Will for dummies

Guide in 'Bossing Guides' published by vireys, Apr 29, 2020.

how to not be THAT guy in your party who burdens and wastes 20 minutes of everyone else's time by failing every test

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  Welcome to the comprehensive guide to the boss fight against the King of Spiders. Here you will learn how to not be a burden to your team.
  
  There is a lot of information to this boss guide. On top of that, there is a ton of gifs for every mechanic or attack to explain. Because of that, most of the information in this guide will be under the tabs you can see on top.
  
  General information
  
  You are unable to use True Arachnid Reflection/Spider In Mirror at any point during the boss fight. Flavour-wise it makes sense; you gain the power to use it story-wise only after defeating Will. Gameplay-wise, the summons add too much clutter and are misleading since they use the exact same graphics as the actual boss attacks.
  
  DEF: 300
  5 Second Potion/Consumable Cooldown
  
  These are standard for most modern bosses.
  
  Boss level: 250
  
  This is one of the overlooked - but still significant - barrier to entry to Will. In most worlds, attempting to fight Will at level 240 would put you at a -25% final damage disadvantage; in Reboot, this is -50% instead. Having more damage from funding can certainly make up for this, but on the flip-side, this also means that levelling up is an easy way to increase your contribution in damage.
  
  Map Arcane Force requirement: 760 ARC
  
  The benchmarks for Final Damage boosts from Arcane Force are 836 for 1.1x, 988 for 1.3x, and 1140 for 1.5x. Note that Phase 3 of Will has touch damage, so increasing Arcane Force would also reduce damage taken from staying on top of him. This makes a difference to the nine thousand Night Lords in existence, whose entire raison d'être is to practically fornicate him to do any significant amount of damage; an unlucky touch damage proc can easily make the difference between dying or not.
  
  Boss HP: 9+6+9T = 24T (Normal), 42+31.5+52.5T = 126T (Hard)
  
  Will actually has the exact same total HP as Normal Lucid. For this reason I like to say that the damage requirements to participate are about the same; in reality, however, because of the level difference, and because of how the boss fight works, I would say that the requirement to fight Will is more than slightly higher.
  
  The segment tests (and phase-change cutscenes) effectively force your party into, at the very minimum, 5 minutes of not doing damage. On top of that, the way the segment tests work in Phase 1 makes it such that a small difference in damage can cause a large difference in time taken if it means clearing at an earlier threshold.
  
  Considering everything in all, I would say that the minimum someone should be to be able to contribute to Normal Will (assuming perfect segment tests and reasonable character control) is 45F Dojo, at Level 240 with 1140 ARC, or 46F at Level 245 with 990 ARC. Obviously these numbers are nowhere near concrete, and party leaders are as always tasked with discretion in selecting who to have in their party, but in my experience these criteria are more than enough to start attempting Will.
  
  vireys, Apr 29, 2020
2. Guide Author vireys, Find all guides by vireys
Boss Mechanics

ALL PHASES: MOONLIGHT

On the top left of your screen you will be able to see an additional UI that's used exclusively for this fight. The Moonlight skill is activated with your NPC Chat key, and its effects counter one the mechanics in each phase of the boss fight.

Moonlight is naturally regenerated over the course of the fight, without you having to do anything. But getting hit by any attack will disable Moonlight regeneration for 1 second (normal) or 2 seconds (Hard), while getting hit by the red pellets will remove a small amount of your Moonlight on top of that. For more information on these, check the Attacks section.

The main difference between Hard mode and Normal mode is the rate of regeneration; that one second makes a massive difference considering the number of attacks coming out. The difference is such that more often than not, you will be able to have enough Moonlight for only two phase changes before the 28:45 crack, for example.

There is a cooldown on using Moonlight skills (shown by the red-ness of the Moonlight skill), but this is only to prevent double-usage and actually helps you more than hinders you. You can also tell quite easily whether you have enough Moonlight by the icon, which will grey out if you don't have enough.

PHASE 1

The main feature of Phase 1 is Will's triple health bars.

Will exists in two dimensions at once; the blue HP bar represents him in the real world, while the purple HP bar represents him in the mirror world.

