O8S (Kefka)

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…

Overview

This is the second fight in the Omega raid series and it can be a tricky one. This fight is overall pretty straightforward, but there are a handful of mechanics that really ramp up the difficulty.

Video Guide

Party Setup

For this fight I recommend the standard one tank mimic, two healer mimics, and five DPS mimics. It can be solo healed if the tank is good at balancing MP and helping heal with White Wind, but two healers will be easier for most groups.

Phase 1: Kefka

Utility Spells

• Mighty Guard
• Diamondback

Kefka’s first phase is pretty simple. Most of the mechanics don’t require a ton of adjusting and play out the same way each time, so just a little bit of practice is required to get through this phase.

Mana Charge / Mana Release

Kefka’s first phase will revolve around using Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder spells in combination with various statue abilities and Mana Charge. Mana Charge stores the next Fire, Blizzard, or Thunder spell which will then be repeated via Mana Release. The first time we see this it will always be Flagrant Fire. This can be either a spread or a stack mechanic, but there is one extra twist. While Kefka is casting, if there are question marks floating around him it means the spell will do the opposite of what is being telegraphed. For example, if it shows a stack marker and question marks then it will actually be a spread mechanic. Once the first hit happens, keep your distance from the tank for the upcoming Hyperdrive. This is a heavy-hitting tankbuster with a small AOE, but it can be trivially mitigated with Diamondback.

Right after Hyperdrive, Kefka will use Mana Release and repeat whatever version of Fire was previously stored with Mana Charge. Kefka will then cast Thrumming Thunder which will create a bunch of line AOEs perpendicular to each other. As with Flagrant Fire, this mechanic can be “fake,” so if there are question marks while being cast then you need to stand in the intersection of the ground AOEs to not get hit! Kefka will follow up with Ultima Upsurge, a moderate raidwide AOE, before starting our first proper mechanic of this phase.

Graven Image 1

Kefka will cast Graven Image which spawns a giant statue at the northern edge of the arena. This mechanic will drop a bunch of Inexorable Will AOEs on the ground, target players with Wave Cannon line AOEs and Pulse Wave knockback tethers, and then target players with Indomitable Will stack AOEs. The targeting for every component of this is completely random, so there’s no safe and consistent way to resolve it. Instead, we will make use of Mighty Guard and Diamondback to survive everything! Have everyone put up Mighty Guard and stack in the center of the arena. As soon as the first AOEs appear, spread out to clock positions, wait about one second, and then hardcast (no Swiftcast) Diamondback. All of the previously mentioned effects will go off but everyone should survive.

Once out of Diamondback look for where Kefka teleports to and run behind him. Sprint can be helpful for making it in time. Kefka will use Revolting Ruin, a frontal AOE. Kefka will follow up with Light of Judgment, a raidwide which will hit extremely hard due to our Vulnerability Up debuffs from the previous mechanic. Mitigate with Addle, Bad Breath, and Gobskin. Magic Hammer can be helpful here, and if you want to play it extra safe you can just keep Mighty Guard on until after the cast finishes.

Graven Image 2

Kefka will then store a Thrumming Thunder and Blizzard Blitz cast back to back, so dodge accordingly. He will then cast Graven Image again and the statue will appear on the west edge of the arena and start casting Shockwave, a huge knockback effect. Look closely because during the cast the statue may swap to the east side. Go to whichever side the statue is on and after the knockback dodge both the Thunder and Blizzard effects from Mana Release. Kefka will then use Ultima Upsurge followed by Hyperdrive before casting Graven Image again.

Graven Image 3

Kefka will start by casting Gravitas, a light AOE on four random players that leaves behind an AOE puddle that applies a lethal bleed effect. He then follows up with Vitrophyre, a light AOE on four random players with a huge knockback to any secondary targets hit. He will then cleave half of the room (indicated by the glowing orb on the statue), another Gravitas, another Vitrophyre, and finish with Aero Assault which is an AOE knockback.

Since the targeting for this mechanic is random, we don’t have a reliable way to handle the mechanic the way traditional jobs would. Instead, everyone puts on Mighty Guard and stacks in the center. Immediately after the Gravitas cast, the party spreads out to clock positions for the Vitrophyre hit. After this, the party needs to go the safe side of the arena. Once the Gravitas puddles disappear from the center, everyone needs to move back into the center to bait the final Gravitas, and then use Surecast to prevent the knockback from Aero Assault.

