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Final Fantasy XIV’s Endwalker expansion has you dive into the depths of a Frankenstein-making facility. Pandaemonium is where old creation magick’s monsters were kept and studied.
Lahabrea was in charge of up keeping the seals and was responsible for each region of Pandaemonium. But, as you can predict, the dread beast Pandæmonium has awoken and needs a hero to conquer these beasts.
That’s the part when you come into the stage. An adventurer with a steady weapon and trembling legs. You have been tasked with the endeavor of dying over and over until you master a handful of boss mechanics and leave Pandaemonium in one piece.
If you are a fan of bloody horror vibes, this one is for you. If you’re not in it for the visuals, you’ll still find value in the challenging fights and stellar, nostalgic music accompanying them.
My selling point is the top-tier boss and battle design. Figuring out how to tackle a boss’ mechanics while keeping an eye on my rotations has been an absolute blast and a pain in the ass at the same time.
Without further ado, here is the complete guide on Pandaemonium.
The TL; DR
This guide covers eight bosses with independent movesets and mechanics each. You might want to keep this guide bookmarked and skip to whichever raid you’re going for. Here’s a list of the bosses you’ll be going up against:
- Erichthonios
- The Hippokampos
- The Phoinix
- Hesperos
- Proto-Carbuncle
- Hegemone
- Agdistis
- Hephaistos
Pandaemonium FFXIV Guide
How to Unlock Pandaemonium
To unlock Endwalker raids, you’ll need to finish the main storyline first.
Once that’s over and done with, head Old Sharlayan and speak with the lalafell Nemjiji (X:9.6, Y:11.9) Accept and complete the quest The Crystal From Beyond.
That’s it. After completing the quest, you’ll be able to join Asphodelos: The First Circle.
Asphodelos: The First Circle Raid
Boss: Erichthonios
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Looking back, Erichthonios is a pretty straightforward boss in terms of difficulty. However, it is your first Pandaemonium encounter.
The gruesome creatures you’ll find down here will not fail to put your skills to the test.
As a piece of advise, avoid the outer perimeter of the arena.
Moveset
| Attack | Description | Counter |
| Gaoler’s Flail | The boss will begin the encounter by flailing both sides in succession. | See what side of his body the Flail is swinging on and move to the opposite side. |
| Warder’s Wrath | Deals significant raid-wide damage. | Shield and heal as necessary. |
| Pitiless Flail | targets a random player with a long-line attack and knockback. | Affected players should move close to the boss or use knockback. |
| True Holy | targets a player with a stack-up marker.
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The raid will need to stand with them to share the incoming damage of True Holy. |
| Heavy Hand | targets the primary tank with a hard-hitting tank buster | Cool down and heal through this.
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| Intemperance and Intemperate Torment | Intemperance will mark up all players with either a cold or hot spell. The arena will then be divided into four quadrants, each displaying a pillar of three hot or cold segments.
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All players must identify whether they are hot or cold and move into a quadrant of the opposite color or temperature.
  Each explosion will reapply each player’s debuff, so they’ll need to adjust into the appropriate quadrant for each hit.  |
| This causes the hot or cold segment from the bottom up of each pillar to explode in succession. This deals very significant damage and debuffs to players of the same debuff.
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| Shining Cells and Aether Chain
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Transforms the platform into orange and greenish-white pizza slices. | Players must look closely at the boss during the ether chain cast and identify the color indicator.
 If the boss indicates Orange, players must stand in the green sections and vice versa.  |
| This causes specific sections of the platform to explode. | ||
| Aetherflail and Aether Chain
  |
The next Aetherflail cast will also have a color indicator around it. | Players will first need to identify the safe side of the boss away from the Flail and then adjust to standing on the section of the opposite color to the boss indicator. |
| Slam Shut | Deals significant raid-wide damage and returns the platform to normal. | Be sure to heal through this as necessary. |
Asphodelos: The Second Circle Raid
Boss: The Hippokampos
Chaos ensues when Hippokamos unleashes around 2 or 3 mechanics simultaneously. It’s everything, everything, and all at once with this bony fiend.
