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Stronghold of the Faithful – Wing 3 Raid Guide

GW2. A complete guide to the third Guild Wars 2 raid wing, Stronghold of the Faithful, which includes the bosses Glenna Escort, Keep Construct, Twisted Castle, and Xera.




Getting Started


Begin by opening Stronghold of the Faithful through the raid portal in the Lions Arch Aerodrome. Once inside, speak to Glenna to begin the first encounter.



Siege the Stronghold/Glenna Escort (First Encounter)



The first encounter of Stronghold of the Faithful raid is less of a boss fight and more of a siege sequence. Glenna must be escorted through a series of dangerous traps and White Mantle forces to get to the front gate of the fortress. Keeping her alive is the highest priority because if she dies then the entire squad wipes. Also she is needed to create ley lines. There is no time limit to this encounter, but falling behind due to players dying over time can lead to mistakes that result in Glenna’s death.


Credit to Mukluk for the video.

Compositions


Positioning is important because there will be mines which can’t be stepped on, but enemies will constantly push and fear. For this reason it is important to have access to either stability, stun breaks, or cleanses.

If Glenna dies it’s all over, so even DPS classes should have access to blinds and immobilizes which can delay the damage of Wargs that deal extra damage to Glenna if they reach her.


  • Ranger Elite
  • Necromancer Utility

To allow fast transfer between the two lanes of traffic. Portal abilities can be useful:


  • Thief Portal
  • Mesmer Portal

There are waves of mobs that need to be cleared, and pulls can help deal with them, such as:


  • Mesmer Focus
  • Guardian Greatsword
  • Necromancer Utility

Roles


Glenna Babysitter – If left alone for too long, White Mantle assassins will attack Glenna when her debuff reaches 0 stacks. One person, most likely a healer, should be designated to keep using the special action key which will call Glenna to that person’s location and prevent her stacks from decreasing. Rather than allowing everyone to do it, it’s much simpler to only have one person lead Glenna. They should position Glenna away from the group so she doesn’t take incidental damage. Reposition Glenna to move forward when the group does, and kite wargs with Glenna if the group is slow to kill them. The babysitter must bring Glenna to the white circles to create the Ley Line for the Tower Team to progress.



Warg Killer – Periodically a warg will spawn at the first camp the White Mantle are found at. These will constantly attack the squad from behind and because the Glenna Babysitter will want to hold Glenna back a bit while the rest of the squad pushes ahead, this can make Glenna very vulnerable. The warg killer will essentially be a player with plenty of damage and cripples to constantly kill the warg that spawns behind the squad so that the squad can focus solely on pushing forwards. The warg killer can regroup with the squad once they have progressed near the gate of the Stronghold.



Tower Team – Ideally consisting of one mesmer or thief with portal, but it can be done with multiple people if no one is confident enough to solo it; the tower team is responsible for splitting up from the squad at the start to disable the White Mantle defense towers, allowing the squad to progress. Not only will this team need a survivable build to be able to operate on their own, but they will need the Forsaken Thicket Waters, Bouncing Mushrooms, and Ley Line Gliding masteries.

They will need to go through a cave full of dangerous mushrooms and poisonous clouds. Use blocks or evades when the mushrooms leap to avoid being knocked down. Over time the poisonous clouds will deal damage. Walk through the water pools to remove the poison effect for a short time, but do so quickly as the mushrooms will complicate this.



Once through the tunnel, take the bouncing mushroom up to the first tower. Atop the tower will be a group of white mantle who operate the defense tower. Each tower has a capture node within the ramparts which must be captured to stop the turrets. Either pull the enemies to the perimeter of the ramparts so they are no longer inside the capture point, or kill the white mantle so they can’t contest the node, or portal the rest of the squad up to the tower to have overwhelming numbers to capture the node even with all the white mantle present.

Despite requiring a little coordination, most squads prefer to use the portal method because it is the most reliable and fastest way to finish each tower. Once the tower is captured it will stop firing and the road team can progress. If the White Mantle are cleared out, the tower team can use the turret against them.



The tower team can be done efficiently by a solo player if they have portals and with the use of the Ley Line Gliding Mastery which they can use to glide the ley line up after the road team has moved Glenna up far enough to channel the ley line. The Stealth Gliding Mastery is also available if you have Ley Line Gliding. Using your dodge keybind while gliding allows you to stealth which can reduce the pressure you take from the White Mantle while gliding the Ley Line beyond their towers. Dying up in the towers as your squad’s portal can be very punishing, so try to survive. This means that the tower team and the road team can more easily interact with each other without needing to go through the poisonous cave again.



