Chaotic Alliance Raid: The Cloud of Darkness Raid Guide

Patch 7.15 introduced a new type of content called the Chaotic Alliance Raid, or CAR for short. Released on the 24th of December, 2024, CAR is a 24-player Alliance Raid, made of three parties of eight players. Unlike regular Alliance Raids where each party is made of one Tank, two Healers, and five DPS, CAR uses the standard party composition of two Tanks, two Healers, and four DPS. CAR is intended to be about on par with the difficulty of the first or second fight of a given savage tier, making it significantly harder than regular Alliance Raids. Upon completion of this content, players will receive the following reawrds:

• Two Clouddark Demimateria I:
  • Two can be traded for Item Level 730 head, gloves, or feet armor.
  • Three can be traded for Item Level 730 chest or legs armor.
  • 99 can be exchanged for the mount Shroud of Darkness.
  • An additional eight Clouddark Demimateria I will be randomly distrubuted in each Alliance if the data center you complete the duty on has an active reward bonus, indicated by the golden chest icon on the duty menu in the duty finder. Due to the way the random distribution happens, it is possible for some players to receive multiple additional tokens, and others receive no additional tokens.
• One Clouddark Demimateria II:
  • 49 can be exchanged for the hairstyle Modern Aesthetics - A Half Times Two.
  • 75 can be exchanged for the mount Dais of Darkness
  • Two additional Clouddark Demimateria II will be rewarded for each player for whom this is their first time completion. A full party of 24 players receiving the first-time completion reward will result in every player earning 49 Clouddark Demimateria II.
• Each Alliance will receive two random Clouddark gear coffers. These cannot be duplicates.
• There is a small chance for either of the mounts, the hairstyle, or the minion Wisp of Darkness to drop.
  • These drops are unique to each Alliance, and will never be rolled on by all 24 players. Only the players in the Alliance they dropped for can roll on them.
  • The minion can only be obtained as a random reward from the coffer, and cannot be purchased with either Demimateria.

As this is an Alliance Raid with 24 players, there are some things that need to be decided before pulling!

1. Each Alliance needs to split into light parties consisting of 1 Tank, 1 Healer, and 2 DPS. One of these parties should be north, and the other south.
2. Alliances A and C will need to choose one Healer and one Tank to go with the middle group during the Tiles phase.
3. Alliances A and C will need to decide spread spots and partner pairs for Tiles phase.
4. Alliance B and the Healer and Tank from Alliances A and C will need to decide which quadrant they are starting in for Tiles phase.
5. Assign a movement priority for the players on the tiles during Tiles phase. We recommend Tank, Healer, DPS.

This guide is written using the PF strategy commonly known as "Raidplan". The Raidplan being referenced can be found here.

Cloud of Darkness will begin the fight by casting Blade of Darkness twice. Blade of Darkness will do one of two things based on the position of her arms during the cast.

• One arm is raised, the other arm is near the ground. In this pattern, she will do a large AoE where the only safe spot is behind the hand that is near the ground.

• Both arms are crossed in front of her. In this pattern, she will do a large point blank AoE where the safe spot is to be away from her.

Note!: Failing to move into the safe area will apply a damage-over-time. It is common for Tanks and Melee DPS to stay in for option two and use personal mitigation and healing, such as Bloodbath so that Healers do not need to worry about the DoT.

The boss can cast these in any order during the opening of the fight, but will never do the same one twice in a row. If she casts option one twice, the safe spot of the second one will always be the opposite hand of the first cast.

Cloud of Darkness will now cast Deluge of Darkness, a heavy hitting raid-wide damage cast that also applies a damage-over-time debuff to all players. During the Deluge cast, parts of the floor will telegraph orange, indicating that they will disappear. The floor will change to the shape left by the untelegraphed section at the end of the cast. Anyone not on a safe area will be dropped into the void and KO'd.

The auto attacks during the diamond floor section of the fight target the player with aggro from each Alliance. These auto attacks apply a Lightning Vulnerability debuff, which stacks each time. At about six stacks, the Tanks in each Alliance should Tank swap to prevent the damage from the autos from becoming severe and resulting in the death of the player with aggro.

