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M8S - Howling Eight

If your party did not choke at the last Hero's Blow and Ultraviolent Ray, then great, you're almost scott free! Get to the south island as soon as possible, because the boss is about to start his soft enrage sequence, which is the Howling Eight.

Howling Eight​

The soft enrage sequence is very straightforward: Howling Blade will target one random player, which will spawn a stack tower on the island that the player is standing on. After 8 hits, the boss will then use Mooncleaver to destroy the island. This is then repeated up to five times, with the final island being the time limit given to you to kill the boss.

There are some house rules regarding this mechanic:

  • Always confirm whether the tower has spawned first, before teleporting away!
    • The boss targets a random player, so if you teleport too early, you will risk the tower spawning on the next island, creating an isolated island instead that will lead to a wipe.
  • Game8 does counterclockwise, so while facing the boss, make sure to take the right teleporter every time!
  • The boss will become stronger every time he destroys an island, so take that into account when you're building up your mitigation plan.
  • There's 82 seconds between the first and the last tower in Howling Eight, which means your 90s second mitigations, if you have them, will not be up for the last tower if you used them in the first tower.
    • WAR/PLD can use their 90s very early instead if they want, since their shield lasts 30s.
  • With the assumption that your party delayed their 2m burst until the 2nd Quake III, your party should be bursting right as the 2nd tower has appeared and while the non-tanks are at the 3rd island.
    • This is also your final pot window if you used your first potion at the start of phase 2.

81128​

By far the most popular strategy that is used in both Elemental and Mana is 81128:

  • 8 means the tower is taken with the whole party.
  • 1 means the tower is cheesed using a single tank with an invulnerability.
    • Assuming your party didn't cheese Elemental Purge, having MT invuln first and ST invuln second should always work.
  • 2 means the tower is soaked by two tanks using all their mitigations.

As mentioned before, this mechanic is very straightforward, as long as everyone teleports the right way and everyone has the discipline to properly wait for the tower to appear before teleporting away.

The final attack, Starcleaver, will have a longer cast time than the Mooncleaver, but if you fail to kill the boss before that cast is finished, then its all over.