Aetherblade Hideout

Required: Crowd Control

Mai Trin

You can engage Mai in the middle of the cave. After a short voice line she will become targettable.

The boss will perform a set of attacks that continue during the fight. First, she will open with a low damage attack in four directions that can be sidestepped. Later in the fight, this attack will follow her Dash.

After this 4-way attack, she will use Unrelenting Assault, a series of teleport attacks resembling Unrelenting Assault. Classes with lots of pulsing attacks should wait for Mai Trin to finish teleporting before placing their high damage attacks.

Occasionally, Mai will gain a defiance bar that is not connected with any of her attacks. It should be broken as soon as possible to gain an Exposed damage boost.

50% & 33%: Split

At 50% the boss will become untargettable and will summon a few small phantoms around the arena. These use rectangular-shaped low damage area attacks and need to be killed to make Captain Mai Trin targettable again.

Note: Mai will continue with her attacks during all of the split phases.

After reaching 33%, Mai will again be untargettable and will again spawn adds around the platform. This time, two of the adds will have special abilities.

First, the squad should split for the split mechanic, which will generally start this phase. Next, use all possible crowd control skills at the South-Western add first, then DPS down the North-Eastern add, allowing the squad’s crowd control skills to come off cooldown while killing the stacking add. Once the NE add is killed you can return to the SW add and finish breaking her bar, allowing for DPS skills to come off of cooldown in preparation for refocusing on the boss.

Note: There are more Scarlet Phantasm enemies around the platform, but these have low health and deal low damage with their rectangular-shaped AoE attacks and slow-moving orbs that apply Torment. Just cleave these adds down while moving to the more important adds.

Echo of Scarlet Briar

Upon reaching 10% Mai Trin will teleport to the center of the cave to channel the full power of Scarlet with an Echo of Scarlet Briar. Scarlet Briar will spawn with a defiance bar that should be broken for Exposed, just like Mai Trin. Breaking the bar will interrupt the current attacks she is performing.

Scarlet Briar performs a different set of attacks to Mai Trin. Passively she will emit orbs in a spiral around her. While each individual orb does not deal much damage, getting hit by the whole series can easily down you. Her second attack is a Swipe attack, spawning a series of red AoEs in a spiral around her. While each AoE is telegraphed and can be side stepped, it can typically be outhealed. This attack is repeated throughout the fight.

80% & 40%: Split

Upon reaching 80% and 40%, Scarlet will become untargettable. Similarly to the 33% Mai Trin split-phase, Scarlet will spawn phantoms, including the phantom with the large break bar (SW) and the one with the large health bar (NE).

The squad should handle this just like in the Mai Trin split phase by using crowd control abilities on the SW add, killing the NE add, then finishing off the SW phantom’s breakbar. Scarlet will continue to perform her attacks during this phase.

Note: at 40% smaller adds will spawn, making this phase more chaotic. You may choose to focus these down first.

60% & 20%: Deathray

When the boss reaches 60% and 20% health, an untargetable mini Scarlet will spawn at the edge of the arena and the boss will disappear. The arena will turn red and three rotating circles will start spawning one by one, rotating counterclockwise. These are the safe zones.

The deathray will always be cast off-center, meaning only one safe spot is actually safe. As the rotating circles and deathray are synchronised, this safe spot will always be parallel to the Deathray attack, on the side with more available space.

Starting at the 60% Split, a new attack will be added. An untargettable Mai Trin will spawn on the edge of the arena and cast a large 90° attack that can be negated by Aegis or outhealed.

Finally, at 20% health, a single add marked with crossed swords will spawn, shooting slowly moving orbs applying Torment just like adds that spawn during the split phases.

Challenge Mode

Now when you know everything there is to know about the fight, it’s time to step up in difficulty. The Challenge mode of this strike mission is very interesting modification of existing mechanics, while it can be very punishing, it’ll also feel very rewarding to complete.

Aetherblade Hideout (CM)

Select difficulty

Do-or-die mechanics that engage the whole squad, an enrage timer, and a stacking debuff that punishes being unaware of the environment; the Aetherblade Hideout Challenge Mode is an entertaining and interesting strike mission.