DFOArchive: Bakal Raid Made Simple

This is a new raid that share entry limit with Total War. This is the content for your weapon fusion. This post will only go over briefly how this dungeon works and how to beat it. For full and complete information, visit this Season 8 Act 4: Bakal, the King of Dragons post.
This post was also made for 2023 Master of The Bakal Raid event. Here is my character and explorer club.

General Information

Unlike Prey-Isys, Sirocco, and Ozma, Bakal only has one phase, and technically any party can directly enter Bakal and start fighting him. If you defeat Bakal, the raid is over, pretty simple.
The issue here is that Bakal's HP gauge is locked at 55%, 30%, and 10%. In order to unlock these HP, you need to defeat the 3 main dragons. Each time you kill a giant dragon, one is unlocked, so you can't progress unless you kill the giant dragons.

Fear of the Dragon King Gauge: The gauge will fill up under the following conditions, reaching 100% (8,000 points) will fail the raid.

After the raid starts, the initial Bakal waiting time (2 minutes) ends or when you first enter the Bakal, the gauge fills up by 20 every 10 seconds. If there is no party entering the 'Dragon King's Blackout', it fills up more by 100 every 10 seconds.
When the generated advancing monsters reach the operational base, they rise significantly by 25% (similar to Fiend War).
After Spirazzi, Skasa, and Hismar wake up, the gauge fills up by 50 every 1 minute when not entering any of the dungeons. The dragon will wake up at 1 / 15 / 30 minutes.

Raid User Interface

Click on the different tabs on the Slide below to familiar yourself with the raid map.

These are the different routes where the paths are connected. Think of these like shortcuts in Fiend War that help you travel around the map quickly.

During dungeon, your mini map will look like this

These are different way point that help you travel around the map. Initially, you can only travel between the 3 camp sites. As you defeat the gatekeeper, their location will also available to travel as well.

Similar to Total War, when a dragon wake up, these are the area that will apply the debuff (e.g. Stun, Poison, Freeze)
You can grab region debuff immunity from defeating various gatekeeper and mini-boss through out the map.

There are 4 gatekeepers, one for each dragon and one for Bakal. Even if they are defeated, they respawn periodically.
All Gatekeeper except for Chilling Gerda will periodically spawn Troop. Remember that if these troops reach camps, the Fear of the Dragon King Gauge will increase tremendously.
Gatekeepers and mini-bosses will provide various buffs when defeated

Spawned by all Gatekeeper except for Chilling Gerda. Don't let these reach the camps.

General Approach

So you have to defeat all 3 dragons to unlock Bakal's HP. The trick here is that when the dragons wake up, they will give you huge debuff. In Total War, all you have to do is to kill the mini-boss within their regions. In Bakal raid, it's not the case.
You have to look at your map and see which gatekeeper or mini-boss carry the corresponding debuff immunity. For example, Skasa wakes up first, and in the mini map, Impish Swan and Fairy Dragon Nympha carry the freeze debuff immunity. Sage Dragon Zhamir will always carry special buff the allow you to be immune to all dragon debuffs.

Here is a list of various buffs you can find around the map, killing the mini-boss and dragons will give you these buffs:

Icon	Description
	For 480 seconds, unaffected from Skasa's debuff
	For 480 seconds, unaffected from Hismar's debuff
	For 480 seconds, unaffected from Spirazzi's debuff
	For 360 seconds, Skasa Damage +30%, Bakal Damage +20%
	For 360 seconds, Hismar Damage +30%, Bakal Damage +20%
	For 360 seconds, Spirazzi Damage +30%, Bakal Damage +20%
	For 300 seconds, unaffected from all dragon debuff
	For 360 seconds, all defense +10%
	For 360 seconds, cooldown Recovery Speed +10%
	Give a random buff
	Increase consumable limit by 5
	Sarah Wayne Encourages Adventurers. Immune To All Status Ailments For 60 Seconds. (The Dragon's Special Attack Cannot Be Blocked.)
	Rosa Jurgen Will Start Supplying Immediately. Allow The Use Of Life Token 3 Additional Times.
	The Spitfire Flow Fires Back The Adventurer. Increases Damage By 20% For 30 Seconds.
	Coalition Commander Irene Prays For The Allied Forces. Becomes Invincible For 10 Seconds.
	Juvenil Assists The Operational Retreat. Return Immediately Without Penalty.

Here's gatekeeper and mini-boss respawn time: Generally speaking, Gatekeepers spawn about every 15 mins and mini-bosses spawn about every 5 minutes.

Icon	Description
	- 5 seconds when retreating after battle, - 1 minute during normal times
	- 5 seconds when retreating after battle, - 1 minute during normal times
	- First respawn 1 minute 5 seconds - Later respawn 15 minutes - He only appears for 5 minutes and then disappears, so you must catch him in time.
	- First respawn 6 minutes 5 seconds - Later respawn 15 minutes - He only appears for 10 minutes and then disappears
	- First respawn 5 minutes 5 seconds - Later respawn 15 minutes - He only appears for 10 minutes and then disappears
	Respawn time 5 minutes
	Respawn time 14 minutes 30 seconds
	Respawn time 5 minutes
	Respawn time 14 minutes 30 seconds
	Respawn time 5 minutes
	Respawn time 14 minutes 30 seconds
	Respawn time 14 minutes 30 seconds

That's basically it, here's Bakal in 1 sentence: Pick up appropriate buffs to kill 3 dragons to unlock Bakal HP without getting the gauge to 100%.

Example Strategy

I'm sure this example is not perfect, but I hope it at least illustrate the basic concept of Bakal raid. Really it just boiled down to everyone rotate entering Bakal, Dragon, grabbing buffs, stopping troop as needed. If the video move too fast, feel free to click to pause it.

Other Things

The non-dotted path on the map is considered one dungeon, and only one party can enter it at a time. you will see the patch filled with the team's color

If you defeat the gatekeeper of Bakal and the three dragons, those location will turn into temporary base where you can use Port to fast travel to.
These temporary base will also recover your coins and consumable usage count. If the party has less than 2 coins available and less than 5 consumables usage count, The coin usage increases to 2, and consumables usage count increases to 5. The dead party member is also resurrected, and buffer's resurrection skill count is reset.

Boss Mechanics

References

YouTube - 히카리타마

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