Reaper DPS Tips for Asphodelos Savage — Endwalker 6.1

Asphodelos is the first raid tier released in the expansion FFXIV: Endwalker and consists of four fights, with the fourth fight having two phases and being split with a checkpoint:

1. Warder of the Condemned: Erichthonios
2. Mythic Creation: The Hippokampus
3. Mythic Creation: The Phoinix
4. Himitheos: 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 contains suggestions. If your group has decided they wish to do something different listed on this page, assess the changes with your group. The suggestions below are not your only options for these fights, and this page should not be treated as if it is.

One of the aims of this guide is to optimize melee uptime, but you should never sacrifice valuable progression time by greeding a weaponskill. It is highly recommended that you get comfortable with difficult mechanics and then learn how to get melee uptime during them.

Opener: Late Gluttony (Fast Shroud)

Pot timings: Opener → 6-Minute burst

Feint Suggestions:

• Shining Cells
• Slam Shut
• Unmitigated Tank buster

This is a full uptime fight, you can reach the boss from every tile during Shining Cells and most Aetherial Chain strategies allow for melee uptime. The 2-minute window and the 6-minute window line up with Temperance, which may have the party spread out at certain periods. For the 2-minute Intemperance, make sure you hang out in the middle as long as you can before going to your tile to ensure your Arcane Circle hits as many people as possible. For the 6-minute Intemperance, the buff window lines up between the second and third crystal explosions, so it will be hard to ensure everyone gets hit, but the timing is at a point where the party is mostly gathered. It is a good idea to dump Harvest Moon into the 6-minute potion window.

Opener: Early Gluttony

Pot timings: Opener → 4:30 Burst → 9:00 Burst

Feint Suggestions:

• Sewage Deluge

This fight has some odd phase timings, so you will want to start with an Early Gluttony opener. Your first two-minute burst window will also have to be altered from the normal double enshroud. You will want to do the Shroud → Gluttony → Shroud variant. This can be accomplished by refreshing Shadow of Death a bit before the burst window and entering your first shroud after the combo GCD that puts you at 50 Soul / 50 Shroud. This is around the time the boss jumps for his first shockwave. Do a single Shadow of Death refresh in this Enshroud and immediately after you finish with Communio use Gluttony and the Gibbet/Gallows right after. From here, use Plentiful Harvest, finish your second Enshroud, and then finish your combo. The combo timer is incredibly strict here, so any minor delays will end with you dropping combo.

During the 4-minute burst window, the boss will end up using an ability that has him leave the field called Kampeos Harma. You will want to hold your Arcane Circle and Enshroud until he returns. You should use Gluttony during the cast though and get off both Gibbet and Gallows before he disappears. The timing on getting the full Gluttony may seem tight at first, so make sure you are using Sprint to help you get to your position for the mechanic afterwards. You can pop Enshroud a few seconds into the mechanic and immediately use Shadow of Death when the boss returns, use your potion, and execute a normal Double Enshroud window from here. For the rest of the fight, you can use Gluttony off cooldown and perform the basic Double Enshroud burst.

Other Fight tips:

• This fight has the full circle hitbox, which means that directional attacks will work from anywhere.
• Save Harvest Moon for the final predatory Avarice, especially if your party is doing a strategy that has the marked player running out. If you do not get marked for the final avarice, then just use it whenever towards the end, ideally during the 9:00 potion minute burst if you see it.
• If your group is pushing enrage, then you will want to hold onto your last Arcane Circle for about 30 seconds to line it up with a final potion.

Opener: Late Gluttony (Fast Shroud)

Potion timing: Opener → 4:30 → 9:00 OR 2:00 → 8:30 (for faster kill times)

Feint Suggestions:

• Second set of birds
• Fires of Asphodelos
• Life's Agonies

The first phase of this fight can be handled as normal with full uptime. The main difference is when it comes to Blackfires. Harvest Moon, Gluttony, and Communio are all capable of hitting the Blackfire and the boss if the boss is properly centered. I recommended using Harvest Moon and then Gluttony on the blackfire as you are progressing or in most PF groups. If your group is optimizing, the boss can be pulled between two Blackfires, allowing you to anchor all of those abilities on him and hitting two Blackfires. Make sure to channel Harvest Moon during the bosses dive mechanic.

