Table of Contents
Everkeep is Dawntrail’s second Trial and its boss Zoraal Ja can make it quite a doozy to beat. Part of the challenge is that some of the fight mechanics will require players to read boss animations and figure out where AoEs will be placed. This guide will discuss each mechanic and highlight some of the harder ones to help provide a better understanding. For party composition, everyone must split into two light parties, meaning two DPS, 1 support and 1 tank for each.
Phase 1 mechanics
Zoraal Ja will start the fight with Multidirectional Divide, an AoE that literally divides the arena into 4 sections. The line left behind by the attack is safe to move through, but they will explode after Zoraal Ja follows up with either Backward Half or Forward Half.
Backward Half / Forward Half
When Backward Half is being casted, the safe zone for this AoE is behind the boss, to the opposite side of where the glowing sword is at. If the boss is casting Forward Half, the safe zone is right in front of him, at the side where the glowing sword is at. Be sure to dodge both the exploding lines and the Half attack at the same time. A good way to remind yourself where the safe zone is located is by using the following phrases when you see these mechanics:
- Backward Half: “Back of the boss, away from the sword” or Back Away
- Forward Half “Go forward the boss, into the sword” or Forward Into
Zoraal Ja will then cast another Multidirectional Divide, which should signal everyone to stack up together. He will cast Regicidal Rage, which is a tankbuster tether AoE. The tanks must grab whoever is tethered and move away from the main team while popping cooldowns.
Phase 2 mechanics
This phase starts with the boss casting Dawn of an Age, which is a raid-wide attack that shrinks the arena and creates a death pit. There will be separate arenas around the center one that will be important in this phase This is followed up by Vollok and Sync, a vital mechanic that occurs often in the raid.
Vollok / Sync
When the boss casts Vollok, glowing swords will appear on the outer arenas. You and your party must quickly identify which squares on those outer arenas have a sword on them, as they’ll indicate which square on the arena is being targeted. The boss will also follow this up with Half Full, a melee attack that will hit the half of the arena that the boss is holding a glowing blue sword.
After Vollok, Sync and Half Full are resolved, the boss will cast Greater Gateway and Blade Warp. This mechanic will seem confusing at first, but it is manageable once explained.
3 different types of tethers will be attached to the outer arenas. Regular, Fire, and Aero (Blue, Orange and Green.) Meanwhile, the boss will place one sword on the outer arena with the Normal Blue tether, while two swords will be placed on the arena with either Fire Orange or Aero Green tethers. The sword is a regular, single-row, rectangular AoE, but the Fire Orange and Aero Green tethers will change those AoEs.
- Fire Orange tethers will cause the single-row AoE to expand into three rows.
- Aero Green tethers will give the AoE a knockback effect. (Can be mitigated with knockback-resistance skills.)
- Normal Blue tethers do not change the AoE
The swords on the outer arenas will travel through the tethers into the center arena, so it is crucial that you first watch where the boss places the swords, then watch which tether the swords will travel into.
While this mechanic is resolved, the boss casts Aero III, giving random players a Pyramid icon on their character. This means that a single square AoE will drop on the positions of players with the Pyramid icons. Make sure that if you have a Pyramid, just scatter away from your teammates to prevent overlaps.
Projection of Triumph / Projection of Turmoil
After Greater Gateway and Blade Resolves, the boss will cast another raid-wide attack to signal the start of the next mechanic. The boss casts Projection of Triumph, which spawns 16 swords in the arena, which will be the locations of certain AoEs. Meanwhile, lines will appear in the edges and start passing through the arena and the swords on the ground. The AoE patterns of the swords will depend on the type of line that passes through them.
- The lines with the yellow orbs on them will cause the swords to explode in a point-blank AoE.
- The lines with the pink donut orbs will cause the swords to explode in a donut-shaped AoE.
The easiest way to dodge this mechanic is by standing in between two swords for the point-blank AoEs and moving inside the closest sword for the donut AoEs.
