Final Fantasy XIV continues its Patch 6.2 Abyssos raid series with Hegemone, another boss wielding noxious debuffs and arena changes. The Sixth Circle Savage (P6S) may be more forgiving than Proto-Carbuncle’s introduction, but don’t underestimate the Abyssos keyward — Cachexia may get the best of you.
Beware of fight spoilers — we’re breaking down Hegemone’s crisscrossing arena and how to solve Cachexia like a pro in our Pandaemonium Abyssos: The Sixth Circle Savage guide below.
Unlocking Abyssos Savage & Requirements
To unlock Endwalker’s Pandaemonium Abyssos Savage, you must first clear the Normal difficulty added in FFXIV Patch 6.2. Then, with The Eighth Circle (Normal) and story quests complete, you can speak to Nemjiji in Labyrinthos (X:8.4, Y:27.4). For any help on specifics, we’ve got a detailed walkthrough on how to unlock the Abyssos Raids.
Once you’re raid-ready, you’ll also need to complete your weekly Fifth Circle Savage clear before entering P6S. Asking a player that’s already defeated Proto-Carbuncle to queue you in is always an option, but it does lock you out of weekly loot allowances from P5S.
As for gear sets, P6S requires Item Level 605 or higher to enter. Of course, a full pre-made group can always skip Item Level checks outside of Duty Finder, but we don’t recommend it. Hegemone’s debuff damage adds up quickly, so take what you can for the HP bump.
For extra gear, we recommend clearing Storm’s Crown EX for an Item Level 615 Windswept Weapon. FFXIV Patch 6.2 also adds the usual crafted gear and Tomestone equipment, scoring Item Level 610 and 620 pieces for the Warrior of Light.
Sixth Circle Savage: Assignments & Waymarks
Thankfully, Hegemone’s arena provides clear patterns along the floor to help the party gauge their positions, but a little prep work goes a long way. We’ll establish a few general markers and party suggestions, but most of Hegemone’s tricks change up who goes where and when.
Waymarks
To prepare for Hegemone’s showdown, these Waymark positions put A, B, C, and D at north, east, south, and west, respectively. Each marker also rides the line where two tiles meet.
Waymarks numbered one, two, three, and four are left to northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest. Note how they sit where four tiles meet.
Since Hegemone plays with the arena so much, these P6S Waymark positions stick to clear cardinal and intercardinal directions. Their purpose helps more with orienting yourself between mechanics, and placing them where several tiles meet gives a frame of reference for calls without committing to a misleading square.
Light Parties
In most situations, P6S gives you no choice in light party assignments, but some stack mechanics still need them for a painless resolution. Before pulling, split the group into the typical one Tank, one Healer, and two DPS assignments. Light parties should also assign east and west positions for resolving their stack marks.
Later in the fight, another stack marker targets one DPS and one Tank or Healer. For that mechanic, you will need to pair off by Role — one group with all DPS, another group with all Tanks and Healers.
Partners & Intercardinals
Occasionally, Hegemone’s spells require a lot of room to handle. Prepare for this by pairing one DPS with every Tank and Healer. Then, assign one duo to each corner at northwest, northeast, southeast, and southwest. Hegemone’s mechanics for these pairs only target certain roles; this will keep you safe from lethal, on-the-fly overlap.
Sixth Circle Savage Phase 1: Polyominoid & Pathogenic
Hegemone loves playing around with the arena tiles, so pay close attention to how her shape markers and cleaves work in these opening few attacks. They start off slow and simple, but later on she’ll add in more complicated patterns.
Hemitheos’s Dark IV – Hegemone opens with her raid-wide attack, but your Tanks are the only party members in danger for a while. Let opening shields from a Barrier Healer handle the brunt of this while regens carry the rest and prepare for buster damage.
Chelic Synergy – Non-Tanks beware; Hegemone’s tank buster hits with a wide cone in front of her. Tanks can invuln through this or share it, but it does leave a DoT on both Tanks if shared. P6S has little use for invulns outside of tank busters, so help your healers and invuln the attack.
Aetheric Polyominoid – Watch the dividing lines along the floor carefully as Hegemone drops two plus markers in the arena. Their position around the four-inner tiles is random, but they’re always diagonal from each other. All tiles aligned with the plus markers are unsafe.
Light party groups must split into their east and west assignments, standing in a safe tile.
- Unholy Darkness targets both healers with stack markers. This resolves as the tiles explode and Exocleaver begins.
- Exocleaver hits twice with six cones originating from Hegemone. Dodge the first hit from the safe spot in your open Aetheric Polyominoid tile. The boss follows up with another cleave into your current safe slice, so immediately move into one of the cleaves. Light parties must move as a group since Unholy Darkness goes off during the attack.
