Overview
Known simply as the “Guardian,” this foe is described by Cid as the machine responsible for defending a capital city. As a creation of otherworldly engineering it is impossible to know exactly what weapons it will bring to bear─only that this will be a contest of force versus overwhelming brute force.
Strategy Notes
- Players will find themselves in an otherworldly location, akin to a mechanical factory, within a square-shaped arena. Unlike the two previous encounters in Sigmascape, V3.0 involves a dangerous outer wall that should be avoided at all costs. Any player who touches the edges of the arena will suffer moderate damage and a Shocked debuff, which is similar to Paralysis but also causes damage-over-time for several seconds.
- Whilst facing off against this literal death-machine, players will also notice large monitors outside of the arena which will give some visual hints regarding upcoming mechanics. Be sure to glance at them whenever the Guardian begins to Load a program, as the images indicate upcoming mechanics and will allow the raid to preemptively organize themselves ahead of time. Final Fantasy enthusiasts will likely recognize the images as sprites from Final Fantasy VI.
- Now that you know the Guardian's basic mechanics, let's take a look at each program it can load throughout the encounter.
- Once fully loaded, the Dadaluma program begins with an unavoidable Shockwave, inflicting damage and knocking back the entire raid from the Guardian's current location. Seeing as the outer edge of the arena is dangerous, all players should position themselves so that they are not pushed into it. This knockback can be prevented with Arm's Length or Surecast.
- Once the knockback has concluded, Chakra Burst spawns eight yellow circles within the arena - each one displaying a slowly descending orb (meteor mechanic), indicating that at least one player must be standing within each circle before the orbs hit the platform. If one (or more) circles are uninhabited by the time the orbs finally descend, the entire raid will suffer damage and debuffs (relative to how many orbs were uncaught).
- Once Chakra Burst has ended, Dadaluma himself will spawn within the arena and should be picked up by an off-tank as soon as possible. Whilst active, he will occasionally unleash an Aura Cannon (straight-line AoE) that should be avoided.
Boss Encounters
Guardian
- Magitek Ray - Guardian turns to face a random player and - after an animated wind-up - emits a straight-line AoE across the arena. As a rule of thumb, if the Guardian turns to face you or your general direction unexpectedly and you notice blue energy forming by its cannon, a hefty side-step can take you out of danger. Any player hit by the beam will suffer high damage and be afflicted with a stackable Vulnerability Up debuff.
- Arm & Hammer - a tankbuster against Guardian's current target. Be sure to mitigate the blow with cooldowns whenever possible.
- Diffractive Laser - raidwide AoE attack. Bear in mind that Diffractive Laser will often be used as a 'loaded-program' filler.
- Prey Missile - places a noticeably large orange-red marker on a random DPS. After a brief delay, the marked target will suffer moderate damage and a flaming debuff.
- Load Program - as mentioned before, the monitors outside of the arena will display an image that represents which program is being loaded. There are four possible programs - each being represented by a recognizable sprite of Dadaluma, Ultros, Air Force, and Bibliotaph. Bear in mind that loaded programs are not always in a static order, so instead, we'll describe each one individually.
Duty Information
- Duty Finder: Normal Raids (Stormblood)
- Roulette: normal raids
- Time Limit: 90 minutes
- Tomestones: 10 Poetics
Music
- Main: A Battle Decisively