Blue Mage Exdeath Raid Guide (2024)

Taken by curiosity, you activate something called the Savage Initiativeat a Garlond Ironworks terminal. Apparently a program to addresswork-related stress, you are treated to a soothing song composed by acertain minstrel, its lush strains massaging your mind and adding vibrantflourishes to the memories of your trials within the Deltascape...

This is the first fight in the Omega Blue raid series and is generallythe easiest of the bunch, but also the most chaotic. Most of the mechanicsare pretty simple in a vacuum, but the wacky nature of BLU raiding makesthem a little bit difficult to resolve.

This guide is written assuming you have all Blue Mage spells, appropriategear, and know how to play your chosen role.

If you prefer video format, there is a full video guide availablebelow.

For this fight I would recommend having the standard one tank mimic, twohealer mimics, and five DPS mimics. You can replace one healer mimic withanother DPS mimic if you are trying to skip Grand Cross Omega, but the solohealer will need to seriously know what they are doing.

• Diamondback and Mighty Guardcan be helpful if you don't skip Black Hole.

• Dualcast: Causes Exdeath's next ability to cast twice.
• Blizzard III: Puts ground-targeted AoEs underneath players.If channeled on the black hole during cast (never with Dualcast), itinstead will freeze players in place if they are not moving when thecast finishes.
• Thunder III: Small AoE tankbuster thatapplies a Lightning Vulnerability Up debuff. If channeled on the blackhole during cast (never with Dualcast), it instead will be a largepoint-blank AoE that applies a 30 second Paralysis debuff.
• Fire III: Small AoE with moderate damage on four random partymembers. If channeled on the black hole during cast (never withDualcast) it instead will apply Pyretic to the party and deal damage ifthey take any actions.
• White Hole: Immediately kills anyone below 50% HP, petrifiesanyone between 50 and 99% HP. No effect if full HP.
• The Decisive Battle: Heavensfall-like AoE in the center ofthe arena along with tentacles that deal damage in a circular pattern,as well as a stack marker and flares.
• Holy: Stack damage.
• Flare: Mild AoE damage that increases with proximity totarget.
• Vacuum Wave: Mild damage and big knockback, can be avoidedwith Surecast.
• Black Hole: Spawns a bunch of black holes that kill playerson contact. Tethers four players with black holes that slowly movetowards them. Also casts Fire III and Holy during this.
• Meteor: Big raidwide AoE.

This phase is overall pretty straightforward and doesn't last that long,but there is still quite a bit going on. For basic preparation stepseveryone should be assigned a standard clock position around the arena.

In the beginning, Exdeath will use Dualcast and the threeelemental abilities. The first one used is Blizzard III, so simplymove out of the way when the circles appear. If you start a Moon Flute opener at the normal time then these willappear when you would normally be using Phantom Flurry. Itis still possible to get a full opener off, but it can be easier to start itabout 2 GCDs after the countdown hits 0 instead.

The second ability used is Thunder III. Everyone just needs to getaway from the tank while the tank uses Diamondback.

The third ability used is Fire III. For this everyone should justspread out, clock positions are an easy way to do this. This hits quite hardand it can hit the same person twice in a row. Mitigating with Addle, Bad Breath, and Gobskin can make this survivable. For even more safetysomeone (tank recommended) can bring Magic Hammer but it'snot strictly necessary.

After Fire III Exdeath will use White Hole, so quickly group upand heal to full to avoid its effect.

The next mechanic to deal with is The Decisive Battle. Find wherethe last tentacle will spawn and stand on it, and also note which directionthe tentacles will be hitting. You will get knocked back from the center andget hit by a Holy stack marker. I recommend having the tank or ahealer use a Swiftcast White Wind to heal upafter the stack. The knockback can be avoided with Surecast, butI recommend saving that for Vacuum Wave later. Everyone can also bring andput up Mighty Guard for safety, but it's not necessary.After the knockback everyone should start moving in the direction of wherethe first tentacle hit the ground and keep going to avoid the last tentacleas well as the zombie breath. When the zombie breath goes off, three playerswill be targeted with Flare and need to spread out from one another.Everyone should try to be on the edge of the arena since Exdeath will returnon top of a random person.

When Exdeath returns, he will use another elemental ability but channeledon the black hole. If it's Thunder III, everyone needs to get away.If it's Blizzard III, everyone needs to keep moving. If it's FireIII, everyone needs to do nothing. Next he will use VacuumWave, so either move close to him or use Surecast to avoidit. If he doesn't get baited to the edge, then you need to use Surecast or a well-timed J Kick to avoidgetting knocked off.

