Guide:Xunlai Jade Junkyard Strike Mission Strategy Guide

This guide provides tips and strategies for the ninth strike mission and how to defeat Ankka in the Xunlai Jade Jynkyard. If your group is struggling, the guidelines in the 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.

Introduction

Like Captain Mai Trin, Ankka’s first few attacks cause her to jump around, so some classes may need to adjust their rotations to avoid dropping AoEs in the wrong place.

Almost every attack in this encounter applies Poison, so you may find you need a lot of condition cleanse or extra healing to deal with it.

Note that this encounter varies quite significantly in Challenge Mode, so there will be a lot of comments like the one below. Also, be aware that the timings are slightly different in CM, but the attack order remains the same.

Challenge Mode Only: The normal mode version has no time limit, but with the CM on, each phase will have an Inevitability of Death bar that slowly increases throughout the encounter. Should it fill, Ankka will begin channeling - an attack that ticks for increasing damage and instantly kills downed players until either she phases or the group wipes. In the first phase, the timer is approximately two and a half minutes, approximately four minutes in phase two, and six minutes in the final phase.

Strategy

The fight starts with no preamble as soon as you move close enough to Ankka.

- Immediately as the fight starts, Ankka launches three AoEs around her, plus an additional one for each player that is too far away. The AoEs last for three seconds and pulse a small amount of damage, Torment, Cripple and Poison.

Challenge Mode only: Each of the AoEs spawns three smaller AoEs nearby with the same effect, making it difficult to avoid all of them.

Then, she will Jump towards and past the closest target, evading attacks as she moves - this can include minions and clones. This can be used to control her movement by getting the group to stack in the direction you wish her to move and will be useful later in the encounter and particularly in challenge mode. If this movement takes her too close to the edge of the arena(s), she will teleport back to the middle. She repeats this every ~30 seconds.

Next, she fires an - a repeated conal attack that she uses every 5-10s.

Death’s Hand

Approximately 15 seconds into the fight three players are targeted by a large AoE - the targeted players should have a yellow screen border - after five seconds, these AoEs stop tracking and drop a highly damaging field that lasts 16 seconds. In normal mode, it is ideal to stack these AoEs together to increase the playable space. The field pulse for heavy damage, Poison and Torment.

Challenge Mode only: attempting to stack AoEs will kill the players involved. In addition, the AoEs are larger, drop faster, and will instantly kill any player that touches them.

Challenge Mode only: Between and , a ring of Zhaitan’s Reaches will spawn around the arena (see Phase 2 for details). Unlike in normal mode, these can be targeted and killed, and it is quite beneficial to do so if possible, as they will not despawn and can be a serious hazard when trying to deal with other mechanics.

Hallucinating Shot

Approximately 20s into the encounter, she fires a at the group. This attack is unavoidable and will create one of three random effects.

Each of these effects deals heavy damage the first time you are hit, and each subsequent time you are hit it will deal a multiple of that damage (so twice as much on the second hit, three times as much on the third, etc).

Challenge Mode only: Each attack deals extreme damage that will instantly down any player hit by them.

The three random effects are:

Wall of Fear

A group of krait spawn at the edge of the arena and move directly across it. Surrounding each krait is a large AoE that pulses damage and also pulls nearby players towards it. Players should position themselves in one of the gaps and use whatever means they have to avoid being pulled into the AoEs. They always appear at the same locations:

In the first phase, three krait appear at the southern edge and move north.
In the second phase, three krait appear at the western edge and move east.
In the third phase, two krait appear at the southern edge and move north.

Terrifying Apparition

A random player is fixated upon by a , which slowly walks towards the player for 18 seconds. The apparition is surrounded by a dangerous AoE similar to the krait, but only the fixated player is affected by the pull. This is by far the easiest hallucination to deal with as it moves slowly and only requires one player to kite it away, and if the fixated player is downed the apparition will immediately fixate on a new target.

Wave of Torment

A series of hallucinatory Quaggan appear near random players and explode with a . The explosion AoEs can overlap so it’s important to avoid them, though the positioning of this can often force you away from the boss. A quaggan spawns every second, but each player can be targeted at most once every two seconds. In normal mode, this attack is “instanced” such that if it downs you, the attack will stop even though it continues for other players.

In phase 1, quaggan spawn for 12 seconds.
In phase 2, quaggan spawn for 16 seconds.
In phase 3, quaggan spawn for 18 seconds.

Challenge Mode Only: the AoEs are significantly larger but explode much more slowly which can actually make it easier to deal with. Additionally, in all phases they spawn every two and a half seconds over 10 seconds - for a total of five AoEs.

Death’s Embrace

45s into the encounter, Ankka teleports to the middle of the arena and starts dragging all players towards her. She is surrounded by a large AoE that ticks for 6 seconds.

The first time you are hit it deals heavy damage and each subsequent time you are hit it will deal a multiple of that damage (so twice as much on the second hit, three times as much on the third, etc).

In later phases, Ankka will create four smaller AoEs in a square pattern and can teleport between them during the attack. The location of her next teleport is indicated by a green pillar of light that appears just before she moves.

After Death’s Embrace ends, Ankka’s defiance bar will unlock. Breaking her will make her Stunned and Exposed for 10 seconds.

Soon afterward, Ankka fires another and then repeats from . Just before she starts , her defiance bar will lock again.

She will follow the same pattern throughout the phase, but as she can be stunned, the timings will vary.