The boss will now cast Grim Embrace twice. Each time she will tether random players while holding her hand either behind or under a heart in a crystal in front of her face. Which position her hand is in during that cast determines how the players currently being tethered by the cast will resolve it. At the end of the cast, a Deadly Embrace debuff will be applied to each tethered player, and the timer will signal when players will resolve this mechanic. At five seconds remaining on the timer, the player will get a countdown above their head. At one second left, the player is afflicted with Heavy, reducing their movement speed significantly. As the debuff resolves, a Shadow Hand will appear and slap the ground with a rectangular AoE. The Hand will always spawn relative to the direction the player's character is facing. It will either spawn one step directly in front of, or directly behind the player, and aim the AoE at the player. To dodge the AoE left by the Hand:

• If the hand was under the heart during the cast of Grim Embrace, players will resolve the debuff by walking backward at the end of the timer. Be careful not to move too early if playing on Legacy controls!
• If the hand was behind the heart during the cast of Grim Embrace, players will instead walk forward at the end of the timer.

Pictured left is the boss animation to show that you will move backward, and pictured right is the animation to show you will move forward.

Note!: Getting hit by the AoE applies one stack of a stacking Damage Down debuff that cannot be cleansed, as well as a 5s duration Doom debuff that can be cleansed with Esuna or The Warden's Paean. Healers should be on the lookout for failed dodges and be ready to save their party member(s) if possible.

After Grim Embrace, the boss will summon Cloudlets of Darkness along the edges of the room. These Cloudlets will telegraph which will go off first by charging a laser beam effect. Position so that you can walk into the intersection of the first and second beam, then walk into the first, then second beam after they fire so that you are in this intersection. This will make you safe from the third and fourth beam.

Starting after the Cloudlets of Darkness laser beams, the timeline of the fight diverges. As both timelines contain the same mechanics but in different orders, this section will first discuss each mechanic and resolution before discussing the specific order of each timeline.

At the end of the Aero IV cast, there will be a large blue AoE that will knockback all players. Get close to the AoE without stepping inside of it, which will instantly kill the player, and get knocked back directly west, south, or east to avoid being knocked off the platform. Surecast and Arm's Length do work on this.

At the end of the Death IV cast, there will be a suck in, followed immediately by a point blank AoE in the center of the room, followed immediately by a donut AoE that the safe spot is where the previous point blank AoE was. Players who get hit with the point blank Aoe will receive Damage Down and a cleansable Doom debuff. Players should position at the outer corners east, south, or west to get sucked toward the center of the room, then walk into the point blank AoE after it resolves.

At the end of the Flare cast, the boss will put a proximity Flare AoE on three players, one from each Alliance. The marked player from Alliance A should go to the west corner, the marked player from Alliance B should go to the south corner, and the marked player from Alliance C should go to the east corner. Meanwhile, the remaining players should all run under the boss at the front-center of the room to avoid taking too much damage.

At the end of the Unholy Darkness cast, each healer will be marked with a stack AoE. Split each Alliance into their predetermined light parties. Each light party will now go to pre-assigned positions with one light party from Alliance A front left, the other back left, one light party from Alliance B front middle, the other back middle, one light party from Alliance C front right, and the final light party back right. The front light parties should be close to the wall to ensure that the players in the back light parties can still be within melee range of the boss.

At the end of the Rapid-Sequence Particle Beam cast, the boss will target each Alliance with a line stack AoE. This does more damage to the two players in front of each stack, requiring both tanks to the be at the front of each stack with light mitigation. Spread out with Alliance A to the west, Alliance B in the center, and Alliance C to the east.

This works exactly the same way as it did at the beginning of the fight.

The boss will summon two eyeball minions on the edges of the arena. At the end of the cast, the boss and each eyeball will do a look-away gaze that will apply Petrification and Damage Down to anyone who did not look away. Either the west or east corner will always be safe to look at.

This cast "stores" either Aero or Death, and will execute it with no cast bar following the next Blade of Darkness.

Below will be the order that each mechanic will happen in based on which timeline the boss decides to follow.

Starting after Deluge of Darkness, the boss will do mechanics in the following order:

1. Grim Embrace x2
2. Cloudlets of Darkness
3. Aero IV or Death IV
4. Enaero IV or Endeath IV
5. Rapid-Sequence Particle Beam
6. Cloudlets of Darkness
7. Blade of Darkness
8. Stored Aero/Death
9. Flare
10. Flood of Darkness

Periodically, players will resove their Deadly Embrace debuffs based on their timer. As this happens at multiple times, this was not included in the timeline.

