Anabaseios: The Twelfth Circle (Savage) Part 1
Inflicts magical damage. Cannot be mitigated by abilities that target physical damage.
These auto-attacks target the player with the highest enmity.
Athena is a difficult encounter. Featuring rapid combinations of mechanics by both Athena and her soul-transformed minions, players must react quickly and decisively to avoid certain doom.
Standard raidwide. Restores any missing platforms.
Athena creates four yellow crystals which coalesce into angels.
Two angels will be positioned on the east side of the arena and two angels on the west. They will always be opposite each other. After a short time the first set of angels will each fire two
Remember to dodge
Be aware that Athena auto-attacks immediately following the second set of beams. Therefore, if a tank receives such a beam, their
Intended solution
DPS players wait on the non-angel side while supports form a vertical line on the angel side, in the middle of the arena. After each support is hit by one beam, they swap their positions with the DPS players. It is recommended to place healers and casters closest to the center of the arena to minimize movement; even the player at the far wall is still in
Lazy Lasers
The entire party except for the tanks stacks on the non-angel side. Tanks both use their
Nearly Lazy Lasers
Same as Lazy Lasers, but one player moves close to the middle to bait one of the lasers. The off-tank positions themselves closer to the far wall to bait two beams; the main tank stays closer to the center so that they'll be hit by only one beam for the first set. Only then do they invuln. This allows the invuln to last until the auto-attack after the second set of beams, saving tank cooldowns.
One of Athena's wings begins to glow, then another, and finally a third. The glows indicate which side of the arena Athena will cleave.
However, there is one caveat: when Athena's wings begin to glow bottom-to-top (instead of top-to-bottom), she will spin 180° after each cleave. In essence, this means that the second cleave is inverted.
A cleave from
Beam of light fired by an angel. Inflicts
A cleave from
A cleave from
Beam of light fired by an angel. Inflicts
Athena summons 6 angels – 4 from blue crystals, 2 from red crystals – then casts
1× random DPS:
1× random support:
1× random DPS:
1× random support:
You will end up with 4 players without debuffs. The 4 blue crystal angels will now tether to those 4 remaining players. There are 2 types of tethers: light (orange colour) and dark (purple colour). After a short time, the angels fire
At approximately the same time as the beams firing,
After the towers resolve, only the 2 red crystal angels remain. These angels are always situated at the northern edge of the arena, where they will shoot a
Applies the aforementioned status effects.
An umbral (light) tether resolves as the corresponding angel shoots the tethered player with a beam, inflicting
An astral (dark) tether resolves as the corresponding angel shoots the tethered player with a beam, inflicting
Drops an umbral (light) tower on the position of a player with
Drops an astral (dark) tower on the position of a player with
An umbral (light) tower resolves, dealing mild damage to anyone inside and inflicting a brief
An astral (dark) tower resolves, dealing mild damage to anyone inside and inflicting a brief
An angel at the edge of the arena fires a wide beam through the arena, inflicting
Standard raidwide. Restores any missing platforms.
Two-hit line tankbuster on the main target. Each hit inflicts
Summons several swirling rings around the outside of the arena. Each of these has one or two chains tethered to it. At the end of these chains are one of four shapes which slowly travel towards the source. Once they arrive, one of the following effects takes place:
Green orb:
Blue ring:
Purple spikes:
Orange spikes:
The chain's colour is the same as the shape's colour, so it is not necessary to find the end of the chain to know what its effect will be.
After the chains are summoned, Athena casts
1×
1×
1×
1×
2×
2×
Applies the aforementioned status effects.
A
A
Conal spreads on each player around the chain source. Inflicts
Conal
A
All
All
A
A
A
A
Drops an astral (dark) tower on the position of a player with
Drops an umbral (light) tower on the position of a player with
An umbral (light) tower resolves, dealing mild damage to anyone inside and inflicting a brief
An astral (dark) tower resolves, dealing mild damage to anyone inside and inflicting a brief
One of Athena's wings begins to glow, then another, and finally a third. The glows indicate which side of the arena Athena will cleave.
