an archive of dulfy.net for Guild Wars 2
A guide to Xera, the 3rd and final raid boss of Stronghold of the Faithful Raid Wing.
Contents
Video
Druid PoV
Ele PoV
The fight area has 7 platforms, with six smaller numbered platforms surrounding a larger central platform. Most of the fight will occur at the main platform but all the platforms will be used for the fight.
This fight applies a stacking debuff called Derangement to players when they get hit by any kind of Bloodstone attacks (small red circular AoEs) from either the Bloodstone Shards, or from Xera herself. It is similar to the stacking debuff you get inside the Twisted Castle maze and only becomes a serious issue once you gain high enough stacks as it can fear you and eventually one shot you (when it reaches 99 stacks).
This debuff havn’t been a serious issue except one or two attempts where it feared someone off a platform but it is worth to mention just incase. You can keep track of your debuff stacks in on your buff bar and once you get enough stacks you will see a silver, gold, and eventually red icon above your head as a warning.
You can remove some stacks of this debuff when you destroy the Bloodshard Shards that are by themselves on smaller platforms surrounded by red bubbles. Each Bloodstone Shard you destroy remove 5 stacks of the Derangement debuff.
For phase 1, the raid should split into two equal teams (preferably with a healer on each but not necessary). You will start on platform 1 and one team will head to platform 6 while the other fly to platform 2 via Ley Line gliding.
Platform 2/6
You will see a Bloodstone Shard enclosed by a red bauble on each platform. To remove the bauble, you need to push/drag the Exquisite Conjunctions into the Unstable Ley Rifts while avoiding the orange circles. Doing this successfully 3 times will removed the bauble that makes the Bloodstone Shard invulnerable.
You have a limited time to kill the Bloodstone Shard before the platform disappear and Xera kills everyone.
Platform 3/5
Once you killed the first set of Bloodstone Shards, you can move on to the next platform via Ley Line gliding. This platform requires 3 players standing on 3 buttons to remove the invulnerable bauble. Standing on the buttons will give you a stacking debuff that instantly down you once it reach 10 stacks so you will want to coordinate and do a count down to have everyone stand on the platform the same time. Unless your DPS is super good you won’t kill the Bloodstone Shard on one go so you will need to have everyone step off at 8-9 stacks. The debuffs are apparently specific to the button so you can stand on another button or just wait a few seconds for a few stacks of the debuff to fall off.
Once you finish off the Bloodstone Shards in platform 3/5, you will regroup at Platform 4 and then move onto the bigger central platform. In Phase 2 you will fight Xera directly. There are four things you need to know about this phase.
Xera Attacks
Xera has an enhanced Blurred Frenzy attack that will cleave anyone caught in front of her and give them high stacks of confusion. This Blurred Frenzy attack comes every 9th autoattack and give 3 Confusion stacks per hit, for a total of 27 stacks if you take all 9 hits. Tanks need to watch out for this attack and use condition removals and blocks as needed as the high stacks of confusion and the damage can down you quickly if not blocked.
Xera has a breakbar phase where she will raise her sword in the air. If you don’t break her bar quickly, she will spawn a bunch of Bloodstone fragments that will cover the entire platform. You need to break her bar quickly to prevent the fragments from overcrowding the platform. Her first breakbar occurs at 90% of her health and then it is every 60s.
Lastly Xera will also summon phantasms and white mantle knights to aid her that can be pulled to Xera and cleaved down.
Bloodstone Fragments
These fragments will spawn in an overlapping fashion in a clockwise direction with new ones spawning every 10s. Their goal is to block out the platform, making it unusable as you take damage when standing inside their AoE. This can be deadly when combined with the AoEs that cover half of the platform. You can have 1-2 players assigned to take them out.
Platform Covering AoE
Every 30s, one half of the platform will be blocked out with an AoE that the entire raid need to move out of. The AoE pattern alternates in a pattern covering 1/2 of the platform. This AoE will convert boons to conditions.
The first 50% has the following pattern with the center of the AoE originating near Platform 3 –> 1 –> 6 –> 4.
There is another AoE that originates from middle of the platform and shoot out red orbs. If any of the orbs touches you, it will create red circle AoEs that act like gravity well and lift you up. These circular AoEs will also increase your debuff stacks.
