Container minimized. Expand The Minstrel's Ballad: Nidhogg's Rage (AKA Nidhogg Extreme) By Shasta Kota of Death and Taxes <DnT> on Gilgamesh



General

"Scarcely had Nidhogg fallen on the Steps of Faith, when taverns across Eorzea began to rumble with the rumors of your victory. In one such establishment did you regale a certain story-starved bard with the true details of your accomplishment─a humble account that he soon expanded into a flowery ballad of heroic proportions. Even as the lilting notes fade away, your mind is carried off by recollections of a monstrous foe, writ considerably more terrifying by the wandering minstrel's exaggerated poetry..." Required minimum average item level is 220. Nidhogg ranks in difficulty a bit below Sephirot Extreme. There are really only two points in the fight that get very difficult. There's not a whole lot of work to do in figuring out what certain mechanics do. The only things that are a little unique to this fight compared to others are the Hot Tail/Hot Wing mechanics and the Nidhogg's Fang and Nidhogg's Claw, but those aren't too bad. In order to be successful at this fight, everyone needs to be responsible with their positioning. Positioning is really the only thing that will kill you in this fight, but there are many chances for it to do so. Always try to think of your next step in advance so you don't get flustered because it can be easy to get overwhelmed with some of the movement required in this fight. Note: Some of the strategies laid out in this fight do not have to be followed to be successful in this fight. These strategies are designed to eliminate worry of nearly all RNG from the fight. If you want to YOLO it, go ahead, but don't say you didn't know any other way. Videos Coming Soon ACT Triggers Use these in addition to the callouts in the Timeline plugin.

NidEx Custom Triggers: Forum Link ACT Timeline Plugin For more info about this plugin please see this thread: Forum Link

NidEx Timeline: Still a work in progress, sorry. SE made this fight a bitch for the timeline plugin.

Accuracy Caps Based on some reports from players on Reddit, the acc caps are a little higher than A5S. Let's go with A6S caps. Quick Fight Guide

Phase 1 (Striking Dummy + Cauterize)

Nidhogg stands around for about 25s and just pound him.

When he lifts off, everyone stack in mid to drop some AoEs on the ground. Meanwhile, look around the side of the arena for Nidhogg.

Nidhogg does some "Divebombs" called Cauterize but there is no AoE indicator for this. It's just like in Leviathan Extreme; look for Nidhogg on the side of the arena and he's gonna dive straight through the arena from that direction. The AoE is a little more than 1/3 of the arena, but not quite 1/2 the arena.

First Cauterize always comes from the North or East. Second Cauterize always comes from the South or West.

In between Cauterizes, you gotta stack up in mid again to drop more AoEs.

Phase 2 (Hot Tail and Hot Wing)

When Nidhogg uses Hot Wing, the area on his flanks (under his wings) will get lit up with a fire AoE so either be behind or in front of him when this happens.

Hot Tail is opposite of Hot Wing, it'll light up a linear AoE straight through Nidhogg's body from rear to front.

In between Hot Tail/Wing he will put AoE puddles under players; try to bait them before moving to dodge the next Hot ability.

Phase pushes at 80%. If you don't get it down in time, he will alternate between Hot Tail and Hot Wing. The ability he uses first is random but they will always alternate after that.

Phase 3 (Adds)

Kill order: Brobinyak -> Falak -> Dragon (left -> right -> center)

There is no aggro table on Shadow Dragon so don't try to get aggro on him.

Dragon casts Fireballs on the target furthest from him. Put one person on north wall and one on south wall to bait them.

Dragon also uses Ripper Claw (cleave) on random targets so stay away from his front.

Recommend putting WAR on Brobinyak and DRK/PLD on Falak.

Falak puts Magic Vuln debuff on tank with a cleave attack. This is about a 400% vulnerability so do not take more than 2 stacks. Tank swap before 3rd stack.

Do NOT swap aggro on Brobinyak. He will apply physical vulnerability but do not have other tank provoke him unless you're prepared to deal with Original Sin.

Phase 4 (Man Form)

Phase starts with Mortal Chorus which is just a knockback. You cannot fall off the edge.

Purple circles will appear on the ground before Final Chorus. You do NOT have to stand in these, just stack mid. If you die from like 40k damage it's because you didn't kill the adds from last phase fast enough.

Four random DPS/healers will be marked with a purple High Jump marker. High Jump deals medium damage and puts a puddle on the ground. Place these 4 puddles along the south wall and then immediately run to mid to bait the next mechanic.

