GW2. A guide to the Cold War Strike Mission from The Icebrood Saga.
The Cold War is a strike mission which is a 10 player boss encounter from the No Quarter episode. This Strike Mission introduces more mechanics compared to the others from the Icebrood Saga, but is a good entry point for players who want to get into instanced content.
Getting There and LFG
Access the Cold War Strike Mission from the Eye of the North portal or the Umbral Grotto in Drizzlewood Coast.
If you don’t have a static group to run this, you might want to find a group using the LFG tool. Usually, you can find groups advertising in LFG with the name “IBS Strikes” or similar, which will also include the rest of the strike missions from the Icebrood Saga.
The most common squad composition will ask for 2-3 healers, quickness and alacrity and the rest DPS. Check the builds here: Strike Mission Builds.
Team Compositions
While there is no specific requirement, there is a decent survivability check. If your team cannot survive long, they won’t make it through the several minute first phase until the boss arrives. Generally DPS is not the issue, so taking a bit more support for this encounter is great, as well as AoE damage to thin out the waves of enemies. Because enemies are so spread out, pulls can be very effective from:
- Greatsword Reapers, or Spectral Grasp on Necromancer
- Focus Mesmers
- Mallyx Revenants
Boss Mechanics
At first there is a defense phase, then there is a boss phase. During the defense phase you must survive waves of enemies. They will come in slowly near the start, but eventually come in overwhelming numbers. All you need to do is kill the enemies and stay with your squad, prioritizing keeping your allies alive. If you lose any members it will only become progressively harder without them. There is a bonus reward at the end of the encounter for how well you did during this phase, but that is completely optional. You can pick up a rocket launcher to take out the enemy helicopters that will assault your squad.
Once the timer reaches zero, you have succeeded the defense phase and the Minister of Morale boss fight begins. Another timer will begin, but you must defeat the boss within this. It is a simple encounter if your team has plenty of support to sustain through the mechanics. In general staying out of red circles is a good plan, but there are some dangers you need to watch out for:
- Shockwaves – the boss emanates a shockwave that will disrupt your party heavily if not dodged
- Fire Walls – Deal damage to your party and require better positioning to avoid
- Explosions – Large damage which can down your squad if they stack too tightly without avoiding them
- Assassins – Enemy frost legion will assault the party. Dodge out of their path
Strategy
This strike mission is a battle of attrition where the win condition is to survive the timer to reach the boss. Because of this the strategy is to focus on controlling enemies, gathering them together with pulls, and bolstering your allies. However, the boss phase requires you to kill the boss within the timer. Your composition needs to have a good balance of sustain and AoE to survive the defense phase, but also a good amount of single target damage to finish the boss in time. Swap between a defensive to an aggressive strategy between the two phases according to the current objective, sticking together for support during the defense phase and spreading out slightly to avoid mechanics during the boss phase.
Achievements
Morale Breaker – 2MP – 25AP
Defeat the Minister of Morale 50 times. The first 25 will award achievement points, and only repeated skins or loot will be awarded the last 25 kills.
