Deus ESC-A Zephyros

Deus ESC-A Zephyros is a Phantom. It is the primary target of the Emergency Quest The Creator Phantom.

Story

Sir Ardem Sacred, wishing to create a new Earth through the evolution of the human race, has absorbed Mother to attain a god-like power through Ether. Using this power, he assumes the form of Deus ESC-A and summons the World Tree Yggdrasil in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of South America. However, through the combined efforts of the player, Hitsugi and their entourage, Ardem is defeated, and resigns to his fate. While he has come to terms with Earth not needing the change he once sought to bring, he warns Enga that through Ether's power to resonate with the minds and emotions of humans, Deus ESC-A will return.

Battle

The battle with Deus ESC-A Zephyros is split into three parts, which make up the latter half of the Emergency Quest.

Part 1

After about 5 seconds delay upon the first player loading in, Deus Hunas will appear and transform into Deus Angelus.

• Angelus shares most of its attacks with Hunas, but some new attacks are added (wide tornado) while some are removed (stun spikes).
• After taking significant damage, he will teleport to the middle of the map, outside of the arena, and an arena-wide blue AOE marker will appear on the ground; after a few seconds, a wave of vines will appear and hit all zones indicated by the marker, in a direction indicated by the direction of the pulsing light of the marker. This attack is very difficult to avoid and cannot be Guarded, but has blind spots located near the northern edges of the arena. These blind spots are denoted by no marker appearing underneath them. After the first wave passes, a second wave will appear shortly, with a new blind spot and coming from the opposite direction.
• Following the vine attack, the fight resumes as normal until Angelus is defeated.
• Upon defeat, a cutscene plays where Angelus transforms into Deus ESC-A Zephyros for Part 2.

Part 2

Part 2 is divided into three different phases.

General Battle Notes

• Weakness: /
• Enemy Classification: Phantom
• Throughout the battle, Deus ESC-A will use the following attacks:
  • Sweeps his blade across the arena from west to east. Slow, but hits the entire field and deals massive damage and will knock anyone hit upwards.
  • Smashes his sword twice into the arena.
  • Stabs his sword down into the arena, then moves the blade while it's still attached to the ground, drawing an "N" pattern with it.
  • Summons spikes that erupt from the ground, indicated by markers. This attack draws "claw slash" marks on the ground. After about half a second, the slashes sprout vines that cause damage and knock anyone hit by them upwards. While the vines are still in the field, a second claw slash pattern will appear and spawn more vines almost immediately after the previous vines despawn.
    • This can be Just Guarded by facing the direction where the claw slash pattern spreads out from (face where the marks are closer together). It can also be avoided by staying in between each "claw" mark so that the vines don't spawn below you, or dodging at the correct time as the vine spawns.
• During Phases 1 and 2 only, Deus ESC-A will additionally use the following attacks:
  • Smashes fist into the arena.
  • Drags a hand wreathed in lightning across the arena directly in front of him while sending out a wave of bolts.
• To progress phases, the current serpent heads must be attacked until a shroud of thorns covers them. When all the serpent heads are damaged, they will move into position and hold orbs in their mouths while firing projectiles. Breaking the orbs on all available serpent heads will stun Zephyros and allow you to attack his core directly. Failure to break all the orbs will result in a large explosion.
  • Serpent heads count as breakables for the purposes of Break Stance.

Phase 1

• The battle starts on a portion of the map with three serpent heads and Deus ESC-A.
• Serpent heads will use the following attacks:
  • Shoots lightning bolts that travel across the field.
  • Slithers into the air, then stabs into the ground with its head.
  • Charges at players by rushing with its head.
• After dealing enough damage to the core, players will be launched off Deus ESC-A, and he will charge a powerful sword strike. This attack will destroy the middle portion of the arena, and instantly kill any players caught in the strike. This attack can be avoided by running away far enough to either side of the arena before the attack is used. After this attack, Phase 2 will begin on smaller divided sections of the original field.

