Summary
- We spoke with community members to find out their favourite raids and then ranked them based on responses
- Players appreciate Arcadion's challenging mechanics, music design, and overall vibe.
- Nostalgia often plays a role in players' favourite raids.
As a casual 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy 14 raider at best, and the Bard who constantly eats dirt when she raids with her poor friends at worst, I’m certainly not the best Warrior of🎃 Light to pass judgment on which is the best raid tier in the game. That’s why we asked you lovely people, and that’s also how we ended up with a clear top three based on the WoLs we spoke to.
- The Arcadion
- Pandaemonium
- Eden
The Arcadion launched only a couple of months ago. Perhaps because it’s the most recent and fresh in players’ minds, or maybe it's down to Honey B Lovely, the bee-themed boss that everyone is going feral over, but the Arcadion was voted the best raid tier. Or it could be the team’s new focus on creating challenging new mechanics, something FF14 director and producer Naoki Yoshida has recently said is to “increase the excitement” of battle enc🉐ounters.
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Alana agreed that Honey B Lovely was her favourite boss, but t🧸ells me that she loved every facet of th🐭e raid from the music design, and voice acting, to the characters, “I love the entire vibe of this raid tier. [It] feels a lot different to previous ones where there are quite high stakes. There will probably be developments in the coming raids but it definitely feels much more fun to play through.”
She tells me that the sense of satisfaction that you get from learning the raids and overcoming the challenges are some of her fondest memories, emphasising that “difficulty is important”. It’s undeniable that the dungeons, trials, and raids that launched with Dawntrail raised the bar in terms of throwing new mechanics at players and upping the ante. But as I said168澳洲幸运5开奖网: in my review, this is a good thing. It’s utter chaos, but it’s enjoyable chaos.
Muru is another member of the Honey B Lovely fan club, t🎀elling me “I love her concept and design. The raid music reminds me of stuff I used to listen to when I was younger, and the rღaid mechanics are challenging but still manage to feel rewarding after learning their patterns.” Like many players, she’s appreciated the new raid direction with the Arcadion, calling it a “breath of fresh air and a fun concept”.
“I think it's just the presentation of the fights and the music,” Cecil tells me about why the Arcadion is their favourite. “I really love that Metem calls out what's happening in the fight, and especially his LB3 lines. The mechan🍰ics in the savage version are also really fun to do, and is a fresh break from the high amount of body checks in Anabaseios. A high point is also playing melee and having to optimise melee up tim💧e in m3s and m4s phase 1. Square Enix, please don't ever make [a] boss hitbox the size of a house ever again this is so fun.”
Cecil also wants to encourage others to try raids, “To whoever is hesitating to do high🍸-end content, if you read this then this is the sign for you to sign up for that PF. Watch 🍰a guide or go blind, and you'll have the time of your life.”
Ne꧑bula is another player who voted for Arcadion, but this time it wasn’t because of the queen bee, instead she picked Wicked Thunder/Eutrope as her favourite raid boss. “So far it's been my favourite in terms of music and boss design, and the story involving Yaana and her sisters has been super interesting”.
Though there are many of us still firmly aboard the Arcadion hype train, there are plenty of other raids that FF14 players hold dear. Jason tells🌠 me his favourite is Pandaemonium, the Endwalker raid, because of the boss Hephaistos. “This character pushed my enjoyment of the raid even higher, the fight itself was quite unique but I especially loved being able to see Lahabrea before he went unhinged in ARR, it helped to know him a little more and get attached to an antagonist that at first in AR🐟R, was honestly quite bland.”
I think it’s fair to say that after Endwalker, we were all on a bit of an ancient high and so getting to peek into the past with Pandemonium fed that need for many of us. Jason says “the story and gameplay elements of the raid tier were amazing to follow”, telling me that having that invested interest in the raid storyline ma𓂃de🌠 the fights themselves more enjoyable too.
Another vote for Pandemonium came from Dragon, who seconded that it had the “best stories” but he also especially enjoyed Brute Justice from the Alexander raids because of “how the b🤪oss was designed with🍃 so many mini-phases”.
It isn’t always because they’re the best in terms of mechanics of boss designs, but because of our own nꦯostalgia. Joe tells me Eden’s Gate is his favourite raid because it was the first he ever progged on the raid’s launch week, telling me “it holds a special place in my heart for that”. However, he🐻 also enjoyed the Final Fantasy 8 references, the redesigns of the summons (telling me Titan was his favourite Eden design), as well as applauding the mechanics of the Savage version.
Despite choosing Eden as his overall favourite raid, he admits his favourite raid bos🐼s still falls under the Arcadion umbrella, choosing Wicked Thunder because he loved that her character pays homage to Ixion, his favourite FF14 FATE boss.
“Her transꦬition into phase 2 in the Savage version was very fun to do mechanically, but also very awe-inspiring,” Joe tells me. “Every pull, I would feel rejuvinated and hyped-up to do the rest of the fight whenever the music changes and she starts transforming. Speaking of the music, [it’s] probably one of the best tracks in the entire game, both the phase 1 and phase 2 versions.”
Another WoL who chose their first as their favouri🍎te is Saya, whose friends brought her into their raid group for Eden during Shadowbringers so that when Pandemonium launched after Endwalker, they could all hit the ground running. Additionally, Hesperos is her favourite boss because it was the first tier she cleared as soon as it launched. “I've made many friends,” she tells me about raiding, telling me that she has fond memories because o𓆏f “lots and lots of laughing with friends, and the satisfaction of downing a boss for the first time”.
Out of all the many players we spoke to though, the results were clear as Arcadion reigned supreme. It’ll be interesting to see if it still snags the top spot months from now when it’s not nꦆew and shiny. I’m quite indecisive, so if I had to pick a raid to play right now, it would be the Arcadion because it’s the flavour of the month. If I really think about it though, I also really enjoyed the Nier raid series. It doesn’t really matter either way, as I know once the Echoes of Vana'diel raid series launches in FF14, that will be my favourite purely because of my unending nostalgia for FF11.
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