The Epic of Alexander Ultimate: Perfect Alexander Guide
This page contains detailed information and strategy about the high-end Duty "The Epic of Alexander (Ultimate)", commonly abbreviated as TEA, specifically for the portion of the fight dealing with the Perfect Alexander.
Phase 4: Perfect Alexander
Perfect Alexander consists of four "sections": pre-Fate Calibration α, Fate Calibration α, Fate Calibration β, and the victory lap (Exatrines and tank busters). The phase has a looming enrage timer, where each player gets locked sequentially until the enrage actually occurs, giving a bit of leniency.
While the depth of the mechanics look difficult, the mechanics themselves aren’t extremely difficult. It is all about knowing what your clone gets and moving to position based on that as full party. Progression on this phase is extremely hard as players need to be consistent in all previous phases to prog this phase enough for a clear. Excessive Phase 1 or 2 wipes ensure that your progression is prolonged. If players know what to do, I dare say a competent group can clear this phase within two or three pulls. Prepare to spend longer figuring out the nuances of every section, though.
Ordained Stillness is the hardest mechanic of the phase.
Perfect Alexander Toolbox Resource
This guide will utilize this Toolbox, so ensure you are referencing the slides mentioned in the following explanations.
Perfect Alexander Mechanics
- Final Word: Perfect Alexander inflicts
debuffs on players. These debuffs will move the players in
a specific way when they resolve.
- One player is inflicted with Final Word: Contact Regulation. (Orange / Beacon)
- Three players are inflicted with Final Word: Contact Prohibition. (Yellow) These players will move towards the player with Final Word: Contact Regulation when their debuff resolves. If they come into contact with said player, they will instantly die.
- One player is inflicted with Final Word: Escape Detection. (Purple / Beacon)
- Three players are inflicted with Final Word: Escape Prohibition. (Blue) These players will move away from the player with Final Word: Escape Detection. If they come into contact with said player OR run too far away from them, they will instantly die.
- Ordained Motion: Player characters must be moving at the time of cast, or they will instantly die. This mechanic is denoted by a white sword.
- Ordained Stillness: Player characters must be standing still at the time of cast, or they will instantly die. The mechanic is denoted by a black sword.
- Optical Sight: Optical Sight will cast one of two mechanics.
- Individual Reprobation: Large AoE around every party member. This does heavy damage. (Spread)
- Collective Reprobation: Stack marker around two random party members. This does heavy damage, and ideally you want a 4-4 stack but a 5-3 stack is livable with shielding. (Stack)
- Ordained Capital Punishment: Perfect Alexander targets the player that has top enmity with a three hit tank buster that must be shared with another player or requires invulnerability use. This is very similar to Akh Morn. It deals heavy magic damage.
- Ordained Punishment: Perfect Alexander targets the MT with a heavy magical tank buster. This inflicts a physical vulnerability debuff. Perfect Alexander deals physical damage with auto-attacks, therefore, a tank swap is necessary. It always follows Ordained Capital Punishment.
- Almighty Judgement: Alexander shows three sets of AoEs in quick succession, which players must dodge together. They go off in order at the start of the Irresistible Grace castbar.
- Irresistable Grace: A stack marker on a random player. This is similar to Morn Afah. Deals extremely heavy magic damage.
Fate Calibrations
The Enigma Codex buff is required to execute this mechanic. Fate Projection creates clones of all party members that suffer mechanics that will happen when Fate Calibration resolves. Each player and their clone has an arrow pointing to each other, allowing players to locate their clone easier. The mechanics that clones suffer is the mechanic players have to execute when the cast resolves.
Fate Calibration α:
- Either Ordained Motion or Ordained Stillness, denoted by the colour of the sword, drops on clone's head. This applies to all players, not just the affected clones.
- Three clones will receive Aggravated Assault, denoted by a singular gear around the character.
- Three clones will receive NO debuff.
- One clone will receive Shared Sentence, denoted by a large stack-like multi-gear marker around the character.
- One clone will receive Defamation, denoted by a gigantic circle emanating from the clone. They will have to be opposite the party.
- Another Ordained Motion or Ordained Stillness, denoted by the colour of the sword, drops on clone's head. This applies to all players, not just the affected clones.
