Quick Thor Break Guide
dmcmash/magedout/tankdps on east
This quick guide is based on my experience running break groups, having got about 10-12 breaks since launch. My first break was with the Square guild who I'd like to thank for helping me out about 3 or 4 days after Thor launched. I went on to lead plenty of breaks with my guild and other people on my friends list.
Thors break off point is his tongue inside his mouth, which is easiest to hit when he is chained down. The tongue is the same as any other break in the game - it breaks after a certain amount of smash or secondary weapon damage is done to it, or any attack that has a chance to knockdown (such as Magic Arrow), but not attacks with no knockdown chance like Lann or Fionas normal attacks. However getting the break is complicated by several factors that make it the most challenging break in the game thus far.
When trying to hit the tongue, it drops down to the floor about a second after being chained. It will then move around a bit, making it a difficult moving target to hit at times. It's best to memorize its movement pattern so you don't end up whiffing your attacks or hitting the mouth. If anyone hits the mouth or body while Thor is chained, the chains will break early (no, I'm not interested in Korean footage trying to prove this wrong, do it on the NA server if you want me to believe you). Sometimes the chains will break at random if nobody hits the tongue after it's been on the ground for a second or so. This is a big pitfall for groups because it only takes one badly aimed attack to cause the chain to break, and repeated early breaks can eat through your chains fast.
Thor is chained by chaining the far ends of both sides of his mouth. Be careful not to aim too close to the tip of his mouth, or you risk your chain auto-correcting to the opposite mouth, which is usually a fail. When chaining you do not need to 'pull back' to keep him chained longer. Pulling back might pull the sides of his mouth farther apart, though, lowering the risk of someone hitting the mouth.
When rechaining Thor, watch for your chain to drop off his mouth, then immediately retract your chain and begin aiming again, moving closer if necessary. You have a good second or two to fire off another chain before he'll start moving again. If you want your break to succeed quickly you'll need at least two people who are good at repeat chaining Thor.
Unless you're using the object break strategy, everyone should be standing in the middle to keep Thor in a good spot to chain him once he uses his AOE attack. Staff Evies can help by freezing Thor for an easy chain. When Thor is facing the wall, it's a bad time to chain or freeze him as people won't have room to hit the tongue.
The easiest time to chain Thor is after he does his AOE attack that hits the water. The attack hits the water twice spaced far apart enough that it's easy to slip dash through once you get the timing down. It's best to look up at Thor's head – as soon as he starts raising his head and opening his mouth, the first hit of the AOE is about to land, with the next hit about a half second later – practice makes perfect. For this reason it's always recommended that Lanns bring swords to a break run, and Lanns are usually best at getting the break. Fionas can use shield bash in the water to superarmor through the AOE without getting knocked down, but they'll still take damage from it.
There are two strategies for assigning chains. The first strategy is group assignments - people are separated into groups of two, possibly with orders to take the left or right side of Thor. The pros of this strategy are that you won't be wasting chains, but the cons are that if those two people mess up, your run may take a long time or fail. The second strategy is free for all - anyone who isn't assigned to other duties should try to chain Thor. The pros of this strategy are that it's easier to get Thor chained with more people firing chains, but the cons are that you'll burn your chains up faster and waste more of them, so you have less time to break off.
In either strategy I recommend that chainers use F1 when they are in position to chain Thor, or F3 if they're not in position. This helps the chainers see whether there's someone on the other side without having to spot a tiny nameplate and stops chains from being wasted.
Staff Evie: Lay Mana Mines into the tongue. You can consider magic arrow but I don't really trust it to not hit the mouth, and Mines are safe and effective.
Scythe Evie: Hell Quake or Invisible Loom.
Sword Lann: Gust Sting, or Double Crescent. Might try LR as well since you don't have to slip dash before using it, so there's less chance of accidentally slip dashing past the tongue and hitting the mouth. The advantage of Gust Sting is that it doesn't move Lann forward, so all you need to do is find a good spot and keep spamming right click without the risk of hitting the mouth or having to reposition.
Hammer Fiona: LLR or Stigma Hammer.
Sword Fiona: Amaranth Kick.
If you have any suggestions here I'd like to hear them as I am usually chaining and don't have the opportunity to test out different attacks.
If it looks like your run is a fail, you can possibly turn it into chaining practice so it's not a total waste. The fastest way to restart is for everyone to die then the host clicks return to town, then click replay when the mission fail screen appears.
