TheFinal Fantasy 14raid,Dragonsong’s Reprise: Ultimate, has a couple of phases. The second phase is against King Thordan and can only be completed after defeating Adelphel, Grinnaux, and Cheribert in the first phase. The first phase itself is hard, but there is good news. Once the raid gets past the first phase,the party has reached a checkpoint. This means that even if the party wipes to Thordan, they can start at the beginning of the second phase and not need to go up against those three knights again.
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The bad news is that phase two is even more difficult than the first phase, with the raid group needing atank swap, lots of mitigation, partners, adjusting to tethers, light party splits, and dodging many attacks at once. The phase has even more enemies than the first, with Thordan as well as his many knights.
Setting Up And First Mechanics
One part of this phase’s set-up is that the raid will want tosplit themselves into two light party groups. Each one should have a tank,two DPS, and a healer. These groups will be utilized for two mechanics in the fight. There will also bemechanics that require partners, so a DPS should pair with Tanks and Healers. Players will also want tomark up the arena with 1, 2, 3, and 4 around the intercardinals and A, B, C, and D around cardinals.
Throughout this fight, Thordan will auto-cleave the area in front of him, so themain tank should be away from the rest of the partyto direct the cleave away from them. Thordan’s first named attack isAscalon’s Mercy Concealed. For this, the entire party shouldstackbefore the cast bar finishes. Once it finishes, players will want tomove to the sides. Immediately after that, themain tank(who will want to be away from the party at this point) will takethree-cone attacks. The main tank will want somemitigation and healer supportfor these attacks.
The Knights Come In And Attack At Once
Thordan will now summon his knights and castStrength of the Ward. The knights will be summoned and jump away. Right as they jump, players will want tosplit into light parties groups one and two. Group one should stand in the direction of intercardinal 1 to the northwest and group two will want to stand in the direction of intercardinal 3 to the southeast. Nowthree different attacks are coming at once. Here is what they do:
Lightning Storm:Cast by Thordan, will require the players to spread.
Heavy Impact:Cast by a knight in the middle which will be an earthen wave AOE that will start from the middle and move out in waves.
Spiral Thrust:Cast by three knights at different cardinals on the outer edges of the arena. They will be dashing through the middle.
These attacks take up a lot of the arena, but there will betwo safe spots that are directly opposite each other.Parties one and two will need to rotate to those safe spots and spread within them. The Spiral Thrusts and Lightning Storm will happen at once and the first wave of Heavy Impact will begin. As the Heavy Impact spreads its wave outwards, Thordan will prepareanother Ascalon’s Mercy Concealed.
At this point, the party should stack back together and dodge the Heavy Impact. Parties may need to dodge in different waves depending on the knight’s position (which can change but is always around the middle). The fourth wave of Heavy Impact will go at the same time as Thordan’s Ascalon’s Mercy, which groups one and two will want to dodge to the side as he hits north and south.
Puddles, Blue Markers, And Dragon’s Rage
Now four knights will spawn in.Players will want to position themselves in the middle. Eightdark puddleswill form on the arena. They will grow and leavefour safe spots. While this happens,three players will also be targetedwith blue markers. They will be hit with a big AOE that causes physical vulnerability.
The marked players will want to quicklyfollow three moving knights to safe spotsand get to the edge so as to not share their AOE with others.Every other player will want to stack on the remaining safe spotwith no blue marker players. Some tower markers will start appearing, but the party does not need to worry about them just yet.
Tanks actually have a special job before going to a safe spot. They need to watch the knights as they will betethering two random players.Each tank needs to pick up a tetherbefore going to their safe spot and will want to stand at the side edges to avoid clipping others. Thordan will also drop down and begin to castDragon’s Rage. This will require all five non-blue-marked players to stack and share the damage.Everything will go off at once. Blue markers will have large AOEs, Dragon’s Rage will hit the stacked group, and the tanks will get dashed at by the tethered knights and stunned.
Towers, Ancient Quaga, And Heavenly Heel
After everything goes off and the two tanks are stunned, now is the time to take care of the towers. The six non-stunned players will have to spread out to them. There should be atower directly in front of the players that were marked in blue, so they can just go to those. The other three players will have to take thetowers near where Thordan was. While they do this, the tanks will be takingthree tank bustersfrom the knights that stunned them.
