FFXIV Endsinger Extreme Trial Guide: Endsinger's Aria (Patch 6.1)

The Song of Oblivion returns to Final Fantasy XIV with The Minstrel’s Ballad: Endsinger’s Aria. As of FFXIV Patch 6.1, you can face the Meteia manifestation again in a new Extreme trial as Endsinger (EX) pits you against a souped-up version of Endwalker’s final boss.

Clearing The Endsinger’s latest encounter is no easy feat. And we have you covered with our full Endsinger Extreme guide here. Beware of fight spoilers below; we’re breaking this boss down step-by-step and getting you that new beastly cat mount before 7.0, hopefully.

How to Unlock Endsinger (EX)

Before even thinking about taking on Endsinger (EX), you need to have finished Endwalker’s main story questline, of course. Additionally, you’ll need to hit average item level 580 before stepping into her reimaged arena.

Once again, the Wandering Minstrel guides Warriors of Light into a what-if scenario with another Extreme trial. He’s the same NPC you met with in version 6.0 for Zodiark and Hydaelyn Extreme.

Head to Old Sharlayan (X: 12.7, Y:14.2), and speak to the NPC standing just at the edge of the docks along Scholar’s Harbor. He’ll ask what you’d like to talk about; select Endsinger to access The Minstrel’s Ballad: Endsinger’s Aria.

Endsinger (EX): Assignments & Waymarks

Before you go making The Endsinger mad, assign everyone positions for Towers/Meteors, Light Parties, and Clock Directions. You should also lay down Waymarks; this fight easily makes use of all eight.

Towers will spawn into the arena as meteors to create two columns consisting of four meteors each, both right beside each other in a line stretching from north to south. Put your two tanks and two melee DPS in the northern-most towers for uptime. Ranged DPS and healers should take the southern-most towers.

Light Parties should split your group of eight players into four, each with one healer, one tank, and two DPS. It is helpful to mark your healers with “1” and “2” signs, plus designate which party will adjust while the other remains more static for a certain mechanic.

Clock Directions will put one player at every cardinal point and intercardinal point on the arena’s edge. Tanks and healers should take cardinal spots, while DPS take intercardinal positions. Keep your melee DPS closer to the boss’s head for uptime.

Waymarks help on the outer edge of the arena. Put numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 at cardinal positions on the map. Letters A, B, C, and D should be placed in intercardinal directions. The middle circle of the arena is a helpful indicator for where to stand during some mechanics, but if your party struggles to see it quickly, move the “1” marker to the middle.

Phase One – Elegeia Unforgotten & Stars

The Endsinger begins with raid-wide damage and introduces her blue and orange star mechanics. As the stars rotate, keep an eye on the head in the middle for a cleave to dodge. For this section, you’ll need to resolve both sets of star types in random order while dealing with the Endsinger’s cleave.

• Elegeia Unforgotten – The boss delivers heavy-hitting raid-wide damage twice in this phase, with the first easily covered by a pre-pull shield from a Scholar or Sage and a regen. The second AoE occurs after her first set of stars collide. Elegeia also signals that Endsinger’s smaller head is out, and she’ll begin setting up her Fiery and Azure stars.
  • The Endsinger Head – You’ll notice a second Endsinger spawns as a small head in the middle of the arena and showsup on your enmity list. Watch the direction she faces — that entire half of the arena will be hit with a cleave. Dodge to the safe side while dealing with the star mechanic.
  • Fiery Star or Azure Star – The Endsinger will spawn two stars per cast; one moves slowly while the other rotates quickly towards the slower one. Once the stars collide, their respective abilities trigger. You will always see one set of blue and orange stars in this phase.
    • Fiery Star – Get away from these orange stars. When the stars collide, the arena is covered by a large half-circle AoE. Their impact will one-shot any players caught in the explosion. Dodge into a corner that’s also safe from the Endsinger head’s cleave.

• • • Azure Star – Get close to the blue stars for their impact. Once they collide, you’ll get hit with a knockback. It blows through Arms Length and Surecast, so don’t bother. Instead, use this knockback to push yourself into an area also safe from the head’s cleave.

• • Keep in mind that these stars will always collide at one of the intercardinal points on the arena. Identify which intercardinal point the slower star spawns at and watch as it moves to the next counter-clockwise intercardinal point. The two stars will never collide at a cardinal location.

Phase Two – Chains & Towers

The second phase uses tower positions assigned at the beginning of the fight. First, the party must resolve tethers/chains and then move quickly into their assignments after the tethers break. As you get into tower positions, watch The Endsinger’s face to determine whether the inner or outer edge of your tower’s circle is safe in order to dodge Elenchos.

