Updated 24 October 2026 · Onyx Services
The Fractured Archive rewards deliberate movement and coordinated roles. This walkthrough explains the main cues for each encounter: what appears, what your team should do and which mistake commonly makes the fight harder.
Source status: the encounter guidance below follows the OSRS Wiki’s developing strategy reference, checked 24 October 2026. It is community-documented gameplay, not an official Jagex combat manual. We omit uncertain tick-perfect bonuses and unverified damage figures. Our raid overview covers entry and death rules.
Choose a route, then assign roles
Stage | Encounter |
|---|---|
1 · Opening | Archive Guardian |
2 · Choose one | Bork and Smorks / Ezekiel |
3 · Choose one | Dreadnoth the Jellied / Moia |
Resupply | Return to the atrium quartermaster |
4 · Choose one | Xarth / Dagon’hai Trio |
5 · Final | Ocellus |
Both choices in each middle pair give equal total contribution points. Assign the opening tank, a route caller and responsibility for interrupts or special attacks. Decide which spells to carry before entering; the Dagon’hai route needs all four elements.
Archive Guardian: shield, tendrils and beam
The opening shield must be broken before the grounded health bar can be damaged. Have both a ranged attack option and a plan for moving as a group.
Watch for | Your response |
|---|---|
Floating boss | Use Ranged or suitable Magic; ordinary melee cannot reach. Do not rely on Ancient Magicks as your only attack option. |
Guardian on the ground | Switch to your chosen melee weapon if appropriate. Move together around the boss as tendrils target player positions. |
Tendrils and mushrooms | Leave space for the next step. Tendrils attack repeatedly; their first swipe does not make the tiles safe. Spores can poison and apply weary, restricting movement and attack speed. |
Late beam targeting a teammate | Use the named target as the team’s alignment point to share the beam. Keep the ranged switch ready when the boss rises again. |
Avoid this mistake: stopping to attack on a tile your group is about to need, or assuming a tendril disappears after one swipe.
Bork and Smorks: manage the chase, then finish Smorks
The community learner recommendation is to kill Bork first. Killing Smorks first leaves Bork’s arena-wide stomps to handle.
Watch for | Your response |
|---|---|
Bork names a target | The first entrant starts as his target, but his aggression can change. Use Protect from Melee for Bork’s damage and check the call rather than assuming one player tanks forever. |
Smorks projectiles | Bones indicate Ranged; the potion cluster indicates Magic. Watch these while repositioning. |
Oil on the ground | Move clear immediately. It repeatedly damages and burns players who remain on it. |
Heavy cannonball warning | Coordinate the lure so it hits Bork. The stun temporarily removes his damage reduction and creates a melee opportunity. |
Bork stomps after the cannonball | Put the Smorks’ cart between you and Bork to block the waves. |
Bork defeated | Finish Smorks while continuing to switch prayers; their attacks become faster and target the whole party. |
Avoid this mistake: using the stun window as permission to ignore oil and the next stomp.
Ezekiel: keep the boss in the swords’ flight path
Decide the tank before entry. The first entrant holds the role until death. The tank should use Protect from Melee. Other players should position opposite the tank, behind Ezekiel, rather than crowding the cleave.
Watch for | Your response |
|---|---|
Tank pulled out of melee reach | Return to melee distance. Losing reach triggers team-wide lightning rather than removing pressure. |
Cross-shaped lightning | Leave the marked area and wait for both bursts before stepping back. |
Flying swords with two bars | The red bar is the launch countdown. Attacks build the yellow damage bar; air spells are useful, while Ranged is resisted. |
A sword about to launch | Keep Ezekiel aligned with its path, then dodge yourself out. A proper hit damages and stuns him; a miss allows healing. |
Enrage lightning patterns | Read the three sword markers. The back-row position aligned with the unstruck sword is the documented safe direction. Learn the cue before attempting bonus perfect dodges. |
Avoid this mistake: charging a sword while ignoring its launch timer, or dodging in a way that pulls the boss out of its path.
Dreadnoth the Jellied: distance, slams and small jellies
Use distance to manage his slow pursuit. Ranged or Magic lets you attack while avoiding ordinary melee pressure; freezes help but have reduced duration.
Watch for | Your response |
|---|---|
Arena-wide slam sequence | Protect from Melee for the slam, then Protect from Missiles for the ranged projectiles. Later sequences contain additional slams, so keep switching back. |
Small jellies | Clear them promptly. They can drain Prayer even when melee protection blocks their damage. Barrage spells or a Venator bow can help clear groups if your setup supports them. |
Jelly-covered floor | Move off the affected tiles rather than standing still to finish an attack. |
Jumping enrage | Move away from the landing location, keep melee protection for the slam and then protect against the ranged projectile. Surviving jellies can be absorbed and heal him. |
Boss dies | Clear the remaining jellies before dropping your protection or treating the encounter as finished. |
Avoid this mistake: camping Ranged prayer through a slam or leaving the small jellies alive until they overwhelm supplies.
Moia: ranged attacks, delayed blue and cough
Moia stays beyond melee and halberd reach. Bring a Ranged or Magic attack option and maintain room to move between the undead binders.
Watch for | Your response |
|---|---|
Regular attack | Protect from Missiles. Keep binders clear enough that you can reposition without running into their melee reach. |
Slow blue projectile followed by a ranged shot | The later ranged shot lands first. Protect against that hit, then switch to Magic for blue; do not switch merely because blue was launched. |
Cough infection | Separate from teammates and binders to avoid spreading it. Coordinate movement so another player does not follow you into the infection. |
Enrage charge bar | Clear every binder before it fills. One survivor is enough to trigger heavy team damage; repeat for subsequent sets. |
Avoid this mistake: tunnelling on Moia during enrage while a single binder remains alive.