Exdeath will follow up with White Hole again, and then cast BlackHole. During Black Hole, everyone just needs to run around to avoid eachother (because of Fire III) while also avoiding touching any black holes.There is a stack marker in the middle of this, and it's usually easiest tojust have that person use Diamondback. If that person isalso tethered to a black hole they'll probably die. I recommend everyone use Mighty Guard during this phase to reduce the amount ofdamage taken. Exdeath will finish this phase with another White Hole cast.

After the Black Hole phase, Exdeath will do another Dualcast Thunder IIIso handle it the same way as before. Next he'll use Meteor and loopthe fight starting from The Decisive Battle one more time before enrage.

Exdeath's Final Sting threshold is 67%, since he transitions at 60%. Oncehe is at 67%, apply Off-guard, then use Moon Flute, any Primal abilities you have, and finish with Whistle and Final Sting. At least oneperson needs to stay alive during the transition or else you will need to dothe phase again. Most groups will be able to Final Sting either just before orafter Black Hole.

• Mighty Guard;
• Diamondback on some players to handle Grand Cross Alpha damage when the tank has Allagan Field;
• Revenge Blast;
• Hydro Pull or another AoE spell;
• Frog Legs on an Earth Shaker baiter;
• Avail on main healer and Earth Shaker baiter.

• Almagest: Extremely heavy-hitting bleedwide.
• Aero III: Moderate damage on tank. This is not AoEdamage even though it looks like it is.
• Delta Attack: Dualcasted Blizzard III, Fire III, and ThunderIII at the same time.
• Grand Cross Alpha: Raidwide damage that applies Hysteria,Allagan Field, Acceleration Bomb, and Off-balance to varioustargets.
• Terminal Antilight: Raidwide damage that deals massive damageto the closest player.
• White/Black Antilight: Color beams on each half of the arenathat kills players if they have the same color debuff as the beam. Thesedebuffs also have shapes (triangle for black, circle for white) that canbe used to identify them if a player is colorblind. If someone does nothave a color debuff (i.e. they died), they just need to pick a side andstand on it. Standing in the exact middle causes you to get hit by bothbeams and die.
• Double Attack: Massive tankbuster that causes a knockback anddeals more damage based on proximity.
• Emptiness: Spawns three moving circle AoEs that deal damage,apply a damage down, and drain MP.
• Inner/Outer Antilight: Lethal AoE on the center line or bothsides of the arena.
• Grand Cross Delta: Raidwide damage that applies CursedShriek, Forked Lightning, Death Wave, Acceleration Bomb, Beyond Death,and Off-balance to various targets.
• Earth Shaker: Heavy-hitting cone damage on top two threattargets.
• Vacuum Wave: Big knockback close to the boss.
• Light and Darkness: Applies Holy to one player and Flare tothree players with the same effects as in phase 1.
• Meteor: Spawns four orbs that need to be killed beforethey explode.
• Charybdis: Sets all players' HP to 1.
• Grand Cross Omega: Lots of debuffs, this is functionally likeDelta followed by Alpha with some lasers at the same time.

If it seems like there are a lot of abilities in this phase, it's becausethere are. Most of the mechanics are actually simple in concept, but due torandom targeting they become quite chaotic and can spiral out of controlquickly. Similar to fights like A8S, everyone will need to know how to dotheir job correctly in order to make it through this. One thing to note onthis fight is that there are absolutely no auto-attacks. The only incomingtank-targeted damage comes from Aero, Double Attack, and Earth Shaker. Thismeans that even if things get messy, it's completely possible to recover apull. Most of the fight comes down to either skipping Grand Cross Omega ordoing it successfully, and even if almost no one survives Omega the fight isstill clearable as long as resses are available. All of Neo-Exdeaths"Antilight" attacks will have a "Flood of Naught" castbar, but I'll refer tothem using their effect names for clarity. One final thing to remember isthat any positions in this fight will always be "boss relative," where theboss is considered "north."

Neo-Exdeath will open up the fight with an Almagest. Thisabsolutely needs to be mitigated with Bad Breath and Addle at minimum. Since the DPS will be in Moon Flute, the tank or healer will need to apply Addle.Almagest is a really good time to use Angel's Snack.

Shortly after Almagest, and around when Phantom Flurryis finishing, Neo-Exdeath will start casting Delta Attack. He willput baited circles under people, hit them with fire, and hit the tank with atankbuster. To handle this, everyone needs to go to the center of the arenato bait the circles and then move out to their clock position. The tank willneed to Diamondback to survive the busters. Since thetank is in Diamondback, the main healer can actually Avail the tank and stay in the center to use AoE heals onthe group. I recommend having the tank start just north of the center forthis so they don't take excess AoE damage, but it doesn't matter too much.There is still a lot of damage going out here, so we will want the samemitigations as Almagest. Whoever didn't Addle Almagest will need to AddleDelta Attack, and the DPs will be in Waning Nocturne so they cannot doit.

