Futures Rewritten (Ultimate) Guide for Phase 4, Enter the Dragon

Pre-fight Preparations:

• Assign light parties made of one Tank, Healer, Melee DPS, and Ranged/Caster DPS each. Assign Group 1 to north, and Group 2 to south. These should be your original light parties from Phase 1.
• Assign Healers to northwest, Tanks to northeast, Melee DPS to southeast, and Ranged/Caster DPS to southwest.
• Assign light parties made of only supports and only DPS, with the support group west and the DPS group east.
• Plan mechanics so that you never drop any AoEs on the Fragment of Fate. This will result in a wipe if the Fragment dies.

Recurring Mechanics

1. Spell-in-Waiting:
   • The same as in the previous phase. Oracle will apply several debuffs to the players that will resolve at the end of the debuff duration.
2. Hallowed Wings:
   • Ururper will assume E8S Shiva's dragon form for this phase. One of her wings will glow, indicating a half room cleave on the side of the glowing wing. During Crystalize Time, this will instead be a knockback in the direction that Usurper is facing.
3. Ahk Morn:
   • A multi-hit light party stack that will hit one more time each time it is cast. Each light party will get a debuff that prevents both stacks from being taken together. The debuff each party receives is based on the boss that party's Tank has aggro of. Swapping aggro during this mechanic will result in an immediate wipe!
4. Morn Afah:
   • A hard hitting full party stack.

Usurper will spawn at the north or the south of the arena, whichever is farther from where Oracle of Darkness was defeated in the previous phase. She will then cast Materialization, which will spawn a Fragment of Memory at the north of the arena. This Fragment has HP that will be reduced every time it is hit with a mechanic. It cannot be healed, and any baited mechanic hitting it will result in it being destroyed. If the Fragment is destroyed, once both bosses are defeated they will fuse together into the Guardian of Eden, who will cast Paradise Lost, instantly wiping the party. If the phase is executed successfully, the Fragment will survive with a sliver of HP remaining. Be aware that the Fragment will occassionally pulse with Edge of Oblivion raid-wide damage, which does about 35k damage unmitigated. On its own, this damage is not significant, but it will often be paired with other damage sources, such as occuring at nearly the same time as the final Morn Afah of the phase, which can be a potentially lethal combo if not planned for.

Usurper will begin the phase in her white dress, but will then say the voice line "Come to me, Hraesvelgr!" before transforming into her dragon from, identical to that from E8S. The moment her wings pop out with a woosh sound, each player will be targeted by Ahk Rai, which will leave a pulsing AoE on their position. The party should stack together in the middle of the room so that everone can dodge the AoEs, while also ensuring that no AoEs are dropped on the Fragment of Fate.

This mechanic is a full-uptime mechanic in which both bosses are present the entire time. It combines aspects of E8S's Icelit Dragonsong as well as some general Oracle of Darkness mechanics from E12S Phase 2. Be careful not to hit the Fragment of Fate with any of these mechanics! For a visual of this mechanic, please reference this Raidplan. To resolve this mechanic:

1. Split the party into Healer, Tank, Melee DPS, and Ranged/Caster DPS pairs. Assign Healers to northwest, Tanks to northeast, Melee DPS to southeast, and Ranged/Caster DPS to southwest.
2. During the Darklit Dragonsong cast, two players will be targeted with Spell-in-Waiting: Dark Water III. These function identically to the Dark Water III debuffs from the previous phase.
3. One Tank, one Healer, and two DPS will be tethered together. Make a bowtie shape out of the tethers. There are multiple ways that the tethers can spawn, and each has its own specific way to form the bowtie. Please reference the Raidplan linked above to see how each pattern is resolved.
4. Form two four-player groups out of the two tethered and untethered players on each north and south position.
5. One player with Dark Water III will have a tether, and the other will not. If there is one Water player north, and one south, no flex is needed. If both Water players are in the same north/south group, the untethered Water player and the other untethered player on the same east/west side as them will swap positions. Please reference the Raidplan for a visual of this swap.
6. Two towers will spawn, one north and one south. The two tether players at the south will soak the south tower, and the two tether players at the north will soak the north tower.
7. The remaining four untethered players will get close to Usurper and spread to the intercardinal positions as she casts The Path of Light, which will cleave the four closest players with a conal AoE.
8. All eight players must spread out while Oracle of Darkness casts Spirit Taker. This will target a random player with an AoE that will kill any person other than the initial target who is hit by it.
   • Tethered players should take the intercardinal directions while maintaining the bowtie shape to avoid breaking their tethers.
   • The untethered DPS players will stand on the arrows on the sides of Usurper's hitbox. The untethered support players will go out toward the wall east and west.
9. Immediately after Spirit Taker, Usurper will cast Hallowed Wings. One of her wings will glow indicating a half-room cleave in that direction.
10. At the same time, the Dark Water III timers will begin counting down. Each north/south party will meet up for the stack while dodging the Hallowed Wings cleave.
11. About halfway into the Hallowed Wings cast, Oracle will begin casting Somber Dance, which will target the farthest player from her with an AoE tankbuster. Have the tank who is taking this run opposite of the east/west direction she jumped to for Spirit Taker. NOTE! The tethers will fall off as the tank is running to bait Somber Dance, so it is possible to have the same tank bait it every time, regardless of whether or not they are tethered.
12. Oracle will then immediately target the closest player to her with a second AoE tankbuster. The tank taking the second hit needs to step inside the hitbox after the first hit to ensure they get the second. If the same tank is not taking both hits, the first tank should run away from her to ensure they do not get both hits. However, it is possible to take both hits with a tank invulnerability, such as Living Dead.