The Moonlight Skill: Space Shift allows you to swap between the two dimensions to attack, while granting a period of invulnerability so that you don't have to worry about teleporting into an attack.

Every so often, a crack occurs in one of the dimensions.

When this crack occurs, the blue and purple HP bars will heal up to whichever was the higher one, while the red one will update to the same amount. Will must be attacked evenly in both dimensions in order to progress in the fight; the red HP bar is simply an indicator of your progress and doesn't really hold any gameplay relevance.

The crack does 100%HP damage, but is prefaced 5 seconds in advance by an eye, warning of an incoming crack.

The appearance of an eye in one dimension warns of an incoming crack in the other dimension, and hence party members would need to communicate, to get everyone to swap into the dimension with the eye in order to avoid a crack.

The first crack will occur at exactly 28:45, with the eye appearing at exactly 28:50. Subsequent eyes tend to follow xx:50 with xx being even, but because of server lag, they tend to get pushed back later and later, to the point where I've had an eye appear at 16:40 with the crack at 16:35.

You will also notice that unlike any other boss in the game, Will's HP bar is divided into segments. The blue and purple HP bars both cannot be damaged past these segments until the party fulfils a segment test.

The test starts when a crack occurs, and all the HP bars are depleted down to a segment. The party will be randomly distributed within the two dimensions, and an eye machine will spawn in the middle of the two dimensions. All attacks by Will are stopped as well, so the party can focus on the test.

Moonlight: Space Shift cannot be used while the test is ongoing.

Attacking the eye will cause the other dimension to start dropping debris, a la Magnus. The purple ones will deal 60%HP damage on impact, while the moonlight ones are harmless. Between the two dimensions, the party must collect 2 moonlight balls before a barrier forms around the eye machines. Collecting moonlight in one dimension is enough to make the barrier for both dimensions.

The barrier is necessary because another crack will occur in both dimensions about 22-23 seconds after the crack that started the test. Anyone outside of the barrier will still get hit by the crack, and party members should remain inside as much as possible, but you're allowed to step out momentarily to dodge debris.

If a single party member dies, due to debris or either one of the cracks, the test will fail and the segment block will not be lifted, and the party will not be able to progress in the fight until the next crack in 2 minutes. This is the main reason why "burdens" tend to be weeded out, and carries don't really happen.

Note that debris will continue to fall after the second crack, and there is a period of about 3 seconds before the test passes. Party members can still die to debris and fail the test after the second crack.

If a party member is dead when the test starts, he will not fail the test. However, at least half of the party must be alive when the test ends in order for the test to pass.

If the test passes, the segment block is lifted and Will is binded in both dimensions for 10 seconds. The party should not waste their binds in this time but instead hit both dimensions as hard as they can; this bind does not cause a cooldown, so Will can be immediately bound after it for an extended burst.

This process of hitting segments, passing tests, avoiding cracks occurs until the third test is passed. After the 10 second bind is over, Will automatically transitions into phase 2, whether or not the party clears the remaining bit of health.

PHASE 2

In Phase 2, all consumables and healing are disabled. This means no lifesteal, no healing skills, no nothing. This curse can be lifted for 5 seconds by using Moonlight: Health Recovery, during which potions will have the usual 5-second cooldown for most boss fights, but other healing effects will apply normally.

Unlike in Phase 1, the Mirror World's Will can be fought at the same time as his physical form. Both his physical and Mirror forms can damage you (and be damaged by you!) without having to shift dimensions, which is why he only has one HP bar now.

This applies to you as well; all attacks that hit your reflection still damage you, so you must watch for both the top and bottom of the screen for things to dodge.

Will's HP bar this time is divided into two segments, and comes with a different segment test.

Once again, all other attacks stop during the test, and the party's job is to avoid getting damaged by the spider legs that spawn. The spider legs deal 90%HP instead of their usual amount during the test, and hence maintaining high health while dodging is essential.

There's a catch, however. Occasionally a crack appears in the ground. When this crack appears, the attack is flipped; whoever doesn't get hit by the spider legs will take 90%HP damage instead.

