The Twelfth Circle P12S (Savage) Part Two: Pallas Athena Raid Guide

While Nemjiji is plainly in awe at your bravery and relieved that the realm is saved once more, she seems almost disappointed in your descriptions of the chief keyward's prowess in battle. As you finish your recounting she lets out a despondent sigh before perking up and taking up her quill with aplomb, muttering to herself, “Nothing a little imagination cannot fix...”

The Twelfth Circle (Savage) can be unlocked at level 90 after completing the Normal difficulty of the Anabaseios raid and talking to Nemjiji in Labyrinthos (x8.4, y27.4). It requires a minimum item level of 640 to queue, but this requirement can be bypassed when entering with a full party.

Pallas Athena has a hard enrage of 8:28. The fight has a DPS check of roughly 76,400 raid DPS.

This fight will use the same partners as the door boss for ease of assigning positions. Melee DPS will be partnered with tanks, and ranged DPS will be partnered with healers. Each set of partners will have one intercardinal quadrant of the arena for spreads, with melees and tanks NW and NE and ranged and healers SW and SE. This splits the party into two light parties of one tank, one healer, and two DPS each. Players should also get into a horizontal conga line to determine positioning for Pangenesis, and pre-assign initial positions for Caloric Theory 2.

Waymarks should be used to identify movement and positioning for the strategy the party uses to solve Caloric Theory 1. This guide uses the Papan strat to solve the mechanic and thus uses waymarks corresponding to it, but other strategies exist and are touched upon in the Party Finder Strategies section.

The Pallas Athena fight is split into seven major mechanics, with clear progression points between each one. The second half of the fight repeats mechanics from the first half with minor differences.

Pallas Athena has a few basic mechanics independent of all phases.

• Ultima: Heavy raidwide magic damage.
• Palladian Grasp: A heavy physical tankbuster that hits whichever side of the arena the current main tank is on. It will inflict a physical vulnerability up debuff and hit twice, meaning a tank swap is required, as well as the tank swapping sides.
• Crush Helm: A multi-hit tank buster on #1 and #2 on aggro. It will do four hits of light physical damage that inflict a physical vulnerability up debuff, and one hit of heavy physical damage. The debuff must be cleansed before the final hit.

Pallas Athena introduces the following abilities in this phase.

• Gaiaochos: Heavy raidwide magic damage. The arena is turned into a small circle, and all players are inflicted with the Ascended debuff, which shrinks their character model and decreases their movement speed. Certain abilities, such as Sprint and Sage's Eukrasia will remove this movement speed decrease.
• Summon Darkness: Pallas Athena summons three adds at the edge of the arena, which each shoot a line AoE across the arena. These spawn in a configuration where two opposite edges are safe.
• Missing Link: Inflicts all players with Missing Link, tethering supports and DPS. This chain is broken by distance.
• Demi Parhelion: Pallas Athena spawns nine circular AoEs on the arena. These will explode and persist for a few seconds.
• Geocentrism: Pallas Athena will summon tentacles that indicate an AoE pattern.
  • Tentacles that wrap around the arena will do a donut AoE with the safe spot being close to the centre AoE from Demi Parhelion.
  • Tentacles that spawn vertically over the arena will do a vertical AoE across AoEs from Demi Parhelion, leaving two vertical lines safe.
  • Tentacles that spawn horizontally over the arena will do a horizontal AoE across AoEs from Demi Parhelion, leaving two horizontal lines safe.
• Divine Excoriation: A circle AoE that inflicts magic vulnerability up and deals light magic damage on all players.

The fight begins with the standard raidwide Ultima into tank buster Palladian Grasp. Tanks should save their invulnerabilities for the second Palladian Grasp, and should swap for this buster. To prevent the party from having to move, the offtank when provoking will move into the side the main tank was on, and the main tank will move back to the side the party was on. Move to the front of the arena in the middle of the circle and mitigate for Gaiaochos.

All players will stack in the middle and locate the safe line from Summon Darkness. Supports will take the west to northeast spread, and DPS will take the east to southwest spread. Players will move to the edge of the arena with their role as soon as the debuff Missing Link appears, then head back to the middle of the arena to prepare for Geocentrism.

