Guild Wars 2

I’ve noticed that lately, this breach tends to fail and people simply blame it on AoE regardless of what actually happened. Let’s clear up some misconceptions ~

AoE heals Copper

For starters, AoE is only really bad during the end of the encounter, roughly around the last 20%. The reason Copper heals is because of and only because of poison bubbles popping next to it. Although offshoots state they heal nearby allies, they only grant regeneration, which can be quickly stripped.

People telling others to not use any AoE/piercing/etc attacks is the real problem. Some people are so afraid to do anything, that they simply don’t. If you’re going to come to Copper and do no real DPS, simply don’t stay there. Tag it and leave; you will seriously be more effective by doing that due to scaling.

Poison Bubbles

When a poison bubble is popped near Copper, it will heal for roughly 2%.

Large poison bubbles will begin spawning from the corners of the room shortly into the encounter. Although they tend to float towards Copper, they may also simply move towards the center of the room and pop. Regardless of whether you attack these bubbles or not, they will automatically pop after reaching Copper. The only problem AoEing will cause is popping these bubbles a few seconds early compared to if they would have just bumped into Copper. On the plus side however, AoEing could also pop these bubbles before they reach Copper. Ideally however, you will want to slow them down, control them and keep them away from Copper for as long as possible, as they will simply respawn several seconds after popping.

Small poison bubbles will slowly float around aimlessly and begin spawning near the end of the encounter, at roughly 20%. This is where AoE is bad because you want to avoid popping these for no reason and they’re usually grouped, which could result in 10-20% healing. Since they tend to spawn near Copper, around the center of the room, this is where you may want to simply move Copper to one of the other corners to avoid the potential mess, though people will have to learn to leave the ledge.

Offshoots

On death, they will explode and damage any nearby players while granting regeneration and fury to any nearby offshoots or Copper. Since this can be easily stripped from Copper, it doesn’t actually matter if you kill the offshoots. You don’t however want to slowly kill one after another because boon strippers won’t be able to keep up. Personally, I run nullification and watch regeneration get stripped as it’s applied.

Offshoots can be very buggy with their attacks, though this could be caused due to the people on the ledge. Their melee attacks will eventually stop working, causing them to run up to someone and simply stand there. Under normal circumstances, they have a slow melee attack, so if they’re focused on you, you would simply want to move around a bit. If you’re outside of their melee range, they will throw projectiles at you, though they seem to mark specific players for death and only throw at them. These players will be immediately focused if they show their face. I’m assuming this is why they can bug out, since these players are generally hiding on the ledge or dead.

Tanking

At least 1 player must be down with Copper at all times. If not, Copper may reset and quickly begin regenerating health. The person with aggro will want to try to kite Copper away from any poison bubbles. Unfortunately, with a lot of people refusing to move from the ledge, this can be difficult without greatly affecting DPS.

At least 1 other player should be down with Copper simply to distract the offshoots. Although not necessary, it will help reduce a potential regeneration overload and allow for the bubbles to be controlled more efficiently due to AoE limits. Due to random aggro however, ideally you would want a few players down there, though the concept of randomly becoming the tank and having to kite is too hard for most people.

The Ledge

If Copper begins leaping up to where people are, I suggest you jump down if you were near the center of the target, because one of you is the new tank. This area is outside of the bounds and will cause Copper to teleport. Any poison bubbles that were moving towards Copper may also teleport directly to it and pop, creating a burst heal.

Thank you! That is a magnificent explanation. Now I understand what the heck is going on in there.

I still sorta have’ta do aoe given my preference for ranged fighting in there, so short bow 2 and 4. But I keep it on the boss, and now I know the bubbles are bad news (not good like in Gold and Silver) and can be more situationally aware of them. Plus on the ledge I drop Shadow Refuge when the offshoots start swarming and they swirl away from the folks up there.

I’ve seen Copper succeed every time I’ve done it, I thought it was the easiest one for that reason.

Copper is a husk, weak to condition damage. What people really should do is drag a few condi users down there and nuke the bananas off the copper. Also too many people will just overscale the health and that just wont do well with limited condi stacks.

Thank you! The people who scream no AoE in chat really are hurting things, as are the people refusing to move from the ledge.

And the people who stand on the ledge doing weak auto attacks are why the boss fails.

