Final Fantasy 14's Minstrel's Ballad: The Endsinger's Aria is a high-difficulty trial that players can attempt after beating the main story of Endwalker. To unlock the trial, go to the Wandering Minstrel in Old Sharlayan at X: 12, Y: 14.3. Speak with him, and the trial will be unlocked. To do the trial, the player will need a level 90 class and a minimum item level of 580.
This Final Fantasy 14 trial requires some set-up, as there will be moments the party will need to split and also assign themselves to light parties. This raid will test players on their ability to move fast, remember the order of certain mechanics, and keep track of intercardinal directions. If complete, the trial rewards players with tokens, weapons, and a triple triad card.
Set-Up And Elegeia Unforgotten
Before diving into the fight, the party should prepare with some planning. For this fight, the raid should plan for light parties, one for each healer. To remember these, mark each healer with a one and two. For a future mechanic, assign the tanks and healers to one end of the arena and the DPS to the other side. For marking the arena, it is recommended to place markers at the intercardinal corners and one in the middle.
After set-up and beginning the fight, the Endsinger will cast Elegeia Unforgotten. This does raidwide AOE damage and will be followed by two planets appearing at opposite cardinal points. These planets will impact against one of the intercardinal points they did not spawn on. They behave differently depending on their color. Red planets explode in an AOE and the blue-ringed planets hit players with a strong knockback that cannot be negated by anti-knockback abilities.
At the same time these planets occur, an Endsinger will appear in the middle of the arena. She will face one intercardinal corner. The direction she faces will unleash a cleave attack that hits half of the arena. This attack will give players vulnerability. So dodge her head attack while also avoiding the red planet AOEs as well as positioning to not get knock off the arena by the blue planets.
Grip Of Despair, Katasterismoi, And Elenchos
Now the Endsinger will cast Grip of Despair, which tethers all DPS to a tank or healer. Players will want to break these tethers. Run to the middle of the arena for Grip of Despair to tether everyone and then all tanks and healers will run to one end of the arena while the DPS run to the other side to break the tethers. After Grip of Despair is resolved, it is time to resolve Katasterismoi, which created eight towers in two columns. Each tower must be soaked by a party member.
While the towers occur, there will also be Elenchos, an attack in which two different things can happen. Players will have to inspect the Endsinger's face to tell which variant of the attack will happen. If two eyes are crying, then the east and west sides of the arena will get struck by column AOEs. If her mouth is open and glowing, then instead, the Endsinger will send a blast attack out of her mouth through the middle of the arena. This attack will resolve the same time as the towers.
Telos, Hubris, Eironeia, And Fatalism
Telos is a basic and unavoidable raidwide AOE. She will also cast Hubris which are AOE tankbusters on the two players with the most enmity (which should be the tanks). When this happens, tanks will want to move out of the stacked raid to not have the tankbuster hit others. Once this is resolved, Endsinger will cast Elegeia Unforgotten again.
Next, Endsinger will cast Eironeia. A stack marker for an AOE will appear on each healer. The light parties decided during set-up will go to their respective healers and soak the markers. Then the Endsinger will cast Fatalism, which will have two sets of planets resolve back-to-back on opposite intercardinals. Make sure to resolve the one that appeared first and then quickly do the second set. After this, Endsinger will once again cast Elenchos.
Twinsong's Aporrhoia And Theological Fatalism
Twinsong's Aporrhoia will now cast, which will spawn five clones around the arena. Four will be on the intercardinals and one will be in the center. The center clone will do a half arena cleave in the direction it faces. The four other clones will do donut or circle AOEs. The middle head will rotate 90 degrees clockwise to cleave again. For the four intercardinal clones, they will be casting either donut or circle AOEs, but always matching in opposite corners. They will also move this clockwise after each cleave. This means the party will be moving clockwise to each clone as the donuts and cleaves move clockwise.
After Twinsong's Aporrhoia is complete, the Endsinger will cast Theological Fatalism. This will mark every clone with between one and three gold rings. These rings mark steps back in time that the clone will execute. So one ring will mean they will do their last action taken, two means they will repeat the second to last action, and three means third-to-last action. To survive Theological Fatalism, first identify where the middle clone will cleave, as that will already eliminate two potential safe spots. Then figure out between the two safe spots left, which will rewind to a donut versus a circle AOE.
Despair Unforgotten And Telomania
Once Theological Fatalism is resolved, the Endsinger will cast another Elenchos, but this time it will be with the healer stacks and the Hubris tankbusters. Then it will be time for Despair Unforgotten twice. For this attack, one of three different mechanics can happen:
- All players need to spread out due to having circular AOEs.
- Tanks and healers get proximity markers while three DPS get a donut marker and one gets a stack marker. The DPS will need to stack in the middle and the tanks and healers will move away to opposite edges of the arena.
- Or the DPS and the tanks and healers switch these roles.
Endsinger will cast another Elenchos and then another Despair Unforgotten. Theological Fatalism will then occur, but this time on the players instead of clones. Players will need to focus on how many rings there are. One ring means repeating the last mechanic, two for second to last, and three for third to last. Players will have to position themselves according to their rings. Telomania will occur, which hits the party with five back-to-back raid-wide AOEs. The fifth hit will inflict a 15-second bleed debuff as well. Players will want to use a lot of mitigation here.
Endsong's Aporrhoia And Double Fatalism
Endsong's Aporrhoia is a little different from Twinsong's Aporrhoia, and it will spawn six clones instead of five and they will be in a circle at the outer edge of the arena. Endsinger will also shoot four rings to four clones. The clones with rings will explode in a big circle AOE. Any of the clones without rings will have a safe spot behind them. The clones will then pass the rings between each other twice. Players will need to move behind clones without rings to dodge. Immediately after dodging the third set, players will have to dodge another Elenchos, Telos, and Hubris tankbuster. Another Elegeia Unforgotten will then occur, players will need to dodge planet collisions and a center clone cleave.
Next is Double Fatalism, which has a couple of variants. The boss will summon two sets of planet collisions on opposing intercardinals and then another two sets on the other intercardinals. This means focusing on which planets spawned first and whether they are going to require dodging AOEs or adjusting to powerful knockbacks. This is a very difficult mechanic, so it is recommended that healers should save their LB3 up to this point, just in case. Endsinger will then cast Katasterismoi, once again summoning eight towers. Wait to survive Double Fatalism before moving to a tower. This will be paired with another Elenchos.
Final Mechanics And Enrage
At this point, the Endsinger will just repeat the mechanics. Players will want to melt her down, because at about 11 and a half minutes into the pull, if she has not been defeated, she will become untargetable and wipe the raid. If she is defeated, each player is awarded two Ultimatum Tokens and can roll for a Bluefeather weapon and Meteion Triple Triad Card.
If the raid did not drop the weapon desired, players can beat the raid more until 10 Ultimatum Tokens are received. With those, they can do an exchange for a weapon of choice. This can be done at Radz-at-Han at X: 10.6, Y:10, by talking to Nesvaaz.
Final Fantasy 14 is available now on PC, PS4, and PS5.