Crystal Tower
Crystal Tower is the level 50 24-player Alliance Raid series. The first instance, The Labyrinth of the Ancients, requires 3 full parties of 8 players with average iLvl (item level) of 55 or higher. To unlock the raid, players are required to start the questline by talking to the Outlandish Man at Mor Dhona (X:21.8 Y:8.1).
As of Patch 5.3, this raid series is required for the Main Scenario to progress past Patch 2.55 quest A Time to Every Purpose. For players past this point who did not complete the raid series before the requirement was added, completing it is required to begin the first quest of Patch 5.3,
In the Name of the Light.
- Crystal Tower is a dungeon from Final Fantasy III. It features the bosses of Final Fantasy III.
- CT or ct is the players' acronym for Crystal Tower, with the individual raids known as LotA, ST, and WoD respectively.
Story
“Ancient scriptures speak of a resplendent tower forged of crystal. Reaching to the heavens, this massive monolith is said to have been erected by the Allagans at the height of their prosperity. Long thought to be a legend from eras past, the fabled Crystal Tower has been freed from Hydaelyn's embrace, unearthed in the wake of the Calamity.
The Allagans' surpassing command of magic and technology fostered a civilization unlike any that preceded or followed. What then, could be the purpose of this crystalline construct, and what forgotten relics now stir within its walls? Those who would unravel these mysteries must first win their way through the Labyrinth of the Ancients, the perilous maze that leads to the entrance of the tower proper.
— Patch 2.1 Official Website
“Having bested the defenses of the Labyrinth of the Ancients, the fellowship of NOAH now stands before Syrcus Tower, the principal spire of Crystal Tower.
What dangers await inside its glittering crystalline walls?
— Patch 2.3 Official Website
“In the twilight of his reign, the first and last emperor of Allag, Xande, desired power above all else. He turned to the terrible being known as the Cloud of Darkness, a ruler of the void, and asked of her strength to make the world kneel before his throne with a covenant of blood.
When Xande was slain, his ambitions were laid to rest alongside him. Yet the Cloud of Darkness still seeks to enter the material realm, and will soon find passage through the Voidgate set to manifest within Syrcus Tower. With the fiend's coming, can the fellowship of NOAH brave the void and rescue the three souls able to stem the Cloud's flood of shadows, or will the expedition itself vanish beyond the rift in the World of Darkness?
— Patch 2.5 Official Website
Release
The first part of the Crystal Tower was released with Patch 2.1 on December 17th, 2013. This included the very first 24-man alliance raid, The Labyrinth of the Ancients. The second part followed with Patch 2.3 on July 8th, 2014 and included the second 24-man alliance raid, Syrcus Tower. The third and final part was released on January 20, 2015 as part of Patch 2.5 and contains the finale to the series, The World of Darkness. A weekly repeatable quest for running the series was also added in 2.5, The Gift of the Archmagus, but it was subsequently removed in Patch 6.3.
Additional Information
Owing its lack of an item level sync, the Crystal Tower alliance raids (with the third at a lesser extent) have become tediously easy duties that are often completed with little difficulty, to the point where mechanics on several bosses are ignored or outright skipped. As a result the guides includes mechanics that players will normally not experience unless on Minimum IL mode.
Owing to this, players have developed a technique to deliberately lower their IL in the alliance raid roulette, so that it would select a Crystal Tower raid by default. As a result, the developers implemented Item Level restrictions for the Duty Roulette: Alliance Raids in Patch 6.5, as to increase its diversity.
Quests
| Quest | Type | Level | Quest Giver | Unlocks | Rewards |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Legacy of Allag | 50 | Nero tol Scaeva | 3 | ||
| Sanding It Down | 50 | Rammbroes | Options: 1 1 1 1 | ||
| A Performance for the Ages | 50 | Rammbroes | Options: 3 3 3 1 | ||
| Labyrinth of the Ancients | 50 | G'raha Tia | |||
| For Prosperity | 50 | G'raha Tia | Options: 1 1 1 1 | ||
| Syrcus Tower | 50 | Rammbroes | |||
| The World of Darkness | 50 | Rammbroes | |||
| The Light of Hope | 50 | Rammbroes | 1 |
Images
Raid Images
Concept Art
Lore
“Approximately six millennia ago, when the world still languished in the aftermath of the Third Umbral Calamity, there arose a man who led an army of mages on a campaign of conquest. Xande would go on to found the storied Allagan Empire, as well as marry the secrets of magic and wisdom of science to create aetherochemistry. Through advances in this miraculous field, he expanded his dominion to encompass the continents of Aldenard, Ilsabard, and Othard.
However, generations of peace and prosperity gave rise to decadence, and a thousand years after the nation's birth, progress all but ground to a halt. The people grew complacent, abandoning learning and drowning themselves in leisure, and society stagnated. None lamented this deplorable state of affairs more than a technologist named Amon.
Desiring to restore his nation to its former glory, Amon brought Emperor Xande back from the grave. Under the founding father's leadership, the empire was given renewed purpose in world domination. In order to bolster the might of his armies, Xande entered into a pact with the Cloud of Darkness, a sovereign among voidsent, and granted their kind passage to the world of men in return for their aid in assuring the supremacy of his reign.
The Crystal Tower played a key role in all of these events. Built to harness the power of the sun, it provided the sprawling empire with energy during its heyday. When the empire fell into decline, Amon used that selfsame energy to resurrect Xande, and Xande in turn used it to open a gate to the void.
Eventually, the emperor resolved to welcome the Cloud of Darkness herself into our world, a feat which would require a voidgate of heretofore unseen proportions. To this end, he commanded that the eikon Bahamut, captured in Meracydia, be encapsulated within a massive iron sphere. The sphere was launched into the heavens and set into motion alongside the moon, where it utilized the wyrm's affinity to fire-aspected aether to accumulate solar energy in a more concentrated form. Yet while the tower had been fortified to channel the increased flow, the land upon which it had been built could not withstand the immense forces. The Crystal Tower's collapse triggered a series of earthquakes which shook the entire realm, bringing about the Third Umbral Calamity and consigning the Allagan Empire to oblivion.
For five millennia the Crystal Tower lay buried and forgotten, until the violence of the Seventh Umbral Era coaxed it from its resting place. Awakened from his long slumber, Emperor Xande once more sought to fulfill his nihilistic ambitions, but he would be thwarted by the stout souls of the fellowship of NOAH and their newfound comrades from the distant past.