Sandwurm Elite Trial Full Walkthrough and Loot

As you prepare to take on the formidable Sandwurm (Shah Neshen, The Devourer), understanding battle mechanics and stratgies behind this elite trial encounter is crucial. In this guide, we'll cover everything you need to know about the Sandwurm boss - from its intense abilities and attack patterns to the best builds and strategies to ensure your success.

This guide will also include tipcs on how to navigate each phase of the fight, maximize your team's success, and provide an overview on the many valuable rewards waiting for you once you take down this boss.

In order to even qualify to start this elite trial, there are a few requirements. For starters, you cannot enter this battle alone. You are required to be in a raid with at least 12 members, but it is highly recommended that you do not even bother trying unless you have a full raid of 20 members.

It's also highly recommended to be at least level 65 with a gearscore of 690+ for this battle. The in-game suggestion currently recommends players having a 600-625 gearscore, but trust us - you will want to make sure you're more prepared, as this battle can be a bit difficult. Plus, many players will not accept other players within their raid if they do not have a high enough gearscore.

The Sandwurm is located within the Brimstone Sands territory, but can be accessed directly from the main "Activities" tab within the "Elite Trial" section. Now that we know some of the minimum requirements, let's dive more into overall builds and team composition.

As mentioned, it's recommended to take on the Sandwurm elite trail with a full raid of 20 members. Although there may be a lot of members in your raid group, that does not mean you have the opportunity to slack-off. Even with a full group of 20 members, every member will play a critical role in this battle, and it's recommended to have a specific range of different types of builds to succesfully take down the Sandwurm.

Below is a recommended break-down of the different roles to distribute across each member of the raid. Each member has a different job in this fight based on their role. For example, the Tank will be handling certain mobs (such as Scorporions) that spawn throughout the fight, the Spear DPS player will focus on stacking debuffs on the Sandwurm as much as possible, and the Rapier DPS builds will focus on dishing off as much damage as possible (depending on build, that could mean stacking bleeds or spamming specific abilities).

Here is a quick break-down of the different roles, and the number of players within the raid that should be within each.

As you can tell, this team composition can be very detailed, where each member has a unique job during the battle. Depending on your main weapon, you will be responsible for either inflicting as many debuffs on the Sandwurm as possible, dealing as much damage as possible, or both! Other than that, there are the typical Tank builds (which focus on keeping all agro busy), two healers, which focus on ensuring everyone stays alive (as much as possible), and lastly, 4 members of the raid focused on the "Lights" mechanics (more on that below).

Before entering this elite trial, regardless of what your role is, there are a handful of consumables that you will want to ensure you bring with you. The full list of these can be found below.

Consumable	Purpose
Infused Health Potion	Consume if your health gets low (keeps you alive).
Acid Tincture	Reduces Acid Burn Affliction (DoT damage if you step on posion).
Infused Angry Earth Ward Potion	Increases damage absorbtion from Angry Earth by 10% for 40 minutes.
Infused Angry Earth Coating	Deal 15% more damage to Angry Earth (on weapon which it's used on).
Attribute-focused Food	Be sure to consume an attribute-focused food based on your build ( Beef Braciole for example).

Please note: If you are playing as a tank or one of the four "Lights" roles, you should be using a Infused Beast Ward Potion instead of the Angry Earth one, as the mobs you will primarily encounter in this battle are considered "Beasts". The Sandwurm itself is classified as an Angry Earth mob, which is why all other roles will focus on that.

Once your team pounds on the large drum in the middle of the arena, the battle will begin and the Sandwurm will appear. Once this happens, all of the DPS players should be on the left side of where the Sandwurm spawns, where they will start dealing as much damage as possible. As this is happening, the primary Tank role will be taking the agro of all the mobs that appear, clumping them together, and placing them in the prime position to get defeated by the large amount of DPS players dishing off damage within a single area. Additionally, the ranged players will keep their eyes open for any small scorpion or mage mobs that appear, where they would then focus them and kill them off as quickly as possible.

It's important for one individual to keep an eye out for when the Sandwurm is about to do its deadly "swing" attack, which happens multiple times throughout the fight. The caller should call out "Block!", where each DPS user should stop attack, face the center of the arena, and then block. If you do not block, you will be instantly killed with this swing attack.

Additionally, as soon as the large drum is played and the battle begins, the "Lights" phases will also be initated, and will continue to be important to keep an eye on throughout the rest of the battle. On the outter rim of the arena, you will see four seperate light platforms. It is required to have one player on top of each of these platforms, initating a specific color (red or blue) that will appear below the platform.

