help reduce the on hit damage you will receive from Agreth. Surviving Agreth requires a team built around these mechanics before you can think about killing her.
Main things to Avoid:
- Avoid bringing too much reduce turn meter to your team. Agreth will hit you back for the amount of TM she loses and will ignore defence. This could easily one shot a member of your team. Small Turn Meter reductions are viable if the champion is reasonably sustainable i.e. Scyl of the Drakes
- Avoid champions with AoE A1 abilities i.e Psylar or Bad-el-Kazar. If a champion as a non-a1 ability with an AoE, the AI will decide not to use these by default (and you can ofcourse disable in the AI Tool) however you cannot stop an A1 attack.
Beating Agreth can be done in a few ways and we have 3 examples of team compositions below! First let’s cover the minimum stats you should aim to hit.
Required Stat Breakpoints
For a full stat breakdown, use our handy Raid Stages Tool which displays enemy stats for every encounter in the game. If you are not already a member of the HellHades community, you can sign up for a Free Account to gain access to this tool. Below we will outline the minimum stats you should aim for:
The key stats you should consider are Accuracy and Speed on your team alongside good HP/Def to survive the damage. You can choose to add resistance however this will only work to restrict the debuff extension and Poison sensitivity debuffs when you attack Agreth.
Rotation 1 – Normal
You will face Agreth on Floor 20, 60 and 90 Normal and is Spirit Affinity. To be successful, aim for:
- Speed: 175+ (Floor 90 is 150 speed however at 60 Agreth gains 25 speed) – Whilst you cannot stop Agreth taking the first turn, you dont want her lapping your champions. If you are running a cleanser on a longer cooldown – consider running them faster to ensure your cleanse is back when attacks again with Brood Feast
- Accuracy: 125+
- Resistance: 247+ (To resist the Poison Sensitivity Debuff and Debuff Extension effects)
Depending on which strategy you choose, you should ensure you have enough HP and Defence to survive this encounter. Generally we advise at least 30k HP and 2800 Defence for Normal.
Rotation 1 – Hard
You will face Agreth on Floor 20, 60 and 90 Hard and is Spirit Affinity. To be successful, aim for:
- Speed: 250+ Whilst you cannot stop Agreth taking the first turn, you don’t want her lapping your champions. If you are running a cleanser on a longer cooldown – consider running them faster to ensure your cleanse is back when attacks again with Brood Feast
- Accuracy: 355+
- Resistance: 397+ (To resist the Poison Sensitivity Debuff and Debuff Extension effects)
Depending on which strategy you choose, you should ensure you have enough HP and Defence to survive this encounter. Generally we advise at least 50k HP and 3500 Defence for Hard.
Rotation 2 – Normal
You will face Agreth on Floor 30, 70 and 110 Normal and is Magic Affinity. To be successful, aim for:
- Speed: 175+ (Floor 110 is 150 speed however at 70 Agreth gains 25 speed) – Whilst you cannot stop Agreth taking the first turn, you don’t want her lapping your champions. If you are running a cleanser on a longer cooldown – consider running them faster to ensure your cleanse is back when attacks again with Brood Feast
- Accuracy: 125+
- Resistance: 247+ (To resist the Poison Sensitivity Debuff and Debuff Extension effects)
Depending on which strategy you choose, you should ensure you have enough HP and Defence to survive this encounter. Generally we advise at least 30k HP and 2800 Defence for Normal.
Rotation 2 – Hard
You will face Agreth on Floor 30, 70 and 110 Hard and is Magic Affinity. To be successful, aim for:
- Speed: 250+ (Floor 90 is 150 speed however at 60 Agreth gains 25 speed) – Whilst you cannot stop Agreth taking the first turn, you dont want her lapping your champions. If you are running a cleanser on a longer cooldown – consider running them faster to ensure your cleanse is back when attacks again with Brood Feast
- Accuracy: 355+
- Resistance: 355+ (To resist the Poison Sensitivity Debuff and Debuff Extension effects)
Depending on which strategy you choose, you should ensure you have enough HP and Defence to survive this encounter. Generally we advise at least 50k HP and 3500 Defence for Hard.
Team Compositions
Strategy 1: Keep calm and Burn!
This is the safest strategy to approach this boss. It revolves around keeping your team fully healed and bringing champions who can cleanse the poisons. Drexthar Bloodtwin will apply HP Burn Debuffs when he is attacked which will be your primary method of dealing damage to Agreth.
You will want to ensure you have a full cleanse champion (list of good choices below) who is set to be the fastest or close to the fastest champion in your team. This champion will cleanse the initial burst of poisons Agreth will place. Every 3 turns, Agreth will use Brood Feast to re-summon any of her dead spiderlings and then launch another wave of poisons. You should ensure you can fully cleanse this also.
Eventually as each spidering attacks, they’ll receive HP Burn’s. This will cause Agreth to take 3% of her Max HP as damage. This combined with Warmaster and Giant Slayer (for three hit attack A1 champions) masteries you will slowly damage Agreth down. This comp can be auto’d if you can ensure your cleanse works on rotation with Agreth Brood Feast as most non-a1 AoE attacks will not be used by your champions.
