Blue Mage Raid Guide for Kefka (O8S)

The urge to flip switches is almost irresistible...even when you know full well the consequences for doing so. Once more your finger moves as if of its own accord, and activates the second phase of the Savage Initiative. As the gentle arrangement drifts from the terminal, you are transported to a remembered vista of the Sigmascape, each lapping wave of the song swelling the boundary of your memories...

This is the second fight in the Omega Blue raid series and is less chaotic than O4S, but more mechanically intense. Overall it's quite straightforward, but there are a handful of mechanics that can be very tricky.

This guide is written assuming you have all Blue Mage spells, appropriate gear, and know how to play your chosen role.

If you prefer video format, there is a full video guide available below.

For this fight I would recommend having the standard one tank mimic, two healer mimics, and five DPS mimics.

• Diamondback
• Mighty Guard

• Mana Charge: Stores next spellcast to be repeated later.
• Mana Release: Uses spell stored by Mana Charge.
• Flagrant Fire: Either stack damage or individual AoE damage.
• Thrumming Thunder: Horizontal and vertical line AoEs.
• Blizzard Blitz: Either a donut or circle AoE around Kefka.
• Hyperdrive: AoE tankbuster.
• Ultima Upsurge: Heavy-hitting raidwide AoE.
• Graven Image: Summons a statue which performs various mechanics depending on where in the fight it happens.
• Inexorable Will: Ground-targeted AoE spell underneath players.
• Wave Cannon: Beam AoE on two random players.
• Pulse Wave: Tethers four players and knocks back players from Graven Image statue.
• Indomitable Will: Stack damage AoE on four players.
• Revolting Ruin: Cone AoE in front of the boss.
• Light of Judgment: Devastating raidwide AoE.
• Shockwave: Raidwide damage and knockback from statue.
• Gravitas: Light AoE on four players that leaves behind a puddle that applies a lethal bleed debuff.
• Vitrophyre: Light AoE on four players with huge knockback on nearby players.
• Aero Assault: Moderate AoE with huge knockback from the boss.

Kefka's first phase is a bit wacky as one might expect, but it's quite easy once you know the mechanics. Most of the fight revolves around dealing with Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder effects and the various Graven Image mechanics. As with many fights you will want to assign each person in the party a clock position for spreading out on later mechanics.

Kefka opens up with a Mana Charge to store a Flagrant Fire. Look at the markers to determine if it's a spread or stack, and then also look at Kefka to determine if it's real or fake. If there are question marks floating around Kefka then the effect is the opposite of what the target indicator shows. For example, if you see a stack marker and question marks around Kefka, then you need to spread. Resolve the first mechanic and stay away from the tank, as Kefka will use Hyperdrive right after. This buster hits quite hard but Diamondback trivializes it.

After Hyperdrive, Kefka will use Mana Release and repeat whatever the fire mechanic was from before. If you spread before, spread again. If you stacked before, stack again.

Kefka will then use Thrumming Thunder and line AoEs will appear on the ground. This one can also be fake like with Fire, so avoid the AoEs if it's real or stand in the intersections of the line AoEs if it's fake. Kefka will then cast Ultima Upsurge before going into our first proper mechanic.

Kefka casts Graven Image and a gigantic statue will appear at the front of the arena. This mechanic will drop a bunch of Inexorable Will AoEs on the ground, target players with Wave Cannon and Pulse Wave, then target players with Indomitable Will. All of the targeting for this is completely random, so we'll just cheese it with Mighty Guard and Diamondback since he's untargetable anyway. Have everyone stack in the center of the arena with Mighty Guard on. Once the first AoEs appear, have everyone spread out to their clock positions, wait about one second, then hardcast (no Swiftcast) Diamondback. All of the effects will go off but everyone should be safe. Once the effect ends, find where Kefka is teleporting to on the edge of the arena and run behind so you don't get hit by Revolting Ruin. Immediately after, Kefka will use Light of Judgment which will hit extremely hard because of our Vulnerability Up debuffs. Mitigate with Addle, Bad Breath, and Gobskin. Magic Hammer can be helpful, and you can also just leave Mighty Guard on until after the cast.

After Graven Image 1 resolves, Kefka will store a Thunder and Blizzard Blitz cast back to back. Handle these the same way as before, again determining if each cast is real or fake. Kefka will cast Graven Image again. This time a statue will appear on the west side of the arena and start casting Shockwave, which will cause a knockback from the orb. Look closely because during the cast it may swap to the east side. Go to whichever side the knockback will come from, and after the knockback dodge the Thunder and Blitz combo from Mana Release that was stored before.

