Dragonsong's Reprise Ultimate (DSR) Guide for King Thordan
This page contains detailed information and strategy about the high-end Duty "Dragonsong's Reprise (Ultimate)", commonly abbreviated as DSR, specifically for the portion of the fight dealing with King Thordan.
Phase 2: King Thordan
Pre-fight preparation:
- Thordan's auto attacks cleave and should be aimed away from the party at all times.
- Using the markers in the Toolbox (listed below), assign four players to one group, and the other four to another. Each group should have one Healer, one Tank and two DPS.
Recurring abilities:
- Ascalon's Mercy Concealed
- A baited line cleave on all players.
- Ascalon's Might
- A three part tank buster that cleaves around the target.
- Heavenly Heel
- A heavy hitting single-target tank buster that applies a Slashing Resistance Down.
King Thordan Toolbox Resource
For the entirety of the phase, please reference these Toolboxes for a detailed view of how each mechanic is handled.
King Thordan Strategy
- Have the party tightly stack behind the boss.
- Thordan will cast Ascalon's Mercy Concealed, shooting line AoEs towards all players. Simply move left or right as a party as the cast finishes.
- Shortly afterwards he will use Ascalon's Might, a three part tank buster cleave, with no cast.
- He goes untargetable around 32 seconds into the fight, starting the first trio mechanic.
Strength of the Ward
This mechanic is actually two full mechanics within the same downtime. As such, they will be separated into parts as they both require a bit more explanation independently of each other.
Part 1: Spiral Thrust
- Three knights will spawn at random clock positions around the arena, leaving one spot safe on both sides. Group 1 is assigned the the numbered markers, while Group 2 is assigned to the alphabetical markers.
- Move to the safe markers, then spread out in a triangle shape formation within the safe spot. Put the healers in front, tanks in the middle, and DPS on the sides. DPS will position between four and five wall crystals from the cardinal/intercardinal.
- As the knights dash through the arena, the knight inside the arena slams his axe into the ground creating an expanding donut AoE, and lightning AoEs explode on all players. Stack up tightly and move towards Thordan together while dodging the expanding donut AoE.
- While walking into the arena, Thordan will cast another Ascalon's Mercy Concealed. Simply dodge to the side again as the cast finishes.
- Tip: You can view Thordan's cast in the enemy list, despite not being able to target him.
- Tip: Dodge diagonally into the boss, this makes mitigating for the next part of the trio a lot easier!
Part 2: The Dragon's Rage, Skyward Leap, and Holy Tank Busters
- Locate Thordan. He will serve as your new North for the next part of this mechanic. Two knights will appear that have
tankbuster tethers coming from them, three random players will be marked with blue overhead markers, one of the unmarked
non-tank players will get an invisible stack AoE on them, and finally, expanding ground AoEs will grow to cover the majority of the arena.
To solve this mechanic:
- Have all unmarked players run towards Thordan and stack up tightly underneath him at the edge of the arena.
- Have the blue marked players run south around the tank adds towards the South, East and West safe spots. Do this to avoid accidentally grabbing the tank tethers.
- Have the tanks intercept the tank buster tethers, bringing them to the edge of the north safe spots. Do not stand too close to the party as the tank buster is an AoE.
- Six towers spawn in the arena, three North, one East, one West, and one South. Have the blue marked players step forwards to soak the towers East, West, and South. Have the unmarked players preposition prior to the stack damage coming out to show which tower they will be responsible for (left/middle/right).
- The first trio mechanic is now resolved, and Thordan will reappear in the middle of the arena.
- Tip: Cross the tank buster tethers, creating an X shape. The buster's damage is proximity based, and by making this X shape, you end up taking less damage.
- Tip: The tank buster tethers can only spawn on a non-blue marked player. This means you can run North to Thordan at the same time as picking up the tethers, assuming the blue markers run south around the tank adds towards their safe spots.
- Tip: Have the East and West blue marked players stand slightly south, so you mitigate risk of hitting the tanks with the blue explosions.
Post-Strength Damage Phase
- Thordan will start off by casting Ancient Quaga, a heavy hitting raidwide.
- This is quickly followed up by Heavenly Heel. A hard hitting tank buster that applies a slashing vulnerability up.
- Have your tanks swap threat during the Heavenly Heel cast as Thordan will follow it up with another Ascalon's Might, the three-part tank buster you have seen earlier in the fight. It is possible to use invulnerability abilities (such as Hallowed Ground) to negate all four hits without tank swaping.
- Thordan will then cast Sanctity of the Ward, starting the second trio mechanic.
Sanctity of the Ward
This mechanic is actually two full mechanics within the same downtime. As such, they will be separated into parts as they both require a bit more explanation independently of each other.
Part 1: Bright Winged Flight and Sacred Sever, also known as Sanctity Dashes
- Three knights appear in the arena - two with shields in the middle and a Dark Knight with a two-handed sword at the edge. This Dark Knight is your new North. Alongside these knights, Thordan will appear on the edge of the arena with a gaze marker on him, as well as a giant eye outside of the arena that also serves as a gaze marker.
