OP’s Note: I really, really wish I could make the thread title “Habitual Pugger discovers One Weird Trick that beats Mai Trin Every Time!” but alas, it’s too long
Moving on:
Celestial, Nomad’s or Soldier’s gear, for you and you alone!
Let me explain.
Mai Trin chases the player with the highest Toughness. Horrik also always targets the player with the highest Toughness when firing his lightning field shot as well.
Thanks to the prevailing MetaZerk philosophy, if you bring a set of Celestial or preferably Soldier’s armor to put on for Mai Trin, 98% of the time that will make you the player that Mai and Horrik will target to the exclusion of everyone else.
No need to herd the kittens into the field, because Mai Tran will chase you into them every time.
No worries about ressing players after bombardment phase, you can alway make sure Mai is as far away as possible.
Want to get through the damage phases even faster? Pick the corner farthest from where Mai spawns as your area for the bombardment phase. Once it ends, she will shadowstep to you, Horrik will shoot a lightning field at you, and Mai will stay right next to you when it lands.
For the past three months, I have prepared for Mai Trin in this way, and in that time, the fights have been quick, efficient and painless, rarely wiping more than once and often beating her on the first try, even in parties where the rest of the group have 3k AP or less.
While the basis should work with any class (Light and medium armor professions should probably stick to Soldier’s or Nomads stats instead of Celestial, and/or bring more than just a set of armor in it in case the party Warrior and/or Guardian isn’t in 100% Zerker gear.) those with a ground-targeted reflect or AoE projectile destroyer work best with this. That will allow you to block or reflect any shadowshots Mai Trin tries to use in the last instant by dropping it between her and the player farthest from her when the lightning shot has been fired. In most cases though, I’ve never found it necessary.
So dust off that old Soldier’s set you thought you would never use again after Hammer Trains we dead in Wuv and Teq and the Wurms became crittable, you finally have a use for it.