Athena will summon nine AoEs with Demi Parhelion, and spawn tentacles with Geocentrism. Identify the safe spots from the tentacle AoEs and spread according to player quadrants, with supports in the middle and DPS flexing to the outer edges. Prey markers for Divine Excoriation will appear indicating the AoE, but players should already be spread in their positions. The AoE is very small, so players can squeeze in if necessary. Heal up for Ultima, which removes the Ascended debuff and returns the arena to normal.

Pallas Athena introduces the following abilities in this phase.

• The Classical Concepts: Heavy raidwide magic damage. Inflicts four players with Alpha Target and four players with Beta Target. All players will be tethered with a player with the opposite debuff with a Playstation marker on their head and be inflicted with Shackled Together, preventing them from moving too far away from their partner. Pallas Athena summons twelve shapes: four red pyramids, four yellow cubes, and four blue icosahedrons. One red pyramids and one yellow cube will tether to each blue icosahedron and explode unless intercepted by a player.
• Palladian Ray: Summons two tentacle blades on the left and right side of the arena which pierces the ground, shooting a persistent conal AoE that inflicts magic vulnerability up to the closest four players each.

For this mechanic, players must identify which Playstation marker they have, what debuff they have, and the configuration of shapes on the arena. There are four columns of three shapes and four different markers. Players will first move to the corresponding column with their partner to not break the tether, either by using BPOG (blue X first column, purple square second column, orange circle third column, green triangle fourth column) or 1234 (circle with one line first column, X with two lines second column, triangle with three lines third column, square with four lines fourth column).

Players must then stand between a red or yellow shape and a blue shape. To simplify assignments, players with Alpha Target will intercept red pyramids and players with Beta Target will intercept yellow cubes. However, certain blue shapes will have multiple red or yellow shapes adjacent to it. Players must ensure that they stand between the correct shape that will tether to their blue shape. The debuff does not actually matter in determining which shape the player intercepts.

For example, in the image above, there are two possible red triangles that tether onto the blue shape on column 3. However, as the northeastern most red triangle can only tether onto the blue shape on column 4, the correct solution for column 3 would be the red triangle on column 2.

Tethers will then appear after the mechanic is resolved - if any tether is not intercepted properly, the shape will explode causing a wipe. Players must move to a safe spot between the shapes after their debuff Shackled Together expires, as the shapes will explode soon afterwards, followed by Palladian Ray. Players should loosely spread in the safe spots to indicate the direction they are going to bait the conal AoE. The first two columns will bait the AoEs from the blade on the left, and the last two columns will bait the AoEs from the blade on the right.

Do not point any conal AoE towards the centre of the arena as it will hit players on the other side, and move out of the conal AoE after you are hit once. Afterwards, move back into the middle and heal up for Ultima into Crush Helm. The healer should cleanse the tank in their light party. Afterwards, spread into clock spots near the centre for the next mechanic, Caloric Theory.

Pallas Athena introduces the following abilities in this phase.

• Caloric Theory: Pallas Athena inflicts all players with the Close Caloric debuff, which increases upon movement or being damaged by the Pyrefaction debuff explosion. Upon reaching five stacks, the player will explode and wipe the raid. In addition, players are inflicted with the Atmosfaction or Pyrefaction debuffs. One support and one DPS will be marked with a beacon, take extra damage which must be shared, and always receive the Atmosfaction debuff.
  • Atmosfaction is a wind debuff and players will emit a donut AoE when the debuff expires. Players with this debuff start with two stacks of Close Caloric.
  • Pyrefaction is a fire debuff and players will emit a stack AoE when the debuff expires, which must be shared by one other player. This will also add one stack of Close Caloric to all players in the stack. Players with this debuff start with one stack of Close Caloric.
• Ekpyrosis: AoEs appear at the edge of the arena with markers indicating that they will travel across the arena (Exaflares). There are also proximity AoEs from the centre of the map, which deal moderate magic damage. All players are targeted with an unmarked AoE that deals moderate magic damage after the first moving AoE hit. These moving AoEs can either spawn north and south or east and west.

When Caloric Theory is cast, blue lines will appear on the arena which indicate how far a player can move before they accumulate a stack of Close Caloric. Players can move diagonally inside a rectangle before accumulating one stack. Players will have to stack and spread the Atmosfaction and Pyrefaction debuffs while adhering to the Close Caloric movement requirements.

