Sword Dancer Forked Tower: Magic Guide in FFXIV

Sword Dancer is the second boss of The Forked Tower: Magic. The arena is a circle, and a death wall will spawn alongside the raidwide that will instantly kill any players that touch it. The boss is weak to Lightning.

As a reminder, all encounters within FTM will inflict a permanent Vulnerability Up debuff. As such, players intending to greed mechanics must be aware that doing so too often can lead to instant and unavoidable death due to unavoidable damage becoming too great to survive.

• Sword Storm: Raidwide.
• Throwing Swords: Multiple line AoEs that spawn swords that rotate around the arena, following the markings on the floor. After Surgeswords Unsheathed, will also spawn a line of Swords across the arena.
• Martial Mystique: Half-arena cleave, the side of which is denoted by a tether from the boss to a previously thrown sword. After Surgeswords Unsheathed, the line of swords across the arena will also do their own line AoEs at the same time.
• Cycloswords Unsheathed: Either a large circle or donut-shaped AoE, depending on whether the swords are facing in (circle) or facing out (donut). Multiple AoEs can spawn at the same time. These AoEs will resolve when Cycloswords is cast. After Surgeswords Unsheathed, the line of swords across the arena will also do their own line AoEs at the same time.
• Sword Dance: Raidwide that hits 4 times, spawning a line marker on the floor each time and rotating either clockwise or counter-clockwise. These markers will then explode as wide line AoEs in the order that they appeared.
• Leaping Lift: Summons four swords around the arena. The boss will then go untargetable and jump to each sword in a specific order.
• Swordpointe: Each sword around the arena will do a far knockback from its own position. The order of these knockbacks is determined by the order that the boss jumped to each sword.
• Surgeswords Unsheathed: Spawns a line of swords across the arena that point in different directions. Each sword will do a line AoE in the direction it is facing. After this is first cast, other actions the boss uses will gain extra swords.

1. Sword Storm (Death Wall spawn)
2. Throwing Swords
3. Martial Mystique
4. Martial Mystique
5. Cycloswords Unsheathed + Cycloswords
6. Cycloswords Unsheathed + Cycloswords
7. Sword Dance
8. Leaping Lift (Untargetable)
9. Swordpointe
10. Surgeswords Unsheathed
11. Sword Storm
12. Throwing Swords (+ Surgeswords)
13. Martial Mystique (+ Surgeswords)
14. Martial Mystique (+ Surgeswords)
15. Sword Storm
16. Cycloswords Unsheathed (+ Surgeswords) + Cycloswords
17. Sword Dance + Surgeswords Unsheathed
18. No new mechanics from here onwards

• Keeping melee uptime in this boss can be difficult, requiring constant gap-closers while avoiding line AoEs from Surgeswords and other blades. Players looking for melee uptime will need to maintain active awareness of the state of the arena to avoid taking more hits than necessary.

Clearing Sword Dancer will reward players with a personal treasure coffers that only they can see, which can be found near the exit of the boss arena.

There is a long stretch of walkway between the second boss and the third. Players that have Phantom Thief mastered will wish to use Trap Detection in order to reveal a hidden treasure coffer for all players. This coffer is located on one of the three round platforms at the end of the walkway past the path to the third boss.

Unlike the previous walkway, players will need to defeat all enemies here in order to progress.

The next boss is Necrophobia.