Final Fantasy XVI Echoes of the Fallen DLC: How to defeat Asterios?

Final Fantasy XVI's first major story expansion, Echoes of the Fallen, comes packed with a plethora of surprising and challenging enemy and boss encounters, some of which are variants of pre-existing enemy types. One such new creature that you'll fight on your way through Sagespire is Asterios, a reskinned variant of Sekhret from the base game.

While Asterios is introduced as a new boss-type enemy, it's more akin to Omicron, i.e., a mini-boss. However, despite being a mini-boss, Asterios is quite a formidable challenge, easily surpassing Sekhret or any such elite enemy types in the base game. Much like Omicron, it is more than just a reskinned variant of a pre-existing enemy.

Asterios features entirely new movesets (different from those available to its base game counterpart) and significantly more HP. Here's a comprehensive guide on how to easily defeat Asterios in Final Fantasy XVI's Echoes of the Fallen DLC.

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How to easily defeat Asterios in Final Fantasy XVI Echoes of the Fallen DLC

You encounter Asterios on Sagespire's second level, right after going through the area where you fight the Echoes of the Fallen DLC's first boss, Sigma. Much like Sigma, Omicron, and Angra Manyu, Asterios can be quite challenging, especially on the Final Fantasy mode. However, defeating the boss isn't particularly difficult if you're well-equipped.

Similar to Sekhret, I found Asterios is quite vulnerable to elemental attacks and can be easily staggered with either a parry or Eikonic abilities like Diamond Dust or Zantetsuken. I played the DLC on Final Fantasy mode and found Diamond Dust, Judgement Bolt and Dancing Steel to be very effective against the enemy.

Here are a few tips that should help you easily defeat Asterios in Final Fantasy XVI Echoes of the Fallen DLC:

• Asterios always starts the battle by charging toward Clive and his party. Fortunately, you can easily dodge this attack. If you're having trouble with dodges, you can use the Berserker Ring and/or the Ring of Timely Evasion or Ring of Timely Focus.
• Once you do stagger Asterios, either via regular attacks or Eikonic abilities, you can easily deplete roughly 2/3rd of its health bar (almost 300,000 damage) by using the Odin, Bahamut, and Shiva combo.
• After staggering Asterios, quickly attack it with Dancing Steel to rake up the damage multiplier to 1.5 or more. Follow this up with a Diamond Dust, then Zantetsuken. Conclude the combo with Gigaflare, and if you have time to charge a level 5 Zantetsuken, finish the combo with that.

Repeating this combo twice can easily help you defeat Asterios. Once you defeat the boss, you will be able to proceed to the next and final level of Final Fantasy XVI's Echoes of the Fallen DLC and face Omega, the final boss.