Tales of The Rays' new Miracle Boss Challenge is here with lots of free rewards!

Now is the perfect time to get into Tales of The Rays. Alongside the .hack collab is a new boss challenge event that provides very generous rewards, including guaranteed 5* weapons and Mirrage Artes!

Although it was shown in neither the preview nor this month's producer's letter, Rays has blessed us with a new event which will run for a whole month. It's the Miracle Boss challenge: 3 sets of quests pitting you against bosses from across all the events and chapters that have come to the game. What's special about this event is that all quests cost 0 AP, making it completely free to attempt alongside usual farming and story advancements, and it gives many free rewards for completion. Among the rewards is Ix' first and 2nd 5*s, Ix' first Gacha Mirrage Arte, 6 guaranteed Mirrage Arte Tickets, 1 guaranteed Decisive Mirrage Arte Ticket and lastly as well as most surprisingly, 1 guaranteed Overray Ticket. Overray and Decisive Mirrage Artes are perhaps the rarest types in the game, and even regular gacha mirrages can be hard to get, so this is exceedingly generous. Furthermore, Ix is widely considered to be one of the best characters in the game, and a good character to fall back on when faced with difficult content, so this should give everyone, especially new players, a boost. It's possible for even a new player to complete these challenges with Ix alone, though it takes a bit of patience.

Here's a table of all the times you need to know for the event. Note: Victory Tickets can possibly give you any 4* weapon, 5* weapon or Mirrage Arte that debuted before August 31st, 2019. Overray and Decisive Mirrage Artes only include:

As of this writing, the .hack collaboration event is still going on. Since this boss challenge costs 0 AP, it's suggested that you still spend your AP on the .hack raid to collect those rewards, and perhaps spend dia on those banners. All the event details, including a time table for how long that event will last, are in our previous post here.

Now for the event overview. There are 3 sets of boss challenges: Normal, Hard and EX. They have their own sections of the event quest list, but you must clear all the Normal quests to unlock the Hard ones, and then unlock the Hard quests to unlock the EX quests. If you advance through them using the Next Quest button, you'll automatically be taken to the next set once you finish the last one of the previous set.

All quests have the same reward missions: Clear without Continues, Clear Without KOs, and Clear for the first time. Keep this in mind as things get more difficult. The quests cost 0 AP so you lose nothing if you die, so no real reason to continue. However, spending Dia or Mirrogems to continue does in fact give you a buff to make the quest easier. If things get particularly difficult, you may find yourself using the continue feature to clear without KOs, and on a separate run clear without continuing, but with some allies KO'd. This event lasts a month however, so there's plenty of time to get stronger, come up with better strategies and find good help before you resort to spending dia on continues. On the other hand, one can look at it as spending a few dia for guaranteed mirrage artes, which is a steal.

Each quest has a different boss fight, some being combinations of previous bosses. Those who've played Rays actively for a long time will recognize many of these enemies, which have their own strategies and gimmicks. Merfish who move slowly but with instant KO moves, Absolute Killer who takes 1 damage from every attack and so much Iron Stance it's hard to combo him, or Dhaos with his ridiculous physical defense but shockingly low arte defense. All quests are rainbow anima and again, 0 AP, so this is your chance to come up with your best team of your strongest characters, because there's no bond points or event currency to farm. You may have to advance the story to unlock Ix' Overray feature to give yourself a boost. That said, even a newcomer should clear as much as possible since the free rewards can go a long way to making it possible to clear the next quest.

Here's a list of Notable Rewards and where to get them in the challenge quests:

Normal Boss Challenge Reward	Quest Containing Reward
Ix' First 5* Weapon: Geyser Tusk	Normal 5
Ix' Second 5* Weapon: Guardian Field	Normal 8
Ix' First Gacha Mirrage Arte: Mirrored Claws	Normal 10

This is the first time they've ever given a Gacha Mirrage Arte as a free quest reward. They're normally exclusive to, well, the gacha!

Hard Boss Challenge Reward	Quest Containing Reward
3 Victory Tickets	Hard 5
5 Victory Tickets	Hard 10
1 Guaranteed Mirrage Arte Ticket	Hard 15

You want to shoot for that guaranteed Mirrage Arte Ticket, but Victory Tickets are nice too! They're guaranteed to give you 4* or higher, which means 5* weapons and Mirrage Artes are possible as well.

