Bard DPS Tips for Asphodelos Savage — Endwalker 6.1

Pandaemonium: Asphodelos is the first tier of Pandaemonium, the eight-man raid series for FFXIV: Endwalker. It has four fights, with the last one split into two parts.

1. Asphodelos: The First Circle (Savage) - Erichthonios
2. Asphodelos: The Second Circle (Savage) - The Hippokampus
3. Asphodelos: The Third Circle (Savage) - The Phoinix
4. Asphodelos: The Fourth Circle (Savage) - Hesperos (Part 1)
5. Asphodelos: The Fourth Circle (Savage) - Hesperos (Part 2)

The tips on this page are for Bard-specific considerations. Links to the general guide for each fight can be found at the end of each section.

Typical tincture timings: 0:00, 6:00

The first encounter is fairly standard, with no downtime or major mechanic disruptions. The only thing to watch out for is the timing of the two-minute and six-minute bursts. You will want to be as central as possible when using your buffs, and your party will want to be as well.

You can cover multiple hits with Troubadour at these points:

• The two Warder's Wrath during the first Intemperance
• The final Fourfold Shackle hit into a Warder's Wrath
• The last phase Pitiless follow-up into Warder's Wrath
• Enrage sequence

These are not the only good times to use Troubadour - as always, consult your healers on when they want defensive utility used. Healers often want their ranged DPS to cover one or more of these cases.

Typical tincture timings: 2:00, 6:30

Kampeos Harma causes some timing problems in this fight. Many groups will opt to burst after Harma, and then every two minutes from there.

In that situation, do an extended cycle after your two-minute burst. This means to play out your Mage's Ballad all the way. That way you will be in The Wanderer's Minuet for the burst after Harma. Use Apex Arrow at 80 gauge during this time. Your odds of having it at 80 again for the burst are a little scary, but it is about four in five.

Make sure to use Pitch Perfect before the boss leaves so that you are only storing charges while it is gone. If you did not time your Iron Jaws aggressively, you may need to use an extra one too.

You can cover multiple hits with Troubadour at these points:

• Any of several Murky Depths + Double Impact combos (in either order)
• Shockwave + Ominous Bubbling (either time)
• Tainted Flood + Coherence after Eruption baits
• Flow 3 hits (first or second) + Coherence
• Enrage sequence

These are not the only good times to use Troubadour. As always, consult your healers on when they want defensive utility used, but healers often want their ranged DPS to cover one or more of these cases.

After the Sewage Eruption sequence, there is a Coherence into Double Impact (into raidwides) that may benefit from Nature's Minne on a tank if not used elsewhere.

Typical tincture timings: 2:00, ~8:10-8:30

Early on in the fight, you have a chance to save Apex Arrow for the Darkfires. Unless you are certain they will die cleanly without the help, go ahead and do so. You are not guaranteed to get back to 80 in time to fit Blast Arrow under two-minute buffs, but you usually will.

On your two-minute burst, use Iron Jaws as the first GCD once buffs are up. The boss will leave before they run out either way, so doing them early here is free value.

The adds phase is the main wrench in this fight timing-wise. How you approach it depends on how fast your group is killing the adds.

If the adds are dying around or after 4:20 or so, you can use songs as normal. You will be songless during Trail of Condemnation, then start Mage's Ballad once the adds spawn. Transition to Army's Paeon at the usual time, and you will be clear to re-open at full steam when the boss returns.

If the adds are dying too fast for that, you need to leave your first The Wanderer's Minuet early, with about six to nine seconds left on the timer. This allows you to get into Mage's Ballad before the boss leaves, so you can get your song cooldowns in a good place for the re-open.

On the adds themselves, you may or may not save Apex Arrow depending on your group's priorities. Either way, you can put your DoTs on at least two or three of the large birds before they dash, and those should tick enough to be worthwhile.

Nature's Minne can be especially useful in this fight. It is often helpful when both tanks are taking persistent damage. In P3S, that happens during adds phase, and for the rest of the fight after due to the boss auto-attacking two targets. Also, if you have a Scholar, Deployment Tactics is often a big part of handling Fountain of Fire, and buffing the amplified Adloquium can be a huge gain.

You can cover multiple hits with Troubadour at these points:

• Heat of Condemnation + Scorched Exaltation after Darkfires
• Second Scorched Exaltation + Heat of Condemnation after Fountains
• Ashplume + Scorched Exaltation at the end of Firestorms
• Enrage sequence

As always, consult your healers on when they want defensive utility used. This fight does not have obvious great uses, save for maybe those ending Firestorms raidwides, so find out where else your healers want Troub.

Typical tincture timings: 0:00, 4:30 or 5:00 or 6:00

There are three buff timing options you see parties use on this fight:

A common progression buff plan is to do 0:00, 2:30, 4:30, and 6:40. The purpose of this is to avoid bursting during Pinax. In this case, you can extend all of your Mage's Ballad phases and, on the first cycle, use Apex Arrow at 80 gauge.

Groups killing a little faster may instead opt for a standard 0-2-4-6 buff timing. This is easy rotation-wise, but be careful where you spread to on Pinax when you get poison first. You can miss party members with your buffs.

On very fast expected kills, groups will use a 0:00 - 3:00 - 5:00 burst pattern. This is awkward for Bard, as you would rather have The Wanderer's Minuet for the latter two bursts than the first one. As a result, for runs on this pattern you want to start the fight in Army's Paeon.

1. Pre-pull Raging Strikes
2. Stormbite → Army's Paeon → The Wanderer's Minuet
3. Caustic Bite → Bloodletter
4. Burst Shot or Refulgent Arrow → Radiant Finale → Battle Voice
5. (Regular opener from here)

This slight alteration to the opener pattern makes this Army's Paeon behave like a normal one, so that Empyreal Arrow does not drift. From here, you can go ahead and do a normal two-minute song cycle, but save your buffs for the three-minute window. Your burst will land 20 seconds into The Wanderer's Minuet for the remainder of the fight. Use Sidewinder to help time your Apex Arrows.

You can cover multiple hits with Troubadour at these points:

• Both Inversive Chlamys + Decollation
• Any pair of Pinax hits
• Bellone Burst Orbs + Periaktoi
• Periaktoi + Bloodrake
• Enrage sequence

As always, consult your healers on when they want defensive utility used.

6.

Asphodelos: The Fourth Circle (Savage) - Hesperos Phase 2

This fight is very straightforward in terms of timings. Four-minute buffs happen at an awkward time mechanically, but so long as everyone plays tight it works out fine.

You can cover multiple hits with Troubadour at these points:

• Dark tethers + both Fire stacks in Act 2
• Everything after the first Kothornos Kick in Act 3
• Various 2-3 hit coverage options in Act 4
• Many 3-hit options during Curtain Call

In this fight especially, consult your healers. There can be a lot of planning put into healing Act 4 and Curtain Call especially, so they will want to know / dictate where your tools are used.

7.

Changelog

• 10 Jan. 2023: Updated for Patch 6.3
• 20 Apr. 2022: Updated for Patch 6.1
• 31 Mar. 2022: Guide added.
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