After the great success of the last super raid “Endless Shadows of Bahamut” in Final Fantasy XIV, the next extremely difficult fight comes with Patch 4.3. This one is supposed to make hardcore raiders happy. This time, players will face the Ultima Weapon.
Ultima will be released together with Patch 4.31 a few weeks after the main Patch 4.3, which will go live on May 22 in Final Fantasy XIV.
The slight delay of a few weeks is meant to give raiders some time to prepare for the fight and to play through the contents of Patch 4.3 at their own pace before the race for the first kill begins.
To further build excitement among raiders, the director and producer of FFXIV, Naoki Yoshida, hinted at the battle during a live stream.
What can Ultima do?
At the end of the new trailer for Patch 4.3, there is a scene where the first three Primals, Garuda, Ifrit, and Titan, are shown all at once with Ultima Weapon in the background.
This has the following reasons:
- In the main story of FFXIV, Ultima was created by the scientists of the Allagan Empire to absorb the powers of the Primals.
- In the final battle in the Praetorium, Ultima is able to utilize the abilities of the absorbed Primals Garuda, Ifrit, and Titan until the players beat these Primals out of her.
This will apparently also happen in the super-epic version of the fight.
Players will first have to defeat Garuda, Ifrit, and Titan before they can face Ultima in the final phase. At the beginning, players will find themselves in the arena of Garuda, which represents the first of the three “pre-fights” before Ultima.
Short Primal Phases before the actual battle
The first thing that stands out is the complete absence of the rocks that in other modes of the fight against Garuda reduce the damage taken by the group. It is a clear sign that the development team did not want to grant players this “crutch”.
Garuda herself causes over 23,000 HP damage with a normal auto-attack on a Black Mage, which at the current item level of the armor would be just under half of a Mage’s maximum possible HP. The first special attack from Garuda inflicts more than 66,000 HP damage, which could also kill a tank in one hit.
The arena of Garuda is surrounded by a special fence, and any touch will result in immediate death. There will not even be damage shown in HP; it will be instant death.
From the Endless Shadows of Bahamut, we know, however, that the appearance of the arena is not static and can certainly change over the various phases. This means that players will not necessarily always stay in Garuda’s battlefield.
This is important because a large part of the difficulty in the Titan fight was due to its claustrophobically small arena.
A fall from the edge meant complete elimination from the fight with no chance of resurrection. Therefore, it is not impossible but hard to imagine that the developers would forego this important mechanic in the super-epic fight against Ultima.
Due to this Primal constellation, many raiders suspect that many of the known mechanics from the extreme modes of the Garuda, Ifrit, and Titan fights will return in a new iteration.
Aesthetic Upgrades for Ultima
For the fight, Ultima has received a complete overhaul from the development team. The assets of the original model date back to the 2.0 version of the game, developed with the graphical limitations of the PS3. The new model will therefore not only look cooler but will also feature new animations and visuals.
The duration of the fight will be shorter than its predecessor Bahamut. The reason for this was the request from the World-First team “Lukrezia”, which found the fight against Bahamut with an enrage of 19 minutes to be far too long.
The estimates of the raider community for the fight duration of Ultima are around 15 minutes. However, Yoshida emphasized in the Producer’s Letter that the shorter duration does not mean that the fight will be easier in any way.
Instead, the development team focuses on more complex mechanics. The music played during the fight has been arranged by the rock band of composer Masayoshi Soken.
Bahamut is considered by many players to be the best fight in Final Fantasy XIV. With Ultima, the development team will therefore have to meet high expectations.
With Patch 4.3, a new dungeon also arrives in Final Fantasy XIV. More about it can be found in our article:
Final Fantasy XIV: Everything about the new endless dungeon Sky Pillar