MVP’s for this Strategy
Drexthar Bloodtwin: He is irreplaceable for the burn strategy as he can apply the debuff without actually attacking meaning he will not cause the spiderlings to poison you. Additionally, he is defence based and heals on his A1 if Agreth is under HP burn which makes him very durable.
Doompriest: Most of Doompriest’s kit is very disappointing except for her passive. Every turn taken will remove 1 random debuff from each member of your team and heal them for 7.5% of their HP. This makes her extremely useful in relentless artifacts sets or with high speed gear as she is able to cleanse the poisons/poison sensitivity you pick up from attacking Agreth.
Reliquary Tender: It is unusual for a Rare to have an MVP in an endgame strategy and there are certainly legendary champions that can also do he full team cleanse role however Reliquary can be considered an MVP due to the fact she brings an A1 decrease attack (albeit weak version), she brings a regular full team cleanse with continuous heals providing additional healing and she has single target revive should things get tricky.
Champion Alternatives
Not every player will have this exact team, but there are very good options to some of these champions. Below we detail viable alternatives:
Scyl of the Drakes: Lightsworn, Stag Knight, Skathix
Reliquary Tender/Masoleum Mage: Hakkhorn Smashlord, Cardiel, Melga Steelgirdle, Raglin, Riho Bonespear, Runekeeper Dazdurk, Skathix
Doompriest: Tuhanarak The following are sub-par but can perform this role: Fanatic, Heiress, Uugo
Strategy 2: Stun to Success
This strategy is a more dangerous but potentially faster strategy. It revolves around bringing plenty of Crowd Control to ensure spiderlings are permanently stunned allowing you to then bring higher damage champions. You will retain some elements of strategy 1: that is you still need a full team cleanse to deal with the initial burst of poisons and Drexthar is still a good option as HP burn will apply even if the spiderlings are controlled.
You will be looking for crowd control champions that can reliably bring Stun or Freeze. Sleep is not suitable as any form of damage will break this debuff. By disabling the poisons you should be able to bring more damage in your team with less focus required on defensive stats.
MVP’s for this Strategy
Astralon: As a fusion champion, Astralon was an amazing pickup for anyone who completed the event. He is one of the few champions (and probably the least conditional) that can apply a 100% AoE Stun through his Light of Sanctity ability. You should use this when you start the encounter to disable all the spiderlings allow you to unleash upon Agreth.
Champion Alternatives
Not every player will have this exact team, but there are very good options to some of these champions. Below we detail viable alternatives:
Scyl of the Drakes: Lightsworn, Stag Knight, Skathix
Reliquary Tender: Hakkhorn Smashlord, Cardiel, Melga Steelgirdle, Raglin, Riho Bonespear, Runekeeper Dazdurk, Skathix
Archmage Hellmut/Astralon: Achak the Wendarin, Ba Satha, Big’un, Crypt-King Graal, Fu-Shan, Gurgoh the Augur, Ninja (A3 if manual and targetting spiderlings), Shirimani, Teumesia
Strategy 3: The Paragon of Auto-Friendly
This strategy will work 100% of the time – however its one you put on auto and come back after making a cup of tea, playing a round of golf, cleaning the house and whatever else you can fill your time with. You may have seen the Paragon cheese strategy used in other areas of the game and it is no different in this encounter. Paragon can place unkillable on a target permanently. When he is the only one in the team (or alive) this means he cannot be killed. Agreth doesn’t ignore unkillable nor does she bring a debuff removal which makes him unkillable. His damage is not crazy and certainly getting him to 60 with Warmaster mastery will help speed this up but you can easily do this with a level 30/40 Paragon if he is able to survive the first burst of poisons.
This strategy is about picking 4 champions who can quickly nuke the 2 waves before the boss and any champions that can help reduce the damage on Paragon. Once you are at the boss you need to manual and ensure you use Paragon’s A2 on Paragon until all 4 other champions have been defeated by Agreth. After this you can put the battle on Auto. It should take anywhere between 20-35 minutes so take some time to stretch your legs!
It is highly recommended that you build Paragon in either a Toxic or Deflection set. If you have the option of both, we suggest Deflection as this can also deflect the Debuff Extension and Poison Sensitivity back on the boss. It will happen far less than Toxic but you will find it is probably faster on balance. Also – Make sure you build a team using the AI Tool and Disable Paragon’s A3 so he always A1 and A2.
Credit to StewGaming for coming up with this strategy – you can see it in action on his YouTube Channel here.
MVP’s for this Strategy
Paragon: The original cheese, Paragon will keep himself from being killed. As a rare void he’s reasonably (obviously not guarenteed!) to earn from Void Shards. He’s handy on some Doom Tower Floors too!
Champion Alternatives
Unfortunately this strategy requires Paragon however any champions can really fill the other 4 roles. You’re looking for big nukers to kill off the waves and any champions that can absorb damage from Agreth’s initial poison burst. A shield set on one of these champions is a great idea. Much of the survivability support depends on your Paragon’s rank and general tankiness.
