The Dark Inside

See also: The Minstrel's Ballad: Zodiark's Fall

The Dark Inside

Level

83 (Sync: 84)

Difficulty

Normal

Party size

Full Party
8 man • 2 2 4

Unsyncing

Allowed

Time limit

60 minutes

Roulette

Trials

Req. quest

The Martyr

Patch

6.0

“

Zodiark's shackles have finally been broken, bringing His millennia-long imprisonment to an end. This premature awakening is the work of Fandaniel, who has cast aside his duty as an Ascian to turn the god of Darkness against the very star He was created to protect. With Zodiark's unfathomable power at his disposal, Fandaniel has selected his first victim─the Warrior of Light, who has ever been a thorn in the Ascian's side.

— In-game description

The Dark Inside is a level 83 trial introduced in patch 6.0 with Endwalker.

Guide

Eternal Darkness: Zodiark

Video guide by Deathly Bamf

Video guide by DrCoker Gaming

Players can fall off the arena. The boss is confined to a single side of the arena. Staying near the center of the arena most of the time allows quicker response to most mechanics.

Phase 1

• Kokytos: At the start of the fight, Zodiark reduces everyone's HP to 1, requiring rapid healing.

• Exoterikos: Zodiark shoots a beam at the side of the arena, where a triangle or square will soon appear. If a triangle appears, a wide cone AoE will fire reaching across the arena. Move towards the side of the arena with the triangle and to the side of the AoE. If a square appears, that half of the arena will be hit by the attack, so simply move to the other side of the arena opposite the square. The beams and spawning animations are color-coded. The triangle is a purple beam with a blue and purple rune at the target location, while the square is a red/pink beam and rune.

• Ania: Tankbuster. Moderate damage.

• Styx: Extremely high damage stack marker. Everyone should to stack, and remain stacked, as it hits multiple times for extreme damage. Mitigation and healing is required to survive.

• Paradeigma: Summons one of two mechanics: either behemoths or snakes.
  • Behemoths: Spawn in pairs, each creating an AoE circle that covers a quadrant of the arena, leaving the other two quadrants safe.
  • Snakes: Spawn two line AoEs across the platform, each taking up a quarter of the width of the platform in that direction. There's always a safe spot between and on either side of the snakes.

• Adikia: Two fists hit the left and right side of the arena, creating two large circles that meet in the center of the arena. This leaves two safe zones in the north and south of the arena.

• Phlegeton: Three waves of AoEs appear under the players. Keep moving to avoid.

• Complete Control: The boss transforms, indicating the next phase.

Phase 2

The boss will continue using the attacks from phase one, but has additional mechanics added in:

• Astral Flow: Used immediately after most casts of Paradeigma in this phase, but before those attacks hit. The floor will rotate 90 degrees, with all players held in place. The direction the stage will rotate will be indicated by arrows. Players should stand so they won't be hit by the AoEs after the stage finishes rotating.

• Triple Esoteric Ray: Three lasers will shoot across the field in the order they appear. These attacks don't linger, so the moment the laser appears it is safe to walk into the effect. The lasers appear in one of two sequences; either the left and right side of the arena with the center safe, then the center laser fires, or vice versa.

• Algedon: Zodiark strikes across the entire stage, pushing anyone hit to their death. This attack's AoE marker is extremely short. It is indicated by Zodiark going to the front-left or front-right corner of the arena, and striking across the arena diagonally. When players see Zodiark move to the corner of the stage, move to the neighboring corner.

• Astral Eclipse: Zodiark will leave the arena, moving in a counter-clockwise direction, calling down stars to strike the platform. On each of the 3 other sides of the platform, Zodiark will spawn a long tether from the center of the platform to a pattern of stars in the sky off that side of the platform. The stars indicate where the meteors will hit the platforms in relation to the direction the meteors are coming from, with the platform being divided into a 3x3 grid.

Zodiark has 3 patterns of stars:

     *  |  *    *  |    *
 * * *  |          |  * * *
 *      |  *    *  |    *

Note that these are oriented as seen from the platform.

• Trimorphos Exoterikos: Zodiark places three Exoterikos attacks in sequence, one on each of the 3 sides of the platform in a random order. Players must determine the order in which the attacks fire and move accordingly.

From here, the boss will repeat these mechanics (omitting Astral Eclipse) until it is defeated.

Loot

•   Zodiark Card (Drops at a fixed rate.)

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Trials

Duties