Welcome to the first Savage raid of the Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker patch cycle! You faced off against a mind-controlled, rage-filled Erichthonios in the standard version of this encounter. Now he’s back! Like previous Savage encounters, however, this fight builds upon everything in the Normal fight. Only with new, fiendish twists.
As before, you fight within a square arena and should be warned that the edges are instant death. Bright side? This is also an easy way to wipe if the pull doesn’t go quite right.
Be warned that raid guides contain spoilers. We need to tell you what you’ll face, after all. If you prefer to preserve the surprise of raids for yourself, give them a try first before referring to a guide. Then come back here for some help if you have trouble!
How to Defeat Erichthonios Savage – Phase One – Aetherial Shackles
We’re just easing on the throttle until Phase Two, where the boss really starts to take off.
- Heavy Hand: This is a single-target tankbuster on the primary tank. Tanks, use your cooldowns as usual.
- Gaoler’s Flail: When the boss begins to cast this, he’ll throw out chains on both sides of himself. The order they appear is the order in which attacks will resolve.
- Sickle: This is a giant 270-degree cleave, with the safe spot on the opposite side. Think of the cleave like a Pac-Man shaped AOE; the safe spot is in his “mouth.”
- Spiked Ball: A circle AOE within the boss’ massive hitbox, denoted by the colored circle when you target him. The safe space is outside of this.
- Chakram: The opposite of the Spiked Ball, a huge donut AOE with a safe space inside the boss’ hitbox.
- Pitiless Flail of Grace/Purgation: This is a two-part, alternating tankbuster. The boss will target the primary tank for a huge line AOE with a magic vulnerability debuff. The tank will want to use cooldowns and take this hit at an angle towards a corner; there’s a huge pushback and taking it straight on will push you into the arena wall. During the cast, the off-tank wants to Provoke the boss to take the second part of the hit.
- Grace: The boss will cast True Holy and the off-tank will want to stack on the rest of the party to share the damage.
- Purgation: The boss will cast True Flare and the off-tank will want to get away from the main tank and the rest of the raid. Cooldown and be prepared to take a big hit.
- Warder’s Wrath: This is the raid-wide AOE. Healers be prepared to heal through it.
- Aetherial Shackles: The boss will cast this prior to Warder’s Wrath, giving every player in the raid a debuff. Four players will get Shackles of Companionship (Purple Chains), while the other four will get Shackles of Loneliness (Red Chains). Once Warder’s Wrath hits, the debuff will disappear and start the actual attack. Those with Purple Chains need to be together around the boss, each at the cardinal directions as not to share the Chain Pain attack. Those with Red Chains should run towards the corners, so they’re not tethered to the players in the center. You can bait this by having your ranged players already near the corners, forcing the boss to put Purple Chains on those players within its hitbox. Otherwise, everyone needs to scramble.
For everything included in this phase, we’ve can also split the mechanics into three distinct groups to worry about. The first Gaoler’s Flail will be dual Sickle, while the second will be a combination of Spiked Ball and Chakram. After that, be prepared for the mix and match. Don’t forget the Pitiless Flail tank swap, either. The Shackles mechanic is the first real pain point here. It tends to kill those who aren’t paying attention and everyone needs to be alive for phase two.
Phase Two – Intemperance (Ice Cubes)
Alrighty then. You survived the first phase. Now things get a little complex… The boss will next cast Intemperance, which begins this phase.
- Intemperance: Unlike the Normal version, this divides the arena into nine sections — not just four. Each section, outside of the center one where the boss is standing, will have a stack of red, blue, or purple crystals. Each of the non-boss sections needs to have a player in it for the first and third casts of the mechanic: Intemperate Torment.
- Intemperate Torment: When the boss starts to cast this, he’ll adopt a stance with one hand in the air and another lower down. If the upper hand is glowing, he’ll explode the crystals on top first. If the lower hand is glowing, he’ll explode the crystals on the bottom first. As before, if you’re in a section with a blue crystal explosion, you’ll get a Cold Spell debuff. Those with a red crystal will get a Hot Spell debuff. After this, every cast of Warder’s Wrath will explode the next crystal in line.
The Purple crystals will be in the center of the stack on all three sections on the East and West sides of the arena. These factor into the second cast of Warder’s Wrath, which does not require a player in every section. If you’re in a section with a Purple crystal, it’ll do a ton of damage (and likely kill you). Players need to move to one of the three center sections to avoid this damage, but you will need at least one player each in the north and south sections.
Like the Normal version of the fight, you need to alternate the Cold and Hot Spell debuffs. If you’re in an east or west section that has the same color on the top and bottom of the stack, pick the north or south section that has the opposite color. The community has figured out a good way to resolve this whole mechanic, depending on your starting spot. We’ve included a version of the strategy here in the diagram below.