Starting after Deluge of Darkness, the boss will do mechanics in the following order:

1. Grim Embrace x2
2. Cloudlets of Darkness
3. Flare
4. Unholy Darkness
5. Blade of Darkness
6. Enaero IV or Endeath IV
7. Break IV
8. Blade of Darkness
9. Stored Aero/Death
10. Cloudlets of Darkness
11. Aero IV or Death IV
12. Flood of Darkness

Periodically, players will resolve their Deadly Embrace debuffs based on their timer. As this happens at multiple times, this was not included in the timeline.

To conclude Phase 1, Cloud of Darkness will cast Flood of Darkness, this is the last cast in Phase 1 regardless of which timeline occurs. This cast does moderate damage and returns the arena to the floor from the beginning of the fight. Deluge of Darkness will begin casting shortly after, which will telegraph a floor change again. This time, there will be two safe platforms on the east and west, and a grid pattern in the middle indicating where the tiles will form. There will also be a walkable ring around the outer edge of the arena. The Tank and Healer who will be with the tiles groups will take their starting tile position, along with all of Alliance B who will do the same. The remaining players in Alliances A and C will start on the west and east platforms respectively. As a reminder, starting positions for each player are based on their role, and can be found in this Raidplan!.

If all groups were split correctly, there should now be one DPS, one Healer, and one Tank on each quadrant on the tiles, and one Tank, one Healer, and four DPS on each side platform. Cloud of Darkness will move to the center of the arena and become invulnerable to damage from anyone not on the tiles. Each of the side platforms will now have a Stygian Shadow, which is a copy of the Cloud of Darkness variant from the ninth Eden raid. These will be invulnerable to anyone who is not on the outer platforms/ring. Additionally, one Atomos will spawn near each intercardinal direction on the outer ring around the room. Ranged DPS from Alliances A and C need to kill these as soon as they spawn, as they tether to a player and start draining their HP. Atomos drop a puddle when killed that can be used to teleport back onto the tiles in the event of a death and being revived on an outer platform.

Each tank must provoke after the arena changes and the Stygian Shadows spawn. Cloud of Darkness will auto attack the four players with the highest aggro on her. Meanwhile, each Stygian Shadow will auto attack the player with aggro. It is important that the Shadows do not run wild, as if they get too close to Cloud of Darkness, they will tether together and get a massive boost to their defense and damage, making their auto attacks go from 40k hits to 400k hits.

Players on the inside will be on floating tiles. These tiles can only have one player at a time, or they will fall, killing both players who stepped onto them at the same time. Additionally, these tiles will time out after too long, causing the player on it to fall. Players must periodically refresh their tile by stepping onto an empty tile, then returning to their original tile. It is advised for Tanks to refresh their tile away from the corner, letting the DPS and Healer refresh on that tile. Remember movement priorities so that two players do not step into the same tile at the same time. When the tile is about to expire, it will have a purple indicator on it that will begin flashing faster before it falls. Players should refresh roughly after every major mechanic.

Shortly after Deluge of Darkness, Cloud of Darkness will cast Dark Dominion, which is another moderately high raid-wide damage cast. Since she is invulnerable to players on the outside, targeted mitigation such as Addle can only be placed on her by players on the tiles. Healers beware, the damage-over-time from Deluge will continue ticking right up until the cast finishes, meaning that this raid-wide can be quite scary and lethal if not mitigated and healed appropriately. This cast will also turn the outer ring of the arena temporarily into a death wall that will disipate after the upcoming towers mechanic.

Each Stygian Shadow will do this ability twice during the fight. While initially, only the players on the outside platforms need to deal with this mechanic, all players should know how to resolve this mechanic. Later in the fight there will be forced position swaps, and it is likely that players from the tiles get swapped to an outside platform and will have to do this mechanic. If you have done E9S, this mechanic is taken directly from that fight. The boss will telegraph two cleave AoEs and a partner stack or spread laser. Be aware that the partner stacks are proximity baited in this version of the boss, meaning that if both players in the same stack are too close, they will get another pair's stack and die. The following animations are the tell for which mechanic is being shown:

• One single orb glowing to her side indicates a 180 degree cleave on that side.
• Both orbs glowing to her sides indicates partner stacks.
• Her chest glowing indicates indicates spread laser cleaves.

Pictures left to right are the animations indicating cleave, stacks, and spread lasers.