- Before people move to their assigned positions, use heavy raidwide mitigation to reduce the damage of the incoming mechanic.
- Split the group into two light parties. The first light party hides behind the Dark Knight,
while the second light party stands on the exact opposite side of the arena. At the same time,
two overhead markers will be handed out to two random players. A single sword and two crossed swords.
The player with the single sword marker will always go to the opposite party whilst the player marked
with the double swords will always go towards the Dark Knight. Ensure that each party has a healer and
consists of four people by having your assigned flex players adjust accordingly.
- We recommend pairing up with your role partner (i.e. healer with healer, melee dps with melee dps, etc.) to determine flexing. Using the light party assignments from earlier in the fight, Group 1 players will go away from the Dark Knight and Group 2 players will go to it. Role pairs will follow this priority unless one of the pair is marked. If the marked player needs to go to the opposite side from usual, the other pair member flexes for the marked player. I.e. if Group 1 melee is marked with the II, then Group 2 melee will go away from the Dark Knight instead.
- As you walk towards your assigned spot, notice the direction the shield-wearing knight closest to your
spot is facing. This facing is the direction you will dodge towards as the mechanic unfolds.
- Alternatively, you can look at which shield knight spawns true west on the arena. One knight has a white ponytail and white skirt, while the other knight has a red ponytail and black skirt. If the white ponytail knight is on the west, the group will rotate clockwise. If the red ponytail knight is on the west, the group will rotate counterclockwise.
- Stand slightly ahead of the Dark Knight / the opposite of the Dark Knight in the direction you will dodge later, while looking away from Thordan himself and the giant eye outside of the arena.
- The knights will now dash through the arena, leaving behind exploding ground AoEs that will any player hit (except tanks, you will just be given a damage down of shame), not unlike the dashes in The Vault phase. Wait for the AoE in front of you to explode and dodge into it along the edge of the arena.
Part 2: Ice and Fire, also known as Sanctity Meteors
- Run to your assigned cardinal and wait there with your partner.
- Two red meteor markers will be given out to two random players of the same role. (DPS or supports)
- If any of these markers are East of West, ensure that these markers adjust to be split between the North and South positions by swapping with the player of the same role on those positions.
- Eight towers will now spawn around the arena. Several inside and several outside. This is how you decide who takes what tower:
- Meteor marked players will always go out.
- Players that share the same role as the meteor marked players will always go out.
- If there are two towers out on your quarter of the arena, then both the meteor role player and the non-meteor role player on that quarter will go out.
- All other players will go in to the middle of the arena.
To ensure that all players will consistently get the same towers, you can use the following extra rules to smooth out the mechanic:
- Meteor role players will always take the clockwise most tower if there are two towers out.
- The players going in to the middle will always take the first clockwise tower from their ice stack position, unless another player is already there.
- Have the meteor marked players always take a cardinal tower or a tower directly opposite from the other
meteor player to prevent the so called "cursed pattern" for the second part of this mechanic.
- "Cursed pattern" occurs when the north meteor player only has the left tower available, and the south person only has the right tower available (or vice versa), resulting in a significantly smaller amount of space for one player to drop their meteors safely.
- As the towers get soaked, the marked players will start to get meteors dropped on them. These meteors cannot be close to each other, so the marked player must instantly start running in a circle around the arena as soon as the tower gets soaked. To ensure that you do not place your last meteor too close to the first meteor of the other marked player, run in a zig zag pattern, where you constantly run in between the edge of the fire and ice puddles and the arena wall.
- New towers appear on each clock position on the outside of the arena.
- Have all players that share their role with the meteor marked players take the cardinal towers, whilst the meteor marked players themselves take the North and South towers when they get to them.
- Have the outside non-meteor role players rotate to soak the intercardinal towers that spawn one clockwise degree from their ice stack.
- Have the inside non-meteor role players rotate to stand in line with the intercardinal towers that spawn one clockwise position from their ice stack.
- The knight in the center of the room will now cast "Faith Unmoving," which is a knockback. Have everyone on the outside of the arena use their knockback immunities whilst the inside players position themselves between the knight and the tower they want to soak to get knocked from the middle of the room into the appropriate towers.
Ultimate End, Broadswing, and Enrage
- Thordan will now appear North of the arena and cast Ultimate End, a raidwide that needs to be heavily mitigated. After said raidwide, he gains a debuff that increases his damage taken.
- Thordan then picks up his sword and prepares for Broad Swing. Stand behind him and dodge into the side he swung at first. He will repeat this mechanic one more time.
- Lastly, Thordan will cast Aetheric Burst, which is his enrage.
Changelog
- 04 Jun. 2022: Guide added.
- 25 May 2024: Guide updated with current community strategies.
Phase Guides for Dragonsong's Reprise
Torael Valdis, or Tor for short, is an experienced raider in FFXIV who has been playing the game since the tail end of the Heavensward expansion. His experience includes multiple Week 1 Savage Tier kills as well as completion of each Ultimate Raid in the patch they were released. You can find him in The Balance Discord where he currently is active as a melee DPS mentor. He also occasionally streams early prog on his Twitch.
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