Ultimate Predation

Ultima Weapon now shows up for the party to take down.

There are four main “blocks” in Ultima Weapon’s timeline, that culminates in a signature mechanic, the first of which is Ultimate Predation.

However, there are first a couple points to discuss.

Ultima Aether

When the fight resumes, there will now be a new “Ultima Aether” gauge that serves as a timer to Ultima’s enrage. When the gauge reaches 100, Ultima begins its enrage sequence.

Ultima Aether is built:

When Ultima Weapon performs certain actions. (+2 Aether)
When players get hit by Aetheroplasm (green) orbs. (+1 Aether for each player hit)
When a player dies. (+4 Aether for each death)

This last point is particularly noteworthy, as player deaths effectively bring the enrage forward in addition to weakness.

Pre-Predation

Ultima opens with a Tank Purge (raid-wide AoE). During this time, the two tanks should establish themselves as the top two players in hate.

In particular, the MT should be first in aggro, while the ST should be second. There is not a lot of time to do this, so be careful that the ST doesn’t accidentally take hate from the MT.

1. Ultima applies Viscous Aetheroplasm in a small AoE around the player who is highest in hate (which should be the MT).

MT: Split away from the party as anyone nearby will also get a Viscous Aetheroplasm debuff.

2. Ultima Weapon then turns to the player who is second in hate (which should be the ST) and targets them for Homing Lasers, which is a heavy AoE tankbuster.

MT: After receiving the Viscous Aetheroplasm debuff, stack with the party.

3. The Viscous Aetheroplasm debuff expires, dealing split damage shared by the party.

Ultimate Predation

This is the first “Trio” combo of mechanics you’ll see.

Remember that all the primals have been woken, so they will all do the Woken versions of their mechanics.

Garuda: Spawns in a random quadrant, slightly offset diagonally from the center.
Ifrit: Spawns in a random intercardinal position.
Titan: Spawns in a random cardinal, shifted slightly left or right.
Ultima: Spawns in a random intercardinal position.

Because of Garuda’s Wicked Wheel → Wicked Tornado combo, only the quadrant diagonally opposite Garuda will be safe to resolve this mechanic.

There are two methods to resolving Ultimate Predation, but both methods follow the same rules:

Move to the quadrant diagonally opposite Garuda.
Be away from Titan.
Move away from Ultima.

Method 1 - Cheesing Predation

This is my preferred method, and is actually the Japanese standard strat on Mana DC and Gaia DC.

The idea isn’t actually to resolve Predation cleanly- instead, we want to get the party hit by Ifrit’s afterburn with mitigations.

Observe there are “rune” marks that line the outside of the arena. The party needs to dodge Titan’s Landslide and Ifrit’s first Crimson Cyclone dash, but end up between the outside runes (basically at a cardinal position) to get hit by the second afterburn from Crimson Cyclone.

(If Ultima Weapon is on an adjacent intercardinal, be on the half away from Ultima Weapon.)

This would ordinarily deal lethal damage to the party, but because the party survives the damage with migitations, limit break is generated as a result.

The party needs shields and three additional pieces of mitigation (H2 30s, a tank 90s, and D3) to survive the afterburn.

It might seem odd to do this method, especially as dodging the AoEs normally isn’t particularly difficult. However, the real objective is to artificially generate limit break in a consistent manner, which then guarantees the party will have LB3 available for Ultima #2.

1. Ultima Weapon disappears and will reappear with all the Primals. Identify Garuda, and move to the quadrant diagonally opposite.
2. First set of AoEs resolve. Avoid both Ifrit's dash and Titan's first Landslide.
3. Second set of AoEs resolve. Move to a cardinal to take the afterburn from Ifrit's Crimson Cyclone. There will be runes on the outside of the arena- stand between the runes to get hit. If Ultima Weapon is next to you, stand on the side away from Ultima. The party will need the following to survive: Shields A tank 90s party mitigation H2 30s D3 party mitigation If your party has a SCH, try to dodge to the same cardinal for everyone to be under Sacred Soil, especially if you have a DRK (as they do not have a tank 90s at this level).
4. The bosses then disappear, ending the mechanic. (Bait and dodge Feather Rains)

Method 2 - Dodging Predation

The other way to resolve Ultimate Predation is to simply dodge all the Primal’s AoEs.