Make sure you keep his movesets in mind to know how to react.
Moveset
| Attack | Description | Counter |
| Murky Depths | Deals great raid-wide damage | Make sure you shield and heal as necessary. |
| Doubled Impact | Shared tank buster | The primary tank can immunity through this. Both thanks can share the damage with cooldowns.
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| Spoken Cataract | The boss will leap into the center of the platform. Its head and body will separate and cast Spoken Cataracts in random directions.
  A red arrow indicator will form in the direction the head is pointing to, and a yellow arrow indicator will form in the direction the body is pointing to. |
The yellow indicator will always be an incoming wide-line attack that traverses through the boss’s body in alignment with the yellow arrow.
  The red indicator shows a frontal attack in front of the boss’s head. A broad frontal attack that will be perpendicular to the direction of the red arrow.  The yellow and red arrow attacks will go off simultaneously, so players must pre-position in the safe area to avoid both.  To do so, always move away from the half of the platform that the red arrow points to. Then, adjust out of the remaining middle section to ensure you’re not in the way of the yellow attack.  The positioning of the red and yellow indicators will be random throughout the encounter, so keep your eyes open. |
| Sewage Deluge | Covers all sections except the grates and raised platforms with water. | During this time, players will have less surface area to handle mechanics. |
| Tainted Flood | Targets all players with large AoE circle attacks | Players must spread on the available platforms and grates to avoid overlap. |
| Predatory Sight | Predatory Sight will mark all players with Easy Prey. | They’ll need to stack with at least one other person. |
| Shockwave | Has a knockback indicator form on one of the raised platforms. | Players can use a knockback community or position themselves, so they don’t get knocked into the Water or edge.
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| Dissociation | Dissociation will have the boss’s head pop off and reappear on one side of the north edge of the platform. | The head will dive across half of the platform in front of it, and players must move to the opposite side to avoid getting hit. |
| Coherence | Coherence will target one tank with a flare proximity marker and another player with a line-up marker. | The affected tank will cool down and move its marker away from the group to minimize damage while the rest stacks up to share the incoming damage. |
| Sewage Eruption | Sewage Eruption will target the ground under players with large AOE circles multiple times. | Players will have to move out of these as necessary. |
Asphodelos: The Third Circle Raid
Boss: The Phoinix
A strange way to spell the name of an otherwise familiar creature. This is also true for its mechanics.
The Phoinix takes mechanics you have already picked up from other bosses, and adds a twist to them. Oh, and fire. Lots of fire.
Moveset
| Attack | Description | Counter |
| Experimental Fireplume | One giant fireball indicates a massive AoE attack in the center.
  A circle of multiple smaller fireballs around the boss indicates that a pattern of circles will form around the outer edge before hitting the middle. |
Players must pay close attention to the fireball indicator around the boss.
  If a giant fireball appears, players will have to move to the outer edge of the platform to avoid it.  If multiple smaller fireballs appear, players can wait in the center until the outer edges start to explode and then move into the exploded sections to dodge the final middle attack.  |
| Scorched Exaltation | Deals very significant raid-wide damage. | Healers, be ready. |
| Heat Condemnation | Targets both tanks for tank busters. | Cooldown and heal as necessary. |
| Darkened Fire and Darkened Blaze | Darkened Fire will spawn four ads. Then, each begins to cast Darkened Blaze, dealing deadly damage if allowed to cast. | If more than one of these casts goes off, you will die.
  Players cannot damage the ads in the traditional sense. Instead, the boss will target four players with numbered bright and fired circle AoEs. These players must position themselves to overlap their circle AoEs with the ads to destroy them. |
| Left/Right Cinderwing | The boss can also cast left or right Cinderwing.