- Three Sacraments are casted from the northern Alex clones. There will be one Alex clone that does not fire: directly in front of him and opposite him are safe spots for the Sacraments. It will always be either the second or third Alex clone that does not fire.
Fate Calibration β:
- Four clones will get a Light mark on top of their head.
- Of these clones, three of them will be moving, while one is stationary. The stationary player is the Light Beacon with Contact Regulation. The moving Light clones will be the players with Contact Prohibition.
- One moving Light player will be inflicted with House Arrest.
- One player will be afflicted with Restraining Order.
- One player will be inflicted with Shared Sentence.
- Four clones will get a Dark mark on top of their head.
- Of these clones, three of them will be moving, while one is stationary. The stationary player is the Dark Beacon with Escape Detection. The moving Dark clones will be the players with Escape Prohibition.
- One moving Light player will be inflicted with House Arrest.
- One player will be afflicted with Restraining Order.
- One player will be inflicted with nothing.
- Three Alex clones that spawn north will jump west, east, and south. These will be done by the Dark Beacon, the Dark player with Restraining Order, and the Dark player with nothing.
- Optical Sight: Individual Reprobation or Collective Reprobation. The remaining north Alex clone will either shoot eight smaller balls out or two big balls. Two big balls indicate Collective Reprobation (two stacks) and eight small balls indicate Individual Reprobation (spread).
- Radiant Sacrament goes off where one of the Super Jumps were baited to. You will have to run to it after the rest of the mechanics resolve.
Perfect Alexander Strategy
Aggro resets, so the designated tank should pick up the boss again. There is not much damage in this phase on tanks besides the tank busters and specific spots, and tanks should cooldown appropriately and use shields and heals to spare healer GCDs.
All strategies in this phase by every group are similar, due to the puzzle-like format of the mechanics. There can be some different ways to do things like Optical Sight or Final Word, so find what works best for you. Most mechanics in this phase can be flipped in terms of orientation. The end result is the same. However, stay consistent. If you start west for one mechanic, start west for them all.
The first mechanic is the Final Word. The way to solve the mechanic is simple, but combined with Ordained Stillness it can prove difficult to position. Players should pre-position near the predetermined side of the arena their group has chosen.
The player inflicted with purple will stand behind the party. The player with Orange should stand on the opposite side of the arena, as far away as possible. Everyone else should be stacked directly in front of Purple, so that it ends up like the Toolbox slide 2. Note that all players should be stacked on each other directly in front of the purple - the diagram simply shows how many debuffs are in the stack.
Before debuffs resolve, there is either Ordained Motion or Ordained Stillness (hardest mechanic in the fight). It is very likely based on player / character animation instead of input. Therefore, players should be moving the entire cast if it is Motion and players should sheath their weapon, press Escape, and afk halfway through the cast if it is Stillness. Jumping in place does work for Ordained Motion.
Players will then get mindjacked towards the Orange player if they were a Light debuff and away from the Purple player if they were a Dark debuff. If done successfully, no one will die. There will be an Ordained Motion or Ordained Stillness immediately after, and it is the opposite of the first one. Respect this mechanic.
Afterwards, players should mitigate for Optical Sight. They will happen one after the other, leaving minimal time for healing. For the stacks, spread in a loose protean and simply move towards the closest stack, with the stacks separating if they are close. For spread, simply spread in Protean positions around the boss.
Heal up and prepare for Fate Calibration α!
Fate Calibration α Strategy
Fate Calibration α will begin casting. Players will need to watch out for Ordained Stillness/Motion, their debuff, Ordained Stillness/Motion, and the Sacrament safe spot in that order. It can be the same Ordained mechanic twice in a row.
Players should immediately follow their clone as soon as it spawns. Have a few players (or one trustworthy one) designated to spot Ordained Motion/Stillness and the Sacrament safe spot (this should be obvious). Around 50% through the castbar, the debuffs will go out. Players will stand in the Sacrament safe spots based on their debuff. Watch for the last Ordained Stillness / Motion before the Sacraments and head to the safe spot.
The safe spot will either be on the southwest or southeast, and opposite. Either way, the Defamation target will head to the robot that did not fire and stand directly in front of it. The rest of the party will make their way to the southeast/southwest. Players marked with Aggravated Assault (lightning) will stand on the one side of the safe spot, while players marked with Shared Sentence and unmarked players will stand on the other side of the safe spot.
