Blue Mage Shiva Raid Guide (2024)

The discovery of a second crystal within Eden's core leads to morequestions than answers, and yet again, your mind is assaulted withterrifying visions upon gazing inside. You see foes previously vanquishedreborn, more brutal and unrelenting than even your wildest imagination, yetyour unwavering resolve forbids you from tearing your eyes away...

This is the second fight in the Eden Blue raid series and is a large stepup in difficulty from Titan. The DPS check is pretty lenient if the run isclean, but it depends heavily on abusing extremely long Revenge Blast windows. That being said, this fight isstill an extremely long one and requires a lot of mechanical consistency, soit's no pushover.

This guide is written assuming you have all Blue Mage spells, appropriategear, and know how to play your chosen role.

If you prefer video format, there is a full video guide availablebelow.

For this fight I would recommend having one tank mimic, one healermimic, and six DPS mimics. This can be solo healed quite easily as thedamage is very predictable, and it makes skipping Icelit Dragonsongsignificantly easier if it is solo healed. It is important to note that thehealer brings a ton of utility to this fight and will not be doingvery much damage themselves, so there is actually quite a bit of freedom inspell slots in terms of things that can be dropped.

• Diamondback
• Wild Rage and Revenge Blast on all DPS.
• Mighty Guard
• Frog Legs on the off-tank (healer recommended).
• Magic Hammer on at least one person.
• Exuviation on the healer.
• A Stun spell, like Faze, on one person per add platform.
• An interrupt spell, like Flying Sardine, on one person per add platform.
• Condensed Libra on the tank. Fishing for Physical Libra during Revenge Blast windows has immense value.

• Absolute Zero: Massive raidwide AoE damage.
• Mirror, Mirror: Spawns mirrors around the arena that reflectShiva's spellcasts. Blue mirrors reflect at the same time as Shiva'scast, green mirrors reflect after a short delay, and red mirrors reflectafter a slightly longer delay.
• Driving Frost: 90 degree cleave behind Shiva.
• Biting Frost: 270 degree cleave in front of Shiva.
• Diamond Frost: Moderate raidwide AoE damage that applies aFreezing debuff to two players, AoE markers that apply Heavy and cause adelayed "star" AoE pattern, "Shiva icicle" AoEs around the outside, aknockback (Heavenly Strike), two proximity-based (flare) AoEs,and chaser AoEs (Frigid Eruption).
• Double Slap: Heavy-hitting tankbuster that applies a PhysicalVulnerability Up debuff.
• Shining Armor: Applies a stun to anyone looking at Shiva whenthe cast finishes.
• Axe Kick: Circle AoE around Shiva.
• Scythe Kick: Donut AoE around Shiva.
• Light Rampant: Raidwide AoE that applies chain debuffs tofour players, spawns four orbs tethered to players that shrink after adelay and detonate when coming into contact with someone, and varioustowers requiring one, two, or four players to soak properly.
• Banish III: Spread or stack AoEs indicated by spheres aboveher head. Four small spheres means spread, one big sphere meansstack.

The first ability that Shiva uses is Absolute Zero, which shouldbe mitigated with Magic Hammer and Addle. Withtwo 10% mitigations (and no Gobskin) everyone will justbarely live, which will allow them to use Revenge Blastonce they're out of Waning Nocturne.

Shiva will then cast Mirror, Mirror. It is important that she isin the center of the arena facing north for this, as the mirrors will spawnon the east, west, and north. Next she will cast either Driving Frostor Biting Frost. If it is Driving Frost, we will move to thenorth of the arena on the side opposite the red mirror. If it isBiting Frost, we will move to the south of the arena on the same sideas the red mirror. The way I remember this is you drive forward,and biting starts with "b" so you go backward. There'sprobably a better mnemonic, but this one works for me. First she willcleave, then the green mirrors will cleave, then the red mirror will cleave.Once we're at the north or south on the appropriate side, we just need towait for the green mirrors to cleave and then we will cross to the otherside. Don't waste any time or try to greed too much here, as thesnapshotting is significantly earlier than you might expect.

