Auric’s Basic Guide to the Masked Carnivale (2024)

Hey folks! This guide is mostly updated now, I just need to polish the Goldor fight tips! — Auric Seagard 1/2/24

** If you spot any errors or omissions in this guide, or have suggestions for how to improve it, feel free to drop me an email through this site’s contact info.**

NOTE: Apparently Square has adjusted one of the fights (#8, part 2) without any obvious notice that they were doing so. As a result I’ve rewritten the strategy. (Dammit Square! Not fair!) Big thanks to Valjean Trevereaux of Adamantoise for letting me know about the change. Please do let me know, Blue Travelers, if you notice any other issues with these fights!

This guide is intended for people looking for a basic clear of the current 32 challenges in the Masked Carnivale. It describes each fight and one reasonable strategy for clearing it. I have not included any information on how to earn the various possible achievements available through the Masked Carnivale, such as Perfect Blue, nor have I given any info on how to do the weekly bonus challenges; my intent here was to make it possible for people to get through all 32 challenges and learn all the Totem spells up to Angel Whisper.

Note: Stages #31 & #32 This trial DO count toward the 30 stages you need to clear to earn Angel Whisper, meaning you can skip two of the other trials entirely if you choose and still get the spell (I would suggest skipping #29 as one of them.)

Level 80 Update:

In order to clear the Masked Carnivale with the least amount of stress, I recommend that you first level your Blue Mage to 80 (see my guide on how to do that very quickly) and then make sure you have a reasonable set of item level 530 gear for them — some combination of Augmented Cryptlurker’s casting gear, Eden Savage gear, Bozja casting gear, and Phantasmal gear from the Blue class quest. Phantasmal accessories can be bought from Maudlin Latool Ja at Ul’dah (12,13) with Allied Seals but not until you open all the Blue Mage class quests. Your weapon doesn’t actually matter, but if you want a tiny extra edge, pick up one of the blue weapons that can take materia and slap two materia onto it. You should meld all your gear with as much Critical Hit as you can, then Direct Hit, then Spell Speed. Take along some good caster food and a decent set of spells. You can even take some Tinctures of Intelligence if you feel like it. You also might find a use for Echo drops to remove silence in a fight or two.

Here’s a list of recommended spells to take in! Note that in multi-act fights you CANNOT swap your spells after you begin the challenge, even though you are out of combat! That works in dungeons but it doesn’t work here, so if you need special spells for a particular challenge make sure you have them active and on your hot bar before you go in.

General spells to take

• • Aetherial Mimicry. I suggest using Healer stance for these fights as it allows cheap, powerful, reasonably fast heals and increased MP regen, both of which are extremely useful. DPS stance can also work if you’re good at dodging. Tank stance isn’t recommended as it doesn’t really help.
  • Heal spells. If you’re going on Healer stance, take Pom Cure, Gobskin, Angel’s Snack, and Exuviate. If on some other stance, take White Wind and Exuviate.
  • Defense spells. You will definitely need to take Diamondback. You may occasionally have a use for Mighty Guard, but since it reduces your DPS output by 40% there aren’t that many fights where it’s actually all that helpful.
  • Death and Flat Damage spells. These will make many of the Carnivale challenges MUCH easier. Level 5 Death is a must, and Missile is very good. Doom and Tail Screw are less useful since they’re hard to hit with, but better than nothing! Launcher is also a possibility but the random damage and high MP cost make it not one of my favorites. You can check with the Celestium attendant when you go to enter each fight to see which bosses are immune to death spells and which aren’t, but note that he won’t tell you about the status of any adds that pop during the fight. My guide will let you know. Another really good option is the combination of Ram’s Voice and Ultravibration; Ultravibration acts as an instant death spell for anything with the Frozen status, and Ram’s Voice will freeze anything near you that isn’t immune to Ice. The really nice part is that Ultravibration is not stopped by Death/Flat resistance, so you can use it to just obliterate some bosses who are otherwise immune to Death/Missile/etc.
  • Elemental Damage spells. Many of the bosses and adds have elemental weaknesses. It helps to target these, although in most cases it’s not strictly necessary as other spells will still do damage, just not as efficiently. You’ll want to take any Primal spells you have, plus Surpanakha, plus some single or multi-target spells on the GCD. If you want to maximize your damage you can take Condensed Libra and target your elemental spells toward the vulnerability you get. Abyssal Transfixion is good for Physical vulnerability, Reflux or Sonic Boom for Astral, and Hydro Pull, Water Cannon, Blaze, or Malediction of Water for Umbral. As with the Death spells, you can check the bosses’ elemental weaknesses and immunities by speaking to the Celestium Attendant, but he won’t say anything about any adds that pop during the fight. See the guide below for info.
  • Damage Buff and DoT spell combo. Bring along Bristle and Song of Torment. Use Bristle as often as you can with Song of Torment, and keep the Song up 100% of the time if possible. It does a LOT of damage while you’re busy dodging AOEs and handling other mechanics. You can also use Nightbloom, which is more powerful than Song of Torment, lasts twice as long, and is an AOE that will hit all targets around you; however, its cooldown is two minutes, so if you take this you probably also want to take Bristle/Song since otherwise you can only have a DoT up 50% of the time.
  • Interrupts: You will want to take Flying Sardine and/or Bad Breath to interrupt many spells that will otherwise kill or severely damage you. (Bad Breath has a shorter range and isn’t instant cast, but it can also put several other debuffs on the enemy, so maybe take both Sardine and Bad Breath if you have the space!)
  • The Kamikaze Combo! In the last act of every fight you have the option of finishing off the boss with an attack that takes you out as well; as long as the boss goes down, it counts as a success for you! This is extremely useful, although the point at which it is safe to use this combo can vary drastically from fight to fight, so some experimentation might be necessary to pin down exactly when to use it for maximal effect. The strongest Kamikaze spell combo is: Potion if you want, followed by Off-Guard, Whistle, Tingle*, Moon Flute, and Final Sting. My suggested percentages for Kamikaze Combos assume you used everything but the potion, so if you’re willing to expend the cash or effort to get potions you can Kamikaze the bosses a few percentage points sooner. Note that you will need to clear 10 stages of the Carnivale before you can get Moon Flute to really power up your Kamikaze, so start off by focusing on the easy and gimmick fights until you can get the Moon Flute totem. (*Tingle is a new spell available with the latest Blue content patch.)

