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Alexander - The Burden of the Son, known by players as A8 or M4, is the final turn of the 
Raid Alexander: Midas in Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward.
Story[]
Normal[]
You have delved into the deepest parts of Midas, and its power source lies but a short distance ahead. For the sake of Idyllshire, and Roundrox, you must disable the core before Alexander awakes to wreak havoc on the realm. Your allies stand at the ready—steel yourself to break through the Illuminati's last line of defense.
In-game Description
Savage[]
Sometimes even the most thrilling tale can benefit from slight embellishment, and the wandering minstrel's reimagining of your foray into Midas—while stretching the bounds of believability—proves to be even more invigorating than your memory of it. A memory you must relive in order to compare...
In-game Description
Objectives[]
- Defeat Onslaughter: 0/1
Progression[]
The Burden of the Son consists of a boss gauntlet in a single room.
First the party faces Onslaughter, a robot which attacks the tank with Perpetual Ray, inflicting Vulnerability stacks and dealing heavy damage. It also fires a line AoE, Mega Beam, at a random party member, as well as casting Discoid — but unlike The Manipulator's Discoid, if these orbs hit their target, they instantly kill him, and so they must be intercepted by party members.
After some time, Onslaughter casts Execution, spawning four Steam Regulators. These must be destroyed or the party will be inflicted with Vulnerability Up and Damage Down stacks for each add remaining when the cast completes.
When Onslaughter is defeated, it flies away and drops two of the bosses from the Cuff of the Son: Brawler and Vortexer. Each tank should pick up one boss| mechanics are similar to how they were two turns ago, except that Vortexer does not use Compressed Water or Ultra Flash.
After Vortexer and Brawler are defeated, the High and Low Arithmeticks floor pattern from Machinery Bay 69 forms and Blaster and Swindler spawn. Swindler still uses Bio-Arithmeticks and Enumeration, while Blaster continuously spawns clones, just as they did when they were last fought.
Once all five robots are destroyed, they reform and fuse together to form Brute Justice. Brute Justice retains the ability to use Mega Beam, but drops Onslaughter's other attacks for a host of other mechanics:
- Long Needle and Apocalyptic Ray - Area-of-effect missiles fire and must be dodged, then the party must stack to split the damage of this arrow-like marker (recycled from King Thordan's Minstrel's Ballad encounter). After Long Needle explodes, Apocalyptic Ray casts, inflicting Vulnerability stacks and dealing heavy damage on anyone who does not run behind the boss.
- Double Rocket Punch - Brute Justice fires a tank buster which can be soaked by both tanks or the party.
- Super Jump - Brute Justice jumps on a random party member, doing splash damage which should be mitigated by splitting, anyone other than the initial target that gets hit will also be knocked back and stunned.
- J Kick - The boss deals proximity damage, then repeats several mechanics from the Cuff of the Son.
- Flarethrower - Brute Justice fires an area-of-effect attack near the tank.
- Short Needle - The entire party takes unavoidable damage.
Eventually, an Alarum announces that auto-clean will occur in 10 seconds, killing any surviving party members. This functions as the hard enrage of Normal difficulty.
On Savage difficulty, the encounter does not end when Brute Justice is defeated: the boss simply restores itself to full health, grows wings, and begins using a new set of mechanics. After a certain amount of time passes, the boss will engulf the room in fire and begin spinning rapidly, dealing increasingly heavier damage to the party with each tick. This mechanic is a burn phase and the soft enrage of Savage difficulty, similar to ADS' Object199.
Enemies[]
Normal[]
- Onslaughter (boss)
- Steam Regulator A
- Steam Regulator B
- Blaster
- Brawler
- Swindler
- Vortexer
- Brute Justice
Savage[]
- Onslaughter (boss)
- Steam Regulator A
- Steam Regulator B
- Blaster
- Brawler
- Swindler
- Vortexer
- Brute Justice
Loot[]
Normal[]
The following items also have a small probability of dropping:
Savage[]
The following items have a small chance of dropping:
Chests contain three of the following items:
Achievements[]
Players can obtain the following Achievements from completing the Burden of the Son:
Musical themes[]
Similar to the Burden of the Father, the ambient music in the Burden of the Son is "Metal" without vocals, which begin when the boss is pulled.
The music that plays when fighting Brute Justice is "Metal - Brute Justice Mode", which is a remix of "Locus" (the generic Alexander boss theme), and "Metal", done in the swing-jazz style of a late-70s or early-80s Super Robot theme song.
Trivia[]
- Brute Justice is a reference to The Transformers character Bruticus, with Brute Justice's five robot components being named after the Combaticons that combine to form Bruticus (Onslaught, Brawl, Blast Off, Swindle and Vortex).
Gallery[]
