STUNNING | FFXIV Just Released The Most Fun Raid I've Ever Played... 

Wishlist The Pale Beyond! bit.ly/TPB_Steam

Not to deny the raid is extremely good, perhaps even the best AR in XIV, but you'd probably be a bit less surprised after doing the 60-80 series prior. They're all a massive step up from Crystal Tower in every way.

Square's decision to give infinite combat rezzes-and to balance them off with DPS debuffs that ensure you can't cheese through savages-has given them SUCH a big design space to work with, especially in the Alliance Raids.

Fun fact: The AST weapon from Ktesis (the 87 dungeon) has all the emblems of the Twelve on it. That seriously implies that The Twelve were around during the time of the ancients.

Side note. Your camera angle is super low for seeing the boss. If you hold CTRL and use the directional keys you can angle the cam up more for boss fights then bring it back down when chillin in Limsa >.~

I know you're hearing this from a lot of people, but seriously, you need to do the level 60, 70, and 80 alliance raids. I ran through Void Ark (the level 60 alliance raid) recently with some newbies on minimum item level and they were blown away by it.

A piece of advice my FC told me when I started playing is "As long as there is one rezzer still alive, don't reset/release" So far it's served me well. Got a lot of great recoveries by just waiting and seeing the one rezzer pull us all back up!

Absolutely in love with the parallel Myths of the Realm is drawing with Pandaemonium. We are literally battling our way through the Hells and the Heavens.

"It just feels like this humungous controlled disaster" - that is why I love week 1 FF raids. It was the same in Nier. Even Savage does not hit the level of chaos ARs can hit.

The rhalgr fight was great cuz it was a one of those fights that broke the "square or round" arena type platform FFXIV fights are famous for. Now it's a hand shape!

The best part about this raid was finally seeing Nald'Thal's Balls, something set up nearly a decade ago, truly feels like they're paying off a story weaving through the whole setup of XIV.

FFXIV tries to make raids to be awesome, engaging, and *fun.* Blizzard tries to make raids as an esport. Just like how each game handles its own casual content, the habits show. Yoshi-P and his team try to make things that people will have fun engaging with. Ion and his team try to make things that people will be forced to engage with in order to fulfill metrics and force players to grind for weeks at a time.

Soken is amazing. So amazing that veterans of 10+ years like me are constantly be surprised and amazed with new contents. That in itself says a lot about the music in this game.

There actually _are_ savage alliance raids. Baldesion's Arsenal at the end of the Eureka and Delubrum Reginae (Savage) after Bozjan Southern Front. You get cool mounts from them, BA's especially.

Myths part 1 is amazing in every way. The fights are fun. The music is top shelf. And we even got a meme mechanic that still makes me laugh when I think about it. The SE team has really taken the Alliance raid to a new level.

I highly recommend doing The Shadows of Mhach, Return to Ivalice, and YorHa Dark Apocalypse. All of them are amazing when it comes to spectacle and boss design. While I do think Agalia is probably one of the better Alliance Raids, I do think you would get a lot out of playing the others to see the progression. YorHa gets a lot of flak but that is mostly for the story, the gameplay and design is still amazing

Best raid. Amazing fights, visuals. SLAPPING music, Azemya top tier waifu, even the gear looks fucking great. 11/10 I've been running it once a day until I get the minion and I'm still super giddy. (Seven clears so far)

Rhalgr is definitely a top contender for "This is why FF14's res system is so good" What is a LFR level 24man in FF14 would be a Mythic boss (if you add a steep enough dps check) in WoW, mechanically speaking. This is what you can achieve in fight design with a good res system, devs who actually play their own game, and fair mechanics. DPS checks and reaction windows are the primary content tuning nobs between Normal and Extreme, with Savage and Ultimate adding in more but FAIR complexity as well.

Gods: we challenge you warrior of light Wol: why? Gods: we'll tell you later Wol: *visibly confused*

“In the balance” is a top 5 FFXIV theme.

I love how in all of the gameplay footage approximately half the raid is dead. The true week-one alliance raid experience.