Fight Specific Spells

These are spells that are required to clear a specific fight. For recommended but not essential spells, see the individual fight description.

• • A Chorus Slime (7): Take Sticky Tongue, Snort, or Protean Wave.
  • A Bombedy of Errors (8): Flying Sardine or Bad Breath
  • Plant-Om of the Opera (12): Ice Spikes or Veil of the Whorl for Act 1; Same for Act 2 plus also Faze or Bomb Toss.
  • Blobs in the Woods (14) : Loom or Diamondback
  • The Me Nobody Nodes (15): Acorn Bomb
  • Sunset Bull-evard (16): Act 2, Loom or Diamondback
  • On a Clear Day You Can Smell Forever (19): Act one: Physical attack spells; Act two: Physical attack spells, Inkjet
  • Miss Typhon (20): Diamondback
  • Chimera on a Hot Tin Roof (21): Diamondback or Loom
  • Behemoths and Broomsticks (23): Diamondback
  • Amazing Technicolor Pit Fiends (24): Act one: physical and magical type damage spells; Act two: Exuviate or Diamondback; Act three: physical type damage spells.
  • Dirty Rotten Azulmagia (25): Act one: magic damage attacks; Act two: physical damage attacks; Act three: physical and magical damage attacks, Loom or Diamondback.
  • Papa Mia (26): Act two: Eerie Soundwave, Exuviate.
  • Lock Up Your Snorters (27): Water Cannon, Sticky Tongue or Snort or Protean Wave.
  • Dangerous When Dead (28): Fire Angon
  • Red, Fraught, and Blue (29): Flying Sardine, Electrogenesis, Diamondback
  • Catch of the Siegfried (30): Exuviate, Abyssal Transfixion
  • Anything Gogo’s: (31): Flying Sardine, Eerie Soundwave, Exuviate, Diamondback; Kamikaze attack spells if you want.

About Level Syncing

The Carnivale fights are level synced, but since Blue Mages don’t lose access to any of their spells or abilities when level synced, this is not very relevant. It does affect your total HP and your base spell potency, but the monster HP and damage is scaled to take that into account. Stages 1 through 25 are level synced at 50; stages 26-30 are level synced at 60; stage 31 is level synced at 70; and stage 32 is level synced at 80. You are not allowed to do the fights unrestricted (unsynced).

