Scholar Healer Tips for Abyssos Savage — Endwalker 6.3

Abyssos is the second 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. Mythic Creation: Proto-Carbuncle (P5S)
2. Hemitheos: Hegemone (P6S)
3. Hemitheos: Agdistis (P7S)
4. Perfect Imperfection: Hephaistos (P8S)

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. As with all fights, you should coordinate with your co-healer in order to come up with an organized healing plan that minimizes DPS lost to healing.

This fight is quite a large step up in incoming damage compared to the first floor of Asphodelos. Tanks take fairly consistent damage throughout the fight between auto-attacks and the DoT busters, the latter of which will be a consistent feature for most fights this tier. Raid-wides will often come in pairs, so it's important to make smart use of your mitigations to cover multiple damage instances.

Prepull: This fight starts with two back-to-back raid-wide damage, followed by a long period of no party damage, but there's long strings of autos and two sets of double tank busters within the first two minutes of the fight. I recommend that you pre-shield with an Adloquium into Deployment Tactics, and put a Recitation plus an Excogitation on the pulling tank.

• Double Rush 1: A fairly hard hitting physical raid-wide, meaning it will deal additional damage to your casters and healers compared to melee and physical ranged dps. The first Double Rush is also followed by a set of Sonic Howl/Ruby Glow double raid-wides making this the highest burst of party damage in the fight until the soft enrage. I recommend making use of both Summon Seraph and Expedient here to help with the incoming damage. Consolation can shield two of the hits, and a well timed Expedient will cover both Double Rush and Sonic Howl. Sacred Soil can cover Sonic Howl and Ruby Glow as usual.
• Devour: This mechanic is a wall for many parties, and while it should have no incoming damage until the towers after, Expedient can help slow players to not get hit if they're struggling. Ideally your party members would just use Sprint here instead, but in less than optimal environments like Party Finder, Expedient can save wipes.
• Ruby Glow 5: I know it's confusing to keep track of what every Ruby Glow mechanic is, this is the one with Venom Squall during it. It's a significant amount of damage while the party is separated. This is the best mechanic in the fight to use a Recitation buffed Adloquium into Deployment Tactics. Summon Seraph is very strong here as she can hit both light parties during the mechanic if she's placed center.
• Sonic Shatter: This is the fight's soft enrage mechanic. The boss does five raid-wides in a row, with 3 seconds between each raid-wide. This mechanic will often be skipped, but if you see it, do whatever is needed to keep the party alive. Pop Sacred Soil alongside any remaining cooldowns and GCD shield each hit.

• Sacred Soil is incredibly strong on this fight for progression, easily covering the back to back raid-wides and double tank busters.
• Remember that the tank hit by Toxic Crunch will also be taking autos while their DoT is ticking. Consider using Excogitation or Aetherpact to help keep them alive.

This fight has a very hard hitting raid-wide in Hemitheos Dark IV, but very few instances of actual back to back damage. Use your cooldowns to mitigate Dark IV and you'll find the actual healing pressure in this fight is lower than P5S.

Prepull: This fight starts with a Hemitheos Dark IV raid-wide followed by a Chelic Synergy shared tank buster. The tank buster will usually be mitigated and invulned by the pulling tank so that there's only one DoT. I recommend that you preshield with a Recitation buffed Adloquium into Deployment Tactics. Recitation will come back during the fight's first major mechanic.

• Pathogenic Cells (Limit Cut): This mechanic looks more threatening than it is. It hits each player once for non-lethal damage. I typically used Summon Seraph to heal up and shield for this, but that's mostly because Summon Seraph doesn't have many great uses in this fight.
• Cachexia 1: The wall in this fight, but most deaths here won't be preventable by you anyways. The party is fairly spread out here though so doing a Recitation buffed Adloquium into Deployment Tactics can provide a nice buffer. Summon Seraph is good here for the same reason. Of note, if someone does die here and gets raised, they need to be healed before Ptera Ixou if it hasn't gone off already, as it ignores Res Immunity.
• Cachexia 2: Many parties will just use Tank LB3 here if they see this mechanic. I recommend using a Recitation buffed Adloquium into Deployment Tactics here as well for safety if you see this. Make sure you don't do it too early, you can use your Purple/Green debuff timer to help time it (wait until there's less than 30s on it.)

• After the initial raid-wide and buster at the start of the fight, sets of Synergy/Chelic Synergy into Hemitheos Dark IV occur about every two minutes like clockwork. Sacred Soil can cover both the buster and raid-wide, use it around midway through the buster's cast bar.
• Expedient can help with movement on some of the Exchange of Agonies mechanics.