Ambient Magic/Deadly Attack
This will usually occur only once in this phase. One raid member will be called out to have harnessed some ambient magic. This person will gain a special ground targeted AoE bauble they can deploy with the special action key . This will shield the entire raid from Xera’s Deadly Attack. You don’t want to deploy this as soon as you get the item as the bauble only last for a few seconds and Xera doesn’t do the attack right away. When you see the message that Xera is poisoned for a a deadly attack, countdown to 5 and then deploy it.
The Deadly Attack is not a one hit, one shot mechanic but rather a damage over time so even if you have to eat the first hit or two it won’t kill you as long you deploy the bauble in time.
Phase 3 get triggered once Xera reaches 50%. Xera will disappear from the main platform and you will be directed to platform 4. On the platform a Charged Bloodstone will spawn in a few seconds and you will need to kill it before moving on to the next platform (platform 5) via leyline gliding. You need to kill the Charged Bloodstone quickly as the platform will disappear fast and make you fall to your death if you have not moved on. You will need to kill Charged Bloodstones in a circular fashion around the main platform: Platform 4->5->6->1->2-3 before making back to Platform 4 to enter Phase 4.
The two biggest dangers in this phase are the AoEs from the giant marionette hovering overhead that will try bombard your platform with AoEs. If you get hit by any of them, you will get Cripple, Torment, Vulnerability, Confusion, and gain stacks of Derangement. This can slow you down drastically or even down you, making a rez impossible as the platforms will disappear before your team can get you up.
The other danger is purely self-inflicted. Sometimes the leyline connecting to the next platform points to a walled side of the platform. Instead of gliding head on to the wall, you want to glide off the leyline near the end and then glide through the opening in the wall.
Phase 4 is the last 50% of Xera. This phase isn’t too different from Phase 2 with the exception of two things.
Bloodstone fragments will now spawn in a counterclockwise direction so you will need to move Xera differently in Phase 4.
The AoE covering half of the platform now also alternates in a different pattern: Aoes now originates in the center of Platform 6 –> 1-> 4 –> 3.
Additionally, Xera will teleport 5 random players up to a platform at around 40% and 20% HP respectively. This platform will have the same Bloodstone Shard mechanic seen in Phase 1. The first platform will have the Exquisite Conjunctions and the second platform will have the three buttons that you need to step on to disable the bauble surrounding the bloodstones.
At the same time as the teleport, Xera will perform the Deadly Attack mechanic on rest of the players remaining on the central platform.
Special thanks for members of the [zQ] progression team and Rubik from [LOD] for writing up the initial draft of the guide.
Archived Disqus comments
Alot
I’m going to have to find an elitist jerk type raiding guild if I ever want to see this in game. It took me 4 hours of pugging to find a VG raid group where 3 other people reliably stood on green circles. I don’t have 12 hours a week for raiding -.-
viguiry
Then it’s simply not for you.
Alot
If I can’t force 3 pugged group members to remember they supposed to stand on a green circle, then raiding isn’t for me?
Tk
If you can’t dedicate your time to apply and Join up with a dedicated raid guild then raiding is not for your
Alot
Can you read? The first 2 of 3 sentences of my statement were that I’d have to join a dedicated raiding guild. As for the other bit, I’ll repeat my question to the last guy, how long does it take you to clear each raid wing?
Nacho
“I don’t have 12 hours a week for raiding”\ Raid is by definition the hardcore part of an mmo so if you can’t afford to play it for any reason, it’s just your problem and simply play pve/pvp/wvw. u.u
Alot
Approximately how long does it take you to clear each raid wing?
viguiry
Depends of the group, between 1h to douzen of hours per wing if your group is shitty
Alot
Just to check we speaking the same jargon here. Dozen means 12 and Dozens means that you spent 24+ hours with a shitty group without everyone in the shitty group rage quiting? That’s some remarkable staying power for a pug.
viguiry
I’m sorry, again this is not casuals like you who can do that, and yes that’s how we did/do to find and create the strategies.\ Since most “good” raid players raid everydays, the hours spent on the boss are usally count in hundreds.