Specific Fight Strategies

1. All’s Well that Starts Well
   1. Nothing special here. All three mobs are vulnerable to Death-type spells, so try Level 5 Death for an instant win (Pull all three together before you use the spell.) If that doesn’t kill them all, freeze with Ram’s Voice and kill with Ultravibration. Or just straight up kill. You might want Exuviate for the slime’s poison but it’s not required.
2. Much Ado About Pudding
   1. You can do what the challenge wants you to do and take along a variety of elemental spells to hit the slimes with their weak element. Or you can just drag them to you with Hydro Pull and use a Death spell on them, they’re vulnerable. You can also freeze them with Ram’s voice and then use Ultravibration. Note: They’re invulnerable to physical spells like Abyssal Transfixion so don’t bother with those.
   2. Same as act 1.
3. Waiting for Golem
   1. This is the first Carnival enemy who is immune to Death spells (the jerk.) He also can’t be frozen, so you can’t use Ultravibration to kill him. And he can’t be pulled in with Hydro Pull to interrupt his casts either (though it will still damage him.) So you’ll just have to hit him a lot with Water Cannon or Protean Wave or any other water-type spell to target his vulnerability. Other elemental spells also do good damage on him, so take your Primal spells if you have them handy. You can interrupt his various casts with Flying Sardine if you feel the need but they’re not instant kills, so you can just dodge/heal/ignore them as well. You can Kamikaze combo him at around 25%.
4. Gentlemen Prefer Swords
   1. The three mobs in the first act are all vulnerable to death. If Level 5 doesn’t drop them, use Missile/Tail Screw/Doom/Launcher, or freeze with Ram’s Voice and kill with Ultravibration.
   2. Kreios is immune to Death spells — but not to freezing. Too bad for him. Ram’s Voice and Ultravibration and he’s dead. [Here’s my old strat, if for some reason you are trying this without the Ram’s/UV combo: Kreios in the second act is invulnerable to Death, but weak to lightning. Freeze him with Ram’s Voice, weaken him with Bad Breath if desired, then smack him around with Shock Strike, Electrogenesis, and/or Reflux. At about 50% health he will summon a pack of six beetles who are vulnerable to Earth spells. You can hit them with Mountain Buster and/or Plaincracker, or you can Level 5 Death them as they’re vulnerable. Kreios can cast Magitek Field which will give him a defense buff for about 15 seconds, so you might want to interrupt that with Flying Sardine, Bad Breath, or Ram’s Voice, or you can strip it off him with Eerie Soundwave. Or you can just wait until it falls off. You can Kamikaze him at around 65%.]
5. The Threepenny Turtles
   1. The turtles are invulnerable to everything ….except Death spells and Freezing! To get all three of the turtles with the Ram’s/UV combo at the same time, stand directly behind the middle turtle and use Ram’s Voice. If it hits all three turtles, follow up with UV. If it doesn’t hit all three, adjust your position slightly and try freezing them again. It is possible to hit all three of them at once with Ram’s and UV (they have the same radius of effect) but you need to be in exactly the right spot. If you miss you’ll have to wait until UV comes off cooldown to kill any turtles you missed the first time. Or you can take Missile in with you and finish off the last turtle if necessary. The turtles can also be hit and killed with Level 5 Death but it has the same 6y area of effect and you must be in exactly the right spot to hit all three of them at once, so it’s easier to calibrate your position with Ram’s Voice and then use UV.
6. Eye Society
   1. Act One here is totally a gimmick fight. Stand in the Mandragora’s “Teary Twirl” attack to blind yourself, then go DPS down the two Catoblepesas (Catoblepii?) with whatever spells you like.
   2. Step in the Teary Twirl attack from the Mandragora to blind yourself, then kill the Mandra and the two eye mobs with Level 5 Death or the Ram’s/UV combo. The Catoblepas is immune to Death and Freeze spells but you can just burn him down once you’re blinded and safe from his gaze. Note that you can also just turn your back on his gaze to avoid getting petrified. You can probably also one-shot the Catoblepas with the Kamikaze Combo.
7. A Chorus Slime
   1. This is another gimmick fight. Kill the Lava Slime with whatever damage spell you like (not physical) and it will explode and kill the ice sprites instantly.
   2. More gimmicks. You can use Hydro Pull or Sticky Tongue to pull two of the sprites close to you (don’t hit the slimes with Hydro Pull!) then freeze with Ram’s and kill with UV. (Yes, you can freeze ice sprites. No, I don’t know why.) Make sure you stay healed, as the ice sprites hit pretty hard. Then use Sticky Tongue to drag the remaining two ice sprites into the center with the slimes (don’t use Hydro Pull for this or you’ll set off the slimes prematurely!), then back out of explosion range and trigger the slimes with a DPS spell. You could also push the sprites around with Snort, as it also does no damage and so is safe to use around the slimes, but it’s harder to position things precisely with Snort than Sticky Tongue. [Alternate, older and slower strat: You need to move each Lava Slime over next to an Ice Sprite and kill them from a distance so that each slime destroys an ice sprite. Move the slimes using either Sticky Tongue (preferred) or Snort, then back away out of range and kill them.]
   3. Still more gimmicks! Move three slimes around the barrier and next to one of the towers using Sticky Tongue or Snort. (Don’t use Hydro Pull or Protean Wave or you’ll set the slimes off prematurely.) Try to avoid activating the second tower while you do this; it’ll make your life easier to only deal with one active tower at a time. Heal yourself from any tower damage you take, then back out of range and hit a slime with a DPS spell and duck behind the barrier so that you’re sheltered from both the exploding slimes and the exploding tower. Repeat with the second tower.
8. Bomb-edy of Errors
   1. Gimmick fight. Hit the point grenade with Sonic Boom or some other DPS spell and watch the chain reaction.
   2. The main issue here is that you cannot let the Progenitrix complete the cast of “Burst” or she will one-shot kill you, even if you pop Diamondback. Fortunately you have several options for stopping her. The easiest is to equip Flying Sardine and just slap her in the face with a fish when she starts to cast. You can also freeze (and interrupt) her by hitting the little bomblets that are with her: when the Snolls explode, she is frozen for a few seconds if she is within their radius. However, targeting and killing a Snoll before Progenitrix gets the cast off can be a nuisance and the fish-slap is MUCH faster and more reliable. My suggestion is to simply get rid of the bomblets right off the bat, as if you accidentally wander into the radius of one of the Snolls it will blow up and one-shot you. So, target any one of the Snolls (the ice bomblets) with an attack at range, and when it blows up all the other bomblets will too. Then just burn down Progenitrix with your favorite DPS spells, being sure to interrupt Burst whenever she starts to cast it. Sonic Boom is wind-aspected and will whittle down her HP nicely. Once she’s around 35 or 40% HP you can Kamikaze her if you wish.
      • Note that Progenitrix is also vulnerable to most other control spells such as sleep, stun, paralyze, and so on. So if for some reason you don’t have Flying Sardine yet, you could hit her with Acorn Bomb, or Bomb Toss or any knockback ability or…the list goes on! But really, WHY don’t you have Flying Sardine yet? Go get it!
      • The bomblets here are arranged in such a way that you are probably “supposed” to blow up each Snoll one at a time (via targeting the Arena Bombs with a spell and having it blow up the nearby Snoll) in order to use the freeze effect to interrupt Progenitrix’s Blast spell but…really, why would you? Just get rid of the bomblets by attacking a Snoll (stay at range!) and then deal with Progenitrix. It’s far less of a headache.
9. To Kill A Mockingslime