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Again, players must move to the opposite side to avoid the cleaving. |
| Trail of Condemnation | The boss will fly away and reappear at the platform’s edge to dive through the arena. | Players will need to move away from in front of the boss to avoid getting hit. |
| Phoinix Fire | Spawns Sunbird ads that charge up the boss’ Phoinix Fire Gauge.
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Separate and destroy them before the boss gauge reaches 100, or you will die. |
| Flames of Undeath and Sparkfledged Ads | Deals high raid-wide damage and respawns each Sunbird into the spark-fledged ads.
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Healers, be ready. |
| Fledgling Flight | have four ads spawn around the center of the arena and throw out large frontal cleaves in the order they spawn. | Players must move behind the first and rotate around the ads to avoid each attack. |
| Experimental Charplume | Targets all players with Circle AoEs. | The AoEs must be spread apart to avoid overlapping |
| Devouring Brand | Four lines of Fire will slowly fill the arena until they reach the center. Once they do, they’ll explode on a broader cross pattern, formingfour4 safe quadrants. | Move to the safe quadrants. |
| Searing Breeze | Targets players with ground AoE circles. | They’ll have to move out of these as necessary. |
Asphodelos: The Fourth Circle Raid
Boss: Hesperos
He’s beauty; he’s grace; he’s Dracula himself! Equip your best gear and prepare to cooldown and heal through unavoidable attacks.
What else could you expect from a centuries-old Transylvanian noblema
Moveset
| Attack | Description | Counter |
| Elegant Evisceration | Target the primary tank with a heavy-hitting tank buster | Cool down and heal. |
| First Setting the Scene and Pinax | When the boss casts Setting the Scene, his cloak will fall over a quadrant of the platform and eventually turn that area into a specific element.
  The boss will then cast Pinax, which will form a pillar in the center of the arena, and activate the elemental quadrant, which you can see by the Active Quadrant circle.  The quadrant will explode proximity-based damage will be dealt from the center.  |
Players must move to the arena’s edges once Pinax is cast to handle this.
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| Decollation | Deals high raid-wide damage. | Healers, be ready. |
| Second Setting the Scene and Pinax | The following Setting of the Scene will form a Water quadrant. This Pinax cast will knock back all players from the center of the arena. | Players must stand close to the center, away from the affected quadrant, or use the knockback immunity to avoid getting punted into the wall. |
| Hell Skewer | boss turns toward a random player and casts a long-line attack in that direction.
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Players will need to move out from in front of the boss anytime they see him turn. |
| Third Setting the Scene and Pinax | The third Setting the Scene will have three quadrants affected by lightning, Water, and acid. The Pinax cast here will activate one quadrant at a time. | Players must quickly identify which one before adjusting as necessary to handle the incoming mechanic. Lightning and Water will be handled in the same manner as earlier. The acid will require all players to spread apart to avoid overlapping the incoming attacks. |
| Blooddrake | Deals severe raid-wide damage and allows the boss to absorb aether, causing his sword to glow.
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Cool down |
| Belone Coils | Belone Coils will form 4 circles around the center, each with a role marker. | Each circle will require at least one player to stand in them appropriately, or they will explode. To handle this, players must stand in a circle that does not match their role. |
| Directional Shift | , the boss will move to the center, holding his cloak and sword, and cast a directional shift. Depending on this cast’s direction, a pillar will appear at the same edge. | Players must look at the boss or the pillar to determine what attack is incoming.
  If the sword is glowing, a significant cleave attack will occur toward the center of the room. Players will have to stand on the side of the pillar to avoid getting hit.  If the cloak is glowing, a knockback will occur from that pillar. Therefore, players will have to use a knockback immunity or position themselves next to the pillar towards the center of the room.  |
| Belone Bursts | Eight orbs with specific role assignments will form around the arena’s outer edge, eventually tether and move toward the players.
