The notes and suggestions below are provided to help you get through the fight while maintaining decent damage. This is not intended to be a 100% optimal uptime resource, but instead something to help you clear comfortably without risking your party members lives. Notes in here are subject to change as new ideas are developed over the course of the tier!
If you’re looking for general fight vods, I stream regularly and you can poke through my twitch. – I’m not flawless – I make plenty of mistakes and these are just VERY rough weeklies, but hopefully they give you a general idea of how to execute some of the notes below).
Umbra (Savage) | E9s
A Note about Strategies
Which Brambles, Anti Air, and even Empty Plane strategies your group uses will potentially very significantly impact your performance. Sometimes you’ll just have to suck it up, but do try to push for strategies oriented for caster uptime where you can! Plan your lilies wisely, and don’t forget to consider
Brambles
Caster Melee Uptime Evil Seed
Pick a strategy like this one where you don’t have to run far after baiting your brambles. This on here will let you slidecast in after the bramble drop and cuts out a whole movement set other mechanics often make you do. The movement distance to each side to break your tethers is the same, and can be covered in roughly a single GCD, making this extremely comfy.
Single Healer Uptime
Alternatively, another strategy floating around that caters to a White Mage (or Scholar with an Astrologian, but this is a White Mage doc…) specifically follows a standard X shape placement with Tanks NW, healers NE, and DPS SE and SW.
Melee take the inside corner spots and use
Tanks stack and mitigate to keep melee uptime.
The White Mage takes the innermost spot on the healer corner and uses
Personally I prefer the one shown in the diagram as both healers and any caster are able to maintain caster uptime, without sacrificing melee uptime to do it or extra tank cooldowns. However the placement may conflict with some Anti-Air strats, so read on!
Anti-Air & Wide Angle
If you can convince your group to, I suggest doing Rin’s Anti-Air strat – and if you use the diagramed Caster & Melee Uptime Bramble strategy above, a slight modification to Rin’s Anti-Air that Rin has also used!
Just to be extra clear the bramble spot I’m recommending is not the one in the first half of this video!
Modified Rin Anti-Air
The modification to Rin’s Anti-Air strategy is just a shift to the healer stack spots. Rather than on the east and west flank of the inner area which is extremely tight with these bramble drops, you take them in a (relative) north and south spot. After the center circle AOE goes off, move into these stack positions. Tanks still roll their GCD and move to their respective corners as they would in the video above.
Empty Plane
Push for a strategy that allows you as a healer to get a north or south square assignment, specifically for handling the room cleave portion. Unless you’re in a party with no Physical Ranged and also no Summoner (or Red Mage? Not sure how they are with movement in that spot), it’s HIGHLY likely that your lack of movement GCDs are a much bigger cost to the raid if they force you to go east or west. Physical Ranged jobs (Bard, Machinist, Dancer) will lose absolutely nothing having to move from east or west to the respective safe side. Summoners should be able to handle this comfortably.
Dark-Energy Particle Beam (Gaze Protean)
If your group isn’t doing any funny cheeses with the clouds (like letting them in, or trying to
Assize and Clouds
There’s quite a few permutations that have different appropriate responses depending on what your group is doing and their goals.
Speed Memes (Letting all the clouds go in)
Ignore and use Assize on CD.
Hitting all more than one cloud + the boss (3+ targets).
This takes coordination, is generally purely for personal pad. You need your associated melee to move to a corner title so you can take the middle one. Get as close to the boss as possible, and hit Assize.
IF you’re going for maximum pad, you not only need to use Assize on CD, but you need the rest of the group to not kill their cloud immediately, but still help before the clouds get consumed. When your natural Assize comes up and you use it, there’s a tight window of about 5s before the clouds get eaten to use the Assize. This helps ensure you don’t lose a use on the fight by holding, and you hit all 5 targets (4 clouds + boss)
If your group is less coordinated but for some reason still willing to let you pad (seriously, why?), take the same spot as mentioned above, and hit Assize about when the clouds spawn and you’ll hit likely 3 + the boss. This requires holding the Assize before the phase for about 35s.
Hitting your cloud + the boss (2 targets)
You have two options here, depending on group coordination.
If you take the inside square spot, but your DPS are still nuking the rest of their clouds, you can follow the “use on CD” timing to hit your cloud right before it gets consumed. A misery + assize should nuke it. Remember to stand in a position to slow it!
If you think it won’t lose you a use, you can do the same strategy as mentioned in the 3+ section, but while staying on your normally assigned outer square. This means you’ll only hit your cloud and the boss, however. So, hold for 35s, and use it. This is either a break even, or a gain, IF your group somehow manages to kill in that 10s window where you get an extra cast that you normally wouldn’t. With that tight of a window, I wouldn’t recommend holding as the misalignment for the rest of the fight likely isn’t worth it.