Alot
Your logic doesn’t make sense. You saying that a good group can do an entire wing in an hour. By this standard, with a group of decent raiders, expecting to complete a wing in 6 hours isn’t unreasonable.
Your claim about spending hundreds of hours on developing strategies is also irrelevant. No one cares how long it takes you to figure out how to complete the boss. Once 2+ raid guilds have figured out a working strategy, they posted all over the internet – at which point it takes about 6 minutes for people to read up how you did it and copy it at 95% efficiency.
I’m also a bit confused about how you go about developing strategies while in pug groups. You need skilled, consistent members to execute new strategies – which leaves me feeling that you mixing up your experiences between organised raids and pugs to make it seem like your raid attempts take longer then they actually do.
Oh, and seeing as you marketing yourself as a “good” raider who raids everyday, so how many days does it take you to complete each of the wings? I’m aiming at completing 1 a week while you seem to be insisting on completing all 3 in that time period.
Severa
First of all, replying to your first comment which elitist jerk type guilds are you talking about? Most current raid guilds aren’t elitists or jerks and if you think that asking for experienced players is an elitist attitude then you should stop playing MMOs. Some guilds i know also host community teaching days or raid giveaway days for people who wish to learn or get an easy clear.
If you join an “experienced” group then you realistically should have no problems clearing the raid in 2-3hrs. 6 hrs is a very bad raid and any group that cant kill in 2-3hrs that claims to be experienced is bullshitting you. Just leave and find a new group if you make no progress in the 1st hour.
Experienced raiders will also always be finding out new strategies for clearing raids so anyone else doing the same thing is not relevant, im sure most people would welcome information that they don’t already have with open arms. By stating that its irelevant just goes to show how much of a parasite you are on the community just leeching off the hard work of other guilds. Are you going to cry when they don’t release strats D1?
You can also develop new strategies in your mind in pug raids for later use by finding out things that you dont know from pugs.
FYI if you want to know my raid experience. I’m close to completing the third wing for this week and i’ve already cleared the other 2. Any further responses will be ignored as your arrogance and ignorance is plainly visible and i refuse to speak further more to any trolls.
Alot
Thank you for responding to the actual points I made in my first post. They were very helpful.
Elitist Jerk is a reference to a tool from the early days of WoW raiding. It read info from combat readouts and allowed people to deduce if others in the raids were properly geared and doing the right skill rotations (which were more complex and lengthy in early wow (unless you comparing them to viper engis)). People who felt strongly about each individual coming fully prepared before attempting raids where thus labelled elitist jerks after the app – and mentioning Elitist jerk was more a statement of one’s own commitments then anyone else’s.
My points about discovering new strategies weren’t about their worth to the community but how viguiry was trying to use them in his argument. I stated I wasn’t willing to spend 12 hours a week on raiding. Viguiry responded that a casual gamer like me couldn’t complete raids without spending 100s of hours strategizing. I responded that that point was irrelevant – which you seem to have agreed with.
Well, I assume you’ve agreed with based on your post. You will not be responding to clarify after all -.-
viguiry
“Viguiry responded that a casual gamer like me couldn’t complete raids without spending 100s of hours strategizing.” I didn’t said that, i said that with 12h per week, raids isn’t for you. Don’t transform my words.
Alot
If there is a form of debate lower then cutting a single line out of a paragraph and claiming its wrong, I’ve yet to encounter it.
Do you remember posting this:\ “I’m sorry, again this is not casuals like you who can do that, and yes that’s how we did/do to find and create the strategies.\ Since most “good” raid players raid everydays, the hours spent on the boss are usally count in hundreds.”\ Its the part where you say that 1) Raids are not for casuals and 2) to be “good”, your hour count is usually in the hundreds. You here establish a link between hundreds of hours and being a decent raider. At this point I’m not expecting you to have understood any of my points, but I would appreciate some coherency between the points you provide in your own arguments.
viguiry
Well because what you said was about me and was wrong? That’s why i cut it. “1) Raids are not for casuals and 2) to be “good”, your hour count is usually in the hundreds” This is exacly what i said yes. But spending hours in raids and doing strategies are 2 different things. Which is where you quoted me wrong. Because even when you’re not the one who find the strategie, you still have to learn it and do it properly, which is mastered in a douzen/hundreds of hours, depending of the player.