Road Team – The rest of the players in the squad can progress forward, killing any White Mantle and wargs in the front, destroying any mines, and clearing a path for Glenna. Push to the white circle on the ground so that Glenna’s Babysitter can bring them to the white circle. Glenna will then channel for several seconds which will create a ley line for the tower team to progress to the next tower.



Mechanics


Mines – The main path of the road will have mines all throughout. If any player walks or is pushed into the red indicator around the mine they will be instantly killed without any down state, making it a very risky mechanic. To remove these, stand within the white circle but not inside the red circle until it pops out of the ground, then perform a few attacks at range to destroy it. Be careful positioning near these because enemies can push you into the mines. Mines respawn after a while.

Wargs – These spawn from both the front and back of the path. They deal extra damage to Glenna and should be handled as soon as possible if they are nearby. Immobilize, blind, and burst them down.



MacLeod the Silent – When all five towers have been disabled, there will be a final boss who can deal confusion damage in front of him and will split every 25%. While split there will be a color coding given to each player, and these players can only damage the corresponding split form of the boss. Once both splits have been defeated they will converge again. A warg will spawn from the front gate and head towards Glenna. Kill the warg and then proceed to damage MacLeod, repeating this process until finished. Then call Glenna to the front gate for her to open it.



Keep Construct (Second Encounter)



Keep Construct is the first traditional raid boss in Stronghold of the Faithful. It has tons of health. There is not enough time to defeat it in the 10 minute enrage timer using purely DPS. Performing mechanics properly can allow great damage modifiers to meet the DPS check quickly and reduce the pressure the squad takes. The fight has a traditional tanking system where the player with the highest toughness will be able to position the boss.


Credit to Mukluk for the video.

Compositions


Power DPS is preferable because there are very small windows of time where DPS is really needed in this encounter, meaning that burst damage is better than DPS from conditions over time.

CCs are very important for this fight because the boss will not transition phases until their break bar has been broken. Even if it means bringing a second weapon set with more CC and a little less DPS, it will be much better because there is not much emphasis on long term DPS anyways.

Knockbacks or Pulls can help to speed up the process of pulling the core.


  • Mesmer Focus
  • Necromancer Utility

Aegis or Blocks – Because positioning is important on this boss, but the optimal position may be dangerous. Blocks or other defenses that allow the party to avoid getting hit without moving can make things much smoother.


  • Chronomancer Utility
  • Guardian Utility

Roles


Tank – Positioning the boss does not require much, but if the boss and the statues are not on top of each other when the statues are destroyed, there will be problems. The tank and the fixate’s job is to make sure the boss is on top of the statues.

Pusher – Pushing the Construct Core during the Core Phase requires some coordination. Normally a druid with staff is useful for this. Although there is one designated pusher, the squad should occasionally help with pulls.


Mechanics


Phase 1 – Positioning

Statues – Throughout most of the encounter, statues will spawn from the sides of the room. The statue will become visible before they spawn when they glow. Two spawn at a time and they will each fixate to a different specific player and slowly walk towards them. If the two statues get close to each other they will change their fixate to each other and when they converge they will spawn into a large red statue which will cause many problems because it will CC, rip boons, and deal damage to the squad, making everything much more complicated. The fused statues can be destroyed, but its much easier to destroy them before they are fused.



Xera’s Embrace is the buff that Keep Construct needs to have removed. Two stacks of Xera’s Embrace must be removed to allow progression and the stacks will return once Keep Construct returns every phase cycle. To remove them, statues must be killed on top of the boss which will enable a break bar which when CCed fully will progress the encounter to the next phase. Players will need to be aware of their positioning and who has the fixates to be able to stagger them so that one can be destroyed on top of the boss at a time, otherwise they both come into the boss and merge. The tank can also help by moving the boss towards one of the statues.



Leap Attack – The boss will periodically leap in the air and land on the nearest player, indicated by a single orange circle. Dodge or block this to avoid being knocked down. Players with fixates will want to dodge toward the boss rather than away to maintain their position on top of the boss. The leap can also delay movement of the boss which can complicate the positioning. If everyone is stacked together the leap will be predictable.



