Final Fantasy XIV Meta & Miscellaneous Mechanics Guide

Final Fantasy XIV uses a lot of visual effects for mechanics. As the expansions have been released, they’ve been attempting to standardize and make important mechanics more obvious.

In my Final Fantasy XIV Mechanics Guides, I outline most of the mechanics that are repeated at least a few times. There are tips on how to handle them, if applicable, and examples of where you’ll see them. There are no examples listed of some types because they occur with enormous frequency. I include boss names, but any boss encounters with MSQ spoilers are grayed out and can be revealed by clicking on them.

There is overlap in the various types of mechanics but I've sorted them how I believe most players will come to identify and understand them. This guide is dedicated to meta and miscellaneous mechanics which are general mechanics you’ll notice in most instances, or mechanics that don’t belong in any other category.

Tankbuster

Many bosses in the game have a tankbuster. This is a hard-hitting attack that your tank will need mitigation, barrier, or healing to endure. Usually, the name of the attack makes it fairly obvious it’s a tankbuster. It’ll be something like Cremate, Rend, or Critical Rip. Sometimes the boss has similarly-named attacks, but the tankbuster will sound like the single-target version, e.g. Magitek Claw (tankbuster) versus Magitek Ray (line AoE) or Feather Cut (tankbuster) versus Feather Squall (dash).

Tankbusters have a couple of variations. They might:

• Have no cast time or telegraph.
• Need to be shared between two tanks. Both tanks will need to stand next to one another to share the damage between them.
• Be a cleave, line, cone, or PBAoE. Other party members beware. If it isn’t a shared tankbuster, the other tank should avoid it as well so they don’t put additional pressure on the healers.
• Be composed of multi-hits. Tanks might need to swap mid-attack using and or use invulnerability to endure every hit.
• Be two parts. The first part might put a physical or magical vulnerability debuff on the tank, while the second will do heavy damage. Again, tanks might need to swap if they don’t use invulnerability.

In Shadowbringers, they introduced an overhead marker to indicate AoE tankbusters. It's an arrow pointing down at the player and a strip of red or yellow caution tape around them. If you don’t know which kind of AoE it is, move away from the group (in case it’s a PBAoE) and to the side of the arena (in case it’s a line or cone).

Boss Gauge and Ultimate Attack

A lot of raid and trial bosses have a boss gauge and/or ultimate attack. A boss gauge is typically a line gauge that fills up or depletes based on time passed, damage dealt, or the successful completion or failure of mechanics. If it reaches maximum or runs out entirely, the boss will typically wipe the group. Rarely, you can avoid it filling or emptying at all, ensuring you take the least possible damage from an ultimate attack, and possibly giving you a damage-up buff.

An ultimate attack is a raidwide AoE that does massive damage, intended to kill everyone. If it’s paired with a boss gauge, the damage dealt depends on how full or empty it is. Otherwise, you need to damage the boss to a certain percentage or kill it before the attack goes off. If it’s scripted with no boss gauge or other mechanics involved, you need to mitigate it with damage reduction or, in fringe cases, a tank LB3.

Examples:

• Urth’s Fount, Odin (needs to be killed before the cast finishes)
• Thok ast Thok, Ravana (adds need to be killed in time) 
• Hells’ Kier, Suzaku (each player needs to complete the DDR-like minigame to the best of their ability)
• The Seat of Sacrifice, Warrior of Light (the tank must use LB3 at the correct time)

Duty Action

In some encounters, you will have or obtain a duty action button. You might need to use it to complete a mechanic by mitigating or avoiding an attack or doing damage to an add. For this, you’ll probably ‘pick up’ the duty action by running over an object or orb.

The other possibility is that you will need to press it rapidly and repeatedly for a certain amount of time to complete an active time maneuver. The message ‘Active Time Maneuver’ will appear on your screen, followed by ‘Ready’. You can click the gray button next to the gauge or press almost any button on your keyboard or controller.

Examples:

• Alexander – The Heart of the Creator (E11N+S), Cruise Chaser
• Emanation, Lakshmi
• The Orbonne Monastery, Agrias
• The Dying Gasp and The Minstrel’s Ballad: Hades’s Elegy, Hades

Protean/Clock Positions

This is positioning forced by conal AoEs used by the boss. The name Protean is derived from an attack called Protean Wave used by Living Liquid in Alexander – The Arm of the Father (A3N+S). The boss marked random players for thin conal AoEs. To prevent overlap, players would space themselves evenly around the boss using cardinal and intercardinal positions. (No one ever uses numbers on a clock to designate where they’ll stand, but it’s a shorter name by far.)

You’ll frequently find yourself using this positioning when doing Savage raids. The attack might target just a few players or all eight players. If you enter a raid and someone puts a single marker down in preparation, this generally means you should place yourself around the marker as you would the boss to indicate your clock position. Tanks are typically north and south, healers east and west, ranged DPS and casters northeast and northwest, and melee DPS southeast and southwest to allow them to execute positionals while performing the mechanic.