I couldn't miss the chance to practice my drawing!
And from the deepest pit of the seven hells to the very pinnacle of the heavens, the world shall tremble! Unleash Ultima!
Lahabrea's Ultima incantation
Ultima (究極魔法アルテマ, Kyūkyoku Mahō Arutema?, lit. Ultimate Magic Ultima) is an incredibly powerful magic spell in Final Fantasy XIV that is not available to player character. It is a destructive magic used by the Ultima Weapon, stored in the it's black auracite core, the Heart of Sabik.
Ultima is regularly a powerful, often the strongest, spell in players' spell list throughout the Final Fantasy series, dealing powerful non-elemental damage against all enemies. However, it is not available to players in Final Fantasy XIV, instead being a recurring enemy attack that tends to act either as a story element that signals the end of a fight or a strong raid wide attack that must be mitigated in some way.
History[]
From the deepest pit of the seven hells to the pinnacle of the heavens, the world shall tremble!
Athena's Ultima incantation
The Ultima spell was seemingly created or discovered by the ancient Athena based off the Heart of Sabik, a powerful piece of black auracite theorized to come from the interdimensional entity Ultima, the High Seraph. After Athena is put to death by her husband Lahabrea for her attempts at experimenting with their child, Lahabrea takes custody of the Heart of Sabik and the magic contained within. After the Final Days and the resulting Sundering of the world into the Source and it's thirteen reflections, Lahabrea becomes one of the few remaining ancients and an Ascian, and begins working on rejoining the split shards of Etheirys in an effort to restore their god, Zodiark. During the millennia that followed, as Lahabrea grew more unhinged, he allowed the Allagan Empire to use the Heart of Sabik to build the Ultima Weapon, an anti-primal biomechanical weapon that used the auracite to absorb the primals and gain their attributes, which led to prototypes that used partial copies of the spell. Thousands of years after the fall of Allag, the Garlean Empire's XIVth Imperial Legion obtained and restored the Allagan warmachina, with Lahabrea's help, and attempted to use it to conquer Eorzea. Following a confrontation with the Warrior of Light, and using the captured energies of the primals, Lahabrea quickened the spell and used it to destroy Castrum Meridianum, with plans to use the destruction caused by the spell to begin another rejoining.
After the destruction of the Ultima Weapon, Lahabrea absconded with the Heart of Sabik and kept it with him until his death at the hands of Thordan VII, at which point it remained in the Aetherochemical Research Facility in Azys Lla. Meanwhile, the reformed VIIth Imperial Legion continued the Weapon Project, creating artificial auracites in an effort to create more anti-Eikon weaponry similar to the Ultima Weapon, which included different replica versions of the Ultima spell. Eventually, the Heart of Sabik was discovered in the Aetherochemical Research Facility by Claudien as part of Athena's plans to resurrect herself and continue her experiments into creating souls, using Claudien, a shard of her son Erichthonios, as a vessel. Athena herself then used the Heart of Sabik to cast her own version of Ultima during her confrontation with the Warrior of Light.
Gameplay and variations[]
Ultima appears as an enemy action in 
The Porta Decumana, where it acts as a hard enrage for the boss's second phase. After reaching 30% health, Ultima Weapon will teleport to the middle of the arena and begin a long cast of Ultima, the conclusion of which marks death to the player party. As this happens the player characters will receive stacks of the Prayers of Light enhancement, which eventually become 
Blessing of Light, unlocking the third Limit Break gauge, allowing a DPS to use it to lower the Weapon's health enough to be defeated. Ultima also appears as the enrage mechanic for the extreme difficulty version of that fight, 
The Minstrel's Ballad: Ultima's Bane, where the boss will cast Ultima after 10 minutes of being engaged in combat, wiping the raid.
Ultima is also cast by the Ultima Weapon in 
The Weapon's Refrain (Ultimate), initially as a phase transition, and requires the players to rely heavily on damage mitigation and a Tank Limit Break 3 to survive its effects.
Ultima is cast by Pallas Athena in 
Anabaseios: The Twelfth Circle (Savage) as her common raidwide attack which must be mitigated heavily and healed appropriately.