There is a ton of damage going out during this mechanic, so Angel's Snack and White Wind are crucial here. Kefka will finish the mechanic off with another Light of Judgment, so heal up and mitigate appropriately.

After Graven Image 3, Kefka will cast Mana Charge and Flagrant Fire, Ultima Upsurge, and Graven Image. This time Graven Image simply cleaves half of hte room, so dodge accordingly. At the same time he will use Mana Release to repeat the previously casted Flagrant Fire.

Kefka will then use Thrumming Thunder, Ultima Upsurge, and Hyperdrive again before casting Graven Image yet again. This last Graven Image has a ton going on and is honestly pretty awful to try on Blue Mage. This should be treated as the phase’s hard enrage.

Final Sting

Kefka’s Final Sting threshold is roughly 65%, since he transitions at 60%. Once he is at 65%, apply Off-guard, use Moon Flute, any Primal abilities you have, then finish with Whistle and Final Sting. Most groups will be able to sting shortly after Graven Image 3.

Phase 2: God Kefka

Utility Spells

• Mighty Guard
• Diamondback

Kefka’s second phase is a little bit trickier. Once you fully understand the mechanics it is fairly easy, but getting to that level of understanding can be tricky. The fight mostly comes down to how well the party is able to execute the Forsaken mechanics.

Celestriad

Kefka will start the fight by casting Heartless Angel which sets everyones HP to 1 before casting Ultima, a heavy-hitting raidwide AOE. Quickly heal back to full and mitigate the Ultima cast. Kefka will then use Hyperdrive, but in this phase it also applies a bleed debuff. If no damage is taken by the initial hit then there is no bleed effect, so Diamondback and Gobskin can be used to prevent the bleed effect. It is crucial that Kefka is in the center of the arena for Celestriad. the first major mechanic.

Celestriad involves Kefka casting all variations of Blizzard Blitz, Flagrant Fire, and Thrumming Thunder together. For Celestriad we will use what we call “Celestriad Positions,” which will also come up in several fights later on. The cardinal positions (N/E/S/W) rotate clockwise to find partners to share a quadrant. Thrumming Thunder will cause only the intercardinals of the arena to be safe initially and Blizzard Blitz will cover the center of the arena. Players should be spread out within their quadrant, about halfway between the Blizzard Blitz AOE and the edge of the arena. A Flagrant Fire stack marker will go out on one player who should Diamondback immediately. Everyone else will move forward and step into the center circle as soon as it becomes safe, and then spread out to clock positions within that circle to prevent Flagrant Fire overlap. This all happens extremely quickly and the timing is pretty tricky, so it will take practice, but there are also a couple of things to keep in mind:

• The tank will be in Diamondback from the tankbuster as Celestriad starts. They can immediately Diamondback a second time in order to ignore all of the Celestriad mechanics.
• Celestriad starts 29 seconds after pull. To be able to Diamondback, you need to be out of Waning before this happens. This means that Moon Flute will be cast at -2 seconds from pull to start right at 0 seconds. That means that you will not be able to precast Tingle before Moon Flute. The easiest change to make is to just drop Tingle entirely. It is slightly more potency to keep Tingle and drop Bristle from Matra Magic, but this is a bit harder to pull off and the gain isn’t huge.

Kefka will finish Celestriad with another Ultima and then cast Forsaken, a heavy-hitting raidwide AOE.

Forsaken 1

Forsaken 1 is a mechanic you will want to (and need to) get well-acquainted with, as it comes up in this fight quite a bit. Kefka will start by casting Heartless Archangel which sets everyone’s HP to 1 and applies an Incurable debuff. The Incurable debuff lasts for only 4 seconds if the recipient was at full health when Heartless Archangel goes off, but will last for 12 seconds if they were not at full health.