   1. Hey this fight is (mostly) not a gimmick! Guimauve is not vulnerable to Death spells or Freezing, and he will keep placing AOE pools of darkness around the arena and summoning helper slimes with differing elemental weaknesses. He will summon a total of six helpers, one at a time, and they are all vulnerable to death spells or Ram’s/UV, so you have the option of waiting for all six to spawn and then taking all or most of them out with Level 5 Death or the Freeze combo. Take Guimauve to the edge of the arena (but not in the lightning wall) and move around it in a circle slowly as he places his darkness puddles. Try to interrupt his Golden Tongue cast with Flying Sardine or Bad Breath as it makes his attacks hurt much more. Focus on damaging him with group spells and letting the secondary damage kill the helper slimes for you if you didn’t manage to Death/Missile/Tail Screw/Doom/Launcher them. The helper slimes can be frozen with Ram’s Voice which helps reduce their damage output. Keep yourself healed up, stay out of the AOEs, silence Golden Tongue, use your best DPS spells, and Guimauve will go down pretty quickly. He is immune to Final Sting but the alternate Kamikaze Combo of Bristle + Toad Oil + Moonflute + Off-guard + Self-Destruct can be used at around 40%. When Guimauve dies his adds vanish so you could also just freeze them to keep them out of the way and burn Guimauve down.
10. A Little Knight Music
    1. Death spells won’t work here, so just DPS this guy down. Interrupt his King’s Will cast with Flying Sardine or Bad Breath or he’ll get buffed. You can Kamikaze him at 40%.
11. Some Like It Excruciatingly Hot
    1. The Arena Gas Bombs will immediately start casting Fulmination when aggro’d. If they get the cast off you will die, but any hit on them resets the cast and also knocks them back. Spam Hydro Pull until they’re dead. (Death and freeze spells don’t work.)
    2. That thing you did in Act 1? Stand in the center of the arena and do it again.
12. The Plant-Om of the Opera
    1. Cast Ice Spikes or Veil of the Whorl and aggro the Roselets. They’ll kill themselves on your damage shield.
    2. Stun Hydnora with Faze, Bomb Toss, Tatami-Gaeshi, or Perpetual Ray when he tries to cast Inflammable Fumes. Cast Ice Spikes or Veil of the Whorl when the Roselets spawn so they kill themselves. Burn down Hydnora. He’s weak to water so take Water Cannon along. You can Kamikaze at around 30%.
13. Beauty and a Beast
    1. Aggro the Haagenti and move him between the two petrified Vodrigas, then use Level 5 Death or the Ram’s/UV combo. If any of them survive use any other Death/Flat Damage spell on them to finish them off. I like Missile.
    2. Turn your back on Carmilla’s gaze attack. Stun the succubus add when Carmilla summons it, then burn it down before Carmilla eats it (or it will power up her Blood Rain and you’ll die.) You can Kamikaze her around 75%. Note: With the level 70 DPS spells racked up, Carmilla died before she even got a chance to summon her add.
14. Blobs in the Woods
    1. Gimmick fight. When you kill the Arena Jams, they explode and will kill you unless you shelter behind the barriers.
    2. Gimmick fight, part two. Same as part one but now the Jams will cast a Heavy on you that keeps you from running away from their explosion. Use Loom to move behind the barrier, or Diamondback to survive the explosion. Loom is a bit easier as the heavy makes it very hard to move around the arena to engage all four slimes. Also, although Diamondback will save you from taking damage, the explosion also puts a Silence debuff on you which is irritating.
15. The Me Nobody Nodes
    1. The Bestial Node has a number of attacks to dodge. Repelling Cannons is a center AOE while Superstorm is an outer ring without a telegraph. Ballast is a 270 degree attack that will knock you into the lightning ring if it hits, so don’t let it hit. Stand under the Node when it casts Superstorm. You should interrupt High Voltage unless you’re trying to learn the spell from him. Right at the start the Node will immediately summon a Shabti add that has a damage up buff which will allow it to one-shot you if it reaches you. The easiest way to handle this is with Acorn Bomb as he is vulnerable to sleep. While you can freeze the Shabti and UV him, he moves very quickly and is likely to hit you before you can get Ram’s Voice off, so I still recommend sleeping him. While he’s asleep you can use a Death/Flat Damage spell on him — he’s vulnerable to that too — or Ram’s/UV, or just let him sleep until his buff drops off and then kill him with normal DPS. Eerie Soundwave will not take away his buff. Later on the Node summons two snakes to chase you around; they can’t be slept or frozen and are not vulnerable to Death but they have no special attacks so just burn them down while dodging the Node’s AOEs, then finish off the Node. You can Kamikaze him at 30%.
16. Sunset Bull-evard
    1. If the Arena Cyclops get within range of you they will one-shot you, and they are immune to Death/Flat Damage and Freeze. But they are not immune to Heavy (use Reflux on them) or Sleep (use Acorn Bomb.) Even if not heavied they are very slow, so just stay ahead of them and burn them down. Use Acorn Bomb to keep one of them out of your hair while you kill the other.
    2. Tikbalang is immune to Death/Flat Damage and Freeze attacks. He will use a 111-tonze swing AOE that will knock you into the Lightning Ring if it hits. He has a gaze attack you should turn away from. He will summon an Ogre add that works just like the ones in Act 1. After the Ogre is down he will buff himself with Bull’s Voice (you cannot remove this with Eerie Soundwave) and cast a huge AOE attack (1111-tonze swing) that will fill up most of the arena when he casts it; take him to the edge of the lightning ring so that there’s a thin slice of safe space between his AOE and the lightning ring, and go there when he casts it. He will heavy you at the same time so use Loom to move — or just Diamondback the attack. Tikbalang’s “Zoom In” attack will knock you into the lightning Ring; you can defend against it with Surecast or Diamondback, or just get out of it quick, or position yourself so that you will get knocked into the safe part of the arena, if possible. You can Kamikaze him at 75%.
17. The Sword of Music
    1. The two claws are vulnerable to Death spells. Use Level 5 Death on them, and if it misses one finish it off with Missile/Tail Screw/Doom/Launcher or whatever you like. You can also use Ram’s/UV here but one of the Claws reflects magic attacks so you will take damage (probably not enough to kill you though.)
    2. Kreios is invulnerable to Death spells again but STILL not immune to Freezing. Use Ram’s/UV combo and take an early lunch.
18. Midsummer Night’s Explosion
    1. The Manticore can be frozen. You know the drill by now. Ram’s/UV combo, then just clean up the kegs. [Old strat: The gimmick here is to use the explosive kegs to damage the Arena Manticore by luring him close to one, then attacking it or getting him to hit it with one of his attacks, which will turn it into a big AOE effect that will hopefully hit the Manticore. Be sure to dodge the AOE yourself, although it’s not a one-shot kill so one mistake won’t doom you. The Manticore has a front swipe with no telegraph, a long-distance fireball attack, and a charge attack, but none of them are much to worry about.]
    2. Twiddle your thumbs for a couple minutes until your Ultravibration is off cooldown, then go kill the two Manticores with Ram’s/UV. Hydro Pull works pretty nicely for cleaning up the kegs. [Old strat: Second verse, same as the first, only there are two Manticores now. Note that this fight is not over until all of the Firesand Kegs have exploded, as they count as opponents! That means if you use the Kamikaze Combo on one of the Manticores before all the kegs have exploded, you LOSE! You can Kamikaze a Manticore at about 45%.]
19. On A Clear Day You Can Smell Forever
    1. No Death or Freezing here, sorry. As you might guess from her name, Reflective Rebekkah’s deal is that she will quickly put up a shield that reflects all magic attacks. Eerie Soundwave will not remove it. You can get an off-guard and a few primal spells launched before it goes up, but after you’ll have to stick with physical attacks like Abyssal Transfixion to take her down. Other than that she’s just a morbol — don’t get hit by Bad Breath.
    2. This time around Rebekkah has a trick — she summons a circle of adds in the lightning ring (Hot Hips) who will all aim a gaze attack at you, which you will have a very hard time avoiding. You can do it the hard way by finding the tiny slice of space that you can stare at that’s safe, or the easy way by taking Inkjet in with you and using Rebekkah’s shield to blind yourself, which will protect you from the gaze attacks. Then take Rebekkah down as in Act One. You can Kamikaze her at 75%.
20. Miss Typhon
    1. You will need to Diamondback for Typhon’s Snort since he follows it up with three targeted fireballs that WILL kill you. You can’t interrupt it, and even if you use Surecast to avoid the knockback he’ll still nail you with the fireballs, so just pop a bubble and then burn him down however you like.
