In this guide, we will go over one of the four guardians, the Minotaur. The Maze of the Minotaur is a tier 16 map and the boss himself drops the one of the four prerequisite item “Fragment of the Minotaur” that allows you to open a portal to fight Shaper.
Fight Mechanics
Minotaur does a mix of physical and lightning damage. He uses primarily uses these attacks:
Melee Attack → A basic attack that deals Physical and Lightning damage.
Sweep → A wide sweep attack that deals Physical and Lightning Damage.
Recommendation: Try to move away from the Minotaur to get out of the sweep range.
Overhead Slam → A large AoE melee attack that deals Physical and Lightning damage as well as creating a large cave-in zone that lasts for 35 seconds. This zone spawns Stone Golem adds as well as Falling Rocks that deal Deadly Physical Damage.
Recommendation: Move out of the way of this slam, and lure the Minotaur out of the cave-in.
Burrow → The Minotaur dives under the ground towards a chosen target in a straight line. During the burrow, anything in its path will take Physical Damage. Upon reaching the target zone, the Minotaur will burst from the ground, dealing Deadly Physical Damage in a small AoE. The Minotaur will not follow the target if it moves once he is in the burrow.
Recommendation: The Minotaur will randomly choose a target to go after for this move, including totems and golems, so try and recognize which target he is going for. From there, get out of the way of his path and avoid being near the location where he is going to emerge.
Lightning Barriers → For every 20% of life that the Minotaur loses, one of the Lightning Barriers will activate. These barriers will deal Lightning Damage, apply Shock and a very strong Movement, Attack and Cast Speed slow.
Recommendation: Try and avoid walking through these barriers at all costs. If you have a Lightning Warp or Flame Dash, you can use these to teleport past them without them affecting you.
The Minotaur is also immune to freeze, chill, stun and bleeding.
Preparing Against Minotaur
There are a few ways that you can prepare against this guardian. Blind is a very good way to make Minotaur’s attacks miss. Any skill or item that gives that will help reduce the damage you take.
Flasks
Flasks are a great way to do so.
Basalt Flask – 15% physical damage reduction. It has a high charge usage, so it is only used for situations where you feel the Minotaur is about to use a powerful attack like Overhead Slam or Burrow.
Stibnite Flask – Creates a smoke cloud and reducing enemy hit rate in a small area, making some of Minotaur’s attack miss. This is vital as you take less damage and can survive much better.
Granite Flask – Provides flat 3000 armor that can be increased with % armor increase. Another form of mitigation.
For prefix, look for the following:
Ample – +(10 to 20) Maximum Charges. This allows you to get 1 more use if you can get max charges.
Experimenter’s – (30 to 40)% increased Duration. This actually is a life saver and improves your quality of life.
Chemist’s – (20 to 25)% reduced Charges used. Can sneak in another use on flasks like the Basalt Flask.
For suffix, look for the following:
of Grounding -> Removes shock if the Minotaur applies it. This won’t remove lightning barrier’s shock though.
of Iron Skin -> Increases 60-100% armor. Very useful in mitigating more physical damage when paired with the Basalt or Granite Flask.
of Reflexes -> Increases 60-100% evasion. Very useful with innate high evasion rating.
Skills
Fortify – This provides additional physical damage reduction if you can fit it in your build.
Endurance Charges – Not viable for all classes, but for melee characters, this is a huge help if you can generate them as it significantly reduces the damage dealt by the Minotaur.
Life Leech – If you do a lot of damage and have vaal pact or life gain on hit, you can tank his attacks and the falling rocks.
Dangerous Map Affixes
Since the Minotaur is already a hard hitter, the following map affixes will make your job tougher and also increases the odds of you dying.
- Players are cursed with vulnerability (more physical damage dealt on you, when a burrow hits = gg)
- X% increased monster damage
- X% increased monster attack speed
- X% increased monster life (takes longer to kill and you get punished for making a mistake)
- Deal X% as extra fire/lightning/cold damage
- Unique bosses deal X% increased damage
- X% increased critical strike chance
- Monsters have 100% increase area of effect (Makes the overhead slam area larger = more deadly rocks)
Fighting Guide
Before you entire the arena, open a portal so you can always come back to the fight if you die.
When you enter the arena, you have 2 paths to get to him. You can either approach him from the top or bottom. Most will choose bottom since you can see his action right away when he shows up on your screen. You are able to move up to the lower Lightning Barrier before triggering the boss, thus allowing you to place totems or charge your skills up.
Most of the time, he will burrow first. Dodge it. Other times, he will start with a sweep or melee attack. The Minotaur’s AI can be predictable. You want to stay within vision of the Minotaur so he will use his sweep attack, melee attack or overhead slam often. When placing totems, try to place them close to his start, so that he will not immediately burrow to the totem.
Burrow will normally be used if you venture too far away from him. This is the most deadly skill since if you move away and he is off screen, you will not be able to know if he performed the burrow attack. You might be able to survive if you have more than 7000 health or 9000 ES, but if it is a critical strike burrow, you are almost guaranteed of dying if you don’t have enough health or shield.
As the fight goes on, depending on how many overheard slams the Minotaur performed, the falling rocks will start hurting if they stack on top of each other. This forces you to run away from him. That will likely trigger his burrow attack which you can’t see if he is off screen.
Every 20% of his health lost, a lightning barrier will activate. If you cross the lightning barrier, you will be shocked (taking increased damage from all sources, lightning damage from the barrier itself and a slow that makes you walk like a tortoise. Make sure to have lightning warp or flame dash to avoid taking damage and bypass it.
This fight basically punishes you if you don’t do enough damage. The longer the battle, the more rocks and attacks you have to dodge. Try to stay within his vision to avoid burrow from triggering.
Drops and Rewards
Fragment of the Minotaur – This is a 100% guaranteed drop. This is one of the 4 guardian fragments required to enter the Shaper’s Realm to face the Shaper or Uber Elder.
Brain Rattler – Decent starter weapon for cyclone builds.
The Brass Dome – A decent armor that reduces critical damage taken but increases shock duration on the wearer.
