Dancing Mad (Ultimate) Phase 1 Guide

The first phase of this fight focuses on base form Kefka as seen in Sigmascape V4.0 (Savage)'s first phase.

1. Assign each player a number within their role. I.e. Tank 1, Tank 2, Melee 1, Melee 2, Healer 1, Healer 2, and Ranged 1, Ranged 2. Casters are considered as Ranged for this. These numbers will be used to determine positions throughout the phase.
2. Split the party into Support and DPS groups. The support group will handle mechanics on the west side of the arena, while the DPS handles the east.
3. Assign pairs consisting of one DPS and one Support and assign them each to a cardinal direction.
4. Assign four-player light parties. Tank 1, Healer 1, Melee 1, and Ranged 1 are light party 1, the remaining players are light party 2.
5. Assign clock positions with Tank 1 north, Tank 2 south, Healer 1 west, Healer 2 East, Melee 1 southwest, Melee 2 southeast, Ranged 1 northwest, and Ranged 2 northeast.

When pulled, Kefka will open the fight with a couple of auto attacks before casting Revolting Ruin III.

This is a conal tankbuster that will target the first player on aggro then do another conal tankbuster on the second player on aggro. There is not a vulnerability debuff from this, so it is possible to have a single tank take both hits by having the other tank Provoke before the end of the cast.

Like in the Savage version, Kefka will summon the Statue of the Gods in the background and cast Graven Image. The Statue will tether all four players of one role, signifying that the tethered role will get knocked back. At the same time, Kefka will cast Mystery Magic, telegraphing two 90-degree conal Blizzard AoEs, as well as telegraphing fire spread or stack markers. Kefka will have two rings floating around him, one fire and one ice. These rings determine if the telegraphs he is showing are real or fake. If the ring has a question mark icon on it, the telegraph he is showing for that element is fake, and it will instead do the opposite. I.e. if he is telegraphing a stack AoE, but the fire ring has a question mark, the stack is fake and he is instead going to do fire spread AoEs. Likewise, if the ice has the question mark, the area he telegraphs for the cones will be safe, and the remaining areas will be cleaved.

To resolve this mechanic, identify whether the fire and ice telegraphs are real or fake. Supports will resolve their mechanic in the quadrant left safe from the ice cleaves on the west side, while DPS will do the same on the east. Stack or spread within your role based on which fire mechanic is happening. If your role is tethered, make sure to position so that you get knocked back into the safe area on your respective side.

Immediately after resolving the fire stacks or spreads, spread out into a lineup along the east to west line. Support should stay on the west half of the arena, and DPS on the east. We recommend putting the Tanks and Melees closest to the boss on their respective sides for melee uptime, and the Healers and Ranged DPS closer to the edge of the arena. Melee 1 and Tank 1 can be a little inside the boss hitbox, with Melee 2 and Tank 2 max melee distance on their respective sides to keep melee uptime. The Statue will randomly target two Supports and two DPS with a line AoE. Each player hit will drop a tower that needs to be soaked by the four players that did not get hit by the line AoE.

To resolve this, consider this as a mini conga-line style mechanic within each role. The west-most Support that did not get hit soaks the west-most tower on the west half of the arena, while the east-most Support soaks the east-most tower on the west half of the arena. DPS do the same. Supports and DPS should never cross the north-south center line of the arena. A DPS will never take a tower dropped by a Support and vice versa.

As the towers are resolving, one DPS and one Support will get a Double-trouble Trap debuff. This debuff will do an AoE that knocks anyone hit away from the player who had the debuff. The damage done to each player is shared, and the total damage is quite high, meaning it is preferred to have all four players of each role stacked. The debuff will jump to a random player in each stack. Pay attention to the timer as this debuff will resolve a couple more times throughout the fight. The easiest way to resolve this is to have each role stack on the ring of the boss hitbox on their respective west/east sides, with the player with the debuff standing max melee distance behind them.

As the debuffs are about to resolve, the boss will cast another Mystery Magic. This time he will telegraph lightning line AoEs as well as the ice cones from before. He will again have two rings floating around him, one ice and one lightning. Like before, if a ring has a question mark, that element's telegraph is fake and will do the opposite of the telegraph shown. Immediately after the knockback resolves, move into the safe areas for the ice and lightning AoEs.

Kefka will end this segment with a Light of Judgment raidwide damage cast, followed by a three-hit Hyperdrive tankbuster with no cast or telegraph. During this time, Kefka will transition the Statue of the Gods to the next segment.

For a visual of the following mechanic, please reference this Raidplan.

The Statue of the Gods will tether all eight players this time based on roles. All Supports will either get tethered to the left (purple) side of the statue, while all DPS are tethered to the right (yellow) side of the Statue, or vice versa. The role tethered to the purple side of the Statue will drop a stack AoE that leaves behind a puddle that will explode if you touch it. At the same time, Kefka is casting Blizzard III Blowout. This is the same ice cleave mechanic as before. Determine if it is real or fake using the ring floating around his body. Shortly after, the role tethered to the yellow side of the Statue will get hit with an AoE that will knock anyone too close to them off the arena. This AoE cannot touch a purple puddle that has dropped as well, or it will detonate it, which will wipe the party.

This mechanic is part of a secret puzzle that needs to be solved correctly to advance to Phase 3 later in the fight. To complete this mechanic while resolving the puzzle, we need to combine some of the puddles and later step into them to soak them. We can do this by splitting the party into light parties. This will guarantee that each light party will drop two puddles and have two yellow tether players as well.

