6.x BLM Raid Guide

By: Rika Vanih

Overview

This document will go over various recommendations and information relevant to playing Black Mage for various endgame fights for Endwalker. Keep in mind that these are just generalized tips to be used as a starting point–there may be different strats, killtimes, or other personal optimizations which may require alternative planning that will deviate from the suggestions in this document. If you have any questions/comments or feel like something is missing that would be valuable to add, feel free to give your input over in the Black Mage channels in the Balance.

Pandaemonium: Asphodelos (Savage)

[P1S] Asphodelos: The First Circle (Savage)

Overall, this fight does not require many extra considerations or adjustments. With extra resources and flexibility, it serves as both a sort of dummy fight, good for newer players to get their feet wet with savage, as well as a good training ground for starting to learn some nonstandard gameplay.

Opener

• Standard opener is sufficient, you should not have to save movement tools or adjust the opener for this fight.
• Consider slidecasting/moving during the pot weave to place your Ley Lines closer to your assigned spot for chains.
• If you need to move for chains, don’t move instantly as soon as the debuffs go out. Positioning doesn’t matter until the chains resolve so you can maintain more uptime in your Ley Lines. Just make sure your team knows you might be late to move.

Ley Lines timings/positioning

Overall Ley Lines should be used roughly on cooldown for this fight.

1. Use as normal in opener, ideally close to your position for chains
2. At the start of Intemperance, placed at an intersection between four squares. With this placement, you can move to the edge of your Ley Lines in whichever square you need to be in for the mechanic (example below)

3. In the middle of Shining Cells, after the second Aetherflail. Place them between two adjacent tiles so you can stand on the required tile for Shackles of Time.
4. Use at the end of the second Intemperance, when you get to your final position for the mechanic.
5. Depends a bit on killtime. If kept strictly on cd, there’s a decent window after chains before the Aetherflails. With a killtime at enrage, there’s a good window after Aetherflails during the Warder’s Wrath spam -> enrage.

Positioning/movement for mechanics

• Chains

  • Ideally you have a set position and only have to move if you get the other debuff. For example, if you have NE for chains, you always have that spot unless you get purple chain and have to take an inner spot.
  • For Fourfold, if you are doing timer strat, try to preposition in the center of the arena to lower the distance required to get into position for your debuff.

• Intemperance

  • Having a position W/E/SW/SE allows you to stay within your Ley Lines as you move between squares as needed to do the mechanic.
  • If you get stuck with a NW/NE position and can’t get anyone to swap with you, when the pattern comes up that you have to change your color South you will have to momentarily abandon your Ley Lines

• Gaoler’s Flail

  • For the in/out variant, the border of the safe spots is shared. Standing near this border allows you to do the in → out or out → in movement with a small slidecast
  • For the left/right variant, you can stand in the center of the boss’ hitbox, one step to the safe side for the first cleave. This is sufficient to avoid the first cleave, and leaves just a small movement to avoid the second hit. Consider zooming your camera in for better visibility for the center of the hitbox (see here for reference).

[P2S] Asphodelos: The Second Circle (Savage)

Opener

• Standard opener with prepull Ley Lines is generally recommended. Ley Lines ~4s prepull, F3 ~3s prepull

Ley Lines timings/positioning

1. Prepull ~4s before pull
2. On cooldown as Shockwave is going off. With the first use being prepull, you can get full uptime with this use before potentially having to move for Spoken/Winged Cataract
3. After Kampeos Harma, grouped up with party members for raid buffs
4. If used properly on cd you should be able to get essentially a full usage before you have to move for Sewage Eruption. You may alternatively consider delaying until after Sewage Eruptions (especially if it will be slightly delayed and it won’t make you lose a use) but it is generally less recommended.
5. The final use depends on killtime–if you are killing at enrage, using it when you get into position for the final Shockwave → stacks is best. Otherwise you may need to fit a use somewhere in the middle of Channeling Overflow 2 whenever you can get the most uptime in them.

