Guild Wars 2

I enjoy that there is a dungeon that is finally challenging, but dang I was in 2 groups for 2 hours and still have yet to beat the final boss. In one group we finally got her down to the last 25% health before we all pwned, and by that time most of my armor was gone. So the question is, how can you beat her? the group contained:
2 rangers
2 Warriors
1 Ele.

Any helpful hints for my next excursion?

The way we did it the first time, we downed Horik to 20% health, then turned to Mia by stacking on her while dodging back whenever the AOE hits the ground, after losing all her shields, you can burn her down. Then avoid the AOE until she appears again, rinse and repeat.

As far as I saw, there are two mistakes pugs always do, first one is standing so far from Mia making the whole party run back and forth, and the second one is trying to rez someone who got downed in the AOE phase. Soon after you see 3 downed.

I would also switch out 1 ranger for a guardian.

The trick is to stack on Mai when Horrik is about to do the electric (blue) shot. You then remain in the aoe field with Mai for the duration of the shot’s aoe.

You should all stand very close to her the rest of the time. Otherwise she will shadow step to the furthest person and likely down them if they are a light armor class.

I ran AR for the second time last night (too many wipes on Mai my first time to finish). We one-shotted Mai/Horrik with, let’s see, 2 guardians, 1 ranger, 1 mesmer, and one … um … she was a guest, level 22 something, I’m sorry I don’t recall her profession.

We stayed near but not on Mai so we could run her through the electrical blasts, the guardians shouted off the bleeds, and during barrage we tried (not very well) to stay together and all move in one direction around the room. As people did go down in barrage, I worked to distract Mai while others rezzed (I was a guardian, and managed to only die once to Mai — unlike my first run ).

During her last stage of health our Mesmer (in mostly zerker) swapped to whittling Horrik down so he was fairly low when we all dogpiled him. Cue a win!

Not a problem at all. The rangers put down healing springs and carefully loop around Mai getting some defense from weapons and condition cures from the springs. Most of Mai’s damage comes bleeds and the healing spring will wipe that out. The warriors can obviously work to that plan and the elementalist should be able to as well. If you are all within reasonable range of Mai she will not use her shadowstep pistol attack and Horrick will put the flame fields into the melee area on top of Mai.

Dodging the circles between stages is nothing to do with classes and isn’t so hard with a passive speed boost. When you’re reviving you need to watch Mai and stand up to dodge when she aims her pistol for the shadowstep.

The best way to dodge the AoE cannon phases is to have everyone spread out and take an empty corner of the map. Move just far enough to dodge the red circle and then move back to your spot. Since the AoEs follow each player around, it becomes very easy to dodge this way because they shoot at each player individually. You will receive one or two AoEs every 5-10 seconds rather than a constant barrage.

Our group has finished the last boss in under 15 minutes 6 times now. Here is my advice.

Bring condition removal, it helps a ton.
Bring any form of res if you can. (Battle standard, Signet of Undeath etc)

When fighting Mai, make sure the group stacks on her so it’s easier to lure her into the blue AoE. (Remember, it’s only the blue/lightening AoE that removes her shield)

During Horriks AoE, our group found it easier to spread out and pick a spot in the room, if your group is running around, crossing paths, then people will die.

Honestly, the main thing is to make sure everyone stays alive during Horriks AoE. If 2 or 3 people are dead once Mai re-enters, it is very hard to revive people.

^Pretty much all you have to do. This can be done by any class.