• Grip of Despair – Chains always tether a tank or healer to a DPS. Have the party meet in the middle as the Katasterismo cast begins; it’s crucial to stack tightly and not separate too early. Once the chains spawn, tanks and healers should run west while DPS go east. Do not run at an angle towards your tower; it takes longer for the tether to break and may damage your partner.
• Katasterismo – This cast began just before Grip of Despair went out, but you can’t resolve this before breaking the chains. Every tower must have one player standing in it before the meteor hits the ground. Quickly run to your assigned spot after breaking chains, watching The Endsinger’s face to determine if you should stand in your tower’s inner or outer portion to avoid her cleaves.
  • Leaving a tower unoccupied deals heavy party-wide damage and a vulnerability stack to all players, but most groups can take one or two hits.
• Elenchos – The Endsinger’s face will glow as the party’s chains break. She has two patterns here, with the glowing part of her face indicating where she’s going to hit. This goes off just as Katasterismo resolves, so you must be in position before the tower mechanic completes.
  • If her eyes glow, The Endsinger will cleave the east and west corners of the arena, leaving only the middle strip safe.
  • If her mouth glows, the boss will hit a straight line down the arena, leaving a gap on the east and west safe.

Phase Three – Light Parties & Double Stars

Things heat up as the boss combines mechanics you’ve seen before into new moves. Shield and heal through the first AoE and tankbuster, and prepare for your assigned light parties. Watch your healers marked with the “one” and “two” markers when dodging Elegeia Unforgotten, and then soak Eironeia. Don’t overthink the Fatalism that follows. If you can figure out where the first explosion occurs, you always know where the second happens by looking straight across. Let’s break this down in steps:

• Telos – Party-wide damage, heal and mitigate through this as usual.
• Hubris – The Endsinger will target the two players highest on her aggro table with a tankbuster, so make sure your off-tank is second here. It’s not a big hit, but tanks will need to move away from the party to keep everyone else safe from the circle’s radius.
• Elegeia Unforgotten – Like in the previous phase, a set of blue or orange stars spawn and collide while an Endsinger head cleaves half of the arena. Resolve this in the same way while noting your light party locations.
• Eironeia – Both healers receive a stack marker just as Elegeia Unforgotten resolves. The two Light Parties should split apart after dealing with the star mechanic and share the damage from their respective stack markers. If the party struggles with this mechanic, it’s helpful to designate one party to remain static after Elegeia Unforgotten while the other healer and their partners reposition.
• Fatalism – The stars from Elegeia Unforgotten return, but now you must adjust to their positions quickly as a back-to-back set. After Eironeia, make your way to the middle and watch for a Fiery Star or Azure Star set – it’s always two sets of the same type. These spawn quickly, but whichever pair of stars appear first is also the one you’ll need to resolve immediately.
  • These sets do not rotate in the same exaggerated movements as Elegeia Unforgotten. Instead, one star is slow and hardly moves from the intercardinal point it explodes at, while the other moves away before snapping back to collide at the spawn point.
  • The stars will always explode directly across from each other. So, if they collide in the southwest, your subsequent explosion is northeast.
  • Fatalism does not spawn a small Endsinger head like in Elegeia Unforgotten; you’re free to focus only on getting to the right place to adjust to the stars.
• Elenchos – Just as before, watch The Endsinger’s glowing face to see if the sides or center are safe. Elenchos begins just as the last star set from Fatalism collides; you’ll need to watch her while dealing with the impact of the stars.

Phase Four – Twinsong’s Aporrhoia (aka Five Head)

As comical as the five-head nickname is, Twinsong’s Aporrhoia and Theological Fatalism are some of The Endsinger’s toughest mechanics to get down. The first mechanic, Twinsong’s Aporrhoia, is straightforward enough, moving you between three safe donut AoEs while dodging a cleave from the center. However, Theological Fatalism introduces you to the rewind gimmick, tasking you with memorizing three steps prior. Let’s break it down:

• Twinsong’s Aporrhoia – The Endsinger spawns five heads around the arena. The one in the middle cleaves half the arena and makes the positions on two of the other heads unsafe. On the safe half of the arena, the two remaining heads will cast a point-blank AoE and a donut AoE; run to the head casting a donut AoE not targeted by the cleave.
  • The boss will spawn two donut AoEs, but don’t take the bait and run into the one she cleaves from the middle. There is only one safe option.
  • Aporrhoia Unforgotten casts three times in this phase. The Endsinger will cleave one half of the room with every cast, rotating clockwise as she goes. Move between the donut AoEs every time she turns in order to dodge her middle head cleaves.

