Dancing Mad (Ultimate) Phase 2 Guide

This phase features Kefka's God form from Final Fantasy VI. Kefka previously appeared in this form in Final Fantasy XIV in the second phase of Sigmascape V4.0 (Savage).

At the start of the phase, if you correctly solved the puzzle mechanics in Phase 1, Kefka will say "This is meant to be our Ultimate; encounter..." If you do not get this voice line, you have failed the Phase 1 puzzle, and progressing to Phase 3 will be impossible. You can, however, still practice Phase 2 mechanics as they do not change regardless of the Phase 1 puzzle.

God Kefka will open the fight with this hard-hitting, duo stack tankbuster. Immediately after, he will begin casting Forsaken.

This mechanic is very complex and makes up a majority of Phase 2. It is strongly advised to use a visual aid to conceptualize what is happening. At the time of writing this, the majority of NA Party Finder seems to be using the strategy from the Raidplan linked below, so that is what this guide will cover. There are other ways to do this mechanic and some regions or data centers may prefer different things. Please consult your region's party finder/ultimates hub for what your region prefers.

This mechanic write-up will be based off this party finder strategy. Please reference that Raidplan for a visual of the mechanic.

This mechanic is a delicate dance of soaking towers, resolving debuffs, and baiting Kefka clones. This mechanic is quick and positioning is very strict. Before explaining how to do this mechanic, it is first important to understand the individual pieces that make up the mechanic:

• Towers: The towers set the pace of this mechanic. There are eight sets of two duo-soak towers. Everything that happens during this mechanic either happens directly with the tower soaks, or between them.
• Debuffs: All players get afflicted with 4-stacks of Spell's Trouble. When the debuff is applied, each player gets an icon above their head. The icon will either be a Spread, Stack, or Cone. One stack of this debuff is removed each time a player soaks a tower, which also triggers the mechanic the icon above their head showed. A new icon appears each time a stack is lost.
  • Cones target the nearest player with a conal AoE.
  • Spreads spawn a point blank AoE on the player.
  • Stacks are a three-player stack centered on the player.
• Kefka Clones: During every even set of towers, Kefka will cast either Future's End or Past's End. These casts spawn clones on the four closest players to him. The clones must also be baited by having everyone stack together opposite of the towers that spawn if the cast was Future, or between the towers that spawn if the cast was Past. When Kefka starts casting All Things Ending, the baits are locked in and the clones will do a half-room cleave at the end of the cast.

To start with, everything in this mechanic is oriented around the current set of towers being relative southeast and southwest. All directions will be noted with this in mind. Have the supports stand in a box to the west of the boss, and the DPS stand in a box to the east. Have the Tanks and Melee closest to the boss, and the Ranged and Healers farther. This is to easily see who gets which debuffs. This naturally forms ranged and melee pairs within each role. One role will get three people with cones and one with stack, while the other role gets three people with spreads and one with stack. Both roles can get either configuration, but they are mutually exclusive. I.e. DPS can get both three cones or three spreads, but if they get cones, Supports cannot also get cones and will therefore have spreads.

This strategy forms a Group A and Group B split based off what the debuff assignments were. The two players with the stacks and their immediate melee or ranged partner are considered as Group A, while all remaining players are considered as Group B. Please reference slide 4 of the linked Raidplan for clarification. Group A will be responsible for soaking tower sets 1, 2, 3, and 8, while Group B will be responsible for soaking tower sets 4, 5, 6, and 7. This is what is referred to as AAABBBBA (or 3/4/1) soaks.

We have previously established that soaking a tower activates the debuffs, and that Group A will soak the first set of towers. This means there will be two stacks, one cone, and one spread to deal with. For odd tower sets, we will standardize the cone to be in the left tower, and the spread to be in the right. We will also standardize that the Support stack is in the left tower, and the DPS stack is in the right tower. Group B will be responsible for "filling in" for any debuff mechanics that Group A is currently resolving. On the left tower, we will have the Tank from Group B stand in the boss hitbox just outside of the tower to soak the stack. the Healer from Group B will stand just outside the back of the tower to bait the cone. On the right tower, the two Group B DPS will soak the DPS stack. Please reference the linked Raidplan for specific positioning as where exactly you stand during this mechanic matters! Remember that all directions in this mechanic write-up assume that you are using the towers as relative southeast and southwest. This means that any mention of left tower is the same as saying southwest tower, and right tower is the same as saying southeast tower.

Group A will be reassigned new icons for their debuffs. Odd towers always reassign two spreads and two cones, odd towers can never reassign stacks.

