Mission Requirements:
Score 830k | Clear without any KOs | Clear within 90 turns | Take 15000 or less HP damage
Featured Characters: Sazh, Raijin, Firion, Rosa, Ashe, Tidus
Many team ideas with and without boosted characters are available in this event’s Call to Arms!
Fight Overview & Team building
This is an extremely difficult and restrictive fight, but it is permanent content. Do not worry if you lack certain characters to complete it yet; you can always come back later with a stronger roster. The limited time rewards are just 6 tickets, hardly worth the trouble. For an easier time, just come back with a better team in a month or so. ;)
Recommended:
- Turn delayers for the cheese strat (read the full boss description for an explanation).
- Gravity damage or other strong BRV shavers to help deal with the Luminous Barrier.
- High single target damage. I cannot stress this enough, this boss has absurd levels of defense and HP.
- Thunder Enchanters and Thunder-based damage dealers to increase your team’s output. Otherwise, bring your best support to make up for the DEF and BRV damage reduction.
- Free turn users to help keep turn count down and reach the strict score requirement, since the boss is immune to knockback.
- Healers are almost mandatory to recover from the frequent ALL attacks.
Avoid:
- Launchers since the boss is completely immune to being launched, invalidating a part of their kit.
- HP attack disable as a strategy… even if Kefka and Arciela are still very good characters for the fight, regardless.
- Debuffers will be at a disadvantage because the boss cleanses regularly and can get Elude
Summon options:
- Any, depending on your team’s needs. Ramuh and Diabolos will exploit elemental weaknesses.
Wave 1: Alexander
Alexander cannot be knocked back/launched.
Luminous Barrier (every time recast gauge is filled):
– cleanses all debuffs (even framed)
– gains a HUGE amount of BRV (multiple times after the first recast)
– becomes immune to delay (except from Breaks) until it casts Divine Judgment
If Luminous Barrier is Broken:
– casts Divine Judgment, group BRV+HP attack
– applies [Sanctuary] to the field for 2 turns (increases Alexander’s DEF).
If Luminous Barrier is not Broken:
– cleanses all debuffs (even framed) again
– casts Divine Judgment+, a stronger group BRV+HP attack with guaranteed hit
– applies [Sanctuary+] to the field for 2 turns (grants Alexander Evasion, increases its DEF, blocks BRV gain on your party).
| BRV Attack |     attack |
| Holy Light |  attack |
| Sacred Flame | attack; inflicts  3T SPD Down |
| Divine Reckoning | attack; grants  3T Elude (reduces chance of receiving debuffs) |
| Gavel of Justice |  attack; grants 3T Shield |
| Exculpation | recovers from Break; attack + attack |
| Limiter Removed… | Used when a certain amount of turns have passed; reduces BRV damage taken by 90%; raises ATK, DEF, SPD |
Divine Judgment | Recast ability; increases BRV if below INT BRV; attack + attack;applies 2T [Sanctuary] to field (increases Alexander’s DEF) |
| Divine Judgment+ | Recast ability;- increases BRV; powerful attack + attack;guaranteed hit; applies 2T [Sanctuary+] to field (increases Alexander’s DEF and Evasion rate, also prevents enemies from restoring BRV) |
Radiating a divine aura…: Raises ATK, DEF, SPD, INT BRV, MAX BRV (activates at 80% HP)
Further radiating a divine aura…: Raises ATK, DEF, SPD, INT BRV, MAX BRV more (activates at 50% HP)
Enrage: Probably pretty angry to begin with. Imagine being spanked hundreds of times for board XP.
Reminder, again:
This is permanent content. If you are reading this guide during the event launch and you lack the characters to complete it easily now, you can always wait until you form a stronger team and return later with no penalty.
With that said, there are several ways to complete this fight: the cheese way, the intended (?) way, and the solo way.
🧀 Cheese Delay strategy
Never let the boss have a turn. It’s that simple. Regardless if you break the Luminous Barrier or not, if it is used the [Sanctuary] effect will be active in the field, increasing Alex’s DEF. If you bring a heavy delayer team, you can keep Alexander from acting altogether; without the increase in defense, it is possible to bring a team focused on delay/free turns and eat through that huge pile of HP before running out of skills.