And btw, we’re not debating here. Raids arn’t for casual players and that’s a fact.
Severa
What would you like clarified? Since your response was less arrogant in this post I wouldn’t mind responding as your response to Viguiry had an arrogant trolling tone.
For now yes you do not have to spend 100s of hours, just know your stuff, if you know the mechanics and do not have enough legendary insights to ping, just use a chat code. If of course it makes you seem like you’re not experienced enough most groups will tell you this and either ask you to leave or boot you….
Alot
I find your scale of arrogance a bit odd. You’ve agreed with the logic I presented throughout my posts but deem me arrogant because of how I choose to deliver it – while Viguiry’s repetitive attempts to trash talk me with rubbish logic and unrelated facts seem to fit your idea of civil conversation.
And while lying about my Li count would be an easy cop out, I find the suggestion immoral. Li count is not a definitive way to prove skill or a fool proof measure for it. That said, if people who’ve spent the hours to accumulate Li’s want to be matched with other players with high Li counts, lying to gain access to their expertise is a poor show of character. Not sure why people think doing these things in game is okay for things they wouldn’t do out of game.
viguiry
Trash talk you, well reality is trash talking you then? Because everything i said was about facts, experiences and not my personnal opinion.
It is exacly the same when you apply to a job: Do you have the diploms? Do you have more qualifications than required?
Do you want to work with someone who has the same diploms/experience or with a bigginer who has no clue of what they need to do?
Reality is harder than the game for that.
Alot
The other poster in this thread has stated facts which run parallel to my expectations and in direct contradictions to your beliefs. Every point you brought forward has been a recount of your personal experiences and opinions – flouted with the childish belief that just because your approaches achieved your ends, that your means are the only way to achieve those ends.
If you going to muck your already vague justifications with the real world issues you seem to be experiencing, try keeping them to threads you already ranting in. I had a decent, unrelated, exchange with Severa about in game social structures and expectations. If you having trouble with juggling the worth of onsite expertise, tertiary qualifications and dealing with less/more experience colleagues then I suggest you find a discussion form more suited to your needs.
viguiry
Dude you are so mad. What so ever you say you’re a casual player. And what so ever i or you say, you need douzen/hundreds hours of training to succesfully do raids.
WHat are you trying to prove now? Talking about your life etc?
Alot
Only person who called me casual was you fruitcake. Only life details reference where by you. Found a nice group of people and completed 2 raid bosses in under 2 hours a piece without those hundreds of hours you seem to require – in the span of your repetitive rants of not knowing what you were actually arguing about.\ At this point I’d recommend you start a blog, create secondary accounts to post comments on it and leave the rest of us to exchange meaningful, GW2 related, points of interest.
Severa
I have adressed my posts to you because the other poster is just a fool that i’ve chosen to ignore. I choose to ignore the people who don’t know that they’re on about and shut down any arrogant people.
If there was a way of pming me your details i could point you to a guild that could easily explain and teach raids depending on your timezone.
Also there is no reason to feel that lying about LI is a poor judge of character as it shows your confidence and it will as least prove you bothered to get into a experienced raid group if if you think you’re experienced enough. I know that some people encourage this to our newer guildies so that they would pug more and learn new things.
Alot
Thanks for the offer but I found a nice group of competent people to run with.
I’ll be sticking with my preference of not-lying-to-get-stuff, but then each to their own.
.
??? you got carried and now think raids are designed for casuals? yeah good luck doing the new wing with complete newbies.\ and that “fruitcake” thing… just stop man, my head hurts from the cringing
Alot
Well, this is an old thread. The Dhuum raid is absolutely not for casuals in any way shape or form. Stick to the other 5. Are you a new person or did viguiry on a new account?
viguiry
Dude you play 12h per week, so yes, you are a casual? Don’t be mad about your own definition.
Wow VG and gorseval in 2 hours, amazing, you’re talented i think.
Again i stated right before what i was arguing about: you’re a casual and raids arn’t designed for casuals. More than that, it’s like for everything, you need to train on it to master it.
You’re recommendations are worthless, please, don’t forget your place. You’re the one who play 12h per week gw2, not me 🙂
Alot
Gorse and Fortress from beginning through keep construct to the end of the maze.
