In the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, there is a lot of content that the community has transformed into in-game challenges. One player has mastered such a challenge after 800 hours over 2 years. Now he is tackling the next one.
What is the player’s story? The player behind the achievement is Aurora Moon. He took on one of the toughest challenges in Final Fantasy XIV:
- He played as a Druid and worked his way through the content of the
Palace of the Dead
alone. - The Palace of the Dead has 200 levels with random but increasingly difficult content.
- Every ten levels, you are confronted by a boss.
- You can start the content in groups of up to four players.
Anyone who conquers the Palace of the Dead alone receives one of the rarest achievements in the game: the title Necromancer
. You can read everything about Aurora’s first completed challenge in our news article: Player in Final Fantasy XIV completes the toughest solo content of the MMORPG after 800 hours
These two jobs have also been unlocked for the Palace of the Dead since the release of Dawntrail:
It doesn’t get much harder – But the next challenge is already here
Why is the challenge difficult? Essentially, the Palace of the Dead is not specifically designed to be completed by individual players. The balancing is aimed at groups. The random levels add their part:
In addition to almost randomly generated layouts and enemies, there is random loot in random chests. Items like healing potions cannot be brought in from outside the Palace of the Dead. They must be earned here. Even your own armor cannot be taken along.
Specifically in Aurora’s case, he has been playing as a Druid. This is the precursor to the White Mage. While he can continually give himself more health points as a healer, his damage output is not the best. By choosing this class, Aurora has made an already difficult challenge even more complex.
Additionally, Final Fantasy XIV regularly receives balancing patches. Therefore, the effectiveness of his chosen class has changed multiple times over the two years he spent on the challenge. Naturally, this also fluctuates the difficulty level of the Palace of the Dead.
The last balancing patch, for example, made one job significantly stronger:
What is the next challenge? In an interview with the colleagues from GamesRadar+, Aurora talked about how things will proceed. In fact, the player started the next challenge almost immediately after completing the Druid challenge: He wants to conquer the Palace of the Dead once again, this time as a Thaumaturge.
I simply invested in the Druid because that is my starting class and I played the Palace of the Dead alone for the first time! I decided to try the Thaumaturge when I unlocked it and here it is! There is something exhilarating about stripping away most of what makes a job feasible and having to make crazy plays and work like a machine to figure out how to make the impossible possible.
Aurora Moon in the interview with GamesRadar+, 07.08.2024
The Thaumaturge is the precursor to the Black Mage. The latter is a very strong ranged DPS and was, at least until the release of the new Pictomancer, the go-to job for anyone wanting to play a pure mage. However, the base class is quite limited, just like the Druid, in terms of options. And the Thaumaturge cannot heal itself.
Aurora is likely aware of the increased difficulty: He does not expect to need less than a few years to reach level 200.
By the way, the Pictomancer is really popular: Since its release, more and more players are turning their backs on their Black Mage. You can read all about it here: After 14 years, players betray their class in Final Fantasy XIV because they prefer the new one