Phase 2

• From here on, the battlefield is split into left and right "sides". Depending on your location following the OHKO sword strike, you will end up on either the left or right side. This splits the multiparty into two, smaller groups.
• Similar to Phase 1, each "side" has to deal with four serpent heads (8 total).
  • Should one "side" finish faster than the other, they will be launched to the side that isn't complete after dealing enough damage to the core.
  • If both "sides" finish at approximately the same time, players are sent to phase 3 and are not launched away from the core to finish a remaining "side".
• Upon finishing the Phase, players are automatically launched to a new arena without the old one being destroyed.

Phase 3

• Zephyros will expose his chest core while sprouting wings. No serpent heads are encountered during this Phase.
• In addition to the normal attacks, Zephyros will use the following attacks:
  • Waves his hand across from east to west of the arena while dropping yellow dust, then waves back from west to east while dropping lightning bolts closer to himself that spread to the back. Zephyros exposes his core during this attack, and has a short delay period after the attack finishes, with the core standing at the east side of the arena during this delay.
  • Smashes his fist twice on the arena, heavily damaging and stunning anyone hit, while summoning 1 wide spike every punch. Zephyros exposes his core the longest after this attack.
  • Waves his hand in the air and summons light projectiles, similarly to Quartz Dragon's and Greuzoras Drago's light projectiles attacks, but bigger and easier to see.
• Zephyros follows a pattern of "hand wave > other attack > fist smash > other attack > hand wave" during this phase. Knowing this pattern is vital to figuring out where you should and shouldn't be during the remainder of the fight.
• Due to the standing pose of Zephyros during this phase, his core is protected by his hands and sword that are in front of it. However, it is possible to stay locked on if the player is hugging the northern edge of the arena. This allows for certain long range attacks that ignore obstacles or pass through them (such as End Attraction, Ilbarta, Grants or Namegid) to hit the core. Depending on his movement, the lockon might be removed, however.
• Dealing enough damage will stun Zephyros briefly. While stunned, Zephyros' chest core drops to the ground, allowing players to engage in a full-frontal assault.

Part 3

When Phase 3 is defeated, the game transitions to a cutscene where Zephyros summons rings and aims at the moon, then fires a beam from his sword to destroy the Moon from below. This starts Part 2.

• Players have 5 minutes to defeat Deus ESC-A Zephyros. If time expires before Zephyros is defeated, the Quest will fail.
  • This timer does not change based on group size.
• Zephyros has roughly 20,000,000 HP on Extra Hard during this portion. As with the timer, this HP amount does not scale to group size either.
  • Note that this value used to be 30,000,000 HP prior to the 4/26/17 maintenance.
• When the battle begins, all eight serpent heads appear and attack players. All the serpent heads must be defeated before Deus ESC-A can be attacked directly.
  • This time, the serpents move a lot more, and are more aggressive. Dealing enough damage will cause their heads to fall, indicating the death of that serpent. Dead serpents will not respawn.
• When the serpent heads are defeated, Deus ESC-A engages in battle. He uses all of the attacks available to him in Phase 3 of Part 2, with noticeable enhancements.
  • Most generic attacks have boosted execution speed.
  • The punch attack now summons a 3rd spike attack about half a second after his core is exposed. Since most players will converge to the core as soon as the 2nd punch is done, this last spike will often happen very close to the core.
  • The double sword smash is now followed up by a powerful, third sword smash, which has a charge period.
  • The sword sweep is followed up with a charged stab attack.
• This is otherwise identical to Phase 3 of Part 2 in execution, utilizing the same attacks and patterns.
• When Zephyros is nearly defeated, he will become stunned, enabling players to finish him off.
  • Zephyros' stun phase lasts roughly 30 seconds. If he is not defeated during stun, he will get up and use a sword sweep that instantly kills all players.

Drops

As with ESC-A Falz Mother, the drops are decided at the moment he dies, not when the crystal is broken. As such, all rare drop rate boosts must be activated before Zephyros is killed.