Guide:Aetherblade Hideout Strike Mission Strategy Guide

This guide provides tips and strategies for the eighth Strike Mission and how to defeat Captain Mai Trin in the Aetherblade Hideout. If your group is struggling, the guidelines in Introduction to Raiding will apply here as well. Check out the glossary page if you're not familiar with a term used in this guide and make sure to run an optimal build from our list of recommended builds for this encounter.

Mai Trin

As the encounter starts, Mai Trin becomes overwhelmed, releasing a in four directions around her, dealing a moderate amount of damage and inflicting Torment.

She will then use , teleporting between players and evading as she deals a small amount of damage with each strike. Avoid using any important attacks until she can be hit again, and try to stay tightly stacked to prevent her from moving out of the group's AoEs. Throughout the fight, Mai Trin will typically target the closest player so backing off slightly can be useful if you find you are taking too much damage, but don't leave the stack.

As she finishes , she will chain 4 attacks together in quick succession, which will be referred to as the Flanking Strike Combo:

1. First, she fires – a shot that Blinds players as she leaps away from them.
2. Next, she uses to shadowstep back into the group, Bleeding those she hits.
3. Then she retreats again, Bleeding players with .
4. And finally, she fires a large conal AoE called towards the group, dealing heavy damage and inflicting Torment.

Challenge Mode only: Getting hit by will apply Exposed for 60 seconds, increasing damage taken by 25% per stack.

As she teleports back toward players after , it may not be worth chasing her immediately. The group will want to close the gap quickly after though, as is her most dangerous attack but is very easy to walk out of if you are next to her.

After the Flanking Strike Combo, she will target the closest player with – a large arrow is drawn on the ground, and 2.5s later Mai Trin will leap along it, dealing heavy damage and inflicting Bleed and Knockdown to players she hits. This is immediately followed up by another . If her target is not in the path, will take Mai Trin a long distance away, but if they are, she will stop as soon as she reaches them. As it will be difficult to assess who the target is in the middle of the fight, you can prevent her movement by stacking in the arrow AoE and using group blocks or Stability to ignore the knockdown (technically you could also just tank the attack). Alternatively, you could attempt to kite her to the edge of the arena and have everyone stack on the outside so that she charges into the wall.

After this, she will use her autoattack chain twice (which you may recognize from the Mai Trin Boss Fractal), dealing a small amount of damage but applying quite a lot of Bleeding as well as Cripple and Weakness. You may wish to bring some condition removal to deal with this.

Mai Trin's defiance bar (strength: 4000) is open immediately as the fight starts, and breaking it will Stun her for five seconds (10 seconds in normal mode) and leave her Exposed for 10 seconds. After recovering from the Stun she will attempt to continue her rotation from where she left off, though she will skip autoattacks if her main skills are off cooldown. As the Exposed lasts for five seconds longer than she is immobilized, it is beneficial to break her as quickly as you can so that she doesn't use during it.

Split Phase 1

Shortly after reaching 60% health, an orb appears above the battlefield that tethers to Mai Trin and makes her invulnerable, though she will not clear conditions. The orb is powered by four Scarlet Phantoms that spawn at the edge of the arena and begin attacking players with as well as slow-moving s that deal moderate damage and apply Torment. Scarlet will continue attacking during this phase, but the Phantoms have very low health so spread out and kill them quickly to end the phase. Be aware that not all the Scarlet Phantoms spawn at the same time, and a new Phantom can appear at the same location as one was previously killed.

As Mai Trin is still active during this split, she will be continuing her rotation throughout and into Phase 2. Phase 2 is otherwise identical to the first, and her defiance bar will refresh at the start of the phase so you can break her again. Depending on where she is in the phase, you may wish to deliberately delay the break to have it as soon as she finishes .

