Boss Challenge: Sephonis (300%)

For Sephonis’ Basic Attack, she sends a volley of 3 huge butterflies to the closest Echomancer in range, dealing little damage but becomes more and more dangerous as the difficulty is raised:

• The Flutter modifier makes it stronger, but not so strong that it threatens your Tanks. Still, the attack becomes fairly threatening to the squishier Strikers and is definitely something your Ranged Echomancers don’t want to deal with on top of all the other damage sources;
• Starting from 250% difficulty, Break The Cocoon gives Penetration properties to the Alpha Butterflies, allowing them to pass through your Echomancers. This is a big deal if you’re playing many Melee Echomancers as you might often reposition your Strikers behind your Tanks during Migration or to avoid the Mines;
• Unlocked at 275% difficulty, Withering is another modifier that massively reinforces Alpha Butterfly, as it adds a permanent, infinitely stacking Damage Increase debuff to any Echomancer hit by the Alpha Butterfly. While the debuff isn’t noticeable early on, it makes it near impossible for any non-Tank Echomancer to survive as the primary Target of Sephonis for more than a minute or two, especially once you factor in the final two levels of the New Feathers (the overall Attack Increase) modifier at 255% and 280% difficulty.

Key Echomancers:

You should bring at least one Tank, either a Bulwark or a Vanguard, to make them the primary target of Sephonis.As after a few minutes of fighting at high difficulty, the damage debuff would melt any Echomancer without access to personal Defensive buffs.

Mo Hongxiu

Rodney

(1).

At the start of the battle and multiple times throughout the fight, Sephonis sends Aria at one of your Ranged Echomancers (placing a Melee Echomancer in the back and having your Ranged Echomancers closer to the Boss does notchange the targeting priority and only makes your Ranged Units easier to reach for the Marionette). Aria then slowly floats in the direction of your Echomancer and should she catch them, they are inflicted with an extremely long Stun that makes them unable to act in any way with damage on top. To deal with this mechanic, a few options available:

• You can continuously reposition your Echomancer to keep a certain distance;
• You can use a Barrier with Movement restrictions properties or use Displacement like Pull and Push Skills to hinder Aria’s progress.

In both cases, it’s highly recommended to use AoE Skills or Echomancers with AoE Basic Attacks to deplete Aria’s HP, which is based on the Hit Count of your attack, or its ‘strength’. An Ultimate for example deals 10 damage to Aria while an Active Skill deals 5 (most skills only register a hit on Aria once). Upon reaching 0HP, Aria becomes stunned for a while.

However, do not worry too much, as failure to Stun Aria before she reaches your Echomancer does not result in Instant Death. Instead, you have another 25 seconds to disable/displace her before your Echomancer is put out of commission.

Notes: The Drones summoned by the Terminal can also target Aria, but for that to happen. Aria needs to be closer to your Terminal than Sephonis. Thus if you want to use this method you must first reposition your Echomancer all the way down, right next to your Terminal.

Tip: Beating Aria with a Corrosive Blast from the Terminal or Lorelle’s Ultimate removes her from the fight, which is both a blessing and a curse. The fight becomes easier with less mechanics to pay attention to, but on the other hand forcing her out of the fight early can prevent you from achieving the ‘Stun the Marionette 4 times’ bonus condition.

Key Echomancers:

Outside of Echomancers with ample AoE damage like

Roar

Cyros

Felicio

• For Echomancers with strong path blocking Barriers, you can opt for:
• 
  Roar , a great pick whose Barrier will by itself deal significant damage to Aria on top of her AoE Basic Attacks.
• 
  Mo Hongxiu , a smaller Barrier with less uses but is relevant nonetheless.
• Although weaker than the Barriers,
  
  Sephonis
  
  Aceo , and any other unit with access to frequent Root abilities can also hinder the Marionette for a few seconds at a tim.;
• Any Echomancer with Displacement capabilities can be used to delay Aria or interrupt her Stun (this includes the aforementioned Barriers as they push enemies in their path when you cast them), this includes but isn’t limited to:
• 
  Mo Hongxiu and every other Tank with a ‘Gather’ type Skill.
• 
  Sambheka ,
  
  Xiangling and every Echomancer with Push or Pull Skills, but prefer picking Echomancers who synergise with your team.