Bambu.4270:

Copper is a husk, weak to condition damage. What people really should do is drag a few condi users down there and nuke the bananas off the copper. Also too many people will just overscale the health and that just wont do well with limited condi stacks.

While that is a sound strategy, I think the biggest problem with bringing a few condi users is that other players can inflict conditions which potentially override all the bleeding, poison, and burning that are inflicted on the husk. In turn, this causes the condi cap to max out in less than a minute and renders condi specced users out in the cold.

A better way to abuse fixed damage against copper than condi would be to spam lots of dark fields for everyone to launch projectiles through, since the lifesteal from projectiles does about 300 damage. Running lifesteal food would also be good.

while the mechanics of this are true, for most players who aren’t really actively paying attention to the bubbles the best course of action is still to avoid aoe.

Devildoc.6721:

while the mechanics of this are true, for most players who aren’t really actively paying attention to the bubbles the best course of action is still to avoid aoe.

No, the best course of action is to pay attention or just tag and leave so you don’t upscale.

Now someone explain what makes the thresher teleport and that the stacks on it actually do ><

Windsagio.1340:

Now someone explain what makes the thresher teleport and that the stacks on it actually do ><

The teleport is RNG imo. People say not to AoE as some think the bubbles popping will cause it to heal or teleport, but popping those bubbles doesn’t seem to do anything. More recently, I’ve heard people blaming the teleport on using CC, so I purposely tried to stun, daze, knockback, immobilize and chill it, yet it had no effect.

I haven’t been able to get a decent solo on the thrasher since the first week, so I haven’t been able to reliably test it. On my last run however, I was the first person near it and it went invulnerable and teleported after I hit it once. I have also noticed that after it does a certain mechanic, like when it plants itself in the ground, it will teleport right after. For example, I’ve seen it teleport, plant itself, then teleport again.

The wiki says that destroying 2 bubbles within a close range of the thrasher will cause it to teleport, but I’ve purposely tried that and sometimes it doesn’t. I think that’s just the RNG lining up. My best results have been AoEing after it starts spinning, since it usually doesn’t go invulnerable, though occasionally it will right at the start of the spin. Sometimes it seems like destroying all the bubbles stops it from teleporting.

As for the poisonous buildup stacks it gains, they’re caused by the poison pools. They tick about once every second, which grants it 1 stack if the thrasher is in one of pools. The poison pools are caused by the poison vents if you fail to destroy them within a few seconds. The poison vents are spawned in the surrounding areas after it plants itself in the ground. Once the thrasher gains 5 stacks, it will eventually shake off the poison, doing the large AoE.

Healix.5819:

Windsagio.1340:

Now someone explain what makes the thresher teleport and that the stacks on it actually do ><

The teleport is RNG imo. People say not to AoE as some think the bubbles popping will cause it to heal or teleport, but popping those bubbles doesn’t seem to do anything. More recently, I’ve heard people blaming the teleport on using CC, so I purposely tried to stun, daze, knockback, immobilize and chill it, yet it had no effect.

I haven’t been able to get a decent solo on the thrasher since the first week, so I haven’t been able to reliably test it. On my last run however, I was the first person near it and it went invulnerable and teleported after I hit it once. I have also noticed that after it does a certain mechanic, like when it plants itself in the ground, it will teleport right after. For example, I’ve seen it teleport, plant itself, then teleport again.

The wiki says that destroying 2 bubbles within a close range of the thrasher will cause it to teleport, but I’ve purposely tried that and sometimes it doesn’t. I think that’s just the RNG lining up. My best results have been AoEing after it starts spinning, since it usually doesn’t go invulnerable, though occasionally it will right at the start of the spin. Sometimes it seems like destroying all the bubbles stops it from teleporting.

As for the poisonous buildup stacks it gains, they’re caused by the poison pools. They tick about once every second, which grants it 1 stack if the thrasher is in one of pools. The poison pools are caused by the poison vents if you fail to destroy them within a few seconds. The poison vents are spawned in the surrounding areas after it plants itself in the ground. Once the thrasher gains 5 stacks, it will eventually shake off the poison, doing the large AoE.

I’ve noticed that if I poisoned the thresher on my thief applying spider poison and then hitting it once it immediately went invuln. It happened pretty much every time i tried it.. so.. it could be something with conditions, or poison specifically. Popping the bubbles gives it stacks of a poison, so if you stack a poison on it it might trigger.