• Theological Fatalism – Using those same mini Endsingers, the boss tethers each to assign one, two, or three ring markers. Now, you deal with Endsinger rewinding mechanics from Aporrhoia Unforgotten using the markers to tell you how many steps backward each head will go. This is where things get ugly for most groups, so keep some rules in mind and pay attention to The Endsinger’s middle head.
  • The middle head rotates counter-clockwise for this mechanic. If The Endsinger assigns her just one ring, she cleaves the direction she’s facing already. If you see two rings, she rewinds by one position to cleave. If you see three rings, she turns two times before cleaving. If you can narrow down what side of the arena will be hit with a cleave, you’re only left with two spots for the safe donut AoE.
  • The other four heads are also assigned ring markers. We can already determine which half of the arena is unsafe, so try to quickly deduce which of the two heads safe from the cleave remaining heads will revert back to a donut AoE cast.
    • A helpful way to think about the remaining heads is to consider them in terms of even and odd numbers. If the head has one or three rings, it will do the mechanic it just completed before Theological Fatalism began. If it has two rings, it will do the opposite mechanic.

• Elenchos and Eironeia – As the cleave and head AoEs explode, both healers will be marked for Eironeia again. Look at The Endsinger’s face to see where she will cast Elenchos and move to dodge into the safe zone while sticking with your assigned light party. These two mechanics cast too close together to resolve them one at a time.
• Hubris – Heal up from the light party stacks and have the tanks spread apart again for another set of tankbusters.

Phase Five – Despair Unforgotten

For this phase, remember the cardinal position assigned to you earlier and prepare to revisit The Endsinger’s rewinding gimmick. Despair Unforgotten casts three different types of markers on party members, asking the party to move in and out of the center stack in specific arrangements to resolve them. Heal up between each set before the boss rewinds mechanics with her Theological Fatalism rings. Finally, she ends with an Almagest-like mechanic. Here’s how to handle it all:

• Despair Unforgotten – This is where the party uses their pre-assigned clock positions. Once the cast goes out, The Endsinger assigns party members one of three different marker icons — she uses all of them every time. Remember the order your three mechanics come out in; this is important for later. The arrangements are:
  • Tanks/Healers with Flares & DPS Stack with Donuts – The Endsinger will always group these by role. Tanks and healers should run to their assigned cardinal positions on the outer edge with the flares. The three DPS with a donut AoE will group in the middle with the one DPS marked with a stack to share the damage.
  • DPS with Flares & Tanks/Healers Stack with Donuts – It’s the same as before with roles reversed. DPS move to their cardinal spot to resolve their flares while tanks and healers stack in the middle.
  • Spread AOE – These big circle AoEs just need players to move out to their assigned cardinal positions to avoid overlapping damage.
  • Players with the donut AoE and stack markers must stay close to the middle while flare markers move out. If they’re too close, the flares will kill the stacking party members.
• The Endsinger casts Despair Unforgotten once, and then the party can return to the middle for heals. She casts it again, followed by Elenchos. On the third Despair Unforgotten, you should know the only pattern she hasn’t used yet so you can pre-position.
• Theological Fatalism – The ring assignments return, but they’re on party members this time. Hopefully, you remembered your last three mechanic assignments from Despair Unforgotten, as the number of rings surrounding your character indicates how many steps you should rewind.
  • This only goes off once. It may be easier to remember your Despair Unforgotten pattern in terms of “in” and “out.”
    • For example, if you’re marked with three rings and were either assigned a flare or circle AoE during the first Despair Unforgotten, you will run out to your cardinal position to resolve this mechanic. For example, if your positioning sequence went out (3), in (2), out (1) for Despair Unforgotten, remember that one ring means move out, two rings move in, and three rings move out.
    • Another helpful way to think about it is this: three rings makes you redo the first mechanic you dealt with from Despair Unforgotten. Two rings is a redo of the second mechanic, and one ring is a redo of the third mechanic you handled from Despair Unforgotten.
• Telomania – Stack close for this to make things easier on mitigation and healing. The Endsinger will swing at the arena four times, dealing damage with each hit, before finally inflicting a bleed on everyone. It’s essentially just Almagest. White Mage’s Liturgy of the Bell or Astrologian’s Macrocosmos are helpful here.

