FFXIV: The Royal Menagerie Guide

This page is dedicated to the Royal Menagerie. It's the final trial fight in Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood.

WARNING: This page deals with spoilers for the end of Stormblood. Read on at your own risk!

This fight is accessed through the MSQ. It's right at the end and cannot be missed. It's a level 70 fight, and although you can enter with a fairly low iLvl, the higher you have the better!

This will last between 20-30% of the bosses health. There are a few attacks to be aware of during this phase.

• Falling Off - You can fall off the battle arena! Always be aware of this.
• Auto Attacks - This lasts the entire fight. His auto attacks happen two at a time, with each one hitting a different tank. Each auto attack will hit for several thousand damage, so healers and tanks need to use their abilities properly to try and mitigate this.
• Stacking AoE - He will occasionally mark a target with a large stacking indicator. This is a simple stack mechanic, so the entire party should group up on that person to lower the overall damage.
• Akh Morn - This will target a Tank and one other random party member. The random party member should run away from the party and then quickly get out of the AoE. The tanks should stand on top of each other when this skill goes off. Akh Morn does damage based on the amount of people hit, so the tanks can split the damage. As the fight goes on, Akh Morn will have more strikes in it, making it crucial for the Tanks to stand together to mitigate the damage.
• Blue Line AoE - This is a simple straight-line AoE. It will not happen very often, but simply dodge out of it when it appears.
• Earth Breath - He will select two party members. These two people should pick a side and stand there together. He will then blast a large cone at them. If they stand together off to the side, this will make things considerably easier for the party, while making it less likely they die as well.

Corrupted Aether - This gauge will slowly fill over time. Each time it fills, the boss will use a Primal Attack from one of the many FF14 primals. How you should react to them is listed below.

• Tidal Wave - A spout of water appears near the edge of the arena. Go stand right beside without falling off. When it hits you, it knocks you to the other side of the arena and leaves water puddles.
• Hellfire - This is a party wide AoE. Stand in water puddles to lower the total damage.
• Earthen Fury - Party wide AoE that cannot be avoided.
• Diamond Dust - Freezes the floor. Do not move when frozen or else you slide across it and likely will fall off the map. Will leave puddles when it melts.
• Judgement Bolt - Party wide AoE. Do NOT stand in water when it goes off. Water puddles amplify it's damage.
• Aerial Blast - A tornado appears in the middle of the arena. Stand right beside it and keep walking towards it each time it knocks you back.

The Corrupted Aether mechanic applies to the entire fight. Although they aren't much of an issue during Phase 1, once Phase 3 begins it's incredibly important to be aware of your positioning and what attack is going off.

This will begin around 75%. The boss flies into the air and the arena starts getting bombarded by meteor style attacks. There will be 3 waves of this. Each time there will be more impact points, so finding a safe place will increase in difficulty.

Each wave of impacts also spawns enemies. There are two kinds, the small Ginryu and the bigger Hakkinryu.

Each time enemies spawn, they should be rounded up and brought to the middle and killed as fast as possible. Spare no expense here, use as much DPS as you can to kill them. Small ones first, then the big ones. The small Ginryu aren't much of a threat, they don't deal much damage and die very fast. The larger Hakkinryu are very deadly however. It's imperative the tank gets them as fast as possible, and always has it facing away from the party. It has a forward cone attack and uses Death Sentence, which can wipe the party if positioning is poor.

The first wave will have 2 Ginryu and 1 Hakkinryu. Wave two will have 3 Ginryu and 1 Hakkinryu. The final wave will be 5 Ginryu. Each wave is timed, and will spawn roughly 15 seconds after the last. It's for this reason that you should use as much DPS as possible to kill them, or else you risk being overwhelmed.

After the third wave, the boss will use a massive AoE, so make sure the party is healed first. After the AoE, a Active Time Event occurs. During this, you must simply click rapidly to free yourself. If you fail, you'll be immediately killed.

This begins when you land on the new platform. The boss will use all the attacks listed from Phase 1, as well as some new ones.

• Arena Wide Line - When phase 3 begins, he uses a massive line AoE. Simply run/sprint to one of the corners that is safe.
• Tail Slap - This is the major new mechanic for the phase. He will frequently slam his tail down on 2 of the tiles. If it's a blue tile, his tail will crack it. If it's already cracked, his tail will destroy the tile. For this reason, you should never stand on a blue tile that is cracked if it can be avoided. After his tail lands, it becomes targetable. You should always try to kill the tail, because when it dies, the boss will lose about 8% of his health. The tail doesn't last long though, so you only have about 10 seconds to kill it.
• Ice Storm - This is a party wide AoE. It cannot be avoided and only deals minor damage.
• Center Slam - He will occasionally punch the center grey platform. It's a rapid attack, so for this reason you should NEVER stand directly in the middle. Always stand in one of the 4 corners of the grey platform.

The key to winning during Phase 3 is positioning. You need to make sure that you don't walk off, fall off or get blasted off. For this reason, ALL PLAYERS should stand on the grey platform, in one of it's 4 corners. This is the safest possible area, because the grey platform can't be destroyed, but also leaves you the freedom to quickly move to a blue square if needed.

As blue tiles are destroyed, it becomes very important that you position yourself away from the edge before his Corrupted Aether gauge is full. Anytime the gauge reached 95, you should assess where you are standing and either move to a safe spot to continue attacking, or disengage. The worst thing that can happen is you're standing near the edge in combat, then a sudden Aerial Blast or Diamond Dust ruins your day.

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