However, there is one caveat: when Athena's wings begin to glow bottom-to-top (instead of top-to-bottom), she will spin 180° after each cleave. In essence, this means that the second cleave is inverted.
Hits the farthest target with a shared
Party in the center of the hitbox, tanks outside.
Hits the closest target with a shared
Party at the south at max melee, tanks in the center of the hitbox.
Standard raidwide. Restores any missing platforms.
A combination of
Athena summons 4 blue crystal angels that will cast dark/light tethers to the DPS players, and 2 yellow crystal angels that function the same way as in
Athena then applies the following debuffs:
2× random support:
1× random support:
1× random support:
Finally, Athena uses
After
DPS players should always position themselves on the middle platform opposite their tether angel. There will be 2 DPS players per platform; to avoid clipping the players on the opposite platform, the players tethered to the angels closest to the middle of the arena should keep their tether straight, while the outer tethers should cross their tether with the straight tethers. Avoid pointing a tether into a tower.
Support players will all be on different platforms. The
All supports first soak the tower on their platform. Then, the
The inner support players, after soaking their tower, will need to check which side needs the towers (if you have the same coloured debuff as the DPS players on your platform, the other side needs your tower). If you're already on the right side, simply drop your tower anywhere in the center of the platform while being careful not to drop it on top of the DPS players. If you're on the wrong side, place your tower on the innermost corner of the platform, so that the edge of your tower clips into the other platform and is accessible from there.
After this, the 2 DPS players who are responsible for towers each take a tower. You can use a priority system based on which angel they were tethered to to determine who takes which tower (for instance, straight tether takes inner tower, crossed tether takes outer tower is common on EU). The other 2 DPS players are instead responsible for baiting the second set of beams from the two yellow crystal angels. While positioning yourself for tethers, take note of which yellow crystal angel you're closest to, then (after your beam resolves) get as close to that angel as possible without falling off the platform.
Applies the aforementioned status effects.
Temporarily removes 4 platforms from the arena and inflicts all players with
An unaspected tower explodes, dealing mild damage to anyone inside.
An umbral (light) tether resolves as the corresponding angel shoots the tethered player with a beam, inflicting
An astral (dark) tether resolves as the corresponding angel shoots the tethered player with a beam, inflicting
The cross-shaped
The X-shaped
Drops an umbral (light) tower on the position of a player with
Drops an astral (dark) tower on the position of a player with
Beam of light fired by an angel. Inflicts
An umbral (light) tower resolves, dealing mild damage to anyone inside and inflicting a brief
An astral (dark) tower resolves, dealing mild damage to anyone inside and inflicting a brief
Standard raidwide. Restores any missing platforms.
Two-hit line tankbuster on the main target. Each hit inflicts
Athena summons 8 angels that help her create two blades infused with the power of Ultima, then uses them to deal damage to every party member and transform the arena into a hexagon.
Each angel Athena summoned flies up in a random order, then Athena herself flies up and comes back down on a random corner of the hexagon as everyone is assigned a number between 1 and 8.
Athena will then dash to each numbered player in turn, dealing more damage the closer the player and all players in her path are to Athena (
Just before each dash resolves, one of the 8 angels comes down in the center of the arena in the same order that they initially flew up and uses either
After all 8 dashes are resolved, Athena jumps to the center, restores the arena to its previous state, and slashes her blades, cutting away the four inner platforms.
First, note that when Athena initially summons the angels before
Each dash should be directly opposite Athena when she dashes (the maximum distance) as the proximity damage has a very steep falloff. The predominant strategy involves stacking two players per dash, as the puddles otherwise take up too much space.
To do this, check where Athena is, then place players 1 and 3 opposite the boss and 2 and 4 next to the boss. After the first dash, players 2 and 4 quickly move to Athena's starting position. (Do not put 2 and 4 on Athena's starting position immediately as the first dash will otherwise kill them.)