Cyrill Faust.9340:

Devildoc.6721:

while the mechanics of this are true, for most players who aren’t really actively paying attention to the bubbles the best course of action is still to avoid aoe.

No, the best course of action is to pay attention or just tag and leave so you don’t upscale.

There’s a lot of mouthbreathers who you can never expect to actually pay attention, they’ll just call you an elitist for asking them to. Expecting no aoe is a relatively easy expectation (and they still don’t follow it)

Devildoc.6721:

Cyrill Faust.9340:

Devildoc.6721:

while the mechanics of this are true, for most players who aren’t really actively paying attention to the bubbles the best course of action is still to avoid aoe.

No, the best course of action is to pay attention or just tag and leave so you don’t upscale.

There’s a lot of mouth breathers who you can never expect to actually pay attention, they’ll just call you an elitist for asking them to. Expecting no AoE is a relatively easy expectation (and they still don’t follow it)

OP, you forgot one thing, have one person kite the adds away from Copper, so even if someone does AoE them, they won’t give the Regen to Copper.

And this person explained how you can still kill Copper through the AoE, which some of us that are smart enough to realize have been trying to say. I’ve seen and been a part of Copper being the first Champion killed, in less than a minute, even with people doing AoE because everyone else powered through the small healing with DPS/Conditions. It can be killed quite easily.

Just like when doing the Teragriffs the first one that you should take down is Gold, because for some reason that’s almost always the first one the comes to the entrance and seems to be the easiest to kill(perhaps has less hp than Silver, but idk). Anyways, if everyone concentrates on one first, concentrate on Gold, then tackle Silver last.

AoE is fine for the first ~80% at Copper, but after that, it’s all or nothing. In order to AoE without trouble at that point, you have to be capable of doing at least 10% every ~8 seconds to keep up with bubbles.

If people are mindlessly AoEing and there is no one dealing with the bubbles, it would probably be best to keep the offshoots on top of the Copper simply because of the AoE limit. Rather than destroying the bubbles, the AoE would likely be hitting the offshoots, except Meteor Shower type AoEs that will practically hit everything. The offshoots only grant regeneration, which as far as I’ve seen, does miniscule healing and is easily removed.

If you have an AoE knockack, snare or fear, once the small bubbles start spawning, you can help prevent it from healing by getting the small bubbles away from Copper. I’ve seen people complain about 1 person being able to ruin it for everyone, but the opposite can also be true. If you really know what you’re doing and the person kiting Copper is in sync with you, you can clear a path by destroying the small bubbles and having them kite Copper into the safe spot as an alternative to kiting it around the room.

Healix.5819:

Windsagio.1340:

Now someone explain what makes the thresher teleport and that the stacks on it actually do ><

The teleport is RNG imo. People say not to AoE as some think the bubbles popping will cause it to heal or teleport, but popping those bubbles doesn’t seem to do anything. More recently, I’ve heard people blaming the teleport on using CC, so I purposely tried to stun, daze, knockback, immobilize and chill it, yet it had no effect.

I haven’t been able to get a decent solo on the thrasher since the first week, so I haven’t been able to reliably test it. On my last run however, I was the first person near it and it went invulnerable and teleported after I hit it once. I have also noticed that after it does a certain mechanic, like when it plants itself in the ground, it will teleport right after. For example, I’ve seen it teleport, plant itself, then teleport again.

The wiki says that destroying 2 bubbles within a close range of the thrasher will cause it to teleport, but I’ve purposely tried that and sometimes it doesn’t. I think that’s just the RNG lining up. My best results have been AoEing after it starts spinning, since it usually doesn’t go invulnerable, though occasionally it will right at the start of the spin. Sometimes it seems like destroying all the bubbles stops it from teleporting.

As for the poisonous buildup stacks it gains, they’re caused by the poison pools. They tick about once every second, which grants it 1 stack if the thrasher is in one of pools. The poison pools are caused by the poison vents if you fail to destroy them within a few seconds. The poison vents are spawned in the surrounding areas after it plants itself in the ground. Once the thrasher gains 5 stacks, it will eventually shake off the poison, doing the large AoE.

Thanks for the excellent answer I’ve been experimenting some, but it’s so freaking hard to tell in this case.