Both bosses will teleport to the middle of the arena and then cast Ahk Morn. Split into your original light parties made of 1 Tank, 1 Healer, and 2 DPS, with Group 1 north and Group 2 south. This is a multi-hit four-player stack coming from each boss. Each tank should have aggro on one boss, as Ahk Morn targets the first in aggro of each boss. It also applies a debuff that makes it so taking a hit from the other boss is lethal. This ability adds one hit each time it is cast, with the first one starting at four hits per party. NOTE! Tanks should ensure that aggro is managed properly here, as any aggro swaps during the Ahk Morn hits will result in an immediate party wipe.

Both bosses will now cast Morn Afah. This is an eight-player full party stack. All players should meet up in the middle to soak this. During the cast, if the bosses have more than a 5% HP difference, they will tether together. If they are not brought within 5% before the end of the cast, the Morn Afah damage will be lethal and cause a wipe. It should be noted that even though both bosses are casting Morn Afah, the damage only comes from Usurper of Frost. As such, any debuff mitigation should be placed on her rather than Oracle of Darkness.

Both bosses will again teleport to recenter and begin casting Crystalize Time. The cast itself is a hard hitting raid-wide damage AoE that applies a plethora of debuffs to each player. This mechanic combines various mechanics from E8S including Wyrm's Lament and Knockback Mirrors with mechanics from E12S Phase two such as Advanced Relativity. For a visual of this mechanic, please reference this Raidplan.

Before discussing how to resolve this mechanic, it is important to understand what each of the new debuffs that occur in this mechanic does. In addition to these new debuffs, several Spell-in-Waiting debuffs that were previously seen in Phase 3 will make another appearance. The new debuffs are:

1. Spell-in-Waiting: Quietus: A raid-wide damage AoE that will trigger at the end of the debuff duration.
2. Spell-in-Waiting: Dark Aero III: A knockback AoE that originates from the player with the debuff and triggers at the end of the debuff duration. It does not knock back the player with the debuff, only those close to them.
3. Wyrmclaw: Simply referred to as "red", this debuff requires the player to cleanse it by colliding with a floating Dragon Head and "popping" it. Popping it will drop a small cleanse puddle that Wyrmfang debuffed players need to take.
4. Wyrmfang:Simply referred to as "blue", this debuff requires the player to cleanse it by picking up the puddle dropped by Wyrmclaw players popping the Dragon Head.

For ease, players marked with Wyrmclaw will be called "blue" players, and players with Wyrmfang will be called "red" players. With this out of the way, to resolve the mechanic:

