FFXIV Shadowbringers Guide: Eden’s Promise: Umbra (2024)

Eden’s Promise: Umbra is the first encounter of the third 8-man, normal raid content released with Patch 5.4 of Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers. It’s available at level 80 by finishing the Main Scenario Quest Reflections in Crystal and unlocked by the quest Fear of the Dark. It can be completed via the duty finder with a minimum ilvl of 510 and rewards tokens of Lost Antiquity for each gear type, which can be turned in to Yahl Yal at (10.1-11.5) in The Canopy, Eulmore. Ghul Gul at (26.6-16.4) in Mord Souq, Ahm Araeng will also exchange tokens of Lost Antiquity for gear.

For the sake of your fellow players, please remember that this is new content (at the time of this publication). A little friendly explanation can go a long way. Similarly, don’t be afraid to take advice. You may learn something you didn’t know.

Cloud of Darkness

Our memory seems to have gotten better on this particular recollection— minus the scale, I suppose. Watch out for the fenceless edges. This one has a lot of little, repeating phases.

Phase 1

• Ground-razing Particle Beam – An arena-wide, unavoidable AoE.
• The Art of Darkness – One of Cloud of Darkness’ 2 tentacles, (or, as I like to call them, chompy buddies), will glow with dark energy. Avoid the corresponding side of the arena. Getting hit by this will not only do damage, but also knock you back. This ability is cast in tandem with others later, so keep an eye out for it.
• Wide-angle Particle Beam – The boss with turn to random player an cast a conal AoE covering about a third of the arena.
• Zero-form Particle Beam – A tank buster.

Phase 2

• Empty Plane – Cloud of Darkness re-centers herself and transforms the arena, dividing the floor into a 5×5 tile grid. This cast also does arena-wide damage.
• Flood of Emptiness (1) – She places a small, square AoE indicator on the center tile, and at each of the 4 corners. The center becomes an instant death zone and the 4 corners fall off. This cast also applies Cloying Condensation, which prevents players from jumping. This keeps you from simply jumping to reset the count down before the tile under your feet disappears. When a player steps on a tile it will glow with a thin, yellow border. This is still a safe tile! When a player stands on a tile for too long, the border becomes a thicker, pink zig-zag pattern, and the tile will disappear, dropping them to their doom. Move off the tile before the effect triggers. Players can, and should, consolidate onto as few tiles as possible and try and move together to avoid catching one another with pink tiles. If a tile does disappear, it will return. If you’re curious what they look like, or how you might manage stacking with other players, here’s a peek:

• Ground-razing Particle Beam
• The Art of Darkness

Phase 3

• Obscure Woods – Cloud of Darkness changes the arena again, also doing arena-wide damage.
• Flood of Obscurity – This cast is a combination mechanics:
  • A knock-back from the center going outward. Knock-back nullifiers will work here, but if you don’t/can’t use one, make sure to avoid being knocked into:
  • Eight AoE puddles drop at all cardinal and off-cardinal points at the edges of the arena.
  • The 8 puddles turn into void plants in a tangle of thorns. Stepping on these brier patches will apply Stygian Tendrils, which slows and poisons you, but only while on the thorns. Each of these plants will tether to a player and you must run away from the plant to break the vine. You can bait which plant tethers to you by standing close to it before the line forms. Tanks can use this tidbit of info to keep the boss centered in the arena, which is important for the next mechanic. If you fail to break the vine in time, the plant will yank you into the briars and pulse with damage. While the pulse alone may not kill you, if you happen to be hit by the next mechanic then your chances of survival are slim.

• The Art of Darkness
• Wide-angle Phaser – Cloud of Darkness’ chomp-buddies will… chomp… onto a tree on a random arena side. At the end of the cast, she snaps back to that tree edge and fires a beam that covers all, but 2 slim, conal safe zones to either side of her. These zones are very small. How small you ask? This small:

• Rejuvenating Balm – The boss will tether to 2 trees on opposing sides of the arena that will generate huge, circular AoEs centered on them. These leave only 2 small, triangular safe spaces on perpendicular sides of the arena that still happen to have brier patches in them, making the actual safe floor space even smaller. This time it’s ok to stand in any open part of these triangles, but in future mechanic combos, only half the triangle will be safe.

Phase 4

• Deluge of Darkness – Cloud of Darkness returns the arena to its original state. This also does arena-wide damage.
• Zero-form Particle Beam
• Particle Concentration – Four puddles will appear with orbs of energy dropping down toward them. Each only needs one player in it to keep it from exploding when the orb hits the floor. If an orb puddle does explode, it does high damage to the raid. The main tank should not do this mechanic in order to keep Cloud of Darkness lined up from north to south for the next mechanic:
• The Art of Darkness

Phase 5

• Empty Plane
• Flood of Emptiness (2) – In addition to its previous mechanics, this now spawns 2 Hypercharged Clouds on opposite sides of the arena.
• Hypercharged Condensation – At the end of this cast, the Hypercharged Clouds will begin moving toward the boss. Just like in her World of Darkness fight, you can slow these clouds by standing front of them. DPS them down before they make it to her or they will ???.
• Summon – She summons 2 green copies of herself that fire laser beams across 2 of the outer edges of the platform.
• Anti-air Particle Beam – A large, circular AoE forms, centered in the arena under Cloud of Darkness. This form before the copies have fired their beams, so the 2 mechanics in combination only leave 2 3-block spaces on either side of the arena safe.
• The Art of Darkness
• Ground-razing Particle Beam

Phase 6

• Obscure Woods
• Flood of Obscurity
• Wide-angle Phaser
• Rejuvenating Balm + The Art of Darkness – As mentioned above, because these 2 are in combination, only half of Rejuvenating Balm‘s triangle is left safe by The Art of Darkness. To start, stay in the small, central triangle. Once the glowing indicator for The Art of Darkness shows up you can do 1 of 2 things:
  • Either stand in the tiny central triangle and try to inch left and or right to avoid both AoEs.
  • Or run quickly through the brier circle to the larger safe zone. You’ll get the Stygian Tendrils debuff, but it will fall off as soon as you exit the thorns. If you have the time, you can also run through the large AoE circle.

Phase 7

• Deluge of Darkness
• The Art of Darkness
• Ground-razing Particle Beam
• Zero-form Particle Beam
• Phases 5, 6, & 7 repeat in sequence until the boss’ defeat.

Congratulations, you’ve completed Eden’s Promise: Umbra! For more information on what drops from this encounter, you can go to our wiki page.

Check out the guides for Eden’s Promise: Litany, Eden’s Promise: Anamorphosis, and Eden’s Promise: Eternity.