While this is happening, players 5 and 7 wait counter-clockwise of Athena and players 6 and 8 wait clockwise of Athena, between Athena and players 1 and 3. They should be spread out and should not be all the way at the wall, as 5/7 will be responsible for baiting the first set of
After each pair's first dash, the pair rotates clockwise, just outside of the puddle. After their second dash, they swap positions with the two
As each pair will be hit by Athena twice, this mechanic has a fairly strict healing requirement. As Athena is untargetable here, feel free to use all your non-targeted mitigation and healing cooldowns during this mechanic.
After the last dash, remember to go to the northern- or southernmost platforms after the hexagon disappears. It is recommended to all go north here, as Athena will be facing south.
Athena unleashes Ultima, dealing massive damage to all players and restoring the arena. Deals more damage the more players are dead.
Summons three chain sources in a line from north to south. The two outer chain sources has 1 orange or purple chain and 1 green or blue chain or 1 orange and 1 purple chain or 1 green and 1 blue chain attached to it; the middle source always has a green, blue, and green chain attached to it.
Athena also uses
At the start of the mechanic, quickly find the path through the mess of chains:
The starting position will be whichever chain source has the short orange or purple chain attached to it. Check whether this chain source has another purple/orange chain attached to it; if yes, you will have to go back after going middle to resolve the
The last spread or partner stack will always be the opposite of whichever the first mechanic was, so if the first step required you to spread, the last step will require partner stacks and vice versa.
Be aware that, for each of the three steps during this mechanic, one hit of
The sequence is always this:
Spread or partner stacks + left or right → middle + left or right → back or forward + left or right → spread or partner stacks.
Be aware that the first spread/stack is limited to half the arena as it resolves at the same time as
If anyone dies during this mechanic, stay away from their corpse as it'll be targeted by the final spread/stack.
One of Athena's wings begins to glow, then another, and finally a third. The glows indicate which side of the arena Athena will cleave.
However, there is one caveat: when Athena's wings begin to glow bottom-to-top (instead of top-to-bottom), she will spin 180° after each cleave. In essence, this means that the second cleave is inverted.
A cleave from
Conal spreads on each player around the chain source. Inflicts
Conal
A
A
A
A cleave from
A cleave from
Conal
Conal spreads on each player around the chain source. Inflicts
Hits the farthest target with a shared
Party in the center of the hitbox, tanks outside.
Hits the closest target with a shared
Party at the south at max melee, tanks in the center of the hitbox.
Standard raidwide. Restores any missing platforms.
Summons a chain source north and a chain source south, then summons a chain source east and a chain source west, then summons another chain source north and south.
One of the initial north/south chain sources has a green chain attached to it, the other a blue chain.
One of the east/west chain sources has a green chain attached to it, the other a purple or orange chain.
One of the second north/south chain sources has a green chain attached to it, the other a purple or orange chain (opposite of the second chains) and a green chain.
After the first chains resolve, Athena uses
Athena also summons two red crystal angels that shoot huge
Start at whichever chain source has the blue chain attached to it, then go to whichever chain source has the orange/purple chain attached to it. However, don't get into position to resolve those chains yet. Instead, wait at
After the cones, quickly move out of the subsequent
Finally, identify which platform is not being erased and quickly make your way there.
Athena summons 2 angels from red crystals.
A
A
Athena faces a certain direction and cleaves all targets in-line with her.
Conal spreads on each player around the chain source. Inflicts
Conal
An angel at the edge of the arena fires a wide beam through the arena, inflicting
Conal spreads on each player around the chain source. Inflicts
A
Conal
Temporarily removes 7 of the 8 platforms of the arena and inflicts all players with
Standard raidwide. Restores any missing platforms.
Athena becomes untargetable and unleashes Ultima a second time, wiping the party.