After the red mirror does its cast we will have our first major raidmechanic. Shiva will teleport to the center and cast Diamond Frost.Stack up in the center and have the tank heal everyone up to full with White Wind. This is a good opportunity for DPS to use Cold Fog. This is also the ideal time for the off-tank touse Frog Legs as they will have a substantial lead overeveryone else, but it will give plenty of time for the main tank to build asubstantial lead over the off-tank again. There is seemingly a lot to unpackwith this whole mechanic, but there are some things to note:

• The same people will get targeted by the Freezing debuff every time(assuming no deaths).
• The tank always gets targeted by a flare,the other flare is random.
• Getting hit by both flares directlyis survivable with Mighty Guard.

The mechanic basically has two solutions for us: everyone goes to thesame side, or everyone goes to the same side except the tank. The flow ofthe mechanic from start to finish looks like this:

1. Cleanse the Freezing debuff with Exuviation.
2. Identify the safe knockback side (wherever first AoEs appear on theoutside of the arena).
3. Bring baited AoEs to intercardinal markers on the arena's innercircle.
4. Have everyone go to the same side for knockback (with Mighty Guard) or have the tank go to one side andeveryone else go to the other side (without Mighty Guard).
5. Heal up after knockback and flare damage.
6. Dodge ground-targeted AoEs.

Immediately after this, Shiva will use whichever of Driving Frostor Biting Frost she didn't use earlier. The tank should change herdirection such that the party doesn't need to dodge. If it will be DrivingFrost, face her in to the center. If it will be Biting Frost, face herdirectly away from the center. While this is going on, the DPS should cast Wild Rage twice to reduce themselves to 1 HP and then goback to casting Revenge Blast.

Shiva will then use Double Slap, which can be mitigated with Diamondback. If Diamondback is appliedjust before the Double Slap hit, then it will also mitigate the auto-attacksafterwards and no swapping or Avail tech is needed.

Next Shiva will cast Shining Armor, so look away when the cast barfinishes. She will follow up with either Axe Kick or ScytheKick, so dodge accordingly. Once this is done Shiva will then begin oneof the most notorious mechanics in FFXIV raiding.

Shiva will teleport to the center and start casting Light Rampant.One thing that makes this mechanic interesting, but also actually slightlyeasier, is that the orbs get tethered to the same players that receive thechain debuffs. One way this can be handled is to just have everyone use Mighty Guard, Diamondback, and stacknear the center. With Angel's Snack ticking everyone shouldsurvive all of the damage. This will require two Diamondback casts to mitigate all of the damage. My grouppreferred a slightly different method that let us squeeze in a bit moredamage, reduce the duration on damage downs after the mechanic, and stilllive pretty comfortably. Our method can be found in the raidplanhere, and it workslike this:

1. Everyone spreads to an initial clock position.
2. When chains get applied, those players move to the intercardinalmarkers on the inside circle.
3. The remaining four players split into two groups of two in the northand south just outside of the inner circle.
4. When the Path of Light cast starts, everyone casts Diamondback.
5. Orbs pop, chains break, everyone should survive.
6. After the second Path of Light cleaves, the north and south playersstep into the center tower.

With this method, all of the towers get resolved properly so the overalldamage is reduced, meaning we don't need to Mighty Guardand we only need to Diamondback once. There is anothermethod where the chain players move opposite where the orbs spawn and thenkite their orbs out and pop them, so the mechanic is solvable without anydamage downs. This doesn't feel 100% consistent each time and there isn't aton gained since you'd be in Waning Nocturne for a bit anyway, but it'ssomething your group could consider. The start of Light Rampant lines upwith our Moon Flute windows, so one thing you can do is start your Moon Flute such that you terminate it with Diamondback during the Path of Light cast. This does meanyou drop some spells at the end of the window, but you can use themafterwards without losing any actual uses (due to adds phase functionallyresetting our cooldowns).

