17. Final Fantasy XV Chapter 15

After finishing the game, your save file will be given a new background to show that you've beaten the game. A chapter select feature will appear to make returning to certain points in the game easier, and a New Game+ will start everything over from the beginning with most of your current characters' levels and things intact. What we're interested in is just reloading the save, since this keeps your current progression completely as it is.

Call Umbra at a resting point and return to Lucis in the past. Feel free to overwrite your save, since you can freely move between past and present. You can also turn your game (back) down to Easy difficulty now. There's a fair amount of new things to do now that you've beaten the game, some of which were available before but should be easier now.

The end goals here are defeating the adamantoise, defeating Omega, and finishing up the rest of the trophies, like getting 80% of the datalog filled up. Doing the Menace and Randolph's side quests will lead to the most powerful gear in the game, which is perfect for killing Omega.

The Past

• Pursuit of Knowledge

  Filled 80% of the Datalog.

  
  

The Founder King's Sigil

There's a statue to the north of the entrance to the Keycatrich Trench that's worth checking out. You can get a quest related to coming back here from a woman at the Meldacio Hunter HQ, so you may as well start that first before coming here. Check the statue after obtaining all thirteen royal arms to get the Founder King's Sigil, an accessory that massively buff's Noctis's armiger attacks and slows the bar's decreasing speed to a crawl. It also changes the tech bar skills to super-stated attacks, so try not to activate the armiger bar until the tech bar is full.

Equipping it and using the suped-up attacks grants a trophy.

• The Power Within

  Awakened to the True Power of Kings.

  
  

Training at Camp

You're given the option to train at any haven, which is something you could easily have ignored this whole time. As you prepare for Omega, it'd be a good idea to finish all of Gladiolus's and Aranea's training battles; Gladio's last training session rewards you with a blue diamond bracelet (+80 Strength) and Aranea's training leads to an anklet of the gods (+150 Vitality) and a dark matter bracelet (+100 Strength). These items are highly valuable and it'd be good to at least have them as an option as you progress through more of the tough quests throughout this page.

Doing these trials should be very easy because you can use your new Armiger Unleashed ability (if you're wearing the Founder King's Sigil) and can use healing items.

Styrial Bluefin Tuna

If you don't yet have at least one bluefin tuna fillet, you should get one by catching this kind of tuna. To do this, you must find Bismarck the narwhal and fish in his wake for the fish that flashes yellow on the radar that goes around in circles. The Knife T. Tonberry and Big Blaze Bahamut lures work to attract this fish, and you'd best make sure you have Dragon's Beard fishing line and the Llymlaen reel from the Totomostro colosseum. Having these things will make your odds of catching the fish much higher, and with this fish, you'll be able to craft the best food item in the game, and you'll only need this one fish.

Side Quest: A Better Drillbreaker

There's a machine weapon called Drillbreaker in Formouth Garrison in the northeast corner on the left side of the black rectangle in that corner (a red speck in the game), and you earn the upgrade part for it, a Magitek core, from defeating the boss here. Bring it to Cid immediately so he can start working on upgrading it, as this is the strongest machine weapon in the game.

Side Quest: Into Unknown Frontiers

The three imperial outposts Formouth Garrison, Fort Vaullerey, and the Aracheole Stronghold all have one item each that are required for this quest to start up. Since these items should be obtained after clearing the bases and you've cleared two during the story, you should only have to clear out Formouth Garrison if you haven't already - you'll know if you don't have it if you simply don't have the quest.

Cindy will take these parts and use them to create the Regalia Type-F, giving the car flight capabilities. This has major benefits:

• The Pitioss Ruins, a new dungeon, is now available to explore (see Stealing the Past)
• You can finally get rid of those dang shaded parts of the map in the areas you couldn't explore on foot
• A trophy

• Regalia Pilot

  Flew the Regalia Type-F.

  
  1 guide

Side Quest: Stealing the Past

Starting at 21:00, there's a building in the northeast corner of Lestallum (east of Culless Munitions, the weapon shop) where you can listen in on a conversation through a window. It seems there's some kind of treasure with something to do with Ravatogh. Ask the tipster at Verinas Mart - Ravatogh to find that the secret is in a place you can only reach with the Regalia Type-F. Make sure you've got it, then fly towards the yellow strip of land north of this place on the map. Additionally, save before takeoff, because you're barely going to have any room to land and setting down off the road results in a game over.

There are plenty of strong enemies from where you can land towards the quest marker and they make for some good experience, so you may as well indulge in the battles. Your first goal is to reach Monoth Haven so you can wait until nighttime - the place you're headed towards is only open after hours. At the ruins around the quest marker's center, after your first set of stairs, is a box behind some rubble that contains a Magitek core. This quest rewards 60,000 experience, which is also a great snag.

Continuing up the way leads to the Pitioss Ruins. Check the below section to immediately jump into it.

