This post will get a summarised version of below for those that can's face the huge wall of text :)
p.s will also add pictures where possible.
Gain Access
FBI 10600 Item Level and 28% frost resistance.
Guild run composition
1 Healer/Buffer – DC or Healadin
1 Tank – Paladin or GF
3 DPS – CW, TR, GWF, SW, DPS Cleric and DPS Paladin or GF
Max of 2 newbies for a efficient run.
Tactics/Gameplay
1) This is not your typical 'run in first & kill everything' dungeon. Tanks in the first section, going up the hill, will have to carefully pull mobs. There are situations where you can pull mobs piece by piece which will be much more effective than running in since if you aggro mobs which will contain alot of giants, it will be difficult fighting 3-5 giants together at a time.
2) Among giants, there's the drummer dude that buffs the mobs dmg and apparently can also lay a green circle for them to heal, it will be wise when you see this particular giant if you happen to have a 'bad pull' to kill him first. In some places there is also a single Drudge that will, when aggro’d, run off to warn his friends, it's possible (and a good idea) to CC and nuke him to prevent this so you can pull the mobs on your own terms and your own pace.
3) With your ascent up the hill, there are two phases (One right after the first set of mobs/enemies & right before you go to the boss battle) where there's an avalanche that falls from the mountains/hills. The wisest way to avoid mass death is to have one party member continue up the hill (on their mount) and trigger it, once you look up and it starts falling, have that party member come back and continue safely to the next batch of mobs. If you are hit by the avalanche, you can indeed die since it takes a lot of your life and can knock you down a cliff which will do more damage still.
4) The first boss, Hati, is rather simple. His moves are as follow:
★Fierce Stomp - A series of rough/violent stomps on its target (If your tank holds aggro well, it will most likely be the tank that will be the target of this throughout
★Tail Whip - A move where he uses his tail to knock back enemies who are directly/very close behind him (Flanking).
★Spine Flail - Another move with the tail, but it's a forward attack this time that knocks back close enemies while if you're further away from him, poisonous barbs will hit you (can be a deadly DOT, try to avoid.)
★Thunderous Impact - One of his more damaging moves where he basically flies down from the sky to try to land on a particular target. This move on your squishier classes can indeed one shot.
★Avalanche (Terrifying Roar) - With this mechanic, the boss flies on a peak on the mountain and summons an avalanche down at your party. In order to avoid the incoming damage, you must go under that same peak he's waiting on and keep yourself running forward. You may take dmg but it won't be enough to kill and it won't be strong enough to push you off the cliff). This is where the gear available from Tarm Bars will come in handy, one of the set bonus is +4000 movement when under the effect of Everfrost. Also Gladiator’s Guile is useful and really anything to increase your movement speed.
A big tip for this fight will simply be - pay attention to that small area you're fighting him in, it's not a lot of land so the smart thing to do is to NOT FIGHT HIM CLOSE TO THE EDGE because he can simply do one of his moves that has a knockback effect and it will hit you off the cliff. The second you fly off the cliff, you are dead.
5) After the Manticore fight you will advance into a cave complex. Here you will have to protect an NPC while he melts through 2 different walls of ice to advance further into the dungeon. While the NPC is melting the ice walls you will come under attack by trolls for 2 minutes, kill them. It seems to technically be possible to run off and not fight the trolls, and if you dont aggro any of them they will not attack the NPC and simply wait out the 2 minutes. Seriously though, this is a dungeon and you came here to kill things so stop being lazy and do your damn jobs. Tip: The trolls might be extremely squishy, but they hit like a truck - beware!
6) When you leave the cave, you'll be heading to the second boss, along the way, you'll be jumping on some ice. Explosive Runes will be falling from the sky and when they land, before they explode, you can just hit them away with one attack. It may be useful to use ranged attacks here just to be safe. If the rune ends up falling on top of you, you will take a lot of damage with a potential for a one-shot, make sure you notice the tiny pits on the snow before they appear.
7) The second boss, The Dragon Turtle. His moves list are as followed:
★Hullsnap - A single bite/snap of his that can do a fair amount of damage. You should be fine regardless
★Hullshredder - A series of bites/snaps, roughly 3-4 where he can do alot of damage)
★Wild Slam - A move only used if the Turtle's Primary target is flanking & can't be reached by Hullsnap or Steam Blast. When he does this slam, he damages everyone and as well buffs himself to do more damage & it indeed stacks but no idea currently as to much times it can stack up too.
★Steam Blast - This move is the turtle's most unpredictable. He watches the target he will hit with this, pushes his head a little bit back into his shell the releases a quick burst of steam at that same target. There's no indicator to exactly dodge it so you can easily get killed here from it since the blast does alot of dmg and the burns from that blast can do a tick over time of dmg.
★Steam Sweep - A burst of high pressure steam he uses that can scald your party and make the targets more susceptible to more steam burns. This move is easy to see, he raises up a little off the ground and there's an indicator of red on the ground, in the shape of an arc/curve so you simply, if you're in that arc, either move forward or move backwards.
★Steam Cannon - This move only happens when it's the phases of the turtle retreating more into the water. It's a very slow, sweeping cannon of high pressure steam that he fires from just above that waterline. This can do a lot of damage to you when struck. The trick to avoid this attack is hitting the dragon. When he sits up and bobs his head outside the water, channeling the steam, charge one of the Explosive Runes at him, this will cancel his Steam attack and immediately finish off the phase.
