Guild Wars 2

A couple weeks ago, my group witnessed an incredibly rare attack, that I had never seen before, and didn’t get to see again since then. At first we thought that I was responsible for it because I had cast a pistol phantasm before jumping into the destroyer’s platform and that might have been the trigger (having something at range take his aggro) but to my dismay we couldn’t reproduce this.

It was written “Firy Blast” in the combat log. The thing deals enough AoE damage to bring warriors to 5 or 10% hp. Low HP classes gets instagibbed. The animation I could see before we got hit is that he seemed to have jumped in the air.
Google doesn’t say anything about this beside gw2db giving a chat code for the skill.

Did anyone else trigger that peculiar attack ? if there was a reliable way of making him do that.. I’ll give you a cookie.

Someone mentioned that in Mumble a week or so ago as well. I’ve personally seen it.

Is it the belly flop attack animation? I’d heard rumors of it but in literally hundreds of runs I hadn’t seen him use it… until he did and nearly wiped us. No idea what triggers it, but its incredibly rare, like one out of two hundred runs he will do it. In a year of playing this game I’ve seen him do it twice if that is any indication.

I don’t know if I would describe it as a belly flop, but I’m pretty sure we’re talking about the same thing (there couldn’t be two different almost never used attacks.. unless anet has a sense of humor).

What I’m looking for is a trigger. I have a gut feeling that there must be a trigger, something the group does that makes it more likely for this attack to get queued, although I could be wrong and anet just can’t program a decent RNG and made a boss attack that just almost never happens.
I would do so much to get my hands on whatever action could trigger this.

If it’s a point blank AoE attack, it seems more likely that the trigger is the boss switching to a melee range routine once people are on the platform. The tooth seems to be his normal range attack, since he starts using that as soon as he spots someone up above the lava pool. Could be the boss’s AI has always been bugged and he just never (except for the few exceptions noted) switches to melee attacks.

I’ve seen this also. To me it resembles a Nightmare Husk from TA doing the big ground slam with his fists that knocks you back. I’ve only had this happened once but it knocked me back as well as wiping most of my health. As for the trigger? I have absolutely no idea, I was just meleeing him as usual though it was in a PuG so I can’t even guess as to what the other people were doing (AFK’ing at the top of the stairs?)

http://imgur.com/6gJP9WG

If anyone knows what causes this attack, please do not reveal this information to Nikaido. The result could be detrimental to our runs and the livelihood of our guild. My sigil stacks will thank you.

Yeah don’t tell nik, tell me

According to http://www.gw2db.com/skills/14977-firy-blast there is some sort of icon associated with the attack. Interestingly enough, he has this icon under his name when you run down to the platform. You can see it pretty clearly in this video I have: http://youtu.be/mGJylZBKmos

Firy Blast huh? …sounds like a Portmanteau

…Like the boss effectively shoves a burning lodgepole pine up your kitten?

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

According to http://www.gw2db.com/skills/14977-firy-blast there is some sort of icon associated with the attack. Interestingly enough, he has this icon under his name when you run down to the platform. You can see it pretty clearly in this video I have: http://youtu.be/mGJylZBKmos

That is just the generic “monster only” skill icon. They’ve been using it since GW1 except the GW1 version doesn’t have the giant border. Would be interesting to see what the tooltip for that icon actually says.

As for the name “Firy Blast”. It probably means the skill was created by Izzy.

Finally got that one recorded in fraps. For such a rare attack I was lucky it came up while we were experimenting with stuff and recording.

http://youtu.be/OZ8Tb-eFEBk

Still have no idea as to what triggers it but it doesn’t seem all that random seeing as it’s the third time it happens to our groups in a short time frame.

edit: he seems to have faced the duelist while doing the attack.. I get the feeling that the duelist might actually be the culprit.

We also encountered it.

http://youtu.be/WREN7NjOCfI

We also had a Duelist. It looks sorta like he turns to the Duelist before he does it but also looks like he turns at one of our warriors. Tough to say but the common denominator thus far is the Duelist being slightly away from the center of the circle.

I cannot fathom why a ranged attack would trigger a melee response, but then again I didn’t code the boss haha. anyway, Phantasmal Duelist seems like the first worthy lead to test in the investigation.

1x Guardian 4x mesmer test run?

Mesmer chaos strikes again. When are they getting dropped from the meta?

Edit: I’ll answer my own question, when Feedback gets nerfed.

Dolan.3071:

Mesmer chaos strikes again. When are they getting dropped from the meta?

Edit: I’ll answer my own question, when Feedback gets nerfed.

More like when the pull on focus #4 gets replaced, thats pretty important aswel! :O

We only ran a mesmer there because we dont care what people run anymore for the most part on casual runs. But yeah, I would not bring mesmer to coe at all if I cared about finishing it faster.

When I used Entangle on my Ranger, the entire party was (cough filter cough) hit by a crazy aoe pushback into the lava. I didn’t think anything of it. On third round that run, I used it again, and incidentally bore witness to that attack again. I never used entangle on that boss since. I have never seen that attack since.

What’s weird is that when pugs used to (still do sometimes I guess) range him from the top of the pit it didn’t trigger that.

Xhyros.1340:

When I used Entangle on my Ranger, the entire party was (cough filter cough) hit by a crazy aoe pushback into the lava. I didn’t think anything of it. On third round that run, I used it again, and incidentally bore witness to that attack again. I never used entangle on that boss since. I have never seen that attack since.

very interesting, I don’t see any common factors between entangle and iDuelist but it is more food for thought

It’s probably a mix of attack speed and ranged, I also bore witness to the attack after we wiped to it. I was using Smite on my scepter as an opening attack (Forgot to swap out to GS) before switching to my sword for ZD and Shield of wrath and DPSing him down. This has happened three times so far using this method, although it isn’t consistent.

Might be worth looking into i’d say.

I keep trying to get it to trigger in my groups. I have yet for it to happen and I cast my duellist on the platforms. Because if it is a ranged trigger…Possibly a ranged/melee trigger…

Sounds like its triggered when casting ranged attacks in melee range or as you are jumping down the platforms. But not guaranteed.

Get all 5 people to range attack in melee range, hope for the best.

…. The best being a massive AoE knock back that will one hit KO most of your team and send them into the lava, why do we even want to know how this works xD

To kill my party members’ stacks ofcourse. This will have potential once i’ve figured out how to reproduce this.

Might be ranged aoe attacks. Even though iDuelist doesnt count as aoe.

Dolan.3071:

Get all 5 people to range attack in melee range, hope for the best.

…. The best being a massive AoE knock back that will one hit KO most of your team and send them into the lava, why do we even want to know how this works xD

we tried having everyone standing on the rim of the platform ranging a couple of times, didn’t work

Since the three triggers that seem to matter are clones and entangling roots, perhaps it has to do with # of targets. Perhaps if there are more than 7 enemies on his platform he triggers? I suspect not, but its a possibility.

The other thing I considered is that it’s stupid RNG. Anet made an attack that is supposed to happen 10% of the time, missed a decimal point and now it triggers 1% of the time.

Test a minion master necro on it?

spoj.9672:

Test a minion master necro on it?

But, that would require bringing a minion master necro into CoE…

Bright.9160:

spoj.9672:

Test a minion master necro on it?

But, that would require bringing a minion master necro into CoE…

For the sake of science! Beserker necro wouldnt really slow the run down. Just swap the utilities before the destroyer.

Drop a load of turrets, that should work too (if that’s the trigger).

Happened in a Pug yesterday. We had a ranger camping at the top of the stairs and a Mesmer, can’t be sure which clones/illusions he was using though.