Geirskogul (line AoEs) will come out of the High Jump puddles and target players. Make sure to bait all these to middle (kinda like Mirages in A6S). You also need to stack here for tank to take tether.

One of the High Jump puddles will form a tether with someone. OT needs to pick up this tether and stay out of the group while avoiding Geirskogul. The Soul Tether will explode in a small AoE around the tethered player.

Next, Nidhogg's Fang (blue) and Nidhogg's Claw (red) will spawn. Everyone focus damage on the blue Fang, you can't damage the red one. Four random DPS/healers will get a red tether; 3 other people will get a blue tether (one tank will get a blue tether).

Players with red tether SHOULD take damage which will kill the Claw for them, so pick up orbs and also stack for the Eye of the Tyrant. Players with blue tethers should NOT take any damage or it will heal the Fang. Eye of the Tyrant will always target a blue tethered player, so obviously that one person has to stack for it. Also, your MT might get blue tether so you'll have to tank swap in that case.

After a few seconds tethers will randomly reassign to people. It is possible to get the same color twice.

Phase 5 (Darkdragon Dive AKA 4 Towers)

Highly recommend looking at the images for our strat. See below.

Put a healer in NE tower, other healer in SW. One melee in NW, caster in SE. Everyone else stack mid. Each tank should grab one of the tethers coming from the NE and SW.

Right when the towers explode with Darkdragon Dive, everyone move mid to bait line AoEs.

Dodge the line AoEs by going to the edges of the arena (avoiding north side). Everyone should have a pre-defined position. Both tanks stay north with their tethers, standing slightly apart.

Stay on the edges of the arena until the next four High Jumps hit, then move back to center to bait them again.

As soon as that second set of line AoEs is baited mid, everyone run North to dodge them and prepare for Super Jump landing (based on distance).

DPS boss for a few seconds until he leaves and switches back to dragon form. He'll do one Cauterize (divebomb) and then go into next phase.

Phase 6 (Fire Bombs)

First thing to handle is an Akh Morn. Stack for this. It'll hit 4 times in a row.

Position everyone on the edge of the boss's hitbox. As soon as Hot Wing is done casting, some AoE puddles will drop below random players. Move to the direct center of the room to dodge those and wait for the first bombs to explode.

After the first bombs explode, move to the corners of the room. Recommend assigning two people to a corner. See Phase 6 section below for our position recommendations and images.

Stack up for another Akh Morn, 5 hits this time. Each subsequent Akh Morn adds one extra hit to it.

Next, more fire bombs will spawn. They'll spawn in groups of three at three different times. Go to the corner where the last set spawns. Go ALL the way into the corner.

AoE puddles will drop under the party. Dodge these by moving toward the center of the arena. Stop just outside the little ground puddle AoEs and wait for the center set of bombs to explode

After the center bombs explode, go to the middle.

The boss will start casting Hot Tail. When the third set of bombs explodes, either go left or right (to the center of one of the two far walls away from your initial corner).

Another Akh Morn will come out. Stack for that too.

This phase now repeats until you all die, boss dies, or enrage hits. Enrage hits around 11:10 mins.

Enemy Ability List

Nidhogg (Dragon Form) The Scarlet Whisper: small conal front cleave attack.

Deafening Bellow: Arena-wide AoE. Deals about 6k damage. Also the name of the enrage ability. Enrage has a 10 second cast timer starting at the 11 minute mark.

Horrid Roar: There are two separate mechanics with this same name.

Inidicated by a red/orange overhead indicator on random players. After 6 seconds, each marked player is hit by a small AoE for about 8k damage.



Non-telegraphed AoE puddles that spawn beneath random players. After 3s, they explode dealing about 15k damage per puddle (multiple can hit for stacking damage) and applying a 6s Hysteria debuff to any player hit.

Cauterize: Nidhogg appears off the edge of the arena and dives straight across, dealing around 15k damage to players hit. It covers almost half the arena. Nidhogg can come from any of 3 points on each of the four walls of the arena for a total of 12 starting points for the dive.

Touchdown: When Nidhogg reappears on the arena in his dragon form, he will land with an arena-wide AoE that deals around 4k damage.

Hot Tail: Linear AoE that spans from one edge of the arena to the other, passing straight through Nidhogg's body from rear to front orientated with the direction he is facing. If hit, deals about 8k damage and causes Burns.

Hot Wing: Two large AoEs that cover most of the arena to the flanks of Nidhogg's body, based upon the direction he is facing. It covers all the area in the arena that is not covered by Hot Tail. If hit, deals about 8k damage and causes Burns.