During this mechanic, Kefka will create three Starstrafe towers that need to be soaked by two players (in the east, west, and center). He will also cast The Mad Head which spawns four heads that tether to four random players and slowly move towards them. When touched, they explode in a small AOE that deals damage and applies a Magic Vulnerability Up debuff. During the mechanic he will also use Wings of Destruction (Double) that hits the closest and furthest target with an AOE tankbuster. There is a lot to unpack with each step, but the steps for the entire mechanic are:

1. Forsaken AOE
2. Heartless Archangel
3. Soak Starstrafe towers
4. Pop skulls
5. Bait Wings (Double)
6. Ultima
7. Soak Starstrafe towers
8. Pop skulls
9. Light of Judgment AOE

To fully understand the mechanic, let’s break each step down by itself and then combine them all together.

Each Starstrafe tower needs two players to be properly soaked. The east and west towers are soaked by the players tethered to the skulls. The skulls spawn in the four intercardinal directions (NW/NE/SW/SE). The players tethered by the west skulls will soak the east tower and the players tethered by the east skuls will soak the west tower, which just leaves the center tower. There will be four players remaining and only two need to step into the center tower. This can be called out verbally, but if multiple people call it out at once it can lead to confusion. I prefer to use a self-marking macro like this to make things easier:

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

The way this works is that this will assign the red 1 and 2 markers to people in the order that they press it. If a few people hit it at the same time it’s possible that the markers will jump around a bit initially, but once the markers are assigned they cannot be re-assigned by hitting the macro repeatedly. Once the skull tethers go out, if the other players hit this macro until markers are established then there will be two people marked in the end. These are the two players that step into the center tower. The macro will also remove the markers after five seconds.

The people tethered to skulls need to pop the skulls before they explode on their own, but they also need to do it after they get healed and do so away from other players. After they have soaked their tower, these players need to step out to the north or south, whichever side their skull is coming from (so it doesn’t go through the center). As soon as they get healed up and the skull isn’t near anyone else, they need to run into the skull to blow it up.

Almost immediately after, Kefka will start casting Wings (Double). The tank should stand in the dead center of the arena, the party should be a bit south of that, and whoever is designated as the baiter needs to run outwards and use Mighty Guard. This hit is survivable at full health with just Mighty Guard, but other mitigations should be used to make it even safer.

After the wings hit, Kefka will cast Ultima before spawning a second set of towers and skulls. This plays out exactly the same as the first time, but the targets will not be the same. Kefka will then finish the mechanic with a Light of Judgment AOE, so heal up and mitigate appropriately. Once this is done, the tank should make sure to point Kefka straight north to make the next mechanic consistent.

Trine (Small)

Kefka will cast Trine (Small) and spawn three sets of triangles at various locations on the ground that explode after a delay in the order that they spawned. The ideal plan is to find where the third set of triangles spawns and move into where the first set was after they explode. While this is going on, Wings of Destruction (Single) will also be happening. Go to whichever side of the arena Kefka isn’t cleaving (doesn’t have a glowing wing) and dodge the Trine triangles. This is the reason why we want to have Kefka facing north; many players find it easier to think of east/west rather than doing it relative to Kefka. After the third set of triangles explode, Kefka will use Wings of Destruction (Double) again so bait and mitigate appropriately. This mechanic is actually quite difficult to read in my experience, so this is one mechanic where it can be helpful to have someone who is very confident call out where to go and just follow them.

Futures Numbered/Pasts Forgotten

After Wings resolves, Kefka will cast Ultima again followed by either Futures Numbered or Pasts Forgotten. Futures Numbered will be a cleave in front of Kefka, while Pasts Forgotten will be a cleave behind Kefka. I remember this as “your future is ahead of you” or “your past is behind you.” Everyone needs to stack behind Kefka for the first hit and then move together to avoid whichever of Future/Past was cast. If it was Future, the party needs to run through (since he is now facing the party). If it was Past, then everyone can just stay where they were. Kefka will then cast Ultimate Embrace followed by Hyperdrive, so stay away from the tank. Diamondback lasts long enough to mitigate both hits. After the tankbusters, Kefka will cast Ultima again as we go into Forsaken 2.