We will send light party 1 to the north near the wall, stacked tightly together, while light party 2 does the same to at the south wall. Dodge the ice cleave accordingly. The goal is to drop the puddles from this set and the puddles from the next set so that the overlapping area is along the north-south line. Each light party would normally drop two duo stack puddles, but because they are stacked, the puddles combine into a four player stack.

Immediately after, have the yellow-tethered Melee or Tank rotate to the nearest east or west cardinal. It is safe for them to go max melee distance. The yellow-tethered Ranged or Healer will rotate to the nearest intercardinal, staying out toward the wall. The remaining players run under the boss. This will safely allow the yellow tethers to drops their AoEs while avoiding both the party and the puddle. Do not touch the purple puddle yet, this will be soaked later. Touching it early will cause it to detonate.

Kefka will cast another Revolting Ruin III tankbuster, handled the same way as before. At the same time, either the purple or yellow side of Statue will glow brightly, indicating that it will cleave that half of the arena. Resolve the tankbuster in the safe half.

The Statue will once again tether each role. Pay attention as this could be the same or opposite tether assignments as before. This is resolved the same way, but the purple puddles from the first set are still here. Have each light party stack as close to the first puddles as possible to the east or west of it, depending on which side the initial puddle was dropped. This is very important to create an area of overlap between the two puddles so that they can be soaked at the same time later. Remember that the goal is to have the overlap of the two puddles be on the north-south line for consistency. Yellow tethers resolve their AoE the same as before, while purple tethers run under the boss after dropping the puddle.

The Statue will do another half-room cleave indicated by which side is glowing. At this point, the Double-trouble Trap debuffs will be close to expiring again. The Double-trouble Trap debuffs still need to be resolved by roles to keep them consistent, so send the Supports to the north of the boss and the DPS to the south. The player with the debuff should stand outside of the ring of the boss hitbox while the remaining players in each group stand on the boss hitbox. You have a moment to adjust after the knockback, so be sure to adjust into the overlap between the two puddles. The players who had the knockback debuff will step backwards into the puddles on their respective sides so that there are four players soaking each set of puddles. This will trigger them to detonate, completing the puzzle and triggering a new voice line later.

Kefka will once again end the segment with a Light of Judgment raidwide damage followed by an untelegraphed, castless Hyperdrive triple-hit tankbuster. During this time, he will transition the Statue to its highest point.

If the puzzle was done correctly during the purple and yellow tethers, after the Hyperdrive tank buster, Kefka will say, "What!? There's no way that didn't work!"

Kefka will cast Tele-trouncing, applying two arrow debuffs to each player. One role will have two different arrow debuffs, while the other has two of the same arrow debuff on each player. When the debuffs expire, they drop circular teleporters that will teleport a player who touches them in the direction shown. This mechanic is the final part of the puzzle to progress to Phase 3 later. To resolve the puzzle correctly, all sixteen arrows need to be used at the end of this mechanic. Be careful not to accidentally trigger the teleporters early by stepping on them!

A simple way to resolve this is to form a giant square around the arena with the teleporters. It is extremely important that everyone space correctly so that each teleporter is triggered when it is time. At the time of writing this, NA Party Finder is mostly using the following image to orient the arrows.

Use the above image to place the arrows. The role with mixed arrows needs to be mindful of their timers and place the correct arrow accordingly.

After the teleporters have been placed, the Double-trouble Trap debuffs will be close to expiring. This will again be handled in Support and DPS groups. Have the Support group stack northwest on the boss ring with the debuff player out of the hitbox behind them. Likewise, the DPS will do the same at the southeast. Be extremely careful not to get knocked into a teleporter! The debuff will disappear after this resolution.

At the same time, the Statue of the Gods will tether each role again. Players tethered to the yellow/left side of the Statue will become Confused, causing them to attack the player nearest them, killing them. Players tethered to the purple/right side of the Statue will have a small AoE around them that does damage and puts them to Sleep.

We will use our pre-assigned clock positions to resolve this. Purple-tethered players will stand on the boss ring either at their clock position, or will rotate clockwise to the nearest cardinal direction if their clock position is at an intercardinal. Yellow-tethered players will stand outside of the teleporter arrow at the cardinal directions based on their clock position, also rotating to the clockwise cardinal if necessary. When the tethers resolve, the purple- tethered players will be slept on the boss ring, while the yellow-tethered players will become confused and begin walking toward the middle. They will step on the teleporter if positioned correctly, and then will be teleported a total of four times. Doing this correctly resolves the final piece of the puzzle and will later trigger a new voice line from Kefka.

The Statue will begin to glow. Pay attention to the glow because it might have a question mark! If it does not have a question mark, look away from the Statue. If it does, look at the Statue. Kefka will begin casting Mystery Magic once again. This time he will telegraph lightning line AoEs and either a fire stack or spread. This is resolved exactly as it was before. The gaze resolves at the same time as the fire and lightning mechanic, so be sure to look in the correct direction while resolving the fire and lightning.

If the arrow puzzle was completed successfully, Kefka will say, "How boring. Guess I'll have to spice things up!"

Kefka needs to be brought to below 15% HP before the end of the phase or he will enrage, saying "I'm afraid that's all I have time for today. Bye-bye now!" He will become untargetable and channel a raidwide damage that will wipe the party. If he has been brought below 15% HP by this point, and the puzzle mechanics were completed successfully, He will instead say "Intriguing. This clearly isn't your first time..." as he becomes untargetable. Any voice line other than this indicates the puzzles during Phase 1 have been failed, preventing the party from progressing past Phase 2. It is, however, still possible to practice Phase 2 as none of the puzzle mechanics affect how Phase 2 is resolved.