Pathogenic Cells – Party Finder calls this cast “Limit Cut” or “Flood Ray,” but the mechanic remains the same. Our strategy keeps things simple, sending even numbers north and odd numbers south.
One begins north, two begins south — as the cleave goes off, the next odd and even marker move into position. The party continues to rotate in and out until all eight numbers resolve. Compared to Cruise Chaser and Diamond Weapon, Hegemone’s mechanic is pretty forgiving. If you prefer the Flood Ray approach, that also works here.
Aetherial Exchange – This cast doesn’t deal damage, but it’s your warning to position with your partner at your shared intercardinal spot. Hegemone is about to reveal which Role runs to the four corners of the arena, while the other Role positions around the boss.
Exchange of Agonies assigns all Tanks and Healers OR all DPS to a stack at the boss OR position in the arena corner. She will always mark the same role for the same position; this never mixes up.
- As her markers go out, the boss tethers to two pairs of players. If you have a tether, it means your true marker is the opposite assignment of the icon showing above your head. Not every player has a tether; resolve your mechanic normally.
Donut AoEs and the Stack must move up close to the boss. The Donut AoE is massive and can easily clip players in the arena corners. You will stack either north or south, or east and west depending on Choros Ixou.
Orange AoEs run to their assigned intercardinal corner. Stay as far out as you can; these markers easily hurt the stacked players. While in the corner, you also dodge Choros Ixou.
- Choros Ixou cleaves while markers resolve, hitting north and south OR east and west. Watch where her hands glow to determine the position, dodge the first, then immediately move into the opposite spot. Hegemone always cleaves the directions she did not begin with as a follow-up hit.
Sixth Circle Savage Phase 2: Transmission, Polyominoid
After this next tank buster, Hegemone’s break to bully your tanks always picks one random cast. Stay on your toes, and make sure your group is prepared to handle either. Also, take care not to cleave your allies as the boss reintroduces her Normal Raid debuff — you can survive one hit, but that damage down is a bummer.
Synergy – Hegemone’s second tank buster hits both tanks and leaves behind DoTs. The main tank also takes a vuln, so swap here to avoid lethal damage. Hemitheos’s Dark IV follows up with more raid-wide damage.
Transmission – Hegemone’s cast tethers every player briefly, assigning everyone either a snake head debuff or wing debuff. The snake marker does the same thing as in the Normal Raid, but now you have more mechanics to resolve as the debuff hits.
- Snake debuffs cleave with a frontal cone; Wing debuffs cleave with a rear cone.
- Choros Ixou cleaves north and south OR east and west again. In the first cleave, debuff markers freeze you in place as they resolve. As soon as you can move, dodge into the direction she cleaved first, avoiding the second hit.
The party can keep things neat with uptime on the boss by dodging together. Snake debuffs should stand inside Hegemone’s hitbox, in front of Wing debuffs. Line up with your respective debuff markers in the safe spot, so you don’t hit each other. This strat keeps everyone facing the appropriate direction while hitting the boss, with no concerns about cleaving the entire arena.
Aetherial Exchange casts again, signaling it’s time for another Polyominoid.
Polyominoid Sigma – Hegemone’s cast summons two sets of X and plus signs tethered together; the tether causes them to swap. These marks have several different patterns, but regardless of the pattern, we recommend using Hector Hectorson’s trick to find your safe tile and always begin this mechanic under the boss.
As Hector points out, one of the four shapes will not be against a corner. Find the X sign tethered to the out-of-place plus — your safe tile is diagonal to that X.
- Dark Dome begins as you look for your safe tile. Stack under the boss to bait Dark Dome AoEs and run out into the opposite corner of your safe spot.
In our Party Finder experiences, some groups seem to bait Dark Dome from the middle of another square, then run into the safe tile. It works but, unfortunately, adds more risk of clipping.
Aetherial Exchange casts again, so break into Role-based light parties to prepare for the next mechanic. The parties should each claim a square diagonally opposite from the other within the four middle tiles.
Exchange of Agonies again assigns orange AoEs, stack markers, and tethers players. Your group of four will always have one stack marker, one orange AoE, and two people with no marker.
- If you have a stack marker or orange AoE, do the opposite mechanic because you always have a tether.
Players who will wind up with the stack marker stay in the safe square with the other two players. Players who will wind up with the orange AoE must run to the outer corner of the arena, diagonal from their safe square.
- Exocleaver cleaves in another six cones from the boss. All markers resolve as the first cleave goes out. Dodge into the previous unsafe cones to avoid the second Exocleaver hit.