Colored Phantasms – Every player in the squad will get a color and can only damage illusions that match their color. If all illusions are not destroyed soon enough they will explode, downing the entire party. This mechanic shares the same slot as Orange Circles, meaning it will do either one of them.

Orange Circles – Every player in the squad will have an orange circle appear around them. When the circles fully fill each player will receive damage. Players must spread out or they will multiply the damage taken. A few players on top of each other is not the worst, so any fixates and the tank should remain on the boss during this. This mechanic shares the same slot as Colored Illusions, meaning it will do either one of them.

Break Bar – After the second stack is removed, a break bar will appear on the boss. Breaking this progresses the phase and will stop the colored phantasms or orange circles mechanics from happening. This means that squads with high DPS and fast CC can avoid those mechanics.



Phase 2 – Core

Once two statues have been destroyed on top of the boss and the break bar has been broken the boss will disappear and core phase begins. Statues will continue to spawn and there is a mechanic to prepare for the next DPS phase.

Green Circles – At the start of this phase three green circles will appear. If at least two players are not inside each when the circles fill, the entire party wipes. Be aware and go to any circles that do not have enough players in them. If the minimum of two is met, players should not overpopulate the circles and instead help kill the statues that continue to spawn.



Core > Rift – After the green circles have been filled, a Construct Core will spawn at the center of the room and it can be pushed simply by attacking it. This has an internal cooldown limiting how fast it can be pushed. Usually fast hitting attacks are good for pushing the core. Use push/pull abilities to help move the core faster than the on-hit cooldown. Be careful when trying to help the designated core pusher because a lack of coordination can be worse than no help at all.



Many retriever projections will approach the core and get in the way of any projectiles used to push the core. If they reach the core it will prematurely end the core phase. Don’t bother killing the retrievers because it can accidentally push the orb in the wrong direction and pushing it out of bounds will also prematurely end this phase. The objective is to avoid the retrievers while getting the core through as many rifts as possible.

The designated pusher should position themselves so that the core is between them and the next rift to minimize travel distance while constantly hitting the core in the right direction. Do not sit there and auto attack the core or leave pets on it. Be very intentional with every hit and your positioning. The boss will take more damage during the next phase the more rifts the core is pushed through.


Phase 3 – DPS

Once the core phase commences, Keep Construct will return to the center and will take more damage depending on how many rifts the core went through. Save all your burst damage when this approaches. If Keep Construct does not reach 66% or 33% during this time the encounter will go back to the positioning phase. If Keep Construct does reach 66% or 33% then continue to the defense phase.


Phase 4 – Defense

The boss will become invulnerable in the center of the room after reaching 66% or 33% and many red and white colored orbs will come from the side of the room towards the boss. Players will have an assigned color above their head and can stand in the path of the orbs to prevent them from reaching the boss. These orbs will damage players who absorb them, but for each orb that the boss absorbs the boss will gain more power for their party-wide attack at the end of this phase. It is better to spread the damage out rather than taking it all at once, so eating as many orbs as possible without going down is preferred. If the boss absorbs too many orbs then the entire party will go down, and that can be hard to recover from.



After the boss does their party-wide damage, they will rampage dealing damage to cone shapes around the room and in a wide circle around them. Players should rotate to avoid the cone shapes and stay at maximum melee range to avoid the circle. Later on in the encounter, rocks will fall from the ceiling which will daze and damage the squad, making it harder to survive.



Strategy


Begin the positioning phase by pulling Keep Construct to one side of the room where one of the statues spawn. The tank and the fixates should work together at positioning the boss on top of one of the statues at a time. This not only allows hitting the boss and the statue at the same time, but is also reliable for making sure the statue is destroyed on top of the boss. The player who is fixated by the furthest statue should delay only slightly and then return to positioning it on top of the boss. After the first statue is destroyed, a decision must be made:

  • If the second statue is way out of position or there isn’t enough time to destroy it and CC, the party should spread out to do either the color coding or the orange circles mechanic. The player with the second statue fixated should stay on the boss while everyone else splits.
  • If cleave and positioning are good, don’t spread out. Destroy the second statue and CC fast to end any ongoing mechanics.

No matter which strategy you employ, never let the statues merge. Keep damage on them constantly to control them.