Begin by having the beacon-marked roles go inside the B and D markers, with supports D and DPS on B. The other players will note which roles were marked. The unmarked player with the same role as the marked player in the other light party will head to A and C, with supports going to A and DPS going to C. All other players will move directly between all four markers. Note that the players on B and D should be on the blue line between two blue lines, not directly on the marker itself.

As the castbar of Caloric Theory finishes, all players will take damage and receive debuffs. Apart from the two players with the beacon who will always have wind, the debuffs are completely random. Players on the inside use a rotating priority system to figure out which wind player will stack with which fire player to solve the first set of fire debuff explosions. Supports will always move first, with light party 1 starting from D and going counterclockwise until they have found a matching partner. Once they have, they will move out and stack with them. Light party 2 will do the same thing with supports moving first, starting from A and going clockwise. After supports have moved, DPS will use the same priority system to move. When moving, always move straight and never curve.

Once players are stacked together, the first set of fire debuffs will explode, dealing moderate magic damage and increasing all stacks by 1. Wind players will have three stacks and fire players will have two stacks. Two random players who had a fire debuff will receive a second fire debuff. At this point, the players with the wind debuff will move out, with the north and south players going on row north and the east and west players going outside of the 1 and 2 markers. This should be just slightly further of the middle of the line. All wind players will have four stacks at this point, and cannot move anymore.

Finally, the players in the middle will stack east and west to stack fire debuffs. The north and south players will always rotate clockwise, unless the player clockwise has the same debuff, which then they will rotate counterclockwise. These players will increase their stack by 1, capping out at four stacks. The mechanic has resolved, but do not move until stacks disappear and Ekpyrosis begins to cast, as the Close Caloric debuff lingers for a second afterwards.

Ekpyrosis Exaflares can spawn from one of two locations, either north and south or east and west. They can also spawn mirrored, and there will be proximity AoEs from the middle. Players will go to the edge of the arena, and will need to spread afterwards. Spread positions will be the same as that of vertical or horizontal Geocentrism in Gaiaochos at the edge of the arena, so players will go to the edge of the arena based on those positions. If AoEs are north and south, melees and tanks go north and ranged and healers go south. If AoEs are east and west, light party 1 goes west and light party 2 goes east. Dodge the first AoE and then spread immediately, then move into the centre dodging the other AoEs.

An Ultima is cast afterwards, followed by the next mechanic set, Pangenesis. Players need to form a line in the middle of the arena to determine the positioning for the next mechanic.

Pallas Athena introduces the following abilities in this phase.

• Pangenesis: Heavy raidwide magic damage. Players are inflicted with debuffs and must soak towers and fuse debuffs to remove them. All players are inflicted with Stable System, which prevent debuff fusing for a few seconds.
  • Two random players are inflicted with two stacks of Unstable Factor and a 20-second duration Astral Tilt or Umbral Tilt
  • Two random players are inflicted with two stacks of Unstable Factor and a 16-second duration Astral Tilt or Umbral Tilt
  • Two random players are inflicted with one stack of Unstable Factor.
  • The final two players do not have any additional debuffs (0 stack).
• Pantheos: Pallas Athena spawns towers on the west and east side of the arena. These towers require two players to soak them, and are aspected towards dark and light. One player with the opposite aspected debuff is required to soak each tower with one other player, and their debuff will swap aspects. Towers will continually spawn inwards, awith one tower on the first set, two towers on the second, and two towers on the third.

There are five different debuffs that can be gained during this phase.

• Astral Tilt and Umbral Tilt work the same way as the door boss.
• Unstable Factor players will fuse when near each other, redistributing the stack count by adding them up and dividing by two, rounding down. This means that if a player with two stacks and a player with one stack fuses, both will have one stack afterwards (2 + 1 = 3, 3 ÷ 2 = 1.5, rounded down to 1).
• Critical Factor is gained when a player loses a stack of Unstable Factor. It also drops a slime onto the ground, and slimes will tether onto players in the middle. These will deal damage to them and inflict stacks of Fourfold-come Ruin, and Critical Factor will increase this damage.
• Stable System prevents players from fusing too early. This can largely be ignored.