Positioning/movement for mechanics

• For Sewage Deluge, it takes a while for the water to actually rise. Instead of standing on one edge and potentially having to run all the way to the opposite side, you can actually stand in the center of the arena when the cast goes out, shortening the distance you have to travel.
• To prepare for Spoken/Winged Cataract, it can generally be beneficial to be near or at the square opposite the dirty one beforehand, so at most you will have to move one square of distance to dodge.
• If you do end up on the opposite corner from the safe spot for Spoken/Winged Cataract, depending on orientation there is sometimes a small section of the grate right next to the dirty square that is safe that you can use. However, make sure that you/the party can be properly situated for Coherence (or other mechanics) afterwards.

Additional notes

• It is generally recommended to not attempt to use Aetherial Manipulation through the water. Like all movement skills, it is not a teleport but instead fast movement, and so there is a good chance that you will get dropsy if you AM through the water.
• As a last resort, getting dropsy is better than outright dying. Try to alert your healers that you might get (or already have gotten) dropsy, use Manaward to have a better chance at survival, and try to avoid the situation next time
• You can (and should) aim to nullify the knockback from Shockwave via Surecast. Since it is a long cast, make sure you don’t use it too early (around 50% into the cast or later is sufficient).

[P3S] Asphodelos: The Third Circle (Savage)

Opener

• Standard opener is generally fine. Consider saving Swiftcast (using the second Triplecast in its place) to help with movement for the first Experimental Fireplume.

Ley Lines timings/positioning

1. Use as normal in opener

2. Use at edge during Devouring Brand, after dodging the Searing Breeze AoEs. Ideally you can dodge Left/Right Cinderwing within them, stay at edge during Heat of Condemnation tethers, and only move to mid right before the Experimental Fireplume snapshot. If your party cannot adjust to allow you to get decent uptime with your Ley Lines at the edge like that, move to mid after Left/Right Cinderwing and then use them.

3. After adds phase

4. After stretching your bird’s tether during Fountain of Fire. Ideally the tanks/party can do the Heat of Condemnation tethers relative to where you are standing in your Ley Lines

5. On cd at the tail end of tornado phase allows for a full usage if you don’t get targeted with a Fledgling Flight add, and a mostly full usage if you do. Make sure you are in range for healing/mitigation for the Scorched Exaltation.

   1. Alternatively, consider placing your Ley Lines directly on one of the Fledgling Flight adds. It is somewhat tight and you’ll want to stand on the edge of your LL for safety, but if the other ones are placed well, you can stand on the edge of your LL to fulfill the requirements of any of the Death’s Toll debuffs, as pictured below:

6. Roughly on cd, making sure you don’t have to abandon them for Left/Right Cinderwing.

Positioning/movement for mechanics

• For the initial Experimental Fireplume, Xeno→AM will generally be able to handle the movement. Consider saving Swiftcast from the opener for an additional instant if needed. The F3P from the sharp Paradox can be used to help with getting into position for Darkened Fires

  • For the Shiva pattern, keep in mind that you do not need to go to the edge of the arena, just outside of the center circle to dodge the final hit.

• For Fountain of Fire, ideally you can take the first or second set of baits so you can drop your LL after stretching your tether without delaying them or losing uptime in them.

• Try to save a Triple to handle the movement for the Searing Breeze AoEs during tornado phase.

• For the first set of Fledgling Flight adds, they do not all need to be positioned outside of the hitbox. If you get targeted, you can instead opt to slidecast out to place yours, instead of utilizing instants to place it further out like normal. Just make sure your party is aware that they may have to adjust slightly, that you don’t place yours too close to another party member’s add, and that you’re not preventing a melee player from doing positionals.

Additional notes

• For the Darkened Fire adds, unless the boss is moved closer to any fires, you can’t hit any of them while targeting the boss and casting Foul. You can, however, target one of the fires with Foul and hit the fire + boss for a small gain over using Xeno.