Once the core phase begins, satisfy the minimum of two players per green circle and then have the player fixated by the statues move away from the core so that the rest of the squad can destroy the statues without accidentally cleaving the core. If you have pulls to help move the core, coordinate and communicate them. Otherwise keep on the statues, buff up, and save your burst for when the boss comes out. Any statues that spawn should be lured into the boss where they will die to cleave. If the squad does not reach 66% or 33%, try to rush through the core phase the next time around as it should not be too far from the phase point.

Focus on surviving the defense phase while absorbing as many orbs as possible. Near the end of the orbs, regroup for healing to survive the attack and stay at maximum melee range. As soon as the first statue lights up, everyone needs to move with the tank to the statue so that the boss leaps to the statue and it can be quickly destroyed on top of the boss. If the leap goes to the center of the room it can cause delays which will force more mechanics and potential statue merges. Repeat this process until the boss is dead with the final 33% having more pressure from falling rocks and the boss having more of the timer buff.



Twisted Castle (Third Encounter)


After finishing Keep Construct, Xera destroys the castle, turning it into a puzzle that must be completed to reach the final boss. The objective is to and travel through and remember doors, some of which will lead to the beginning of the puzzle, and others which will progress through the puzzle, activate buttons to unlock doors, and have one player reach the end of the puzzle.



Madness will stack up over time while in the Twisted Castle, which can be seen as a debuff. As you accumulate more madness more damage will be dealt to you, ending in death when the stacks reach 99. Madness can be managed in a few ways. The Forsaken Thicket Waters mastery will allow interaction with the fountains around the puzzle which will reduce madness stacks. Also players can reduce madness application by facing away from the center of the castle where the rotating pillar is.



Haunting Statues – These statues should not be attacked as they will waste time. If they get on top of a player, they will send that player back to the start of the puzzle. They can be controlled with pushes and pulls, and will even stop moving while one player is directly facing them. Try to move slowly around these to essentially “maintain eye contact” with them for as long as possible to prevent their movement.

Fountains – Manage Madness by interacting with the fountains found around the puzzle. “Dip your hands in the water” will remove 10 stacks of Madness while “Drink the water” will grant temporary immunity to Madness. Removing madness is better for slower strategies while immunity is better for faster strategies.



Strategy


There are many ways to go about completing the Twisted Castle as well as skips, but this strategy will provide the most reliable and clear strategy. Different buttons can be assigned to specific players who can reconvene with the squad later, but we will go through the entire process holistically.


Strategy with Map

For those who prefer a more bird’s eye view of the strategy, the step-by-step process is presented alongside a map. For those who prefer a more hands-on approach, check the images strategy afterwards.



  1. Your party begins at the very north. Clear the White Mantle group in front to open the gate. Take the gate to the left (1).
  2. Take the next gate (2) by going forward.
  3. Kill the White Mantle to open the gates and send one player through the north gate (A) to press the first button.
  4. One player can leap down towards the statue to activate the skip button. To perform the jump just use any leap skill and swap weapon at the height of the leap for maximum distance.
  5. The rest of the squad proceeds through the south gate (3). Kill the White Mantle here and then the squad will split again.
  6. Have one player proceed through the left gate (B) where they must wait for other buttons to be pressed to proceed through a series of three statues and hit the third button.
  7. The rest of the squad can drop from the side of the (B) gate to the top of the (4) gate by dodging but not jumping off towards it. A mesmer portal can allow the entire party to get by this with little risk. If this skip is too difficult, the party can progress towards this location by traveling the path from the right door at the start.
  8. Kill the White Mantle here and press both buttons. One is far off to the west by a statue and the other is at the bottom of the staircase. Make sure someone looks at the statues here. Once the White Mantle are dead go through the gate at the top of the stairs (4).
  9. Run south passed the statues, if everything was done correctly the door should be open. Jump across some floating stones, ignoring the White Mantle, and make it to the top of the stairs to ring the bell.

Strategy with Images

  1. Begin by clearing the White Mantle group in front to open the gate. Take the gate to the left (1).
  2. Then proceed forward through the next gate (2).


3. Kill the White Mantle to open the gates and send one player through the north gate (A) to press the first button.



4. One player can leap down towards the statue to activate the skip button. To perform the jump just use any leap skill and swap weapon at the height of the leap for maximum distance.



5. The rest of the squad proceeds through the south gate (3). Kill the White Mantle here and then the squad will split again.



6. Have one player proceed through the left gate (B) where they must wait for other buttons to be pressed to proceed through a series of three statues and hit the third button.