Be careful not to shoot the players on the tiles with the laser beams if it is spread. This can and will kill players in the center, which will cause part of the next mechanic to fail.

Cloud of Darkness will cast Particle Concentration while both Stygian Shadows are casting The Third Art of Darkness. At the end of the cast, eight towers will spawn around the room. For the outside playforms, the towers will spawn as two three-player towers that will be either north and south on the platform, or east and west. Please consult the Raidplan linked above for priorities on who takes which tower. For the tiles players, each quadrant will spawn two towers. One single-player tower, and one two-player tower. If the single-player tower spawns on the same tile as a player, that player stays there and the other two players will move to take the two-player tower. If the single-player tower does not spawn on a player's tile, the Tank will take it and the Healer and DPS will fill the remaining tower. As always, for players on the tiles, remember the movement priority of Tank first, then Healer, then DPS to avoid doubling up on a tile and dying.

Cloud of Darkness will cast Ghastly Gloom. During the cast, she will telegraph a square cloud, or circle cloud. Square cloud means that the cardinal directions will be cleaved with a very wide line AoE, leaving only the corners of the arena safe. Circle cloud means that she will cast a large donut AoE, and all players will need to be inside her hitbox to be safe. The safe area starts just inside halfway between the rings of her hitbox. Do note that she will cast this mechanic again later in the fight, and it will always be the opposite of the first time she cast it.

Each Stygian Shadow will cast Curse of Darkness, dealing moderate raid-wide damage to all players. This applies a debuff to the outer platform players that will shoot a conal cleave AoE in the direction the player is facing when it resolves. Players must face the outside of the arena as the debuff expires. It is extremely important to pay attention to this timer! Hitting a player with the cleave applies a strong damage-over-time, and can cause wipes if it hits a person resolving specific upcoming mechanics.

Both Stygian Shadows will cast Evil Seed, which will target a total of 8 players with a Bramble seed above their heads. This will always target two players on each outer platform, and two players on each east and west side of the tiles. Bramble players on the outside platforms will drop their seeds north and south along the edge where the platform meets the ring of the arena. Tile players will drop their seeds on the north and south inside corners of the middle two east and west tiles. Remember the movement priority for tiles players. If two players are marked with seeds in the same quadrant, the player first on the movement priority will go farther. Once the seeds are dropped, players will return to their starting tiles. Be careful not to place the seeds too close together, as when the Bramble patches spawn, they will immediately explode, placing a heavy damage-over-time on all players. Note!: The Bramble patch counts as the tile being occupied, so be sure to move quickly before it spawns to prevent the tile from falling.

Cloud of Darkness will cast a second Ghastly Gloom, which is always the opposite of the first one.

Each Stygian Shadow will cast Thorny Vine, causing each Bramble patch to tether the closest player at the end of the cast. Additionally, two players on the north tiles, and two players on the south tiles will be tethered together. These tethers are broken by running away from the player/Bramble you are tethered to. The closer the player starts to the source, the shorter the distance needed to run is. Assign specific players to bait each Bramble tether. Please consult the linked Raidplan for these assignments. For the players on the tiles, start as close to the person you will be tethered to as possible without being on the same tile, indicated by a purple circle under both of your feet. Wait for the tether to spawn, and then the person highest on the movement priority will run toward the east or west to break the tether. Other players should take care to move out of this player's path to prevent two players running onto the same tile, or to prevent the tether from not being able to be broken.

While tethers are being resolved, each Stygian Shadow will cast Flood of Darkness. This time, however, the cast is interuptable. Tanks should use Interject to stop the cast. Alternatively, if for some reason the Tank cannot interupt, for example if they have died, then a Physical Ranged DPS can use Head Graze to interupt. If this cast is allowed to finish, the raid will be hit with heavy raid-wide damage.

Cloud of Darkness will begin channeling a castless ability. While doing so, she will either glow purple with purple orbs floating around her, or she will have an orange effect around her. If she glows purple, she will say "Begone with you!" and cast Diffuse-force Particle Beam, which will hit each player with a spread AoE explosion. Please be aware that if there are deaths before this, random players will be hit with a second spread AoE and die. If she instead glows orange, she will say "Darkest Darkness awaits!" and cast Chaos-condensed Particle Beam, which is a line stack AoE that will hit each outside platform group, and each tile quadrant group. Tanks must be closest to the boss for each respective group and use light mitigation, as it hits the closest player the hardest.

