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Guide to Stronghold Dragonflight
cilginordek
Member Posts: 459 Arc User
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Hello this is Tony Chianti@cilginordek. I noticed quite a few of people ask right before the start of the Dragonflight what they should do, but unfortunately it’s not really feasible to give a detailed explanation while dragons are about to arrive. Hopefully having a guide for people who are new to the concept will prove useful.
I’ve mentioned before that once a dragon is killed, every other dragon flees after a minute. It is not possible to kill a dragon in under a minute, so for multiple kills, some coordination is needed. To achieve this coordination, you should pay attention to the queue chat. There it will be announced when the dragons should be killed.
A usually employed tactic is putting as many people as possible on one dragon, lowering its HP down to about 15%, then moving on to the next dragon and leaving someone behind to finish off the dragon. Note that “as many people as possible” means maximum of 20 people, because if there is more, the dragon becomes immune to all damage. This is why its important to join early, so groups can be split if more than 20 people are interested in participating.
Once the fight starts, you will notice some things are pretty much like any other boss fight. You don’t want to step on red, you don’t want to stand in front of the dragon and such. There are some mechanics that you may not be aware of though, which are unique to either stronghold dragons, or dragons in general. First of all, not just standing in front isn’t enough, you also should not stand behind them. They have a tail attack that’s very strong, so sides are the safest place. Sometimes they will do a jump attack that pushes nearby people back and stuns them. That can easily be avoided if you’re watching your feet and avoid red areas. However, these dragons also have some very wide arc frontal attacks that hit very hard, and doesn’t show a red area beforehand. At first you may feel like you just got killed out of nowhere, but as you get more experience, you will notice the animations that signal those attacks.
Don’t feel bad if its confusing at first! Death can happen to everyone. Just respawn and run back. Respawning is often faster than waiting for someone to revive you, and safer than someone else risking death while getting you up.
There is one last mechanic that all stronghold dragons share: Empowerers. These NPCs will spawn around the outer circle of the area. They spawn every 15% HP lost of the dragon, and more of them spawn the less HP the dragon has left. They boost both the resistance and the power of the dragon, making it very dangerous. As a DPS, these should be our priority all the time. They also give a lot of points for the leaderboard of the event, so killing them helps you get ahead there too, though that has no effect on the rewards at the end.
Stronghold dragons are chromatic dragons, so depending on their colour they have different abilities tied to elements. That means a few unique attacks too. Although these are not as critical as general tactics, I’ll detail these as they are not very commonly known.
Red Dragon
This is a dragon of fire. It is the easiest dragon in stronghold and can be done only following the general tactics above, meaning, avoiding red and killing empowerers. Additionally to default dragon attacks, this dragon also drops flame balls on the ground that create pools of fire that last for a while, don’t step on it.
Green Dragon
Green scaled dragons do poison. Mechanics-wise this dragon is not much more different than red, with the exception of one thing you will notice immediately, the area is under a poison cloud. You will take damage just by being in the area. This damage is not much though, your lifesteal can take care of it if you’re well geared already. If not, stay close to other people and don’t spread around too much so healers can heal you easily.
Black Dragon
Black is the dragon of rotting, disease, death and so on. As such, its special mechanic relates to death. When someone dies fighting the black dragon, a ghost spawn in their place and starts chasing nearby players. These ghosts are similar to the ones that spawn in Valindra’s Tower. They can’t be killed. They can be very troublesome for the melee DPS and the tank, especially because the dragon also puts a damage resistance debuff on the tank.
Blue Dragon
Blue means electricity, and electricity means piercing damage. That is why this dragon is the most painful one. Before engaging this dragon, one should wait for the tank to engage first, to avoid a shockwave attack at start, which is not very healthy if you rush in. Once the fight starts, follow the usual tactics. Eventually the dragon will do a thunderbolt attack. This attack targets the tank. You can tell when the tank has a bolt and a shield icon over her head. It begins doing a lot of piercing damage every second. It is enough to kill the tank if she lowers her shield even for two seconds during this thunderbolt, which lasts quite a while. The clerics should also focus the tank to counter the damage resistance debuff of the thunderbolt. Why? Because if the tank dies to this thunderbolt, everyone in the area takes 160k unmitigated damage. In other words, raid wipe.