Alternatively, you can do the much simpler swap mechanic. Every raid member starts in their designated spot (Pattern 1 or 2A) and moves to the center column to switch their debuff before moving back to their designated space. The sole outlier is one of your tanks and an adjacent DPS, who will swap spaces. This requires only two members of your raid to be on their toes, so it’s better for those doing the Party Finder hunt. The diagram for this method is at the beginning of this section.
The cracking of the final crystal in the stack ends this phase.
Phase Three – Shining Cells (The Dart Board)
You’ll begin the phase shift when the boss starts casting Shining Cells. If you wondered why there were so many colored sections in the Normal version of the fight, that was prep for this iteration.
- Shining Cells: This splits the arena into two concentric circles divided into eighths, with each section being either red or white.
- Aetherflail: This combines Gaoler’s Flail with the orbs of Aetherchain. In the latter, orbs of either red or white will begin swirling around the boss. Eventually, the sections that match the color of the orbs will explode with Powerful Light. Don’t be on those sections when that happens. The twist is that Gaoler’s Flail will be a combination of a Sickle and either the Spiked Ball or the Chakram. This means there will be just one safe section on the entire arena, opposite the Sickle cast, the Ball/Chakram, and the colored section indicated by the orbs around the boss. Head opposite the Sickle to start, then check for the Ball/Chakram, and finally the color to triangulate the safe zone.
- Pitiless Flail of Grace/Purgation: Same as above, this will come between the first and second casts of Aetherflail.
- Shackles of Time: This will put a debuff on one random player, denoted by a purple circle marker and purple shackles. Whichever color this player is standing on when the debuff resolves, all sections with that same color will explode. Whichever player has the debuff should not move; the rest of the raid should instead move to the opposite color.
- Slam Shut: This marks the end of Phase Three and does a bit of raid-wide damage. Heal it up.
Phase Four – Fourfold Shackles
This is where most raids died immediately if they didn’t master the original Aetherial Shackles mechanic.
- Fourfold Shackles: This is the same thing as Aetherial Shackles, but four times in a row. The raid will be split into Shackles of Companionship (Purple Chains) and Shackles of Loneliness (Red Chains), this time with debuff timers in each group split into 3, 8, 13, and 18 seconds. Each hit will come at these times in sequence. If you get to your positions quickly, simply stand there for all four attacks. Some set positions by timer, but you don’t have to necessarily.
Phase Five – Intemperance Again
After this, the fight will move into another cast of Intemperance. Except this time, the spell will be combined with Gaoler’s Flail. The second crystal will explode right after the boss sets his Flail chains, and the third will explode after the Flail attack. Keep this in mind if you have to switch colors.
Phase Six – Shining Cells and Shackles
As the name suggests, we’ll see the Shining Cells phase again, but you’ll also be dealing with Aetherial Shackles at the same time. The boss will cast Aetherchain, glowing with either red or white orbs. At the same time, you get hit with the chains debuff. Your positioning should be roughly the same as before, thankfully, but shift slightly north or south. this ensures you’re in the correct colored section. It’ll be a single shackle explosion, so you don’t have to wait forever. This is followed by Shackles of Time and Pitiless Flail together; the shackled player, assuming it’s not one of the tanks, should be near the rest of the raid, but standing on a different color.
This is where the soft enrage begins. The boss will cast three Aetherflails in a row, followed by Warden’s Wrath four times. Survive this and it’s full enrage time. Enjoy.
Congratulations, you’ve finished the Savage version of the first circle of Pandaemonium Asphodelos. Hopefully this guide helped. If you ended up in the wrong guide, here are link to our guides for the normal versions of the Asphodelos fights.
- FFXIV Raid Guide – Pandaemonium Asphodelos: The First Circle
- FFXIV Raid Guide – Pandaemonium Asphodelos: The Second Circle
- FFXIV Raid Guide – Pandaemonium Asphodelos: The Third Circle
- FFXIV Raid Guide – Pandaemonium Asphodelos: The Fourth Circle
- FFXIV Raid Guide – Pandaemonium Asphodelos: The Second Circle (Savage)
- FFXIV Raid Guide – Pandaemonium Asphodelos: The Third Circle (Savage)
If you need help getting prepared for the Pandaemonium raids, be sure to check out our Tomestone of Aphorism and endgame gear guide. And if you want to get different Jobs to level 90 and raid-ready, you can use our fast leveling guide for alternate Jobs. Pandaemonium isn’t the only endgame content available in Endwalker, make sure you’ve unlocked and played through the optional level 90 dungeons Smileton and The Stigma Dreamscape.