Forsaken 2

Forsaken 2 is a nightmare of a mechanic. It involves meteors, towers, Kefka clones, and just chaos in general. The full mechanic plays out like this:

1. The two furthest players from Kefka are targeted by Starstrafe prey markers, which drop four meteors that leave behind puddles which slow and deal massive damage to anyone inside.
2. One two-person tower spawns in the east and one two-person tower spawns in the west.
3. Two players get targeted with five ground-targeted AOEs.
4. One four-person tower spawns in the north.
5. Four clones spawn and jump at random players and cast Futures Numbered or Pasts Forgotten.
6. Two two-person towers spawn in the east and two two-person towers spawn in the west.
7. One player gets targeted with a stack marker.
8. One person gets targeted with a proximity marker.
9. Light of Judgment.

This mechanic is possible to resolve correctly, but it is extremely difficult and we will instead cheese most of it with Mighty Guard and Diamondback. This is how we handle it:

1. Everyone put up Mighty Guard and stack in the middle.
2. Double Wing baiters (or two other people) step slightly outside of center to bait Starstrafe, then return to the stack when the marker appears.
3. Have both healers use Angel's Snack before ground AOEs start appearing.
4. Stutter step outwards to your clock position, making sure to step just barely outside of AOEs to leave yourself as much room as possible.
5. Clones charge four people, and the players that didn’t bait Starstrafe cast Diamondback.
6. After stepping out of their fourth Starstrafe AOE, the baiters use Swiftcast and Diamondback.
7. Observe the chaos from inside your marble.
8. After Light of Judgment, remove Mighty Guard.

The video guide doesn’t show this strategy, since I figured this one out quite a bit later. This clip shows this strategy in action if you want to see how it plays out. By doing this you will receive a ton of Damage Down debuffs and be doing functionally zero damage, so there’s no real downside to keeping Mighty Guard on until the debuffs fall off. Since damage isn’t a concern, this strategy is definitely way easier and more consistent than trying to do it “properly.”

After Forsaken 2 is done, Kefka will use Celestriad again. This is handled exactly the same way as in the beginning, except this time he will finish with a Wings (Single) cast, so just move to whichever side is safe.

Trine (Large)

Kefka will cast Trine (Large) which will be handled one of two ways. If the small triangles create a pattern where the outside is unsafe, we will stack in the dead center of the arena (inside the larger triangle). The points of the large triangle will explode, but the center is safe. If there is a small triangle in the center of the arena, then we need to move to whichever outside edge does not have a small triangle. After Trine (Large), Kefka will do another Futures Numbered/Pasts Forgotten combo, Wings (Double), a tankbuster combo, Ultima, and then we go into Forsaken 3.

Forsaken 3

In a vacuum, Forsaken 3 is quite intimidating. In practice, it’s actually pretty easy. Kefka will call back the Graven Image statue from phase 1 for this mechanic. The full mechanic plays out like this:

1. The statue tethers to four people for a knockback.
2. Ultimate Embrace.
3. Two two-person towers spawn in the east/west and one four-person tower spawns in the south.
4. The statue will then confuse four people and put four people to sleep, while two two-person towers spawn in the east/west again.
5. Ultima.
6. One cycle of Forsaken 1 plays out.
7. One four-person tower appears while Kefka casts Wings (Double).
8. Ultima.
9. Wings (Single) while the Graven Image statue cleaves either east or west.
10. Light of Judgment.

Fortunately the difficult parts of this mechanic can also be cheesed with Diamondback. Split the party up into one group of two (Wing baiters), another group of two (healers), and a group of four (remaining DPS). Have the first group take the west tower, the second group take the east tower, and the third group take the south tower. Everything gets resolved in this order:

1. Preposition into tower locations.
2. When knockback tethers appear, everyone use Surecast and tank use Diamondback. The person sharing the tower with the tank needs to make sure they don’t get hit by the tankbuster while soaking the tower.
3. When the next set of tethers appear, everyone Diamondback. This prevents the sleep and confusion combo from killing anyone.
4. Handle Forsaken 1 the same way as before.
5. Group of four soaks south tower again, while Wing baiters handle Wings (Double).
6. Point Kefka 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 going into his enrage sequence. The order of mechanics is:

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 cycle
10. Ultima x4
11. Light of Judgment (hard enrage)

This fight has a very easy DPS check and is strictly a mechanics check. Most groups will kill shortly after Forsaken 3 resolves, but there is a full three minutes of mechanics after that to stabilize and finish the fight.

Final Sting

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