Dancing Mad (Ultimate) Phase 5 Guide

This phase is the final phase of the encounter. This form of Kefka is unique to the ultimate, and the community has taken to referring to it as "Ultima Kefka."

Immediately after becoming targetable, Kefka will cast Ultima Repeater, doing four-hits of hard hitting raidwide damage. Because of how tight the timings for mitigation can be in this phase, it may be necessary to use party- wide mitigation such as Dark Missionary before Kefka is targetable.

These are the auto attacks in this phase. Similar to Dragon-King Thordan in Dragonsong's Reprise, these autos target three people at the same time. For this fight, they are role based stacks targeting one Tank, one Healer, and one DPS. Kefka will do three Fell Forces autos before continuing to the next mechanic.

Kefka will rapidly telegraph four sets of paired line AoEs. One line from each pair will be along a wall, while the other is in the center of the room. Only focus on the one in the center of the room. That line AoE will either rotate clockwise or counterclockwise. Identify which direction it is rotating, then identify which quadrant of the room in melee range is safe from the first two telegraphed sets. This is your starting position. You will rotate the same direction that the lines are rotating after each hit. For example, if north was safe from the first two telegraphs, start inside the boss hitbox north of the center of the arena. If the line AoEs rotated clockwise, you would follow them by rotating to the east, then to the south.

It is important that the entire party groups up and rotates together. Each set of line AoEs also causes a stack AoE to resolve on a random player, for a total of four hits.

Tanks must ensure that they are first and second on aggro for this. At the end of the cast, the two players with first and second on aggro will be targeted by a fire tankbuster AoE. The Tank with aggro will get Surprise Flare , while the second player on aggro will get Surprise Holy . These debuffs will resolve later. Three random players who are not first or second on aggro will be hit with a holy spread AoE, and receive a Magic Vulnerability Up debuff. Now the three closest players will get a holy spread AoE, and first and second on aggro will get another fire tankbuster AoE. The three non-Tank players who did not get hit on the first set should step into the boss hitbox to bait the holy AoEs. Tanks should swap who has aggro here to keep the boss in place for the debuff resolutions, which is critical for the next mechanic. While there is time to reposition during the next set of Fell Forces autos, it can be very difficult to do so without accidentally overlapping another role group and killing them.

The Tank with Surprise Flare will explode with a large point-blank AoE, requiring them to run to the wall to avoid overlapping the party. The reason the Tanks should swap aggro is to prevent the boss from running to the wall as well, as doing so will wipe the party during the next mechanic. The Tank with Surprise Holy will instead have a small AoE tankbuster. It is common practice currently to have this tank stand on the boss hitbox and use their invulnerability cooldown while the other Tank runs to the wall behind them with their Surprise Flare debuff.

Quickly get back into role stacks as the boss will do two more Fell Forces auto attacks before starting the next mechanic. Resolve them exactly as before.

Kefka will now summon nine elemental towers. Three lightning, three fire, and three ice. Two players will be given Fire Resistance Down , two will be given Ice Resistance Down , and two will be given Lightning Resistance Down , each with a 20s timer. The remaining two players will not be given a debuff. There are three sets of towers, during which four towers will activate. Two elements will have one active tower per set, and the third element will have two active towers. Each tower requires two people to soak it or it will explode giving a party wide damage down.

To resolve this, look at what element your debuff is. You will take the first element clockwise of the element your debuff is. If the element you need to take has two towers active, take the clockwise tower. If you did not receive a debuff, you instead will find the element with two glowing towers and soak the first counterclockwise tower of that element. All players who started with a debuff will rotate clockwise to the next element, soaking the first clockwise tower if that element has two active towers. The players who started without a debuff will soak the counterclockwise tower for the element with two active towers. After the second set, the initial debuffs will fall off, meaning that during the final set of towers, all players will soak the tower of the same element as the debuff they started with. Players who started without a debuff will again fill in for the remaining tower in the double-tower element.

During the first and third tower soaks, Kefka will cast Catastrophic Choice. Watch his staff during the cast. If his staff has a green wind glow, Kefka will do a large donut AoE that will cleave the back halves of the towers, requiring the players to stand in the front halves toward the center of the room. If his staff instead has a yellow earth glow, he will do a point-blank AoE that will cleave the front half of the tower, requiring all players to be in the back half of the tower away from the center of the room.

For a visual explanation of this mechanic, please reference this Raidplan.

Kefka will once again do his four-hit raidwide damage cast and then immediately follow it with two Fell Forces auto attacks before he begins casting Stray Apocalypse.

Two exaflares will appear on the northeast or northwest floating outside of the arena, followed immediately by two exaflares on the other mentioned direction. There will be six sets total, alternating either from NE -> NW -> NE -> NW -> NE -> NW or from NW -> NE -> NW -> NE -> NW -> NE. These exaflares move very quickly and snapshot very early. Each player will need to dodge the exaflares toward their assigned quadrants. Kefka will cast Stray Entropy during the final set, causing a spread AoE on each player at the end of the cast; these are lethal if stacked. Ranged should spread at the wall to give the melees room.

Kefka will cast another Maddening Orchestra. Resolve this exactly as before. Immediately after, Kefka will do three more Fell Forces auto attacks.

This mechanic is the start of Kefka's enrage sequence, during which, he will target the party with several stack AoEs. He will also destroy parts of the arena, killing the player if they walk into the destroyed section and afflicting them with Forsaken , preventing them from being revived. There will be four sets of stack AoEs, during each of which Kefka will destroy two sections of the arena, leaving only one safe section at the end of the mechanic. There will also be an AoE baited under a random player each time a stack spawns.

To resolve this, have the entire party stack south of the boss. After the stack marker spawns and the first AoE is baited, run clockwise to the west of the boss. Wait for the next stack and AoE to spawn, then go north. After the third stack and AoE spawns, again run clockwise, this time to the east. Wait once more, then rotate to the south. It is extremely important that everyone waits for the next stack AoE and baited AoE to spawn before moving, or the safe area could end up covered, causing a wipe.

At this point, Kefka will begin casting Forsaken Null. This is a very long enrage cast. If the boss is not brought to 0 HP before the end of the cast, the party will wipe. If, however, you manage to kill the boss before this point, congratulations! You have cleared Dancing Mad (Ultimate)! You will receive the achievement Son of a..., the title "Cruel Legend," and one Mad Harlequin's Totem,which can be exchanged for an i795 Palazzo Diamond Weapon at Uah'shepya in Solution Nine (X:8.6, Y:13.5).