    2. Basically just a normal fight here — dodge Ultros’ attacks and burn him down. You may want to bring Flying Sardine or Bad Breath along to interrupt Imp Song as that will slow down the fight if he gets it off, but it’s not fatal and you can just run around until it fades if you forgot to bring an interrupt.
    3. Load up your Kamikaze Combo and one-shot Typhon right out of the gate.
21. Chimera on a Hot Tin Roof
    1. Pull the two Imps together and use Level 5 Death, or bring them in with Hydro Pull and then Ram’s/UV. If either of them survives L5Death, hit them with Missile/Tail Screw/Doom/Launcher until they don’t. Or burn down normally.
    2. The Chimera uses Ram’s Voice (a circular freeze AOE around him) and Dragon’s Voice (a lightning AOE in a donut) one right after the other with no telegraph and no stun or interruption possible, so you will have to dodge these. His other attacks can be interrupted, and using Flying Sardine on Ram’s Keeper is a good idea or the arena will rapidly become covered in ice. He will also summon Imps who will put a heavy on you and try to trap you inside the Chimera’s attacks plus their own Icefall attack. Take Loom to get out of them, or you can Diamondback, but be sure to heal up from the powerful DoTs left by the ice puddles. Imps can be hit with Death or fire spells — get rid of them as quickly as you can. Then finish off the Chimera. You can Kamikaze him at about 80%. Level 70 update: With the powerful new DPS spells available at level 70, you can hit Chimera with a couple of them to shave off a big chunk of his HP, then immediately Kamikaze him dead before the imps even show up.
22. Here Comes the Boom
    1. There are four Grenades. They’re asleep. Kill them. You need to one-shot them but they have very few HP so nearly anything will work. (They are immune to Freeze and vulnerable to Death, but trying to pull them together to hit them all with one L5Death just resulted in them exploding. Do not recommend.)
    2. The Forefather is immune to both Death and Freeze, sadly. He has a bunch of attacks to dodge. He will summon an Arena Grenade and try to hit it with an attack; kill it before he can. Next he will summon an Arena Gas Bomb and start a KO attack called Burst, which can’t be interrupted or stunned. Drag the Arena Gas Bomb underneath the Forefather with Hydro Pull so that his AOE hits the boss and interrupts Burst. (You can also knock the Arena Gas Bomb over close to the Forefather with an attack or use Sticky Tongue to drag the Gas Bomb into position.) Then finish burning down the Forefather. You can Kamikaze him at about 45%.
23. Behemoths and Broomsticks
    1. The Behemoth is immune to both Death and Freezing, so no cheese here. This is a fight where you have to stay fast on your feet and stay healed. Avoid the Charybdis whirlwinds at all cost, and look out because their area of effect is larger than it appears. Dodge the comets, and when he does Ecliptic Meteor, use Diamondback. It helps to keep Bad Breath up on him to reduce his basic attack damage. You can Kamikaze him around 40%.
24. Amazing Technicolor Pit Fiends
    1. These two are vulnerable to Level 5 Death. Move in between them and let them have it. (Don’t try the Ram’s/UV combo here; the Arena Magus is immune to Freeze.) If either survives, use Missile/Tail Screw/Doom/Launcher on them. If you must hit them with normal spells, the Magus is immune to magic and must be hit with Physical type spells, and the Viking is immune to Physical and must be hit with Magic type spells.
    2. The Scribe is immune to both Death and Freeze. First, it will try to Silence you — interrupt that with Flying Sardine or Bad Breath. Then it will use Condensed Libra to put a vulnerability on you, then use Triple Hit to one-shot you. Either use Exuviate to quickly remove the debuff, or Diamondback to survive. The Scribe will then summon pairs of Magus and Viking adds. They can be killed with Death-type spells, or else use Primal spells on the Viking and Abyssan Transfixion on the Magus. Exuviate the Heavy on you as well. You can learn the Condensed Libra spell here if you need it and your luck is good.
    3. Epilogi is immune to both Death and Freeze. He has a front swipe with no telegraph called Page Tear; step behind him to avoid getting hit. Dodge Magic Hammer or you’ll lose MP. He will use Gale Cut to summon explosive gas clouds then try to knock you into them; position yourself so this doesn’t happen. (Neither Surecast nor Diamondback will prevent this knockback.)He will summon Arena Magi in the outer lightning ring that you will have to quickly take down with physical attacks (Abyssal Transfixion works best) or they will self-destruct and kill you (Diamondback will do nothing to mitigate this damage either, for some reason.) You can learn the Magic Hammer spell here if you need it and your luck is good. You can Kamikaze him around 65%.
25. Dirty Rotten Azulmagia
    1. Azulmagia puts up Ice Spikes first thing, which means don’t hit him with any physical attacks like Abyssal Transfixion. Stick with magic attacks. He does the Ram’s Voice/Dragon’s Voice combo with no telegraph, so run out for Ram’s Voice and in for Dragon’s Voice. Dodge all his other attacks and just steadily wear him down. I like Sonic Boom for this because the short cast time means you can stay highly mobile to dodge his jumble of ground AOEs.
    2. This time Azulmagia will be immune to magic attacks after he puts up “Repelling Spray”, but you should have time to get an Off-Guard and a set of primal instant attacks on him really quickly at the start. After that, stick with Abyssal Transfixion, Triple Trident or other physical damage spells. He’ll still do Ram’s Voice and Dragon’s Voice, so keep dodging those, and he’ll put up Fire Angon spears that you should also burn down with Abyssal Transfixion or other physical damage spells (they are immune to magic as well.) Just stay on him and dodge appropriately and he’ll go down pretty fast.
    3. In this act, Azulmagia will alternate between Ice Spikes (use magic not physical) and Repelling Spray (use physical, not magic). Keep an eye on his buff to make sure you know which one you should be using! He will still use Ram’s Voice/Dragon’s Voice, and now he will add in four Charybdis whirlwinds for you to avoid as well. You will want to stay out of the center because Azulmagia will cast “Web” on you, pinning you in place, and then drop a meteor on your head; you will need a safe place to go, and if you are in the center there won’t be one. To avoid getting killed by the meteor, either Loom out of the blast zone, or use Diamondback, then quickly run out of the lava pool that will spawn under you when the Meteor lands. You can Kamikaze him around 70%.
26. Papa Mia
    1. For this fight you will need to take Eerie Soundwave to debuff both bosses. In Act One, use Eerie Soundwave to remove the boss’s Alternate Plumage defensive debuff and Flying Sardine to interrupt Caber Toss, and otherwise just burn him down.
    2. In this Act, use Eerie Soundwave to remove the “!” buff (Raw Instinct) from Papa Humbaba as quickly as you can, before he uses Body Blow; with that buff up Body Blow will be a one-shot kill. Aside from that, the main issues in this fight are the lightning clouds that Humbaba summons which follow you around the arena trying to zap you. Stay toward the outside of the arena and move steadily around it while DPSing Humbaba, preferably with Earth spells such as Mountain Buster and Plaincracker. When Humbaba casts Lightning 3, use Exuviate to clean off the DoT and heal the damage. When he places a red marker over your head, he’s going to use “Dad Joke”, which has a knockback effect that can push you into the lightning border around the arena; you can cancel this with Surecast or just position yourself so you don’t go into the lightning border. Humbaba puts out a lot of damage in this fight so Healer Stance with Pom Cure is recommended; if you don’t want to do that, take Blood Drain so you can restore the MP you will use healing with White Wind. You can Kamikaze him at 25%.
27. Lock up your Snorters