Kefka will use Hyperdrive and Ultima Upsurge before casting Graven Image again. Graven Image 3 goes through the sequence of Gravitas, Vitrophyre, half-room cleave, Gravitas again, and then Aero Assault. Since the targeting for this is random and we want to control where the puddles actually appear, we will again put on Mighty Guard and stack in the center of the arena. As soon as the first Gravitas goes out, spread to your clock positions for Vitrophyre. Angel's Snack and White Wind are extremely important here as there is tons of damage going out. Once the Vitrophyre goes off, move to the safe side of the arena. You can tell which side is safe by looking at the statue in front to see where it is cleaving. After the cleave resolves and the center puddles disappear, move back to the center before spreading after Gravitas again. After the second Vitrophyre, use Surecast to negate the knockback from Aero Assault. Kefka finishes with another Light of Judgment so mitigate appropriately.

After Graven Image 3, Kefka will cast Flagrant Fire and store it with Mana Charge again. He will then cast Ultima Upsurge followed by Graven Image again. This time the statue will only be there for cleaving half of the room. Determine which side is safe, move to it, and then resolve the Flagrant Fire that was stored before, since Kefka will be casting Mana Release at the same time as the cleave. Kefka will use another Thrumming Thunder, Ultima Upsurge, and Hyperdrive before starting Graven Image 4.

Graven Image 4 has a lot of stuff going on and is honestly a bit of a nightmare. For most groups I would just consider this to be the enrage, so I am not going to go into detail on it.

Kefka's Final Sting threshold is 65%, since he transitions at 60%. Once he is at 65%, apply Off-guard, then use Moon Flute, any Primal abilities you have, and finish with Whistle and Final Sting. At least one person needs to stay alive during the transition or else you will need to do the phase again. Most groups will be able to Final Sting shortly after Graven Image 3.

Phase 2 has a ton going on and is pretty tough, but it's extremely consistent once you're comfortable with the mechanics. The phase mostly comes down to whether or not the party is able to execute Forsaken 1 and 2 correctly. This phase has weird timing at the beginning where we need to not be Waning 30 seconds in, so Moon Flute openers need to be modified. Players should enter Moon Flute when their pull timer hits 0. This means that Tingle needs to be cast after Moon Flute, which modifies the opener a bit. The easiest change that can be made is to just drop The Rose of Destruction and move all the other GCDs up one position. It's suboptimal, but it's the only way to be safe during Celestriad. Additionally, one person should be designated the role of "wing baiter," which will function the same as "drill baiter" in A8S.

• Diamondback
• Mighty Guard

Kefka has many of the same abilities as the first phase, but also adds the following:

• Heartless Angel: Sets all players' HP to 1.
• Ultima: Heavy-hitting raidwide AoE.
• Celestriad: Casts all variations of Blizzard Blitz, Flagrant Fire, and Thrumming Thunder in succession.
• Forsaken: Heavy-hitting raidwide AoE that signals the start of various raid mechanics.
• Heartless Archangel: Sets all players' HP to 1 and gives them an Uncurable debuff. Uncurable lasts for 3 seconds if the player is at full health before the cast finishes, or 12 seconds if they are not at full health.
• The Mad Head: Spawns four skulls that tether to random players and slowly move towards them. Explodes on contact and applies a Magic Vulnerability Up debuff. If left for too long it explodes and hits everyone.
• Wings of Destruction(Single): Half-room cleave on whichever side of Kefka has a glowing wing.
• Wings of Destruction (Double): Targets the closest and furthest target with a moderate AoE tankbuster.
• Trine (Small): Spawns a bunch of small triangles whose points explode and deal AoE damage after a delay.
• Trine (Large): Spawns a large triangle and three small triangles whose points explode and deal AoE damage after a delay.
• Futures Numbered: Stack damage on primary target followed by huge cleave in front of the boss.
• Pasts forgotten: Stack damage on primary target followed by huge cleave behind the boss.
• Ultimate Embrace: Heavy-hitting shared tankbuster.
• Starstrafe: Various meteor AoEs, explained below in Forsaken 2.
• Future's End: Spawns four clones that charge players and deals moderate damage followed by a cleave in front of the clone.
• Past's End: Spawns four clones that charge players and deals moderate damage followed by a cleave behind the clone.
• All Things Ending: Triggers the cleave damage from Future's and Past's End.

Kefka opens up the phase with Heartless Angel followed by Ultima. Heal back to full and mitigate the Ultima cast as needed. Kefka will then use Hyperdrive which now applies a bleed debuff. The bleed isn't applied if no actual damage is taken, so Diamondback combined with Gobskin are helpful here. It is important that Kefka is tanked in the exact center of the arena for Celestriad since the positioning is quite precise.

