2021 First Timers Guide: Syrcus Tower

Syrcus Tower is the second raid in the Crystal Tower Alliance Raid series from A Realm Reborn. In my opinion this is the fastest and easiest of the three when level synced, which means you’ll see a lot of high level players farming it for certain steps of their Shadowbringers Resistance Weapon quest.

For newer players keen to pull their weight, older guides they read or watch will have a ton of information rendered irrelevant due to experienced players safely ignoring specific fight tactics or skipping past boss phases with their high DPS.

My goal with this series of guides is to give you the information most relevant to how the content is played currently, and tips to help you still contribute meaningfully to the raid’s success. For each section, a couple of notes will tell you everything you need to know about playing the encounter as your chosen role. Below these I’ll put any other notes on the fight.

Dungeon Mobs – Clear the Ladder of Ascension

Tank

– Pick up a few adds and bring them all together for AoE damage.

Healer

– The Yellow Dragon casts some raidwide damage, and keep an eye out for DPS who have aggro or take cleave damage.

DPS

– Avoid standing in front of the Yellow Dragon’s cleave attacks.

Boss Fight – Scylla

– Purple lightning tethers should be taken to the closest electrical pillar to avoid raid damage. Maximum three per pillar, indicated by colored rings around them.

– Blue ice tethers will freeze you. Make sure you aren’t standing in a water puddle or you’ll freeze players around you as well.

– Red fire tethers should be pulled to any frozen player to thaw them and create a water puddle.

– During Scylla’s Ancient Flare cast, you can stand in a water puddle to reduce its damage (not strictly necessary if you’re level synced).

Tank

– There’s an occasional untelegraphed cleave on the Main Tank.

Healer

– Party members may be out of range of your group heals as they move to far away pillars and avoid various AoEs.

– Keep an eye on the party list for teammates that are frozen and throw an extra regen or shield their way.

DPS

– Scylla has a point blank AoE you can avoid at max melee range while still attacking.

This fight has a lot of mechanics that are completely skipped over nowadays. The only mechanic you need to learn is the orb tethers. Scylla usually dies shortly after the Ancient Flare cast.

Dungeon Mobs – Clear the Braid

– After the first set of mobs is killed, a Green Dragon will land in the center, knocking nearby players back.

Tank

– After the Green Dragon lands watch for Doga and Unei Clones to spawn behind the group and pick up aggro.

Healer

– There’s a bit of poison damage from the Green Dragon.

DPS

– Stun the Doga’s Clone and Unei’s Clone adds with Leg Sweep to mitigate damage while you wait for the Tanks to take aggro.

Boss Fight – Glasya Labolas

– Ignore the Clockwork Wrights when they spawn. Do not stand in the electrical bubble around them or you’ll be frozen.

This is another boss where you won’t see many of the original mechanics. The Clockwork Wright adds can be completely ignored since the boss will die so quickly. Standing in the circle around the add will put you in stasis so be sure to move away if one spawns next to you.

Dungeon Mobs – Clear the Golden Sacristy

– The first mobs die quickly, and then the Red Dragon will land, spawning two more adds.

– The large green marker on a player indicates the Red Dragon will divebomb them for AoE damage in a line.

Boss Fight – Amon

– Slime adds will spawn at the edges and should be killed quickly.

– Purple tethered orbs should be pulled into Kum Kum adds to shrink them.

– If you have a bomb debuff on you stay away from other players until it fades or is dispelled.

– If turned into a frog, stay away from snake adds while other players kill them.

– Break line of sight by hiding behind ice blocks during Curtain Call cast.

Tank

– Main Tank keeps Amon facing north since he has cleave attacks.

– Offtanks pick up the Kum Kum adds and kill them.

– Amon has a point-blank AoE you’ll need to move out of.

Healer

– If the Slime adds reach the boss the raid may be silenced, so help kill them and maybe precast a group regen or shield. oGCDs like Benediction, Lustrate, and Essential Dignity can still be used while silenced.

– Watch the party debuffs closely and use Esuna to dispel the bomb debuff on party members.

DPS

– You can stun the slime mobs with Leg Sweep or slow them with Leg Graze so you have more time to kill them.

– Amon has a point-blank AoE you’ll need to move out of.

– Bards can use The Warden’s Paean to help remove bomb debuffs on players.

This fight seems a little hectic the first time you run through it, but it’s pretty fast. Take out the slime adds before they reach Amon or the group will get an annoying debuff (silence or pacification). The players with purple orbs should try to bring them to a Kum Kum add to weaken it or else it will weaken the player when it reaches them.

The bomb debuff can be especially surprising since you may not even notice when you get it on you. Frogs technically have a fire AoE attack they can use, but it hurts allies (and breaks ice blocks) so it’s safest to just stay away from snakes and wait out the transformation debuff.

Boss Fight – Xande

– When yellow ground circles spawn, have one player in each to avoid raidwide damage.

– If marked with a purple AoE share the damage with other players.

– The purple AoEs leave behind a floating platform you can stand on to avoid the Ancient Quaga cast.

Tank

– Xande has a point-blank AoE you’ll need to move out of.

Healer

– You can Rescue players onto the levitation pad if they’re not moving to it.

DPS

– Ranged players should be ready to run to the yellow circles far from the boss.

– There’s a point-blank AoE Melee DPS will need to move out of.

The most common cause of death in this fight is not standing on the levitation pad during the Ancient Quaga attack which deals really high damage. Just go over to the purple AoE and stay there. After you’re back down on the ground there will be some large circle AoEs to run out of. Overall a very easy encounter.

As you’ll see when most players are synced down, it’s actually an extremely simple raid. There are only like 5 mechanics to know in the entire duty and the rest is standard ‘don’t stand in bad stuff’. You’ll have mastered it after a couple of runs, and then you’ll continue to see it in your roulettes until the end of time.