Phase Six – Twinsong’s Aporrhoia (Six Head)

This is another phase that’s easy to overthink, but it’s not so bad once it clicks. Watch the four rings as they move from the boss and between her heads — you can’t stand near any head they land on. Note that two heads will always be safe areas. Everything that follows until the next phase involves a mechanic you’ve dealt with before.

• Endsong’s Aporrhoia – Heads will spawn again, but in a new pattern that makes a circle of six around the arena. The Endsinger will continue by casting Endsong, which sends four rings from the boss into four of her six heads.
  • The four heads hit by Endsong will, in turn, cast Endsong. It’s a large point-blank circle AoE.
  • That leaves two heads not hit by Endsong rings. The safe spot should end up being one large area if they’re close together. If the safe heads are apart, it’s two much smaller corners. So, the best strategy is to always stand inside a safe head.
  • The floating rings themselves do not deal damage, so don’t worry about running into them. If it looks like you won’t make it to safety, try to get hit by only one AoE and avoid areas where the circles overlap.
• Endsong casts two more times, but the rings travel between the heads. The same idea applies here; look for the two heads not hit by a ring and stand inside one for safety.
• Elenchos, Telos, and Hubris – After dodging the final Endsong, look for The Endsinger’s glowing facial features and move into the safe zone for Elenchos. She’ll follow up with her Telos AoE and tankbusters.
• Elegeia Unforgotten and Eironeia – Another repeat mechanic. The boss will spawn her usual blue or orange colliding stars that you’ll have to handle again, and then cast Eironeia. The two healers and their light parties should split while dodging the middle head’s cleave.

Phase Seven – Double Fatalism & Towers

The two Fatalism casts really seem to roadblock some parties, but the same rules from before still apply. If you know where one star set is colliding, then you know the other’s location, too. You’ll have four star collisions to handle before immediately going back into tower positions.

• Fatalism – This is the same as before, with two sets of the same color stars spawning back-to-back. However, you’ll see both colors this time — essentially, you’re adjusting to a total of four collisions.
  • The Endsinger again resolves these in the order they spawn, with both orange or both blue exploding first. They will never alternate colors.
  • Just as before, the explosions will always occur across from each other.
• Katasterismo – The towers spawn again as the last set of stars collide. The timing is generous, so adjust to the collision first, then run into your assigned tower. Elenchos will go out just as before, so pay attention to Endsinger’s face and determine whether the inner or outer portion of your tower’s circle is safe.

Phase Eight – Repeat, Enrage

As you may have guessed, that’s it for new mechanic arrangements. Most of this fight is rearranging a few core ideas to repeat in new ways, but there’s nothing the party hasn’t tackled from here on out.

• Telomania – You’ll take four hits from the boss again and then get inflicted with a bleed.
• Twinsong’s Aporrhoia and Theological Fatalism – Watch the cleave and the donut AoE markers; dodging and remembering the Despair Unforgotten casts. She’ll rewind them all just as before with Theological Fatalism.
• Elenchos, Eironeia, and Hubris – Dodge the hits indicated by her and resolve your healer stacks again. The Endsinger follows up with the double tankbuster, Hubris.
• Endsong’s Aporrhoia – Avoid the three casts of Endsong, again indicated by rings passed between the boss and heads.
• Elenchos, Telos, and Double Fatalism – This happens quickly. At the end of the last Endsong, the party should be ready to dodge Elenchos one more time while dealing with the AoE from Telos. Double Fatalism begins again, signaling the beginning of the end.
• Telos — This is the last bit of damage to go out. The Endsinger will linger for just a moment more before she becomes untargetable. You either kill her here or wipe to enrage.

Endsinger (EX): Rewards & Totems

For clearing The Endsinger’s Aria, you’ll receive the achievement Silence is Golden. Every clear also guarantees two Ultimatum Tokens and a chest with one random weapon and one weapon coffer. The trial’s Bluefeather weapons are item level 595.

As additional random drops, the boss may reward a Blue Feather, Meteion Card, Faded Copy of The Final Day, or Bluefeather Lynx Flute. That flute is probably why half your party is there, anyway. It summons the Endsinger Lynx mount.

Speak to Nesvaaz in Radz-at-Han (X: 10.6, Y:10.0) to exchange The Endsinger’s Totems. You can trade 10 Ultimatum Tokens for any Job weapon aside from Paladin, which uses three tokens for the shield and seven for the sword.

Alternatively, you could always save up 99 tokens to exchange for the mount, which should become available in a later patch.