Quick note: there are two savage ARs in this game with limited res system. One at the end of Eureka, one after the Bozja. Those feel really different than the normal savage, but worth a while to try.

As for CT being a cakewalk, find 23 of your friends and go in at minimum iLVL, either through the DF setting or through gearing. Yes, the ability have made it easier, but it will still happily eat your face.

The 24 man raids are really fun and lighthearted content. I can recommend always trying these blind when they drop. The sheer number of players and lack of enrage timers makes the chance of wiping fairly low, and it's more about the puzzle solving than anything else. Also, I want to see more arenas like Rhalgr's. I'm just tired of circles and squares.

This time, there's an intro! Sorry for the reupload there.

Bellular, man, you don't just wipe in the raids. You push through and get that epic win after near wipe after near wipe. Feels so good, nothing like doing the raids when they're brand new and nobody has done them.

Just a tip but don’t release during the middle of a raid fight. Ppl from the other groups can still rez you. It’s possible to make a full comeback from an almost wipe and you’re not ending up just sitting outside of the room watching.

"Spectacle" is exactly the word I'd use to describe all of the Alliance raids. I highly recommend you get to trying the others!

Rule of thumb, usually: if there is even one resser alive in the raid (healer, redmage, or summoner) you don’t wipe it. If one isn’t alive you wait, you don’t know if one is holding onto a res. You wipe it when it’s an actual wipe! So what if it takes a while: there’s a lot of satisfaction at bringing the raid back from the brink!

Also, non-savage/ultimate content for the most part do not have hard or soft enrages, so unless there's a full wipe there's no point in releasing and running back. If people can slowly salvage a fight, they will. It's more fun that way anyway, limping along.

Spectacle is a great way of describing Alliance raids. They’re some of my favorite forms of content in FFXIV. They’re probably the last step in casual content before people do EX trials, Savages, Ultimates, etc., but I’m happy with that because I feel like it allows the devs to be more creative with the whole raid designs.

Fun note for anyone who hadn't quite pieced it together yet - Two of the Twelve are associated with each element. We just fought through the heavens of fire and lightning. You can look forward to the general theme of coming fights accordingly (with some odd twists, like one of the earth element gods being master of 'space and time' as well). Personally, I always dread the water fights. Probably leftover trauma from Leviathan EX back in the day. The order we fought the current set in, paired with the order of the icons on the central ring of the floating island, also tells you who we're fighting last, and there're some hefty implications about a certain NPC in that order.

That's exactly how the raids have been since the beginning. Labyrinth when it came out was brutal and world of darkness murdered people. But now you skip a majority of it and speed through it. This raid tier definitely hits it out of the park with style and spectacle though. Taking a break and letting guests do the Ivalice and Nier 24 mans made a huge difference.

there is actually a savage 24 man called delubrum reginae savage , comes up midway through the bozja story and very fun

Imagine a few years down the line. . . An ULTIMATE version of the 12. My God that will be beautiful.

I's always nice to come back to this channel to watch Belllular be giddy and happy. For real this raid is fantastic I'm so glad you're enjoying it as much as I am!

Everything about this raid is amazing. Great theme, Amazing bosses, fun mechanics, Interesting story, Azeyma is really hot, a banging soundtrack, looks beautiful, and we get to hangout with G'raha and Krile some more. And this is only the first tier

Glad to hear you loved it Bell! I did too, so much - did it on server-up blind! @ 24:00 there *are* Savage Level large alliance style raids in FFXIV with the Baldesian Arsenal and Delubrum Reginae Savage - two raids designed for 48 / 56 players (area depending) and 24 to 48 man. Not done DR Savage but *did* do the Arsenal back in Stormblood and man, was it unique to work on herding 48 or 56 others around where (potentially) one bad player could in theory wipe your group. The more interesting part is what happens if you die in general on the last boss but I won't say more. ;)

If you recall Jesse Cox's FFXIV lore for newbies primer video, there's mention of how there are beliefs that the Gods, such as The Twelve walked the lands during the time period right before the 1st Umbral Calamity, and that them departing the mortal realm was connected to the advent of the 1st Umbral Calamity's Calamity of Wind. Also the Bismarck of The First is not a Primal but a fae being, an important detail to keep in mind. I will also be interested in seeing you guys check out the older Normal and Alliance Raids from the past expansions, it definitely helps give you perspective on the current stuff.