8) After the Dragon Turtle saunters off to do turtley things (hump shoes and make strange noises) you move on towards a door where a giant is fighting a couple of orcs, be careful as you approach to dispatch them as you may accidentally get knocked into the water and die, which would be embarrassing. After exiting the boss arena through this door you will find yourselves in a long storage room with groups of Orcs fighting Giants. Here you are searching for the Ring of Winter, you will have to rummage through various piles of detritus until you’ve searched 10 locations. You can avoid fighting here if you move carefully and can make quick work of the room by spreading out. Don’t spread out too far though in case someone gets distracted by a shiny and get smacked by an AOE or randomly draws aggro from an equally distracted Orc or Giant.
9) After completing this room, you'll be at the last boss, Drufi, Herald of Winter. She will obviously be the biggest challenge in the whole dungeon since she's the last boss. The moves list are as followed:
★Spinning Slash [or in the GWF language - Not So Fast] - A move where she does a 360 degree greatsword slash. This move has great range so make sure you move away enough to dodge it. It does not do much damage, but sometimes it can spike to a significant amount that can even kill you, keep that in mind.
★Rush [or in the gwf language - Punishing Charge] - This is a high speed attack where as it says, she rushes in different directions. It's as useless as the GWF encounter is and other than knocking you on your back it wouldn't really do anything (maybe get you to run after her for 20 minutes like a headless chicken, if anything). She seems to do this 2-3 quick times in succession when her health is going down so do your best to dodge because a combo lock of that can easily kill.
★White Squall - A move where she runs to one side of the room, puts away her sword and summons a strong wind and ice to push back foes and also locking your powers and taking away your stamina. If you allow this wind to push you into the far wall of the room you will take massive damage from the jagged ice there and can easily die. Another place where the movement speed under the affect of EF can be really helpful.
★Boreal Blade [or in GWF language - Indomitable Battle Strike] - This is basically this boss' version of IBS. Although her GWF mechanics are for the most part absolutely terrible, she's smart enough to wait for you to huddle up and smack the entire party with IBS. For example, if someone dies, and you go to resurrect them, she seems to notice and approach you with the intention of using IBS on you, watch out for that. She will often-times do this 3 or even 4 times in a row as people continually group up to try to res each other. You can see that happen right here (1:08:15 on the video).
★Permafrost - Drufi summons pillars of ice where each member of the party are positioned. When you see the red under you, you need to move yourself as quickly as possible so you don't get trapped in the Pillar. If a party member gets stuck in the ice, unless they get released by other party members who will attack the ice, they will get one-shot and die. It is important to prevent this as these chunks of Permafrost will be important later on.
★Hypothermia - Her second strongest move. With this move, she will target just one member of your party. You will see this person targeted because there is a huge arrow pointing on the person's head along with four more arrows pointing on each side of him/her. When this is happening, the person being targeted needs to know to not move at all and stay still so the party members can band around this person thus saving them. You need your party to be surviving when these Hypothermia phases come about because if there's just two people or less protecting the person targeted, it won't work, thus when you all band together, guaranteed death. You need all members to be alive for this and band around the target (four people to band around the target or the bare minimum of three.)
★Call of Winter - The strongest move she's got. Drufi will run to the center of the arena along the waterfront, here she will begin channeling rune magic. After a decently long cast time Drufi will unleash the awesome power of Call of Winter doing massive un-survivable damage to everyone. To survive this, or at least have a chance to survive, you need to hide behind one of the permafrost pillars she summoned at whatever point of the battle, hence why, you need to have those permafrost pillars up and alive.
The tips for this fight will basically be, for when she summons those permafrost pillar, you need to be alert and dodge them for starters since she summons it where you will be currently standing. If a party member has got caught in this permafrost, then you need to quickly destroy the pillar that person is stuck in because if you are not fast enough, or you leave that person, they will 100% die. If your party has successfully dodged the permafrost pillars, you want to make sure your tank pulls the boss as far away from the permafrost as possible (To the other side of the room.) because if you fight in the vicinity of those pillars, you risk the boss or you yourselves destroying them and if they are destroyed when she's in that call of winter phase, you'll die.
If someone during the boss fight dies, you want to make sure the tank pulls the boss away from that dead person so the others can revive him since if the tank is on top of the people reviving that dead party member, the boss will instinctively use her IBS and kill more people in the party.
Know this as well, during the 'White Squall' phases, if your companion gets caught in the permafrost pillar, they have a chance of completely dying during those times as in they are super dead. You can't revive them or re-summon them since in the boss fight, you'll be in combat the whole time so whenever your companion dies, you'll have to make due for the rest of that boss battle without your bonding companions which may not be so bad for this specific boss fight, just switch to an augment if needed. In your party set up, if you happen to have no pillars to protect you from the permafrost, but possess a tankadin, that tank can pop a well timed Divine Protector to save the day, as well as for the Hypothermia phase.
The main general tip we'll like to advise for this new dungeon is to use voice comm (Teamspeak, Mumble, etc.) if you can, it helps tremendously. Also, for less experienced players/new players, a composition of a Tankadin, Guardian Fighter, Devoted Cleric for the buffs, and two dpsers will most likely, at least at the moment, be the easiest to take in the dungeon (In terms of doing it smoothly, respectable pace etc), At this time, when you gain access to the dungeon and have a lack of everfrost resistance, that maybe the best lineup possible before you get proper everfrost resistance for that dungeon.
As for the loot at the end? We recommend a Greater Box of Tissues.