The party must be in position as the Exocleaver hits begin. If your orange AoEs are not in the far corners of the arena, your stack groups take lethal damage. Stack groups should hover around the circle’s center in the safe tile.
Synergy OR Chelic Synergy target your tanks for another buster. Hemitheos’s Dark IV hits again with more raid-wide damage.
Aetherial Exchange alerts you to a mechanic change; it’s time for your traditional light parties to break into their one tank, one healer, and two DPS groups.
Polyominoid Sigma – For this Polyominoid, have light parties split east in west inside of the four inner tiles. In these four squares, only two are safe, and they’re always diagonal from each other.
The plus signs always hit the outside of the arena. You only need to look at the final position for X tiles to find the two that are safe.
- Unholy Darkness places a stack marker on each healer; don’t stand too close to the boss as they resolve to avoid group overlap. These hit as the unsafe tiles explode.
Some Party Finder groups have these stacks share a safe tile. This works, but stacks must stack tight in the opposite diagonal corners.
Dark Ashes – Hegemone’s Dark Ashes places a large AoE on every player, which you’ll handle in your Role and cardinal assignments. Every DPS and Tank/Healer pair should move to their designated corner, with Ranged Jobs opting to move further out.
- Choros Ixou returns for a north and south OR east and west cleave. The first cleaves go out as the Dark Ashes AoE hits. Move into the first cleave position to dodge the second round of damage.
Sixth Circle Savage Phase 3: Cachexia
While not as notorious as P5S’s Devour, Cachexia is where most Party Finder groups hang up. Party Finder has several ways of dealing with Cachexia now, but we opt for the Imi strategy that prioritizes uptime, safety, and simple movements. Jobs with positionals may lose a little, but if your group is struggling, we recommend keeping it nice and neat with this approach.
Cachexia – At the beginning of the cast, immediately look at your two debuffs. One marker determines your position at east or west, the other marker is your timer.
- The four purple snake debuffs go west; the four green wing debuffs go east.
- Both sides have one player with timers beginning at 20, 16, 12, and 8 seconds.
To resolve this, we use the Imi strat. The players with 20-second timers move into the hitbox on their respective sides, standing under the boss.
The three players with 8, 12, and 16 second debuff markers line up loosely on the outside of Hegemone’s hitbox. In our P6s clears, we keep the 8-second debuffs north, 12-second debuffs in the middle, and 16-seconds at the south.
One by one, these timer markers countdown and explode. Do not stand close to each other; allow for plenty of room not to clip.
- Dual Predation targets the closest player to Hegemone’s east and west. Since the players with the 20-second debuffs are already on the boss’ flanks, she hits them first.
- When the players with the 20-second timers run out; players with 8-second timers run in to bait the next pair east and west. Again, they move out, and 12-second timers move in. Run out, 16-second timers move in.
- Ptera Ixou is your cue for the groups to swap sides after timer debuffs resolve. Players that began east run west, while players that began west run east. This resolves your other debuff.
Synergy OR Chelic Synergy targets your Tanks again and Hegemone follows up with Hemitheos’s Dark IV.
Sixth Circle Savage Phase 4: Polyominoid Agony
Aetheric Polyominoid reveals its next arrangement. This time, two X markers spawn diagonally from each other in the center four tiles. Pair off into your intercardinal assignments and prepare to spread out for AoEs.
Every player should have a tile to themselves to handle the next mechanic. There is enough space around the boss to give all Melee Jobs uptime as long as Ranged Jobs run to the furthest corners.
- Dark Sphere places an AoE marker on all players. Take these hits in your tile position and identify a tile without a player to dodge into for the next mechanic. Don’t move until the next cast.
- Dark Dome casts, but has no clear indicator. At the end of the cast your Dark Dome AoE baits into your old tile. Run into an area that was either empty or once had an unsafe X. The Dark Dome AoE explodes.
Aetherial Exchange preps Hegemone’s kit for another tether mechanic with an Exchange of Agonies cast. This one is identical to the first Exchange of Agonies, so handle the same way.
Aetherial Exchange warns you of another upcoming tether. Watch the corners of the arena to identify the upcoming X and plus tile positions.
Polyominoid Sigma conjures two plus signs and one X. Identify the plus marker the singular X tile tethered together. The other plus tile does not matter.
- If the tether is long (separated diagonally opposite by one tile), one of the tiles touching the plus is your safe position.
- If the tether is short (diagonally opposite, touching tiles), one tile separates you and the plus tile.
Position between the two potential safe tiles. Choros Ixou casts, making one of them unsafe. Dodge into the safe tile to avoid the first pair of cleaves. The tile markers explode as those cleaves go off; the party is free to run into the previous Choros Ixou cleave positions to avoid the second hit.
