Phase 4: Roommates

After getting the Oracle of Darkness below 20% HP, and surviving Memory's End, the Usurper of Frost will reappear at either the north or south side of the arena. She will always spawn on the opposite side from where Gaia was, and is immediately targetable.

This phase is a duo phase, with the Oracle of Darkness reappearing shortly after the phase begins. In order to complete the phase, both bosses must be defeated before the end of the enrage castbars.

Materialization & Fragment of Fate

Shiva’s first cast is Materialization.^[1] It causes a Fragment of Fate, a crystal containing one of Gaia’s memories, to appear at the northern apex of the arena. The Fragment of Fate has an HP bar and periodically emits a raidwide called Edge of Oblivion—or Depths of Oblivion if the necklace was not saved in the intermission. If it is hit by any of the targeted or avoidable attacks in the phase, it will be destroyed; otherwise it will survive the phase.

If it does not survive the phase, then the party will get the bad-ending phase 5. To advance to the true phase 5 and clear the fight, the Fragment must survive the phase, in addition to saving the Eternal Ice Fragment in the intermission. Players must take care to ensure that no attacks ever hit it, apart from unavoidable raidwides.

Summoning Hraesvelgr

After summoning the crystal, the Usurper of Frost summons Hraesvelgr to her, just like in phase 2 of E8S. There’s no cutscene, and she remains targetable the entire time.

Right when she does so, the party’s positions are snapshotted. Without any warning, the snapshotted positions are hit by a series of 10 consecutive Akh Rhai AoEs, that fire in rapid succession. They hit the same positions repeatedly, so they only need to be dodged once.

During the Akh Rhai, she will also make autoattacks on the top two enmity targets. And at around the sixth Akh Rhai, the Fragment of Fate emits a Edge of Oblivion. The Oracle of Darkness appears and becomes targetable around the ninth AoE.

HP Balancing

Once the Oracle of Darkness appears, both bosses are targetable except during the one downtime mechanic of the phase. The party must be careful to balance their HP to within 5% of each other. If their HP is ever more than 5% apart, then the two Morn Afah casts later will become lethal.

After the second Morn Afah, there is no longer a need to balance HP. The party can freely kill the bosses in either order. There is also no need to keep the boss HP balanced in between the Morn Afah casts, as long as they are balanced when the casts go off. A tether will appear between the two bosses during the cast to visually indicate an imbalance.

Sequence 1: Darklit Dragonsong

The first of two mechanic sequences is Darklit Dragonsong, cast simultaneously by both bosses. It’s mostly another variation of Light Rampant, with Gaia repeating several mechanics seen already in phase 3. During the castbar, two light party stack markers appear on random players. These are Spell-in-Waiting stacks and do not resolve immediately.

The cast itself is a very heavy raidwide originating from the Usurper of Frost, so mitigation targeted on the Oracle of Darkness will have no effect. As it resolves:

1. The two players with stack markers receive 19 Spell-in-Waiting: Dark Water III .
2. Everyone receives 12 Lightsteeped .
3. Four players, exactly one of whom has , are tethered together in with 7 Refulgent Chain . The players tethered are always one tank, one healer, and two DPS, and the tethers can connect them in any order, unlike in phase 2.
4. Two towers appear, north and south of center.

About 4 seconds before the towers go off, the Refulgent Chain expire and become 14 Refulgent Fate . Unlike in phase 2, but like in E8S, these tethers will explode if the tethered players get either too close or too far apart. The towers are the perfect distance to be safely soaked by tethered players.

Shiva casts The Path of Light, resolving at the same time as towers, hitting the four closest players with cones. As in phase 2, both the towers and cones inflict , so one player can’t be hit by both.^[2]

As the towers and cones resolve, Gaia begins casting Spirit Taker. This is the same as in P3: when it resolves, she leaps and hits a random player with a small circular AoE. Anyone else within the circle is knocked back and probably dies. Shiva follows this up with Hallowed Wings, a half-room cleave of either the east or west side, telegraphed by a glowing wing. The resolve just before this cleave goes off.

Finally, Gaia uses Somber Dance, only a few seconds after the Hallowed Wings. As before, this is a leaping one-two tankbuster on the farthest and then nearest players. The tank swap must be done with positioning, not Provoke.

Akh Morn

The sequence wraps up with Akh Morn, followed by Morn Afah. Right before, there’s another Edge of Oblivion, followed by the bosses recentering—Shiva slightly west of center, and Gaia slightly east. They cast Akh Morn simultaneously.

Akh Morn is a four-hit LP stack, with Shiva hitting her main target with columns of light, and Gaia hitting hers with columns of dark. These inflict 4 Light's Design and 4 Darkness's Design , respectively, forcing players to remain in the same stack for the entire mechanic. It will be a bad day if both bosses are targeting the same player when the attack goes off.