Though I lower my recommendation. Your grammar could use work before attempting any written work, then your comprehension of basic debate, then a rehash of logic. After that you can get on to sending yourself posts.
viguiry
Nobody’s care here. Especially about grammar, you’re not worth the effort. But again i wrote my arguments before, and you’re just mad.
Alot
Your arguments boiled down to 2 points fruitecake:\ 1) People spending less then 12 hours on raiding are too casual to make progress in raids.\ 2) I’m casual and therefore not cut out for raiding.
I met all the objectives I outlined in my first post, clearing 3 bosses in far less then 12 hours of play. So ignoring that fact that the logic behind your points are rubbish, which point do you feel like disowning:\ 1) That causal players can’t complete raids in reasonable amounts of time\ 2) Or that I’m a casual player.
Be careful how you answer if you choose to answer. If would be depressing if you invalidated both of your points at the same time.
viguiry
1) No i said Raids arn’t for casuals. Which is different of what you’re saying.\ 2) yes.
You didnt met any objectives dude, you just have been carried. Your definition isn’t rubbish, it’s just who you are.
Alot
I’m completing raids fruitcake. Completing them in reasonable amounts of time and with no prior experience. If I’m casual, that\ means that casual people can complete raids. Which means you just disproved our own 1st point by sticking to the second one.
And I totally met the objectives. Read the first post in this thread. The one where I said I needed to find competent people and complete raids in way under 4 hours. Done.
But I feel I should just ask this directly given the odd points you keep raising. Have you actually finished any of the raids? When you\ one of the 4 people standing on a green circle in vg, no one can carry you. If you miss is the group wipes. When you assigned to snaring the 4th ghost heading for Gorse, you snare it properly or you wipe. When you partake in Keep construct, you either deal with the fixation properly or you wipe. There is no way for people to perform these roles for you.
And while it’s cute that you’ve started making stuff up from\ scratch, trying to suggest that I’m being carried this late in the text wall makes you look somewhat desperate. You not getting through gorse without people doing near optimal dps and you not getting through keep construct without near optimal dps and all members adhering to fixation, the colour stuff and cc’ing the the ghosts going after your hockey player.
viguiry
No because people in your group wasn’t casual aswell. You didnt do the raid solo, and you didn’t do the raid with only cusual players like you. So no, my arguments are proven. if you succesfully do raids with a groups full of casuals like you then i will be disproven.
Dude i do raids everydays \^\^ Desperate ? answering to someone is desperate in 2016? i see.
btw there is 2 type of runs, the training runs with people like you, and farm runs where there is only good, exp players, it’s simple as that.
And yes you have been carried.
Alot
Making up claims you have zero evidence of looks desperate. Though I’m not sure what your fixation with 2016 is.
The usual trove of junk logic aside, don’t you receive next to no rewards for defeating a boss multiple times in a single week? Is it taking you the entire week to clear all 9 bosses or are you actually doing reruns to train people?
viguiry
Then this is just your personnal opinion? Which none cares about here? what did i claim with 0 evidence? It wasn’t a fixation, i said it once then answered you, it was sarcasm.
i redo raids to train myself, to pleasure myself, to help others. So this is not a next to no rewards.I told you, it takes me 1 night or 2 to do all the boss, then i rerun to train people or train myself with pu.
Alot
I’ll admit fruitcake, you did not strike me as the kind of person who helped others. Good for you.
Just please, edit the words “to pleasure myself” to some other set of words with your desired meaning -.-
Fred Garvin
…
viguiry
It’s not a problem if it’s hard for you to believe.
Alot
So when you said that raids take your 1 hour to 24+ hours to complete, what you were actually saying was that raids take 1-4 hours but can take you 24+ hours to understand.
Don’t make conclusions on how long it takes other players to understand and execute pre-written strategies. And stating what sort of players will or will not be able to complete raids is just plain silly – as provided by other commenters on this thread.