The third fight this tier is fairly basic in the first half, both mechanics and healing wise. Most of your planning will be for just Inviolate Purgation.

Prepull: This fight starts with a raid-wide into either a shared or double tankbuster, all of which inflict a bleed. It is recommended that you use an Adloquium into Deployment Tactics. Consider putting a Recitation + Excogitation on one of the tanks (as both will be taking autos), or just use Recitation to buff your Adlo before Deploy.

• Inviolate Bonds: A much less threatening version of the later Inviolate Purgation, but it does follow a Spark of Life bleed raid-wide. Expedient and Summon Seraph are both good here.
• Inviolate Purgation: The most healing intensive part of the fight by far, it follows a pattern of Stack/Spread>Stack/Spread → Light of Life and then repeats. The Stack/Spreads each do reasonable damage, but Light of Life deals catastrophic damage and needs multiple mitigations to be survivable. You'll want to use all of your cooldowns here. Be prepared to use Ruin II and Swiftcast for movement. Here's a sample Scholar heal plan to use as a base. Remember you'll need to move your fairy to keep her in range of the party. Every hit should have Succor on it during prog except the one where you use Deployment Tactics, but I won't include Succor repeatedly for the sake of space.
  1. Debuffs go out
  2. Use Fey Illumination shortly before first debuffs happen
  3. First Stack/Spread happens
  4. Use Whispering Dawn
  5. use Expedient shortly before second debuffs go off
  6. Second Stack/Spread happens
  7. Use Indomitability
  8. Use Recitation
  9. Use Adloquium
  10. Use Deployment Tactics
  11. Preposition a Sacred Soil on the platform you're running to
  12. Light of Life goes off
  13. Use Fey Blessing
  14. Third Stack/Spread Happens
  15. Use Summon Seraph
  16. Use Consolation
  17. Fourth Stack/Spread happens
  18. Use Consolation
  19. Use Indomitability
  20. Preposition a Sacred Soil on the platform you're running to
  21. Light of Life goes off
• Harvests: Often a wall for prog, but not healing intensive at all. Just put up a shield before each of these in prog for safety.
• Ending Heal Check: Agdistis ends the fight by doing a Spark of Life, Light Party Stacks, and then two additional Spark of Life raid-wides. All of your cooldowns should be back from Purgation by this point. Make sure to save some for the last Sparks if you're going to see them. Play safe if you're seeing this part of the fight, use Sacred Soil and Succor as needed.

• Once again Sacred Soil is very strong on the tankbusters in this fight. Make sure you position it on the tanks properly though.
• Both tanks take autos throughout the fight. Use Aetherpact, Protraction, and Excogitation wisely.

This fight has two different possible timelines, so you'll need to adjust your healing plan a bit based on RNG.

Prepull: This fight starts with a hard-hitting raidwide followed by Spreads or two person Stacks. I recommend using a Recitation buffed Adloquium into Deployment Tactics. If you're going to use Summon Seraph during Manifold Flames, as I'll suggest later on, you can use her for prepull shields as well, but you'll need to Away her and resummon your fairy before pull to do a Dissipation first opener.

• Reforged Reflection 1: Beast/Dog: This mechanic can occur either before or after Manifold Flames. You can handle it similarly either way. The vast majority of the damage here is physical, so casters are the most at risk. The best way to handle this is to use Sacred Soil at the start of Rearing Rampage, and then use Expedient after the second hit of Rampage so that it lasts through all of Stomp Dead. This requires pretty tight positioning that most parties won't do however, in which case I recommend using Expedient at the start of Rampage and Sacred Soil for Stomps instead. Use Indomitability and Succor here as needed, and remember that fairy abilities can hit everyone here easily even if you yourself cannot.
• Reforged Reflection 1: Gorgon/Snake: Not a very complicated mechanic healing wise, but be aware that the Poison puddles can one shot even at i630 if they're not mitigated.
• Manifold Flames: I recommend using a Recitation buffed Adloquium into Deployment Tactics to prep for this. Summon Seraph is also excellent here, and anything you use here will be back for Fourfold Flames.
• Fourfold Flames: I recommend using a Recitation buffed Adloquium into Deployment Tactics to prep for this. Summon Seraph is also excellent here, easily hitting everyone when they run back mid after the first Flare goes off. If Beast happened first, Expedient will also be back here.
• Reforged Reflection 2: Gorgon/Snake: You'll want to prep pretty well for this as it's easy to get overwhelmed during the mechanic so minimizing healing required will help. If this is the Beast first pattern, you can do a Recitation buffed Adloquium into Deployment Tactics and use Summon Seraph as well. Either way prep a shield here and use Expedient. Fairy skills are helpful since they can always come from center.