I can't tell you how underwhelming watching the RWF for Castle Nathria was. It was doubly so for Zovaal's fight as the "bookend fight of the first chapter of the Warcraft saga". Watching Asmon live prog vs Bahamut from ARR was way more entertaining. Spectacle really does elevate a combat encounter in a more experiential way.

Another thing to add: Healer LB3. It’s fun to use and the party/raid loves it when healers pull it off. A whole party goes down, you raise one of their healers. The healer pulls off an LB3 saving their party who then start recovering members in other parties. Can completely save an Alliance and it feels great for everyone when that happens. I highly suggest you unlock the 60, 70, and 80 raids. The first boss of the 3rd Alliance raid in HW can get super dicey with all the death mechanics. The 2nd alliance raid of SB has a LOT of memes about math that’s almost mandatory for everyone to experience. And I think the 80 Alliance raids are the most tame of all of them, they’re still very beautiful in terms of art and mechanics. It’s probably because it’s a cross-over, so it loses some of that FF magic, but gains it with the other beautiful work.

I think one of the best lore bits from this involves the end of 1.0. The Twelve that were summoned by the future scions and Louisoix were primals, not these entities.

If you like the scope and feel of this kind of Alliance Raid then definitely try out the lvl 70 and 80 alliance raids!

Deryk is 100% Oschon. Notice how any time you go somewhere with him, he wants to keep moving? It's like he physically cannot stay in one place too long - the embodiment of a "traveler/wanderer". And if that's not evidence enough, take a look at the full art for the Astrologian card "the Arrow", which features a depiction of Oschon with his bow. It's pretty spot-on. The opo-opo he's with, though, is probably also one of the Twelve, my guess being Halone, who is Oschon's traveling partner in Eorzean myth. The REAL mystery is what the big temple with the white crystal is meant to represent. And, if past FF games are any indication, I've got a strong hunch there's a secret 13th god we don't know about yet that will be revealed in the end. I've got theories as to what that god is, but I'll save them for another time. Glad you're enjoying the game!

I had all of the mechanics down by my third run of the raid and on that third run where I was keeping very high melee uptime and dancing through the mechanics it felt so epic. The whole raid just screams adventure and it feels so good to play through

Important note about the Bismarck of the first. He isn't a primal, he's a fey, which as far as shadow bringers is concerned means he's a ghost of some kind. It is interesting that he shares a name with a primal, especially in light of some spoilery eden stuff

Byregot, the builder Rhalgr, the destroyer Azeyma, the warden Nald'Thal, the twins The first 4 of the 12, next will either be ice and water or stone and wind groups

Finally did this today and got to watch this video....my god, this was such a good time!! Glad you enjoyed it sir.

Can't watch this yet as I am still in ARR MSQ but I am glad you are enjoying yourself and making content about different games.

Coming from WoW back when I started ARR, I've always been pleased with comparing FFXIV's 24 man raids to WoW's LFR. The actual mechanics and the potential to wipe ("Wiping" City of Mach) in what's considered catch up/casual raid content was quite an enjoyable change. Back in Heavensward, trying to cheese the Dragon in Crystal Tower was a wipe because skeleton explosions still wiped you even with your stronger gear. The Ozma fight still wiping parties well after release. Or even the airship fight in Mach still wrecking parties to this day. Then there's Cid in Rabanastre series that people can still get mixed up on the animation tells. And some fights in YorHa Dark Apocalypse still occasional humble parties.