Mortal Chorus: Arena-wide AoE dealing about 6k damage and causes medium knock back. Used only once during transition from phase 3 to 4. Triggered when either time runs out for phase 3 or all adds are killed.

Akh Morn: Telegraphed by stacking indicator. Small AoE that deals medium damage and hits multiple times in a row. Each subsequent use of Akh Morn adds an extra hit to the series of attacks. Each hit of Akh Morn deals about 30k damage and is split between all players hit.

Bitter Hate: Forced tank swap mechanic. There's technically no ability casted or used or causing any damage, but once Nidhogg uses Touchdown in last phase, whoever has aggro on him will get one stack of a Bitter Hate debuff every 10s. At 8 stacks, you lose.

Nidhogg (Man Form) Final Chorus: Arena-wide AoE. Used only once between the transition of phases 3 and 4. Accompanied by an animation where 8 circles are visible; it might seem like standing in these circles will reduce the damage received, but it is purely just animation and will not affect the damage. Deals about 12k damage to each player.

Ala Morn: Single target "tank buster" deals 30-40k damage so cooldown required.

Drachenlance: Medium damage cleave.

High Jump: Telegraphed by 5s with purple overhead markers on players. Depending on phase, targets healers and/or DPS. Deals about 8k damage and places an AoE puddle on the ground where the player was positioned when hit. Puddles remain for 20s and apply a Bleeding effect if walked through.

Geirskogul: Linear AoEs which originate from High Jump puddles and target random players. Unlike the DRG ability, it has no max range so will go all the way across the arena.

Soul Tether: Originates from High Jump puddles at certain parts of the fight and tethers onto the player who dropped the puddle. The tether can be intercepted. After 10s the tether explodes for about 17-20k damage. Should always be taken by a tank.

Eye of the Tyrant: Small AoE centered on one player with an overhead stacking indicator. Deals about 30k damage, but is split between all players hit.

Bloodrage: Arena-wide AoE dealing about 9k damage to each player. Occurs only once in the fight just before transition into last phase.

Darkdragon Dive: Four pillars/towers will spawn at the midpoints between the center of the arena and each corner, in the NE, NW, SE, and SW quadrants. About 5s after appearing, each tower is hit with Darkdragon Dive which deals about 8k damage per person hit. Damage cannot be split between players. If a tower is hit by Darkdragon Dive without having a player in it, it deals arena-wide AoE damage to all players for about 8k damage each. After the initial hit, there is a large fire AoE puddle placed on the ground that lingers for 14s and applies a Burns debuff to anyone who walks through it.

Super Jump: Arena-wide AoE that deals 7k-25k based on distance from the landing point. Telegraphed by a 10s pulsing landing point icon on the ground. It is placed beneath a random player.

Shadow Brobinyak The Serpent's Apple: Wide physical front cleave attack. Applies a stacking Physical Vulnerability debuff to all players hit. Repeats about every 9s. Vulnerability is about 10% per stack and lasts about 13s.

Original Sin: Single target ability. Also inflicts Disease debuff. First starts using this ability about 27-28s after spawning if it has not died yet, and recasts it every 9s. Damage from this attack is amplified by the Magic Vulnerability debuff from Shadow Falak, so getting hit by it with 2 stacks of magic vuln will one-shot a tank.

Shadow Falak Electric Predation: Wide magical front cleave attack. Applies a stacking Magic Vulnerability debuff to all players hit. Repeats about every 16s. Vulnerability is about 400% per stack and lasts about 35s.

Shadow Dragon Fireball: Small magical AoE centered around targeted player. Fireball targets the furthest player from Shadow Dragon. There is no AoE indicator for it, but it readies the ability 4s before firing. Once the ability begins "readying" the position of the attack is locked and the targeted player can move to avoid it. Deals about 8-12k damage and applies a 30s Damage Down debuff to any players hit. Repeats about every 15s.

Ripper Claw: Frontal physical cleave on a random player. There is no AoE indicator for it but has a long animation. Deals about 10k damage and applies a 30s Damage Down debuff to any players hit. Repeats about every 15s.

Fight Strategy

Phase 1 (Striking Dummy + Cauterize) 0 --Start--

8 Scarlet Whisper

15 Deafening Bellow

21 Scarlet Whisper

29 Liftoff

33 Horrid Roar (Puddles) Spawn

39 Horrid Roar (Overhead)

39 Cauterize

43 Horrid Roar (Puddles) Spawn

49 Horrid Roar (Overhead)

49 Cauterize Waymarks We recommend putting down waymarks for Cauterize like in the diagram below. However, it's also a good idea if you want to put a waymark directly north to help with phase 5. [Show] [Hide]





Waymarks to help calling out Cauterize zones.