The spider legs come in 5 sets of 3; each set is either all reversed, or all regular attacks. Again, no one may die during the test in order for the test to pass. It's also possible for party members to die to other stray projectiles as soon as the test starts and fail the test (when Melang's message appears), which counts as failing too. Party members may die before the test starts to bypass most of the test, but again, at least half of the party must be alive when the test ends in order for it to pass.

When there is no crack in the ground, hugging the left wall is completely safe. I do mean hug it as if you have hypothermia; a single step away is enough for you to get hit in some patterns.

When there is a crack, however, the leftmost crystal in the background is currently the most common place for parties to go to, since a spider leg always hits somewhere near there for the first out of 3. Then, walk right after getting hit to get hit by the next legs.

Sometimes, a web is there for the test and the party can't hug the left wall. the second crystal in the background is a reasonably safe spot that the first out of 3 spider legs never hits, when there is no crack.

Remember that spider legs never hit the same spot twice.

Similarly to Phase 1, when the test passes Will will be binded for 10 seconds and the segment block will be lifted. No other attacks or projectiles occur during this time, so take advantage of this time to burst him as much as you can.

While Phase 1's segment tests are tied to the 2-minute intervals between screen cracks, Phase 2 segment tests start immediately upon hitting the segment block. Regardless of whether the test passes or fails, there is a 2-minute cooldown between tests. If you fail, the next test starts 2 minutes after the previous test started; if you pass and damage the entire second segment within 2 minutes, the test will not immediately start until the cooldown is up.

Will has only two segments in Phase 2, and after the second segment is lifted, unlike in Phase 1, he still has 1% of his HP left that you need to damage before going to Phase 3.

PHASE 3

No more funny business, no more tests, no more segments. Phase 3 is simply a matter of hitting Will until he gives up the ghost. He doesn't even move or teleport anymore; he just stands there attacking, making his attacks particularly easy to dodge.

However, from the sides of the screen, spiderwebs begin to form, and they will continue forming, slowly creeping toward the center until they cover the entire screen. Being in a part of the map covered by webs will seal all your skills while dealing 30%HP per second. Moonlight: Remove Webs not only makes you immune to this effect for 5 seconds, but removes up to two webs that you walk into while the skill is active. A spiderweb that was burned cannot regenerate in the next 3 seconds.

The bulk of the difficulty in Phase 3 is dodging his attacks. Those aren't covered under this section, so move on to the next section to find out more.
Boss Attacks

ALL PHASES

Like most modern bosses, Will eases up on the 100%HP attacks (the only such attack in Normal is the screen crack mechanic) but chooses to fight with a thousand cuts. 10% and 20% HP attacks seem rather threatless, but the sheer amount of them combined with the 5-second potion cooldown can easily overwhelm weaker players. Every attack avoided is an increase in your success chance, so let's learn the animations and avoid them.

Spider legs

These spawn frequently and deal 20%HP damage while disabling Moonlight regeneration for a few seconds. People may not realise it, but getting stabbed by these frequently is the main cause of dying in Phase 2, since the loss of regeneration often amounts to more than the Moonlight loss by getting hit by Beholder pellets.

Spider legs never attack the same spot twice in a row, including during the segment test in Phase 2.

Beholders

Spawn basically as frequently as spider legs. They shoot pellets out in 5 directions. Pellets deal 10%HP and remove a small amount of Moonlight.

The pattern of pellets is very predictable. They always shoot out 5 pellets first in the green directions, then in the pink directions (only the downward directions are shown to reduce clutter here):

Over time it's easy to get a sensing of which spots are safe, because you only need to read the positions of the beholders spawning to know exactly where the pellets will go. The beholders don't always spawn in the same place so the safe spots vary, but their pattern is always the same, so one of the subtleties to gitting gud is knowing instinctively where the pellets are going to go and moving in advance.

Origin Guardians

I don't know what to call these, but they match the appearance of the anti-afk monsters in Esfera so that's what they'll be.

Four of these spawn at a time and make a beeline straight for yo ass. Upon reaching thine ass, they start a short explosion animation. If you are in the explosion, you take 10%HP.

