Reminder:
Check https://redd.it/5v3ubd or click the headers for reddit Nightmare dungeon guide. This guide does not cover the boss mechanics already covered there.
This guide does not guarantee all mastery objectives complete, so make sure to double check them if you are aiming for them. The strats mentioned should allow you to finish at least 2 out of the 3 objectives though, which is enough to master assuming you don’t lose medals on the basic stats.
Use https://friends-ffrk.com/ to look up and add the RWs you may need.
When you RW an AASB, make sure you use one relevant to characters you have. For example only RW riku AASB if your dps character can use 5* Darkness abilities.
Contents
Black Magic: Ultima
RW any black magic AOSB (ex: Terra’s Inferno Combo) and use it right away
Combat: Crushdown
RW any physical AOSB (ex: Noctis’ Critical Link) and use it right away
White Magic: Reraise
RW Rem BSB (Siphon Delta). Bring 2 of your best WHM users with ideally holy boost gear (not necessary). Fill the rest with utility (wall, proshellga, dispel, etc.)
The RW entry will deal 9999×8 to all targets, enough to one shot phase 1 and everything in phase 2 with 1 use each. Afterwards use the burst command 1 to dps the boss in phase 3. Alternatively dps phase 1 yourself (should only take 2-3 Holy casts, or a few more if you use Diaga/Diara) and nuke phase 2 and 3 with RW entries.
You can also RW Rem AASB (Seraphim Strike) and use Madeen/Holy to dps the boss if you only have 1 good WHM user. Just make sure to AoE phase 2, or do the mechanic properly.
Summon Magic: Neo Bahamut
RW Rydia AOSB (Past and Present). Use whatever magic you can to damage the boss into phase 2 (just need to do 50k or so damage). Use the RW when the boss is water weak (lightning in the background) and one shot it.
Support: Quadruple Foul
RW either Auron AOSB (Ash and Dust) or a physical AASB. Bring your best physical team. Ignore mechanics and focus the boss right away. Remember to break (Full Break or Multibreak is the easiest option) for mastery medals.
You have 5 turns to deal 256k damage. Auron AOSB will do about 160k by itself. Or AASB with some basic buffs should easily do enough damage.
Celerity: Northern Cross
RW a physical AASB. Bring your best physical team. Fit Halting Rumba, Slowga, and optionally Dismissal (it only has a 25% chance of working, but you can ignore this one and still get mastery) into your team. Then just kill everything. Make sure to land the abilities mentioned in phase 1 or 2 for the medal conditions.
Black Magic: Meltdown
RW a lightning or water AOSB (ex: Ashe’s Lodestar’s Gleam). Bring your best black magic team. Do at least 80k damage to the boss before popping the RW when it’s weak to that element in phase 2 to kill it and get the mastery. Make sure not to push the boss into phase 3 (<30% hp) too fast or you cannot get mastery. Also try not to trigger its counter which will deal 5k+ damage to your whole party.
White Magic: Curada
RW Rem AASB (Seraphim Strike). Bring your best WHM user with ideally holy boost gear (not necessary). Use Madeen/Holy/Holyja to dps the boss. Madeen does more damage than Holy and has the benefit of being AoE, but not every WHM can use summons.
Alternatively, run physical team with AASB RW to burn the boss. The guardian counters physical attacks with an AoE that deals 600-1k damage under wall and shellga. A good healer like Elarra can easily outheal that. For reference, a fully dived Orlandeau with Roxas AASB RW deals about 3k damage a hit with assault saber, which is 30k a turn. Just toss in some white mages with Diaga/Diara etc. to help dps and it should die quickly.
Support: Affliction Break
RW either Auron AOSB (Ash and Dust) or a physical AASB. Bring your best physical team. Make sure to bring 2-3 different breakdowns (attack/magic + one of your choice) to handle the mechanic in phase 2.
Just dps in phase 1 without using RW. Phase 2 dps the boss and use breakdowns (check the guide) to get 3 people doomed. Auron AOSB will deal around 180k damage (a bit more than half of its HP) to the boss with 3 dooms. If your RW is AOSB then pop it with 3 dooms. If your RW is AASB then just pop it at the start of phase 2 to help dps the boss.
Celerity: Dervish
RW Noctis AOSB (Critical Link). Use your strongest physical team and just DPS the boss (bring slowga for mastery). The boss has 365k HP. Noctis AOSB will deal around 250k damage, so just pop that at the start of phase 2 and finish off the boss.
Summon: Valigarmanda
RW Alphinaud BSB (Aerial Blast). Bring your best mage team, preferably those with summon 5 to get synergy. You will probably also need to hone some summons in addition to get enough damage. Any native summoner SBs would be extremely helpful here.
The strategy is basically damage the boss as long as you can before killing the sphere, since killing the sphere makes you transition phases and earlier phases are easier than the later ones. Use your RW right away on your 2 strongest mages and spam command 1. It will deal about 20k damage each assuming a lv 99 summoner, no ele boost gear and a 30% MAG buff. Do make sure to kill the sphere before the boss uses Nightmare Tri-Disaster though. You don’t have to cut it too close here.
You can also choose to bring Alphinaud’s USB2 if you have summon abilities to use with it.
Note that Valig’s counter will deal about 1500-2000 damage AoE with wall and shellga up. You can heal through it, so it’s not the end of the world if you need to trigger it to do some damage. However Valig is extremely tanky (almost comparable to some 4* magicites) if you choose to kill it with non summon damage.
Combat: Omega Drive
Bring your best physical team. RW a physical AASB, or a gen 2 CSB if your team all use the same element. Leave your wall and proshellga at home since every attack is piercing. Make sure to slot hastega as the boss dispels every phase change.
The boss has 50% resistance to all elements, so you can either choose to go non-elemental dps, or just brute force with your elemental team. I still recommend going with an elemental team since NE is useless in the long run, and if your best elemental team can’t power through Omega Weapon you probably are not ready for magicites anyway.
The boss is extremely squishy during phase 1, so you can consider saving your buffs/strong abilities and using Lifesiphon to build bars.
In phase 2, make sure to refresh hastega and use all the other buffs you can. The boss uses regular dispel which will not remove stat buffs and special statuses like EX/awakening modes, so you do not need to reapply those if they haven’t expired yet. Starting from this phase it’s time to go all out dps. Make sure you read up on the mechanics and do not attack the wrong targets. Mainly focus the boss here, but kill the red orbs before they explode (4 turns). Green orbs exploding only heals the boss for 4k hp or so, so you can safely ignore them. Do kill them if you need a heal.
Phase 3 is just a dps race. Make sure you reapply hastega again, and just burn the boss down.