Immediately after Perfect Alexander becomes untargetable, players should perform the first Ordained mechanic. They should then position quickly and perform the second Ordained mechanic. Do not move out of the safe spot until all three Sacraments fire. Additionally, do not move too far and hit a Lightning with the stack or be in the Sacrament.
Following Fate Calibration α is the first tank buster sequence. Perfect Alex will hit the MT with three hits that must be shared with the other tank, then a heavy solo hit that inflicts physical vulnerability - this must be swapped. There are various ways to do the mechanic, but at least one must be shared and swapped as there are three busters and only two can be invulned.
It is recommended to share the first buster and use invulns for the latter two, as this allows personal cooldowns to be up for auto-attacks during Irresistible Grace.
Heal up and prepare for Fate Calibration β!
Fate Calibration β Strategy
Fate Calibration β will begin casting. Players will need to watch out for their Final Word debuff as well as their tether debuff. They will then have to watch out for Optical Sight, then which Super Jump was safe for Radiant Sacrament.
Players should immediately follow their clone as soon as it spawns. Have a few players (or one trustworthy one) designated to spot Optical Sight and the Radiant Sacrament safe spot (this should be obvious). The Radiant Sacrament safe spot will be the closest cardinal edge. Around 30% through the castbar, the debuffs will go out. Players need to watch their clone and the marker to see what debuff(s) they have. Players will stand at the west edge (or north) of the arena based on their debuff. It is highly recommended to have shields for the actual Fate Calibration β mechanics, as Super Jump and Optical Sight will do a lot of damage.
Here is where everyone should be standing:
- Purple (dark not moving): Behind every other player, on a easy to spot waymark that will easily show where players will get mindjacked to.
- Orange (light not moving): North edge of the arena.
- Yellow (light moving): In front of Purple, slightly north in order to get mindjacked north.
- Blue (House Arrest): Stack with the yellows, slightly north in order to get mindjacked north.
- Blue (Restraining Order): In front of Purple, slightly south in order to get mindjacked south.
- Blue (no tether): In front of purple, directly in front in order to get mindjacked east.
Players should run to their respective edge and stay at the edge until Shared Sentence and Super Jump resolve.
Players should then do Optical Sight. If it was spread, spread loosely around the arena based on your spots. If it was stack, have the light marked players stack north of the center and dark marked players stack south of the center. The dark players will all have to move in.
Finally, all players should move to the Radiant Sacrament location ASAP. Use Sprint.
Almighty Judgement and Irresistible Grace
The final two mechanics. The true victory lap...or is it? Almighty Judgment and Irresistible Grace are the two new mechanics of the phase and can prove difficult. However, there’s an easy way to solve it!
Use an invuln on the buster, and stack towards the south side of the arena to prepare for Almighty Judgment and Irresistible Grace.
By using the “Exatrine Box Strat,” you simplify the mechanic by always doing a 3 to 1 dodge. All players should start and end at the same location to ensure the stack for Irresistible Grace is done correctly. To survive Irresistible Grace, all eight players should be stacked, and there should be plenty of mitigation on the party. You require a minimum of 20% mitigation and shields to survive, and you should have much more for safety.
This may seem like overkill, but it really is not - there is not much else to use these skills on. Tanks will take a lot of auto-attack damage during movement and before the stack, so make sure to top them off with oGCDs and mitigate.
Simply perform the mechanics once more. Invuln buster, move for Exatrine, and mitigate, and get ready for enrage.
Temporal Prison
Alexander Prime will jump to the middle and start casting enrage. He will summon eight Temporal Prisons, which party members must stack in. Once these resolve, the player is locked in time forever unless they defeat Perfect Alexander. They start in the northeast and rotate clockwise. It is imperative that higher DPS jobs at this part of the fight are left until the end and the lower DPS jobs are trapped first. The last player is free to DPS until enrage actually happens and the final Prison descends.
This is the final DPS check of the encounter, and all buffs, potions, and cooldowns should be used right after he jumps. Do not bother healing up the last Irresistible Grace, you need all the DPS you can get to ensure you will not be locked in time forever.
Changelog
- 18 Apr. 2022: Guide added.
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This guide has been written by Lyra an accomplished raider in FFXIV and has written raid guides for the game for the past five years. You can follow him on Twitter and he streams raids on Twitch.
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