After Light Rampant, Shiva will cast Mirror, Mirror again and thistime use Axe or Scythe Kick, whichever she didn't use before Light Rampant.There will be four green mirrors on either the cardinals or intercardinals.Everyone should have a pre-assigned clock position and partner for thesemirrors, as we will want two people going to each mirror. If she casts AxeKick, everyone starts on the outside and then moves to the inside, and thento their clock positions. If she casts Scythe Kick, everyone starts on theinside and then moves out to their mirrors, and then to their clockpositions. Shiva casts Banish III which will either be a spread or a stack,but we treat it as a spread every single time. If it is a stack, the targetsare completely random, so there is no consistent way to solve it. We canmake it consistent by putting up Mighty Guard and treatingit as a spread every time. If we do see it is a spread, we can turn off Mighty Guard early, but the movements will always be thesame.

Finally, Shiva will return to the center and cast Shattered Worldwhich signals the transition into the adds phase. Separate into lightparties on the east and west half of the arena, and make sure to have a stunand an interrupt on each side.

Shiva will spawn four waves of enemies throughout this phase that do thefollowing:

• Earthen Aether will cast Stoneskin on itself which will makeit significantly harder to kill. This is interruptible and should beinterrupted. This buff can also be removed with Eerie Soundwave, but this is pretty uselessinformation since it's easier to just interrupt it and not waste a spellslot on the chance that you might otherwise fail.
• Lightning Aether will reflect damage back at theattackers.
• Aqueous Aether has a lot more health than other adds but canbe stunned and slowed.
• Crystalline Snowflake cannot be attacked, but has a tether tothe center crystal that must be intercepted and deals heavy damage.

If any adds make it to the center, or a tether is not intercepted, pointswill be added to the Flood of Light gauge. If this gauge reaches 100 it is awipe. If we finish the phase with 0, we get a small damage buff in thebeginning of the next phase. Each side will have the same waves of adds, butthey appear in a slightly different order.

The west side adds appear in this order:

1. Aqueous Aether, two Lightning Aethers, and Crystalline Snowflake.
2. Earthen Aether and Crystalline Snowflake.
3. Aqueous Aether, Earthen Aether, and Crystalline Snowflake.
4. Two Lightning Aethers and Crystalline Snowflake.

The east side adds appear in this order:

1. Aqueous Aether, Earthen Aether, and Crystalline Snowflake.
2. Two Lightning Aethers and Crystalline Snowflake.
3. Aqueous Aether, two Lightning Aethers, and Crystalline Snowflake.
4. Earthen Aether and Crystalline Snowflake.

When each wave spawns each player will take damage from HeartAsunder equal to half of their maximum HP, so it's important thatplayers get healed up quickly and are cautious when attacking the LightningAethers. Each player can soak a Crystalline Snowflake once, so an orderneeds to be established on each side. Cold Fog isextremely helpful here as the adds can be a bit beefy. Short cooldowns (lessthan 60 seconds) can also be used here since there is a long cutsceneafterwards before going into the next phase.

If all the adds have died and the gauge didn't reach 100, Shiva will gothrough a long cutscene of summoning Hraesvelgr before going into the nextphase.

• Akh Morn: Multi-hit stack damage on the top two enmitytargets that also applies Hated of the Wyrm or Hated of the Frostdebuffs, which basically means you cannot get hit by the other group'sstack or you die.
• Morn Afah: Massive stack damage AoE.
• Hallowed Wings (single): Cleaves her left or right,indicated by whichever wing is glowing.
• Hallowed Wings (double): Frontal cleave and knockback.
• Wyrm's Lament: Spawns a dragon head that moves around theperimeter of the arena and applies debuffs to players which are cleansedby either touching the dragon head (red debuff) or standing in a whitecircle that gets dropped when someone touches the dragon head (bluedebuff).
• Twin Stillness: Biting Frost followed by Driving Frost.
• Twin Silence: Driving Frost followed by Biting Frost.
• Akh Rhai: Multi-hit AoE on all players wherever they werestanding when the cast finishes.
• Holy: Proximity-based AoE damage.
• Embittered Dance: Scythe Kick followed by Axe Kick.
• Spiteful Dance: Axe Kick followed by Scythe Kick.
• Icelit Dragonsong: Heavy raidwide AoE damage followed byLight Rampant and Diamond Frost combined.

