Overview
Not content to face a gigantic warmachina armed with an assortment of deadly blades and lasers just once, you rather recklessly decide to relive the battle via the Real Virtuality Combat Simulation Experiencinator. For some reason, your foe's combat prowess has been increased exponentially, though it does provide an opportunity to hone your skills, and your pride as a warrior compels you to take up the gauntlet.
Strategy Notes
- Just like normal mode, your showdown with the iconic Emerald Weapon takes place within a circular arena surrounded by a fatal drop. Any player who walks (or is pushed over) the edge will suffer an immediate KO but can be revived after a moderate delay.
- -- Blue Orb - applies Magic Vulnerability to everyone caught in their blast radius.
- -- Yellow Orb - applies Physical Vulnerability to everyone caught in their blast radius.
- Keep in mind that colliding with an orb will cause it to detonate via a broad AoE explosion and that the damage from manually popped orbs will need to be shared by two players simultaneously. Furthermore, players will be unable to pop two orbs of the same colour due to the stacking vulnerabilities that are applied with each explosion.
- Once Emerald Beam has concluded, the outer edge of the arena will collapse, shrinking the playing field.
- Unlike normal mode, both tanks will also acquire proximity flare markers at the same time, forcing them to position themselves away from the rest of the raid. As a rule of thumb, each tank should stand on opposite sides of the stationary mine, giving themselves ample space away from each other (and the raid) so that the flare explosions inflict minimal raid-wide damage. Meanwhile, all other players should identify where safe-spots will be formed by the soon-to-be pushed mines, away from the flare-marked tanks.
Boss Encounters
Mark V Anti-Eikon Warmachina: The Emerald Weapon
- Emerald Shot - causes Emerald Weapon to blast its primary target with a high damaging tank-buster.
- Optimized Ultima - unleashes unavoidable raid-wide damage, similar to the Ruby Weapon encounter in Cinder Drift.
- Aetheroplasm Production - creates a collection of blue and yellow orbs around the outer edge of the arena, all of which tether to the Emerald Weapon and will slowly move towards the arena centre. If any orbs are left for too long, they will automatically detonate for lethal damage, forcing the raid to pop orbs manually.
- Emerald Beam #1 - the Emerald weapon projects two cone-shaped AoE's from its front and rear that will eventually begin to rotate in the direction shown via a marker around its hitbox. Additionally, a point-blank AoE will also be dropped by the Emerald weapon just before the beams begin to rotate. Said point-blank AoE will shortly be followed by outward-traveling rings of AoE's, forcing the raid to not only move in a circle to avoid the rotating beams but also step between the outward traveling set of AoE's as well.
- Magitek Magnetism #1 - creates three explosive mines within the arena that are telegraphed with large circular AoE's, indicating the radius that will be affected by their upcoming explosions. Before exploding, however, two of the mines will be tethered together with the magnet-mechanic (i.e, plus symbols), indicating that the tethered mines will eventually be pushed apart before exploding. The untethered mine will remain stationary until it has exploded.
- Magitek Magnetism #2 - similar to above, except this time, four mines will be spawned instead of three. This time, the mines will be magnet-tethered into two pairs - one pair to be pushed apart (identical plus or minus symbols), and one pair to be pulled together (opposite symbols). A single safe-spot will be formed near the pair of mines with identical symbols.
- Emerald Beam #2 - a new set of rotating cone AoE's and outward traveling ring AoE's, leading to another portion of the outer-arena being demolished. From here, the raid will have considerably less space to maneuver.
- Emerald Hands #1 - summons flying mechanical hands that will float within the arena. Players will need to react depending on what the emerald hands do next. As a rule of thumb:
- Divide Et Impera - a shareable tank-buster against Emerald Weapon's primary target, indicated by a glowing red marker. Both tanks will need to stand together to mitigate the attack. Meanwhile, the rest of the raid will need to spread out to avoid an upcoming barrage of AoE's from the emerald hands, preferably by having individual players position themselves at cardinal and inter-cardinal positions.
- Split - the Emerald Weapon will split in half, leaving behind its upper body, whilst the lower half disappears from the arena.
- Expire - projects a point-blank AoE from the centre of the arena. To avoid this, the raid should move as close to the outer edge as possible.
- Red Smash - creates a red pool near an outer edge of the arena that will eventually grow in size before detonating. All players should give the red pool a wide berth, as its true size will not be indicated until shortly before the explosion itself.
- Emerald Hands #2 - players will need to react depending on what the emerald hands do next. As mentioned before:
- Magitek Magnetism #3 + Pulse Laser - creates four mines that will once again be magnet-tethered into two pairs - one pair to be pushed apart (identical plus or minus symbols), and one pair to be pulled together (opposite symbols). Just like earlier, a single safe-spot will be formed near the pair of mines with identical symbols.
- Divide Et Impera #2 - the vicious (red-marked) tank-buster from earlier, except this time, it will also emit cone AoE's in the direction of all other players whenever it is cast. As such, all players (except the main and off-tank) should continue to position themselves at cardinal and inter-cardinal points of the arena to avoid overlap, whilst the two tanks stand together and absorb the shareable tank-buster.
- Primus Terminus Est - marks six players with a bright blue directional arrow, indicating the direction that each marked player will eventually be pushed. After a delay, all marked players will be forcibly shoved in the marked direction and also drop a column AoE in the marked direction. Any player caught in the wake of a dropped column AoE will also suffer a knockback in the same direction, marked or not.
- Tertius Terminus Est - causes three pairs of swords to drop into the arena, one after the other. Each pair of swords (in the order they were dropped) will eventually fire straight-line AoE's across the arena in either an "x" shaped pattern or a "+" pattern, indicated by straight blue lines on the arena floor. However, they will not detonate until all three pairs of swords have dropped.
- Legio Phantasmatis #1 - causes the Emerald Weapon to disappear from the arena, leaving behind an image of "Black Wolf" (Gaius van Baelsar), an add that should be picked up by a tank as soon as possible.
- Mechanized Maneuver - summons a line of mechanical airships at the western edge of the arena, as well as a single magitek mount on the southern side. After a brief delay, each airship will begin acquiring numbered markers from 1-5, indicating the order in which they will swoop across the arena and bombard their lane with a barrage of slowly traveling AoE explosions. To avoid, players should quickly identify which airship (lane) will swoop first, wait for the first AoE explosion, then move into the lane (behind the explosion) to avoid the remaining airship bombardments.
- Split: Bottom Half - if the top half disappears, the Emerald Weapon will cast Expire - a point-blank AoE - followed by Tertius Terminus Est (triple set of swords from earlier), and also drop a Red Smash (red circle that will quickly grow larger before exploding). All participants will need to first avoid the point-blank AoE, avoid the upcoming red-circle explosion, then duck and weave between the "+" and "x" shaped sword explosions much like how you did earlier.
Duty Information
- Duty Finder: High-end Trials (Shadowbringers)
- Roulette: Mentor
- Time Limit: 60 minutes
- Tomestones: 25 poetics
Achievements
Music
- Phase 1: Ultima (The Primals)
- Phase 2: The Black Wolf Stalks Again