@19:35 The likelihood The Twelve are broadly inspired by the 12 Olympians in overall design, not necessarily role, is very high. Rhalgr is very Zeus, Byregot for Hephaestus, Halone for Ares, Llamaeyn for Poseidon, Hermes for Nald'Thal (associated with Commerce AND guiding dead souls, who even overlaps those)... others start to get more nebulous. Azeyma could be Aphrodite pretty easily, with a real emphasis on the burning part of passion, literally. Omphalos itself is not dissimilar to Olypmus in name. Obviously this is amusing because we ALSO have characters named Hermes, Artemis, Hades, Themis, etc.

I totally agree with you about the spectacle. We don't know exactly what these entities are, but... They sure are worthy of being called the Twelve. We heard about the Twelve for so long, so the expectations were huge, and yet this dev team delivered something better than most of us could've imagined. As the thumbnail says, it really is mind blowing, from every angle.

9:33 your comment on the boss model animations for mechanics paired with your camera position is actually something I struggled with the most. I found that pressing ctrl+up arrow pans the camera up so you have a better view of everything ahead/above you as opposed to missing information because half of your screen is the floor behind you. My rule for my camera positioning is that I will pan it upwards enough so that my character's feet are just at the top of my hotbars. gives me plenty of vision ahead & I don't lose any information on my positioning that my hotbars wouldn't already cover lol. hope that tip helps :)

A little tip for being able to better see the boss model: hold ctrl and push the up arrow. You can raise the camera angle, so tall bosses are easier to see. It was a game changer for me

If you liked them then I would definitely recommend you to check out the ivalice raids from stormblood too!

I would just like to point out that one of the mechanics in the final fight is, quite literally, Thal's balls, the common in-universe explative. Koji rolling around laughing in his office Also the final boss music (which is _wonderful,_ it's been stuck in my head since Tuesday and I'm still not in the least tired of it) takes a lot of cues from Ul'dahn music (from 1.0 I think?) - which is very fitting, if you look at the lyrics, it could easily be a song sung by poorer Ul'dahns in worship of the Traders.

I won the orchestration roll for the final boss in the raid and was so happy 😭

One of the mindsets you will need to get out of with raiding and stuff is if a big chunk of the group dies its not necessarily a wipe. In FF its only a wipe once all the jobs that can rez are dead and its clear they wont be able to finish the fight.

I think part of the spectacle is how stable and sustainable it has been over the years. They build such strong foundations with their level and raid design that they CAN do new and interesting things every patch. They've got time and talent to be able to take this, tweak it, spin it around in a circle and layer it on top of each other. Without such a strong content pipeline and patch schedule, I don't think this would be even possible to pull off without massive jags in quality.

Something that helps even more with the scale is lowering the camera angle. You can adjust it in the menu or use CTRL+UP/DOWN by default. Makes these expansive fights/vistas even better.

Honestly, one of the things that took a while for me to get used to in FFXIV compared to my time in WoW was the "just keep going" attitude, I love it! People don't just give up and call it a wipe, you can come back from near death in this game and it's epic.

I'm sure someone in these hundreds of comments has mentioned this before, but if you want "Savage style" alliance content consider digging into the Bozjan front and unlocking Delubrum Savage. That's the closest you'll get in this game, Baldesion Arsenal at the peak of the mountain that is Eureka is another, but both definitely require preforms and communication from all participants or at least most to execute successfully. Would love to see you go back and try them!

I love how Rhalgar's hand isn't a flat surface to fight on and dips in the center like a real hand giving you a bit of a Z axis.

As a 1.0 player, finally meeting the Twelve and delving into their story is so satisfying.

You should press and hold CTRL and up to pan your camera upwards, from the footage it looks like you're missing a lot due to the camera angle. Glad you're enjoying FF!

Patch week for new raids is always a lot of fun for that discovery factor you get from facing new mechanics and bosses, the spectacle as you say and the satisfaction of completing it. And while the Stormblood "Ivalice" raid is similar to this one in term of scope, I'd say try the Heavensward "Void Ark" alliance raids as the lore found there might help understand the ongoing MSQ, much like Crystal Tower did. And of course, then the Shadowbringers alliance raids which, while a guest cooperation with Yoko Taro and NIER Automata, have plenty of epic moments AND music in them.

