Lord Winter trial 2025

[Display Name]

The trial has been modified this year.  And I'm getting a *lot* of players telling me they've never done it before or haven't done it recently enough to remember anything.  No worries!

 

There are two badges you can earn from this trial.  Both badges will appear in your Events badge list:

1) Lord/Lady of Winter (for completing the trial)

2) Icebreaker (defeat Lord Winter without allowing his Winter Essence to reach 100%)

 

Start and setup

Minimum level to join is 10.  Minimum level to start one is ??  I never play below lvl 50 so I don't know.  Pick a co-op zone that's easy to access.  People will usually choose Pocket D or Ouroborous.  The optimal number of people is 16 (two teams.)  Which is also the max you can bring (another change from last year!)  Less than that will be more challenging but it can be done with the "right" players.  Minimum of 8.  The trial is located in your LFG window (not the chat channel.)  Click LFG at the top of your chat window and select the "Holiday" tab.  Lord Winter's Trial will be in that list.

 

Initial landing

When you first arrive in the trial, your league roster will be scattered to the four winds!  Get that star back to the league leader so that they can fix the teams!  You remember who the league leader is, right?  Heh...

 

Gameplay

When you arrive you'll see six crystal waypoints on your map.  When you select a crystal, the icon in your Nav window is a bit hard to see.  Each of these crystals is surrounded by mobs.  You have to defeat a certain number of mobs to summon Lord Winter.  Don't worry about that though.  Just clear the mobs around the crystals.  And keep them clear!  When enemies get near the crystals, Lord Winter's "Winter Essence" will increase.  You'll see it in the pop-up window after Lord Winter spawns.

 

The "plot twist!"

The Guardians will spawn when Lord Winter's hps are reduced to 74%, 49% and 24% (just like before.)  They have names like "Corporeal Guardian," "Ethereal Guardian," etc.  When a Guardian spawns it will boost the Winter Essence score by FIFTY percent!  So keep that in mind!

 

Strategies

While stumbling through my first steps at running these I happened upon an experienced player (Awesomeness!  thanks!) who suggested that the Tankers/taunters be on team 1 and stay on Lord Winter.  Team 2 could have your dps players (Blasters, etc.)  This allows team 2 to quickly clear crystal mobs and keep that Winter Essence score down while everyone else focuses on Lord Winter.

 

Once the Guardian appears, try to focus as much power as you can spare on quickly defeating it.  Keep in mind that 1) The Winter Essence is already out of control and 2) Lord Winter doesn't like being lonely.  Basically, your taunters taunt Lord Winter and keep him occupied while most of team 2 continues to clear crystal mobs and everyone else dogpiles the Guardian.  On paper, that is!  Heh...

 

Conclusion

This trial is a bit harder than before but nothing a good team that reads the chat can't handle!  :-)

Edited 16 hours ago by Display Name

[High_Beam]

I like the changes that were made, it makes it so that you don't always 100% get Icebreaker (though its not super hard).  A total booster ran 5 runs of it and 4 got the Icebreaker, one didnt cause map was janky and HK team 2 was spread out.  Devs are just killing it with the TF/Trial reworks or creations (i.e Zoe and this)

[ZemX]

17 hours ago, Display Name said:

Strategies

While stumbling through my first steps at running these I happened upon an experienced player (Awesomeness!  thanks!) who suggested that the Tankers/taunters be on team 1 and stay on Lord Winter.  Team 2 could have your dps players (Blasters, etc.)  This allows team 2 to quickly clear crystal mobs and keep that Winter Essence score down while everyone else focuses on Lord Winter.

 

Hey! Thanks for this summary.  We recently tried this on Tanker Tuesday with around 14 tankers on two leagues.  Mixed success.  One league beat him and one ran out of time.  Most of us weren't familiar with the new mechanics.

 

But I wonder... would it not be easier to just keep most everybody on the WL, in a location well away from any of the crystals, and then designate two pullers to rope in spawning winter creatures (and the WG when it happens), and lead them away from the crystals and back to their doom in the WL mosh pit?  Or do they resist being pulled away from the crystals?