While the mechanic looks complicated, towers always spawn in the same sequence. The first two towers will be of opposite aspects. The second and third set's north tower will always be the opposite aspect of the first tower on each side, while the second and third set's south tower will always be the same aspect of the first tower on each side. This allows players to form initial positioning based on the debuff they receive at the beginning, and soak towers based on the debuff they get.

First, players will form a conga line to determine which side the 0 stack and 1 stack players are going to. This line is assigned before the pull, and ideally a tank with their invulnerability up is at the very right and has aggro for the tank buster afterwards. Once debuffs come out, 0 stack players will move forward and 1 stack players move back. The left-most player goes west, and the right-most player goes east. Once sides are determined, players will position as follows.

1. Players with no additional debuffs (0 stack) will soak the first tower on their side.
2. Players with 1 stack will stay out close to where the second south tower spawns.
3. Once towers appear, players with 2 stacks will go to the side opposite of their aspect.
4. The player with the shorter debuff soaks the tower, making sure to fuse with the 0 stack player there.
5. The player with the longer debuff will stay out and fuse with the 1 stack player close to where the second south tower spawns.

For the second set, players will soak towers based on their original position, making sure to fuse with their partner inside the tower. The players who soaked the first tower will soak the second set's north tower. The players who stayed out of the first tower will soak the second set's south tower.

For the third and final set, players will soak towers based on whether they receive an aspected debuff or not. Players that receive an aspected debuff from the second tower will swap towers for the third tower. Players that do not receive an aspected debuff from the second tower will stay for the third tower. For example, if a player in the south tower received Astral Tilt on the second set, they would go to the north tower on the third set, which would be light-aspected.

Finally, the 0 stack players will have to take tethers from the slimes dropped when fusing. The west 0 stack player will take the three tethers west and take them northwest, while the east 0 stack player will take the three tethers east and take them north on the east side, making sure not to stray too far from the centre as they will have to move west after the AoE. This is because Pallas Athena will cast Palladian Grasp on the tank, which should be on the right side of the arena using their invulnerability to take both hits. All other players should be close to the middle on the south side of the arena. Heal up and spread in the middle for the next mechanic.

Pallas Athena introduces the following abilities in this phase.

• Panta Rhei: Pallas Athena will morph all shapes spawned by The Classical Concepts, mirroring them vertically and horizontally. The new shapes will then tether.

There are two methods to solve Classical Concepts 2. The brute force method requires players to solve the mechanic like they would the first time, then run across the arena to the mirrored location to solve the tethers. The other method requires players to solve the mirrored mechanic in their column and preposition to intercept tethers in their column after shapes have been mirrored.

Using the first method, players will solve the mechanic just like in the first Classical Concepts. Next, while still tethered to their partner, they will slowly move across the arena to the opposite column mirrored. This will always solve the mechanic, but requires precise movement to not break the partner tether. Use the diagram above or macro below to determine where to go. This method requires less thinking, but is more difficult for movement.

(  ) 1 (  )  2 (  ) 3 (  )
  4       5        6       7
(  ) 8 (  )  9 (  ) 8 (  )
  7       6        5       4
(  ) 3 (  )  2 (  ) 1 (  )

Using the second method, players will solve the mechanic for the opposite column's blue shape, then mirror it on their own column and stand in the correct position. Again, players can use the diagram or macro to determine where to go after mirroring. This method requires more thinking, but is easier for movement.

After the shape's purple tether appears, players must bait Palladion Ray. The partner tether will have disappeared by then, and players will ideally bait the conal AoE such that the safe spots between the shapes are still safe, as the shapes explode after the conal AoE goes off. In addition, the sides of the arena and south are always safe, so move out if necessary. This is followed by Ultima and Crush Helm. If players die here, there is plenty of time to recover so don't panic. Pre-position for the next mechanic the second and final Caloric Theory.

Pallas Athena changes the following abilities in this phase.

• Caloric Theory: Now inflicts all players with two stacks of Close Caloric. One player receives the beacon, and they receive one extra stack. All other players will receive Atmosfaction, and one random player receives eight stacks of Entropifaction.
  • Entropifaction will emit a large circular AoE periodically which removes one stack. This debuff can be passed to another player.

Caloric Theory 2 is the simpler version of the mechanic. Players will all have pre-assigned positions, and one player in the middle of the arena is designated as the flexer. One random player will receive the beacon, and they will move into the centre spot while the flexer goes to replace them at their spot.