7. The rest of the squad can drop from the side of the (B) gate to the top of the (4) gate by dodging but not jumping off towards it. A mesmer portal can allow the rest of the party to get by this with little risk.



8. Kill the White Mantle here and press both buttons. One is far off to the west by a statue and the other is at the bottom of the staircase. Make sure someone looks at the statues to freeze them. Once the White Mantle are dead go through the gate at the top of the stairs (4) while carefully avoiding the statues.



9. Run south passed the statues. If everything was done correctly the door should be open. Jump across some floating stones, ignoring the White Mantle, and make it to the top of the stairs to ring the bell.


Only one player needs to reach the end of the puzzle to complete it, but multiple players may be necessary to open each path to reach the end in time before madness stacks too high.



Xera (Fourth Encounter)



Xera is the final boss of the Stronghold of the Faithful raid. Every player needs the Ley Line Gliding Mastery to be able to participate in the Xera encounter. Coordination and a solid tank who knows the timings and positioning is necessary for completing this encounter.


Compositions


Tanking – Even though tanking is determined simply by toughness, it is by far the most difficult job in this encounter. The tank must be confident in their ability to survive while moving the boss to the right place to keep their team safe from the mechanics. Make sure the tank is comfortable under pressure and knows the tanking locations mentioned below.

Ranged DPS are helpful for clearing bloodstones from a safe distance and destroying the bloodstones on the smaller platforms.

Pulls will make the bloodstone shard tasks and clearing the white mantle adds on the main platform go much more smoothly.


  • Mesmer Focus Pull
  • Necromancer Utility

Mechanics


Derangement – Failing mechanics or risky positioning throughout the fight will stack a debuff on each player in the squad. Some examples of actions that will stack the debuff higher include being near Xera, being hit by mechanics or AoEs on the ground, and being near bloodstone crystals. After reaching certain thresholds of this debuff, negative effects will happen, complicating the fight or eventually killing the player.

As more stacks are gained, a shard icon above the player’s head will indicate the relative danger levels. At 90 stacks the player will be feared which can potentially kill them or get them hit by another mechanic which can put them up to 99 which will fully kill them so try to manage the stacks early on or it will be harder to do so later. Stacks can be removed by standing near a bloodstone when it is destroyed, but otherwise avoiding mechanics is how derangement is managed.


Small Platforms – Xera will only engage the players on the main middle platform, but players will often need to destroy bloodstones on smaller platforms. Some of the platforms will only require killing bloodstones, but others will require completing a task to expose the shard. These are the two tasks:

Buttons – Three buttons will be positioned across the platform. Three players must stand one on each and this will allow the bloodstone to be damaged. However, the buttons will stack a debuff on each player standing on a button that when it reaches 10 it will down them. Standing on a different button will stack a different unique buff. Simply get off the buttons near 9 stacks and rotate the same direction, usually clockwise, and get back on at the same time. Ranged damage helps here because the buttons are placed away from the shard so support classes and ranged DPS should generally stand on them while the melee DPS can get near the shard.

Core > Rift – Like the Keep Construct the cores must be pushed into rifts. However, there are three cores and three rifts. Coordinating who pushes what orb into what rift can solve some of the chaos, but generally just pushing each core into the rift that is in the clockwise position to it will work out. Do not push the cores into the orange circle storms or they will be reset.

If any of the two platform types are not finished soon enough, players will take pulsing damage.



Main Platform Mechanics

Once finished with both smaller platforms at the start, glide to the main platform to fight the boss. Xera will attack the player with the most toughness. There are two main sequences on the main platform. The first and second phases are almost identical in mechanics, but they will have different orders and timings which make the strategies for handling each different.

White Mantle – A purple orb will summon additional white mantle and Xera will summon phantasms to the platform and pressure the squad. If these do not get taken out it can cause players to down and sacrifice their positioning and sanity. Pulls can help to gather the mobs together so they can be killed near the boss without sacrificing positioning.



Blurred Frenzy – Xera will flurry in front of her towards the tank. It is important not only that the tank face the boss away from the squad to avoid hitting them with it, but they must also use blocks to avoid this attack which can grant plenty of confusion to down even a tank.