Throughout this entire phase it is important that the off-tank (healer)keeps Mighty Guard on, remains second on threat, and thatthe threat stays consistent the entire time. Mighty Guardis really only needed when Hraesvelgr is out, but the healer will be doingvery little damage this entire fight so it's fine to just keep it on thewhole time. Unexpected threat swaps can cause immediate wipes if you're notcareful. If the off-tank used Frog Legs during DiamondFrost then there should be no issues.

Shiva opens up with Akh Morn, so simply stack up in your lightparties on the southwest/southeast of her with one tank in each stack.Immediately after she will use Morn Afah. You can either have thetank take this solo with Diamondback, or share it as agroup. If you take this with two 10% mitigations and nothing else you willbe in Revenge Blast range. What we did instead was fullyheal and mitigate for safety, and then just use Wild Rageafterwards to put ourselves into Revenge Blast range.

Shiva will cast Mirror, Mirror again and will spawn a blue, green,and red mirror on the north, west, and south. Green will always be north, butthe sides on which red and blue appear are random. Shiva will then castHallowed Wings, and we need to dodge her and the blue mirror. Next weneed to dodge the green mirror, and then the red mirror while also avoidingHallowed Wings on the side that she didn't cast initially. An easy way tosolve this is to just start in whichever quadrant is safe from the initialHallowed Wings cast from her and the blue mirror, and then rotate onequadrant per cast in the direction of the green and then red mirrors. If theblue mirror is on the east, that means moving counter-clockwise. If it's onthe west, that means moving clockwise. Since we take no damage during thismechanic, we can Revenge Blast the entire time.

Next Shiva will use Wyrm's Lament, so fully heal up for the cast.The dragon head will spawn at the north and then start moving clockwise orcounter-clockwise around the arena. Shiva will cleave the half the dragonhead is on twice, and then swap sides to continue cleaving the dragon headtwice. Players need to check the durations of their debuffs, as there willbe four different durations for each debuff. When a player's debuff is 10seconds or shorter it will be their turn to resolve the mechanic. The way wehandle this is by staying on the safe side from the cleaves, and once acleave goes off the player currently handling the mechanic either goes tothe dragon head and gets hit by it (red debuff) or goes to the puddle thatwas dropped by the previous red player (blue debuff). The first red playershould immediately go north before the dragon head even appears. The partyneeds to swap to the other side of Shiva after her second cleave, as shebegins cleaving the other side.

With no mitigations at all, you can have the red debuff players Wild Rage one time and the blue debuff players Wild Rage two times. When the red players hit the dragonhead they will be in Revenge Blast range and the blueplayers will be in Revenge Blast right away. You will beable to Revenge Blast until you regen too high, at whichpoint you can just heal up.

As soon as you are done resolving Wyrm's Lament, you should move toShiva's southwest or southeast. Shiva will make the entire floor slipperyice that sends you absolutely flying if you move, so stand still. She willthen use Twin Stillness or Twin Silence, so dodge accordinglyas soon as the ice disappears. Once this is done she will use Double Slapagain, and we will have our second Moon Flute window of this phase.

At this point the party should all be stacking immediately south of Shivafor the upcoming Akh Rhai cast. Shiva will spawn Hraesvelgr and thenuse Akh Rhai on everyone. As soon as you see the wings spread, run directlythrough her to the north side.

