Dancer DPS Tips for Asphodelos Savage — Endwalker 6.1

Pandaemonium: Asphodelos is the first raid tier released for the Asphodelos series of raids in the Endwalker expansion for Final Fantasy XIV. It consists of four fights, with the fourth fight having two different phases with a checkpoint inbetween:

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

If you are looking for more generalized guides, you should take a look at our Savage guides written by Lyra Rose, linked below each section.

Disclaimer: This document is meant to be used as a suggestion and as such is not the only way to handle these fights on Dancer. If the raid group you are running with decides to change buff placement or mitigation use, you may be doing things differently than as listed in this document.

As this is the first fight of the first tier of the expansion, this is a relatively painless fight. It is quite short with not a lot of moving parts, and is not long enough to have a third use of a potion.

For your opener, you will want to use the standard opener. For your potion usage, you will want to use your first potion during the opener, and the second during the 6-minute buff window. If your kill time is extended to enrage, then using your first potion during the 2-minute window with the second at the 8-minute window is slightly better.

1. Warden's Wrath
2. Intemperance
3. Slam Shut
4. Shining Cells

The second fight of the tier is also pretty straightforward, with the main obstacle to normal buff usage being a forced downtime due to the Kampeos Harma mechanic. You will likely need to coordinate with your team to plan your Technical Step around this downtime as to ensure you use your buff to its fullest potential.

Using the standard opener will require you to delay your Technical Step until after Kampeos Harma is resolved. To handle this, use Standard Step while the boss is untargetable and trigger Standard Finish the moment it can take damage. After Standard Finish, you can either use Technical Step immediately, or use one GCD combo action between them. This will allow your party extra time to stack up before Technical Step goes out, and will allow you to use a potion if you choose to use it here.

You also have the option to put Technical Step before Standard Step in your opener if your team does not wish to delay buffs due to boss kill time. If your team decides to do this, you will use Technical Step on cooldown before Kampeos Harma is casted by the boss. If you expect that your kill time might reach enrage, this will give you an extra burst window at the end of the fight, as enrage is at 10:30.

Your potion usage in this fight will depend on whether or not you are delaying Technical Step, and how close to enrage your kill time will approach. If you are expecting to kill Hippokampus well before enrage, you will get two potions out of this fight, with kill times nearing enrage getting three. If you are using the standard opener with a delay on Technical Step, the 2-minute and 6:30 buff windows are your best choice for two potions, with a three potion kill time allowing you potions at opener, 4:30, and 9 minutes. If you are using Technical Step first in your opener, a two potion kill time will see you using them at 2- and 8-minute buff windows, with a three potion kill time putting them at opener, 5 minutes into the fight, and at the 10 minute buff window.

1. Sewage Deluge
2. Coherence
3. Tainted Flood
4. Channeling Flow

The third fight of the tier really amps up the potential for optimization and is a step above the last two fights in difficulty. Because the adds phase is removed from DPS calculations on FFLogs and does not need a lot of damage to pass, you will likely be holding resources and buffs for a re-opener on the boss. As the adds phase has a variable length, the recommendations in this document may not line up exactly with your specific times. Use your discretion and talk with your group to ensure your buff placement lines up with their bursts.

For this fight, you will want to use the standard opener in most cases. For early prog, using a Technical Step first opener will allow your group to guarantee the adds DPS check, but this is not recommended outside of early prog and should not be used long term.

At the end of adds phase, you can prepare Standard Step as soon as the final add is about to die to use Standard Finish as soon as the boss is targetable. From there, use Technical Step right away. The next buff window after this will be during the Fountain of Flame mechanic, and you will need to ensure your Technical Step will hit the entire party if your group decides to buff during the mechanic. The exact timing can change depending on when you are baiting the mechanic. Using Technical Step a few seconds after the pink AoE marker appears above your character will allow you to use it in the middle of the arena while you are walking away from your baited bird. The option to delay until after Fountain is finished is also available, and is recommended unless it would lose you a usage of the buff.

This is a long fight, long enough to accommodate three potions. But once your group has sufficient gear, it is unlikely that you will reach kill times long enough to allow for three. For a three potion kill time, you will want to use the first one in the opener, with the second being on cooldown after adds. Your third potion will be during the final buff window just before enrage. A two potion kill time is much simpler. You will want to use your first potion at the 2-minute buff window, and your second during the buff window around the 8:25 mark.

1. Brightened Fire
2. Flames of Undeath
3. Dead Rebirth
4. Firestorms of Asphodelos
5. Experimental Gloryplume

The first phase of the final fight in the tier amps things up again from the last fight, with the most discussion being around the first Pinax mechanic. Other than a potential delay due to Pinax, the usage of buffs and potions will be quite standard unless your group is pushing specific kill times.

The standard opener is recommended for this fight, and you will want to use your first potion in your opener with all kill times. Your second use of Technical Step is where things get interesting, as the first Pinax is ongoing during this buff window, and the mechanic is notorious for causing uptime issues for many players. You have two choices here: use your buffs as a party while everyone is regrouping for Shift, or delay until after Pinax is resolved. If you choose to delay, all of your future buff windows will be shifted about 20 seconds back, but your party will gain the full value of your buffs if people are having uptime issues during the mechanic. This will cause you to lose a use if your kill time is approaching enrage, so it is recommended to not delay at all if you think your kill time will be that long.

As noted above, your first potion usage for all kill times will be with your opener. The location of the second potion depends on how your party is handling the second buff window. If you delay until after Pinax, you can choose use it at the 4:30 buff window. The other timing works for delay and no delay, and it will be during the 6-minute buff window.

Faster kill times (such as those around 6 minutes) can opt to delay the 2-minute window to 3 minutes into the fight to allow for easy usage of buffs and a better placement for the second potion. If you choose to do this, your second potion will land during the 5-minute buff window.

1. Decollation
2. Acid/Lava Pinax
3. Belone Burst

The second phase of Hesperos is another straightforward fight, with full uptime. Your buff windows will tend to land during mechanics, so you may feel overwhelmed at first doing your burst windows while doing the mechanics.

As it is a full uptime fight, and delaying buffs is will most likely lose you a use due to the enrage timer, you will not have a lot of wiggle room to make changes. You will want to use the standard opener here, with an opener potion. The second use of Technical Step will be on cooldown, but you may want to delay the third usage by a GCD or two to allow people to group up during Act IV. After this, all subsequent buff windows will be on cooldown, with your second potion being used with the 6-minute buff window.

1. Searing Stream
2. Ultimate Impulse
3. Dark IV Tethers