This was the way to resolve Ultimate Predation when the fight was current- however, because The Weapon’s Refrain has been outscaled over the years, you risk not having LB3 at the end of Ultimate Suppression, automatically leading to a wipe.

Observe there are “rune” marks that line the outside the arena- four runes from a cardinal direction will dodge Ifrit’s and Titan’s second set of mechanics, which just leaves Garuda and Ultima to manage:

1. Ultima Weapon disappears and will reappear with all the Primals. Identify Garuda, and move to the quadrant diagonally opposite.
2. First set of AoEs resolve. (Green crosses mark the 4th rune.)
3. Second set of AoEs resolve. (Green crosses mark the 4th rune.)
4. The bosses then disappear, ending the mechanic. (Bait and dodge Feather Rains)

[Additional Example] - 3 safe spots

1. Ultima Weapon disappears and will reappear with all the Primals. Identify Garuda, and move to the quadrant diagonally opposite.
2. First set of AoEs resolve. (Green crosses mark the 4th rune.)
3. Second set of AoEs resolve. Notice Ultima's position eliminates one of the four positions. (Green crosses mark the 4th rune.)
4. The bosses then disappear, ending the mechanic. (Bait and dodge Feather Rains)

[Additional Example] - 1 safe spot

1. Ultima Weapon disappears and will reappear with all the Primals. Identify Garuda, and move to the quadrant diagonally opposite.
2. First set of AoEs resolve. (Green crosses mark the 4th rune.)
3. Second set of AoEs resolve. Notice Titan's position eliminates two of the four positions, and Ultima's eliminates one more. (Green crosses mark the 4th rune.)
4. The bosses then disappear, ending the mechanic. (Bait and dodge Feather Rains)

Building LB at Tank Purge

If the group decides to dodge Ultimate Predation, there may be a need to artificially generate LB to avoid reaching Ultima #2 without an LB3.

This method involves not healing the party after the Tank LB3 that keeps the party alive after the first Ultima.

The goal is to keep the party’s HP low enough that they would die to the opening Tank Purge at the start of Ultima Weapon, but shields and mitigations keep them alive.

Keep the party’s HP below 15k (how much damage Tank Purge deals).
The lower the party’s HP, the more mitigations you will need to survive.
Try not to debuff Ultima Weapon (Feint, Addle, Reprisal) if possible. Doing so lowers Ultima Weapon’s outgoing damage, which may lead to the party surviving the raw damage instead (and not build LB as a result).

Frequently Asked Questions

[Ultimate Predation] Why should we cheese Ultimate Predation instead of just dodging the AoEs normally?

The party needs to rebuild an LB3 by the end of Ultimate Suppression in order to survive the second Ultima cast towards the end of the fight.

The Weapon's Refrain (Ultimate) unfortunately hasn't scaled very well over the expansions- players deal much higher damage compared to its release in Patch 4.3, and as a result, it is not uncommon to reach Ultima #2 without an LB3, leading to an immediate wipe, especially because Ultimate Suppression can be triggered early.

This leads to a need to artifically generate Limit Break.

While you can do so at the first Tank Purge, this method has some problems:

It is easily ruined by a well-intentioned, but ignorant healer that heals the party up after Ultima #1.
It's difficult to eyeball whether the current HP and shields are enough to keep the party alive from the Tank Purge. You cannot debuff the boss or risk not generating the limit break you need, and if you are going to spend party mitigations, you may as well mitigate Crimson Cyclone's afterburn instead.
A SCH can Adloquium → Deployment Tactics off a tank to keep the party's HP low, a SGE cannot (adding Zoe to Eukrasian Prognosis also heals the party up more!)

Thus, as far as consistency goes, simply mitigating the afterburn from Crimson Cyclone is the better approach.