• Yet another fight with double bleed tank busters that Sacred Soil is good for.

This fight is very healing intensive. You'll want to be GCD shielding most or even all of these hits in prog. Use Sacred Soil very liberally. If you're in a static, make sure your party has a mitigation plan established, as you'll want every mitigation to be used efficiently.

Prepull: This fight starts with a bleed raid-wide followed by a double tankbuster. I recommend doing just a prepull Succor, and saving your Deployment Tactics for Natural Alignment 1.

• Natural Alignment 1: Natural Alignment puts a fairly heavy (17k) DoT on two party members and then does various mechanics on the other six. Excogitation and Aetherpact are both helpful for dealing with the DoT at the start of the mechanic, once AoE healing starts going out you generally don't need to worry much about those two party members.
  To prep for the first Natural Alignment I recommend doing a Recitation buffed Adloquium into Deployment Tactics. It's possible to get Recitation back in time for the first High Concept hit if used early enough. I recommend using it either 8th or 9th GCD, and then Adloquium immediately after your first Biolysis refresh.
  You'll want to use basically everything in your kit during each Natural Alignment. I recommend using Summon Seraph to heal and shield after either the first and second hits, or the second and third hits. Expedient can be used midway through the progress bar of the first Fire/Ice mechanic, covering both hits of Fire/Ice and the following Aioniopyr. If your party is doing single tile Fire/Ice, Sacred Soil is excellent there, if not just use it for the Aioniopyr.
• High Concept 1: If you have Recitation back in time, I recommend using it to buff your Succor here, and use Sacred Soil here as well for safety. During the first High Concept you should be using Succor between each hit, and Emergency Tactics Succor when you have time as well.
• Natural Alignment 2: Most of this is the same healing wise as the first Natural Alignment, you'll want to use all of your available resources. It's possible to do a Recitation buffed Adloquium into Deployment Tactics both here and the second High Concept. Use Recitation during the Tyrant's Unholy Darkness cast bar, and Adloquium 2-3 GCDs after the tankbuster happens, Deploying immediately afterwards.
  Expedient cannot cover both Fire/Ice and Aioniopyr like in NA1, so I recommend using it just before the first Stack mechanic instead, as it should still be able to hit three instance of incoming damage if timed well there.
• High Concept 2: Do a Recitation buffed Adloquium into Deployment Tactics to prep if possible. This is mostly similar to the first High Concept, use Succor for each hit. The major differences are the Ifrit DoT two players will get and the full health check at the end. Like with the Natural Alignment DoT, Excogitation and Aetherpact are both great for dealing with the Ifrit DoT. Don't hesitate to Adloquium them if you're in range and have the time to cast as well. For the full health check at the end you'll want to use a Emergency Tactics Succor and Indomitability at the very least. Don't hesitate to do an extra Succor or throw in some more if needed, you need to be full health when the Phoenix feathers merge or you're dead.
• Post Ego Death: This phase is a heal and mitigation check. Deaths here are incredibly punishing as you lose the 100% damage up from Everburn on top of gaining Weakness. GCD shielding every hit in prog is non-negotiable.
  You can use Sacred Soil halfway through the first Aionagonia cast and then off cooldown from there so that it covers all three Aionagonias. I recommend pairing one major cooldown with each Aionagonia as well.
  1. Aionagonia 1: Use Expedient during the castbar, it will last through Dominion.
  2. Aionagonia 2: Use Summon Seraph while the previous Dominion's second towers are happening. Use a charge of Consolation to prep for the second set of Aionagonia and Dominion.
  3. Aionagonia 3: Do a Recitation buffed Adloquium into Deployment Tactics to prep. Use Swiftcast on the Adloquium if you're taking the second set of the second Dominion's towers to make sure you get the Deploy out in time.
  Use all of your other healing tools throughout this phase as necessary, and remember each Aionagonia bleed ticks twice, don't let the last Aionagonia 3 tick catch you off guard.

• I recommend doing an Aetherflow First Opener in this fight, as it lets you use Whispering Dawn in to heal the first raid-wide and the later Dissipation buffs your Adloquium used to shield for the first Natural Alignment.
• Auto-attacks in this fight are tank stacks and hurt quite a bit. Talk to your tanks about their plan for Tyrant's Unholy Darkness. You ideally want one of the tanks to invuln the first and third tankbuster, as those are the ones followed by two auto-attacks rather than just one. If you have a Warrior, they can invuln the first and fourth tankbuster on their own, and their co-tank can do the third.
• If all of your casters and healers have 62k+ hp, Limitless Desolation won't kill from full hp. It's fine to still shield it for prog safety, but this should be one of the first to go.