Welcome to the Dragonstar Arena Stage Three The Marsh Guide.  In Stage Three you’ll be facing some nasty poison and swap like creatures.

Stage Three Video here

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Enemies and Mechanics

Mechanics

Upon entering this stage, the environment doesn’t seem dangerous.  It isn’t until round two and beyond that things gets real difficult with massive poison pools spreading around the area.  One second of standing in a poison pool will result in near instant death (so don’t do it).  The best place we’ve found to sort of camp is to the west of the map in a little rectangle.  Ideally, you want the entire party to not move away from the pool in front of you (roughly 5 meters of wiggle room).  This is going to be an extremely hard fight for the tank because of the tight quarters.

As the tank, you’ll need to park the priority enemies in a back corner facing away from the group.  This will prevent AoE cleave damage which can instantly kill your buddies.  The trick here is to either zoom in as your back is against the northwestern wall or rotate the camera over the top.  This will give you much better viewing though it can still be hard.

Not much changes between Veteran and Normal modes for this stage.  You’ll still have to focus down casters while the tank picks up melee.  The best suggestion here is time ultimate uses appropriately.  There will be a time when poison has spawn and six mobs are beating on everyone.  Practice discipline and try not moving too far out and this fight won’t be to difficult.  If you’re tanking this for the first time, don’t stress if one mob gets loose or the boss, it’s very hard.

Enemies

• Dragonclaw Conjurer – 7,543 HP (Staff)| Summons Burdening Eye – 1,529 HP (Orb)
  • A medium priority caster that can summon an orb and heal zombies.  Generally you should pull these to your party or keep ranged interrupts on them.  If you see them casting a white tether on a target, immediately focus them down as it becomes very hard to kill the target it’s healing.  This mob can also be stunned so feel free to CC.
• Dragonclaw Savage – 10,659 HP (Sword and Shield)
  • Another medium threat mob in the form of a melee tank.  The tank should taunt this target as it nears the group.  Positioning this mob facing away from the group is important as it’s main attack ability is a rectangle charge AoE that can knock down party members.  If you’re knocked down, quickly CC break and get up to avoid a death.
• Corprus Husk – 5,543 HP (Zombie)
  • A low priority cannon fodder type mob.  This is just a swamp zombie of sorts which isn’t that big of a threat.  They do some vomit type attack (yeah it’s weird) just nuke down with AoE as needed.
• Nereid – 17,055 HP (Flying)
  • Our first major threat or high priority target is the Nereid.  They do a big big red circle donut damage ability though the center can be stood in without taking damage.  The trick to killing these without dying is CC.  Chains, stun, whatever you can do to keep them from casting or channeling.  A Sorcerer Negate works amazing here.  Once they are stunned, focus fire them down with ultimates or big damage to avoid deaths.
• Crocodile – 10,659 HP (Animal)
  • This is a medium priority target that is your basic melee target in the form of an animal.  Your tank needs to pick this up as it nears the party and face it away from group.  It’s main source of damage comes from a tail whip which is an AoE cleave.  The tank can easily block mitigate this though others may have issues.  More position stuff and this little guy isn’t bad.
• Dragonclaw Hedge Wizard – 7,934 HP (Caster)
  • Another medium threat caster that can be stunned and or pulled like the Conjurer.  This guy is a little more of a threat as he can place AoE red circles at range.  Similar to other caster, chains them in or keep at bay with ranged interrupts and you shouldn’t have too big of an issue.
• Wamasu – 17,055 HP (Lizard)
  • The Wamasu is a nasty beast and is high priority target.  He (or she I guess) has a nasty series of attacks ranging from a rectangle charge, tail cleave to a channeled lighting attack.  You can heal through all of these, though side stepping and avoiding them is important for your healers resources.  As long as everyone focuses this down, and the tank points away the target, you shouldn’t have a problem.
• Strangler –  6,928 HP (Plant)
  • These little buggers are annoying and painful if you’re team isn’t prepared.  Essentially they spawn at four corners of the map starting on round two.  As soon as they spawn and about six seconds after, they will randomly pull group members which will be very near the poison and usually result in death.  The trick is to make sure you start each round and or wave blocking.  This will stop the pull and allow you to focus them down before another pull comes.  If you can’t get them down in around six seconds, keep on block casting otherwise you could find yourself stranded without healing or a tank.
• Nak’tah – 66,090 HP (Caster) – Bannerman
  • The first boss that we focus is “N.”  She’s not hard but does have some similar mechanics as the Wamasu.  She channels lighting and teleports around the map.  She’ll also start combat with a totem which should be taken down at range.  The tank should taunt her if possible, and DPS really need to burn her with ultimates.  At 50% health, she spawns a series of adds.  Generally we ultimate dump at that point and burn her down as fast as possible than start on the adds.  The trick here is to single target damage her only.  If you damage both bosses simultaneously, and you push them below 50%, you spawn two sets of adds not one making it near impossible to complete.
• Shilia – 66,090 HP (Daggers) – Bannerman
  • The other boss is high priority too but the second boss to kill in the order.  He’s a Dual Wielding character that has the Steel Tornado AoE damage ability.  Melee should stay back or block when this is about to happen or prepare to take massive damage.  This boss can also be interrupted so tank needs to bash appropriately.  He also spawns adds at 50% which we generally take down first, than the boss.  Positioning is key needing to face to boss away from the group and far enough to avoid the cleave damage.  It’s tricky as a tank with the camera view being skewed.

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Rounds

Round One – This is your normal introduction round with no poison or stranglers.  Your main threat is the Nereid spawning on the second wave.  Make sure you stun lock the target and focus it down quick while practicing good discipline on the poison as it doesn’t come yet, but get ready.

Round Two –  Now we have some poison to start and a Wamasu spawning from the north.  The tank should range taunt the Wamasu and place on the Northwestern part of the wall to avoid cleave damage to teammates.  The second spawn will  have a strangler in the southwest corner of the map.  ALL players need to be blocking as this spawns and focus down immediately so you don’t have needless deaths.  Just clear everything out as normal and get ready for round three.

Round Three – This round starts with two Stranglers near west and a Wamasu inbound.  DPS block cast and kills both Stranglers while the tank picks up the high priority targets.  Second wave you’ll have a Nereid from the north which needs to be focused.  If all goes right, you should have the Stranglers down before the Wamasu arrives and the Wamasu down before the Nereid arrives.  Big time DPS needed.

Round Four – This round is nearly identical from round three with the only change being Nereid spawns from the east on the second wave.  Do the exact same thing above Stranglers > Wamasu > Nereid.

Boss Round – Lot’s of action on this round but the nice thing is YOU control the spawns not the arena.  The mechanic here is HP markers at 50 percent spawn adds.  The trick is to prioritize killing each boss without pushing the other below 50% health.  That way you avoid massive add spawns and near certain death.  We target the caster first or Nak’tah.  Once she’s below 50% health, you can either nuke her down with ultimates and big DPS or play it safe and drop some adds.  I like to burn her because you’ll have a Wamasu inbound that can crash your party.  Do the same thing on Shilia the only difference being a Nereid spawning.  This will push your tanking, DPSing, and healing to the max as it’s a big cluster.  But if I can do it so can you 🙂