    1. This is an annoyingly slow tactical fight. Typhon will summon a group of bombs and one “Magitek Explosive”. The bombs can be moved around but the Explosive can’t. You must burn down the Magitek Explosive quickly while ensuring that none of Typhon’s bombs or other attacks touch it, or that will set it off and it will kill you. Diamondback won’t help because when Typhon snorts, he knocks your bubble off (!!) and there isn’t enough time to get it back up before the Explosive detonates. So, first, knock all the lesser bombs well clear of the Explosive so that when Typhon snorts and sets them off, they don’t touch it. Hydro Pull works pretty well here as long as you pull them to the opposite side of Typhon from the Explosive. Then, position yourself at max range from the Explosive and burn it down. You have to stay at a good distance from the Explosive because Typhon is going to launch an AOE at you, and if that hits the Explosive, it will go off. Typhon’s Fireball attack is survivable and you may need to deliberately eat one in order to kill the Explosive before it goes off on its own, so be sure you take some solid healing in with you. As for Typhon himself, he takes only a small amount of damage from your attacks, so the way to kill him is to blow him up with his own bombs. To do this, watch the pattern of the bombs as he spawns them. There are three patterns: One with the Explosive to the outside of the arena (knock the bombs away from it, then kill it), one with the Explosive toward the center (just kill the Explosive and get a few licks in on Typhon) and one without an Explosive at all. This third pattern is what you’re waiting for. Use Hydro Pull and bring all the bombs underneath Typhon, then get the heck out of there and let Typhon blow himself up. If necessary you can finish him off with Kamikaze as long as he’s around 15% health.
28. Dangerous When Dead
    1. Durinn is a miniature version of Lord Forgall from the Weeping City of Mhach. Make sure to keep yourself at full health to avoid dying to Doom Impending. Use Flying Sardine to interrupt Cackle. Step in the Necrobane puddle to avoid dying to Mega Death, but then get out immediately or the follow-up spell will kill you. He can do Brainstorm which applies the “forced march” effect — set yourself up so that when he casts Bilrost Squall, you will march to the safe spot. He will spawn adds several times; they are weak to fire, so you can use Eruption, Mustard Bomb, and Fire Angon on them; they can also be gathered up by Hydro Pull, frozen with Ram’s Voice, and killed with Ultravibration. The first group will just be a pack that charges you and will bind you in place until they are all dead. The second pack will spawn out in the lightning ring; they can be gathered with Hydro Pull, frozen with Ram’s Voice, and killed. The third pack is a bit tricky; they will cast Butterfly Float and then all jump on you from a distance. Use Diamondback right before they jump to avoid getting pounded, then freeze with Ram’s Voice and dispose of them. The fourth pack is two Gravekeepers; kill them the same way you did the other packs. At about 20% HP you can Kamikaze Durinn.
29. Red, Fraught, and Blue
    1. This two-act fight is considered by most people to be the hardest one of the bunch, considerably harder than #30. It will undoubtedly take you a certain amount of practice to get this one done, but keep at it! The first act boss is the Shikigami of the Pyre, similar to the second boss in Gubal Library (Hard), and weak to wind spells so be sure to take Sonic Boom and Feather Rain, and perhaps Alpine Draft though I prefer to trade the small potency boost for Sonic Boom’s great mobility, which is important in this fight. First, you have to interrupt Fluid Swing with Flying Sardine or he will knock you far into the Lightning Ring and almost certainly kill you. Surecast will stop the knockback, but the attack will still do substantial damage. Next, he has a straight Rush attack and you need to be as far from him as you can get to minimize the damage from it. He will cast Sea of Flames, which is several of Ifrit’s eruption attacks in a row; dodge those. Then he will cast Ifrit’s Fire Plumes; move to a safe spot. He will cast Pyretic, which will harm you if you move or attack while it is up; hit Z to sheath your weapon or target yourself to ensure you don’t autoattack him, and stand still, then when the debuff drops off move quickly out of the AOE. He will cast Flare Star, which is an explosion in the center of the arena; stand at the far edge of the arena and it will do minimal damage. Later the boss will summon three fire tornadoes at three of the cardinal points that will aim straight line attacks at you that you have to dodge; the fourth cardinal point will be relatively safe. Move there and prepare to dodge the Plumes: OUT will be safe, then IN, and then he will do his Rush attack, so move to between the two furthest tornadoes to minimize damage. After Rush, the tornadoes will vanish and his pattern will start over. Keep your Song of Torment up and hit him with Sonic Boom and primal spells whenever possible (except Eruption, he’s immune) and he’ll eventually go down.
    2. The boss this time is the Shikigami of the Undertow, AKA Jiggly Butt Pepsi Man from Alexander: The Arm of the Father (A3). He has a lot of different attacks and you must stay on your toes at all times to handle them appropriately. First, he will use Protean Wave, a cone with knockback that he will aim at you, then immediately use a second time behind him. To avoid getting hit by the second attack, circle completely around Jiggly and come back to the front without stopping. Next, he will use Throttle, which you must Exuviate or it will kill you. Then, he will do the “magnet” mechanic; if your charge matches his, get close, and if it’s opposite to his, get far away. Fluid Ball drops a couple AOEs — dodge them. Be sure to interrupt Fluid Swing; it’s the same as in Act One. After you get him to about 70% HP, he will cast Watery Grasp and summon two adds, a small hand and a large hand. Kill the small hand first before he drains all your MP, then burn down the large hand. Be sure to interrupt Fluid Swing or hit Surecast. Use Electrogenesis on the adds so you can do some damage to Jiggly at the same time. You must get the two adds down before Jiggly casts Big Splash; you need to Diamondback this attack, but if either add is still up you’ll die even if you get yourself bubbled. After this, he summons three waterspouts. Move to the safe spot and dodge their cone attacks while also handling Jiggly’s various attacks. From then on it’s just repeats of early attacks until he goes down. You can Kamikaze him at around 16%. You can learn Protean Wave from him if your luck is good. Note: I actually learned Protean Wave from the waterspouts here, not Jiggly!
30. The Catch of the Siegfried
    1. Siegfried will start by putting up a buff that makes him immune to magic attacks for 30 seconds but you will have time to Off-Guard him and smack him with a couple Primal spells if you act fast. After he gets the buff up, use Abyssal Transfixion on him until the no-magic buff drops and then go back to your favorite Primal rotation. Depending on how long the fight goes he may put the magic immunity back up again; just swap back to Abyssal Transfixion if he does. He will use Ankle Graze to try and bind you to the floor and drop an AOE on you; use Exuviation to clear it and get out of danger. He will summon a grid of bombs, but there will be one missing in the back row; get within melee range of him and position yourself so his next Rubber Bullet attack knocks you into the clear spot. Surecast will not stop Rubber Bullet’s knockback. Keep DPSing him and he’ll go down pretty fast.
    2. No buffs this time, but lots of AOEs instead. Law of the Torch is a cone with some safe spots for you to stand. Swiftsteel is a messy AOE with a knockback; stand in melee range and then move to a safe location for the AOEs after the knockback resolves. Surecast will stop the knockback if you have it available. Sparksteel is an AOE around him that also summon’s Ifrit’s lava plumes for some reason, coupled with a very annoying ring of ice grenades. There will be one open spot in the grenade ring; position yourself at the outside edge of the arena in that open spot to avoid getting frozen.
    3. This time Siegfried will start to cheat in earnest. First, his Magic Invulnerability is back, though once again it only lasts 30 seconds. The real problem is that he starts summoning clones of himself who can do any of his attacks, so you will have to deal with a two-part combo, one attack coming from the real Siegfried, and one coming from the clone du jour. You will want to burn down each clone as quickly as you can. The first clone is weak to ice attacks (I like to use Ram’s Voice but there are other choices), the second to wind attacks (my choice: Sonic Boom) and the third to fire attacks (use Flamethrower, Bomb Toss, Mustard Bomb, or Eruption. NOT FIRE ANGON REPEAT NOT FIRE ANGON. For some reason the third clone is immune to physical attacks and Fire Angon counts as both physical and fire!) Or, if you’re very good at dodging, you can just wait it out and eventually the clones will disappear on their own! If you can survive the clones then it’s just a repeat of Act Two Siegfried. You can Kamikaze Combo him at around 35%.
31. Anything Gogo’s
    
