T9 (Nael van Darnus)

At a depth of 6329 yalms, your exhausted yet determined fellowship enters the hulk’s operations deck. An impossible scene unfolds before you, the surreal landscape bathed in a crimson glare and holding the promise of epic conflict…

Overview

This is the second fight in the Morbol raid series. It is a bit trickier than T5 overall, but is still very accessible. The final phase can be extremely chaotic, but thanks to our burst damage (especially since level 70) we can skip most of it. As with T5, the line between phases is a bit blurry so some of the phases have been combined in the guide for simplicity’s sake.

Video Guide

The video here is older, but the strats are unchanged. The only thing that is different is that we have substantially more burst than we did at the time the video was made, so phases will be much shorter.

Party Setup

For this fight I recommend the standard one tank mimic, two healer mimics, and five DPS mimics setup. You can get away with a single healer but we have so much damage already that it won’t change much.

Utility Spells

• Missile
• Diamondback
• Mighty Guard
• Sticky Tongue on two people

Phase 1: Nael

The first phase is extremely short and almost every mechanic will be skipped. If you happen to be targeted with Stardust, indicated by a rock icon over your head, bring it out to the edge of the arena. I recommend using northwest, northeast, and south for meteors in general. It is important that it is not dropped in the middle for the next phase. If meteors get dropped too close to each other they explode and will wipe the raid.

The tank will need to mitigate the Ravensbeak tankbuster and the follow-up damage from the Raven Blight debuff. Nael will use Raven Dive, a jump on a random person, followed by Iron Chariot, a short-range AOE with a big knockback. Simply stay out of the center, and if needed run to the center to share the Thermionic Beam damage, indicated by a red marker over a random player.

Phase 2: Golems

Phase 2 begins at 65% health when Nael jumps away. Everyone should turn on Mighty Guard and leave it on for the entirety of this phase.

Three players will be targeted with green meteors. These players should drop them in the three center circles in the arena, one per circle. Once the marker disappears from their heads they need to run out to the edge of the arena since the meteors do proximity-based damage from where they are dropped.

Once the meteors drop they will spawn three golems: a red golem, a blue golem, and a green golem. The red golem deals AOE damage and puts fire puddles on the ground, the blue golem pulls enemies in and applies a paralyze debuff, and the green golem does big AOE damage, massive single target damage, and a tankbuster cleave. The golems will eat nearby meteors and grow larger, up to three times. Once they’ve eaten three they have a big vulnerability down buff and deal significantly more damage, and also will be unable to eat any more meteors. They can also eat each other if they get close to one another, which is equivalent to eating three meteors. Our goal is to exit this phase with no meteors left and no golems left.

Assign two people to assign the red and blue golems in two different directions with Sticky Tongue. For example, one person could always pull red to the west and one person could always pull blue to the east. Everyone else should immediately kill the green golem with Missile because it is extremely dangerous.

Once the green golem is dead and the red and blue golem have been separated, the players controlling those golems need to bring them to the meteors so that they will eat them. Once there are no meteors left, kill them with Missile.

When the golems are all dead the party should stack up at the south edge of the arena. Nael will spawn 6 meteors in quick succession on random players. Once the first marker appears, the party should start running clockwise around the edge of the arena. Do not use Sprint and do not try to adjust to others if they are ahead/behind; just keep moving! If this was done correctly, all 6 meteors will drop at a safe distance from each other without blowing up.

After all the meteors have dropped, another set of green meteors will need to be dropped in the center. Handle the golems the same way as before, but now the red and blue golems need to eat three meteors each before being killed to ensure that there are no meteors left.

Once the golems are dead the next phase will start. Have the tank stand away from the party. Nael will cast Megaflare, which is survivable with light mitigation, but you can also wait to turn off Mighty Guard until after the cast for extra safety. If there are still meteors left up you can survive some explosions with Diamondback.

Phase 3: Heavensfall

Nael will start the phase by jumping onto the tank with Dalamud Dive, a mild AOE tankbuster, before beginning the Heavensfall phase. She will cast Heavensfall which drops a big pillar in the center of the room and causes a big knockback. The knockback can be prevented with Surecast. If the Heavensfall pillar lands on top of you it will instantly kill you, so make sure you are not too close to the center of the arena. Moon Flute Openers should be used on Nael at this time, but make sure to weave Surecast in somewhere or start openers after using Surecast. There are yellow pie slices on the ground that need to be avoided, but they are easy to dodge. The tank will be hit by Bahamut’s Claw, a multi-hit tankbuster, and will need to be healed.

Nael transitions from this phase at 47% HP. If you’re too slow, which is rare, she will spawn a dragon and apply Garrote Twist to a party member. The dragon can be killed with Missile and it will drop a white circle on the ground. The person afflicted with Garrote Twist should step into the circle to cleanse the debuff before they die.

Phase 4: Dragons and Elements

This phase is the most chaotic phase in the fight, but if your DPS is good you won’t see most of it. The basic idea is that there are Ice, Fire, and Lightning dragons that do different attacks. The Ice dragons will hit party members one at a time, round robin style, and apply an Ice debuff while removing Fire debuffs. The Fire dragons will target a random party member, indicated by a red tether, and deal AOE damage around them which applies a Fire debuff and removes Ice debuffs. The Lightning dragon will target a random party member, indicated by the Thunderstruck debuff, who will deal AOE damage around them and apply a nasty Paralyze debuff. If you get hit by Ice while you have an Ice debuff or get hit by Fire while you have a Fire debuff you die. If you’ve seen the Holt/Cold mechanics in more recent content like Trinity Avowed in Delubrum Reginae then you should be somewhat familiar with how this works.

The basic idea here is that we need to alternate Fire debuffs in and out of the party so that we don’t apply Fire too quickly, and we also need to have anyone with Thunderstruck move away from the party so they don’t Paralyze everyone. During this phase Nael will also use the various dives, tankbusters, Lunar Dynamo, and Iron Chariot abilities from the previous phases. There is a lot to keep track of and it happens quickly, so it is easier to just write this out as a timeline with how to resolve each step:

1. Bahamut’s Favor (damage up buff) → Bahamut’s Claw
2. Fireball (out)
3. Raven Dive
4. Thunderstruck (get far away) + Lunar Dynamo (in)
5. Fireball (in), Thunderstruck (out)
6. Fireball (out)
7. Everyone out for Iron Chariot, avoid Thunderstruck player
8. Dodge Super Nova while avoiding the center; three random players will be targeted with AOE damage that leaves behind a puddle that applies a fatal bleed to players that step inside
9. Meet in the center to share Thermionic Beam (or Diamondback).
10. Fireball (in)
11. Thunderstruck (away) + Bahamut’s Claw
12. Divebombs

The only mechanic that hasn’t been explained so far out of these is Divebombs. We can cheese these completely with Diamondback. Make sure the tank is away from the group because there is a Dalamud Dive right after this mechanic. Wait for the Meteor Stream markers to appear over players’ heads and then hardcast Diamondback (hardcast means without Swiftcast). Meteor stream does AOE damage on whoever is targeted, but we’ll be Diamondbacked so it doesn’t really matter much. If we timed this correctly, there will be Divebombs and Meteor Streams but everyone should survive. Nael will then repeat the previous mechanics until dead, but with a slightly different order, but even groups with low DPS should be killing her right after Divebombs.

Final Sting

Nael’s Final Sting threshold is about 15%. Once she is at 15%, apply Off-guard, use Moon Flute, any Primal abilities you have, then finish with Whistle and Final Sting. Most groups will be able to do this immediately after coming out of Waning Nocturne from their Heavensfall phase Moon Flute Openers.