EX Boss Challenge Reward	Quest Containing Reward	Boss Fought
2 Guaranteed Mirrage Arte Tickets	EX 5	Dhaos
3 Guaranteed Mirrage Arte Tickets	EX 10	Dhaos And Lazaris
1 Decisive Mirrage Arte Ticket	EX 15	Dhaos, Duke and Creed
1 Overray Mirrage Arte Ticket	EX 20	Dhaos, Mithos and Barbatos

The EX stages all take place in the final room of Dhaos' castle, from Tales of Phantasia. So naturally, Dhaos himself is a boss... in fact, you fight him four times. Those who fought him in his raid may already know, and those who've fought him in Phantasia might be able to guess, but Dhaos has his own special gimmick. He has exceedingly high Physical Defense, but very low Arte defense, so you want to bring spellcasters to deal the most damage to him... but you also could use physical attackers to keep him busy so spellcasters have time to cast. He gets paired with other Boss characters, but they don't have the same gimmick, so generally you can try to kill them with a Mirrage Arte chain so that only Dhaos is left, then fight him how you would when he's alone. Of course, the details of the strategy can be left up to you and what characters you have available.

It's not Dhaos all the way down however. Every other stage has their own varied bosses with their own challenges. With 0 AP feel free to try multiple times on them and come up with a strategy for each! I like to use Estelle, Ix, Mithos and Barbatos, since Estelle's Seasonal Mirrage Arte can fuel everyone else's MAs and Nightingale hits the entire screen, gives her plenty of MG and heals her and Ix.

For the event in general, here are a few helpful tips to get you through. The first is to pay attention to elemental weaknesses. While it's much more important to use artes with good Area of Effect, damage, comboability and general utility in battle, elements become very important for Mirrage Artes. If you're having trouble with a boss, it can be helpful to try to use as many Mirrage Artes of the weakness element as possible. This can lead to a LOT more damage than chaining MAs of different elements.

The second tip is to not underestimate spellcasters. Melees with mobility and comboability can do a lot, but as a lot of these challenges involve group fights, spellcasters that can quickly fire off damaging, wide reaching spells can do a lot to thin the herd and keep multiple enemies busy. Examples of mages excelling at that are Kongwai, Estelle, Rita, Shirley, Grune and Claus.

The third helpful tip is that Helpers can matter a lot. Your Friend/Follower List, whatever pops up randomly and perhaps people who know who are also playing can be the key to success. Helper Mirrage Artes are available from battle start and aren't limited to what you personally have. Here are good Helpers to watch out for:

Mithos' Gacha Mirrage Arte: Eternal Divide

This hits every enemy in the battle for massive damage and also gathers them all to the middle, making it possible for more focused MAs to hit more if not all enemies. Good to start and end an MA chain with.
Barbatos' Gacha Mirrage Arte: World Destroyer

This hits every enemy in the battle for massive damage and launches the highest of any arte in the game, making it trivial to combo after. Use this at the end of an MA chain if possible.
Mint's Seasonal Mirrage Arte: Time Eternity

Essentially the recurring arte Stop Flow, stopping enemies in time for a short while. Not only does it let you combo after but also giving you a chance to step back and heal or cast spells. This arte is also Water Element, making it do even more damage on EX20. On top of that, Mint's high Arte Attack makes it do even more damage still to Dhaos, so keep an eye out for this! Do NOT chain it into any other Mirrage Artes or the effect is wasted.
Mint's Decisive Mirrage Arte: Resurrection

This is purely a healing Mirrage Arte, but it revives one KO'd ally, making it useful to get those No Allies KO'd objectives.
Ion's Decisive Mirrage Arte: Dainanakoho

Same as above, but it deals damage as well.
Yuri's Decisive Mirrage Arte: Douma Seietsuzan

This does massive damage with good AoE, but more importantly it also inflicts Defense Down, making it very useful for a number of bosses this event. If used in a chain, try starting off with this or at least using it early on, so every Mirrage Arte after can reap the benefits of Defense Down.
Velvet's Seasonal Mirrage Arte: Catastrophe Smash