Best team to farm for Forge Materials
Farming Agreth Rewards forge materials to make the Affinity Breaker set. You can read about all the artifact sets you can earn from Doom Tower in our Doom Tower Artifacts Guide.
If you want to Farm Agreth, we recommend Strategy 2. It will be much faster than strategy 1 albeit you may fail a few times along the way. As silver keys are only consumed on a successful run, its worth failing a few to cut down run times!
The following team also worked for Nether Spider 110 on auto but it took 149 turns:
Drexthar L50 (lead), Scyl L60, Miscreated Monster L60, Mausoleum Mage L48, Doompriest 5 star but level 1
I pass all normal floors in eternal dragon rotation with Ukko, Helicath, UDK, Royal Guard and ColdHeart.
Floor 30 HARD with Ukko, Helicath, Demytha, Royal Guard, ColdHeart
The strategy is basically -> DEC DEF -> NUKE -> use heal reduction from CH to avoid main spider healing -> Block Damage / Shield / DEC ATK when main spider will going to remove the poisons and attack u.
Turn Metter atks use only when block damage since insta counter attacks.
Ukko can steal auto attacks from mini spiders and remove auto attacks from mini spiders, since u can use heal reduction from CH you avoid main spider to heal, also if needed you can revive all ur team with Ukko plus speed leader aura.
I believe you can use this strategy with others champions that do equals functions.
I think I discovered something because I can’t find anyone else talking about it. Yumeko completely breaks the Tide of Toxins passive. Doesn’t just reflect the poisons, she actually flips the whole passive back on the spider.
Thank you for the work you put into this. I wish I had it 5 months ago. Lol I’m luck 69 and just getting better champions. I’m excited to try spider again. :))
Jls
Thanks for the Yumiko tipp Poopmaneuver, helped me speed things up. Also thank you HHTeam!!
I’m F2P, still early game and recently pulled Brogni. I had already had the great luck to pull Drexthar, and was around for the UDK event. I Hadn’t even geared Brogni because I knew none of my gear would do him justice, but I did 6* fully asscend, lvl 58.
I hit Agreth and couldn’t progress so decided to see what I could come up with. Put him in Perception with a couple of off-set pieces with reasonable stats. I think they’re all 5*, maybe one 6*.
Agreth floor 30, normal:
Team:
Brogni lead (for Aura) No masteries
UDK Lvl 60 fully ascended, 1* blessing, Brimstone, T3 masteries (incl Rapid Response)
Drexthar, L60, fully asscended, T3 masteries (incl lifedrinker)
Vrask, L50, fully ascended, no masteries
Quargan the Crowned, L50, fully ascended, T2 masteries (plus T3 Single out)
Manual progress. Opening waves was slow, but no problem. Brogni’s A2 is an AoE, but handled the spiderlings return poison pretty well. However I made the mistake (distracted by the kids) of hitting Drexthar’s A2, and Agreth ended up one-shotting Brogni, Vrask and Quargan on it’s next turn. After that I decided since I’d had UDK a while and put some of my best gear on him, I tried his A2 (figured it could very likely be a wipe at that point anyway) and was surprised when he wiped out the spiderlings. I beat the level with essentially UDK and Drexthar, UDK wiping the spiderlings each time they dropped.
It CAN be done folks! LoL
How ’bout if you don’t have Drexthar OR Paragon?
cheese with paragon. get a deflection set no matter how bad it is as long as he survives ( can also revive him after the boss does the first bunch of aoe). disable his s3, set s2 as first priority. and after everyone besides him is dead, just put your game on auto and wait
I use Helicath, Pythion, Geo, Venomage and Mithrala.
essentially 2 cleanse and a revive, some form of protection e.g. block damage or shields would work. have geo go before venom to place the burn, then venomage uses her a3 putting heal reduction on everyone. between heal reduction is key to a geo strat as everytime the spiderlings counter attack they heal the spider which would nullify Geos passive. then just make sure to attack the spiderlings and watch the boss melt :D
I just beat Nether Spider Floor 20 Hard with a strange team: Drexthar, Demytha, Ursala, Gorgorab, and Baron. Took a little over 4 minutes, but worked.
This was a thorn on my side for too long but found a viable composition of NOT end level Heroes. I followed the first team strategy but without Drexthar I had to count on the impossibly powerful Geomancer the swiss army knife of any player lucky enough to get him soon! then since I have not the Doompriest I had to find a replacement, after many experiments I ended with Gurptuk who made all those poisons an asset! Problems were only when I was losing both Reliquary Tender and Scyl of the Drakes, but that was mainly because Tender was only level 40! I wonder, how this team will fare In full power composition?
I used Doompriest and Pytha for the Keep Calm and Burn strat with success.
I just got through Level 90 with Marishka, Genbo, Gravechill, Frozen Banshee and Elva. Bit slow, but it worked :-)
Floor 90 hard can be completed using Gnut, Tatura, Mithrala, Scyl and Uugo! on full auto!