Sotetseg tests three habits: pray against the projectile actually travelling towards you, share the large red ball, and follow the maze without guessing. Spread out for ordinary attacks, then gather on a deliberate call for the shared hit. Those two formations have different jobs, so the group needs to recognise the switch.
This guide covers the fourth encounter in Normal Theatre of Blood. It uses a learner team’s shared-damage method and a controlled maze pace. Tick-eating the large ball and advanced maze shortcuts are optional specialist techniques, not the default plan here.
Set positions and special-attack roles
Before entry, assign each player a position around Sotetseg. Spacing gives the bouncing projectiles more travel time and makes their destination easier to read. Three-player groups commonly spread east, west and north-west; larger teams distribute around the available corners, with a south-centre position for the extra fifth player. Follow the formation your caller explains, and avoid quietly swapping positions mid-phase.
Assign defence-draining specials for the start and after each maze. Sotetseg restores its Defence when a maze is cleared, so an effective opening special does not cover the entire fight. Call successful hits and misses; a backup can then act without everyone spending energy at once. Its Defence has a floor of 100, so do not promise to reduce it to zero.
Restore brew-drained combat stats before attacking. Keep a brew or food and a restore accessible, but avoid remaining in melee distance while you recover from a missed prayer. Your first priority after an error is to prevent another immediate hit.
Small projectiles: colour, destination, prayer
What you see | What to do | Common trap |
|---|---|---|
Small red projectile coming to you | Protect from Magic | Copying another player’s prayer instead of reading your own orb |
Grey or dark ranged projectile coming to you | Protect from Missiles | Treating every bounce as another magic hit |
An off-prayer hit disables protection | Move away, recover and re-enable the needed prayer | Standing beside the boss and taking another hit |
Large slow red ball with a target message | Use the agreed group stack | Confusing it with the ordinary small red orb |
Sotetseg launches a red magic projectile at its main target. After impact it can split into further projectiles towards other players, including a grey ranged orb. You may therefore need a different prayer from the person who received the first hit. Watch the orb approaching your character rather than the animation of a teammate’s earlier hit.
Correct protection blocks these ordinary projectiles. Missing the prayer can deal heavy damage and temporarily disable your protection prayers. Clicking an already-disabled protection icon repeatedly while remaining next to the boss is a poor recovery plan. Step out, heal as needed and put protection back on when available.
Sotetseg can also melee at close range. Protect from Melee does not turn that into a safe replacement for reacting to orbs. If you lose track of several bounces, moving away to regain a clear view is better than continuing damage beside the boss with no reliable prayer.
Large red ball: stack together, then spread again
After ten magic attacks, Sotetseg sends a large red ball at a named player. The message identifies its target. In a team encounter, letting that player take the full hit can kill them even from full health. The learner answer is to share the damage: gather close to the target in the agreed stack location before impact.
The shared-damage area is a 3×3 area around the target. A player who is merely somewhere on the same side of the room may not be helping. Agree on one clear stack tile and move there early, with enough health to absorb your share. The target should not keep running away from the group while everyone tries to catch up.
Once the large ball lands, return to the spread formation and resume reading ordinary projectiles. Do not stay piled together because the last call was “stack”. If someone is dead, remember that fewer living players will share the hit. Call the reduced group rather than assuming the previous damage pattern still applies.
Tick-eating can avoid the large hit, but mistiming it can be fatal and another projectile can follow. This guide does not ask a learner to use it as a rescue plan. If a team uses a specialist method, agree on that before entry rather than discovering during the first ball that nobody is stacking.
Maze thresholds and the runner’s job
At roughly two-thirds and one-third health, Sotetseg pulls one player into the Shadow Realm and moves the others to the opposite end of the arena. The chosen player sees a red path leading to the portal. The rest of the group can see the runner’s current tile glowing, not a permanently revealed full route.
The maze is generated for that encounter. The screenshot explains the view; it is not a route to copy in your raid. As runner, read the actual next segment and reveal it at a pace the team can follow. A useful learner procedure is to pause on the third row until teammates are positioned, then continue on a shared call.
Entering the fourth row starts the pursuing tornado for players in the normal arena. Starting before the group is ready can turn a readable path into a rushed chase. Do not stop for a long discussion after the chase is active. Communicate the preparation pause before crossing that point.
The runner takes periodic chip damage in the Shadow Realm. Enter the maze healthy enough to read it calmly. Do not stare at inventory while clicking along a memorised pattern from a previous maze; the current route is what matters.
Following the maze without guessing
Keep enough spacing to see the revealed path, but remain close enough to follow before the tornado catches up. Click along the correct route in short segments. Ordinary run-skipping across an unsafe tile is not a safe shortcut here. A long click to a distant red tile can path through an unlit tile and damage nearby players.
Wrong-tile damage repeats very quickly. If you make a mistake, move back onto the known correct path immediately and communicate it. Eating while continuing to stand on the wrong tile does not solve the cause. Avoid crowding the uncertain player while they recover, and do not follow their mistaken movement as if it were the runner’s path.
Experienced players can use precise diagonal or L-shaped movement, but that depends on understanding the path and movement rules. Learn the normal route first. A tile overlay may make positions easier to read; it cannot reveal a different player’s unseen future maze or make an incorrect click safe.
After each maze and after the kill
Checkpoint | Action |
|---|---|
First maze ends | Return to assigned positions, reapply assigned defence specials and watch the next orb |
Second maze ends | Repeat the reset; do not assume the earlier Defence drain remains |
A player dies | Reassess shared-ball damage and remaining roles |
Sotetseg dies | Use the last supply chest to prepare for Xarpus and Verzik |
The chest after Sotetseg is the final Normal Mode supply opportunity. Check remaining brews, restores, stamina and combat boosts before leaving. Use partial potions sensibly and coordinate any shared stamina. There is no further chest after Xarpus to fix a missing Verzik supply plan.
Do not import Entry Mode’s bandage expectations into this room. Normal ToB deaths are dangerous, including for Hardcore accounts; a full wipe leads to paid retrieval, and a further dangerous death before reclaiming risks the stored items. A first clear is more likely when everyone knows the stack, the runner pause and their post-maze spec assignment before the encounter starts.
For equipment functions, team assignments and raid-wide death rules, use our Normal ToB preparation guide alongside this encounter walkthrough.
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