It doesn't sound like a lot, but considering that four of these spawn at a time, tanking them willy-nilly is a no-go especially in Phase 2. They can be avoided simply by moving across them to dodge the explosion animation, since the damage is delayed. The explosion animation is pretty short, so most of the time flash jumping or rushing or teleporting would be good to remove them harmlessly.

PHASE 1

Most of Will's attacks across the three phases can be categorised into stab, swipe, push and a special 90%HP attack, and other than the last one, do exactly the same things, so I'll refer to them by the same names.

Note that all of Will's attacks in Phase 1 hit in front of him, so a general tip in Phase 1 is just to stay behind him as much as possible.

Stab

20%HP, short-ranged, long windup. His most common attack.

Swipe

20%HP, long-ranged, shorter windup. Less common attack.

Push

20%HP, long-ranged, super-knockback, inflicts confusion (reverse controls) for 5 seconds. His second-most-important attack to avoid, since it will easily lead to death when combined with the next attack.

Special: Tornado

Will summons a tornado that moves across the map, dealing 90%HP in its path. The most common cause of death in Phase 1.

This attack has a very distinct casting animation (it's the only one where he closes his eyes). Because of that, it's very easy to read him and avoid this attack by just moving behind him.

Note also that Will never turns around before casting a tornado, so any party members who are proactive in staying behind him will find themselves very safe from tornadoes, which always go the other way.

If you're not a class that can easily get behind him, however, the main method of avoiding it is to just Moonlight into the opposite dimension. The Moonlight skill doubles as invulnerability in Phase 1, so it's a very good panic button to press.

Other ways of avoiding this attack include flying over it (Illium, Ark, Xenon), teleporting past it (Evan, Shadower, Phantom, Kaiser) or just i-framing it. Battlemage/other teleports don't have enough range to avoid it.

Note that occasionally Will does a one-two-punch and sends a tornado across the map just as the test starts. Dying to the tornado counts as failing the test if the eye machines have already appeared, so everyone absolutely needs to be on high alert when the test starts.

Teleport

Harmless, but he does this a LOT, and will likely avoid a lot of burst cooldowns because of it. Will hardly walks, and will simply teleport to any party members out of range. Because of this, party members should generally try to stay in the middle to avoid situations where he teleports to one end of the map and send a tornado barrelling down to the other side, wiping out the entire map. Keeping him in the middle makes it easier for the party to avoid this by staying behind him.

Eye of Chaos

When this graphic appears above your character, after a few seconds you will be teleported randomly. It could be in the same dimension but elsewhere on the map, it could be into the other dimension completely. The issue with this is that unlike phase-shifting with Moonlight, you don't get invulnerability and hence will probably die to any stray tornados where you're landing. Be particularly cautious when this is about to occur.

PHASE 2

Stab

Swipe

Push

Fakeouts

Unique to Phase 2 are fakeout attacks where his physical form appears to ready an attack in front, but instead he attacks behind him using the Mirror World. The attacks themselves are otherwise identical to Swipe and Push attacks, with the same damage and status effect (for Push)..

This is why Melang warns you to "Beware his true form reflected in the mirror"; both of these fakeouts appear to be doing a Stab animation in the Real World. The distinguishing factor is his Mirror World form; an actual Stab would have the Mirror form prepare an attack as well, but the fakeouts have the Mirror World Will stand still.

Special: Spiderweb Summon

Will summons two spider webs, one on each side of the map. They appear only in the reflection, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous. If your reflection touches them, you will take 90%HP (100%HP in Hard Mode) as damage. The webs last exactly 10 seconds.

This attack is the reason why his Push and Fakeout Push attacks are particularly lethal in Phase 2. Again, the party would probably prefer to play in the middle of the map to avoid being pushed into the spiderwebs as much as possible.

The webs appear on the sides of the map, but are positioned such that someone hugging the walls of the map won't get hit. They'll just be trapped and unable to move past.

The way this attack is coded is such that it is actually an untargetable monster that deals touch damage. Smokescreen and Shelter both neutralise the webs, making them safe for your party to pass through. Dark Sight works for the thieves that have it, too.

