Occult Crescent
Even the most dauntless of sailors would sooner abandon ship than steer into Shades' Triangle. Be not fooled by the lush and fertile island you spy on the horizon─men and vessels alike have been lost to its allure, never to be seen again. Yes, the wisest choice is to dismiss it as mere illusion. But of course, there are inevitably those who cannot resist the call of adventure.
-Dawntrail Special Site
The Occult Crescent is the new Field Operation for Dawntrail.
Released in patch 7.25 you will sail to a mysterious island off the coast of Tural, deep into the Shades' Triangle.
In this place you will be able to equip and level secondary jobs, which give you access to new actions and traits within.
These zones are instanced zones where up to 72 players can come together.
If you're planning to go in with friends, make sure to group up before joining to ensure that everyone will land on the same instance.
The Relic - Phantom Weapons (DT) will be closely tied to this new area, as is now usual for previous relics (Minus the Manderville one)
Useful Resources
Discord Servers
Above all, for the longevity of this type of content, it's always a good idea to join a supporting discord.
You can find constantly updated information as well as like-minded people to join in doing this content in these.
This is not an extensive list but these are some that you might check:
Where to start?
⚠️ Disclaimer:
This guide is very very much a work in progress, not only because this is new content but also because there will be more to come in this Exploration Zone.
Any additional info or tips are highly appreciated.
Requirements
To unlock this new zone, you must have achieved the following:
- Have at least one combat job at level 100.
- You must have completed the Main Scenario Quest Dawntrail.
Unlock
The first quest starts in Tuliyollal at the docks and it's called One Last Hurrah.
Search for the Expedition Messenger at (X:17.1, Y:11.8).
This set of quests will begin your journey and will be the start to the quest chain that will be progressing through this Field Operation as new zones unlock.
Other relevant quests
Along the chain, you will have some quests that require you to collect field notes called Occult Records and other things (like fighting bosses) by exploring the South Horn.
Occult Records Map - South Horn
A Ruined Land
In this one you will have to collect the Occult Record: The Lost Citadel (#7) at (X:31.4, Y:17.0).
A Common Thread
This one requires the following occult records:
- Occult Record: The Vanishing Slope (#9) - (X:20.2, Y:12.2)
- Occult Record: The Fell Warren (#13) - (X:10.2, Y:22.5)
- Occult Record: The Shadowed City (#15) - (X:24.2, Y:32.8)
Past and Crescent
This one requires Occult Record: The Abandoned Ascent (#19) at (X:15.6, Y:29.5).
Systems
This zone will have a set of systems that add to the experience.
The most obvious ones will be the Phantom Jobs and the separate levelling system called Knowledge Level.
Knowledge Level
This is the levelling system within the Occult Crescent.
It will accompany you through all your journey within this zone irrespective of any other systems.
There are 20 levels to go through and each of these will determine the damage dealth and received by you when fighting regular mobs within the zone.
🚨 Warning
As you reach level 5 you will no longer be protected and any deaths while out in the field will result in loss of knowledge points if you do not get resurrected by someone else.
This means that if you die and you resurrect in the base camp too many times, you will lose knowledge and might end up with a demotion down to a lower level.
At level 20 this is guaranteed to lower you to 19.
Phantom Jobs
Phantom Jobs are for the most part an addition to your combat capabilities.
These are similar to the Logos Actions / Lost Actions systems in previous Field Operations.
You can equip and swap Phantom Jobs anywhere inside the Occult Crescent, with each job offering you a set of new actions that you can use to aid you and complement your regular job.
Depending on what you're trying to achieve, some jobs will make you life much easier.
Alongside the job specific actions, there are also two things:
- The Freelancer job is your default job and it levels passively as you master other jobs.
- As you master each phantom job, you will receive a permanent stacking buff called Phantom Mastery which increases your damage and healing potency within the Occult Crescent zones.
Jobs
Kill Chaining
This system functions in the overworld mobs and is the best way to grind Gold Coins alongside levelling your Phantom Jobs and Knowledge Level.
The way this system works is very simple, as you kill mobs you will get an increasing % bonus on experience and rewards as you raise the chain.
As the chain increase, the timer to maintain the chain going will gradually shorten, requiring you to kill faster and faster to maintain the chain going.
To start a chain and to maintain it, you need to be killing mobs above your level that have the chaining icon above their name. 
This can be done either alone, or in a group.
Although it's safer to do it in a group, the requirements to chain are also increased accordingly.
Requirements
- Solo: Mob needs to be 2 levels higher than your knowledge level.
- 2 Players: Mob needs to be 3 levels higher than the balanced party's knowledge level.
