Guild Wars 2

Now, Leeching Thrashers have been around a while. They have two very recognizable attacks; one where they plug into the ground and fondle nearby targets, and another where they fly around and drop a life leeching field.

But I’ve noticed in Heart of Thorns that they sometimes spam The Crap out of the life leech field, and often don’t do the fondle attack at all. This was first notable on the hero point just west of the start of Verdant Brink, which spawns a random Mordrem boss. The Champion Thrasher was very difficult because of its tendency to spam the life leech field. But recently I’ve noticed it with Veteran Thrashers as well. I had a very difficult time killing a Veteran Thrasher with my Reaper in Dragons Stand; I had a Flesh Golem and there were two NPCs with attacking as well so I had to interrupt its Life Leech 4 times in a row in order to kill it. This was fairly difficult, since most of my interrupts had long cast times and/or involved swapping weapons/transformations to access the next one.

Is it really intended that Leeching Thrashers be spamming their life leech this much?

They only plug into the ground if they detect targets at range, and they’ll unplug again as soon as they have no targets. If they’re trailing along behind you liek a lost puppy, they’re going to do the leech field.

you just have to alternate between range and melee.