Dragonsong's Reprise (Ultimate)

Overview

“There are no ifs in history, yet man is wont to cast his mind towards the path not walked.” Thus spoke the wandering minstrel, and at his urging, you reflect upon bygone trials with newfound perspective. Your imagination stirred by the man's masterfully woven verse, you dream of an alternate conclusion to the Dragonsong War─one in which a dear comrade is spared his tragic fate...

Strategy Notes

• The fight will open with Sers Adelphel & Grinnaux as the only targetable bosses. Players should pull both bosses into the center of the arena and focus on keeping Grinnaux and Adelphel at roughly the same level of HP. Adelphel will begin by casting Holiest of Holy, dealing heavy party-wide damage, and Grinnaux will cast Empty Dimension, so players should move into his hitbox. Following this, Adelphel will tether to a random player and begin casting Holy Shield Bash, which the off tank should pick up and turn away from the party. Once the Holy Shield Bash/Blade Dance combo goes off, Charibert will hit all players with Heavensblaze, dealing high damage, which should be mitigated and healed through.
• After a certain amount of time, Adelphel will leave the arena and Grinnaux will target four random players with Hyperdimensional Slash. The four marked players should move to the northern end of the arena and space out, making sure not to stand in the cardinals or intercardinals, but somewhere in between to carefully position the portals to where they won't tether or get hit by Adelphel later. The remaining four players should group behind the boss to split the incoming attack and not get overlapped by the frontal cleaves. Once the attack fires, players in the rear will spread out to their nearest markers in the same way the first marked players did, and the attack will fire again. Players should be careful to avoid getting too close to the portals, as they will tether to them, deal massive damage (most likely killing the player), and deal a Damage Down debuff, severely hindering them.
• Adelphel will soon return to the arena, landing on a random cardinal of the arena and begin to cast Holiest of Holy, dealing proximity-based damage. Grinnaux will cast Faith Unmoving, knocking players backwards a good distance. Players should use their knockback mitigation skills here and move away from Adelphel. Next, Adelphel will dash across a corner of the arena to the next cardinal, dropping exploding orbs of light where he passes. He will then dash across the arena, then across another corner, in a zig-zag. To avoid this, players should move towards the corner of the cardinal where Adelphel first dashed to in order to avoid the explosions and future dash attacks. Once he stops dashing, the tank that is at the top of his enmity list should move away from the group, as Adelphel immediately follows up with Execute, a tankbuster that deals high damage in an AoE. After these attacks resolve, the portals will fade.
• Players should move the bosses back to the center of the arena, and prepare to interrupt Holiest Hallowing, a massive heal for Grinnaux cast by Adelphel. Grinnaux will use a second Faith Unmoving at this point, and Adelphel will try to cast a second Holiest Hallowing, which needs to be interrupted. For this Faith Unmoving, each player will be marked with either a cross, a square, a circle or a triangle based on their role, and tethered to a player with the same symbol. There are several ways to handle this mechanic, and some players can try to pre-position based on their role, but there is plenty of time to adjust positioning as long as they move quickly. Players should move opposite the player with the same marker as them, and get knocked back from each other to break the tether. If the tether doesn't break, take a few steps towards the edge of the arena, then back in towards the center of the arena and spread out around the boss. Failing to break the tether in time will inflict massive damage on both players and Damage Down. Charibert will cast Heavensflame, hitting all players in a small AoE and inflicting Fire Resistance Down II. If players overlap for this attack, they will die.
• Adelphel will cast another Holiest of Holy, while Grinnaux casts either Empty Dimension or Full Dimension. If Empty, players need to move into Grinnaux's hitbox, and if its Full, players need to move to max melee range. These attacks should be mitigated and healed through. Following this, Adelphel will attempt to cast another Holiest Hallowing, which needs to be interrupted. At this point, players need to focus on burning down both bosses as fast as possible, and defeat them both at as close to the same time as possible. If players aren't able to defeat the bosses before the enrage timer, they will both cast their enrage abilities and wipe the party. If players defeat one boss, the other will immediately begin casting their enrage, and the party has around 3 seconds to defeat the remaining boss. Once both bosses are defeated, they leave the arena and reappear with Charibert on the west side of the arena. The untargettable Grinnaux tethers all players to him and pulls them into a Planar Prison, inflicting them with Planar Imprisonment, which will kill players immediately if they leave the prison circle.
• At this point, Charibert will begin casting Pure of Heart, which will deal party-wide damage based on how much HP he has when the attack completes casting. He will also cleave the two closest players to him with Brightwing, dealing very high damage debuffing with Light Resistance Down and Skyblind, which will detonate after four seconds. To handle these mechanics, players need to take turns baiting the cleaves away from the party in rotation, with the party moving away from the boss, then moving towards him when the players get cleaved and move out to avoid getting hit by the Skyblind debuff AoE. Players need to burn down Charibert's HP as much as possible before his attack finishes casting. Players will notice Ser Zephirin appear on the east side of the arena and throw his Spear of the Fury at the party, but Haurchefant run into the arena and block the spear, which quickly drains his HP and kills him. This is a reference to a mechanic that players will have to handle later, but do not need to worry about for now. However, when Haurchefant is alive, he will constantly pulse out party-wide damage with Shockwave that should be healed through.

Duty Information

• Duty Finder: Raid Finder (Ultimate Raids)
• Time Limit: 120 minutes
• Tomestones: 100 Poetics

Achievements

• As Suits a Hero

Music

• Phase 1: Vault Knights: The Heavens' Ward
• Phase 2: King Thordan: Heroes
• Phase 3: Nidhogg: Freefall
• Phase 4: The Eyes | Ending Cutscene: Contention
• Phase 4 Enrage: Primogenitor
• Intermission: Hallowed Halls
• Phase 5: Dark King Thordan: Heavensward
• Phase 6: Nidhogg and Hraesvelgr: Dragonsong
• Phase 7: Dragon-king Thordan: Revenge Twofold (Orchestral Version)