Old Lion's Court Mission Strategy Guide

Work in Progress - information may be inaccurate or incomplete

Introduction

Old Lion's Court will see you facing off against three Watchknights - individually at first and then together.

There are two fundamental mechanics that appear throughout - first, the watchknights will prepare an attack that wipes the party, and they must be broken. The attack indicator will cover a certain area of the arena that depends on the Watchknight's color, and the attack will always hit at the same time, but upon being broken, the area covered by the attack will invert. Bear this in mind when positioning throughout the encounter. There are frequent defiance bars in this encounter, making reliable CC an advantage, but they are not large and you have a long time to break them.

The second fundamental mechanics is a small spreading AoE called Boiling Aether that will steadily grow in size. Once it reaches maximum size it becomes a highly damaging field that remains for [??] seconds, or until the next phase. Multiple mechanics in the fight drop these AoEs, so it is important to be aware of them and try to ensure they are dropped towards the edge of the arena, and ideally in clusters, to give you the most playable space.

Strategy

Prototype Vermillion (red)

At the start of the fight, the Vermillion appears and begins channelling its attack. It will take no damage while its shield is active, though you can already apply conditions to it, giving condition builds something of an advantage. When broken, the attack AoE will invert, creating a dangerous area around the Vermillion. Breaking the boss will also apply five seconds of stunned and exposed when the attack completes. Getting hit by either AoE will spaghettify you, pulling you upwards into a black hole then killing you.

After this, the Vermillion will fixate on the [closest?] person and move to them. The fixated target has an indicator on their buff bar and a red icon above their head. Shortly afterwards, it will prepare a ring AoE attack.

Dual Horizon

An orange ring AoE appears around the boss and arrows indicate to move either inside or outside. Whichever you chose will apply a debuff to you: Tidal Torment if you're inside, Ergo Shear if you're outside. The next time this attack occurs you need to take the opposite position, which will then safely remove the debuff and replace it with the opposing one. Getting hit by the same effect twice (e.g. being inside the ring twice in a row) will release a heavily damaging Gravitational Wave for each player that fails, causing heavy damage to the party. The arrow indicators will update to show you the correct location each time. Getting hit by the Ring AoE will deal heavy damage and either knock towards or away from the Vermillion, applying the corresponding debuff. This attack repeats every 20 seconds.

Otherwise, the Vermillion will move towards the tank and perform a basic autoattack with each hit dealing moderate damage. The final strike of this autoattack chain shows an AoE and deals heavy damage, and every other time (starting with the first) it hits, it drops a Boiling Aether AoE at the Vermillion's location. Because of this, it is recommended to tank the boss close to the edge of the platform, and move its position after every second attack chain. Though it has low enough health that most groups are unlikely to get more than one. A loud clanging sound effect occurs each time Boiling Aether is dropped.

When the Vermillion reached 80% health, it will retreat and the next boss will appear.

Prototype Arsenite (green)

Much like the red watchknight, this boss immediately starts channelling an attack that in this instance, covers one half of the platform. Break it as before and the AoE will flip location, meaning that coming from the Vermillion you will already be on the safe side. Once broken