For this, you will want to make use of a Leo friend and call him as soon as possible, so that he applies his debuff on the boss (increasing damage of single target skills) and pushes Alexander’s turns way back, giving your team a head start. Don’t use his EX, just spam Master Blade. Friend Leo will also cause much more damage himself if called at the beginning of the fight, before the boss gains stats increases as its HP lowers.
Some example teams using this strategy, taken from the Call to Arms for this event:
Leo/Aranea/Aphmau
Lightning/Vayne/Sazh
Leo/Lightning/Raijin
Leo/Aranea/Sazh
Leo/Lightning/Garnet
Lightning/Vayne/Penelo
🧀 The “Nacho Cheese” strategy
You caaaan let the boss have a few turns… and still cheese it. It’s not as easy to pull off as the delay strategy, but it’s a good alternative if you lack good delayers. That’s where Eald’narche comes in. If you build a strong enough team around him, the Terror debuff can be used to shut down Alexander for most of the fight. This strategy does not rely on delay units, but instead on units with high damage and free turns, as well as good battery, regen or INT BRV boosts to help increase the damage of Eald’narche’s HP+ attacks.
The trick consists of spamming Eald’narche’s Uranos Cascade while Alexander goes through its first recast phase, making sure to break the Luminous Barrier to avoid the “+” version of Divine Judgment. Then, when it creates the second Luminous Barrier, use Phase Shift to lock Alex for two turns. During Luminous Barrier it will always target , guaranteeing that [Terror] will paralyze him. After the first Terror debuff ends, use Eald’narche’s AA followed by his EX to inflict 4 turns of terror, and from then on juggle his HP+ and skills trying to get the EX up whenever you need to apply Terror again. Save the summon and friend use as an emergency button for when it becomes impossible to keep Alex locked in terror. Here is an example from DFFOO GL SO:
💀 The intended strategy
If you don’t abuse delays and free turns, Alexander will get to cast Luminous Barrier. That is very bad news, as it is the most overloaded recast ability we have seen in the game so far. It poses a challenge: you need to shave 50k BRV after the bar is filled and before the boss gets its next action. If you don’t, the attack will be much stronger and a guaranteed hit, it will also cleanse all debuffs from the boss and [Sanctuary+] to the field for 2 turns (gives Alexander Evasion, blocks BRV gain on the party, increases Alexander’s DEF).
The worst part? It gets harder. The second time the ability is used, you will need to shave 65k BRV twice. Every recast after that? It’s 99999 BRV three times in a row. And no, you can’t delay the boss to gain some time, as it becomes immune to delays while charging the attack. Either you bring enough damage, gravity attacks, instant breaks and/or free turns to fulfill this condition every time, or the fight becomes much much harder for your team. Not only will you have to somehow survive a devastating group attack with guaranteed hit, but the other consequences make it much harder to shave the boss later through its Evasion.
Even if you have the means to shave Alexander every time, the fight is still far from easy. Alexander is blazing fast for a robot of that size, sometimes even getting two turns in a row if you don’t deal with it; and after getting a recast off, or going below 50% HP, its defense goes through the roof. Unless you bring a good combination of damage and supports, your damage will drop sharply by the end of the fight. If you plan to use delayers (especially a Leo friend) midway through the fight, it’s best to wait until Alexander has taken 2 turns after the Divine Judgment, so that the [Sanctuary] effect drops and your attacks will be more effective while it is delayed.
Important: you must avoid being broken at all costs, especially later in the fight. Not only does Alexander have very potent BRV+HP attacks, it will also fill up the recast bar much faster if it breaks you. You want to maximize the amount of time you have to do damage between each recast.
🐙 Solo strategy with tentacles
Cloud of Darkness can solo this fight. Like with most solos, this requires a perfectly built and maxed out character and is NOT the easiest option, it is mostly recommended if you want to try it as a personal challenge. Here is an example from Vayne Novus (more information in the video description; keep CoD’s speed passives on to avoid turn order problems at the start of the fight):
⚡️ Solo strategy with sparks
Lightning can solo this fight. Like with most solos, this requires a perfectly built and maxed out character and is NOT the easiest option, it is mostly recommended if you want to try it as a personal challenge. This solo might require you hours of resets to accomplish. Here is an example from g.stew (more information in the video description):