    1. Gogo’s biggest trick here is his “Mimic” stance. He’ll cast this first thing and it will stay up for 8 seconds while he bounces up and down like a doofus. If you wish, while he’s casting this, you can tag him with a nice hefty DoT spell and maybe a primal strike or two, but be careful –if you hit him with ANYTHING while the buff is up, he will one-shot you. So, don’t just do something — stand there! Prep a buff or put up a shield or do push-ups, whatever, until he stops bouncing. He will periodically reapply this buff throughout the fight and you should always immediately stop attacking him until it drops off again.

       During the times that he isn’t bouncing, he’ll be hitting you with a variety of other attacks. First up is Mimicked Sap, which is three circular AOEs targeted at you, one after the other. The cast time is reduced with each one that goes off, so start moving when the first telegraph appears and don’t stop moving until the third AOE is done. Sprinting isn’t necessary but you can if you want. Gogo will try to cast Mimicked Imp Song at you, which will turn you into a Water Imp for 20 seconds if he gets it off. Although this attack won’t kill you by itself, it will make you unable to use any spells until it wears off, which can leave you helpless when his next attack arrives; so, take along Flying Sardine and/or Bad Breath and interrupt the Imp Song cast.

       His next attack will probably be Mimicked Impending Doom, which will hit you with a Doom and a No Healing debuff at the same time. If you are not at full HP when the Doom countdown ends, you will die. And you can’t heal yourself at all while the No Healing debuff is up. So when you see this attack being cast, heal yourself to full immediately and you’ll be safe.

       At a couple points in the fight Gogo will cast the Raw Instinct buff on himself (it will look like an exclamation point under his HP bar.) Hit him with Eerie Soundwave to strip that off him right away or his auto attacks become extremely dangerous. He will also cast Mimicked Bunshin, which summons an untargetable duplicate of himself that casts narrow cone AOEs at you while Gogo himself casts long linear AOEs. These are easy enough to dodge, so do that. Keep hitting Gogo with your favorite DPS spells when he isn’t bouncing and you don’t have something more important to cast, and he’ll go down pretty fast.

    2. In some ways Act II of this fight is easier than Act I. Basically, Gogo stops all the random spell nonsense and just straight up tries to murder you. He will no longer use Mimic, Imp Song, Impending Doom, Raw Instinct, Sap, or Bunshin. Instead he will blast you non-stop with a variety of elemental spells. Your main issue in this fight will be staying mobile and healed up while you wait for opportunities to smack Gogo with whatever DPS spells you can get off in time.

       First, Gogo does a combo of Gogo Fire and Gogo Blizzard. Gogo Fire puts the “Pyretic” status on you; you must stand still and not attack until this status drops off, or you will take a great deal of damage. Gogo immediately follows up with Gogo Blizzard, which is an AOE around him that will freeze and damage you heavily if it hits. He always pairs these two attacks together in this order, so when you see him casting Gogo Fire, make sure you put some distance between him and you so that you won’t get hit by his ice spell when Pyretic forces you to stop moving.