Intro Nidhogg will let you pound away on him for about 25s while doing minimal damage. Use this time to do your openers. He will not phase until after doing his second Scarlet Whisper and a couple of auto-attacks regardless of his HP%. Cauterize & Horrid Roar After Nidhogg jumps up into the air, everyone needs to stack up in mid to bait AoE puddles called Horrid Roar. Nidhogg will spawn in 1 of 12 locations around the edge of the arena. He will then use Cauterize and charge across the arena. Cauterize is larger than 1/3 of the arena but not quite as big as 1/2 of it. At the same time, 4 players will be targeted with red/orange overhead indicators for a small AoE attack which is also called Horrid Roar, just because SE likes to confuse people, so everyone has to spread away from each other. There are 2 sets of Horrid Roar and Cauterize here, so after the first Cauterize goes off, stack up in mid again and then dodge the next Cauterize. You might wanna Swiftcast an AoE heal in there too. You may notice (if your settings are turned up high enough) that Nidhogg's shadow will fly over the arena so you can use that to find his position if you're paying attention. The first Cauterize always comes from the North or East side of the arena. The second Cauterize is always from the South or West. So for the first one, just face your camera to the NE corner and you should be able to find him pretty easily. For the second one, face SW. Phase 2 (Hot Tail and Hot Wing) 0 Touchdown

5 Scarlet Whisper

10 Deafening Bellow

25 Hot Tail/Wing

32 Hot Tail/Wing Hot Tail/Wing Nidhogg will randomly choose between using Hot Tail or Hot Wing first. After the first use, it will alternate between Tail and Wing for the rest of this phase. He will use these abilities again in last phase, but the order that time is not random like it is here. For Hot Tail, there will be a line AoE going through Nidhogg's body from back to front so just stand on his sides. For Hot Wings, there will be an AoE covering the arena to his flanks, so stay directly in front or behind him. If you combine both together they will cover the whole arena without overlap (they never happen at the same time, just giving you a mental image). This phase pushes at 80% so you might only see one of these. However, if you don't push the phase in time, in between Hot Tail and Hot Wing it will put down the Horrid Roar AoE puddles again. Try to bait these before moving to dodge the second Hot Tail/Wing mechanic. Phase 3 (Adds) 0 Spawn

8 First Magic & Physical Vulnerability

11 First Fireball

27 First Original Sin

92 Adds must die before here Kill Order The kill order for these adds has been debated for a while, but that's mainly because people aren't aware of the Original Sin ability. This pretty much forces a kill order of Brobinyak -> Falak -> Dragon. Their respective spawn locations are left -> right -> center. The reason for this is that Brobinyak begins casting Original Sin repeatedly after about 27s after spawning and the damage is amplified by the Magic Vulnerability debuff so it prevents tank swapping of Falak. At the same time, the Magic Vulnerability stacks from Falak become unbearable after the 2nd stack (a 3rd stack will one shot the tank). You could argue that Falak can be killed first then, but the problem is that Original Sin is amplified by the Magic Vuln debuff. So if your tank who was on Falak first then swaps and takes Brobinyak then he'll die. There's no need to kill Shadow Dragon first because literally all of his attacks are dodgeable. Note: It only takes about 7500 raid DPS to kill Brobinyak within 27s. That's totally feasible. If you are having problem meeting the check though, you still have until the 36s mark before the 3rd Electric Predation so you have a few extra seconds before you absolutely need to tank swap (or blow your Hallowed Ground / Living Dead). Tanking the Adds Shadow Dragon has no aggro table so leave it alone. You should put your WAR on the Brobinyak because they can keep up Storm's Eye. Your other tank should tank Falak. Wait until after the first Electric Predation and then move Falak next to Brobinyak and tank them at 90 degrees from each other. Don't move Brobinyak because his cleave is on a shorter cooldown than Falak's so it's more dangerous to move it. The WAR should keep up Storm's Path on the Falak and Storm's Eye on the Brobinyak. When Brobinyak is dead, of course keep up Eye and Path on Falak. Fireballs Fireball targets the furthest person from Shadow Dragon. Place one player on the south wall and another player on the north wall. I recommend assigning these roles to the healers because even if they get hit by Fireball, the Damage Down debuff won't affect them as much as it would a DPS job. After a Fireball is locked onto your position, you have 4s to move away from the spot before it actually hits so you can avoid all the damage if you pay attention. I recommend setting up a custom trigger in ACT to call out when Fireball is being readied. Ripper Claw Shadow Dragon has no aggro table so he'll just run around randomly. He'll use a cleave attack called Ripper Claw. It has a pretty long animation so all you have to do is dodge it. It does a decent amount of damage if it hits, and also applies Damage Down debuff so try to avoid standing in front of Shadow Dragon at all. Phase Change The phase will end when either all the adds are dead or you run out of time. You only have about a minute and a half to kill all 3 adds. Phase 4 (Man Form) 0 Mortal Chorus

