How to complete the Storm’s Crown Trial in Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV’s Patch 6.2 Buried Memory introduced the Storm’s Crown Trial. In this instance, you and seven other players must go head to head with the Empress of Wind, Barbariccia, in an epic showdown. This fight is entertaining, but it does take some situational awareness to survive unscathed. Here is a rundown of Barbariccia’s basic abilities and how to successfully get through them.

Storm’s Crown Trial Phase One in Final Fantasy XIV

The boss will begin the fight by using Aero IV, a raid wide AoE that healers need just to heal up the damage after. The boss will then soon turn in a direction and fire up an AoE ground indicator with one of two sword icons.

• If the swords are creating a fan shape above her, be prepared to move to her sides and away from her as she will do a line AoE through the arena.
• If the swords are circling her, move to her sides but also in towards her as she will soon cast a donut AoE around the arena.

After this, the boss will throw her sword, and a circle AoE will go off in the section of the arena that she was facing. She will then tether to her sword and leap to it before turning around and slicing the arena in a cone shape. Players must make sure that they move close to the boss as she jumps and positions themselves to her sides to avoid the cone. Players will also be marked with personal circle AoEs while this is happening and must be careful not to overlap.

The boss will then cast Void Aero III, a circular AoE tank buster that only tanks should stack in.

A new mechanic will happen soon after and continue to occur throughout the fight while overlapping with other mechanics. This ability is called Teasing Tangles, and it will create a green circle zone in each cardinal direction of the arena. Players will be tethered to a random one and pulled in by the hair in the middle of it.

The gimmick here is to perform the follow-up mechanics while remaining inside the green circle but not touching the hair in the middle. If a player leaves the circle, they will be pulled back into the hair and receive a damage dot debuff.

One of the main mechanics that happens during Teasing Tangles is two sets of conal AoEs that go out one after the other and must be dodged while within the circle.

The final mechanic in phase one is a stack marker on a person that the raid must soak together.

Storm’s Crown Trial Phase Two in Final Fantasy XIV

The boss will then cast Curling Iron, a raid-wide AoE that causes the boss to leave the arena. This transitions the fight into a cutscene for a brief moment as Barbariccia sets up for her ultimate attack. Mitigate the incoming damage and get ready for some major overlaps of the previous abilities with some spicey new ones.

In phase 2, the boss will send line AoEs out at random players that must be dodged. At the same time, she will do curved line AoEs from the center and a dead zone just under her. All of these must be avoided.

After these curved lines, she will summon copies of herself around the arena that will send lines out in random directions with a few safe zones for players to position their characters.

There will be more soak mechanics after that also place a circular AoE underneath just after going off. Players must soak and move. Eventually, the boss will also add a tank proximity AoE during the raid soak. The tank that gets it must move as far away from the group as possible to lessen the damage that the raid takes.

Over the course of this phase, the boss will also begin to pound her hands on the ground causing minor raid damage with every strike. There is also a point where she does a knockback that players must use their anti-knockback ability or position accordingly to avoid getting sent into the edges of the arena.

The final new mechanic that happens during this phase is small green tornadoes swirling out in random spots from the center of the arena to the outside of the arena. There will be times when players must dodge these while avoiding multiple donut AoEs and remaining in their Teasing Tangle circles.

This is the basic gist of the normal version of the Storm’s Crown trial. Players will also be able to tackle the harder extreme version after successfully completing it on normal.

Related: How to unlock the Storm’s Crown Trial in Final Fantasy XIV

In order to unlock the Storm’s Crown Trial, players must progress the Buried Memory main story quests up to The Wind Rises.