Thordan will then spawn in the middle and castAncient Quaga. It is araid-wide attackthat requiresmitigation, so the players should all come towards the middle and prepare. Themain tank needs to be away from other places, as Thordan will begin doing his auto cone attacks again. Next, Thordan will castHeavenly Heel, which is a strongtank busterthat requires atank swap. The off-tank will need to be away from both the party and main tank when the swap happens because they will then have three cleaving conal tank busters directed at them.
Sanctity Of The Ward And Sword Markers
The knights are all back and Thordan will castSanctity of the Ward. Players will want to pre-position in the middle of the arena. Three knights will spawn in the middle and adragon’s eye will appear on the outside. Two paladin knights will be standing opposite each other and will either lookclockwise or counterclockwise. Which way they face will determine which direction to dodge their attack.
Two players will getsword markersabove their heads, one with one sword and one with two swords. They are marked by the third knight, a Dark Knight who will jump on one, then two, and then one, and two again. The marked players cannot soak this damage alone and will need tostack with light parties. Group one will want to bein frontof the Dark Knight and group two will bebehindthe Dark Knight. This could be done with the arranged light party groups one and two, but because marked players are random, that may not always work and players will have to adjust.
As this happens, Thordan will also cast a gaze attack which will be mirrored by the dragon’s eye. Both light parities should go to theopposite ends of the arenaand wait for the paladins to begin theirclockwise or counterclockwiseattack. They’ll need to make sure tolook away from Thordan and the dragon eye. Then, the paladins will do their clock explosion attack, and light parties will move around the arena together to avoid the explosions while the Dark Knight jumps between groups to deal damage.Mitigationis needed and healers will need tohealwhile all this happens.
Partners, Meteors, And More Towers
Now is the time to spread andstack with a partnerchosen during set-up. Partners will want to stand in cardinals. Thordan is going to stab the ground and make theouter edge of the arena unsafe. A knight will also castHiernal Stormas four circles appear in the area at each of the intercardinals. The partners will absorb icy stacks. As this happens,two players will be targeted with red markers. These players, after taking the stacked damage with their partner, will need to run around the arena, as they will be dropping meteors, and meteors that touch each other will explode and cause massive damage.
There is very little room at this point, so players will need to be careful. Themarked players will want to be opposite each other, so partners may need to swap. Additionally,eight towerswill now appear. The partners need to split to theirnearest two towersafter taking their stacked damage. This may take some adjustment, as the towers are not spread evenly. Those that will be spreading meteors need to be careful and make sure they take towers that are at opposite ends of the arena.
After the stacked damage and towers, the marked players must now runaround the arena with the meteors until they are opposite where they started. It is recommended for the marked players to run in a sort ofzig-zag motionto make sure the meteors do not touch. As the marked players run and drop meteors,eight more towers will spawnon the outer edges of the arena. Players will need to adjust to standing between all of the towers.
Faith Unmoving, Ultimate End, And The Last Parts
While players are adjusting to the eight outer towers, a knight in the middle will castFaith Unmoving. This is apushback attackthat can knock players out of the arena. Everyone on the outside mustcast knockback immunitywhile those in the middle can ride it to make it to their tower. By now, seven meteors were dropped by each marked player and they can go to their towers. The puddles will disappear, the knockback will happen, and the towers each get soaked by a player.
After the towers are done, the entire raid group shouldstack to the north at the set-up mark A. Thordan will appear and cast his ultimate attack, Ultimate End, and change the arena. This willrequire heavy mitigationas it israid-wide damage. If the party survives that, the rest is easy. Thordan is weakened now and can only castBroad Swingin different directions. Players can just dodge by moving behind him and then moving into where he first cleaved to avoid the other two.
Thordan will finally cast Aetheric Burst, his enrage. The party just has to get him to zero health before the cast goes off and wipes the party. If he is defeated, the party should stack in the middle and mitigate as they transition into phase three of this challenging yet enjoyable raid.
Final Fantasy 14is available now on PC, PS4, and PS5.
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