Dash

Will's physical form appears to teleport, but his Mirror World form actually dashes past, applying super-knockback along with 10%HP damage.

Unlike Phase 1's teleports, throughout the animation of this attack Will is vulnerable to damage, even when his physical form appears to be gone.

Spider Summon

Will occasionally just lets loose an Aranea in the Mirror world, letting it rampage across the map in a straight line dealing 20% damage. Compared to the tornado this is relatively harmless, but still you would probably want to avoid it which is as easy as flash-jumping over it.

PHASE 3

In Phase 3 Will is completely immobile; he doesn't teleport or move at all. While this makes it easy to DPS-race him down combined with the fact that there are no segment tests, the phase isn't any easier than the previous phases, because of the following attack which he uses reasonably often.

Special: Stomp

When Will stomps his front leg(s) down into the ground, spikes will appear, dealing 90%HP (100%HP in Hard mode) damage. The difference in animation makes the difference in where the spikes appear. Will is untargetable and hence invulnerable during the entire animation of this attack, so stop attacking and focus on avoiding, or use the opportunity given during yellow-eyes to buff up.

With the yellow-eyes attack, spikes appear everywhere on the map except near your character. With the white-eyes attack, however, a single spike appears where your character is.

The position of the spike is determined when Will stomps down; the spike itself appears about 0.3 seconds later. Because of this, the white-eyes attack is called out by parties saying "MOVE", because you have to use a mobility skill when the leg touches the ground in order to not get hit by the spike.

In contrast, the other attack is called out by saying "STAY" because anyone using a mobility skill will run into the spikes and out of the safe zone.

Characters can choose to teleport, rush or flash jump (in order of difficulty, from hardest to easiest) to dodge white-eyes. All of these methods fail when you're under spiderwebs, however.

Sometimes, the difference in eye colour can be hard to see due to projectiles cluttering the screen. When that fails, there are many other indicators whether it's stay or move:

Body posture: White-eyes arches its body much higher than yellow-eyes, which kinda lurches the body backwards.

Number of legs: White-eyes raises only one leg (because it summons only one spike), yellow-eyes raises two legs to cover the map.

In practice, yellow-eyes is basically harmless while white-eyes is the main cause of deaths in Phase 3, especially combined with the fact that spiderwebs Sealing skills prevents the use of mobility skills. When that fails, however, it turns out that white-eyes can be dodged by literally any class simply by doing an ordinary jump:

Stab

Swipe

Push

Similarly to Phase 2, Push is particularly deadly when combined with spiderwebs. Make sure to constantly keep the spiderwebs on the sides of the ground burned out to prevent situations like getting pushed into a web before a white-eyes stomp.

Poison Host

Wlll selects one of the party members to be a host for his poison, damaging the area around the party member periodically. The damage increases starting from 40%HP over time to more than 100%, but the host himself is unaffected. While poisoned, the host deals 2x final damage. Co-ordinate with your party members to quarantine the host from the rest of the party to avoid griefing. Generally, to avoid situations where you get pushed into poison, the host will be on one side of Will while the rest of the party on the other side.

If a host dies for whatever reason, another poisonous area is created at his tombstone, while the poison gets transferred to another host, causing there to be two hosts for poison where there was 1 previously.

The poison lasts a total of 15 seconds, and once this time is up the poison gets removed from all hosts.

Note that any host who doesn't attack for a long period of time (~8 seconds-ish) will die, taking 100% HP damage.
Tips

ALL PHASES

MapleStory rounds all damage down. Because of this, a character with 10001HP would take 9000 from a 90%HP attack and 1000 from a 10%HP attack, allowing him to survive, while a character with 10000HP would die. Characters with HP in multiples of 10 are at a distinct disadvantage in this fight.

The spider legs are the most significant indirect cause of death in Hard Mode due to their prevention of moonlight collecting, even more so than pellets because they show up that much more often, and deal a lot more damage. In general, stay on the move and be aware that spider legs never hit the same spot twice in a row.

Having snowshoes reduces the distance your character gets knocked back by Push. It takes a long while to farm the Scrolls for Shoes for Spikes from El Nath, but the payoff is a subtle (but valuable!) QoL for the rest of your Maple life.

