Greed of the Dragonflight – Stronghold Event
Likely, if you’ve joined a guild and an Alliance, you’ve seen people calling out “DF” in Alliance Chat. You may or may not already know, but DF stands for Dragonflight, in other words, the “Greed of the Dragonflight” Stronghold Event which can be activated at a specific time every 2 hours. If you plan or wish to start the event at a different time, you’ll require a Golden Bell.
Basically the goal of Dragonflight is to take down as many Dragons as you can within 10 minutes – the more dragons you kill, the more rewards you get. In total there are 4 dragons you can potentially take down. By participating and completing this Event, you earn Fangs of the Dragonflight which can be used to purchase Dragonflight Gear. There’s also a chance you may earn a Strongbox of vouchers for your Stronghold coffer.
Basic Rules of Dragonflight – There are 2 things you really need to know before tossing yourself into the chaos of a Dragonflight.
- Stay away from the Travelling Wizard NPC – This NPC activates the Event and if you accidentally start it before everyone is ready, you can really mess up the run, which yes, accidents happen, but if you can try to prevent them, well… the better.
- Watch the Chat Channels
- Typically most Alliances use Alliance Chat ( /a ) or Queue Chat ( /q ). You’ll need to watch for further commands, as Dragonflight cannot be 100% organized ahead of time, commands are based off how the combat is going.
- A command may look like “RED GO GREEN‘ which means, if you’re at a RED you need to move onto the next dragon.
- Don’t know where to go? Follow the crowd!
Knowing The Dragons
Above, I listed the 2 most basic things you need to know to get through a Dragonflight Run. You can get by your first run based off strictly those 2 rules, but it really helps to know the actual functions and specifics of the Event. Basically first things first; you need to get to know the dragons a little bit.
In the image below, I have listed all 4 dragons, their locations, and their ‘color codes’.
- Katatheo The Proud
- Referred to as the “Red” Dragon
- Nothing terribly specific to know about Katatheo, just watch for Red Circles because this feller spits out fire a little more often than we’d prefer – circles of fire will likely instantly kill you (unless you’re a tank)
- Chrysos The Vain
- Referred to as the “Blue” Dragon
- Chrysos inflicts fatal damage to everyone in the area of a target it kills – including companions, which results in quick consistent massive wipe outs of teams. It’s already hard enough keeping players alive, forget keeping your squishy 25k HP companion alive. So the rule at blue –
- Dismiss your companion, do not use a summoned companion at Blue. The only exception is Augment-type companions, but if you aren’t sure your companion is an Augment-type, then just dismiss it.
- Ekdos The Cruel
- Referred to as the “Black” Dragon
- Ekdos can be very easy, but very difficult if not everyone is on board about how this guy works. Basically, whenever a player dies, Ekdos spawns a Soul Puppet in their place, which goes around damaging and killing other players, spawning even more puppets. Things can turn bad fast but, you can prevent it!
- Never “Revive” someone at Black – if you die, admit Defeat, respawn, and run back. If you see someone calling for help, sorry, but ignore them. The problem with reviving, is they’re very likely to die again, and quick, resulting in 2 Soul Puppets spawned from a single player instead of just 1.
- Soul Puppets tend to target 1 player and follow that 1 player only. It doesn’t matter how HDPS or great at heals, tank, or buffing you are – if a Soul Puppet is following you, lead it away from the Dragon and away from other players. Take one for the team, make the sacrifice. Rejoin the combat when the Soul Puppet disappears.
- Oxuno The Treacherous
- Referred to as the “Green” Dragon
- Oxuno has a bit of a bite to him. The combat area around him is filled with a poisonous smog you cannot block, escape, dodge or avoid. Throughout the entire combat, you will be taking damage over time consistently. The only real tips to help keep players alive is to;
- Have good healers / buffers there focused on keeping everyone alive
- Try to keep players there who have high Lifesteal
- In reality, Green isn’t as all bad as he sounds but without doubt, he’s a total nuisance!
Tricks of the Trade
Here is a detailed run-down of how the actual event is going to work start to finish. Each run is basically the same pattern over and over again, so once you get a few runs done, you start to pick up how the event actually works first-hand.
1. Listen To The Hoster- The Hoster is the person organizing the Dragonflight Run, and will be the person giving you your instructions. Listen to what the Hoster asks of you, don’t complain or try to argue with the Hoster – just be thankful they’re even organizing the run. Odds are, they probably know what they’re doing and if they don’t, let them learn from their mistakes.
2. Wait For The Bell – The Hoster, when ready, will ‘Ring the Bell’ or in other words, begin the Dragonflight Event. At this time, there’s a 1 minute wait time before the Dragons land on the ground to fight us.
3. Killing Dragons – Once the Dragons land, it’s time to kill. Do your best, usually you’ll die a few times, or maybe more than a few times. That’s totally normal. Give it all you got, and try to play your part to the best of your abilities – be it DPS, Heals or Tank.
- Keep In Mind How Each Dragon Works – I cannot stress this enough – each Dragon has its own little quirks, the better you remember, know, and prepare to face the dragon, the more likely you’ll be ready to succeed at the dragon.
- Dragon Empowerers – Throughout Combat you’ll see these guys spawn every now and then, usually in groups of 2 or 3. These guys Buff the Dragon to make it deal more damage – the general rule is only ranged dps players should kill Empowerer’s, as dps is lost when close-combat players have to take the time to run from 1 enemy to another. Some Alliances really don’t care, but some seriously do, so better to play it safe!
- Watch The Chat! – I mentioned this earlier, and I’ll mentioned it again. It is a MUST to watch the chat, and to follow the Hoster’s instructions.
4. Finishing Off Dragons – You will probably notice once the Dragon’s HP is down low, everyone is instructed to move to the next dragon before it actually dies. This is intentional. You have 10 minutes to kill the dragons but – if you kill a dragon, the timer resets to exactly 1 minute remaining. Doesn’t matter if you had 5 minutes or 5 seconds remaining – the timer resets to 1 minute when the first dragon dies, so it’s important to not kill until the Hoster says its time.
5. Ending the DF Event – Upon the death of a dragon or dragons, the timer resets to 1 minute and you must wait for that timer to finish before leaving the map if you want to collect your rewards for partaking in the event.
Video Example of Dragonflight
This isn’t really a Guide, but this is a video of my Alliance running a Dragonflight Event together. This’ll just give you a more visual real-time example of how the run works, as it is a bit difficult to fully explain is just plain text.
I’ll add a video recorded by my friend Ekemon, as he explains a little bit as well in his video how a Dragonflight Run is ran. I’ll also add one of my own for a different perspective, but Ekemon’s is likely more informational.
Ekemon’s Dragonflight (BY the People)
Here’s one of my own videos of Dragonflight – but this comes from the perspective of both the Hoster and also a Finisher. (The Finisher is the person who kills the Dragon when the Hoster says its time to kill – all other players work towards killing off the other Dragons)
Chronic Legion 