This is essentially like Barbatos' Gacha Mirrage, but it doesn't launch as high. Depending on the stats of the helper using it, it may do more damage, however.
Sophie's Seasonal Mirrage Arte: Pumpkin Dread

Sophie's is just used as an example. Estelle, Reala and Meredy have seasonal mirrage artes with the same effect and enhancements. All 4 of these increase the entire team's MG gauge. This is really helpful as it can not only help you start an MA chain early, it can also extend one, especially if you have these same MAs. A long MA chain not only does a lot of damage, it also helps build up Mirrage Ratio, so use this early on and save your powerful and elemental weakness targetting MAs for the end of a chain.

Some early challenge quests can even be nuked by a good helper like Mithos and Barbatos, while later quests you may want to hold off on using them until you can guarantee a finish, or perhaps as a Get Out of Jail Free card when the going gets tough. These are simply suggestions, you don't have to use these, and may even find your own helpers that are more useful for a particular fight (i.e. an arte with an element the boss is weak to.) Experiement and come up with your own strategies that work for you! I strongly suggest looking for Mint's Time Eternity for EX20 however. It's that useful.

If all else fails and you can't think of a working strategy, do not fret. Besides having a month to clear this event, there's also a certain strategy that most players fall back on when a fight gets truly difficult: you can control Ix 'til you reach victory on every quest. As a character every player is guaranteed to have, he's also the character guaranteed to work. The following strategy requires a lot of patience and takes a lot longer than other strategies, but not only is it absolutely possible to beat even the highest difficulty with this strategy alone, it's possible to beat it with a team of only Ix. A solo clear counts as a clear with no allies KO'd, so it can really help.

Step 1 of the strategy is to acquire this weapon:

This is Ix' Mirrage Sword, which grants him the Arte Shredding Talon. As a 3* weapon, it's available for cheap in the Turtlez Shop and can also be easily acquired from any gacha banner, including the friend point gacha, that has Ix in it.

Step 2 is to Enhance it to the 5th level. Doing this will provide you with a large amount of invincibility frames, which are enough for Ix to loop this arte on itself without fear of getting hurt. The arte involves Ix dashing forward, allowing him to pass through an enemy and any attack they attempt.

Step 3 is activating Overray, entering the quest and simply spamming it. Not mindlessly, as you'll eventually run out of CC, but stopping just before you overuse your CC so you can block and replenish CC, then look for an opportunity to spam it again. You'll recover HP over time with Overray so no worries about blocking, and when the situation gets dangerous you can always fire a Mirrage Arte to give yourself a little time. Here's an example video of this strategy being done on the hardest challenge:

どうしてもEXがクリアできないとき
心が折れてしまったとき
この動画を開くのです、ヒントが隠されているのです・・・
全EXでいけます#ザレイズ#ミラクルBOSSチャレンジ#さすがイクスね pic.twitter.com/A3IjVoebCJ

— いなックス@魔鏡集作成勢 (@sinrainoina) September 23, 2020

One might see this strategy as "cheese" but it's nothing of the sort. In quests where your efficiency is graded, such as the Raid, do NOT expect to get very far using this strategy, as it takes a very long time to defeat enemies this way. It also may not work on enemies that can heal, though those are rare. However, as this event provides a lot of rewards for new players, it's perfectly viable and recommended here. It's one of the only strategies a new player may be guaranteed to be able to do, and the existence of this lets them construct a challenge as fun and difficult as they have.

And that's it for this event. Since it's not a usual farming event, keep this event as a goal to work towards in the month we have to complete it. Try to get as far as you can, take advantage of the rewards, feel free to ask for help or suggestions on what to cover on our social media, join our discord to talk to us directly and get help, and we'll see you next time we have any news!

Tales of the Rays

Tales of the Rays is a Tales mobile game for the iOS and Android featuring characters designed by Hidenori Matsuraba and a new ADF-LMBS (Advanced Flick Linear Motion Battle System). The game tells the story of hero Ix Nieves and heroine Mileena Weiss in the world of Tir Na Nog. Characters from the previous Tales titles appear in this game. The game initially had an English version, but was short-lived and now currently runs exclusively in Japan.

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