  • If you have to assist with killing the fires outside of Foul, try to use an instant cast if possible–the fires do not have much HP and ideally you don’t want to have a cast canceled due to someone killing it before your cast completes.

• Adds phase damage is not counted on fflogs. While of course it is important that the adds die in time (and you should burn resources if needed to pass the phase), if your group has damage to spare you can make sure you have two polyglot stacks, prep a thundercloud proc and potentially spam Fire to have a firestarter proc ready for a reopener post-adds.

  • For efficiency on adds, Thunder is not worth it on the small adds but can be worth it on the big ones (sharp T3 → T3P on another add), especially if they take a bit longer to die.

[P4S P1] Asphodelos: The Fourth Circle (Savage) Part 1

Opener

• Standard opener is sufficient, you should not have to save movement tools or adjust the opener for this fight.

Ley Lines timings/positioning

1. Regular timing in opener.
2. At the end of the first Pinax at the edge (manaward the Bloodrake to make sure you survive)
3. At the first tether spot/tower, should be over by the second tower. Alternatively (especially if you cannot use the second LL on the edge) you can also place them after the first tether/tower, partially overlapping the tower you may need to take.
4. At the end of the second Pinax, or earlier if the boss will die sooner.

With a faster killtimes, some groups will switch to 0/3/5 raid buff timings, which are comfortable as well to align Ley Lines with (regular timing in opener, before orbs, and near the end of the tower mechanic).

Positioning/movement for mechanics

• For the tethers during tether + rot and tether + towers, there is room to take a tether directly under the boss/between all four towers without clipping others. The tether AoE is around the size of the boss’ hitbox, so as long as others are a few steps away from his hitbox they should be safe. Make sure the party knows if you plan on doing this.
• For the stack/spread at the end of Pinax 1, it is preferable to be able to stay at the edge near sword/cape so you can LL immediately and not have to move for the stack/spread.
• Planning for triple use to help deal with Pinax and orb movements is generally recommended

Additional notes

• For Pinax, you can time Surecast to cover both the water knockback as well as the cape knockback if they occur together–the timing is when the water finishes spouting, which is around the 60% mark in the Cardinal Shift cast bar.

[P4S P2] Asphodelos: The Fourth Circle (Savage) Part 2

Opener

• Standard opener is sufficient. You may consider saving Swiftcast to help with movement for Act 1, especially on a higher sps set

Ley Lines timings/positioning

1. Regular timing in opener
2. Near mid after Act 2, ideally in between two potential towers if you’re soaking first towers in Act 3. Should be over by the time you have to move to soak your tower.
3. Near the end of Act 4. There’s a lot of room to place them in the quadrant opposite 3rd and 4th tether break (assuming you don’t have to break the tether)
4. At the start of Curtain Call, near mid on the side where you have to run out to break your tether. If it doesn’t cause you to lose uptime in them due to killtime, you may consider waiting to use them until after your tether break.

With a very fast killtime, you may need to use the Act 4 LL earlier in the center of the arena to avoid missing value from the Curtain Call LL–it’s a bit tight, but you can dodge at the edge of your LL opposite each tether break and be out of range of it.

With a killtime at enrage, an earlier 3rd LL can result in a partial extra usage at the end of the fight. However, since the center dodge for Act 4 can be a bit risky and the potential gain is minimal (and zero once you kill slightly faster and miss the use anyways), it’s generally recommended to slightly delay this usage in this situation.

Positioning/movement for mechanics

• With lower sps, a standard opener followed by a sharped AF Paradox allows you to handle movement for Act 1 with the standard AF1 F3P line. With higher sps, consider saving swift for the following F4, and potentially use Xeno to help adjust for Nearsight/Farsight if needed.
• Being conservative with Triplecast usage, especially when newer to the fight, can help keep uptime during the mechanics. Having a use for Act 2 and one (or two) uses for Act 4 makes this very cozy.

Additional notes

• Manaward has very high value in prog/in pugs during Curtain Call when you step out to break your tether.