 These orbs will explode in contact with the player and deal lethal damage if they are of the same role. |
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 To handle this, players will need to pop orbs that are not in the same role as them. Unfortunately, each pop will debuff players with ruin, so they can only pop a maximum of two orbs before they are afflicted with Doom and die.  |
| Fourth Setting the Scene and Pinax | The following Setting the Scene will have all four quadrants affected. The newest quadrant is lava. | Players must stick together to share the incoming damage when this quadrant is activated. |
Abyssos: The Fifth Circle Raid
Boss: Proto-Carbuncle
Carbuncle isn’t extremely hard. You just need to guess where the AoE attacks hits and learn his wall mechanics, which are quite the innovative design for FF. If you’re struggling to get through him, keep practicing.
Moveset
| Attack | Description | Counter |
| Searing Ray | Leaps into a corner, turn to face the center and deals damage with a massive frontal attack.
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All players must move into the corner behind the boss to avoid getting hit. |
| Ruby Glow and Searing Ray | Ruby Glow deals moderate raid-wide damage. It also forms a wall across the center of the arena. | Players can only avoid getting hit by the Searing Ray attack by standing on the other side of the wall from the boss. |
| Crunch | Targets the primary tank with the heavy-hitting tank buster. | Cool down and heal as necessary. |
| Topaz Stone | Four yellow Stones will appear on the platform with circle AoEs around them. | Players must move away from these circles before they explode to avoid getting hit. |
| Ruby Glow and Topaz Stone | The following Ruby Glow cast will form 4 quadrants. Two yellow Stones will appear in opposite quadrants and begin to cast their AoE explosions. | Players must identify the two safe quadrants that will not have explosions reflected into them to avoid getting hit. |
| Sonic Howl | Deal high raid-wide damage. | Healers, be ready. |
| Acidic Flavor | Players will be stunned for a short time while the boss messes around in a cutscene | n/a |
| Toxic Crunch | Adds a poison debuff on the player hit. | Healers and the off-tank should beware. |
| Venom Squall, Venom Rain and Venom Pool | Targets the ground underneath players with circle attacks | Players will need to move out of these areas to avoid getting hit. These circle records will also target all players and must be spread to avoid overlap.
  Immediately after, players must stack on the player targeted by the stack-up marker to share the incoming damage. |
| Devour Towers | A significant mouth marker will appear, and several blue arrow markers will appear over the platform. The mouth marker will move to each of the blue markers, indicating the order that the boss will leap in stunning and devouring anything in wide circles around each blue marker. | Players can stand right next to the first mouth marker to spawn, and once the boss leaps onto it, move into that area to avoid getting hit by the rest of the attacks.
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Abyssos: The Sixth Circle Raid
Boss: Hegemone
Hegemone will keep you on your toes with her cone AoE quick spin and her exploding tiles. We definitely have a love-hate relationship.
Moveset
| Attack | Description | Counter |
| Aetheric Polyominod | Causes 4 aethereal nexuses to spawn around the platform at the junction of the floor patterns.
   Each nexus will throw out an AoE telegraph into the quadrants affected by their incoming attacks.  |
Players will need to move into the unaffected sections of the platform to avoid getting hit. |
| Chorus Ixou | Deals three attacks with red orbs. | All players must identify which side of the boss the attack will come from.
 Players must hide behind the boss if the two red orbs are on her sides. Likewise, players must move to their sides to avoid getting hit if the two red orbs are in front and behind the boss. |
| Hemitheo’s Dark 4 | Deals high raid-wide damage | Healers beware. |
| Transmission | Tethers to four players and casts Transmission, infecting them with a nasty gloss amorph parasite debuff.
