User:Vanguard/Concepts/Ebb His Advance

Objectives

 * Travel into Jahai Bluffs and defend the Vanguard Refugees.
 * Destroy the waves of attacking Shadow Minions.
 * Defeat Matthias Swan.
 * Speak to the Vanguard Agent.

Reward

 * 5000 Experience
 * 500

Walkthrough
Further away from the first gate you encountered, you will find several new gates that crop up on your arrival. You will see several fleeing humans, including some Vanguard Agents who will stop near you and help fight. A few seconds later, several waves of unique shadow minions will flow out of each gate in groups of 4-8.

Since this is out in open land, you cannot pull them through any chokepoint or ramp. What you can do however, is run a short distance away and let them group up. There's only a couple of mesmers mixed in, but most of the enemies are melee and shouldn't be a problem, especially if you bring some AoE.

Like many wave-quests, AoE can play a major part in this. Spirit spammers, barrage rangers, and fire elementalists will all have a helpful role. Even more so, smite monks. Shadow minions take double damage from holy damage and Burning lasts twice as long.

Shadow minions sink into the ground when killed, so Minion Masters will be of little to no use.

When 9 waves of minions are destroyed, Matthias Swan makes an appearance. He doesn't use his heal, but he is a very difficult opponent. Learn each of his skills, interrupt what you can. At 50% health, he flees into one of his gates. The two others collapse, and the quest is over.

Initial dialogue

 * Vanguard Agent


 * "Glad you could make it. Come on, the shadow is attacking!"
 * Accept: "It's not like I haven't done this before or anything..."
 * Decline: "What? Already? I'm outta here!."

Intermediate dialogue

 * Vanguard Agent
 * "Look alive, soldiers! Matthias has entered the battlefield!"

Reward dialogue

 * Vanguard Agent
 * Merciful light, I was not expecting him to arrive so soon. Thanks for that!