Once Delta Attack has resolved, Neo-Exdeath will start casting GrandCross Alpha. This is the first of the Grand Cross abilities and it isthe easiest. Every Grand Cross ability is actually an arena-wide stack,meaning that if people are dead it will hit harder on the people alive. Ontop of this, it will reset everyone's threat to zero so the tank should usea White Wind not only to heal up but also to generatethreat again. Various debuffs will be applied with the followingeffects:

• Hysteria: Applied to everyone, makes people run in a randomdirection.
• Allagan Field: Damage taken with this debuff will hit theentire raid after the debuff wears off.
• Acceleration Bomb: Deals damage and applies debuffs ifactions are taken when the debuff expires.
• Off-balance: Damage taken causes massive knockback from thesource of the damage.
• Light/Dark Wound: Color debuff, takes lethal damage from thespecified color.

Everyone will get a Wound and Acceleration Bomb, three people willreceive Allagan Field, and the remaining five people will receiveOff-balance. After Hysteria resolves, Neo-Exdeath will teleport to a randomside of the arena and start casting Flood of Naught. We want theAllagan Field players to plant in the middle of the arena to reduce thedamage from this. The person closest to the boss will take a lot of damage.If the tank does not have Allagan Field they can just stand in front and befine. If the tank does not have Allagan Field, someone will need to Diamondback to survive. Everyone else will stand betweenthat person and the Allagan Field players, but they need to make surethey're close enough to the boss such that the Off-balance knockback doesnot knock them off the arena.

After the knockback, everyone needs to stand still until AccelerationBomb wears off. Once it does, move to the side of Neo-Exdeath that has theopposite color of your debuff. This is a good time to use Cold Fog.

If everything was done correctly, everyone should still be alive. Thereis a toolboxthat shows the full sequence of events.

Once Grand Cross Alpha resolves, Neo-Exdeath will use DoubleAttack on the primary target. The tank should just move to the center ofthe arena and use Diamondback and everyone should moveaway. The AoE is quite large, and the hit will knock the tank out ofDiamondback so they need to be somewhat close to the boss still.

After Double Attack we will see our first Emptiness cast. Therewill be three circles that show up in the arena: one in the center and twoon the outside, all with arrows indicating the direction in which they willmove. Find a spot that is safe from these and move to it. I usually like tomove right in front of the boss and adjust if needed. Once the Emptinessstarts moving, he will begin casting Inner/Outer Antilight, so move to thecenter line or the outside edges to stay safe while still avoidingEmptiness. This mechanic is quite tricky in certain patterns, so if someonein your group is good at identifying this quickly I recommend having themcall it out.

The next mechanic we have to deal with is Grand Cross Delta. Thesame generic notes about Alpha apply here, but this time we have some newdebuffs:

• Cursed Shriek: Deals damage and petrifies players looking inthe debuff's direction when the timer ends.
• Forked Lightning: AoE around the player when the timerends.
• Death Wave: Stack marker.
• Beyond Death: Immediately kills the player when the timerends unless they took lethal damage before it ended.

One person will receive Death Wave and Cursed Shriek, one person willreceive Forked Lightning and Cursed Shriek, one person will receive ForkedLightning and Beyond Death, and everyone else will receive Off-balance andeither Beyond Death or Acceleration Bomb. The basic idea here is that ForkedLightning needs to be away from everyone, Cursed Shriek needs to be behindthe group (so that looking away is easy), Death Wave needs to be taken solowith Mighty Guard, and everyone with Beyond Death needs tofail the color beams to "die."

If you have the Death Wave debuff, put up Mighty Guardand stand somewhere in the west. If you have Forked Lightning and CursedShriek, stand somewhere near the center of the arena. If you have ForkedLightning but no Cursed Shriek, stand somewhere not near anyone else. If youhave Off-balance, move right underneath the boss. When everything ticks off,the Death Wave person should survive and no one should get hit by theShrieks or Lightnings. Acceleration Bomb people need to make sure they don'tdo anything when the timer wears off. Once the first effects wear off,anyone with Beyond Death needs to fail the color beams and everyoneelse needs to do it correctly. It's important to remember that if you haveOff-balance you want to be close to the boss so the knockback does not pushyou off the arena. As with Alpha, there is atoolboxfor this mechanic for reference.

Once all of this has resolved, Neo-Exdeath will use Almagest so mitigateappropriately. He will then use Aero III, and whoever is baiting the secondEarth Shaker will want to use Frog Legs during thiscast bar. Right after Aero III, Neo-Exdeath will use Earth Shaker on the toptwo targets. The easiest way to handle this is to have the tank Diamondback and the other baiter use Avail on them. Another way to handle it is to have thebaiter Diamondback away from where the tank is. Regardless of how you arehandling it, make sure to point the cones away from the party.