Cloud of Darkness will face east or west, and begin telegraphing a clockwise or counterclockwise rotation. At the end of the cast, she will shoot a laser beam directly east or west, then rotate in the direction shown and repeat the laser. In total, there will be five lasers, including the first one, and she will rotate a total of 90 degrees. The final laser will always finish directly north and south. Players on the tiles will stay in their starting positions if they will be safe from the laser, or will form an organized line to follow the laser and avoid being hit if they are on the unsafe quadrants. Remember to follow movement priorities, and consult the Raidplan to see exactly how this movement is done. Players on the outside will have to deal with an additional mechanic during the Active-pivot Particle Beam cast before moving into the safe quadrant to ignore the laser.

During the cast of Active-pivot Particle Beam, each Stygian Shadow will cast Core-lateral Phaser or Lateral-core Phaser. This indicates that they will do either a cleave directly in front of them, or directly on each side. The cast name tells you the order in which each spot is safe. Core-lateral indicates that she will cleave her sides first, and then in front of her, leaving her front and then sides safe. Lateral-core is the opposite, cleaving in front of her first, and then to her sides, leaving her sides safe first, and then in front of her. After dodging these cleaves, the outer platform parties will then move into the corner that the laser from Cloud of Darkness will not cleave.

Each Stygian Shadow will cast Excruciate, which is an AoE tankbuster targeting the first player on aggro.

Immediately after Active-pivot Particle Beam resolves, all players should return to their starting positions. Cloud of Darkness will cast Looming Choas, which will tether each player to one other player, and swap their positions. These swaps can be controlled as long as no one is dead, and everyone stands in the correct positions. Please consult the Raidplan for specific positions to stand in to control the swaps. If done correctly, Two groups of three on the tiles will be swapped with each other, the remaining two groups of three on the tiles will be swapped with a group of one Tank, one Healer, and one DPS from each outer platform group, and the reminaing six DPS players on the outer platform groups will be swapped with each other. After the swap, all Tanks must provoke. Aggro resets during the swap, and auto attacks and Stygian Shadows will go wild if provokes are not done immediately.

Each Stygian Shadow will cast Curse of Darkness again. This works the same way as it did before.

Cloud of Darkness will again cast Particle Concentration, which will summon towers in the same configurations as before. At the same time, each Stygian Shadow will cast Core-lateral Phaser or Later-core Phase. These also work identically to before. Now, however, as the Phasers resolve, there will be towers that must be taken. Please consult the Raidplan for priorities on who takes which tower.

Cloud of Darkness will cast another Dark Dominion, dealing raid-wide damage and making the outer ring of the arena into a death wall.

Cloud of Darkness will cast Feint Particle Beam, which will target one player in each quadrant on the tiles with a chaser-style AoE. These targeted players should run clockwise and continue running clockwise until they return to the spot they started from. Other players should tuck into the open corner tiles to allow the chaser players to pass without issue. If the player with the chaser dies, it will randomly retarget another player, and could cause a wipe! At the same time, both Stygian Shadows will cast The Third Art of Darkness, which resolves identically to the first time it happened.

From here, both Cloud of Darkness and the Stygian Shadows will repeat mechanics that have already been seen until phase transition. The timline of repeated mechanics until phase transition is as follows:

1. Ghastly Gloom (everyone)
2. Core-lateral and Lateral-core Phasers (outside platforms only)
3. Spread AoEs or Line Stacks (everyone)
4. Flood of Darkness Interupts (outside platforms only)

At this point, the Stygian Shadows will become untargetable and cast Evaporation, causing them to disappear. Any damage done to aech of the Stygian Shadows is now transferred to Cloud of Darkness. Cloud of Darkness will cast Flood of Darkness, which will return the arena to the original floor. Parties should aim to have the boss around 25% HP or less at this point to beat the enrage check. She will then teleport to the north wall again before casting Deluge of Darkness. From here, the boss will fully repeat all of the Diamond Floor phase before enraging.

After doing a full cycle of Phase 1 mechanics, the boss will cast Deluge of Darkness one final time, instantly wiping the party if she is not defeated before the end of the cast. If she is defeated before the end of the cast, congratulations! You have cleared Cloud of Darkness (Chaotic), and will be rewarded with the aformentioned loot drops, as well as the achievement "Cloud Strife."