       Gogo also has Gogo Lightning, which puts down a persistent puddle of lightning on the floor that will inflict a non-removable DoT on you if you step in it, although the damage from this isn’t particularly dangerous unless you are also getting hit with other stuff at the same time.

       Next, Gogo has a Gogo Flare and Gogo Holy combo that he uses in that order. Both are just high-damage blasting spells; be sure to heal yourself to full before each of these goes off so you can withstand the unavoidable damage. Gobskin helps a lot with this.

       After that Gogo will usually use Gogo Meteor, in which he just tries to drop a bunch of flaming rocks on your head. Dodge all the AOEs (there will be a lot) and keep your distance from the two impact markers that will show up consecutively. Stay healed, and use Gobskin if you have it. Angel’s Snack is also useful here (assuming you are in Healer stance) in case you get tagged with something but don’t have time to stop moving and heal. After the second big impact marker goes off, the entire floor will turn orange, which is your cue to pop your Diamondback bubble immediately as a really BIG flaming rock is just about to land in the center of the ring and it will kill you without your bubble.

       After this ends, Gogo will set up two Charybdis whirlwinds across from each other in the arena. These whirlwinds will cast an AOE every few seconds that is LARGER than the animation of the whirlwind, so stay well away from these if you can. If the attack hits you, it will drag you to the center of the whirlwind and damage you pretty heavily.

       Next, Gogo will cast Ice Storm, which puts two debuffs on you, a fairly nasty DoT and a Heavy. Try to be in the center of the arena when this goes off so you are sure to have a few seconds of free space and time to use Exuviate twice and get both of those debuffs off you. As you’re dealing with that, Gogo will put up two more Charybdis whirlwinds so that there is one at every cardinal point of the arena, and you will have to start being very careful where you step. Then to make things worse, Gogo will put down three Lightning puddles, one after the other, in the places where you are standing when he starts each cast. Try to bait these so that you don’t box yourself in with no safe path to maneuver. If by accident you DO get boxed in, run through the lightning, not the Charybdis; it will do less damage.

       From this point Gogo will just keep doing various combinations of all his attacks; deal with each of them appropriately and keep hitting him when you can and he’ll go down. You can Kamikaze him at 10% HP safely; if you are able to do this fight on DPS stance instead of Heal stance and you take an Intelligence potion in with you, you may be able to kill him with 15% HP left. The only tricky part here is when all four Charybdis attacks are active and Gogo puts down lightning puddles followed by either Gogo Fire/Ice or Gogo Flare/Holy. A little practice should get you through this fight without too much frustration.

PRELIMINARY NOTES ON STAGE 32: A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY

(I haven’t had time to polish this yet but some folks expressed an interest in seeing my starter writeup, so here it is!)

Guys I noticed some folks were working on clearing the last Masked Carnivale stage (Goldor). Here’s some tips if he’s giving you problems. This is for a normal clear; I’ll give a few extra tips for the Umbrella achievement clear after. I did the fight on Heal stance, which I recommend as it helps a lot. Take Pom Cure and Angel’s Snack as well as Exuviation. Gobskin is somewhat useful but not essential.

Act 1 tips:

1. Interrupt his Blizzard cast. I used Flying Sardine.
2. When he summons the slime, freeze it with Ram’s Voice, dodge his Quake, then use Ultravibration to take out the slime.
3. When he summons the ring of fire sprites, you need to kill just one of them to make yourself a safe spot. They’re weak to wind. I used Feather Rain on two of them then finished off one with Sonic Boom while dodging his other attacks. You can finish off both of the ones you hit with Feather Rain to make a bigger safe space if you want, but you don’t have to. When he does his Knockback, stand slightly in front of where you killed the fire sprite; this should shove you back into the safe spot. Note that it’s better to get knocked back briefly into the lightning ring than to be up a little too far; if you go into the lightning ring you can just quickly step forward out of it into the safe spot before you take damage, but if you get hit by the fire sprite explosions you’re probably dead.
4. He will cast Gravity on you which will make it impossible for you to even walk, and then he’ll try to blast you while you’re pinned. Use Loom to get out of the the first blast, and then again to avoid the second one he does right after. Don’t start your teleport until he starts to cast the blast; if you move too soon, he’ll change his aim and blast you in your new spot, likely before you can teleport again.

Act 2: Goldor starts summoning stuff.

1. Four golems: They make a latticework of attacks. The safe spots are always the same though. See Diagram 1 for my favorite.
2. Four Dolls: They have overlapping wide frontal cone attacks that cover the entire arena. Dodge Goldor’s Quake, then move out of the center so only two of the dolls are hitting you, and Diamondback to survive.
3. He summons a targetable crystal. It’s immune to magic but you can burn it down pretty easily with any physical spells you have. I used Triple Trident and Winged Reprobation on it but there are other choices. As long as the crystal is up Goldor will be immune to all magic attacks (still can be hit with physical though.)
4. He summons an ogre of some kind that does a draw-in to the center and then does a large circular swing attack, but it’s simple enough to get out of the swing attack after the draw-in.
5. Next he will summon all three of his toys (4 golems, a single doll, and the ogre) and you will have to dodge all their attacks at once. It’s a lot easier than it sounds. The ogre will use his draw-in, but just be prepared to run out past the doll to the safe spot in Diagram 2 and you’ll be fine.

Diagram 1:

Diagram 2:

HOW TO GET THE UMBRELLA:

Now to get the umbrella you have to complete the same fight with extra restrictions:

1. No sprinting during the fight. Take it off your bar if you don’t trust yourself not to hit it by reflex.
2. You must hit him at least once with a spell of each of the six elements.
3. You have to leave the crystal in Act 2 alive, making him immune to magic attacks for much of Act 2. Fortunately you have a pretty good selection of high potency physical attacks you can take along to beat on him with, or you can do what someone else I know did and just put up your Mighty Guard and slowly but surely Goblin Punch him to death. There’s no time limit on the fight so it’s tedious but not hard. I took along several good physical attacks and I would use Off-Guard, hit him with all my good physical attacks, then pop Mighty Guard up and punch him until my better spells were off cooldown. Then I’d drop Mighty Guard at some convenient time, use Off-Guard again, fire off the powerful spells, put Mighty Guard back up, and resume punching. It didn’t really take too long to get him down.