Right after Earth Shaker is Vacuum Wave, so just move away fromthe boss. He will follow this up with another Emptiness that leads intoLight and Darkness. Everyone should try to start right underneath theboss when Emptiness starts, and when the Holy and Flaremarkers go out resolve them. The Flares should move away from the party,while everyone else stays stacked together. "Flares away, everyone stay" ismy mnemonic for remembering this. Neo-Exdeath will then use anotherInner/Outer Antilight so dodge accordingly.

Neo-Exdeath will now cast Meteor and spawn four orbs that need tobe killed, similar to any other type of orb that looks similar. If you standin the middle and cast your AoE spell you'll hit all four and make quickwork of them. During this he will teleport somewhere and use color beams, soresolve appropriately.

Once the color beam is resolved Neo-Exdeath will use Charybdis toset everyone's HP to 1, and then use Double Attack. This is a goodopportunity to use Revenge Blast for awhile, but the tankstill needs to be healed. After Double Attack there is another Almagest, somitigate appropriately and have the tank heal the party back to full with a White Wind before the cast finishes.

Neo-Exdeath will now use another Vacuum Wave, Aero III, and Emptiness. Asthe Emptiness circles start moving he will use Grand Cross Alpha again, soget to the center as soon as it is safe. Grand Cross Alpha is handled thesame way as before.

After Grand Cross Alpha there is another Delta Attack. This one is trickybecause he finishes with an Inner/Outer Antilight, so the tank needs to timetheir Diamondback such that they can move to dodge it afterwards. The timingfor this is about 4 GCDs after the color beams. If people are using ColdFog on the color beams, you can hardcast Diamondback when there is 6 secondsleft on their Cold Fog buffs. Aside from this timing nuance, Delta Attack ishandled exactly the same as the beginning of the fight, but then we need tododge the Inner/Outer Antilight after.

Grand Cross Omega is the next big mechanic and it's the last newmechanic. There aren't any new debuffs here, but there are a ton of debuffsapplied. The way I think about this mechanic is "Delta with threeconsecutive beams followed by Alpha." There is a ton going on during thisand the boss isn't targetable, so it can be helpful to have everyone use Mighty Guard for extra safety. That being said, if anyonedoes happen to die it can make things go wrong very quickly. Anyway, thedebuff assignments are:

• Hysteria on everyone.
• Death Wave, Acceleration Bomb, and Allagan Field on one person.
• Cursed Shriek, Off-balance, and Beyond Death on two people.
• Forked Lightning, Acceleration Bomb, and Allagan Field on two people.
• Forked Lightning, Acceleration Bomb, and Beyond Death on one person.
• Off-balance, Acceleration Bomb, and Beyond Death on two people.

The first step after Hysteria wears off is to have everyone without aForked Lightning go underneath where Neo-Exdeath was when the cast finished.The Death Wave person should be right at the edge of the arena, whileeveryone sharing the stack should be inwards from that to get knocked back.Even easier, you can have the Death Wave person take it solo like in Deltaand the others go opposite of Neo-Exdeath. The one downside to this way isthat it will make Allagan Field hit harder later, but if everyone has MightyGuard on and is healed up it should be fine. The Forked Lightning peopleshould spread out along the east/west center line. Death Wave and ForkedLightning will go off first, and at the same time Neo-Exdeath will teleportto the south side and start using a beam.

Handle the beam correctly while keeping Off-balance in mind. Then he willteleport to the east and use another beam, which should again be handledcorrectly. Then he will teleport to the south and use a third beam. On thisone, players with Beyond Death should "die" to resolve their debuff. Theycan resolve it on any of the beams, but the actual order of the beams israndom. It could be colors or it could be in/out for each step. If you "die"on an early beam and then there's a color beam right after, you will die forreal so it is easiest to do it on the third beam.

After the beams resolve, the Acceleration Bombs and Cursed Shrieks willresolve. Everyone should stand completely still and look away from eachother. Finally, he will cast Terminal Antilight which we will handle thesame way as in Alpha. There is a toolboxfor this mechanic as well.

After Grand Cross Omega it's just repeating mechanics until enrage whichhappens a full 6 minutes later. Even if only a couple of peoplesurvive, as long as you have resses available you can stabilize and stillclear. If it's a messy cleanup situation, I recommend everyone just keepMighty Guard on until things are stable.

Neo-Exdeaths's Final Sting threshold is about 7%. Once he is at 7%, apply Off-guard, then use Moon Flute, anyPrimal abilities you have, and finish with Whistle and Final Sting. Most groups will be able to Final Stingjust before or after Grand Cross Omega.