Demi Ultima (デミアルテマ, Demi Arutema?) is cast by the Ultima Beast in 
The Fractal Continuum (Hard) as a raidwide AoE, and eventually acts as its enrage, wiping the party if not defeated in time.[note 1]
Ultima Upsurge (どきどきアルテマ, Doki Doki Arutema?, lit. Pulsating Ultima) is cast by Kefka in Sigmascape V4.0 and it's savage counterpart Sigmascape V4.0 (Savage) where it acts as a strong raid wide attack for the boss. Another variation, simply named Ultima, is cast by Kefka in his final form in exclusive to the Savage version. It acts as a strong raid wide attack that he'll cast immediately following Heartless Angel, which brings all player characters to single digit HP, requiring quick healing to survive.[note 1]
Dark Ultima (ダークアルテマ, Dāku Arutema?) is cast by Argath Tadalfus in The Royal City of Rabanastre, where he will first spawn Shards of Emptiness and begin filling up an Emptiness meter until they're all slain. Once all Shards of Emptyness are slain, or once the meter becomes full at 100, Argath will cast Dark Ultima. The attack's potency varies depending on how full the meter gets, and when full the attack will instantly wipe the raid.
Optimized Ultima (魔導アルテマ, Madou Arutema?, lit. Magitek Ultima) is a variant of Ultima shared by the Ruby and Emerald Weapons in Cinder Drift and Castrum Marinum and their extreme counterparts, Cinder Drift (Extreme) and Castrum Marinum (Extreme). This acts as their standard raid wide attack that can be mitigated as normal. In the Extreme versions, taking too long to defeat certain phases will trigger the bosses to cast Full-Power Optimized Ultima (魔導アルテマ：臨界出力, Madō Arutema: Rinkai Shutsuryoku?, lit. Magitek Ultima: Critical Power), which acts as their enrage, wiping the raid.
Ultima Buster (アルテマバスター, Arutema Basutā?) is a weaponskill action usable only during the quest battle for the quest 
Sleep Now in Sapphire, where player characters receive the enhancement 
Fresh Perspective, which has the player control the G-Warrior, a repurposed Ultima Warrior. Ultima Buster deals unaspected damage with a potency of 1,200 to all enemies in a straight line and triggers the cooldown of all weaponskills.
Theos' Ultima (テオス・アルテマ, Teosu Arutema?) appears in Anabaseios: The Twelfth Circle and it's Savage difficulty counterpart, cast by Athena after gathering power. She first modifies the arena using Ultima Blade (アルテマブレイド, Arutema Bureido?), eventually splitting it in two separated chunks before casting it. The action's potency depends on how quickly the player characters defeated the Anthropos that spawn in, as an "Athena's Power" meter will fill while the players fight these mobs. If not defeated in time, Theos' Ultima will instantly wipe the raid, otherwise it can be mitigated through regular means. In Savage, the strength of Theos' Ultima depends on how many players are knocked out prior to the cast, and is used as Athena's first enrage if not defeated in time.
Other appearances[]
Pictlogica Final Fantasy[]
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The Ultima Weapon casts Ultima if allowed to, defeating the player party.
This section in Final Fantasy Record Keeper is empty or needs to be expanded. You can help the Final Fantasy Wiki by expanding it.Final Fantasy Brave Exvius[]
The Ultima Weapon casts Ultima after a countdown, defeating the player party.
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The Ultima Weapon casts Ultima upon it's defeat.
This section in Mobius Final Fantasy is empty or needs to be expanded. You can help the Final Fantasy Wiki by expanding it.Etymology[]
Ultima means "the last" in Latin and many Latin-based languages. The word is an inflection of ultimus which is the superlative of ulter, which means "that is beyond". In the Spanish versions of many Final Fantasy games, the spell Ultima's name is written as "Artema", a close transliteration of the Japanese katakana.
Notes[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Demi Ultima, Ultima Upsurge, and Kefka's final form's variation of Ultima feature different visuals to the other Ultimas present in the game, appearing closer to the spell's Final Fantasy VI incarnation, due to the casters originating from that game.