Temperance Suggestions
- (~1:00) The first Obscure Woods cast is a good spot.
- (~4:30) Deluge of Darkness (if you time it right you can have it cover the stack-or-protean mechanic beforehand, as well as this hit)
- The next (last?) use will depend a lot on your kill time, but literally any raidwide AOE is handy.
Litany (Savage) | E10s
Make heavy use of lilies (
Throne of Shadow (Get out)
The first and second Throne of Shadow cast times up nicely with your dot refresh. Use the
Temperance Suggestions
- {~2:00) Having it cover the subsequent numbered stack hits (after the Dualspell cast) is very comfy!
- (~4:00) Deepshadow Nova, this is free and not a big deal if you miss it. You have two choices for the next spot, one is right at the 6 minute mark so if you want to cover that, make sure this one goes out a good bit before the Nova cast so it’s up again in time.
- Your Choice:
(~6:00) Voidgate
(~7:00) Pitch Bog + Orbs
The latter is probably the better option, but it makes your last use a little tight. Also depends on where your co-healer and party are mitigating. - (~9:20) Voidgate Amplifier (Can cover some of the tower damage, etc.)
Anamorphosis (Savage) | E11s
Just don’t fall off. Also, downtime lilies weeeee!
Also try to stand outside of his hitbox each time Bound of Faith is coming up (the tether mechanic). It’ll force you out of his hitbox if you’re inside it, interrupting your cast.
Presence of Mind
For general groups with an expected kill time at or above 10:45, your second one will come back while the boss is untargetable. So, use it right when the boss comes back at the 3-minute mark. If you hit it immediately as the boss is targetable you should be able to get a full use of it at 5:30 before the boss jumps at 5:50. It’s tight. The next one is even tighter but still possible if you use it right at 8:00, the boss jumps around 8:17 / 8:18 give or take. This means if you’re still killing at 10:45 or over, you get one final use at 10:30. Tl;dr on cooldown whenever the boss is targetable.
— Timings: 0:00, 3:00, 5:30, 8:00, 10:30.
For groups killing under 10:45, you won’t get five whole uses. This means you’re better off holding for better raid buff alignment. It’s actually pretty comfy since the boss goes untargetable at the 6 minute mark anyways.
— Timings: 0:00, 3:00, 6:30, 9:00
Assize Quick Tip
You can hold your 3:45 Assize for 15s and use it with the 4:00
Temperance Suggestions
Burnished Glories (the bleed dot) and the Lightning Cycle if you’re seeing it. Most of the Burnished uses can also cover another AOE before or after, like Powder Mark.
- (~1:00) Burnished Glory
- (~3:20) Burnished Glory OR
- (~4:20) Burnished Glory
- (~6:45) Burnished Glory
- (9:00+) Lightning Cycle (random)
For this one, Lightning tends to be the most difficult to heal through because players spread out to take the hit, and then do the subsequent mechanics. Temperance’s range here makes it best paired. However pairing it specifically for the Lightning Elemental break means not using it on the Burnished Glory beforehand. That said if you’re killing sometime before seeing all three and/or want to gamble, you can use it on the Burnished Glory bleed dot and likely have it still cover the Elemental Break damage after – you just don’t know which element is coming up when Burnished Glory is cast.
Eternity (Savage) | E12s (Part 1)
As of patch 5.45 the main raidwide AOE's name has changed from Obliteration to Maleficium. Obliteration is now the name of the laser cast from the statues and is only used once.
Rapturous Reach, Shiva
A quick note, if you get Shiva for the first set of mechanics (spread), depending on the elemental safe spots, dead under the boss may be safe, assuming all four melee players spread around the boss at max melee. This can be much comfier for a white mage to handle the movement if you have an “in” element cast (like Levi + Ifrit or Levi + Garuda … no, not me Levi).
The Rapturous Reach cleave is just a bit more than half of the arena. You can use the lines on the map to help ensure you’re slidecasting to a safe spot! The blue line here is drawn just to show the straight south line from the middle of the arena. The white line is centered on diagonal in the arena floor that you can use to know you’re safe! There’s a good bit of room to the side of it, so you don’t have to go all the way to/past it.
This is the same Rapturous Reach used in the statues phase as well as during lions. The attack is centered on the boss, so while the cleave may shift during statues, you can use this same visual for the safe spot from the cleave during Lions!
Junction Shiva
Where your
Safety Healing Plan:
I go into this with 2 lilies banked and get the 3rd while the arena is still covered in ice. Flex according to your total lily amount.