During the add phase, do not use Enshroud unless you think you need to, due to either a death or a damage down. Maintain Shadow of Death of whichever target you are hitting and use Gluttony on cooldown during this phase. Ideally, you should be at around 50+ Soul and sitting on 100 Shroud at the end of this phase.

The re-opener after the add phase is a little awkward if you are doing potions at 4:30. Because of how variable the add phase timing is, the time your potion is available is just as variable. Ideally, with a slow add phase (~10~12 seconds on potion after last bird dies), you want to enter Enshroud after the last bird is killed and open up with a Shadow of Death on the boss. From here, you can trigger the first two Enshroud attacks and then Shadow of Death again with a double weaved Potion and Arcane Circle. If your potion timing still has a bit to go, you can buffer this timeline by using Harvest Moon in your enshroud. If your potion timing has 18+ seconds left, then you will want to not use Enshroud early. Instead, use Shadow of Death when the boss returns and either use a Soul Slice if you are not capped on Soul, or use a Soul Spender ability like Gibbet or Gallows. After that, you can enter Enshroud and do the basic double enshroud burst but replace one Shadow of Death with Harvest Moon.

Other fight tips:

• This fight requires you to move quite a bit. Use True North only when you have to, but remember that you can save Soul and spend it when you are able to hit the positional most of the time.
• During the Knockback Tornado of Fires of Asphodelos, make sure that you are grouped up with the healers so you can easily run back into melee without worrying about the mechanic if you have to spread.
• If you still have Harvest Moon, you can use it on either the Knockback Tornados or during the last Glory Plume (out into stack or spread).
• You can Harvest Moon once in the first phase and Soulsow after the boss jumps.
• You can Soulsow during the add phase after killing the first set of birds. There is a 4-5 second delay before the next set.
• You can also Soulsow when the boss does his last jump towards the end of the fight.

Opener: Early Gluttony (Enrage kill with delayed buffs), Late Gluttony

Potion Timing: 0 → 4:30, or 0 → 6:00

Feint Suggestions:

1. Auto-attacks during Pinax
2. Auto-attacks during the Orb mechanic

If your group is getting to the enrage kill time, you may want to consider holding buffs during Pinax. This is especially valuable during prog when the busyness of the mechanic can make doing a proper burst window difficult. You do not lose a single burst window, but it is important that you keep Gluttony on cooldown, decoupling it from your burst.

Once you start killing even a little bit faster then your group may want to discuss bursting during Pinax, which is where a bulk of optimization comes from in the fight. If you are bursting during Pinax, keep these few things in mind:

• You have a single use of Harvest Moon, this can be crucial for maintaining uptime if the third tile is Thunder.
• Plentiful Harvest and Communio are both long range attacks. The second Pinax will line these two abilities up perfectly with the third tile explosion making it easy to maintain uptime during the last set.

Using Arm's Length when the “Directional” Shift cast bar is at about 65% done will allow you to resist both the third panel knockback and his cape mechanic.

Opener: Late Gluttony

Potion Timing: 0 → 6:00

Feint Suggestions:

• Act 1 Auto Attacks
• Ultimate Impulse casts

This fight is fairly straightforward. Depending on your Act 2, Act 3, and Act 4 strategies, you will be losing some uptime, which is extremely detrimental if you are aiming for an enrage clear. The boss enrages at 8:23, which means you want to do your two-minute burst without any delay at any point in the encounter. It is highly recommended, if playing for enrage and your group has two melee, that you do not LB3; due to how strict your resource generation will be, you will end up losing an Enshroud window at enrage if you LB3. If you are the only melee, then you will have to cast LB3 as it is more damage gained than that single Enshroud window.

You only get one Harvest Moon, but make sure you fire it off whenever you have to disconnect from the boss. Fill all other boss disconnect windows with Harpe.