Bloodstone Shards – These shards spawn in a clockwise sequence, or counterclockwise during the second phase, and will have a slight orange radius around them. If Xera is within the radius of any of these shards she will gain boons making her much harder to kill and increasing her damage. If players are within this radius they will gain stacks of derangement over time. While the center of the platform is safe from all of the shard radius, the center will sometimes be unsafe. If the tank needs to pull the boss into an area where shards have spawned, then players must kill the shards in that area. Ranged damage is great for killing the shards without taking stacks of derangement, but if it is necessary then players should go to melee the shards. Being near a shard when it dies will remove stacks anyway.

Break Bar – Occasionally Xera lifts her arm in the air and gains a break bar. She takes much less damage and will spawn bloodstone shards much more rapidly while this is active, so it is important to have immediate CC when this happens because positioning the boss will be delayed while she stands still channeling this.



Gravity Well – Periodically one half of the platform will be covered in a pink film. Players who get stuck in this will be floated, take 25 stacks of derangement, and therefore many conditions. This mechanic will appear in the same rotation order every time, making it predictable. It will also fail to appear if the Energy Surge mechanic is happening when this would spawn.



In the first 100-50% phase of the boss, the pattern of the gravity well affects this half of the platform:

  1. East
  2. North
  3. West
  4. South

In the second 50-0% phase of the boss, the pattern of gravity well affects this half of the platform:

  1. West
  2. North
  3. South
  4. East

Energy Surge – at 75%, 40%, 20%, and 10%, large Xera figures will surround the platform and one player will be given a special action key which will create a protective bubble on the ground. After a short while these figures will point at the platform and a massive attack will occur which will wipe the entire squad. The protective bubble from the special action key must be placed on top of the squad to survive the attack. The bubble only lasts a few seconds so it is important to not use the bubble early. Wait until the figures move their hands to point at the platform to cast the bubble. Waiting as long as possible also gives the squad time to reposition for other mechanics.



Laser – After forty seconds of the main platform phase, a laser will hit the middle of the main platform, spawning red orbs. If any of these orbs hit a player they will float them and create an area that can damage other allies. The tank should keep Xera near the edge of the platform during this to give the squad as much room to avoid orbs as possible.



After reaching 50% the middle platform will disappear and the squad must glide ley lines between platforms and kill charged bloodstones. Avoid the damaging areas on the ground if possible to prevent derangement by letting ranged damage dealers kill the shards. Stick together and be careful when taking the ley line because platforms disappear if they take too long and platforms will pulse damage when arriving too early.



Once this sequence ends, return to the main platform and repeat the first phase until the boss is dead with slight changes in the order, frequency, and timing of mechanics. This can make the fight much harder because mechanics will overlap each other more often. Also occasionally five players will be teleported to a platform to perform the tasks to destroy bloodstone shards like at the beginning. If a healer gets teleported it could be trouble for the group still on the main platform if they are without heals. There is a portal they can take to return to the platform while the others coordinate the task and finish the bloodstone. If the bloodstone is not finished, the squad will take pulsing damage.



Strategy


Tanking

Positioning Xera is difficult to do if the tank does not know the order of the mechanics. The main mechanics that dictate where the tank should move the boss are the Gravity Well, Lazer, Energy Surge, and Bloodstone Shards.

During Phase 1 the Lazer will occur every 40 seconds and the Energy Surge that occurs at 75% can potentially prevent the lazer from spawning, making the middle a safe spot during that time. The bloodstone shards spawn clockwise starting in the southeast corner, making the northeastern area the safest for the longest time. Also remember patterns of the Gravity Wells:


Phase 1 Gravity Wells spawn every 30 seconds

  • East
  • North
  • West
  • South

Phase 2 Gravity Wells spawn every 25 seconds

  • West
  • North
  • South
  • East

Lazers will still happen at the same time, but because energy surges will occur more often, at 40, 20 and 10% it means there are more opportunities to skip the lazer. The bloodstone shards still spawn in the southeast but rotate counterclockwise.



Phase 1 (100-50%) Tank Rotation

  1. Begin with the boss directly in the center of the platform but slightly to the west to avoid the first gravity well. (Arrow)
  2. After the first gravity well, bring the boss to the east in preparation for the first lazer. (Heart) This part may be ignored if DPS is fast enough to reach 75% by now.
  3. Return or stay in the middle but slightly south of it after the first lazer and to avoid the gravity well to the north. (Circle)
  4. If the squad needs more time they can clear the bloodstone shards to the north to make room for the tank to pull the boss there once the second lazer spawns. (Square)
  5. Return to the middle and get the boss to 50%

Gliding Sequence

After reaching 50%, the squad must get off the platform by ley line gliding to a smaller platform. Once the bloodstone shard appears, destroy it and a ley line will appear to take them to the next platform.