20 Final Chorus

34 Drachenlance

40 Drachenlance

43 High Jump

48 Geirskogul

52 Soul Tether Explosion

61 Ala Morn

68 Drachenlance

71 Claw & Fang Spawn

84 Ala Morn

93 Eye of the Tyrant

116 Eye of the Tyrant

123 Ala Morn

126 Self-Destruct

139 Ala Morn

144 Drachenlance

145 Phase End Mortal & Final Chorus The phase starts with Mortal Chorus which does low damage and knocks back from north to south. You cannot fall off the arena here so don't worry about the knockback (not really sure why they even put that in). Then the animation for Final Chorus begins. Some people think that there is some special mechanic they have to do here because the animation places 8 purple circles around the arena so it looks like you have to stand in them, but it literally doesn't do anything. Just stack in the middle and heal and shield yourself up. Final Chorus will hit and do medium damage, that's all. In some cases, you might get one shot by it for like 40k damage. This only happens when you fail the DPS check from phase 3. It just doesn't wipe you until Final Chorus hits. If your add was still alive by the time Mortal Chorus went off, you failed the DPS check. Even if you kill the add before Final Chorus hits, your fate is already sealed. Ala Morn This is a pretty simple mechanic. It's just a single target "tank buster" type ability. Tanks should use cooldowns for it, but it's single target so nothing fancy needs to be done here. Just don't confuse Ala Morn with Akh Morn (which comes later in the fight). High Jump + Geirskogul + Soul Tether Tank the boss in the center for now. Four random DPS/healers will be targeted by a purple overhead icon. Those players need to all be lined up along the south wall. As soon as High Jump hits, run to the middle and stack near the boss. High Jump leaves puddles on the ground where you were standing when it hit. From these puddles, a line AoE called Geirskogul will originate and target random party members. If everyone is standing in mid then it baits all the Geirskoguls there (side note: one Geirskogul also comes from Nidhogg), then you can dodge them pretty easily. The other reason for stacking in mid is so that your tank can take Soul Tether. From one of the four puddles, a tether will attach to a player. This purple tether can be intercepted by other party members. After 10 seconds, the player holding the tether gets hit by a small AoE called Soul Tether and it does pretty high damage, so you want the offtank to grab that. Mid-Guide Ranting SE sure likes to confuse people, naming a bunch of the mechanics in the fight based on previous abilities. Seriously, Fang & Claw is a DRG ability, so is Geirskogul. Akh Morn was Bahamut's ability. High Jump and Super Jump were DRG abilities in FFXI...And two completely different abilities named Horrid Roar. They clearly wanted to make it feel like you were fighting a dragoon, but it still feels like lazy game design. Still, I enjoyed some of the new mechanics like the Fang & Claw tethers. Speaking of which... Nidhogg's Fang & Claw Two enemies will appear named Nidhogg's Fang (blue) and Nidhogg's Claw (red). They don't attack, but they slowly cast Self-Destruct which will wipe you. Important things to know before you start: attacking the red Claw will not deal damage to it (invincible), 3 random DPS/healers get a red tether, people with red tethers who take damage will cause red Claw to damage itself, 4 of the remaining players will get blue tethers (including only one tank), and players with blue tethers who take damage will cause the blue Fang to HEAL itself. The amount of damage the Fang and Claw heal or hurt is dependent on how much damage is taken by the tethered players. Your main tank will always get the blue tether. You need to tank swap as soon as tether goes out. If you swap too early, then the other tank will end up getting the tether and you'll have to swap back so just wait for the tether first. Healer can put on shields on the MT to prevent the one or two autoattacks while the tanks are swapping to prevent the Fang from healing too much. If you don't tank swap, Nidhogg's Fang will continue to heal itself when Nidhogg damages your tank. Everyone should focus damage on the blue Fang to kill it before it gets more chances to heal. Three orbs will spawn (called Sable Price) and they work just like orbs in T13. They will slowly drift toward random players until someone walks into it and it explodes. The players with red tethers should be popping these orbs in order to damage the red Claw. One person will get marked with a stacking overhead indicator for Eye of the Tyrant. This is damage that can be split between players. You don't want to put any blue-tethered people in there because it'll heal the Fang. But you do want all your red-tethered players in it to damage the Claw. Recommend putting the stack point in between the Fang and Claw (maybe a little closer to the Claw just to be safe). The person marked with the stacking icon will be a blue-tethered player so there is no way to avoid them having to stack for it, but no other blue tethers should be in the Eye of the Tyrant stack. It's a good idea to put an Adloquium and/or Stoneskin on the blue tethered player who is forced to stack for this, so the Fang will get minimal healing. For the same reason, you should NOT Succor for Eye of the Tyrant because the red tethered players need to take full damage from it in order to deal damage to the Claw. About halfway through, tethers will randomly reassign. You might end up getting a different tether, or you might end up with the same color again so pay attention. I recommend setting an ACT trigger to call out which color you have just in case. The mechanics then repeat again with 3 more Sable Prices and another Eye of the Tyrant. Phase 5 (Darkdragon Dive AKA 4 Towers) 0 Towers Spawn