The Basics
Dragonflight is a big heroic encounter at the stronghold. Taking place in stronghold means everyone, no matter what level, can participate and they will be scaled up to level 70. It can be spawned every two hours from :30 to :35 for free(watch the travelling wizard event), or alternatively can be spawned using a Golden Bell from Zen Store or summer event, in either case 5 players must be present at the stronghold map. Once started, players have 10 minutes to kill up to 4 dragons. The dragons must be slain within a minute of each other though, because once one dragon is slain, remaining dragons flee after 1 minute.Rewards
Dragonflight rewards you with Fangs of the Dragonflight, guild coffer vouchers and sometimes a voucher strongbox. Ask your guild masters if they have keys spare for the voucher strongbox you’ve received, as certain boxes from here are the best way to consume a key. As for the fangs of the Dragonflight, those can be exchanged at guild outfitter for Dragonflight Armour not just for you, but also for your alt! Dragonflight Armour is a tier above Elemental Elven Armour stats-wise. It is the best PvE armour you can get that doesn’t require massive investments. You can also get some dye packs with fangs.Preparation
Now you know what Dragonflight(DF) is, I bet you can’t wait to do it. But first things first. Some preparation makes the runs much more pleasant for everyone involved. Once a queue group starts forming for the DF, if you intend on joining, you should join as early as you can. This way, numbers can be deduced and tactics decided based on that. Speaking of queue group, make sure you’re following the queue chat closely. This is where the tactics will be shared, parties will be assigned, and instructions given. Also there are a few things every adventurer would do well to posses before fighting dragons. Chances are, you will die, so naturally you should have some injury kits. In addition to that, there are two consumables, namely Potion of Dragon Slaying and Scroll of Protection from Dragons. These increase your damage against dragons and decrease the damage you receive from them. They persist trough death too, so just one of each is enough per DF.General Tactics
This is perhaps the most important part of this guide. These tactics apply to the whole ordeal and every dragon. So getting right to it.I’ve mentioned before that once a dragon is killed, every other dragon flees after a minute. It is not possible to kill a dragon in under a minute, so for multiple kills, some coordination is needed. To achieve this coordination, you should pay attention to the queue chat. There it will be announced when the dragons should be killed.
A usually employed tactic is putting as many people as possible on one dragon, lowering its HP down to about 15%, then moving on to the next dragon and leaving someone behind to finish off the dragon. Note that “as many people as possible” means maximum of 20 people, because if there is more, the dragon becomes immune to all damage. This is why its important to join early, so groups can be split if more than 20 people are interested in participating.
Once the fight starts, you will notice some things are pretty much like any other boss fight. You don’t want to step on red, you don’t want to stand in front of the dragon and such. There are some mechanics that you may not be aware of though, which are unique to either stronghold dragons, or dragons in general. First of all, not just standing in front isn’t enough, you also should not stand behind them. They have a tail attack that’s very strong, so sides are the safest place. Sometimes they will do a jump attack that pushes nearby people back and stuns them. That can easily be avoided if you’re watching your feet and avoid red areas. However, these dragons also have some very wide arc frontal attacks that hit very hard, and doesn’t show a red area beforehand. At first you may feel like you just got killed out of nowhere, but as you get more experience, you will notice the animations that signal those attacks.
Don’t feel bad if its confusing at first! Death can happen to everyone. Just respawn and run back. Respawning is often faster than waiting for someone to revive you, and safer than someone else risking death while getting you up.
There is one last mechanic that all stronghold dragons share: Empowerers. These NPCs will spawn around the outer circle of the area. They spawn every 15% HP lost of the dragon, and more of them spawn the less HP the dragon has left. They boost both the resistance and the power of the dragon, making it very dangerous. As a DPS, these should be our priority all the time. They also give a lot of points for the leaderboard of the event, so killing them helps you get ahead there too, though that has no effect on the rewards at the end.
Dragon Specific Tactics
Stronghold dragons are chromatic dragons, so depending on their colour they have different abilities tied to elements. That means a few unique attacks too. Although these are not as critical as general tactics, I’ll detail these as they are not very commonly known.
Red Dragon
This is a dragon of fire. It is the easiest dragon in stronghold and can be done only following the general tactics above, meaning, avoiding red and killing empowerers. Additionally to default dragon attacks, this dragon also drops flame balls on the ground that create pools of fire that last for a while, don’t step on it.
Green Dragon
Green scaled dragons do poison. Mechanics-wise this dragon is not much more different than red, with the exception of one thing you will notice immediately, the area is under a poison cloud. You will take damage just by being in the area. This damage is not much though, your lifesteal can take care of it if you’re well geared already. If not, stay close to other people and don’t spread around too much so healers can heal you easily.
Black Dragon
Black is the dragon of rotting, disease, death and so on. As such, its special mechanic relates to death. When someone dies fighting the black dragon, a ghost spawn in their place and starts chasing nearby players. These ghosts are similar to the ones that spawn in Valindra’s Tower. They can’t be killed. They can be very troublesome for the melee DPS and the tank, especially because the dragon also puts a damage resistance debuff on the tank.
Blue Dragon
Blue means electricity, and electricity means piercing damage. That is why this dragon is the most painful one. Before engaging this dragon, one should wait for the tank to engage first, to avoid a shockwave attack at start, which is not very healthy if you rush in. Once the fight starts, follow the usual tactics. Eventually the dragon will do a thunderbolt attack. This attack targets the tank. You can tell when the tank has a bolt and a shield icon over her head. It begins doing a lot of piercing damage every second. It is enough to kill the tank if she lowers her shield even for two seconds during this thunderbolt, which lasts quite a while. The clerics should also focus the tank to counter the damage resistance debuff of the thunderbolt. Why? Because if the tank dies to this thunderbolt, everyone in the area takes 160k unmitigated damage. In other words, raid wipe.
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