"If they did a savage of one of these..." They did, once. Delubrum Reginae. I feel like very few people have actually completed it on savage though; you can't really combat res traditionally in there. I'll say no more to avoid spoilers but suffice to say, there's tons and tons more stuff for you to experience, like the other alliance raids as you said. I'm excited to keep following you on your journey.

9:00 can't tell which one is better (I'm just so used to WoW's limited "lives") but the "unlimited" resurrection system in FFXIV certainly makes certain fights look like true friction battles, fought nails and teeth, to the end.

I love how many videos Bell drops where its just a half hour of him living for FF

My two theories for the Twelve are that they are unsundered Ascians, or from another planet, like Midgarsomr. They called her Hydaelyn and not Venat, so the first theory is probably wrong. So I'm guessing they came here from another star, and they offered to help her build up the Source.

@ 24:04 You want a savage-esque version of an alliance raid? Check out Delubrum Reginae (Savage) from Bozja or Baldesion Arsenal from Eureka. The Arsenal is very short and less structured (and quite easy) but they are both large-party content (48 for DRS, 48-56 for BA). DRS is much easier now with all the Bozja buffs that came from Zadnor but you can do some research into how old runs went.

Thanks for featuring our video, we're avid Bellular watchers ourselves ♥

In regards to the lore, there's something interesting I noticed during the fights that you've reminded me of: I noticed on Tuesday that Odin's theme is a motif in the boss music. I remember spending the first half of a fight, idr which, trying to figure out where I had heard that melody before the word "Odin" just came to mind. If we know anything about FFXIV's music, it's that no motif is placed in a song for no reason, though what that reason is, I couldn't tell you.

i like this format with you looking in to the camera

First time I'm sort of up to date on content for a patch, and the experience of this AR was magical! Tried it day 1, going in completely blind with a PF group after the two previous ones dissolved for lack of people... most of us hopped on a discord, and we only wiped once to Nald'Thal's balance, we worked so well we stayed on the discord hopefully to do the same for the next tier! It was so great, I'm glad I was able to overcome my anxiety of running new content with others

I can't say enough how much I dig this raid. Super fun fights. Intriguing story. Absolutely awesome looking gear. Beautiful environment. It has it all. Plus, this raids minion drop is definitely a chase for me. I set my job change buttons to include the Emet-Selch snap emote and a minion matching the job. Alphi for SGE, Haurchefant for PLD, etc. Being a DNC main, I never had a good match until now. I'll definitely throw myself at this raid over and over until I get her.

I feel like the sundering of the star played a part in the twelve being here. How that all happened is still a mystery, and I can't wait to find out.

Duude i can't wait for you to do more side content in the game from previous expansion. You're gonna have a blast!

@7:55 In particular, I'm sure it'll come up in an interview or live letter, I am 100% certain for this 24man in particular, they want to give EVERY single one of The Twelve a suitably epic encounter, where they each feel like they could contend for the big spectacle final boss. Compared to other raids where certain bosses clearly have more spectacle and significance. Like Alphascape compared to Deltascape and Sigmascape. For Alphascape, all 4 encounters were very significant. But for the first two tiers, the non-final bosses just didn't have the same degree of spectacle, aside from Phantom Train and that boss got love for being such a fan favorite meme.

The alliance raids, don’t get enough appreciation. As a player of both games wow and ffxiv, wows LFR can seriously learn a whoooooooooole lot from FFXIVs Alliance Raids.

Oh wow I thought you had finished the previous alliance raids. You gotta get in there, they are all so great! But yeah this one in particular is a banger 🔥

I loved this alliance raid - the spectacle, the mechanics, the fact that I forgot to turn down party spell effects and couldn't see half of the markers first time I ran it.