If it looks like your run is a fail, you can possibly turn it into chaining practice so it's not a total waste. The fastest way to restart is for everyone to die then the host clicks return to town, then click replay when the mission fail screen appears. Don't be a douchebag in the group. If you have someone new in your group that messed up, try pointing out what they need to do right next time. This especially applies if you didn't explain something properly – people can't follow orders if you don't issue them or explain your strategy. Never get mad at someone for asking relevant questions. If you're not the group leader, don't start issuing orders.
*
If you start insulting and nerd raging over a video game, and if you refuse to apologize for your nerd raging after the fact, you fail at life and Vindictus. This applies to whether the person was innocent or not. I've been in Thor break runs where the leader failed to explain the strategy, missed almost all of their chains, proceeded to nerd rage on the new invites who were skilled and intelligent players and had done exactly what was asked of them, then refuse to apologize and instead start lying about the incident. It is shameful to the community when such things happen and is a perfect example of what NOT to do when leading a group or trying to behave like a decent human being.
Strategies:
1. Holy Lamp/Spatula/Sword/Object Thing
This strategy relies on the 3 breakoff objects in the 3 corners of the room to get a fast break on the tongue. The break object looks like a small bronze lamp with 3 ornaments dangling inside. From the entrance into Thor's room, they are located in the SW, SE, and NW corners. The objects are fragile and they can easily break, so they must be retrieved quickly. I suspect the reason why this particular object is so good at breaking off is because the game counts each of the dangling coin shaped objects inside the lamp as an invidual object, so you're actually hitting his tongue with 4 objects per swing - that's a lot of smashing per hit considering how fast you can swing it.
The group should be separated into 2-4 chainers, 3 object holders, and 1-3 Evies. It's best to start out by distracting thor in the middle and/or leading him into the NE corner where there isn't an object. The 3 people assigned to objects should grab them asap, and use an fkey to signal they've got theirs. Once the objects are gathered you're ready to start freezing and chaining.
Object holders should stay away from Thor until it's certain that he's being chained. The objects are so powerful that you can break in 2-3 chains, so don't worry if the object holders are not right in Thor's face for the first chain - if you do it right, it won't take more than a few chains anyway. When hitting Thor with the break object, remember to land each swing. Like any object you can pick up, it will still break eventually even if you miss each swing. Remember to right click with it to do smash dmg. I'm fairly sure that you need to right click smash with the lamps to do break damage, so Evies can't use them, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here.
The pros of this strategy are that it only takes 2-3 chains to break if done correctly, and you don't have to worry as much about people hitting the mouth since the objects do most of the work. The cons of this strategy are the fragility of the objects. The slightest touch by Thor will break them. Once the object is broken in half, it's no longer amazingly powerful - you may as well throw it away at that point. At that point if you still haven't got the break, you can choose to restart the run or keep going by using regular smash attacks.
If the initial chainers start running out, you can relay the objects and have the former object holders try chaining. Generally, this run tends to succeed or fail within the first 5 mins of an attempt. If you're going on past 10 mins and objects start breaking, you might consider restarting or trying to do some shield charges if you have Fionas.
2. Shield Charge!!
This strategy depends on Fionas powerful Shield Charge ability to get a break. SP can be built up by duelling ahead of time or hanging around blocking Thors attacks. Fionas need to charge the tongue then heavy stander cancel out of the shield charge so that they don't hit the mouth and break the chains. It's best for one Fiona to use an Fkey to signal the charge. Normally you'll want to press shield charge so that Fiona starts charging the moment the tongue hits the ground. You'll have to time it so that she's finished raising her hand in the air and begins charging shortly after the tongue drops. Even if you don't heavy stander cancel out of the animation, you'll still have done quite a bit of damage to the tongue if the attack was coordinated well.
The pros of this strat are that the breakoff can be done very quickly with enough coordinated Fionas. The cons of this strat are that you need to find at least 4-5 Fionas, and it can be quickly foiled if one of them messes up and hits the mouth before the other Fionas can land their hits. If someone messes up it can take quite a while for everyone regenerate another 4 bars of SP. Also, if you keep messing up and dealing damage without getting the break, Thor will eventually berserk and it will be much, much harder to chain him.
3. 2 chains, 6 Evies
This setup relies on the fact that scythe Evie's invisible loom is a pretty good smash for getting the break, due to its wide and narrow range being able to hit the tongue for a lot of smash damage. It will still take about 4-5 chains assuming nobody messes up, because regular smash attacks are the slowest way to get the break. It's also a setup that allows you to get in all those Evies that are sooo mad that they keep getting kicked from break runs. You may still want to bring one staff Evie for freezing. It's more difficult than the other available strategies but if you have a lot of Evies and not much else, you might want to give it a try.