- Top the party after Diamond Dust (
Cure III +Medica II if you’re progging, if people are geared you may be fine with just a Med2) - Slidecast to your stack spot
- Slidecast to your spread spot
Dia refresh comes up here, hit it, popTemperance and move into the middle during the GCDAfflatus Rapture and weavePlenary Indulgence while you’re in the middle, move to the safe spot and pay attention to your tether.Medica II – this becomes optional when people are more geared, but it’s needed for squishy casters if you/they are still a low ilvl. Can replace with aGlare or a Misery as desired. If you want the weave + movement spot on the Glare, weaveSwiftcast with the previous Rapture.Surecast in one of the above instant GCDs (e.g., I do it with the Misery)Afflatus Rapture before the knockback damage, weaveAssize with this, but make sure Assize is going out after the knockback damage. The Rapture can go after the damage instead if needed. Use this GCD and/or this + a swifted GCD to move to your safe spot across from your tether.- If you have one more, you can
Afflatus Rapture after the knockback damage to get to your edge spot away from your tether. OR you can do it after the tether damage resolves to heal + move to the middle before the next maleficium (formerly obliteration) is cast.
Junction Titan
You’ve probably exhausted all your lilies in the Shiva phase, but you should have about two going into Titan, and will get a third. Spread one between each of the three sets to help you heal!
Safety Healing Plan:
Feel free to start cutting as the group is safer/depending on your comp.
Assize should come up with your naturalDia refresh to add some healing after the initial Earth Fury cast.- 1)
Medica II going into the first set, andAfflatus Rapture to get your required spot - 2)
Afflatus Rapture to move into the center, weavePlenary Indulgence .Cure III and slidecast to your required spot. - 3)
Afflatus Rapture to move in. ThenMedica II .Afflatus Misery or your naturalDia can be used to move to your final spot.
Remember, the drop damage from the bombs dropping is avoidable. (See the image in Momo’s Tweet on the right)
PSA to the people who didn't know you can actually dodge the impact damage during Titan phase on the E12S door boss. It shaves off roughly around 35k of incoming damage which is a pretty substantial amount. pic.twitter.com/39vH4HmKJ9
— Momo (@FFXIVMomo) December 27, 2020
It’s possible to blow two lilies earlier to get the Misery under raid buffs, but I’d only recommend doing this after communicating with your co-healer so they can provide extra healing on the third set to make up for your lack of a Rapture.
Lionsblaze
You should have three lilies, and an assize to heal with, and the same three lilies plus the dia refresh to move with. Use accordingly.
Temperance Suggestions
Use during Junction Shiva as mentioned above, then on any raid AOE you want. Maleficium, the Obliteration Laser, or the Classical Sculpture stacks work just fine. Figure out where the rest of your party has mitigation planned and backfill. You can get one at 4 minutes, one at 6 and one at 8 if you wanted!
Alternatively, if you think you’re plenty comfy for Shiva, you can plan it to cover two hits from the Junction Titan phase. If you do this, you can actually cover one of the early phase hits, and net an additional use over the fight (kill time dependent of course). This may not actually work out better for mitigation however, so talk to your group about it!
Eternity (Savage) | E12s (Part 2)
Should you hold Assize in the opener to heal Hell’s Judgement?
I’ve heard this asked a lot so wanted to address it directly. Short answer, no.
The long answer is that you stand a chance of losing a use to do so, you likely don’t need the extra heal / still need a GCD heal anyways so you’re probably not saving anything / are probably clipping to do so, etc. I’ve heard a lot of people say “it lines up nicely for healing,” but so does using it on CD. Notably with either timing you still come down to having it come back on CD during Advanced Relativity (downtime) so it’s kind of 6 one way, half dozen the other.
Downtime Lilies + Looking away
Try to hit a lily as you’re getting snapped for rewind mechanics, and blow some during Advanced Relativity downtime. You can use one during Basic as well to handle the look-away for the gaze mechanic. Keep one during Advanced to heal at the end of it, before the stack damage.
Temperance Suggestions
For prog, or for a party comp lacking some mitigation tools, you may want to just default to all the relativities. You should be able to
However for better healer GCD & mitigation efficiency you may want to use your first Temperance on the damage coming right after the knockback from darkest dance (the second “Spell-In-Waiting” hit) which will then cover the Shockwave Pulsar following it too. You can apply this with your one minute
Also you’ll get one Temperance during Terminal, plan with the group where they want this as ALL your mitigation is needed, and should be spaced out. As temperance is quite comfy, using it on the last set is a good idea if you lack the communication (and if you’re seeing the whole thing).
VODs, PoVs & Streams
More coming soon!
