Ravana, while not the first Primal you discover in Heavensward, is the first you actually get to challenge. Ravana is the deity of the Gnath, whom you have to defeat in order to continue the story. While fairly simple, many things can and probably will go wrong in this fight.
Things To Be Aware Of:
Here are just a few things you should know before I go into detail about Ravana’s attacks.
- Positioning: This is the number one priority for this fight. Ravana uses a similar arena mechanic to Titan and Leviathan in which you can fall from the platform and die. If this happens you will be unable to rejoin the fight unless the group wipes.
- Situational awareness: This kind of goes hand-in-hand with positioning. As the fight progresses parts of the wall surrounding the arena are broken down. Ravana will use a room wide AoE knockback that will push you to the wall, or off the edge if no wall exists. be sure you put your back to the wall and not an opening or you will fall off.
- Cooldowns: Tanks need to manage their cooldowns effectively as Ravana unleashes a constant barrage of heavy damage.
- Adds: Around the middle of the fight swords will start appearing around the room and adds will spawn from them. Kill these adds quickly.
Attacks:
Here I’ll give details of what attacks actually do, and how to deal with them if necessary. Ravana has a whole arsenal of different attacks to be wary of, though some share similar effects.
- The Seeing Tail: This is a defensive ability giving Ravana heightened defensive power for a time. His offensive version does not seem to have a name.
- Revengance: A moderate damage attack that seems to only be used after The Seeing Tail.
- Prelude to Slaughter: A room wide AoE moderate damage knockback. Be wary of your surroundings so you don’t get knocked off the edge. The displacement itself isn’t terribly far so as long as you’re not near an edge you should be fine. This is followed by a two-pronged Fire explosion, the first part in lines, the second part the whole arena except the center.
- Slaughter: A heavy hitting AoE, but on its first use in the recording it only seemed to hit three people with the first part of the attack. It’s followed by an X-shaped AoE and 2 player-following large area circle AoE blasts. The X shape leaves a fire residue temporarily that gives a fire debuff if stepped in.
- The Seeing Wing: Similar to The Seeing Wing. Adds also seemed to spawn during this time as well.
- Bloody Fuller: A room wide AoE, players are lifted into the air and attacked multiple times placing a vulnerability up debuff for each time their attacked attacked. Then Ravana returns to the center to finish off the attack with a final explosion.
- Pillars of Heaven: A room wide AoE knockback, this one absolutely must be positioned for. The knockback will push you out of the arena even from the center of the room if there is no wall.
- Surpanaka: A frontal cleave that deals moderate damage and also damages the wall. Ravana seems to start spamming this after Pillars of Heaven so try to keep him facing in one direction and only move when absolutely necessary as to not destroy large portions of the wall.
- The Rose of Hate: A straight line AoE attack. Orbs also spawn during this and are tethered to players. Hitting an orb appeared to add Vulnerability up to that player, but I didn’t get a good view of it as I was dodging the main portion of the attack.
- Swift Slaughter: A room wide AoE that appears to work similar to the first part of Bloody Fuller without the knock up. It is then followed by the room wide fire explosion with the safe spot in the center. Similar to how Prelude to Slaughter ends. Afterwards Ravana returns to the center and places a large AoE circle on the ground that is escape-able.
- Atma-Linga: A room wide AoE that deals moderate damage.
- Tapasya: A frontal cleave with minor knockback.
- Blinding Blade: A high damage cleave similar to Surpanaka. Healers need to keep a close eye on the tank when Ravana starts using this attack.
That’s about it. During the fight it really doesn’t seem like Ravana has so many attacks, since they all feel similar. You only realize this after watching footage of the fight. Keep in mind this is only the Hard Mode version of this fight, other modes may differ.
If you have any comments, questions, or concerns leave them down below, I’ll try to respond in a timely manner. Be sure to check out my Dusk Vigil guide as well. Also, be on the lookout for more guides in the near future by checking my FFXIV Heavensward guide list.