Split Phase 2

When Mai Trin reaches 30% health, she will phase once more, becoming invulnerable but continuing to attack players. This time two of the Scarlet Phantoms are elite. At the northeast edge is a Phantom that has approximately a third of Mai Trin's hitpoints, so players should not hold back. At the southwest edge is a second elite Phantom that is immune to damage but has a hefty defiance bar – approximately 8000, that must be broken to destroy the Phantom. It may be beneficial for players to start at the southwest Phantom, throw all the CC they have at it, then move to the northeast one to ensure people kill it as quickly as possible. If the CC Phantom was not destroyed in the initial burst, players can periodically move back to CC it before returning to the northeast one.

Kaleidoscopic Chaos

Normal Mode

As the Phase starts, all players are targeted by – an AoE that will deal 20% of their health when detonated, but can be blocked. If any other player is within another's AoE, they will take an additional 60% health. This mechanic will repeat every 38 seconds as long as the southwest Phantom is alive.

Challenge Mode only: The AoE is much larger (shown in gif).

Focused Destruction

20 seconds into the phase, a random player is targeted by – a green AoE that empties of color, and when empty everyone in the arena takes 100% of their max HP as damage unless at least three players are standing in the green circle, in which case they each take 50% of their maximum health divided by the number of players in the AoE. This mechanic repeats every 38 seconds, for as long as the northeast Phantom is alive.

Challenge Mode only: now only needs a minimum of three people standing inside it, but failure results in a group wipe. Additionally, taking the green will give each player a debuff called Photon Saturation that lasts for 10 minutes (so longer than the enrage timer) and will instantly kill the player that takes a green with it. As there are an absolute minimum of three occurrences of in the fight, it is important that only three people take each green if at all possible. Further, if there are any doubts about the group's damage, it may be worth stacking on the northeast phantom immediately to ensure it is killed before the mechanic can be repeated.

In the CM mode, the AoE itself will indicate whether the correct number of people are inside: there will be arrows pointing in if there are too few, arrows pointing out if there are too many, and if three people are inside there will be a circling light effect.

If this mechanic repeats more than three times, you would need to start sacrificing people to it - assuming the mechanic has been handled correctly up until this point, the fourth will target the sole player without Photon Saturation, and two players would need to stand in the green and die to prevent a wipe. Alternatively, the targeted player can /gg to cancel the mechanic, which is almost certainly preferable unless the targeted player is considered essential for the group.

After all the Phantoms are destroyed, Phase 3 will begin exactly as Phase 2 did.

Echo of Scarlet Briar

At 10% health, Mai Trin calls in help from the mists: Scarlet Briar!

Scarlet only has two main attacks. Her first, , creates a spiral of AoEs that deal moderate damage. The pattern means that the area directly underneath her is safe from the attack, and even if slightly mispositioned it is easy to avoid the later AoEs entirely.

Challenge Mode only: the pattern of s is different, with the first having a safe spot slightly behind Scarlet, and the second having no safe spot at all. Be wary of being too close to the middle of her hitbox, as the s are also significantly more dangerous in Challenge Mode.

Her second attack is : Scarlet will raise both fists above her head and a small AoE will appear nearby with a pulsing ring indicator. After three pulses, she slams her fists down releasing a wave of energy that inflicts moderate damage and Torment. The wave can be jumped.

Challenge Mode only: The impact location will instantly kill anyone standing in it, and getting hit by the shockwave will apply one stack of Exposed to the player for 60 seconds – increasing the damage they take by 25% per stack.

Throughout the phase, she will typically use twice, followed by twice, before repeating.

As the phase starts, Scarlet's defiance bar is open (strength: 4000). Breaking it will leave her Stunned and Exposed for five seconds (10 seconds in normal mode), as well as temporarily stopping her s.

Split Phase 3

At 80% health, Scarlet becomes invulnerable and a split phase begins that is practically identical to the second split phase, with the exception that Scarlet is the one that continues to attack players. Her s will also stop during this phase. The very edge of the arena is clear of s.

As with Mai Trin, Scarlet's defiance bar will be open once the split phase ends.

From now on, as long as the Echo of Scarlet Briar is active she will fire out rotating patterns of s that deal moderate damage and apply Torment. These bullets are projectiles and so can be blocked with projectile defense.