One random player will receive the Entropifaction debuff. As soon as an AoE appears under them, they will go clockwise to the next outside player and pass the debuff. Just like Caloric Theory 1, all players need to go straight and never curve when moving. Once they have passed the debuff, wait until the next AoE appears. The player who passed the debuff will move towards the outside from where they came from, and the player who received the debuff will continue going clockwise to the next outside player and passing the debuff.

Upon reaching the final player not in the center, that player will move out to where the first player was and stay there. At this point Atmosfaction will go off, and all stacks of Close Caloric will be removed. Players then have to quickly heal up and mitigate for Ekpyrosis. This one can be either pattern, but is functionally the same as the first.

Afterwards, Pallas Athena will cast Ultima into the final Gaiaochos of the fight. Make sure to mitigate both hits, and save mitigation for later.

Pallas Athena changes the following abilities in this phase.

• Summon Darkness: Pallas Athena summons only one add at the edge of the arena, which shoots a line AoE across the arena.
• Demi Parhelion: Pallas Athena spawns nine circular AoEs on the arena. These will explode and persist for a few seconds.
• Summon Darkness: The second time this is cast, Pallas Athena will summon eight adds at the edge of the arena. Four of these will tether to players of one role, which shoot a line AoE towards them. This line AoE deals moderate magic damage which must be shared by one other player by that player standing in front of the tethered player relative to the add. It also inflicts a magic vulnerability up debuff. This will happen twice, tethering to players of both roles.

The first set of mechanics involve the chains from Missing Link, vertical or horizontal AoEs from Geocentrism, and Divine Excoriation AoEs happening in a different sequence than the first Gaiaochos. All players should stack in the middle and look for the singular add that appears. This add will always spawn at an intercardinal, cutting off two edges. Note which two intercardinals are safe.

Pallas Athena then casts Demi Parhelion into Geocentrism. The latter will show you which is safe, vertical lines or horizontal lines. Players will then break chains by going to the safe intercardinal, but also obeying the vertical or horizontal AoE. Supports will always go north and DPS will always go south. After breaking the chain, players need to spread for Divine Excoriation. Have tanks and melee move further and healers and ranged stay in the corner.

The final mechanic is Summon Darkness. Four players of a single role will become tethered to an add. They need to stretch this tether and go to the opposite side of the arena from their add. Meanwhile, the four players of the opposite role need to stand between a tethered player and their add to soak the damage, making sure not to get hit by any other AoE. They can do this by going to their partner and standing in front of them, or going to their partner's add. This will happen twice, once for each role.

After each set of tethers, Pallas Athena will cast Ultima, so mitigation and spot healing is extremely important. It is possible for a tank to stand in the middle and use their invuln ability if anyone is dead to soak all four tethers.

After the second Ultima, Pallas Athena will begin casting her enrage, Ignorabimus which finishes at 8:28 into the fight. Defeat her before she wipes the raid!

The Caloric Theory strategy used by PFs will differ. The strategy described in the guide is Papan used in NA and EU, but others are used in other data centres. Here are a few used in various PFs.

• Mochibe Caloric 1
• Hexagon Caloric 1

Some parties make Alpha Target take the north tether and Beta Target take the south tether in Classical Concepts. The sides for certain mechanics can also be flipped, so communicate with your party beforehand and/or follow the macro posted.

When Athena is defeated, a treasure coffer will appear that contains an Ascension Weapon Coffer and random Ascension weapon, as well as a Megaloambystoma Horn, Wind-up Athena, and Ultima's Perfection (Endwalker) Orchestrion Roll. When opened by a player, these coffers contain an item level 665 Ascension Weapon for the job the player is currently on.

The amount of loot that drops depend on how many players have already cleared during the weekly lockout. If no players have cleared yet, all loot will appear. If one to four players have already cleared, the loot is halved. If five or more players have already cleared, no treasure coffer will appear.

Players who defeat the encounter for the first time during the weekly reset will also receive an Anabaseios Mythos IV token. Eight of these can be traded in for an Ascension weapon of your choosing at a Pandaemonium gear vendor. These tokens can also be traded for any other Anabaseios Mythos token from previous floors at a 1:1 exchange rate at the same vendor.