5 Darkdragon Dive

5:12 5 High Jump

12 Geirskogul

13 High Jump

15 Soul Tether Explosion

20 Geirskogul

22 Super Jump



25 Nidhogg Targetable

31 Drachenlance

38 Ala Morn

44 Drachenlance

51 Phase End Darkdragon Dive Tower Positions + First High Jump To understand this phase you have to know a few basic facts: The first set of 2 High Jumps in this phase will always target the two healers.

There are 2 Soul Tethers in this phase and they both spawn from the High Jump puddles that the healers dropped, and they initially tether onto those healers.

The first set of Geirskoguls will originate from the four Darkdragon Dive puddles.

The second set of 4 High Jumps will target random DPS and/or healers.

Walking through either the Darkdragon Dive puddles or High Jump puddles will put a DoT on you.

Super Jump position is based on a random party member's position Diagrams for the Fight Putting the diagrams here first for reference. I'll explain more after those. [Show] [Hide]





Stack in towers and assigned positions.





Stack everyone in middle or corners to bait first set of Geirskoguls.





Tanks need to microposition themselves to grab the Soul Tethers off the healers.





Dodge first set of Geirskogul like this so that there's no risk of having Soul Tethers taken off tanks. Also puts everyone in position for next set of High Jumps.





There will only be 4 High Jumps, but these are the 6 possible locations where they might be placed. Even if you don't have a marker, go to your position (or else you might die to Soul Tether or bait the next Geirskogul wrong).





Everyone stack up in mid this time to bait the 2nd set of Geirskoguls.





With Geirskoguls now baited, run north to dodge them.





Stack north and heal/shield up.





Super Jump will have been placed in one of these 6 possible positions. Even the closest one should still do minimal damage, but you can move east/west a bit to be a little further away.







Darkdragon Dive / Towers So the first thing to handle is the 4 towers + 2 High Jumps. We know that the 2 healers are going to get High Jumps and that could potentially mean 6 AoE puddles on the ground that would be restricting movement. We can make this easier by putting two of the healers in the towers so that the High Jump puddles stack with the Darkdragon Dive puddles, reducing the amount of AoEs on the ground from 6 puddles down to 4. Tower Assignments NW (top left): Healer #1

NE (top right): Healer #2

SW (bottom left): Melee #1 (doesn't have to be melee, just a DPS)

SE (bottom right): Melee #2 (doesn't have to be melee, just a DPS)

Everyone else stack mid. We have the healers in puddles so that they can stack their High Jumps there too. We put two DPS in the other two towers just because we need at least one person in each tower. Then the remaining players need to stack mid. First Geirskoguls & Soul Tethers While stacking mid and baiting the Geirskoguls, the tanks should make very small positioning adjustments so that they each end up with one of the Soul Tethers coming from the SW and SE. Once the Geirskoguls are baited, the tanks should both run north or south to dodge them and then immediately go back to mid once it's clear. They'll need to stay a bit apart from each other so they don't hit each other with Soul Tethers. Since there is little time between the explosion of this first set of Gierskoguls and the next mechanic, players all need to dodge in the direction that they need to be for the next mechanic. 4 High Jumps There will be 4 High Jumps that will randomly target DPS/healers. Everyone has an assigned position so that placement of the puddles still allows for players to move to the baiting point for the next set of Geirskoguls and so that Geirskoguls are not baited in a direction that cuts off all escape routes. See figure 5 for this positioning. Also, the tanks need to go a little back into the middle now and stay a bit away from each other until the Soul Tethers explode on them. If you are one of the two DPS/healers who did not get a High Jump marker, going to your assigned position means you also don't have to worry about getting clipped by a Soul Tether explosion. 2nd Set of Geirskoguls The second set of Geirskoguls should be baited to the middle now. Your goal should be to escape to the north since it should be clear. However, you can try to dodge south in a pinch. The reason why we want to dodge to the north is because you won't have to worry about Super Jump. Super Jump Super Jump's position is based on a randomly selected healer or DPS at the time when the 4 High Jump puddles are going off. The possible Super Jump positions can be seen in figure 9. If everyone is moving north to dodge the 2nd set of Geirskoguls then you don't need to worry about the Super Jump placement because you'll be far enough away from it to be taking minimal damage (about 7k without shields). Super Jump does count as physical damage, so BLMs and NINs can mitigate their own damage from it a little bit; DRGs can try to parry it I guess. Lull Time Nidhogg becomes targetable again for about 25s. Probably not worth getting up long buffs like AST cards here because the boss is about to leave again. Just throw on some DPS and don't let the tank die to the Ala Morn. Make sure everyone is topped up because there's an AoE immediately after Nidhogg flies off again. Phase 6 (Fire Bombs) 0 Bloodrage