So what I like to do while dungeoning/raiding so I can actually see the boss model is to angle the camera facing above my character because most tells will be from the boss poses .... It helps a lot

If I recall correctly, in 5.2 they mentioned that venat had a following when she became hydaelyn. If anything the simplest and most reasonable conclusion is that the 12 were her followers. What they're doing is the bigger question

I beleive the second astral era was characterized by how predominant faith was. So dominant was it, to the point that it eventually spiraled out of control to the third umbral calamity. Here's some text describing the era: "The Second Astral Era followed the Second Umbral Era and was characterized by faith in the gods. Through primitive magicks did mankind endure until the skies had finally parted-those showing proficiency in these esoteric techniques rising to positions of power within the communities. The people were drawn to these charismatic leaders who accredited the fall of the previous era with the faithless kings and their unquenchable avarice. They claimed that only through faith and power would they be saved from a similar fate, and thus were the first organized religions born." This probably does not mean the twelve "appeared" during the second era, but that maybe they made themselves known during this time. We know so little about the eras before the third with the allagans, it would be amazing if this raid helped flesh out the first and second era a bit more that just some text on a wiki page about the first being industrial and the second being theocratic.

My favorite bit with the storyline of the Raid, is they tried to be all big and scary, cause they figured it was the only way to get you to fight them. Then after they seemed so apologetic, but also bonus points for Azemya, Sun Mom and she was totally hyped after that brawl. (I laughed that they called her out for that. XD) I like thinking that my WoL just stood there before being like ".. You could have just asked to throw hands? I legit fought my 'best friend' because he came to the edge of the universe just to fist fight with me. I'd be SO down to throw hands with gods!"

I'd recommend the Nier raid tier after if you haven't done them, they were exceptional honestly, especially if you've played the Nier games and enjoyed them then it's even better. I feel like this first raid of this series beats the first raid of the Nier series but I don't think they'll ever be able to top the final raid of the Nier series, that was a masterpiece imo

My theory is that they're Auspices. But they're Auspices of *people* . Bryergot is obviously, from his proportions, Roegadyn. I know there are *familial* relationships between some of the gods, but I'm not very clear on who was related to who. I think that they are Auspices, possibly from just *after* Hydaelyn's Sundering. After all, the Auspices in the Four Lords storyline are the only other time I've seen them render NPCs using *minions* as stand-ins.

Really loved your take on this raid, subbed for sure. Also the complexity of playing your class correctly and right on top of all the things you mentioned... this shit is hard lol not 8 man savage hard but its hard

In your gameplay video segments, I noticed you had your character centered on screen (the default settings). Try raising the camera so your player model is lower on the screen so you can see more of what's above you so you can keep the boss in frame and read mechanics a bit more clearly. You can change this by using the /tiltcamera x command. I believe default is around 30 or so, and I have my tiltcamera setting set to 69 (nice).

yes man. "In the balance" is such a banger!

You can press Shift + Ctrl + Up curser key and you will reposition the camera so that you can see more of the boss.

This might be my favorite alliance raid aesthetically so far, but mechanically I LOVED the Shadowbringers alliance raid. Learning those mechanics and doing them perfectly is super satisfying.

Loving the new format of video - - Not sure if Bell reads the comments ever but try setting your 3rd person camera angle to around 40% and see if it helps you in raids, lets you have a bit more vertical vision.

Omg… the Opo-Opi! There is one tiny creature missing when I was walking around!!!!

Might want to pitch your camera up some, so that you can see the boss model and things in the skybox better. Feels like you have a lot of deadzone on the bottom half of your screen

Super fun fights especially for the first 3. The last one felt more toned down after the first 3.

And this is only the first tier! Usually the third is the best by a good margin, so I'm extremely excited for the future parts! No surprise they really went all out for this one. These are the Twelve we're talking about, finally getting to see what they're all about after a decade of story! That being said, go check out all the other alliance raids, basically all of them are winners. The Nier ones are awesome!

the Thal's Balls mechanic rocks kek!

There are savage tier "alliance raids". They are Baldesion Arsenal in Eureka (ok, maybe more extreme than savage for this one) and Delubrum Reginae (Savage) in Bozja. Delubrum is an actual savage tier difficulty raid mechanically speaking, and also differs quite wildly from the normal version.