→ → → → → → Repeat

Phase 2

At 75% health, Ankka will become invincible and flee to a new area. The group should follow the path to the east, avoiding the AoEs that spawn to block you. Once the first player reaches the new arena, any remaining players that are far enough away will be teleported into it too. This means some groups may prefer to have a single player (ideally with movement skills) rush forward while everyone else remains behind.

Necrotic Ritual

Ankka remains invincible once you reach her, and launches out three Reanimated Spites. These spites can be killed, but they also die when their defiance bars are broken, which should be much quicker. After 20 seconds, any remaining reanimated Spites are destroyed, buffing Ankka with one stack of Power of the Void per spite for 60 seconds. Not only does this effect increase her damage and defense by 25%, but it also causes her attacks to apply Debilitating Void to players, reducing their incoming healing by 50%. A number of Reanimated Malices also spawn during this phase, but they should die easily enough to cleave that they don’t cause a problem.

Challenge Mode only: The defiance bars on the sprites are significantly bigger, and Power of the Void will last until the end of the phase if Ankka gains it, making bringing lots of CC essential to safely completing the CM. Additionally, a Reanimated Hatred will now appear in Phase 2 (see Phase 3 for details).

When all Spites are gone, Ankka is vulnerable again. She starts with an and shortly after will Jump past the closest player. Ankka doesn’t do much for a while, mainly just using basic attacks and .

30 seconds into the phase, multiple Zhaitan’s Reaches spawn around the area and perform a spin attack that pulls any players within their ring AoE towards them. They follow this up with a slam attack that launches/knocks nearby players back, before repeating the spin + pull attack once more, then dying. They spawn in a rough cross-shape, which leaves some safe space at the northern and southern ends of the arena, but it may be simpler to bring some extra Stability and not worry about it. Whenever these enemies reappear, it is in the same locations.

Challenge Mode only: The Reaches will not despawn on their own, so it might be recommended to kill some to give yourself more space.

Shortly after, it’s time for another followed by and then - recall that in this phase she summons four smaller AoEs and can teleport between them. Finally, she fires another .

Challenge Mode only: Ankka will teleport more times.

After this, she will repeat Necrotic Ritual and then do the following:

→ → More Zhaitan's Reaches spawn →

For the rest of the phase, Ankka will cycle through the following:

→ → → → → repeat

After each , Ankka's defiance bar will unlock, and it will lock again just before .

Phase 3

At 40% health, Ankka becomes invulnerable and flees once more. Follow her north as before.

Phase 3 starts similarly to Phase 1, with and , followed by a Jump. Be mindful that as the arena is much smaller it is more likely that her jumps will eventually move her out of the arena and cause her to reset to the middle.

Shortly after, she uses .

~35s into the phase, she becomes invulnerable and repeats Necrotic Ritual. This is the same as in previous phases, except an additional Reanimated Hatred will spawn next to Ankka and fixate on the most distant player. For 20 seconds, the Hatred will chase the fixated player, and if it reaches them will Immobilize them and channel a damaging attack on the player until killed or broken. The fixated player should try to avoid the Hatred until the end of the Necrotic Ritual so that they are not caught off-stack.

After this, she does the following:

→ → → Zhaitan's Reaches → → → → Necrotic Ritual →

She will then cycle through the following attacks until she dies:

Zhaitan's Reaches → → → → → → repeat

Challenge Mode

Phase 3 is different enough from the normal mode version to warrant its own section.

The major change in this phase is that as it starts you will see four white AoEs along each edge of the arena. Standing in these AoEs provides the Sanctuary buff for 10 seconds. This buff protects you from a ticking damage effect called Devouring Void that will slowly increase in damage each tick until you return to one of the Sanctuaries.

Being able to stay within these AoEs is essential to handling this phase. As such, the group should make use of positioning to bait Ankka to jump toward one of them so that she can be attacked from safety. Players should stack tightly with their backs to one of the AoEs and when she leaps towards them, reposition so they can stand in the sanctuary (hopefully this is now in melee range of Ankka). As the krait spawn at the southern end of the arena, it might be safest to try to pull Ankka to the northern Sanctuary, so that the group can see them coming.

Naturally, the need to return to these Sanctuaries regularly will make handling other mechanics more difficult. People should make sure to be in the white AoEs during , and it is very important that the AoEs be dropped in the corners rather than on the Sanctuaries (fortunately this only occurs once in Phase 3).

The final change occurs during Necrotic Ritual. In addition to all the usual mobs, one last one is added: a Reanimated Antipathy that resembles an Eye of Zhaitan. The Antipathy spawns at the western Sanctuary and if it is not killed within 10 seconds it will destroy the Sanctuary entirely, then teleport to the next one. The Antipathy moves in the order west → north → south → east and when it returns in the second phase it will start from where it left off (the Sanctuaries will not regain health between each Necrotic Ritual). It is not the end of the world if it destroys one Sanctuary in each phase, but very important that it is only one. The Spites always spawn in the same locations near the west, north and south Sanctuaries, so it might be worth sending more people to the one where the Antipathy will appear. Should you be left with only the south and east Sanctuaries, it is strongly recommended to bait Ankka towards the east one, as the krait make the south Sanctuary very dangerous.

Necrotic Ritual (CM)

Example showing the Reanimated Hatred and Antipathy during the Necrotic Ritual. Also note the white Sanctuary zones that are present for the entirety of the CM phase 3.