Note: s detonate when they hit the side of the arena, dealing their damage in an AoE.

Some time into the fight, additional mechanics are added to the fight. The exact trigger for these mechanics is unknown.

Ley Breach

The first usually occurs after Scarlet's fourth slam, a random player is targeted with : A blue beam fires down from the sky on the targeted player (who should also see a blue screen border to indicate they are the target), and five seconds later the beam stops tracking the player and drops a moderate-sized AoE. After two seconds, the beam fires into the ground, dropping a field that deals heavy damage and lasts for 15 seconds. It is essential that the targeted player moves out of the group to avoid dropping it on other people. If Scarlet is broken, the attack will be canceled and if there is currently an AoE in the arena it will also be removed.

Challenge Mode only: Two players are targeted by this attack, so if possible it is best to stack both AoEs on top of each other (shown in gif).

Players moving out to drop AoEs should be wary of the s exploding. Particularly in challenge mode, it may be advised to drop the AoEs slightly away from the edge of the arena to avoid unexpected damage.

The second mechanic causes Mai Trin to occasionally use from the edge of the arena. It seems that this will not occur during the split phases, but if Mai Trin has already started her attack, she will complete it.

Challenge Mode only: getting hit by will apply one stack of Exposed to the player – increasing the damage they take by 25% per stack.

Chaos and Destruction

Normal Mode

When Scarlet reaches 60% health, she will disappear and the entire arena will be filled with an orange AoE with three rotating "safe" spots near the center appearing one after another. At the same time, a Phantom of Scarlet will appear at the edge of the arena with an arrow beneath her indicating the direction she is facing. After 12 seconds, anyone not standing within one of the safe spots will be instantly downed by .

There is a catch, however: At the same time, Scarlet will fire a across two of the safe spots, instantly killing anyone caught in it! You can identify the correct place to stand by looking at where Scarlet is: When the third safe spot appears, two of the safe spots will be directly in front of her. The current location of the remaining safe spot will be safe when the attack hits so you can immediately move there and wait for the safe spot to rotate into you rather than try to chase them around.

The location of the safe spots will always be the same when the attack hits, but Scarlet's positioning is random so the same location is not guaranteed to be safe each time. If you believe you will not be able to make it to the correct safe spot, it is preferable to let yourself get downed by the arena AoE rather than be killed by Scarlet's .

Challenge Mode

The mechanic is significantly changed: The rotating safe spots remain, but there are new three Ferrous Bombs in the arena. These bombs correspond with the locations the safe spots will be when the attack hits, but if the bombs remain, they will kill whoever is standing there. The bombs can be easily destroyed by attacking them, but only one can be destroyed!

At the same time, two random players will be targeted by large cross-shaped AoEs that track them. When the attack ends, anyone within the AoEs (including the targeted players) will be killed. The only way to prevent the AoE tracking the player is to move to one of the bombs and use your Special Action Key to attach it to the bomb, at which point the bomb will become invulnerable and cannot have another AoE attached to it.

Hence, for everyone to survive this attack, one bomb must be destroyed and the remaining two should have AoEs attached to them. However, there is one final catch: the cross AoEs are angled such that if placed on certain bombs, the AoE will then overlap one other bomb location. As such, it is essential that the cross AoEs not be placed such that they would hit the intended safe spot.

As the bombs always appear at the same locations, a strategy should be agreed upon ahead of time, with the following approach being recommended: A single location should be marked to be cleared at the start of the encounter. At the start of the phase, clear the marked bomb and the two people targeted by cross AoEs should go and stand at the two remaining bombs, but NOT attach them yet. If the marked location is safe from the cross AoEs, both players can attach their bombs. Otherwise, they should swap positions. The phase lasts over 30 seconds in CM, so there should be ample time.

After Scarlet will reappear and the phase will resume as before.

The rest of the fight

At 40% health, another split phase begins much the same as the previous one.

At 20% health, will repeat.

At 10% health, small Scarlet Phantoms will start to appear around the arena and attack players. As the fight is so close to ending at this point, they can be ignored.