Notably, the damage from Akh Morn pierces invulnerability but is still subject to mitigation. This allows a tank with proper mitigation to survive a hit solo, but not with an invuln.

Morn Afah

Right after Akh Morn, the roommates simultaneously cast Morn Afah. This is a full-party stack AoE targeted on Shiva‘s top-enmity target, but if the bosses’ HPs are more than 5% apart when the cast goes off, it’s an instakill for anyone hit. It is not a raidwide even if the HP is imbalanced, so anyone not in the radius will always survive. Like Akh Morn, it pierces invulnerability but respects other mitigations.

As the attack comes from the Usurper of Frost, targeted mitigation on the Oracle of Darkness has no effect.

To give a visual clue that HP is imbalanced, during the cast bar, a tether can appear between the two bosses. If Gaia’s HP is too high, it will be dark-coloured; if Shiva’s HP is too high, it will be light-coloured.

Sequence 2: Crystallize Time

Gaia teleports dead center, with Shiva just south of her, and the two cast Crystallize Time, their second big mechanic. The mechanic is a combination of Relativity and, from E8S, Wyrm's Lament. After the initial raidwide, predictably, everyone’s debuff bars are again thrown into chaos. Additionally, six Sorrow's Hourglasses spawn at the centers of each of the lines on the floor.^[3]

The raidwide originates from the Oracle of Darkness, so targeted mitigation on the Usurper of Frost has no effect on it.

Both bosses will go untargetable a few seconds after the cast, for the entire mechanic. A few seconds later, the Fragment of Fate, if still alive, will use an Edge of Oblivion.

There are a lot of parts to this mechanic, so I will lay them out separately.

Debuffs

Debuffs are entirely random except as noted. From left to right, they are as follows:

1. Everyone receives a primary Spell-in-Waiting:

   1. One player receives 12 Spell-in-Waiting: Dark Water III .
   2. One player receives 14 Spell-in-Waiting: Dark Eruption .
   3. Two players receive 14 Spell-in-Waiting: Dark Aero III .
   4. Three players receive 14 Spell-in-Waiting: Dark Blizzard III .
   5. One player receives 17 Spell-in-Waiting: Unholy Darkness .

2. Everyone receives a or debuff.

   1. Two of the three players with receive 17 Wyrmclaw .
   2. The two players with receive 40 Wyrmclaw .
   3. The remaining players receive 40 Wyrmfang .

3. Everyone receives 33 Spell-in-Waiting: Return .

4. Three players receive 31 Spell-in-Waiting: Quietus . Since all they do is cause raidwides, it is entirely irrelevant who receives them.

Or in summary, leaving out the 31 :

2×	2×	1×	1×	1×	1×
14 17 33	14 40 33	14 40 33	12 40 33	14 40 33	17 40 33

Hourglasses

Gaia casts Speed as in phase 3. This time, the yellow tethers always hit the north and south Hourglasses. The purple tethers will hit either the NW and SE hourglasses, or NE and SW. In other words, all three Hourglasses go off in opposite pairs, with north and south going off first.

The cast from the Hourglasses in this mechanic is Maelstrom, a circular AoE that covers the entire circle on the floor. There is a very brief omen, hardly enough to dodge.

The explosions happen concurrently with the Spell-in-Waiting debuffs resolving, towards the start of the mechanic. The hourglasses are completely inert after they explode.

Drachen Wanderers

Two Drachen Wanderers—large, ghostly wyrm heads—also appear just north of the northernmost Hourglass. The Wanderers begin a slow journey around the arena, one clockwise, one counterclockwise.

If a player with makes contact with a Wanderer, it will cleanse the and explode in a circular AoE called Longing of the Lost. The size is similar to Maelstrom. This can break the Fragment of Fate.

The first time a is cleansed on a given Wanderer, it shrinks. The second time, it disappears entirely. If either Wanderer survives to make a complete lap of the arena, it will fly off to the sky and wipe the party.

Additionally, cleansing leaves behind a small blue beacon. The beacon can be used once to cleanse a .

In order to resolve this part of the mechanic completely, therefore, both Wanderers must be touched twice each by players with , and the resulting beacons must each be touched by a player with .

Exalines and Knockbacks

Around the time of the second Maelstrom explosions, Shiva will teleport to either the east or west edge of the arena and cast Tidal Light.

This attack begins a large exaline that covers the entire width of the arena, and is about as thick as 1/4 of the arena’s diameter. The exaline travels across the arena away from Shiva. It is slow enough to dodge by stepping into the previous explosion before the next.

