How to Defeat Pallmagia in FFXIV Occult Crescent: North Horn

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Pallmagia is one of the more interesting bosses in Final Fantasy XIV’s new Occult Crescent: North Horn Field Operation zone. While he doesn’t feature a bevy of different moves, he ties them all together nicely, making it a bit more challenging the further you get into the fight.

By the end, you’ll likely get hit by at least one attack, most likely because you’ll find yourself being too familiar with the mechanics that when the reverses things, it comes as a bit of a shock. Thankfully, this guide should help you with any troubles you may have.

Opening Bad Breath

Pallmagia is one of the few Critical Engagement bosses that goes straight into a unique ability. Many of the ones in the North Horn will start with something small or even a raidwide, but Pallmagia is ready to get to it. The first attack he will do is a cone attack pointed in a certain direction with a Malboro icon above his head. This will demonstrate what will happen next, as if you get hit by this, you will be inflicted with all the debuffs as if you were from a Malboro’s Bad Breath.

Plaincracker

The second attack comes in the form of a golem icon above Pallmagia’s head. This is a point-blank AOE attack that takes up around 80% of the arena. Be sure to head to the outside along the edge of the death wall to avoid this.

Esoteric Instruction

This is where the mechanic actually happens. He has demonstrated the two major mechanics of the fight: Bad Breath and Plaincracker. With that said, he will summon four Pallkeeper adds on the outside of the arena.

Pallmagia will then begin tethering each keeper, and they will be assigned either Bad Breath or Plaincracker. This is indicated by the icons that are put over their head. It will always be in rotating order. So, the first will always be either Bad Breath or Plaincracker, while the one next to it will always be the opposite.

This makes things a little easier. If the first is Bad Breath, move to the first Pallkeeper and to the side away of the second. The first Pallkeeper will then cleave the room with a cone. Why you position yourself on the side away from the second is because the second will always be a Plaincracker, so you want to be as far away as possible. With that siad, you will then need to sprint to the complete opposite side of the arena next to the third Pallkeper. Avoid the Bad Breath from the third and move away from the fourth.

If Plaincracker is first, you will want to move to the second Pallkeeper on the side away from the first. The Plaincracker will go off, and you will need to swap sides and wait for the Bad Breath to go off. Afterward, rotate around the arena along the wall until you hit the fourth Pallkeeper and keep to his side. The third Plaincracker will go off and then the Bad Breath. This is probably the easier of the movements.

Great Whirlwind

Surprisingly, while most fights start with this, Pallmagia will cast his raidwide attack after the Esoteric Instruction mechanic. Mitigate and shield up as you need.

Occult Missile

This is easily forgotten about, but afterwards, every should stack up as this cast will place around three sets of four point-blank AOEs on random players. Ideally, you move as one to avoid too much chaos, but being a Critical Engagement, this is hard to avoid. Simply watch your feet immediately after the raidwide.

Lilliputian Lyric

This is a halfroom cleave that’s very easy to avoid as it gives you an immense amount of time to get out of the way. If you get hit, you will receive a Mini debuff.

Roulette

The final real mech of the fight, Pallmagia will summon a giant board onto the field that has blue and purple tiles. The purple tiles have runes on them, indicating they will do damage, while the blue ones have nothing. The roulette will then spin.

When the purple tiles begin to flash red, make sure you are following a blue tile before it stops, otherwise you will take damage. It’s a little easier to do this while in the middle of the arena. There are four safe spots.

Cycle Esoteric Instruction Part 2

This is the same exact mechanic as the first but with a bit of a twist. Pallmagia will tether each Pallkeeper individually like normally, but he will swap two pairs. The first time this happens, it will swap the Plainscracker and Bad Breath Palkeepers. The next time, though, it will swap the Plaincrackers with one another, same with the Bad Breaths.

• Perpendicular: Depending on which attack got tethered first, the same rules apply to these. They are swapping the Pallkeepers and not the roles, so if Plainscracker was assigned to the first, it will always go off first, just in a different spot. Simply rotate 90 degrees accordingly and try not to think too hard about it.
• Parallel: This one can throw people off the most, not necessarily for the first attack that goes off, but the second one. You will essentially have to flip your position entirely 180 degrees and rotate to the opposite of what you thought you would.

Great Whirlwind

After that little bit of a headache, Pallmagia will follow-up with a raidwide.

Roulette

This will be the same as the original above with no extra gimmicks. Just look for the blue tile and stand on it when the purple tiles begin flashing red.

Lilliputian Lyric

This is followed up by another half room cleave that will turn you small if you get hit.

Magic Hammer + Occult Missiles

While everything is repeating, this is the first new mechanic added late in the fight. The boss will spawn three sets of AOEs running vertically across the arena. If you’ve heard three-to-one, this is a prime example of it as you will need to go into the AOEs that spawned last and move into the first when they go off.

This is followed up by a very quick three sets of Occult Missiles that try to catch you off guard after that new mechanic.

Great Whirlwind

To top it off, Pallmagia will cast yet another raidwide that will likely need to be mitigated and shielded as it’s likely more players got vulnerability stacks during the last shuffle.

Guaranteed Rewards

• 260-420 Knowledge
• 720 Phantom EXP
• 10 Tomestones of Mnemonics
• 20 Tomestones of Mathematics

Potential Drops

• 1 Notes on the Pallmagia
• Blue Mage’s Soul Shard
• 10 Phantom Dispeller a (for Phantom Weapon step)
• Occult Earring of Blood
• Occult Earring of Magic