Xera

Enrage: 11 minutes. When Enraged, Xera will deal 200% more damage.
Tank: Toughness
Required: Glider Basics

As of July 2023, the Ley-Line Gliding Mastery is no longer required in order for players to use the Ley Lines between platforms during this encounter.

Xera is the final and most difficult boss of Wing 3.  Forsaken Magic mastery helps mitigating some aspects of the fight and makes the fight easier for players who have it.

Xera can be a tricky boss to tank due to her relatively high damage and squad positioning requirements. More traditional tank builds, such as Firebrand, are good choices here due to their large amount of active defenses.

This encounter comprises four phases: a pre-event, an intermission phase, and two boss phases. During the final boss phase, half the squad will be teleported away to handle two puzzle mechanics.

Many AoEs in this encounter apply a stacking debuff known as Derangement, which inflicts increasingly powerful conditions every 10 stacks. At 90 stacks, players will be Feared for 5 seconds, and at 99 stacks, players will be instantly defeated. Players with the Forsaken Magic mastery can cleanse some stacks by destroying Bloodstone Shards on the main platform, but all squad members should avoid acquiring stacks through proper positioning.

Pre-Event

The encounter will start when Xera’s clone on Platform 1 is defeated. In the first phase of the fight, the squad’s two subgroups will have to split up, take the Ley Lines between platforms, and deal with minigames while staying ahead of Xera’s phantasms. Falling too far down while gliding will instantly defeat players.

Each set of platforms is on a shared time limit; once time runs out, the platforms will be wrapped in a highly damaging pulsing zone, so clearing each minigame efficiently is of paramount importance.

During both minigames, players will need to kill a Bloodstone Shard. This shard starts encased in a barrier that is removed by successfully handling the two mechanics. Players should be careful to avoid standing near the shards as they will shoot damage outwards; standing directly under the shard will cause the player to absorb all of the attacks. Additionally, trap skills such as Procession of Blades will not activate on the shard.

Pushing Minigame

On the first platform, players must complete the Pushing Minigame, where they must push three Exquisite Coalescences into three Ley Rifts to remove the barrier, while avoiding pushing them into orange AoEs. Coalescences can be moved with auto-attacks or through crowd control skills like pulls and pushes. Be careful of random attacks! Pets, minions, traps, and the like can all push the orbs in an unintended direction.

Button Minigame

On the second platform, players will face the Button Minigame; three members of the subgroup must stand on three buttons to make the Bloodstone Shard vulnerable. Standing on a button will apply stacks of one of three debuffs that will knock the player into downstate if allowed to reach 11 stacks.

Everyone on the buttons should watch their stacks, and move clockwise if they reach 9 or 10 stacks, or if another button player has moved. Moving to the next button will start applying stacks of one of the other two debuffs.

First Boss Phase (100%-50%)

Once the second shard is destroyed on both sides, players will glide to the final platform and prepare to fight Xera. After a short while, large orange arrows will appear, directing players to the main platform. At the start of both boss phases, Xera should be tanked in the middle of the platform; the squad should always stand behind the boss as many of her attacks hit hard.

Note: Gliding into the boss platform while it is still in the process of materializing will cause players to be teleported directly to the center right as Xera spawns. Gliding too early and therefore falling too far will still kill players as expected.

An easy visual cue that works for both transitions into boss phases is to jump off and immediately start gliding forward once the smaller platforms fully disappear.

The tank should consider gliding early in this fashion in order to keep the boss in the center; Xera has a tendency to move erratically at the start of the boss phase if the tank doesn’t move to the center quickly.

Throughout both boss phases, additional mobs will spawn around the arena. These can be stunned and cleaved down easily. Players with Pulls should help stack them under the boss.

Xera herself has two main attacks of note.

As shown in the video above, certain Bloodstone Fragments should be destroyed to help the squad avoid the many arena-wide mechanics. Destroying shards will also remove stacks of Derangement if the player is near the destroyed shard.

If the tank asks for a location (usually with a squad marker) to be cleared, DPS players should kill two Fragments on either side of the marker to make adequate space. All DPS players, even those on melee builds, should help out with clearing Shards as they shatter quickly if multiple players focus them down.

The tank and squad must move away from the center in advance in order to have time to avoid the laser and have space to dodge the orbs as they progress outwards. This is one of the situations where the squad will likely have to clear some Bloodstone Fragments.

The Laser Beam will often disappear or be skipped entirely in order to make way for Xera’s Ambient Magic attack. Groups with high damage often are able to keep the boss in the center of the arena for the entire first phase due to the absence of this attack.

During the first phase of the boss, the Gravity Well will spawn every 30 seconds; its position moves counterclockwise. During the second phase, this interval decreases to 25 seconds and it moves clockwise instead.

The selected player should not instantly use this skill—if they use it too soon, it will disappear before the phantasms attack, and the squad will wipe. Players should wait for the phantasms around the arena to reach back, then press their special action key on the squad. Some players watch for additional raid announcements as cues, but these don’t always appear.

This attack happens once in Xera’s first phase, at 75% HP remaining, and three times during the second phase, at 35%, 15%, and 10% HP remaining.

Important: Tanking patterns during this encounter are entirely dependent on the squad’s DPS. The animation above is only an example based on the average squad; as a player and as a group, be adaptable and keep each Gravity Well’s positioning in mind when moving and making space.

Intermission Phase

If players are extra fast or extra slow at killing the shards, the current or next platform in the sequence may be wrapped in ribbons (as in the pre-event), pulsing heavy damage to the entire platform. The squad should move quickly but should not glide in too early if the next platform is still encased in ribbons.

Second Boss Phase (50%-0%)

The second boss phase is similar to the first, with a few notable changes. Gravity Well placements will start on the western half of the platform and move clockwise, and Bloodstone Fragments will spawn counterclockwise in this phase.

Additionally, at 40% and 20%, five random players will be teleported to handle the Push and Button minigames, respectively. The tank will never be ported, but all other players are fair game.

Note: If a healer is ported, they should return to the main platform by using the Portal on the minigame platform.

Once the Bloodstone Fragment is destroyed, the minigame players will be returned to the main platform, where they should rejoin the stack. For a short while, the returning players will be immune to most boss mechanics and will take reduced damage. Condition cleanses, Swiftness, and Superspeed are all helpful to help players quickly return to stack.

If the squad hasn’t killed the boss after moving to the center from the northeastern portion of the platform, the shards on the ESE edge (4 o’clock) should be cleared to make space to avoid a Laser Beam and Gravity Well combo.

Important: We can’t stress this enough: Xera’s tanking patterns and Gravity Well timings highly depend on the squad’s DPS. New groups may lose some players to the intermission phase or struggle when half the squad is teleported to the minigames: expect some volatility to overall boss DPS!