Graven Image 1
"Quick, now!" Make your peace with death! Because I'm making your death with all these pieces!
Upon pulling, Kefka will do a few auto attacks before casting Revolting Ruin III on the player with the highest aggro. This attack is a wide cone double tankbuster that is fired twice in quick succession, the first one hits the main aggro while the second one will attack the player with the 2nd highest aggro.
Kefka's tankbuste does not inflict any vulnerability, so the most popular way of resolving this across in PF is to have one tank take both attacks by kitchen sinking all their mitigations. Once the tankbuster marker appears on the MT, have the ST provoke immediately with stance on while the MT shirks, so that the MT naturally becomes the 2nd highest aggro.
| MT PoV | ST PoV |
|---|---|
Upon resolving the tankbuster, the ST should now be the player with the highest aggro.
Graven Image 1
Once the tankbuster is resolved, Kefka will reposition himself in the middle of the arena and cast Graven Image, which will cause the statue in the background to tether to either all supports or all DPS players. The tethered players will receive a knockback from the statue and this cannot be prevented with anti-kb.
More importantly though, Kefka will cast Mystery Magic after. This variant of Mystery Magic will shoot two cones in the opposing quadrants (blizzard) while simultaneously targetting each role group with either a stack marker or a spread marker.
| Spread | Stack | ||
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |
The main gimmick of this mechanic is that the attacks can be "fake", which you can identify by the orbs around Kefka becoming a question mark instead. If the attack is fake, then the attack will do exactly the opposite of what it telegraphed before: Spread will become stack instead and vice versa, and blizzard/lightning will target the safe areas while the telegraphed areas becomes safe instead.
This clownery from Kefka forces a double check on you in order to resolve the mechanic properly. So first, identify whether you have the tether or not. Second, identify what the telegraphs are. And finally, identify whether the fire, the blizzard or both attacks, are fake or not. If your role group is tethered, then you must have already figured out where you have to go before the knockback happens in order to smoothly resolve this mechanic. Using Sprint is recommended here.
Wave Cannon
After resolving the Mystery Magic, heal up and have your party must immediately spread out in a horizontal line. The reason being that the graven statue will fire a Wave Cannon at two random support and two random DPS players, which will create a tower each at the beamed players which the players themselves cannot soak.
 | |||
| Tower soak priority | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| West |         | East | |
The cannon will hit two random players in each role group, so the goal here is to spread out so that the beam doesn't clip any other players by accident. Once the beamed players are identified, have the players who did not get beamed soak the towers of their own role group in order to resolve this mechanic.
Double-trouble Trap
While your attention was focused on the beams and towers, Kefka himself was casting Double-trouble Trap, which will inflict a debuff on a random player, one in each role group. This introduces another major mechanic which will span across the whole entirety of Phase 1.
| Debuff | Description | Additional notes |
|---|---|---|
 | More commonly known as Confetti due to how the debuff icon looks like. Once the timer of this debuff runs out, the player with this debuff will trigger a knockback effect which must be soaked by at least three people. The knockback cannot be nullified with anti-knockback and if the amount of people soaking the knockback is two or less, then this knockback will kill the players instead. The debuff will be passed onto a random player that was inside the stack once the knockback has been successfully resolved. If the knockback doesn't hit anyone, then while it will not kill anyone, it will also not count as having completed the mechanic. To be able to see Phase 3, your party must successfully complete this mechanic by passing the confetti around until the end of Phase 1. |  |
After soaking the towers, Kefka will cast another Mystery Magic, with this time being the ice/lightning variant. Identify immediately who the confetti players are and get ready to knockback each group through the middle to the other side of the arena. After the knockback, resolve the Mystery Magic by moving to the safe tiles, after double checking first whether Kefka's attacks are fake or not.
"Hahaha! Hook, line and stinker!
Once the dusts has settled, Kefka will use Light of Judgement to signal the end of the first major mechanic. Immediately right after the raidwide though, Kefka will use Hyperdrive three times to tankbuster the player with the highest aggro. This attack comes with no warning or cast, so position the ST or whoever didn't take the first tankbuster up north to deal with this sneak attack. As tank, kitchen sinking all your personal mitigations here is recommended.
A lot of the attacks happen in quick succession and Kefka's trolling does not make things easier. Below are some examples as reference as how the whole sequence plays out if done correctly.
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