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With the recent addition of Occult Crescent: North Horn in Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail, we saw a huge new zone open up, and with it, various new bosses to take down. These Critical Engagements help players not only level up new Phantom Jobs and engage with a bevy of new mechanics.

As soon as players got off Dancing Mad Ultimate raid, Square Enix just had to include another reminder of everyone’s favorite clown. This isn’t particularly linked to the Kefka raid, but Elm Gigas seems to use the same rig with some minor adjustments, and, of course, the attacks are different. Still, we can’t help but think of a more basic Kefka in Occult Crescent.

Starting things off like a traditional raid, Elm Gigas will unleash a powerful raidwide that will deal roughly half a normal player’s health. Try to mitigate this as much as possible.

The first major mechanic, Gigas will summon eight circular blades around the arena, three on each side of the boss, and two in front and back of him. These will move in random directions, presumably targeted at one random player, dealing damage whenever they hit someone.

While the spinning blades are going around the arena, Gigas will turn in a random direction and perform Spinning Sweep. This is a cone attack that encompasses one fourth of the arena. Get to the back or sides of Gigas to avoid the heavy-hitting attack.

Immediately after the cone attack, all the spinning blades will stop in place and then perform cross attacks on the north, south, east and west positions. It’s easy to spot where the blades cross over the most as they’re bright orange, but it’s also easy not to recognize when one telegraph is on the field because there’s so much clutter.

Be ready to disengage from the boss. While there might be a sliver of safe spots, there are instances where everything is covered up on the inside, so it's best not to get too greedy.

Gigas will then conclude the mech with a raidwide, which will likely kill anyone (outside of tanks) who gets hit by the last mechanic and hasn’t healed up or used a personal mitigation.

Elm Gigas will then cast this new ability and power up. This will drop four massive AOEs rotating in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. Go to where the fourth AOE is placed and move into the first to avoid them all.

The next move will happen shortly after Elm Gigas teleports to the middle of the arena. This attack will have both a point-blank AOE along with a cross attack. This is similar to Unbowed Spirit, where he summons various spinning blades that will rotate around the arena.

Instead of with Hurricane, these blades won’t be moving in a random direction. They will rotate in a clockwise motion around the boss based on where they spawn and shoot line AOEs at a random player. Be sure to watch your footing as each hit you take will give you a stack of vulnerability.

All while this is happening, Elm Gigas will perform yet another one-fourth room cleave in a random direction. The difference is that he will do this two times instead of just one. This can catch you off guard if you’re only paying attention to the line AOEs.

Inspirited Cyclone

To finish everything off, instead of cross-shaped AOEs coming from the spinning blades, they will instead explode in a large point-blank attack. Head to one of the four safe spots to avoid this attack. It should give you a decent amount of time to do so.

Afterward, these mechanics will repeat, but the Inspirited Hurricane and Unbowed Spirit will swap, with the latter now including the line AOEs while the mechanic is going on. There aren’t too many mechanics in this fight, but the ones that are here overlap quite a bit just to be challenging enough.

• 260-420 Knowledge
• 720 Phantom EXP
• 10 Tomestones of Mnemonics
• 20 Tomestones of Mathematics

• 1 Notes on the Elm Gigas
• 10 Phantom Dispeller y (for Phantom Weapon step)
• Occult Bracelet of Blood
• Occult Bracelet of Magic

Released July 2, 2024

ESRB Teen // Blood, Language, Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence

Base Game Final Fantasy 14

Developer(s) Square Enix

Publisher(s) Square Enix

Multiplayer Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op

Engine Proprietary