- 3 or 4 Players: Mob needs to be 4 or 5 levels higher than the balanced party's knowledge level.
- 5 or 6 Players: Mob needs to be 6 or 7 levels higher than the balanced party's knowledge level.
- 7 or 8 Players: Mob needs to be 7 or 8 levels higher than the balanced party's knowledge level.
Persistent Pots
These little soulkins can become your companion for some nice rewards.
They are involved in two FATEs within the occult crescent, and doing these FATEs will give you a chance to receive a buff (Cache Me If You Can) that will have one of these following you for 15 minutes.
When you have one of these little guys following you, you can use the Magical Elixir key item as many times as you want, to the to get him to point you in the general direction of a treasure chest.
Once you're close enough to the chest, using the magical elixir will show the chest instead.
The treasure chests can come in 3 varieties, and give increasing rewards.
There's also a chance that the pot really likes you and doesn't disappear after the first one, sticking around to guide you to a new chest.
Battle content
Besides killing overworld mobs, there's more fighting to be done in Occult Crescent.
⚠️ Warning
Both FATEs and Critical Encounters are knowledge level agnostic and you will be able to participate at any point in time.
Do be careful tho, if you're venturing into higher level areas, mind your step between the roaming mobs as many of them will easily one shot you if you're moving carelessly.
Try to stick to going around them behind their backs by targeting them and looking at where their front arrow is pointed.
FATEs
FATEs spawn all around the map and can be challenged by any number of players up to the instance limit.
You may join at any point in the FATE to contribute.
Critical Encounters
Critical Encounters also known as CEs are large-scale bosses.
Any number of players can participate in these up to the instance limit, however, these will be limited in access compared to FATEs.
While FATEs allow you to join at any point, CEs will only be available to the players that are within the CE combat area before the starting timer reaches 0 seconds.
After the timer is over, whoever is inside the area will be teleported into the combat arena and nobody else might join.
The Forked Tower: Blood
This is a high end level 100 raid that can only be accessed from within the Occult Crescent.
Personally, you need to be knowledge level 20 and the instance scales from a minimum of 16 players up to the maximum of 48 players.
I will not go in depth on mechs, as the scope of this information page is not the raid, which would warrant a whole weyway page by itself.
Accessing the tower
To enter the tower, there's a set of requirements that must be met first.
- The zone weather needs to be Auroral Mirages which will last for around 5 minutes.
- The zone itself must have at least 16 players with knowledge level 20 that have completed Past and Crescent
- A minimum of 16 players need to use Sanguine Ciphers on the Cipher Reliquary at the centre of the map.
- The node will activate and for a brief period of time it will teleport players inside, up to the 48 person limit.
Where do I get a Sanguine Cipher?
You can purchase these from the Expedition Antiquarian for 600 Silver coins or 960 Gold coins.
I didn't go in, what happens to my ciphers?
While you just need to be inside the teleport area to be randomly selected to go in, your chances will be much lower than the players that contribute Ciphers.
More than the required 16 initial ciphers can be contributed by others and players can contribute more than one cipher as well, this means that even if you use a cipher to go in, you might not get selected.
Basically, if there's less than the 48 player limit standing at the teleporter everyone will be selected, but if there are more than 48 players, the game will randomly select 48 players, with stacking increased chances for the ones that contributed more ciphers.
No worries tho, if you used your ciphers and did not get selected, they will be refunded back to you.
Treasure
The Occult Crescent is dotted all around with treasure chests, from bronze to gold, they're all personal and filled with goodies - So if you see one, take it!
✅ Spawning chests!
The way the spawns work are tied to activities being done inside your instance, so for every chain kill, CE or FATE completed, one chest will spawn for you, up to a maximum of 30 bronze and 4 silver at a time.
Bronze and Silver
These are the most common chests you will find in the zone.
Bronze treasure chests will give you one item, while silver chests will grant you three items.
The loot table for these is honestly huge, you can check it here.
Loot table (Click to expand)
Golden Treasure
The golden chests will appear when a Fortune Carrot is used near a chewed carrot.
These will not only give you random items, they will also reward you with 200.000 Gil.
Persistent Pot Treasure
The treasure chests these little guys can lead you to will also give you random items as well as 1.000 Gil for bronze, 5.000 Gil for silver and 30.000 Gil for gold chests.
Map
Below you can find a map with a couple different things.
Use the filters to enable/disable whatever you want.
With support by the lovely members of Beyond Love: Yuuki Furu & Sol Valeira
Data collected from
- In-game support material
- Square Enix Website
- ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com
- Polygon FFXIV Guides
- CAFE Discord