GW2. A guide to the Xunlai Jade Junkyard Strike Mission from End of Dragons.
Getting There
Use the Asura Portals in Lions Arch to reach Arborstone. Speak to Lyra in Arborstone and say you’d like to enter a Strike Mission, then clarify an End of Dragons Strike mission.
Team Compositions
Bring CC to break the defiance bars and mobility skills to transition between the phases and to escape from the pull mechanics.
Boss Mechanics
Phase 1 – 100% – 75%
Orange Circles – These circles will appear around three players. They must move out of the group to place them down and other players must avoid the circles placed.
Hallucinations – There are three types of hallucinations that can occur:
Krait – When these hallucinations pass by they will exert a pull on nearby players. The areas around them pulse heavy damage and players who go down in them most likely will die. Do not backpedal away from them, but run forwards between or away from them.
Lich – This hallucination will target a specific player and move more slowly towards them. It looks exactly like the necromancer Lich Form and you will see a beam into your character if you have the aggro. This player should move away from the boss and the rest of the party so they do not need to move away.
Quaggan – These will spawn near players which will usually be near the boss. They explode for massive damage. Back off of the boss when they begin spawning and move away from each spawn location.
Ankka will also spawn a damaging area and pull players towards this. Move away until the pull finishes. Later on she will summon more of these and swap position between the damaging circles. You will need to react quickly to where the pull is coming from and change the direction you are moving away from it. If you do get sucked into the damaging area, dodge out.
When reaching 75% health, Ankka will run through a hallway. Pursue her while avoiding the circles on the ground. Wait if you have to or use mobility/evade skills to quickly pass through them.
Phase 2 – 75% – 40%
Reanimated Spite – At the start of this phase you will need to handle three Reanimated Spites. Split up and CC or kill them. It is best to save your damage and use CCs to break their tether on Ankka which will allow you to engage her again. Spiders will also flood out from near Ankka. Use cleave damage to clear them. All of the previous mechanics will persist in this phase but may scale up or overlap in frequency.
Phase 3 – 40% – 0%
After following Ankka again through a hallway, the final phase will present all of the previous mechanics in a much smaller room with less space to handle them.
Strategy
Distinguishing between when to stay on Ankka to maintain DPS and when to split or flee from Ankka to survive is the main issue of this fight. Here are all the situations where you should flee. Otherwise stick to Ankka:
Split
- Ankka is pulling you in the damaging AoEs
- Hallucination is targeting you and running towards the group
- Hallucinations are on top of Ankka
- Orange Circles appear on you
- Ankka is invulnerable when Reanimated Spites spawn
Challenge Mode
Acknowledgement: This challenge mode guide was written by Vallun as exclusive content for guildjen.
In Phase 1 100%-75%, the major differences that appear are:
- Zhaitan’s Reaches will no longer despawn. They must be killed to make them go away. Stand on top of one of them to avoid the knock back surrounding them.
- Ankka’s pistol attacks will deal heavy condition damage, requiring decent condition cleanse throughout the fight. These are directed at the player furthest from Ankka, making it difficult to kite the Lich hallucination. A player can kite the poison volley away from the group by standing further away.
- Undead quaggan explosions will still deal a lot of damage like the first level of difficulty, but will cover more area. Keep moving while these are spawning.
- Any of the pulsing red AoEs that exert a pull on you, such as the ones created by Ankka or the Hallucinations, will instantly down you and then instantly kill you. A necromancer with transfusion can prevent a player fully dying by pulling them out, where their bodies will be safe to revive after the AoE ends.
- The orange circles that three players get will instantly deal damage to players when placed, so do not stack them. Spread them out as well as place them away from the group. You can tell you have this mechanic on you by the yellow border on your screen.
- There is now an enrage timer shown by “Inevitability of Death” in the top right. Each phase has it’s own timer and will reset upon reaching the next.
Phase 2 (75%-40%) has all of the former phase mechanics, but will also require you to CC the Reanimated Spites faster to break their defiance bars. When Ankka becomes invulnerable with a white circle above her head, it will fill with a darker circle clockwise through the notches. Once it runs a full 360 rotation, if all three Reanimated Spites have not been broken, Ankka will gain a stacking buff Power of the Void for each one remaining, giving her drastically more damage and defense.
Reanimated Hatreds will also spawn during this time which will pulse immobilize on one player. Kill this quickly before other mechanics spring up on top of them.
Phase 3 (40%-0%) can become overwhelming with pressure. On top of most of the mechanics from the previous phases, players will gain a stacking debuff Devouring Void that damages them over time. To remove this debuff they must stand in one of the white circles at the four corners of the platform which will make them safe to leave it for the next 15 seconds.
When the Reanimated Spites spawn, players must CC them to prevent Ankka from getting the buff, but a Reanimated Antipathy will also spawn during this time. This looks like an Eye of Zhaitan and will drain the life out of one the four safe zones, destroying them entirely and moving on to the next if not taken out soon enough. DPS players should focus damage and CC on the Antipathy while support players handle CCing the Spites.
Handling these simultaneous mechanics efficiently is key to pushing through the final phase. If the Antipathy is not taken out soon enough, the squad will be left with no safe spaces to survive. If the Spites are not handled quickly enough, they will buff Ankka and cause the squad to lose time and eventually be pushed into the Inevitability of Death enrage. However, it is more of a priority to CC the Spites than it is to stop the Antipathy because you can live with 1 or 2 crystals remaining, but if Ankka gets too many buffs it can easily push you into enrage which cannot be survived for long.
Credit to Vallun for the video.Achievements
Xunlai Jade Junkyard – 5AP – 1MP
Complete the encounter on normal difficulty.
Legendary Xunlai Jade Junkyard – 5AP
Complete the encounter after enabling the challenge mote.
Clarity – 5AP
Complete the encounter without dying or taking damage from any hallucinations. This includes the quaggans, krait, and lich hallucinations.
Undevoured – 5AP
Complete the encounter on challenge mode without taking damage from Devouring Void. This is the pulsing damage that occurs only in phase 3. Stay within the safe zones and be sure to move quickly between them when necessary. The safe zone buff that prevents the stacking of Devouring Void lasts 15 seconds.
Gaze into the Void- 5AP title: 
Gazed into the Void
Complete the encounter on challenge mode while Ankka has 6 or more stacks of Power of the Void. This is the buff that she gains when failing to CC Reanimated Spites within the time limit. Because it requires you to give the boss so many stacks of this buff which increases their defense greatly, your DPS must make up for this with an aggressive composition and players must be proactive with their positioning to survive. Otherwise the Inevitability of Death enrage will happen which you cannot survive through for very long.
There are 3 Reanimated Spites every time that mechanic occurs, and there are two times it will occur in the final phase before enrage happens. This means that you should complete the encounter normally until the third phase then neglect breaking the defiance bars of the Spites, only focusing on doing damage to Ankka and killing the Antipathy. Check the challenge mode video above for a more detailed guide on this achievement.
