Awakening the Machine is one of four world events introduced in the War Within. In order to unlock the event you will need a minimum of Renown level 3 with the Assembly of the Deeps, to have at least one level 80 character, and to have completed the leveling campaign on at least one character.
The Awakening the Machine event is a wave based defense mini game.
Where to start Awakening the Machine
To start the Awakening the Machine event you need to speak to Speaker Kuldas who is located in Gundargaz, the capital of The Ringing Deeps.
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There are no level or gear restrictions on the character you join with, other than that you have to be able to enter Khaz Algar.
Note: Unfortunately, Awakening the Machine can only be done solo, you can't do this as a group.
How to complete Awakening the Machine
Once you have spoken to Speaker Kuldas you will be teleported to a large circular room with Kuldas standing in the middle. Talk to him and select the option to start, which will begin the first of a maximum of 20 waves of mobs running towards the center of the arena to attack Kuldas. Your job is to protect him, and thus kill off the waves of mobs.
The waves start off easy and slowly ramp up in difficulty. Every 5 waves you will get a break and will need to talk to Kuldas to continue the next waves.
You can change gear and spec when out of combat, and use consumables if you so desire.
Mobs in Awakening the Machine
Each of the waves will have a variety of mobs, we have broken down what each of the mobs do.
- Swarmbot are small mobs which move towards Speaker Kuldas. Hitting them once will cause them to aggro onto you. They deal minor damage and have a small health pool.
- Corrupted Machinist will spawn and almost immediately channel on to Kuldas, dealing fairly moderate damage. However, if you interrupt or CC them they instantly die.
- Medbot is a healer, healing the other mobs, though their heals feel quite insignificant. Killing them will spawn a small potion on the ground, which if you run over it will heal Kuldas.
- Malfunctioning Pylon is a stationary pillar that shoots an interceptable beam at Kuldas. Make sure to position either yourself or other mobs in between, preferably mobs as the beam deals heavy damage both to you and to the mobs.
- Nullbot will channel into a single mob making it immune to all damage. Depending on which other mob they are channeling into will determine how quickly you want to kill them. For example if they are channeling on the Automicatic Ironstrider you will want to kill the Nullbot quickly, whereas if the Nullbot was channeling on a Swarmbot you could ignore it for the most part.
- Explosive Bomberbot will auto aggro on the player. Once they reach 40% health they cast Self Destruct, dealing heavy damage to anything caught inside: mobs, players or Kuldas. Make sure to move them away from Kuldas.
- Automatic Ironstride will auto aggro on the player. It deals moderate melee damage and applies the debuff Volatile Magma, which lasts 7 seconds. When it runs out you will drop a lava pool and fire off fireballs in 4 directions. You can tell which direction the fireballs will move in beforehand, so make sure to not hit Kuldas with them. Also do not drop the puddle on him.
- Awakened Phalanx is the final boss that appears on Wave 20. It has 2 abilities: Bellowing Slam, which deals heavy AoE damage to everyone including Kuldas, and Earthshaking Charge, which is a locked on charge ability at a player, stunning anyone hit for 3 seconds. Make sure to point the charge away from Kuldas.
Rewards from Awakening the Machine
The rewards are looted from the Awakened Cache next to Kalos in Gundargaz; you will unlock 1 chest for every 5 waves you complete consecutively, meaning if you make it through all 20 waves you get to open 4 chests.
- At 5 consecutive waves the first cache will be available containing 15 Valorstone, 150 The Assembly of the Deeps Reputation and 100 Resonance Crystals.
- At 10 consecutive waves the second cache will be available containing 18 Valorstone and 150 The Assembly of the Deeps Reputation.
- At 15 consecutive waves the third cache will be available containing 20 Valorstone, 350 The Assembly of the Deeps Reputation and 150 Resonance Crystals.
- At 20 consecutive waves the fourth cache will be available containing 22 Valorstone and 350 The Assembly of the Deeps Reputation.
This means for completing all 20 waves you will receive 75 Valorstones, 1000 The Assembly of the Deeps Reputation, and 250 Resonance Crystals.
Whenever you open the Awakened Cache you will also have a small chance to loot the Machine defense unit 1-11 mount.
Once per week Kulros will offer the Gearing Up for Trouble weekly quest, which requires you to complete 20 waves. These do however not need to be completed consecutively and can be done in several attempts, for example two attempts of 10 waves. The quest will reward one of the weekly Awakened Mechanical Cache which will contain Gold, Crests and Adventurer Gear or a Restored Coffer Key.