For Celestriad we'll use what we call "Celestriad Positions." Using the clock spread spots from before, have the cardinal positions rotate clockwise (N/E/S/W rotate to NE/SE/SW/NW) to find partners with whom they'll share a quadrant. Thrumming Thunder will cause the center horizontal and vertical lines to be unsafe, and Blizzard Blitz will cause the center circle to be unsafe, so players should go to their Celestriad Positions a small distance away from the center. They should be about halfway between the edge of the Blizzard Blitz circle and the edge of the arena to create space, since right after one player will be targeted with a Flagrant Fire stack and that person needs to Diamondback. Everyone else will step into the center to dodge the Blizzard Blitz donut, and then move to their clock positions in the center circle after Thrumming Thunder goes off in order to spread for the Flagrant Fire spread. The timing can take a few tries to get used to, but fortunately this is the first mechanic so we get plenty of opportunities to practice it. The timing for the tank is a bit awkward here with the buster and Celestriad. I recommend that the tank Diamondback early for Hyperdrive so that they can then handle the rest of Celestriad without being stuck in place.

Heal up after Celestriad since Kefka will use Ultima right after, and then we go into our first Forsaken mechanic.

Forsaken 1 is slightly tricky but we will see it multiple times throughout the fight so it's important to be able to handle it correctly. Kefka will cast Heartless Archangel to set everyone's HP to 1 and apply an Uncurable debuff. He will then spawn three Starstrafe towers: one on the west, one on the east, and one in the center. These need exactly two people in each to be resolved correctly or else they will blow up. He also spawns four skulls with The Mad Head that will target four random players. He will cast Wings of Destruction (Double) and Ultima then repeat the previous steps. In full, Forsaken 1 follows these steps:

1. Forsaken AoE.
2. Heartless Archangel
3. Towers soaked by players
4. Skulls popped
5. Wings of Destruction (Double)
6. Ultima
7. Second towers soaked by players
8. Skulls popped
9. Light of Judgment

It's simplest to look at each mechanic independently first and then see how they play out together.

We need two players to soak each Starstrafe tower. We determine the east and west soaks based on who is tethered to skulls. The skulls spawn in the four intercardinal directions. Whoever is tethered to the east skulls should soak the west tower, and whoever is tethered to the west skulls should soak the east tower. This provides the greatest distance between the skulls and the player they're tethered to. The middle tower needs to be soaked by two players that were not tethered to skulls. This can be called out verbally, but that can be confusing if multiple people say it at the same time. Instead, we can use the following self-marking macro to make it easier:

        /mk ignore <me> <wait.5>
        /mk off <me>
    

The way this macro works is it will apply the red circle marker over yourself. Whoever hits it first gets the "1" and whoever hits it second gets the "2." If someone hits it after this, nothing happens. After 5 seconds the marker will be removed. When the tethers go out if you see you don't have a tether, press the macro to try to mark yourself. Do note that based on ping it can jump around a bit until it settles on two people at which point it is "locked." The two people who have the marker on their head will soak the center tower.

To handle the skulls, we need to pop them before they explode on their own and make sure that we don't hit anyone else. We also need to wait for the Uncurable debuff to go away so we can heal before popping them. They don't hit very hard on their own, but they do apply a Magic Vulnerability Up debuff so getting hit by multiple will kill you. After soaking a tower, move to the north or south based on where your skull is coming from. If your skull spawned in the north, exit the tower to the north. If your skull spawned in the south, exit the tower to the south. Once it's away from everyone else move into it to pop it.

Shortly after the skulls are popped, Kefka will cast Wings of Destruction (Double). Have the Wing baiter move to the edge of the arena to bait one, and the tank move directly under the boss to bait the other. The rest of the party should be roughly at max melee ranged. Wings of Destruction is survivable with just Mighty Guard if the player is at full health, but extra mitigations such as Addle and Bad Breath can be helpful.

After Wings, Kefka uses Ultima before spawning another set of towers and skulls. Resolve these the same way as before and heal up for the Light of Judgment cast. The tank should point the boss straight north to make the next mechanic more consistent.

Kefka casts Trine (Small) and spawns three sets of triangles at various locations on the ground. Our goal is to find a triangle in the third set, wait for the first set to explode, and then move to where the first set was. During this, Kefka will use Wings of Destruction (Single) and make either the west or east side of the arena unsafe. Kefka finishes with another Wings of Destruction (Double) which needs to be baited the same way as before. The order to handle this is to identify east/west safe, then the starting position, then the position to move into, and then bait resolve Wings (Double). I recommend just having someone who is confident call out the motions and follow them, as it can be quite hard to read.

