Hello, This will be a quick guide for TOA for those who need it.
In terms of difficulty, toa is probably the hardest raid right now, but it is not that much harder than tob after you learn it. Just like tob, you only have 1 life for this raid and you will lose your hard core status if you do die. The good thing about learning toa is if you learn how to clear 75-225 invos, you can pick up 300 and 450 relatively easily. The clear speed of the raid depends on your gear quality.
Gearing:
This is my gear setup for toa, but you do not need to match it to clear. You do need all 3 combat styles to clear the raid. For learning toa, you do not really need super great gear. you can clear 75 with a whip and dragon dagger if you don't have anything else. Dragon dagger is necessary for toa no matter what invo you choose. If you do not have a Sanguinesti Staff, just bring blood barrage. Thralls are also not necessary and I would suggest running the raid without thralls when learning.
Tile markings:
Markings for p1 and p2
Markings for p3
Phase 1 (Obelisk): When the raid starts, you are given 30 seconds to prepare for the raid. During this time, drop 2 restores on the ground as you need 2 inventory spaces for the smelling salts and adrenaline. You will pick up the 2 restores after phase 2 ends. These two items will spawn in your inventory 10 seconds before the raid begins. The smelling salts are pretty much 2 overload doses that last for 8 minutes. The adrenaline reduce the cost of special attacks by half. As the raid begins position yourself on the tile marked to the left of the obelisk. Take a dose of the smelling salts before beginning the raid. When the raid begins, attack the obelisk. Doesn't matter which attack style you choose to attack the obelisk so just choose your strongest attack style. Red orbs will periodically start moving towards the two guardians. You will take 3 damage for each orb you tank. To give yourself room for error, I would suggest tanking until you lose 30 hp. After losing 30 hp, position yourself to the tile marked below the obelisk. As the red orbs are absorbed by the guardians, you will notice that they generate a yellow bar. Once the guardians fill the yellow bar, the will launch an attack. The guardians have 2 attacks in their cycle. The first attack will be these spinning triangular objects. The reason behind tanking the red orbs in the first place is because you do not want the guardians attacking simultaneously. Tanking 30 hp will allow some time in between their attacks so that you can survive. It is not possible to tank both attacks at once. The guardian on the right will attack first with the spinning red triangles. The tile you are standing on is a safe spot for the attack. After the attack is finished, move to the tile marked to the left. The guardian on the left will attack with yellow triangles. Again the tile is a safe spot. After the attacks finish, the guardians will have to charge their next attack with the red orbs. After filling their bar the second time, they will attack with orbs. These orbs will do guaranteed 75 damage overall so make sure you stay above 75 hp before the guardians charge up the yellow bars. If you still have not taken down the obelisk at this point, the guardians will restart their attack cycle so move back to the tile directly below the obelisk.
Phase 2 (Eldinis' Guardian): After you take down the Obelisk, phase 2 will begin. Run over to the two tiles marked at the bottom of the map. Put on your mage gear as the guardian will protect against melee and range. This is the hardest part of the raid. The guardian attacks with all 3 styles and getting protection prayers right mitigates the damage you take by a lot. Personally, gauging the guardian's attack is easiest with audio cues. So turn on your audio and listen to the attack to determine what prayer you need to use. When the guardian attacks with an audio that sounds like a laser being shot, turn on protect from magic. If you hear a mechanical sound, turn on protect from range. The last audio cue you hear will be for the melee attack. Aside from the guardian's attack, the obelisk will also periodically attack with 3 different special attacks. First, if you stand within the marked tiles, you will not need to worry about the obelisk throwing skull bombs as it does not have the range to attack you. The second special attack is a windmill. Looks like this:
There are two tiles marked to help alternate safe spots for the attack. Move away from the tile that turns red. If you fail, your protection prayer will be turned off. The third attack, lets call it the triangle. Looks something like this:
Before this attack begins, the obelisk will shoot a red laser to the end of the side. Assuming you are on the right marked tile, count to 3 after the laser reaches the end and move to the left tile. If done correctly, you should move through the attack. If you fail to walk through, your protection prayers will be turned off. You will notice that while you are attacking the guardian, instead of the hp going down, it is going up. After the hp bar is filled to 100%, A heart will spawn out of the guardian. Put on your melee gear and dragon dagger as fast as you can and take a sip of adrenaline. The heart will spawn on the tile to your west every time. Attack heart as soon as you can. If you attack the heart the tick that it spawns, you should be able to attack 6 times. So dragon dagger spec 6 times. You will not kill the guardian during the first heart. After specing 6 times, put on you range gear. The heart will go back inside the guardian and the guardian will protect from melee and magic this time. If you take the heart below half hp, The guardian's mage attack can be replaced with a black projectile that will freeze you to the ground for a couple of seconds. You can dodge this by moving to another tile. So same thing. Attack the guardian will keeping track of prayer and the special attacks. Once you fill up the hp bar with your range attack, the heart will come out again. Put on your melee gear and dump your remaining spec bar with your dragon dagger and switch to your primary melee weapon and keep attacking. If you do not finish off the heart at this point, The guardian's prayer will go back to the protect range and melee cycle. Put on your mage gear and attack. Rinse and repeat this entire sequence until you finish the heart. If you have decent gear, it should finish by the 3rd cycle. Drop the smelling salts and adrenaline and pick up the 2 restores you dropped before phase 2 ends. [Side note: the damage you do to the guardian depends on your mage and range accuracy]
Phase 3 (Tumeken's guardian): After finishing p2 you will be transported to a new map. The tumeken's guardian will be right in the middle. I would recommend just using range for this phase.
There are 5 hp breakpoints for phase 3: 80%, 60%, 40%, 20%, and 5%.
The guardian has a set 3 attack cycle. It will first hold up its left hand. When it does, move to a tile on the right. It will then hold up its right hand. Move to a tile on the left. It will finally smash the ground. Move to a tile in the middle. This cycle repeats until you hit a hp breakpoint. For 75-225 invos, the guardian's attacks will be relatively slow. For 300-450 invos, the attacks will be much faster. After taking the hp below 80%, the guardian will spawn red skulls. Put on your primary attack weapon and attack them all. You can 1 tick attack the skulls. If you do not take down all the red skulls in time, you will take a lot of damage. After taking down the skulls, the guardian will take 100 damage. For 75-225 invos, The guardian's attack cycle will reset and will attack with the left arm first. For 300-450 invos, the guardian will continue from the attack it left off from before you took it down below 80%. After taking the guardian below 60%, the guardian will spawn red skulls and zebak will spawn to the left of the map. From now on, zebak will start attacking you with either mage or range. It's range attack is a black rock. It's mage attack is a white jug. Get the prayers right before the projectiles hit you and you will not take damage. After taking the guardian below 40%, baba will spawn on the right along with the red skulls. From this point onwards, baba will throw rocks at you. You can tell when the rock is being thrown by the shadow beneath your character. Simply move to a different tile to dodge the attack. Below 20%, the guardian will spawn it's final red skulls. After taking the guardian below 5%, the guardian will heal back to 25% hp. At this point, it will stop it's 3 attack cycle and become enraged. Shadows will start forming on random tiles. Move away from tiles that become dark as lightning will strike those tiles and you will take damage. Keep in mind you will still be attacked by zebak and baba throughout this. One by one, rows of tiles will start disappearing as time passes and you will be left with at least 2 rows of tiles at the end.
It will take some practice to consistently clear so don't be demotivated if you are dieing out a lot at the beginning. If there is anything else to add, let me know and I will edit this post.