This is where things get tricky - the players standing on the platform can't physically see the color of these lights that are appearing below them, and they must rely on a specific shotcaller that is on the bottom part of the arena to call out the colors in order of how they see them. After hearing which color is associated with each specific platform, the respective players will then interact with either the red or blue light at their platform. If all four players select the correct color, the entire raid group will receive a major buff.

This buff will allow you to deal bonus shield stamina damage, allowing the DPS players to destory the large shielded mobs within the arena. Once these large, shielded mobs are killed, they will drop a large sword, allowing each player to interact with in in order to gain an additional Empower buff. At this point, all of the DPS players would focus on the shielded mob, kill it as fast as possible, pick up the Empower buff, then continue damaging the Sandwurm.

After taking the Sandwurm down several bars of health, he will retreat back into the cave behind him, signaling the beginning of the "Scorpion Phase". During this phase, two groups will instantly move to the left side of the map, while the other two groups stay on the right side. One scorpion will appear from a small cave on each side of the arena, and each of the two groups will need to focus on taking each scorpion down as quickly as possible.

Be careful! During this phase, the Sandwurm is still part of the fight, and will be popping out from the snad throughout the arena. As you focus on the scorpions, you will begin to see large, glowing circle appear on the ground, indicating that the Sandwurm is about to pop out of the sand in that area. Be sure to avoid these glowing circles, as it will be an auto-death in some situations if you get caught. Additionally, once the Sandwurm pops out then back into the sand, it leaves behind a pool of poison. Avoid these pools of poison at all costs. If you happen to get unlucky and step over one, then be sure to quickly use your Acid Tincture so you don't die from the DoT poison infliction.

Once both scorpions are defeated, all of the players should then head to the back of the arena and go up the stairs, which will kick off the next phase.

Please note: The best strategy for this next phase is if only the Tank, healer, one DPS, and the two individuals assigned lights on the right side of the arena should go up the right side of the stairs. Everyone else should be up the left side of the stairs, as this will better prepare your team for the next phase.

Once everyone is up the stairs, you will see the Sandwurm perform a large "sweeping" attack in the arena, killing off anyone who wasn't fast enough. At this point, everyone on the left side of the arena should group up, and take care of any mobs that might approach them while one of the healers drops AoE heals to keep everyone alive. During this time, the Tank (which should be on the right side at this time), will distract the Sandwurm (with the other healer supporting them). The tank will continue to distract the Sandwurm until the four light players initate the lights. At this point, all of the DPS players should switch to a ranged weapon and start dealing heavy, ranged attacks at the Sandwurm.

At this point, be sure to be cautious, as it's very likely the Sandwurm will move away from the tank and potentially take a swipe at all of the DPS players. If you see the Sandwurm facing your direction, be prepared to dodge any acid spits it may shoot out at you.

After dealing a decent amount of ranged damage, wait until the Sandwurm does a massive swipe on the lower portion of the arena. After the swipe is done, that indicates that it's time to move back to original positions and finish the job.

As the team drops back down to the lower portion of the arena, they may come across land mines that are scattered around the arena. Anyone that is not a healer, on lights, or is a debuff-focused DPS player should be focused on taking care of any mines. Once those are taken care of, all the remianing DPS members should return back to their original positions to deal off as much damage as possible.

At this point, if your team is built correctly, you should be able to take down the Sandwurm. Depending on team composition and experience, you may find this battle being extremely fast, taking only a few minutes and not even going through all of these phases, or a bit longer and experiencing some of these phases multiple times.

One of the best parts of this elite trial would be the rewards. To be more specific - the weekly rewards. By completing this elite trial, you can receive the Major Sandwurm Spoils once per week, which contains a handful of useful items, including Dark Matter, Sandwurm Materia, a Minor Heartrune of The Devourer, Gypsum Orbs, and a chance at additional named weapons and equipment.

There is also a daily reward, where you can pick up a Minor Sandwurm Spoils item, which includes additional Dark Matter, Sandwurm Materia, Gypsum Orbs, and additional chances at some specific named weapons and equipment.

One of the most valuable named weapons within this Elite Trail would be the Sclerite Pincer, which is a Great Axe that has arguably best-in-slot perks.

Please note: Defeating the Sandwurm is also a required mission to unlock a perk on the Tempest Fury Great Axe artifact. You will need to have this artifact equipped when defeating this boss in order to "unlock" this perk; keep this in mind in case you plan on creating a Spin-to-win build one day.