What’s up in debate here is this logic of yours:\ “I’m sorry, again this is not casuals like you who can do that…”
If the sole defining feature of a casual gamer is one-who-cannot-complete-raid-wings then yes, people who can’t complete raid wings are casual. The aspects you are using to decide if people are casual or hard-core however vary between misguided and laughable – depending on how badly you bungle your grammar on a post to post basis.
viguiry
Decent raiders= 1 or 2 hours. Shitty group= more than 2 hours. I didn’t say i spend hundreds of our develloping strategies. I said that any decent raiders have hundreds of hours of playing raids, not finding strategies :). You said ” it takes 6 minutes for people to read up how you did it and copy it at 95% efficiency” But there is still more shitty groups that can’t even kill Vg than groups killing mattias… Even though they all watched these videos :).
Because pugs group can be made of good players aswell 🙂 For example yesterday to find a strategie to kill construct 🙂
You think Good raiders complete the raids only once per week? \^\^ It takes me 1 evening sometimes 2 to do all the wings.
Alot
According to the numbers you provide here, there is absolutely nothing wrong with my goal of clearing a raid wing in under 12 hours a week.\ The idea that all decent raiders have hundreds of hours playing raids is a fallacy though. It is definitely more likely that someone with hundreds of hours of raiding would be better at it. It is also possible that someone with hundreds of hours would still be hopeless at raiding – or the third case, a person with little practice in raids could be fine with the mechanics with near no hours at all.\ And yes, there are several members in my guild who run with other guilds once per week.\ Your original point was that with a 12 hour raiding cap, I shouldn’t raid. You then went on to repetitively state that you can complete raids with far less then 12 hours. At this point I’m not exactly sure what, or with whom, you arguing.
Rubik
About 30 min for SV and 28 for SP on average for 8 manning. SF who knows yet?
Alot
If you clearing raids in 30-45 minutes, then there is nothing wrong with expecting to only spend a few hours to complete raid wings.
The defining factor of clear times is skill, not time spent. One would assume the more time you spend on a repetitive action the more skilled you’d get. That doesn’t mean people can’t be skilled enough to pull it of without spending countless hours practising though.
Is a random ranter is a discus form likely to be competent enough to run with groups who clear raids in half an hour? I’d say the answer is that you can’t tell. I’d be hesitant of stating what game modes they should be confined to without more detailed info though.
Rubik
“If you clearing raids in 30-45 minutes, then there is nothing wrong with expecting to only spend a few hours to complete raid wings.”
I would certainly expect better of my friends if we’re taking a couple of hours to clear if we can 8 man it in 30 min.
“Is a random ranter is a discus form likely to be competent enough…”
I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say here.
Alot
“I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say here.”\ You stepped into the crossfire between me and a rather insistent fruitcake. Thanks for the post, it was fairly helpful.
BallisticTomato
pretty sure what he meant is that if you are using English characters to type, then make sure the sentence that comes out is actually English.
Hi
Xera’s hp: 22 611 300
Dulfy
thanks 🙂
Sam Wan
That’s what I mean, they don’t even have names.\ Obvious fake accounts to hide the fact that you use these tools.
Lockheart
I mostly chortle at the people who got fanny flustered that they would need the gliding masteries. Citing that raiding was simply too hardcore to be expected to play the rest of the game
looks like an interesting fight.
Ellantriel
Dulfy, update your guide. Platform Covering AoE is not one half or another half and this info is misleading since it actually has 4 spawning places, not 2. The pattern can be find if you mark the directions like on sabetha with a commander tag: http://prntscr.com/bi4gup
The pattern for the platform covering AoE is: SouthEast, NorthEast, NorthWest, SouthWest, etc. After 50% the pattern is more tricky: SouthWest, NorthWest, SouthEast, etc.\ If you just look at my screenshot, 100% to 50% is: Arrow, heart, circle, square, arrow, heart…. you should had phase long ago. 50% to 0% is: Circle, heart, square… and I don’t know the others but you can probably watch for it on the videos.
Dulfy
Thanks I updated the guide.
Ellantriel
Lovely <3. Let's hope I don't find more tanks confused on where to stand because they think this is random xD
Raz
Damn thats some JRPG final boss shyt lol.
maximus
“Phase 4\ The AoE covering half of the platform now also alternates in a different pattern: Aoes now originates in the center of Platform 6 –> 1-> 4 –> 3.”\ Its wrong, the order should be 6 > 4 > 3 > 1