Synergy OR Chelic Synergy targets your Tanks again and Hegemone follows up with Hemitheos’s Dark IV.
Sixth Circle Savage Phase 5: Repeat & Enrage
You’re in the home stretch — the worst part of Hegemone’s last few hits is the return of Cachexia. However, there’s nothing in the mechanic you haven’t seen before; it just happens fast. Some of the biggest hiccups in this phase come from players accidentally cleaving each other with their Transmission markers. Stay mindful of your debuffs, and the P6s clear is yours.
Cachexia 2- The second Cachexia uses mechanics you’re already familiar with, but rearranges them between very limited safe tiles. When this begins, Hegemone splits the group up again with purple snake (west) and green wing (east) debuffs.
- Transmission places a grey and red snake or wing marker on each player. Remember, these are the front and rear cleaves, respectively.
- Aetherial Exchange casts to signal more tethers, and Polyominoid Sigma summons two plus and two X tiles.
One row will always have two X tiles, while another row shares the two plus. Identify which shapes are in the middle row and the single tile with a tether. After the tether swap, two things are always true:
- The arena column with both X tiles has two safe squares.
- The arena column with both plus tiles is completely unsafe.
- There are always four safe tiles total. The plus safe tiles are on the east or west outer tiles of the arena, depending on which side the plus marker spawns on.
It’s easiest to begin by looking at the X tile column and identify your other two safe spots from there. Purple snake (west) and green wing (east) debuffs each have two square to work with.
The green and purple parties each get one stack and one large AoE marker. The stack marker and two unmarked players stand in the inner-most safe squares. The large AoE markers run to their safe squares at the arena’s north or south edge.
The Transmission front and rear cleaves resolve at the same time the stack and AoE markers hit. Make sure you are facing out or in in the appropriate direction as you position for the other markers.
Ptera Ixou follows up after, but you’re already in the correct half of the arena if you’ve stood with the correct east or west party.
Aetheric Polyominoid casts for another set of four markers in two possible patterns — one pattern has two X tiles and two plus tiles; the other has one X tile and three plus.
Find the two plus tiles in the corners; the two inner tiles diagonally separating them are potential safe spots. We’ll narrow it down to one by identifying the plus or X sign not in a corner. While looking for your safe spot, handle the bait mechanic.
- Dark Dome baits begin again. Stand under the boss, look at the tiles, and find your safe spot. At the end of the cast, run into the single safe tile.
- If the sign not in a corner is a plus, you will move to the tile not sharing a row with the plus to dodge Dark Dome.
If the sign not in a corner is an X, you will move to the tile sharing a row with the X to dodge Dark Dome.
Aetheric Polyominoid spawns another two plus shapes. This is like the arrangement from the beginning, but without the stack marker. Move to the inner-four tiles as you determine which arena columns are safe.
- Choros Ixou begins for another set of two cleaves. Two tiles in the middle are safe, but you can dodge both the north/south and east/west cleaves from one of these four inner tiles.
Synergy OR Chelic Synergy targets your Tanks again and Hegemone follows up with Hemitheos’s Dark IV.
One more Hemitheos’s Dark IV raid-wide begins — give it all you’ve got; this is enrage.
Abyssos: The Sixth Circle Savage — Rewards
As of FFXIV Patch 6.2, P6S rewards two Treasure Coffers if all eight party members have not cleared for the week. This lockout resets every Tuesday, and you’re limited to only rolling on Treasure Coffers from your first weekly clear.
If one to three party members have cleared for the week, players who have not cleared will only see one Treasure Coffer. There are no Treasure Coffer rewards if four or more players completed P6S for the week.
Regardless, everyone gets one Abyssos Mythos II token for their first clear — as long as they have not skipped and queued into P7S or P8S. Trade four of these with Djole in Radz-at-Han (X:10.3, Y:9.5) for head, hand, or foot upgrades of your choice. Djole also offers upgrade materials, like the Moonshine Brine, Moonshine Twine, and Moonshine Shine.
In addition to the equipment drops, Hegemone’s spoils include one Moonshine Shine and an Ultralight Tomestone.
Two Treasure Coffer P6S clears reward three equipment coffers, while single Treasure Coffer runs yield one equipment coffer. Your drops come from any combination of the loot list below.
| Name |
| Ultralight Tomestone |
| Moonshine Shine |
| Abyssoss Head Gear Coffer (IL 630) |
| Abyssoss Hand Gear Coffer (IL 630) |
| Abyssoss Foot Gear Coffer (IL 630) |