  This debuff will count down, and at the end of its duration, the player will lose control and throw out a very long frontal cone directly in front of them.  |
To avoid hitting each other, each player should turn to face the outside of the arena. This will occur twice until each player is targeted. |
| Synergy | Targets both tanks, regardless of enmity, with high-damage tank Busters that will also afflict them with a Bleed debuff. | Move these away from others to cool down and heal as necessary. |
| Aetheric Polyominoid and Chorus Ixou | n/a | Players will have to stand in the unaffected segments of the platform that are also safe from the boss’s attacks. |
| Strophe Ixou | Significant arrow indicators will appear around the boss, indicating which direction the boss will turn for each attack | Players must avoid the front and back attacks by moving in the same direction with each attack.
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| Transmission 2 | Tethers all players at once, but four players will have a short debuff while the other four have longer debuffs.
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Players will need to keep an eye out on their timers to know when to turn away from the rest of the group. |
| Dark Ashes | Targets all players with AoE circles that must be spread. | Move away from any enthralled players to avoid overlap. |
| Aetherial Exchange and Polyominoid Sigma | The boss can also overlap another Strophe Ixou cast during this time. | In this round, players must identify which nexuses are targeted together by arrow markers. These markers indicate that the two nexuses and the resultant safe zones will soon swap positions.
  Players must preposition appropriately in advance as the attacks will go off as soon as they swap.  Two nexuses will damage all four of their quadrants in the next round. This limits the safe spaces for players to stand in. Make sure you preposition yourself appropriately again to avoid getting hit. These rounds can also have swaps that will occur diagonally, so keep them from fooling you. |
Abyssos: The Seventh Circle Raid Guide
Boss: Agdistis
Ents will always be cool, but this one is priming in creepiness and horror. Props to visual design.
General tips:
You’ll notice that the boss’s hitbox is massive, allowing players to maintain uptime anywhere on the platform. Still, be careful not to fall.
Both tanks, regardless of enmity, will be targeted for auto attacks throughout the encounter re, healer. Healersep an eye on them, especially during overlapping mechanic combos.
Moveset:
| Attack | Description | Counter |
| Bough of Attis | Deals massive damage based on the position of his arms. | Players must look closely at his arms.
  Suppose they’re raised next to his face. In that case, players will need to move away from the boss side of the platform to avoid getting hit by the two incoming massive AoE circle attacks from the northwest and northeast.  Immediately after, the boss will swipe forward from either the left or right side, indicated by arrow markers. All players must move to the opposite side to avoid getting plunged off the platform.  |
| Hermitheos’ Holy and Hermitheos’ Glare 3 | Targets all players with large purple circles.
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Players must spread to avoid overlap. Then, Players will have to move directly into the center to avoid getting hit.
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| Forms a massive doughnut attack in the center of the platform. | ||
| Bough of Attis 2 | Brings both hands forward over the platform, almost like he’s trying to hug you.
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Players must move close to the boss to avoid the massive circle attack targeting the platform’s southern part. |
| Immortal’s Obol | A proximity-based damage marker will appear from the center of the room, and a dark area will cover most of the platform. At the same time, three circles are on the platform’s Northwest, Northeast, and South edges. | Players will need to move to the far edges of the platform in either of the forming circles to minimize damage. |
| Hermitheos’ Aero 2 | Targets both tanks regardless of enmity with large circle tank buster attacks. | Move these away from others and use appropriate cooldowns. |
| Spark of Life | Deals severe raid-wide damage and applies a second bleed debuff on all players. | Healers beware! |
| Forbidden Fruit | Spawns seeds around the platforms that will turn into specific ads.
  The goat ads will cause point-blank AoE attacks that cover the entirety of their platform.  The bird ads will pass line area attacks in the direction they’re facing. These line areas will cover the entirety of each magic bridge.   |
For goat ads, players will nemuston the magic bridges to avoid getting hit.
  For bird ads, players must stay out of the way beside or behind the edge to avoid getting hit. |
| Blades of Attis | These moving AoE circle clumps are one of the most complex mechanics to handle during the triple platform phase.