Next up we have "knockback mirrors". For traditional parties this hassome nuance about positioning and mitigation, but we will just avoid theentire mechanic with Diamondback. Shiva will spawnmirrors and then jump to either the north or south and start castingHallowed Wings. Simply run behind her, wait about one second after the castfinishes, and then hardcast (no Swiftcast) Diamondback. If we timed this correctly, then no one willget knocked off and we will all be alive. Once this is done, heal up tofull, drop down to 1 HP again with Wild Rage, and get backto using Revenge Blast.

We will have to deal with "lookaway mirrors" next, but we shouldn't betaking any damage so we will be safe to continue blasting. Shiva will castMirror, Mirror and spawn two blue, four green, and two red mirrors.The tank should immediately bring Shiva next to one of the blue mirrors. Shewill then cast Shining Armor so look away from her and from the bluemirrors (this would be directly relative east/west from the blue mirror).Next we move between her and the center of the arena, but still right nextto her, and look directly outwards to where the blue mirror was in order tododge the green mirrors. She will then start casting Holy which willeither be one big proximity AoE in the center or a bunch of proximity AoEson the perimeter, so heal up now. It always shows in the center first, butlook above her head to determine which it actually is. One big sphere meansit will be in the center, so move towards the outside of the arena and lookoutwards away from the red mirrors. Four small spheres means it will be onthe perimeter, so move wards the center of the arena and look directlyoutwards away from the red mirrors. This is also a good Cold Fog opportunity as it will allow us to move freelyfor the next mechanic. Shiva will use either Embittered Dance orSpiteful Dance so dodge accordingly, but both can be avoided by justmoving way away from her.

Shiva will then use Akh Rhai again but this time there will be a redmirror. We handle this the same way as before by stacking in the south andthen running to the north. Once we're there, we just look at the mirror'scastbar in the enemy list and move to our Akh Morn stacks once it finishes.There will be an Akh Morn followed by a Morn Afah just likebefore, so handle it the same way. However, there will not be time for using Revenge Blast after so it's best to just fully mitigate.This is also a Moon Flute window for us, so make sure youare able to do the little bit of movement required while executing this!It's important to not be in Waning Nocturne when the next mechanicstarts.

Icelit Dragonsong is the last major mechanic for us, but it is quitecomfortably skippable now with optimized DPS. In general, your group willprobably find it easier to do more damage than to actually do IcelitDragonsong, but the mechanic isn't actually that bad for us. A raidplan forthis mechanic can be foundhere, but the process isthis:

1. Assign light parties to two different intercardinal directions, andwithin each light party divide players into left/right "pairs." Eachperson also needs an assigned clock spread position.
2. Stack in the center and have everyone put up Mighty Guard.
3. Cleanse Freezing with Exuviation ASAP, then apply Angel's Snack and all other available mitigations.
4. Move to your light party's side, inside her hitbox, and use Diamondback.
5. After the knockback move to your assigned left/right side and then Swiftcast Diamondback.
6. Immediately after Diamondback ends, J Kick in and move to your spread position.

The overall timing for this is pretty tight, but if done correctlyeveryone should survive. Shiva will spawn a red mirror at the north half ofthe arena, make the whole arena slippery, and then cast Akh Rhaialong with making the arena slippery again. As soon as the arena becomesslippery a second time, slide directly south to avoid the Akh Rhai.

The last mechanic before Shiva's hard enrage is Wyrm's Lament 2,but we're going to treat this as her actual hard enrage. This is basicallyWyrm's Lament 1 except there are two dragon heads and there is an Akh Mornand Morn Afah between some of the dragon head mechanics. There is a ton ofadjusting here and it really requires deep understanding of the fullmechanic, and it really is quite easy to skip now so that should really bethe goal.

Shiva's Final Sting threshold is about 7%. Once she is at 7%, apply Off-guard, then use Moon Flute, anyPrimal abilities you have, and finish with Whistle and Final Sting.