As Projection of Triumph is ongoing, the boss will continue to cast Forward Half or Backward Half, so you will have to pay attention to both the sword AoEs and the Half attacks at the same time.
After Projection of Triumph, the boss will move on to Projection of Turmoil. In this mechanic, all players will be debuffed with an orange circle on their character. An orange line will also appear on the edge that moves towards the arena. Any player who comes into contact with the orange line while also having an orange circle will explode, which inflicts Magic Vulnerability, but nearby players can stack up to split the damage.
To resolve Projection of Triumph, the team must split up into two light parties and trigger the explosions one at a time. The healer must trigger the explosion first, then after 3 seconds, the tank triggers their explosion, wait 3 seconds, then the melee DPS, delay again, and the ranged DPS last.
After Projection of Triumph, the boss will cast Bitter Whirlwind, which is a tankbuster that hits 3 times on the tank holding aggro. If the current tank does not have enough health, they must cast their invulnerability skill to survive. If the current does have enough, both tanks must do a tank swap for each hit.
Phase 3 mechanics
Once Bitter Whirlwind ends, the boss starts Phase 3 of the battle with a Dawn of an Age cast. This will create one platform on the other side of the current arena. The boss will then cast Drum of Vollok, which marks 4 players with a circle. These 4 players must have a partner with them, so the team must split into four pairs, one DPS and one healer or one DPS and one tank. The team must then line up in front of the boss, as the players who are not marked will be knocked over to the other platform, while the players who are will be thrown upwards.
Phase 3 Vollok and Sync
The boss repositions to the gap between the two platforms and begins casting Vollok and Sync, just like in Phase 1. For this phase’s Vollok, the sword will instead hit 4 adjacent squares in the arena instead of the one square the sword is on. The safe spots will always be closest to the boss, on the quadrant right beside the one with a sword. After Vollok/Sync, Aero III will be cast.
After Aero III is done, a tornado will appear on both platforms. This tornado will toss any player that touches it to the other platform, depending on the angle they enter it. This is important as the boss will start casting Forward Half and Backward Half before ending into Aero III.
The boss then casts Duty’s Edge, which is a line AoE that hits 3 times, where players must stack to split the damage. The tanks must be ahead of the party and pop cooldowns to mitigate while supports heal through the damage.
Then, Burning Chains will be inflicted on all DPS and supports, which is a tether that deals ramping tick damage. To break the chain, the players who have NOT used the tornadoes for the Half attacks must use them to jump to the other platform and break the tether.
Phase 4 mechanics
Phase 4 begins with the boss casting Actualize again and resetting the arena to its normal state.
He will start with the Projection of Triumph mechanics, which is similar to Phase 2’s version. The difference is that the boss will attack with Half Circuit, which is a 180-degree slash that hits the side of the arena where his sword is glowing, while an extra glowing sword appears around his hitbox.
- If the extra glowing sword is WITHIN his hitbox, he will follow up with a point-blank AoE.
- If the extra glowing sword is OUTSIDE his hitbox, he will do a donut AoE.
Meanwhile, as Projection of Triumph is ongoing, the boss will do a tankbuster tether again, requiring the tanks to receive the tethers and move away from the team.
Projection of Turmoil will follow and is the exact same mechanic as phase 2, with the only boss adding Half Full attacks to the mix, so time your explosions with the Half Full attack meters and take your time. Like Phase 2, Bitter Whirlwind will follow once Projection of Turmoil ends.
Final phase mechanics
This final stretch of the fight essentially just repeats Phase 2 mechanics and Phase 1 in this exact order:
- Vollok
- Sync
- Aero III
- Duty’s Edge
- Greater Gateway
- Blade Warp
- Actualize
- Multidirectional Divide
- Forward Half/Backward Half
The boss will then begin casting the last Actualize attack, which will result in a wipe. DPS the boss before the last Actualize, and you should be done for Everkeep Extreme.
