How to Unlock The Trial of Spire (Training Dummy) in FFXIV Dawntrail

The usual Stone, Sky, Sea duties have received an overhaul in Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail (FFXIV), now named Trial of Spire. Here’s how you can unlock these infinite training sessions if you love punching a dummy until it dies.

Where to Unlock the Trial of Spire in FFXIV Dawntrail

The Trial of Spire can be unlocked by getting the very appropriately named Side Quest “Trial by Spire” in Solution Nine (X:19.9 Y:17.1) with the Eccentric Researcher. It’ll be available as soon as you finish Dawntrail‘s MSQ, ending in the quest Dawntrail. You must also have previously unlocked all of the other Stone, Sky, Sea stages from all previous expansions up to Endwalker.

To complete the quest, simply teleport to The Outskirts in Heritage Found and speak with the Eccentric Researcher once again. The Trial of Spire challenges will be unlocked immediately for all of your duties, giving you a chance to train your damage against specific fights.

How to Use the Trial of Spire in FFXIV Dawntrail

Speak with the Eccentric Researcher in Heritage Found (X:16.5 Y:8.8) and select “Fight!” to pick one of the available challenges. Each of them will put you against a training dummy, and you’ll have 3 minutes to defeat it. The dummy serves as a pseudo-DPS check to see if you’re ready to clear that specific fight. If you can defeat the Everkeep (Extreme) dummy, you should have enough damage to complete the actual duty.

Related: How to Get & Use Universal Tomestones in FFXIV

Each dummy’s HP scales according to the selected duty and your currently equipped Job. They work perfectly as a way to both train your opener/rotation and to see if you’re ready to tackle some more difficult content. You can leave the duty by speaking with the Researcher’s Aide next to your dummy. This also works to reset your cooldowns if you messed up your opener.

While this is an awesome way to test your skill, remember that the dummy is not 100% reliable. If you couldn’t kill it by just a few seconds, it means you probably still have a solid chance at the actual duty. But the opposite is also true, especially during fights where there’s a lot of downtime or you’re not used to certain mechanics yet. This happens a lot in Savage fights, and the best way to train for them is by just heading straight to the battlefield.