4 Horrid Roar Puddles Spawn

10 Horrid Roar (Overhead)

10 Cauterize

15 Touchdown

24 Akh Morn



36 Loop Starts Here

36 Scarlet Price (Corners) Spawn

41 Scarlet Price (Middle) Spawn

47 Hot Wing

47 Horrid Roar (Puddles) Spawn

51 Scarlet Price (Corners) Explode

56 Scarlet Price (Middle) Explode

56 Horrid Roar (Overhead)

65 Akh Morn

78 The Scarlet Whisper

83 Deafening Bellow

88 The Scarlet Whisper

93 Deafening Bellow



95 Scarlet Price (Middle) Spawn

97 Scarlet Price (Corner 1) Spawn

100 Scarlet Price (Corner 2) Spawn

106 Horrid Roar (Puddles) Spawn

110 Scarlet Price (Middle) Explode

112 Scarlet Price (Corner 1) Explode

115 Scarlet Price (Corner 2) Explode

116 Hot Tail

121 Deafening Bellow

129 Akh Morn

144 The Scarlet Whisper

149 Deafening Bellow

154 The Scarlet Whisper

159 Deafening Bellow

161 Loop Phase Enter the Dragon (Again) The phase starts off with Nidhogg changing back to his dragon form. We get a Bloodrage which is an arena-wide AoE, followed by another Horrid Roar + Cauterize. So start off in the middle to stack up those Horrid Roar puddles. You'll also get 6 Horrid Roar overhead indicators as well in this phase rather than the previous 4. There will only be 1 Cauterize this time though, so yay! Akh Morn The first mechanic will be Akh Morn. We recommend facing the boss north and then have everyone except the main tank stack on the back edge of the boss's hitbox. Akh Morn damage will be split with the 7 people stacked. Remain stacked there afterward too because he will begin casting Hot Wing and right as the cast bar finishes, Horrid Roar puddles will be placed beneath you. You need these baited on the edges of his hitbox so that you can move closer to the middle to dodge them. The main tank will do the same on the opposite side of the boss. If you really want to be safe, you can just stack up the main tank with the rest of the party too; just don't cleave everyone with The Scarlet Whisper. Akh Morn is really a series of attacks. It'll hit you with Akh Morn damage several times in quick succession so remain stacked. Each time Nidhogg recasts Akh Morn from here on will add an extra hit to the sequence. The first set does 4 hits, the next set will be 5, etc until you either die or hit the enrage timer. Hot Wing + Scarlet Price Let's start with the images: [Show] [Hide]





Scarlet Price sets spawn in two waves. Corners spawn first, then the middle set spawns.





Dodge Hot Wing + Horrid Roar + Scarlet Price at the same time by moving to the center





As soon as the corner bombs explode, everyone run to corners. Recommend making corner assignments because the overhead Horrid Roars go out at this time and it can be difficult to dodge that and the Scarlet Price at the same time.