As you might have noticed, the battleground is divided into multiple smaller sections, out of which only 3 can be used for your initial positioning. The tiles of these small sections are at times replaced by Golden Butterfly patterns, with the section hosting the most Echomancers being targeted on priority. Once the patterns appear, you are put on a timer, which is represented by a purple outline progressively running around the entire sub-section. Once fully outlined in purple, the sub-section will explode, dealing high damage to any Echomancer standing inside it. While the damage might not be enough to One-Shot your Tanks it is more than enough to wipe your Damage Dealers and Healers if you’re not playing a high VIT+DEF build.

To deal with this mechanic, you can opt to either:

• Keep all of your Echomancers in different sub-sections, this will require minimal movement and makes it more forgiving even if you fail to escape in time;
• Or group all of your ranged Echomancers together and have them migrate as a team to another section periodically. It might be easier to deal with Aria as well that way but it isn't necessary.

This Skill is, in itself, not dangerous as you have ample time to dodge it, however any action that locks your Echomancers in place can make it much more threatening. Some of those actions can be Aria’s Stun, or channeled Echomancers Ultimate such as Lorelle’s for example.

Key Echomancers:

There is no need for any specific tool in order to deal with this mechanic, simply avoid locking yourself in place before the Mines are revealed.

To describe this skill, it only takes three words: ‘Beautiful yet deadly’. After a very brief cutscene, Sephonis rotates herself before indicating two big yellow arrows in opposite directions, and then a few seconds later 4 volleys of tiny Golden Butterflies are released in both directions. They immediately start spreading outwards, rotating counter-clockwise before coming back to Sephonis. Any Echomancer those Butterflies pass through will suffer immense damage, and as dozens of them are released at once you better not let them spread or it is quickly going to lead to a loss or two on your side.

• Your best tool against this skill is Projectile Interception, which can be not only found on most Barrier Skills, but also on Echomancers such as Felicio, Lanlan or Cen Ying to name a few who simply make all enemy projectiles vanish upon using their Interception Skills.
• Alternatively, the tiny butterflies are unable to reach the extremities of the outer sub-sections of the map, making it possible to hide your Rangers and Supports on safe tiles. In the case of Melee units, the butterflies never hit you if you’re standing close to the Boss at a 90° angle to the original directions they were sent from.

This skill is arguably one of the easiest to counter, but is also the most important to avoid, so having one or even two Echomancers with Interception Skills is going to make life much easier for most players.

Key Echomancers:

You can’t always afford to move around, and that’s when those Echomancers can save you from an instant game over:

• 
  Felicio
  
  Lanlan
  
  Cen Ying
  
  Tong and any Echomancer who explicitly mentions in their kit Intercepting, Clearing or Destroying Projectiles. You can wait for the 3 volleys to be sent then immediately make all the butterflies disappear. However, these Echomancers tend to be more fragile, so most of them are best left as backup until the time is right;
• The majority of Barriers are incapable of blocking all of the tiny Butterflies and are destroyed midway, this is the case for all Barriers and the amount of projectiles they can soak is dependent on their strength.
• Nonetheless,
  
  Luke remains a near perfect pick here, as you can hit most of the butterflies with his Ultimate then block the stragglers with his Active Skill, or at least cover one side effectively halving the number of butterflies.
• 
  Su Xiao
  
  Longqing (her Ultimate blocks Incoming Projectiles, but not those already inside), and the previously mentioned Barrier Echomancers can all be used for this mechanic as well. Still, try to prioritize Projectile Destruction to avoid hiccups.

This ability only occurs after Sephonis revives - three Clones of Sephonis appear in a triangle formation while Sephonis disappears from the fight. She comes back after either all the Clones have been destroyed or after 30 seconds have elapsed. This mechanic is without a doubt a DPS race, as the Clones are ticking time-bombs, periodically emitting pulses of Golden Energy around them until they’re defeated and blow up causing massive damage a couple of seconds after Sephonis returns to the fight. Few Echomancers can target all three Clones at once, so it’s important to keep multiple Burst tools available for this situation.

Key Echomancers:

No crazy tricks or anything here, you’re best off keeping your main DPS Ultimate and an Active Skill or two for this mechanic, once Sephonis has recovered.

Units like

Lorelle

Lydia

Cen Ying

Corrosion Blast, Explosion of Fire Zones and Electroconduct also work great here, if you’re playing around those synergies.

About 6 minutes into the fight, Sephonis starts dancing with Aria, dealing massive AoE damage to all Echomancers on the field and to your Terminal. If your damage is too lacking, this Dance is synonymous with Game Over in a short few seconds. There is nothing at this point that you can do aside from defeating Sephonis in one last all out attack.

Note: Even if you remove Aria from play via Corrosion Blast or