After Wings resolves, Kefka will cast Ultima followed by either Futures Numbered or Pasts Forgotten. To resolve this, stack behind Kefka and as soon as he moves handle Future/Past. Future cleaves in front ("your future is ahead of you") and Past cleaves behind ("your past is behind you"). If it's Past, the party can just stack and stay. If it's Future, the party will stack and then run through. Immediately after Kefka will cast Ultimate Embrace followed by Hyperdrive. Diamondback lasts long enough to mitigate both hits. He follows this up with another Ultima before we go into Forsaken 2.

Forsaken 2 is an absolute nightmare, with tons of meteors, towers, and clones going off all over the place. In full, Forsaken 2 follows these steps:

1. Two furthest players targeted by Starstrafe Prey markers which drops four meteors that leave behind puddles that slow and deal massive damage.
2. Spawns two two-person towers, one on the east and one on the west.
3. Targets two players with five ground-targeted AoEs.
4. Spawns one four-person tower at the north.
5. Spawns four clones that jump at random players.
6. Spawns four two-person towers, two on the east and two on the west.
7. Targets one player with a stack marker.
8. Targets one player with a proximity marker.
9. Light of Judgment

There is a lot going on in this mechanic, but luckily we can cheese most of it. The easiest way to handle this is:

1. Everyone use Mighty Guard and stack in the middle.
2. Wing baiters move slightly out of center to bait Starstrafe Prey, then return to the center.
3. Have (both) healers use Angel's Snack just before Starstrafe Ground AoEs appear.
4. Everyone stutter-steps out to their clock position.
5. Clones charge, non-Prey players use Diamondback.
6. After stepping out of the fourth meteor AoE, Prey players use Swiftcast and Diamondback.
7. Watch the show.
8. After Light of Judgment, turn off Mighty Guard.

The video guide does not show this strategy, but you can reference this clip to see how it all plays out. You will receive a ton of Damage Down debuffs and be doing almost no damage, so you might as well keep Mighty Guard on until they wear off. This method is way easier than trying to resolve the mechanic "properly."

After Forsaken 2 resolves, Kefka will cast Celestriad again which is handled the same way as before, but there will be a Wings (Single) towards the end of it so move to the safe side.

Kefka will cast Trine (Large) which will be handled in one of two ways. If the small triangles make the outside unsafe, then we stack in the dead center of the arena. The center of the large triangle is safe when the points explode. However, if there is a small triangle in the center then we need to move to the outside of the arena where there is no small triangle. After Trine (Large), Kefka will do another Futures Numbered / Pasts Forgotten, a Wings (Double), a tankbuster combo, an Ultima, and then we go into Forsaken 3.

On paper, Forsaken 3 is quite scary. In practice, it's actually not that bad. In this mechanic the Graven Image statue will appear and tether four people to knock them back, Kefka will cast Ultimate Embrace and then spawn two two-person towers and one four-person tower, the statue with confuse four people and put four people to sleep, Kefka will cast Ultima and spawn two more two-person towers, then one cycle of Forsaken 1 will continue, one four-person tower, an Ultima cast, Wings (Single) with a statue cleave, and finally a Light of Judgment. Yes, it's a lot, but we trivialize almost the entire mechanic with Diamondback yet again.

Split the party up into a group of two (Wing baiters), another group of two (healers), and a group of four (remaining DPS). Have the first group of two take the west tower, then second group of two take the east tower, and the group of four take the south tower. Resolve everything in this order:

1. Preposition into tower locations.
2. When tethers appear, everyone Surecast and tank Diamondback. The second Wing baiter needs to make sure they don't get hit by the Ultimate Embrace cast while soaking the tower.
3. When the next set of tethers appears, everyone Diamondback. This prevents the confusion and sleep combo from killing anyone.
4. Handle Forsaken 1 as before.
5. Soak south tower with same four people as before while Wing baiters handle Wings (Double).
6. Point Kefka either east or west.
7. Dodge Wings (Single) and statue cleave.
8. Mitigate Light of Judgment.

After Forsaken 3, Kefka will repeat mechanics we've already seen before until we get to enrage. The rest of the mechanics are:

1. Trine (Small)
2. Wings (Single)
3. Wings (Double)
4. Ultimate Embrace
5. Trine (Large)
6. Futures Numbered / Pasts Forgotten
7. Hyperdrive
8. Ultima x2
9. Forsaken 3 repeat
10. Ultima x4
11. Light of Judgment (enrage)

This fight is not at all a DPS race, it is strictly a mechanics check. It's hard to give an estimate of when "most groups" will kill, but shortly after Forsaken 3 is pretty typical in my experience. After Forsaken 3 there is a full three minutes to stabilize and finish the fight in case it is messy.

God Kefka's Final Sting threshold is about 7%. Once he is at 7%, apply Off-guard, then use Moon Flute, any Primal abilities you have, and finish with Whistle and Final Sting.