So you should already be stacked for the Akh Morn. Just stay where you were until Hot Wing finishes casting. At the end of the Hot Wing cast, Horrid Roar puddles will appear beneath you. You can only move forward to dodge it because otherwise you'll get hit by Hot Wing or explosions. If you move backward, you won't be able to dodge Scarlet Price, so just go in to the center of the arena (inside Nidhogg) and wait for the first set of Scarlet Prices (in the corners) to explode. You may notice that Scarlet Price are very similar to the spikey bombs from A5S. When they explode, the explosions are linear AoEs going directly north, south, east, and west of their position. Getting hit by a Scarlet Price will deal about 13k damage and apply Burns debuff. Once the corner bombs have blown up, all four corners will be safe. You need to move to the corners now in order to avoid the explosions from the center set of Scarlet Prices. At the same time, you'll get red/orange overhead indicators for Horrid Roar. Everyone gets a marker this time, so you want to try to spread people out. You can't have the whole party going to one corner or some people are going to die. The best way is to put 2 people to a corner, but you can get away with 4 per corner if you have to. See image 3 for our recommended corner assignments (they're similar to phase 5 High Jump positions). Next there will be another Akh Morn. I recommend just standing somewhere inside Nidhogg's hitbox here since everyone is still running around trying to find their bearings again. But as soon as the Akh Morn is over, reset to your initial positions. There will be a couple Scarlet Whispers here so be quick and don't get anyone cleaved. You might have noticed that there is a stacking debuff called Bitter Hate that keeps adding up in this phase. If it hits 8 stacks, it's bad. Just tank swap between Hot Wings and Hot Tails when you have a little down time. Swapping at 6 or 7 stacks would be safe. Hot Tail + Scarlet Price Images for this next half of the phase: [Show] [Hide]





This time, Scarlet Prices will spawn at 3 different times. Middle first, then one random corner, and then the opposite corner from 2nd set.





Move to the corner where the last set spawned. Go ALL THE WAY into the corner. You gotta bait the Horrid Roar puddles there.





Dodge the Horrid Roar puddles by going toward the center of the arena, but stop just outside the puddles.





As soon as the middle set of Scarlet Prices explodes, go into the middle and then wait briefly again.





When the second set of Scarlet Prices explodes, Nidhogg will also begin casting Hot Tail. You can dodge to one of two positions depending on the angle that Nidhogg is facing, just dodge Hot Tail by moving to one of these two spots.







This time around, the Scarlet Prices will spawn at three different times instead of two. The spawn order is always middle -> random corner -> opposite corner from 2nd set. You want to go to the corner where the 3rd set spawned. Go all the way into the corner. You move there to bait the Horrid Roar puddles on the ground. Once those puddles are out, dodge them by moving closer to the center. Go just outside of the puddles and stop. You want Nidhogg to still face directly in the corner (that's the goal but it may not always be perfect). When the middle explosions go off, move into the middle of the arena. At this point, Nidhogg will begin casting Hot Tail. Take note of the angle he's facing so you know where Hot Tail is going to go. If he was faced properly, it should be going straight through the middle from one corner to the other, but it might be off center so be careful. There are two possible safe spots to dodge Hot Tail + the last set of Scarlet Prices: the middles of the two far walls from where you baited those Horrid Roar puddles (see figure 5). You'll get an Akh Morn again, 1 more hit in this set than the last one so be prepared for that. You get a little bit of down time again and then it repeats the phase again. Enrage begins casting around 11 minutes so you'll get a free 10 seconds at the end while he's casting before you wipe at 11:10. If you did well in the earlier phases, you're more likely to die from Akh Morn than enrage though. Alternate Hot Tail Strategy If you want to cheese this mechanic, just stack your Horrid Roars in the center, then move to the corner with bomb set #3. Wait until the center bombs explode and them move back to middle. Heal and shield up and just eat the Hot Tail. It won't kill you, but you need extra heals. Everyone will get Burns debuff so keep the healing going for a while. Good luck on this fight! It's not too difficult. And remember, if strategerizing is too hard, you can always try to YOLO it. You can still beat it that way with about 70% success so it's not too bad. This fight is a lot more forgiving than some others (looking at you, A7S). Loot

There is 1 chest for this fight, and for some reason it's extra large but still only contains the normal amount of loot from a "trial" encounter. The possible item drops are: 25 Allagan Tomestone of Esoterics (guaranteed)

14 Allagan Tomestone of Lore (guaranteed)

Nidhogg Card (directly to inventory)

Horde Totem (10 can be exchanged for a weapon of your choice)

Nidhogg's Scale (Used for crafting Horde Barding and Miniature Nidhogg)

Dark Lanner Whistle (unlocks Dark Lanner mount)

Item Level 235 Weapons



DRK Horde Guillotine

PLD Horde Blade Horde Shield

WAR Horde Axe

AST Horde Star Globe

SCH Horde Codex

WHM Horde Cane

DRG Horde Spear

MNK Horde Knuckles

NIN Horde Daggers

BRD Horde Bow

MCH Horde Handgonne

BLM Horde Rod

SMN Horde Grimoire