It’s time to return to the halls of Pandaemonium in Final Fantasy XIV with Abyssos: The Fifth Circle. You’ve braved Asphodelos, the first floor of this menagerie of misbegotten creations, and now it’s time for your second foray into these twisted halls. Erichthonios and Themis accompany the Warrior of Light, as this trio seeks to right the wrongs of Lahabrea and find out the truth about his past. And our Abyssos raid guide will help make things easier.
Each encounter in Abyssos is a single fight, similar to a trial. Your first fight is against a familiar… familiar, Proto-Carbuncle. Although, Carbuncle has never looked quite like this! You’ll fight within a square arena; the edge is a spiked hazard, becoming a poisonous hazard zone in the second phase of the fight.
Be warned that raid guides contain light spoilers for the fight. 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 Proto-Carbuncle – Phase One
This first phase is here to give you a feel for the boss’ attacks, before the Ruby Glow mechanic starts switching things up.
- Searing Ray: The boss moves to one corner of the arena and faces inward, cleaving the entire arena in that direction. Stand behind the boss to avoid damage.
- Topaz Stones: The boss summons four crystals around the arena at random. They will eventually explode in small circle AoEs.
- Ruby Glow: Proto-Carbuncle divides the arena into multiple distinct cells. The boss’ attacks bounce off these walls. The main challenge with this mechanic is determining where attacks will hit, depending on how the arena is divided. In the case of Searing Ray, for example, this means the safe spot is the cell without the boss because the cleave bounces back behind the boss as well.
- Crunch: A single-target tankbuster. Tanks, use your cooldowns.
- Sonic Howl: A party-wide AoE. Healers, be prepared to heal the entire party.
- Acidic Slaver: This is also a party-wide AoE, but it’ll hit the party with Down For the Count and transition to the second phase.
How to Defeat Proto-Carbuncle – Phase Two
This phase is where the Ruby Glow mechanic starts to get more complex and Proto-Carbuncle adds a bit of poison to its normal attacks. The switching sections of Ruby Glow will throw a lot of players off, so stay sharp.
- Toxic Crunch: Similar to Crunch, but with an additional Poison debuff.
- Venom Squall: The boss creates puddle AoE markers under some party members, in addition to marking others with circle AoEs. Avoid the puddle regions and spread out to avoid stacking the AoE damage from Venom Rain.
- Topaz Stones: This second iteration of the attack creates two kinds of stones. The yellow stones simply explode in a small circle AoE, while the green stones have puddles of poison that expand from where they’re sitting. The safe space is near the yellow stones, as they’ll explode early, while the green puddles will grow quite large over time.
- Starving Stampede: This will start with the notification, “The hungry Proto-Carbuncle begins its hunt!” A large red teeth symbol will appear on the arena, along with blue arrow markers. The red teeth will trace a path from the boss and through the blue arrows. You need to remember the order the red teeth symbol travels, as the boss will pounce on each spot in the order indicated, hitting with a large circle AoE. Every hit of this does substantial damage and debuffs players with Down for the Count.
- Devour: The boss consumes anyone with Down for the Count and spits them out into one corner. This does a ton of damage with additional hits from the Impact, so it’s pretty much instant death.
Following Devour, yellow Topaz Stones will explode the entire cell they’re in during Ruby Glow. If every cell has a stone, they’ll explode in a random order, forcing you to wait for the first to explode and enter its cell to avoid damage from the rest. Green Topaz Stones work the same, merely limiting the available space you have due to the expanding poisonous puddles they create.
If you can survive this, Proto-Carbuncle will fall prey to your skills. Sadly, all you Scholars hoping to get one of these are out of luck, because it seems the Warrior of Light killed it long ago.
Abyssos Fifth Circle – Loot Table
Finishing off Proto-Carbuncle will reward the raid with two Treasure Coffers. These coffers will have a mix of gear tokens. You can only pick up one token from each circle of Abyssos each week, so you have to choose wisely.
- Unsung Helm of Abyssos x 2
- Unsung Ring of Abyssos x 2
- Unsung Armor of Abyssos
- Unsung Gauntlets of Abyssos
- Unsung Chausses of Abyssos
- Unsung Greaves of Abyssos
- Silent Scream Orchestrion Roll
These tokens can be traded into Mylenie in Labyrinthos (X: 8.3, Y: 27.6) or Djole in Radz-at-Han (X: 10.3, Y: 9.6) . Each piece of gear requires a certain number of tokens:
- Head: Unsung Helm of Abyssos x2
- Body: Unsung Armor of Abyssos x4
- Hands: Unsung Gauntlet of Abyssos x2
- Legs: Unsung Chausses of Abyssos x4
- Feet: Unsung Greaves of Abyssos x2
- Accessories: Unsung Ring of Abyssos
If you’re tackling this raid, then you’ve already dove headfirst into Patch 6.2! It’s a big meaty patch with a whole lot of things to do. If you wanted to dive into the Island Sanctuary, we’ll tell you exactly how to unlock it and some helpful guides on how to progress! Those who are looking to raid might want to take a look at all our Pandaemonium Abyssos guides. Either way, we have a ton of FFXIV content over at the Linkshell!
The rest of our Abyssos guides are available at the links below.