Group A is also responsible for soaking this set of towers. This means there will be two spread AoEs and two cones. We still want to prioritize Supports left DPS right, but it is possible for both Supports and both DPS in Group A to be reassigned the same thing. We use a simple conga-style priority to know who takes which tower. We will use Ranged 1 Melee 1 Melee 2 Ranged 2 for DPS and Healer 1 Tank 1 Tank 2 Healer 2 for Supports. The left-most player on this priority takes the left tower, while the right-most takes the right tower. This means that if Ranged 1 and Melee 1 got the same thing, Ranged 1 would take the left tower and Melee 1 would take the right tower.

We will place the two cones in the front of the towers on the boss ring, and the two spreads at the back of the towers away from the boss ring. Group B Healer and Ranged DPS will bait the cones on their respective sides. These players must make sure they are not on the boss ring so they do not accidentally bait boss clones. Group B's Tank and Melee DPS will go to the relative northwest and northeast standing on the boss hitbox respectively.

While the towers and debuffs resolve, Kefka will cast Past/Future's End, spawning boss clones on each of the four closest players. If done correctly, these baits will be on Group B's Tank and Melee DPS, and the two cone players. Everyone must immediately go bait relative north of where the towers that just spawned are. As soon as Kefka starts casting All Things Ending, the clone baits are locked in place, and they will resolve their half-room cleave at the end of that cast.

When even tower sets resolve, the players in them will be reassigned two stacks, one cone, and one spread.

Once again Group A will be handling the towers. Like in set 2, it is possible for both players in one of the towers to be each be reassigned the stack. We will follow the same conga priority for flexes. Handle the positions of the cones, stacks, and spreads exactly the same as the first tower set. Please reference the Raidplan if you need a visual reminder.

Group A players need to pay attention to what debuffs they get here and remember them for later! They will not soak a tower again until the final set, which is set 8. It is advised to make a macro that posts into echo chat with which debuff you had if you have a hard time remembering what you had!

Because of the way groups are determined at the beginning, Group B naturally has two spread and two cone players. Group B will be responsible for the towers and will resolve their debuffs accordingly because of our previously established soak order of AAABBBBA. Follow the same conga-style priority from earlier to determine who takes which tower for each pair of duplicates. Group A Tank and Melee will now bait the Kefka clones northwest and northeast respectively on the boss ring. Group A Healer and Ranged DPS will bait the cones from the left and right towers respectively. Please reference the linked Raidplan for a visual of how this is set up.

Remember to have everyone bait the Kefka clones!

These tower sets are handled the exact same way as previous odd and even towers, with Group B handling the tower soaks and debuffs, and Group A filling for baits and soaks. Remember to reference the Raidplan for a visual, and do not forget to bait the Kefka clones after the sixth tower.

This is the final set. Group A will be handling the towers here and will need to have remembered what debuff they were given after the third towers. We will use the same priorities from before to determine who will go where. This tower is resolved in the same way as tower set 2, but specific positions for Group A may have changed based on which debuff they got. Group B positions will be the same as they were for the second tower set.

There is one final Future/Past's End cast during this. Remember to bait this final set of clones, dodging when All Things Ending begins casting. Once this is finished, the mechanic is over.

Following the completion of Forsaken, Kefka will return the arena to its previous golden form. This cast is a raidwide damage cast.

Kefka will now cast Trine, telegraphing a series of triangles falling to the floor. Each point of the triangle will explode with a circle AoE after a few seconds, exploding in the order they fell. At the same time as the Trines are falling, Kefka will cast Wings of Destruction. One of his wings will glow, indicating that he will do a half-room cleave on that side. This works the same way as it did in Sigmascape V4.0 (Savage) for those who have experience in that content.

To resolve this, identify an area where the first and last Trines to fall are side by side, dodging the half-room cleave as necessary. Walk into the first set after it explodes. Tanks should be careful here, as the boss will cast another Wings of Destruction. This time, both of his wings will glow, signaling that Kefka will target the closest and farthest players with a fairly large AoE tankbuster.

Immediately following the Wings of Destruction tankbuster, Kefka will cast a Ultimate Embrace, a hard hitting, shared tankbuster.

At this point, Kefka must be brought to 1 HP or he will enrage, wiping the party. There are two possibilities if Kefka has been reduced to 1 HP. If you completed all of the puzzle mechanics in Phase 1, there will be a cutscene and you will progress to Phase 3. If you did not, however, you will get a gimmick ending in which a cutscene of God Kefka dying plays and a "Complete!" message appears on the screen. A treasure coffer appears, and the portal to leave an instance after the duty is completed appears. If you open the coffer, Kefka's laugh plays and text on the screen appears saying "Well, that wasn't exactly a victory! Next time, let's play... in a completely different way!" The coffer is completely empty. Interacting with the exit portal causes you to leave the instance.