GW2 - Temple of Febe Strike Mission Guide

GW2. A guide to the Temple of Febe Strike Mission from Secrets of the Obscure.

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Getting There

Find the Temple of Febe by using the Strike Mission portal only accessible in the Wizard’s Tower of the Secrets of the Obscure expansion area. In the LFG, groups may be forming advertising it as “ToF”, “Febe”, or “SotO”.

Boss Mechanics

Many of the Boss mechanics in this encounter can be empowered depending on your squad’s choices throughout the fight. Depending on which is more dangerous or which your squad is not built to handle, you may choose to play around them to prevent them from being empowered. Knowing both the original and the empowered version of all of these mechanics can be important for different groups or when mistakes happen.

Empowered – Throughout the fight, failing mechanics will grant the boss stacks of Empowered, which will increase damage dealt by the boss 5% per stack. At the maximum of 99 stacks the boss’s attacks become unblockable and deal 495% more damage. Performing mechanics correctly is important to reducing the pressure your squad takes. Don’t confuse the stacks of Empowered that the boss gets with the Empowered abilities that the boss can use.

Petrify – At 80%, 50%, and 10% the boss will gain a break bar. If not broken after 8 seconds, your squad will take a massive hit and the boss will heal a large percentage of its health and you will once again see the break bar when you get back to that health percentage. Without enough CC this is potentially infinite, so CC is more important than DPS. This mechanic occurs at the exact health percentages even if another mechanic is happening. If necessary, stop DPS if nearing 80%/50%/10% when a mechanic that makes it harder to CC is happening simultaneously.

Embodiments of Cerus – When the break bar of the Petrify mechanic is broken, you enter into the next phase where Cerus will split into 6 different embodiments which represent six of the mechanics in this fight. Depending on which embodiments you choose to kill, the corresponding mechanic will NOT be empowered. There will be small and large Embodiments. Kill only the larger ones as they are the ones that count for the mechanic. The smaller and larger Embodiments will swap sizes the next time this phase occurs. After killing two of the embodiments, you go back to fighting the real Cerus but with the Empowered abilities now. Any stacks of Empowered gained by the Embodiments will be transferred to the boss afterwards.

Crushing Regret (Empowered Regret) – Green Circles will spawn and at least five players must stack in them to prevent damage and to deny the boss from gaining 5 stacks of Empowered. When this ability is Empowered, three players will get the Green Circles at the same time. This doesn’t make much of a difference because all three greens can stack together, so letting the boss empower this attack isn’t so bad.

Cry of Rage (Empowered Rage) – A large circle around the boss that will deal damage after 5 seconds and apply the Exposed debuff which increases damage taken by 25%. This attack can be dodged but not blocked. When this ability is Empowered it becomes unavoidable and larger. You need to quickly move away from the boss to not get hit.

Envious Gaze (Empowered Envy) – An eye will appear above Cerus and it will create a demonic wall that rotates counter-clockwise, dealing damage and corrupting boons when it passes through players. Stand close to the boss so you can rotate more quickly to avoid the wall, but don’t stand too close or you will get hit by the center of the wall. If the wall is going to catch up to you, you can dodge through it to avoid too much damage, but still get corrupted. When this ability is Empowered a second wall will appear which is faster. This can be much harder to avoid than other Empowered attacks, so mitigating it is a good idea.

Malicious Intent (Empowered Malice) – One player will be chosen, shown by a tether between them and the boss. After five seconds a Malicious Shadow will be spawned at the player’s location. This shadow will walk towards the boss and upon reaching Cerus give him a large amount of barrier and five stacks of Empowered. Three players will become tethered when this ability is Empowered. Players should move as far away from the boss as possible so these shadows need to travel further to reach Cerus. Use slows and Immobilizes on the shadows to give your squad more time to finish them. If Empowered, all tethered players should stack together when moving away from the boss so that all of the shadows can be attacked at the same time instead of being spread out.

Insatiable Hunger (Empowered Gluttony) – Many orbs will spawn around the edge of the platform and move towards the boss. Smaller orbs will give the boss a small amount of barrier, but three large orbs will also spawn which when reaching the boss will give a large amount of barrier and one stack of Empowered. Players can use their character’s body to block the orbs from reaching the boss, but they will receive a debuff Insatiable for 30 seconds that deals damage to them every second. The more orbs they collect the higher this debuff will stack. When the boss’s ability is Empowered, two more large orbs will spawn and the debuff does not time out.

Wail of Despair (Empowered Despair) – an Orange Circle will appear beneath all players and an orb will spawn above their heads. After the circle fills the orb will fall on the player, damaging them and creating a pool in that area. You can evade or block the damaging impact, but the pools will still persist. This pool will pulse damage and apply torment to anyone standing in it. It is important to split up and place these pools outside the middle of the platform so that there is space to stand near the boss. When this ability is Empowered, the size of the orbs and pools are doubled and they will persist much longer on the ground.

Strategy

While there is no enrage timer for the Temple of Febe Strike Mission, the boss does gain Empowered stacks over time which can eventually overwhelm your squad. Failing to CC the Break Bar during the Petrify mechanic will also extend the fight even longer, giving the boss more chances to gain those stacks of Empowered. Efficient but clean handling of mechanics, decent DPS, and solid CC are required to complete this encounter.

This is also complicated by the split phase where you need to choose which mechanic becomes Empowered. Usually the best choices to prevent from becoming Empowered and therefore the priority of which Embodiments you should kill are as follows:

Envy – Two eye beams takes up a lot of space and the mechanic lasts a while, potentially interfering with other mechanics and splitting your squad so this is the most dangerous Empowered mechanic.
Rage – The larger and unavoidable area of effect can be hard to avoid for classes without mobility, and failing this mechanic is quite punishing due to the stacks it gives to the boss.
Malice – While this mechanic gives you plenty of time to handle it, and having three players tethered doesn’t change the nature of it much, it is still one of the more complex and subtle mechanics and is therefore easier to fail it.
Despair – Larger areas of effect on the orbs and longer duration on the pools can be more dangerous, but as long as players move these out of the center there is usually still plenty of space to work with.
Gluttony – The empowered version only adds two more orbs which isn’t much, and the infinite debuff of damage can easily be healed through if healers get the stacking debuffs on themselves.
Regret – Stacking isn’t hard to do as it is already what your team ideally wants to do, so getting into multiple Green Circles isn’t a problem.

While most of these mechanics can become a problem, there is no hard lose state, and if your team sticks together with a powerful enough composition you can survive through most mechanics anyway.