1. After the Crystalize Time cast is finished, each player will get a combination of several debuffs. However, only two of them are important for now. Pay attention to the below combinations:
   • Two players will be marked with 40s duration Wyrmclaw, and will also have 14s duration Dark Aero III. These players will be referred to as Red Aero players.
   • Two players will be marked with 17s duration Wyrmclaw, and will also have 14s duration Dark Blizzard III. These players will be referred to as Red Ice players.
   • The remaining four players will be marked with 40s duration Wyrmfang. Each player will also have only one of the following debuffs: 14s duration Dark Eruption, 14s duration Dark Blizzard III, 17s duration Unholy Darkness, and 12s duration Dark Water III. These players will be referred to as Blue Eruption, Blue Ice, Blue Unholy, and Blue Water players respectively.
2. Assign Support players to west, and DPS players to east. Blue players will go to static positions. Red players will take their positions based on a flex priority. If both Red Ice or both Red Aero players are the same role, i.e. both Red Aero players are DPS, then the one higher in priority will take the opposite side.
   • For DPS, we recommend Group 1 Melee, Group 2 Melee, Group 1 Ranged/Caster, Group 2 Ranged/Caster as the priority, with Group 1 Melee having the highest priority to flex.
   • For Support, we recommend Group 1 Tank, Group 2 Tank, Group 1 Healer, Group 2 Healer as the priority, with Group 1 Tank having the highest priority to flex.
3. Six Sorrow's Hourglasses will spawn, with one always spawning north and one always south. These north and south Hourglasses will always get a yellow tether, indicating they will go off first. Of the remaining four, the northeast and southwest or the northwest and southeast Hourglasses will be purple tethered, indicating they will explode last. The remaining two will have no tether, and will go explode second. Unlike the Hourglasses in Phase 3, when these resolve they explode in a point-blank style AoE exactly the size of the arena circle they sit in the center of.
4. Pay attention to the orientation of the purple tethered Hourglasses.. The Blue debuff players will position relative to them, with the Blue Eruption player going to the wall at the north intercardinal on the same side as the purple-tethered northward Hourglass. I.e. if the purple Hourglasses are northeast and southwest, the Blue Eruption player will go northeast at the wall. The remaining Blue players will go to the south interardinal on the same side as the southward purple Hourglass. Using the previous example, they would go southwest.
5. Red Ice players will position to the east and west based on their role priority, with Support west and DPS east. If both Red Ice players are the same role, then one will flex to the opposite side using the above priority system.
6. Red Aero players will position to the southeast and southwest based on their role priority, with Support southwest and DPS southeast. If both Red Aero players are the same role, then one will flex to the opposite side using the above priority system.
7. Red Ice players will intercept the Dragon Heads as they float through the east and west. At the same time, the Dark Water III will resolve on the four players in the southeast or southwest. Also at the same time, the yellow Hourglasses will explode with a point-blank style AoE that fills the entire arena circle they are centered in.
8. Shortly after the yellow Hourglasses explode, all Dark Eruption, Dark Aero III, and Dark Blizzard III debuffs will resolve. The three Blue players who are with a Red Aero player will be flung across the arena to the Blue Eruption player. After the Aero knockback, the Red Aero players can move to be safe from the next Hourglass explosion. NOTE! It is best to keep Aero players stationary until after the knockback so that the other players do not get knocked the wrong direction.
9. The Red Ice player that is on the same east/west side as the Blue Eruption player will rotate to join that player and those knocked across the arena from the Aero for the upcoming Unholy Darkness. The Red Ice player on the opposite east/west side as the Blue Eruption player should move so that they dodge the untethered Hourglass explosions.
10. The untethered Hourglasses and Unholy Darkness both resolve.
11. Immediately after the untethered Hourglasses explode, the two Red Aero players should move to intercept the Dragon Heads at southeast and southwest, before moving back south to dodge the upcoming Tidal Light waves.
12. The rest of the party should move toward the north to prepare for the Tidal Light waves.
13. Usurper will appear on the east or the west and cast Tidal Light, indicating there will be a line AoE that will travel in the opposite direction of where Usurper appeared. This will pulse four times each and each pulse will cover about 1/4th of the room.
14. Purple Hourglasses will explode at the same time as the second Tidal Light pulse.
15. During the third Tidal Light pulse, Usurper will appear on the north or the south and begin another set of Tidal Light pulses. Blue players should use this time to cleanse their debuff by picking up the puddles dropped by Red players popping the Dragon Heads. Which puddle each player picks up is determined by their debuff.
    • Blue Unholy will take the east puddle.
    • Blue Water will take the southeast puddle.
    • Blue Ice will take the southwest puddle.
    • Blue Eruption will take the west puddle.
16. Dodge the remaining Tidal Light waves and make your way to the corner of the room closest to the starting position of both Tidal Light waves. If the first waves started east, and the second south, then the party will move to southeast. Position into original light parties with 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 2 DPS. Looking at the wall from the middle, Group 1 should be toward the left, Group 2 should be toward the right. Tanks must be closer to the wall than the rest of their party, and one party must be farther to the left than the other.
17. Spell-in-Waiting: Quietus will explode, and Return will snapshot.
18. Spread out for Spirit Taker. Players who had Blue debuffs will go far from their Return spots, wile players with Red debuffs will remain closer to their Return spots.
19. Return will resolve, rewinding everyone to the positions they snapshotted in.
20. While stunned from Return, a knockback will occur from the direction of the first Tidal Light wave. This is a line knockback. This knockback will higher damage to the closest person to it, which is why the Tanks need to be closer to their respective walls than the rest of the party. Furthermore, the knockback also applies Magic Vulnerability to the first four players it hits, which is why each party needs to be closer to their respective walls than the other, else any person that gets targetted as one of the four closest both times will die.

Usurper of Frost and Oracle of Darkness will both reappear in the center of the room and cast Ahk Morn. This works exactly as it did before, but hits five times instead of four.

After Ahk Morn is finished, Oracle and Usurper will cast another Morn Afah. This works exactly as it did the first time. Healers beware, the Fragment of Fate does an AoE pulse at nearly the same time as this Morn Afah hits, meaning it could be fatal if not planned for accordingly.

If the bosses have not been pushed to 1 HP after Morn Afah, they will begin casting their enrage casts from the previous two phases. Usurper will cast Absolute Zero, and Oracle will cast Memory's End. Being brought to 1 HP will cancel the cast. Failing to bring either to 1 HP will result in an instant wipe, while bringing both to 1 HP will trigger one of two things. If the Fragment of Fate did not surive during this phase due to a mechanic being dropped on top of it, the party will be brought to the final arena. However, instead of being met with Pandora, the Phase 5 boss, the party is met with the Guardian of Eden, who will cast Paradise Lost, which instantly kills the party. If, however, the Fragment of Fate does surive the phase, a cutscene lasting roughly 80 seconds will play in which Usurper and Oracle fuse into the final boss. Congratulations, you've made it to Phase 5: Pandora!