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Players will first need to identify where they’re spawning from as they will travel in a line across the platform before disappearing. Once identified, players must position themselves out of their path to avoid getting hit. |
| Hemitheos’ Glare 3 | Casts another massive donut attack. | Players must move close to the center and wait for the original big platform to reform before dodging into the doughnut bowl to avoid the attack. |
Abyssos: The Eight Circle Raid
Boss: Hephaistos
It’s leg day at the gym, everyone! Hephastios will not give you a second to catch your breath, so make sure your senses are sharp when you enter battle.
Moveset
| Attack | Description | Counter |
| Genesis of Flame | Deal severe raid-wide damage and light the outer perimeter of the arena on fire. | Players will need to avoid this edge or be afflicted with burns debuff. |
| Sunforge | Deals damage based on the animation.
  If you see a glowing snake, the attack will target the middle third of the platform directly through the box.  If you see a glowing phoenix, the attack will instead target the two outer thirds of the platform.  The boss will cast Sunforge three times. The first two show you the two variants, while the third one is random. |
All players must pay close attention to the animation around the boss.
  If the animation is a snake, all players must stand on the boss’s East or West to avoid getting hit.  If the animation is a glowing phoenix, players must stand on the boss to avoid getting hit.  Adjust as necessary. |
| Flame Viper | Targets the primary target with a line tank buster that will also afflict the player with a bleed debuff.
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All other players should avoid the front of the boss at this time. Cool down and heal as necessary. |
| Reforged Reflection: Snake Form | The boss will cast Into the Darkness, and two rotating Glare Markers appear.
  These markers will move around the platform before settling into place. |
All players must turn away from the markers to avoid getting Petrifaction.
  2 G.orgons will spawn from these areas and must be destroyed before their cast goes off. |
| Gorgospit | Casts a powerful line attack. | Move away to avoid getting hit. |
| Ektothermos | Deals high raid-wide damage. | Shield and heal as necessary. |
| Fourfold Fires | Forms 4 proximity-based damage markers at each corner. | Players can minimize damage by stacking in the center of the room.
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| Pythonic Vent | Forms 4 vents and has snakes leap into them. They explode in a wide AoE circle. | Players must watch the snakes jump to each vent to identify where they can safely stand. |
| Reforge Reflection – Centaur form
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The boss will cast Reforge Reflection again in this weird Centaur phase. | n/a |
| Blazing Footballs | Jump to a random edge of the platform before beginning to cast Blazing Footballs. This attack will first knockback players from the center of the arena in the direction of the arrows.
  This initial knockback will be followed by another two or three knockback markers from random edges. |
Players will have to pay attention as the order of these markers appear and then adjust to each knockback to avoid getting punted into the wall. |
| Rearing Rampage | Deals high raid-wide damage. | Healers, be ready. |
| Volcanic Torches | Spawns three beams that travel on random lines with the platform to form closed rectangles eventually. Once formed, any closed rectangle shapes will explode for severe damage and debuffs. | Players must identify where the beams spawned from and watch as they travel around. Once you can determine where the rectangles will form, move to the safe quarter of the platform to avoid getting hit |
FAQs
Question: When Do I Unlock Pandaemonium?
Answer: You unlock Pandaemonium once you finish the Endwalker main storyline.
Question: How Can I Start Pandaemonium?
Answer: To start Pandaemonium, go to Old Sharlayan, look for Nemjiji and accept the quest The Crystal From Beyond.
Question: What are the Rewards for doing Pandaemonium?
Answer: You can get top-tier Abyssos and Asphodelos loot by completing the raids.
Parting Words
Whereas you’re in it for the music, the aesthetic, or the hype of the high-end raids, there is something of value in Pandaemonium for everybody.
Abyssos and Asphodelos raids are undoubtedly brutal. But, with this guide’s strategy, you can say goodbye to those sweaty palms and that lump in your throat when you see them pop up in your duty roulette.
Plunge right into battle with the best of confidence, adventurer!