Deep in the bowels of Oriflamme, close to the city’s gigantic Mothercrystal, Drake’s Head, Clive and co. end up dealing with an aetherflood. InFinal Fantasy 16’s world of Valisthea, aetherfloods are dangerous phenomena that cause living beings to turn Akashic, making them into mindless, destructive forces.
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Before they can reach the heart of the Mothercrystal, the party is confronted by a particularly dangerous example of this phenomenon - an Akashic Dragon. This boss fight is a hefty obstacle standing between you and Cid’s goal, so read on to learn how to take it down. A word of warning, though, it is not an easy fight.
How To Beat The Akashic Dragon
As you might have guessed by the massive arena provided for this fight, you may expect some wide, expansive attacks from the boss of the day. Despite this, the Akashic Dragon is actually quite astationary targetand will prefer to attack you at aclose rangerather than rely on its ranged attacks.
The table below lists all of the Akashic Dragon’s attacks, along with some tips on how to deal with them.
Fireball
The dragon simply spits a fireball at you.
This is mostly a filler attack that is easy to avoid and used while the dragon is a long distance from you. You can expect this to be followed up by a gap-closing lunge.
Aerial Fireball
The dragon flies up into the air and spits fireballs at you. It will spit multiple fireballs before coming back down to the ground.
Each individual fireball is quite heavily telegraphed, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to avoid this attack. This is a good opportunity to warp up to the dragon using Phoenix Shift and then quickly switch to Garuda to use some midair attacks, though.
Spinning Dive
The dragon rises into the air and then performs a lunge at you, spinning as it goes.
This attack has an obvious telegraph - the dragon spins in midair before lunging. This is a gap closer and also quite easy to dodge, making it a prime candidate for a Precision Counter.
Wing Swipe
The dragon digs its wing into the ground and then performs a swiping attack, turning around in a complete circle.
To keep up your offensive momentum, the best way to deal with this attack is to dodge through it. It’s a very easy attack to get Precision Dodges from, and the attack is long and non-threatening enough to let you get a full Precision Counter and combo off.
Head Swipe
The dragon will lean to one side and the make a swiping attack with its head, aiming to bash you from the side.
As with the previous attack, it is best to dodge into this to get an easy Precision Counter. It’s not as forgiving in terms of cooldown as Wing Swipe, but you can still exploit its ease to get some easy damage in.
Smash
The dragon rears up on its hind legs and then smashes down at you.
Dodge away from this attack to avoid it. It has an obvious windup, so you should be able to get the timing down quite quickly.
Fire Laser
The dragon rears up on its hind legs and fires a thin laser in a vertical line in front of it. The line then glows in a large column before exploding after a few moments.
When this attack comes out, move to the side. As long as you’re not standing on a glowing part of the floor, you’ll avoid the explosion.
Aerial Fire Laser
This attack is identical to the previous attack, but instead of a vertical line shoots out ahead of the dragon, this attack instead creates a horizontal line in front of it. It will use this version of the attack while in midair.
As with the previous attack, avoid this by staying out of the glowing area.
Cauterize
The dragon flies away and then begins a sort of bombing run on the bridge, breathing a huge gout of fire in a zigzag pattern.
The flame breath should start quite far away from you, so keep an eye on it and identify a part of the bridge that the zigzag pattern will miss. You should have enough time to get to a safe zone.
Aerial Somersault
While in midair, the dragon can perform a somersault, attacking you with its tail.
Dodge to the side to avoid this attack.
Dragon Dance
After a lengthy windup that involves breathing fire into the air, the dragon will perform multiple attacks in a row. First, it will fire multiple fireballs at you. This is followed by both a horizontal and a vertical Fire Laser, which resolve consecutively. Finally, the dragon performs a spinning divebomb directly at you.
Each individual part of this attack is easily dodged, but you’ll need to be wary that all three parts are coming. Don’t let up after the fireballs, as you’ll need to dodge out of quite a large area created by the Fire Lasers.
Despite the lengthy list of attacks, you shouldn’t worry too much about the complexity of this fight.Most of the Akashic Dragon’s attacks are quite easy to predict, thanks to the boss’s long windups and obvious telegraphs.
The main issue is the actualstrength of the dragon’sattacksand itshefty health bar, turning the fight into a war of attrition that forces you to dodge effectively or suffer.
The dragon loves to use itsWing Swipe and Head Swipe attacks when you’re close to it, and they are easily punished. As a result, it’s a good idea tostay close to the bossto bait these attacks out - as counterproductive as that seems.
Some of the Akashic Dragon’s attacks will only get used once you’ve damaged it enough. It will only start to use itsAerial Fire Laser and Aerial Somersaultattacks once it’s been damaged quite a bit, andCauterizewill likely only come out once after you manage to Stagger it for the first time. Finally,Dragon Dancewill come out when it’s very low on health, so be prepared for it.
The dragon will be stunned for a short while after using Dragon Dance- make sure you use this opportunity to inflict as much damage as you’re able to, especially if you have Eikonic abilities that hit multiple times.
A particularly handy ability to make use of in this fight is Phoenix Shift. This will warp Clive right to the Akashic Dragon’s head, which is its weak spot, and allow you to get a full aerial combo off even in midair.
While this also allows you to avoid some of the dragon’s lower attacks, you’ll need to be careful with this strategy, as it does make it far harder to avoid certain attacks. The explosions from Fire Lasers, for example, have deceptively tall hitboxes.
90
120
3,000
Spoils
Bloody Hide x10, Meteorite x2, Black Blood x1
And once you’re done with that, proceed into Drake’s Head to face the final boss of the stage, Typhon!
NEXT:Final Fantasy 16: All Crafting And Upgrading Recipes