If you look closely, Shiva has a blue circle under her during this attack—the same blue circle, in fact, as players get from Spell-in-Waiting: Return . This is a visual hint that Shiva, too, will have her position rewound later in the mechanic. Remember which cardinal she appeared at.

Towards the end of the first set of exalines, Shiva teleports to either the north or south edge of the arena, and repeats Tidal Light, producing a second exaline identical as the first.

As the second exaline travels across the arena, the final debuffs expire. First, the three explode in three relatively small raidwides that don’t even add up to a big one. Then, the expire, snapshotting everyone’s positions and granting 7 Return to everyone.

Gaia begins another Spirit Taker, so the party must spread. And finally, Shiva teleports back to the center and casts Hallowed Wings. Before her cast completes, however, the debuffs expire, inflicting 9 Stun and teleporting everyone back to their snapshotted positions. Shiva, too, is teleported—back to where she first cast Tidal Light. This will always, therefore, be the east or west cardinal. The snapshot positions must solve the upcoming attack.

Unlike the earlier cast of the same name, this Hallowed Wings is a massive wild charge knockback. All players are hit, regardless of position, and are knocked away from Shiva’s cardinal about half the width of the arena.

The damage dealt by the attack is based on proximity to Shiva’s cardinal, with the closest player receiving the most damage, the second-closest receiving the second-most, etc. The person furthest away receives teh lowest amount of damage. Note, however, that this attack deals fixed damage based on position even if a player is dead; it is not a shared-damage attack. The four players in front receive a 6 Magic Vulnerability Up .

Then, while everyone is still stunned, Shiva is teleported to the cardinal where she cast the second exaline, and repeats the attack. Knockback immunity (besides Inner Release) will not last long enough to protect against the second knockback, because it cannot be used during the .

The damage on the second hit will be quadrupled for the players with . If the player fifth in line has a , the damage is equal to being first in line without . It’s not quite tankbuster levels of damage, but it’s still enough to give a non-tank a bad time. I’ll put the exact numbers in an appendix sometime.

The players are released from stun during the second knockback, and both bosses teleport to mid and become targetable again, marking the end of the mechanic.

Crystallize Time Timeline

t = 0	Buffs go out
t + 3 s	Drachen Wanderers appear Shiva becomes untargetable
t + 4 s	Gaia becomes untargetable
t + 5 s	Edge of Oblivion raidwide
t + 10 s	Malestrom omens from yellow-tethered Hourglasses
t + 12 s	stack and yellow-tethered Maelstroms go off
t + 14 s	circle, donut, and knockback go off Safe to cleanse without breaking Fragment
t + 15 s	Maelstrom omens appear from non-tethered Hourglasses
t + 16 s	Shiva teleports to east or west
t + 17 s	stack and non-tethered Maelstroms go off East/west exaline omen appears 17 kills if not cleansed by now
t + 20 s	Maelstrom omens from purple-tethered Hourglasses East/west exalines begin, firing approx. every 2 seconds
t + 22 s	Purple-tethered Maelstroms go off Shiva teleports to north or south
t + 24 s	North/south exaline omen appears
t + 27 s	North/south exalines begin East/west exalines end
t + 31 s	raidwides go off
t + 33 s	snapshots player positions North/south exalines end
t + 37 s	Spirit Taker spread
t + 40 s	Players stunned and returned to snapshot positions 40 and 40 kill if not cleansed by now Drachen Wanderers wipe party if not destroyed by now
t + 44 s	First Hallowed Wings knockback
t + 48 s	Second Hallowed Wings knockback
t + 52 s	Bosses become targetable. Sequence complete

Enrage

The bosses wrap up by repeating the Akh Morn–Morn Afah sequence from earlier, followed by the enrage sequence. Only after the second Morn Afah can either of the bosses be killed; they will block at 1 HP if killed beforehand.

Shiva’s enrage cast is Ice Age, while Gaia’s is once again Memory's End. They go off at the same time, and either one is enough to wipe the party. If a boss is killed, however, their attack does not go off. Both bosses must be killed to advance to phase 5…

with hope that the Fragment of Fate survived…

Acknowledgments

Special callouts for this section go to felty fan, syl, Nova, Tuufless, and the ever-reliable Silent Bramble. Regular callouts go to anyone who helped me in NAUR and anyone who uploaded PoVs, especially Lucrezia and Kindred.

1. Nobody has actually confirmed for me if Materialization is skipped entirely if the necklace isn’t saved, or if it just doesn’t spawn the fragment. Please let me know. ↩

2. Oddly, the durations of the debuff are different depending on which source they came from, but it doesn’t matter because there’s no more stacks. ↩

3. How many times do we have to tell you: sometimes the lines are circles. ↩