The most important part of this transition phase is to survive. It is mostly scripted and can’t be sped up because the platforms have pulsing damage if the party moves too quickly. The shards are very easy to destroy so don’t invest too much in them. Focus more on timing the deploying of your glider and landing on the next platform. One tip for more reliably making it through this transition is that holding your jump button down after pressing it will automatically deploy the glider, which removes a lot of potential user error.

Continue gliding and destroying the bloodstone shards until the main platform becomes accessible and phase 2 begins.


Phase 2 (50-0%) Tank Rotation

  1. When returning to the platform after gliding, tank Xera in the middle slightly to the east. (Circle)
  2. After the first gravity well bring Xera to the west side of the platform to avoid the lazer. Stay south side. (Star)
  3. Avoid the next gravity well by moving slightly to the north side. (Star)
  4. Bring the boss to the middle again after the gravity well. Prepare to move north by clearing bloodstones. (Circle)
  5. Bring Xera to the north and clear any bloodstones still there, (Square)
  6. Back to the middle. (Circle)
  7. Clear the east of any bloodstone shards and head there where Xera should be finished. (Heart)

Depending on the squad’s DPS, some of these mechanics may be skipped, so the tank will need to watch the pace of the DPS with the timing of the mechanics.


Credit to Vallun for the video.

Achievements


Siege the Stronghold – 1MP – 15AP

Complete the Siege the Stronghold/Glenna Escort event.


Mine Control – 1AP

Simply destroy a mine and then successfully complete the Glenna escort event.


Love is Bunny – 10AP

Once the escort begins, enter the cave north of the path and interact with a rabbit to pick it up. This rabbit must be held all throughout the encounter and brought to the other rabbit which will spawn after defeating MacLeod the Silent at the end of the escort. The rabbit cannot be dropped or the achievement is failed. The player holding the rabbit can’t access their weapon skills so it is best that they also lead Glenna to contribute more to the squad.



I Can Outrun A… Warg – 10AP

Complete the escort encounter in under 8 minutes. Progressing as fast as possible depends on how fast Glenna gets to the ley lines and how fast the towers are disabled. The easiest way to do this is with an aggressive composition that can push ahead to clear the path for Glenna quickly while preparing portals to instantly capture towers.



Scourge of the White Mantle – 1AP

Destroy the Decorative Armor in the courtyard area of the Stronghold of the Faithful available after completing the escort event.



Deconstructed – 1MP – 15AP

Defeat the Keep Construct boss.


Down, Down, Downed – 1MP – 10AP

Defeat the Keep Construct while the Challenge Mote is active. Activate it by interacting with the blue mote to the left of the stairs leading into the boss room. This will keep the ring of damaging area in the perimeter of the room that normally only happens during the Core Phase permanently in the fight. This does not really affect the DPS, Defense, or Core phases anyway, so it only affects the Positioning phase. It can complicate getting the boss on top of the statues and limit the amount of space the party has to spread for orange circles, but otherwise does not change too much. Tank the boss in a more central position and have DPS players manage the statue positioning more closely. DPS should also focus on damaging statues even before they reach the boss.




Traverse the Twisted Castle – 10AP

Complete the Twisted Castle puzzle.


Evasive Maneuver – 10AP

Complete the Twisted Castle puzzle without being caught by a haunting statue.


Mildly Insane – 10AP

Complete the Twisted Castle puzzle with none of the squad members reaching 99 stacks of madness.


Dismantled – 1MP – 15AP

Defeat Xera.

You can obtain the account bound as a rare drop from Xera, or once you have defeated her you can purchase it from the raid vendor for 1,000 Magnetite Shards and 3 gold. This works just like the , allowing you to portal yourself and other players to a previous location, but it has many more limitations. It cannot be used within Raids, PvP, or WvW, but can be used in Fractals and Open World PvE. It has a 30-minute cooldown and requires you to hold a bundle to use it. Great for helping others with jumping puzzles or doing portal strategies with non-mesmer classes.



Acknowledgment


Special thanks to Vallun for writing up the initial draft of this guide and helping on the process. Check out his Youtube Channel for more of his content.


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