Xarth: protect the pillars and stop corpse healing
Choose one pillar and a shared route to it. Early in the fight, Xarth uses Magic and targets the nearest player; agree who occupies that position.
Watch for | Your response |
|---|---|
Bind and searing projectiles | Use the projectiles as the signal to move behind the agreed pillar before the explosion. Avoid splitting across pillars. |
Last pillar destroyed | Prepare for the second phase, with Melee and Ranged attacks. Keep ranged protection until the projectile actually arrives. |
Corpses approaching | Stop and kill them before they reach Xarth. Ice can hold them; water briefly disrupts them. Avoid fire spells on the corpses because they create more. |
Melee opening | Use melee when you can execute it safely. Jagex intended well-played melee to outperform camping a Twisted bow in the final phase; the launch Defence fix matters to that comparison. |
Avoid this mistake: letting each teammate use a different pillar and losing several pieces of cover to one blast.
Official Xarth and Defence hotfix context.
Dagon’hai Trio: interrupt the ritual
The Elder and two monks share their initial health pool. Damage alone is not the task: stop the ritual from reaching full power.
Watch for | Your response |
|---|---|
Grey projectile / surge spell | Protect from Ranged / Magic respectively. Spread out so a targeted attack does not catch nearby teammates. |
Elemental channel starts | Cast the matching element on the channeling enemy. Confirm the channel stops; a cast can splash. |
Tome energy and gust-marked tiles | Intercept the energy and then respond to the named god’s effect. Bandos produces a shockwave, Zamorak produces fire hazards, and Saradomin produces lightning markers. |
Shared bar depleted | Close the spawned portals by standing on them and kill the imps. Repeat for five shared-bar depletions to break the ritual, then finish the survivors. |
Avoid this mistake: bringing only a powered staff and discovering you cannot cast the elemental interrupts.
Elemental interrupt reference
Channel cue | Spell element |
|---|---|
Flames | Fire |
Flow | Water |
Winds | Air |
Bond | Earth |
Ocellus: four phases to learn separately
Keep one consistent naming scheme for quadrants and crossings. The priorities change between phases: block, find safe lanes, protect the team’s movement space, then read the final floor cycle.
Phase one: block the tendrils, then leave melee reach
Orange projectiles require Ranged protection; blue requires Magic. Intercept the incoming tendrils to limit the boss’s energy. After the initial seven-tendril sequence, move out before the nearby slam. Later waves continue the block-and-move task. Ignoring tendrils strengthens the follow-up attack.
Phase two: orange lanes and the escape portal
Find the intersection of the orange portal lanes; purple lanes are dangerous. When damaging pools fill the quadrant, use the new orange escape portal to leave before that section becomes unsafe. Attack The Blade between movements when safe, but reaching the escape takes priority.
Phase three: tank order, vines and the collapsing arena
The tank changes through party-orb order as quadrants progress. Check the target after a crossing or tank death. Non-tanks can coordinate the opening pool placement on a single corner tile to preserve movement space.
Normal sword attacks: protect from Melee, then step away from the following directional wave. The tank should stay within reach.
Trapped teammate: attack the Void Vine for them; the trapped player cannot free themselves.
Adds: clear the rifts, siphons and augmenters rather than letting them charge unchecked.
Charged blade: the current community sequence requires Melee protection before the attack, overhead off for the spinning portal, then Melee protection on again as the blades appear. Repeat the off/on prayer response for additional blade cycles in later quadrants. Watch the animation rather than using an unverified countdown.
Untether: protect from Magic while he floats, avoid floor portals and enter the marked area beneath him. Leave on the final bright border cue before his landing slam.
Quadrant destruction: cross the stepping stones immediately when he charges the collapse. Allow time for the complete crossing.
Ocellus’s Defence stays reduced between phase-three quadrants after the hotfix. Do the reduction work early, then use damage specials after the 60%-of-base floor is reached. Official hotfix explanation.
Phase four: switch between outer and inner safe space
When Deflect Melee is active, stay clear of the dangerous space beneath and around him. When Deflect Range is active, the safe space reverses and you must move close. Track your own light-blue lifeforce orb, wait for it to animate and collect it from a safe tile to recover the health removed by the blue attack.
Keep moving away from the tiles targeted by explosions. During Soul Split, read the pattern beneath the boss: forming blades indicate Melee, outward arrows indicate Ranged, and the large pulsing circle indicates Magic. The first melee pulse can resemble magic, so wait for the identifying shape.
Avoid this mistake: remaining in the previous safe area after the floor reverses, or watching the overhead while ignoring your next movement tile. Attack-speed rewards for perfect explosion dodges remain under investigation and are not needed for this walkthrough.
After the third boss: use the resupply stop
Return to the atrium quartermaster, spend Supply Credits and check the team’s remaining charges and runes. Supplies do not remove the need to bring the correct spells for your fourth encounter.
Community mechanics and equipment reference: OSRS Wiki strategy guide. Checked 24 October 2026; the page remains under active development.
Individual boss references: Archive Guardian · Bork · Ezekiel · Dreadnoth · Moia · Xarth · Dagon’hai · Ocellus.
Boss images: Jagex’s official Fractured Archive showcase. These are game artwork; no generated boss models are used.
Continue the Fractured Archive series
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