PHASE 1

The distribution of your party members between the two dimensions is completely random, and no one has Moonlight. Don't plan on a full-party-bind-burst as soon as you go in.

Tip for soloing - When in a solo, Will's segment test always transports you to purple. Placing a Lucid soul (non-augmented) in blue at 29:00 is enough to hit the eye machine and cause balls to fall, to finish the test. It's not necessary to i-frame the second crack. For characters who don't have Lucid souls, other stationary summons, or aoe-leaving skills like Breath - Come Back! work as well.

One member of the party should be a shotcaller - at 28:55, he'd call "test soon - I'm watching blue/purple". This prompts the rest of the party to watch the other dimension. Alternatively, if there's a Bishop in the party, they should be calling out "shell in blue/purple" in anticipation of the crack.

Said shotcaller should also be warning people to be alert when being transported for test. Will summoning a tornado to hit people being transported without warning is not a rare scenario, and the party should be ready to pot/heal/iframe for this exact reason.

The Wills in the two dimensions have separate bind cooldowns. Having 3-4 binds in the party will be nice, although between swapping dimensions it will be rather difficult to keep track of the bind cooldowns.

Having a Thief with Dark Sight is useful for collecting the Moonlight to pass the test because they can ignore the 60%HP purple balls.

Balls will continue falling for 3 seconds after the second crack, and any deaths during this time count as failing the test. The party should care to stop damaging the eye machines after barrier creation. Persistent damaging auras such as F/P's Inferno Aura and Demon Slayers' Metamorphosis should be turned off, and Evans and Zeroes should also be wary of the aoe's they produce.

After the third test is passed, Will automatically phases without using any other attacks. Use this time to re-buff and drink all the Monster Park Extreme Potions you can. You will very much appreciate a bind for the second phase, too.

PHASE 2

The most dangerous part of this phase is the first 30 seconds or so where no one has Moonlight. Take extra effort to dodge spider legs and Beholder pellets, and bind Will for a good burst using the buffs you should've used after the last test.

Moonlight - Health Recovery lasts 5 seconds, and the potion cooldown while it's active is 5 seconds. More often than not it's perfectly possible to squeeze in two power elixirs during this time frame. High-ping users will find that it lasts even longer because buffs take longer to expire on high ping.

The aforementioned shotcaller will also be useful here. Someone should keep track of what time the test starts when the health reaches segment, so that they can call the next test in advance, preventing the party getting caught offguard by a surprise test.

The spiderwebs persist for 10 seconds, and can easily interfere with the test. Smokescreen and Shelter are both really good because they neutralise this threat for the entire party.

In the event of a failed test, lower-mobility characters may suffer from the requirement to dodge for 2 minutes. It may be helpful to have them hug the left wall while higher-mobility party members continue to attack Will and draw his aggro to the right side of the map. Don't be afraid to throw a bind on him, either, it's not like you'll need it for DPS in the next 2 minutes anyway.

The spiderweb-during-test thing can be pre-empted by binding Will before the test starts. This still requires a shot-caller keeping track of the test timings, however.

If the party doesn't finish off the HP bar after the second test during the time Will is binded, spider legs and Beholders and Origin Guardians will spawn and Will may summon a spiderweb. Make sure to finish off that HP bar during the bind.

PHASE 3

REMEMBER THAT YOU CAN USE POTIONS NOW. Getting used to the habit of not potting without Moonlight causes a lot of early deaths in Phase 3 especially among the inexperienced.

High-ping characters have longer periods of web-immunity from Moonlight because of the buff expiry thing. They have to press NPC Chat earlier, though.

High-ping characters may also find dodging Will's white-eye stomp rather screwy. Because of ping, the spike will appear late and also register your location late, so dodging may be particularly inconsistent. Flash jump characters have a much greater leeway in dodging Stomp, and feel this subtlety much less.

The most important webs to clear are the ones on the side on the ground, a.k.a. the ones that you're most likely to get pushed into.

Will's Poison can be Guarded by Holy Magic Shell for whatever reason. This probably means it can also be Smokescreened/Sheltered, but I haven't tested.
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