In Final Fantasy 14, each level you reach will lead you to a trial, where you’ll learn more about the game’s story and find more loot for later exploration. When you reach level 60, you’ll face a trial called Final Steps of Faith, which marks the climax of the Post-Heavensward Main Scenario Quests and the end of Dragonsong War. In this trial, you’ll need to win the favor of Hraesvelgr in Sohr Khai, and then fight a final boss, Nidhogg. It uses the body of an Azure Dragoon as its carrier, and you’ll meet it in Steps of Faith.
Since your encounter with Nidhogg is a rare 4-phase battle, this guide will show you what combat mechanics and moves Nidhogg will use in each phases so that you can react in time and successfully defeat it.
How To Meet Nidhogg?
As mentioned earlier, Nidhogg will appear in Final Steps of Faith, a trial that you unlock by completing An End to the Song quest in the post-Heavensward MSQ. In addition, your item level must be 205 or above to participate in this trial.
How To Defeat Nidhogg?
When you reach Steps of Faith in Final Steps of Faith trial, you will encounter Nidhogg. However, it should be noted that there is an effective range between you and its arena, so try not to step into it before you are fully prepared.
In addition, before challenging Nidhogg, interact with the nearest checkpoint near the arena. On the one hand, you can spend some FFXIV Gil here to improve the defense and damage capabilities of the build; on the other hand, once you die in the battle, you will not be reborn at a checkpoint far away.
After you have made all the preparations, let’s take a look at what mechanisms Nidhogg will use in each of the four phases of the battle and how you should deal with them.
Phase 1
First of all, in the first phase, Nidhogg will mainly attack you with AOE, and there are different types. For example, Deafening Bellow will cause inevitable range damage to all players in the entire arena. At this time, you can only rely on range healing to restore your health to a healthy level.
When lines appear below you or your allies in the battle, they will quickly open into circular eyes and cause circular range damage to you, so Nidhogg has launched Horrid Roar at you. At this time, you can predict the range of damage by those lines and avoid it on time.
Besides this deforming line, Nidhogg will also cast Hot Wing, which will use two large lines fired from both sides of the boss to cause linear range damage. What you should do is stay in the safe area in the center to avoid these damages, and find ways to cast more damaging skills.
As for The Scarlet Whisper cast by Nidhogg, it will cause untelegraphed damage to a cone-shaped area in front of the boss, which is fatal to most Jobs, so during this trick, the tank as the vanguard should keep other team members away from Nidhogg.
After you reduce its health to a certain value, Nidhogg cannot aim and fly away, and cause Horrid Roar AOE damage to multiple players in the air. Generally, it will hit the center of the arena to prepare a straight line range and deal continuous damage. Here, you can only dodge Horrid Roar again and again, and then move to the other side to avoid Cauterize.
After a while, Nidhogg will land with Touchdown and cause damage in the area, and then the entire battle will return to normal. Until its health is 70% remaining, Nidhogg cannot aim again and summon three enemies, which means that your battle has entered the second phase.
Phase 2
This is an additional phase where you will fight Shadow Brobinyak, Shadow Dragon, and Shadow Falak summoned by Nidhogg. The strategy here is to deal with Shadow Dragon first, as it cannot be controlled by tanks.
So the two tanks in the team can deal with one of the other two monsters, so that the three of them can be separated from targeted attacks. Shadow Dragon will launch a sweep attack to cause Damage Down, so you should try to ensure flexibility in your build when fighting it.
Both Shadow Brobinyak and Shadow Falak have breath attacks that can cause unpredictable area damage in front, so try not to stand in front of them to avoid being attacked.
Once all three monsters are defeated, Nidhogg will use Final Chorus to deal inevitable damage to all players and enter the third phase of the battle.
Phase 3
Here, Nidhogg will transform into Estinien Varlineau and use a new set of attacks. First up is Ala Morn, which deals with heavy damage to the main tank player. If you’re playing this type of character, you can use defensive cooldowns to reduce the damage of this attack on you.
And of course, there’s Geirskogul, Nidhogg’s (Estinien) favorite area-of-effect attack, which deals damage in a straight line. This attack is very predictable and easy to avoid, just move out of the range indicator.
During this phase, the boss will have AOE Markers, and will use High Jump to target several players, creating a puddle because deals with continuous damage. Because of this move, you and your allies should spread out as much as possible to avoid stacking damage.
In addition to the long-range area-of-effect damage from the previous phase, Nidhogg will also use Super Jump to deal close-range area-of-effect damage in the third phase - the closer you are to this area, the more damage you will take. So the best solution is to run to the other side of the arena as soon as possible to avoid damage.
During Super Jump, Nidhogg will also use the straight-line AOE damage caused by Geirskogul to target multiple players. So in addition to moving to avoid close-range area damage, you also need to stay away from these linear area damage.
Generally, Nidhogg will repeat these attacks until its health is only 30%. At this time, it will jump away and slam the arena with Bloodrage, which will also cause inevitable damage to the entire team. Then it will enter the fourth and final phase.
Phase 4
At the start of this phase, Nidhogg will cast Horrid Roar and Cauterize simultaneously. You’ll need to avoid the circular damage area and get out of Cauterize’s area of effect, then prepare for the final battle.
Here, Nidhogg will repeat all the attacks from Phase 1, and add a few new ones. For example, Akh Morn will target a player with a stacking marker and deal damage to the area over time. During this move, healers and other Jobs in the team should gather around the affected player to keep him safe.
There’s also Flame Blast, which is another skill that deals with linear damage. Nidhogg will create several flaming balls that will explode in a cross-shaped line after a few seconds. So obviously, you should stand diagonally opposite each ball to avoid these.
After Nidhogg casts Hot Wing, it will immediately follow up with a Hot Tail, dealing damage to a linear area in the center of the arena, which you’ll find is the safe area for Hot Wing. So you may need to move to either side between these two attacks to avoid the subsequent damage.
That’s all you need to know about challenging Nidhogg in FFXIV. Hopefully, with the help of this guide, you can easily complete this final boss encounter in one go, and learn more about the story behind the main quest. Have fun!
