In Final Fantasy XIV Patch 6.5, a new Trial was added to the game called The Abyssal Fracture. Diving into a pit of darkness, your Warrior of Light comes face to face with Zeromus, the creature that would tear a hole in the barrier between worlds, and allow Voidsent to invade the Source on mass.
Luckily, this battle is your chance to spar with Zeromus and stop the voidsent from creating the breach. Here’s a guide to The Abyssal Fracture trial, from unlocking to completion.
Before you can take on Zeromus, you need to unlock the trial. To do this, you’ll simply need to progress through the 6.5 Main Story Quest (MSQ) until you reach the quest entitled “Down in the Dark.” This will pit you against Zeromus in the darkened abyss of its creation. You’ll need to queue in the duty finder and make sure you have an average item level of 625 for the trial.
How to defeat Zeromus - The Abyssal Fracture Base Phase
The Abyssal Fracture fight sees you take on Zeromus, and while he’s a fearsome foe, staying on your toes will allow you to stay alive. For any of Zeromus’s abilities below, getting hit by them will result in a Damage Up debuff, unless otherwise specified.
- Abyssal Nox: Zeromus will start out the fight by casting Abyssal Nox, which will reduce all party member’s health to 1, and cast a 20-second Doom debuff on them. The party will need to be healed to full to remove the debuff. If the 20-second timer on Doom expires, and they’ve not been healed to full, the player will die. After Abyssal Nox's initial cast, a series of purple markers will appear at cardinal and intercardinal points. Avoid them, as they will explode after 10 seconds.
- Sable Thread: The next move will see Zeromus cast line stack markers on a single player, usually a healer. The party will need to stack up, mitigate and heal through four rays.
- Visceral Whirl: Visceral Whirl will place a series of purple lines on the ground of the arena, one set point to the north-east intercardinal, and the second to the north-west. This looks complicated, but you’ll just need to find one of the two safe zones, not covered by purple, either on the front left-hand side of Zeromus, or the back right side of the arena.
- Dark Matter: AoE Tank Buster on the main tank. Tank should move away from the party.
- Flare: A classic meteor tower stack will appear at a point in the arena. Confusingly, this is not a single-person soak, instead, you’ll need multiple party members. Most parties will all stack here, and healers can heal through the damage.
- Nox: Immediately after the Flare impact lands, a large ball of fire will appear where it landed. This will also have six damage lines extending out of it. Run to the edges and out of the way of the lines of fire to avoid damage. At the same time, two players will be marked with a trailing meteor marker. They’ll need to move away from the rest of the party to avoid dropping large AoE markers on the rest of the party. All of Nox’s damage will resolve at the same time.
- Void Bio: A line of green orbs will form at the front of the arena. These will then begin to move at the same time, another Viceral Whirl will be cast. You’ll need to avoid the green orbs and reach the safe point for Visceral Whirl.
- Big Bang: A large raid-wide will begin to channel. During this, a series of small AoE markers will appear where party members are standing. You’ll have to avoid the small markers, then mitigate and heal through the raid-wide damage. The raid-wide will apply a Max Health Down marker to everyone and a debuff called Divisive Dark.
- Visceral Whirl/Countdown: A third Visceral Whirl will then appear. One player and both tanks will be marked with dice countdown markers. There are two safe spots. Players with the countdown marker will have to go to the opposite safe zone to the rest of the party. After the countdown reaches zero, a high-damage AoE will land on the players.
- Divisive Dark/The Dark Divides: After Visceral Whirl resolves, Divisive Dark will cause a series of small targeted AoEs to appear. The party will need to spread to avoid dealing damage to each other.
- Meteor Impact: At this point, a Meteor will appear in the center of the arena and tether every member of the party. The party will have to split and separate until their tethers turn from a red arrow to a thin yellow line. After Meteor Impact finishes casting, players will be bound in place and a series of meteors will strike them, unbinding them, dealing damage, and applying Blunt Resistance Down for four seconds. If any players are stacked for this damage, the Blunt Resistance Down will cause them to take extra damage and possibly die.
- Black Hole/Fractured Eventide: Zeromus will then cast two AoE markers. The first will be Black Hole, and the second Fractured Eventide. Fractured Eventide will spin in the direction its marker indicates, while Black Hole will slowly expand. Stand behind Fractured Eventide, and avoid the Black Hole. Anyone caught in Black Hole when the AoE reaches full size will be sucked into it and instantly die.
- Big Crunch: A larger version of Big Bang, with more small AoE markers and more raid-wide damage.
- Void Meteor: At this point, four meteors will fall, and you’ll need to move into the center of the arena to avoid damage. These meteors will stay in place.
- A second cast of Meteor Impact will then take place. This time, you’ll need to avoid having tethers cross the now-landed meteors, as it will cause them to explode. After Meteor Impact has resolved, the meteors from Void Meteor will detonate in a large AoE, but gives you time to avoid it.
Abilities will then repeat themselves as you continue the fight until Zeromus reaches 20%.
How to defeat Zeromus - Transition and Final Phase
At 20% health, Zeromus will transform the arena and switch to the following attacks:
- Rend the Rift: Zeromus will cause a series of small AoEs to spawn on players, with additional lines of damage. At the same time, Zeromus will cast Nostalgia, causing him to strike the arena repeatedly, dealing raid-wide damage. Avoid AoEs and health through the raid-wides.
- Flow of the Abyss Zeromus: will channel a line of darkness on one side of the arena. This will create a line AoE of damage taking up the center third of the arena after it casts. At the same time, players will be marked with AoE markers, and will need to spread. For best results, split into light parties moving to the north and south of the middle of the arena. Once Flow of the Abyss resolves, move quickly away from the AoE you dropped as it will repeatedly explode dealing damage.
- Chasmic Nails: Chasmic Nails will cause a series of triangle AoEs to appear as the ability channels. These will resolve in order after the cast finishes. You’ll need to find a way to avoid the the AoEs while moving, as these will cover the entire arena.
Zeromus will then repeat the above attacks until it or you are defeated!