The Pitioss Ruins - Introduction

If you've found this game to be flawed in any way, you might be thinking about how this Final Fantasy game - this JRPG - needs a platforming dungeon that takes people hours to complete. Well, you're in luck, because it's actually here.

This dungeon is entirely optional and is not related to any trophy, or even any quest. The reward is the black hood accessory, which automatically makes Noctis dodge attacks, as long as they're not an area of effect attack and as long as he's not in the middle of attacking. Depending on your opinion, the black hood can be totally useless or a marvelous treasure of an item. It's worth keeping in mind that this is a good item to keep in mind when building a setup for fighting Omega later on.

There are a few things to be aware of before trying to take this place on. First, this personally took me six hours. This dungeon is unfair, doesn't belong in a Final Fantasy game, and is overly complex. Just look how long this page is because of the Pitioss Ruins alone. I would additionally recommend finding a video on the dungeon, just in case you find it to be more useful than text. Some places are far easier to watch than to read about.

I would recommend only going into this place if you're sure you'll find a use for the black hood. Theoretically, if an enemy has no area of effect moves, you can literally just stand there as the rest of your party does all the work.

The Pitoss Ruins - First Area

Jump from the top of the second set of stairs towards more flooring to find what should be your final Almanac datalog entry. Once you've done that, jump through some bars towards a glowing mechanism (assuming it's night) to open the path to the ruins. There are no enemies in this dungeon, but the challenge is in a puzzle instead. You'll first want to run past some spikes when you have time to do so, then head down and to the south towards a moving pillar. There's a hidden doorway on the west side of the pillar and you're going to have to get to it. Continue dodging pillars and jumping across reasonable gaps (Cake, baby) until you reach a statue with glowing red eyes. Breaking it apart releases the barrier behind it, and this takes you back to where you started, but it also leads to a path upwards.

When you reach the top, you should see another barrier you can't break, with a third barrier to the east that requires absurd platforming for a game like this. To the southeast, near the barrier closer to you, is a glowing button. "Slide" down the button onto the platform below (you'll always take damage here due to its steepness) and then slide onto the button at the bottom to launch a cannonball. You're going to want to run right into where the cannonball was so you can get behind where it rests (don't bother picking up the bronze bangle underneath the cannonball's resting position). Climb up some stairs and move past one moving pillar to reach a new room.

Use the moving pillar to the east to get to a path that leads to another glowing button. Jumping to it activates a lift that places you behind your second red statue, making it easier to get back to this place. Jump back across to the top of the slopes that activate the cannonball and use them again - you'll see that the cage has been lifted and a chest will keep the ball in its place. All of the ground items are trash at this point and the chest holds four elixirs. Return to the place where you activated the lift and jump from the top of the daemon statue to the top of the cannonball, then to the switch on the wall.

Walk past the stone head you knocked down and jump to a switch on the wall at the top of a slope. Jump from the cannonball towards the east, then head to the left of a big spike pillar spinning around. Keep moving east to find a button that starts to rotate the cylindrical area you just walked through. To put it simply, you're going to want to stay balanced inside of one of the openings in the walls, using the small squares in the corners to get to the top so you can drop down between two sets of spikes to land on a button. The button launches a cannonball, and underneath it is a magic flask.

Now that you've done something pretty significant and have made it back to the place you started from, it'd be a good idea to leave the ruins and save your game outside. This is because the dungeon progress saves and you won't want to have to do this over again if your game crashes. If you're pretty confident in your system, you might not want to bother.

The Pitioss Ruins - The Five Doors

Do some more platforming to reach another statue of Ifrit and a button in the ground. Press it to release a door to the south, then return to the statue and jump on top of the door so you can enter the area past it. More platforming is required to get past a lot of spikes. This may take a fair amount of attempts, but reaching the button at the top opens the next door. The first part of the second door's puzzle is very easy; just jump from place to place while the easily telegraphed spike bars flop around. Things get a bit harder when you have to jump on top of the bars to get ahead. This too will take a lot of work, but you should eventually reach the top of the second door.

You can platform to the west from the top of the door. If you fall off, you'll likely have to go through the spike bars again. This leads to the third room, which has three rotating circles with wedges cut out of them. This should be a lot simpler - enter the wedges and come out the other side. The second circle has a metal platform at the top of it, and you're going to want to use the third circle to jump to it. From there, jump to the top of the third circle to continue. The fourth door will open up after hitting the button at the bottom of a slope.

The fourth door has sliding platforms that require you to move around on them to avoid spikes and leads to the most atrocious things we've seen yet. When the platform hits the northeast corner, wait for it to move to jumping distance and run to the northwest corner created by metal bars and the platform itself. Staying here as the platform moves away should drop you to a small metal platform below. Make your way up a slope in the distance so you can meet up with another platform. Because Square doesn't actually want you to play through this dungeon, they've made it so you have to jump to a tiny area (there's an item) from the new thin platform, and spikes are covering half of said tiny area. Wait for the platform to drop to the west again so you can use it to slip past. If all goes well, you should find some stairs and should be able to platform above the spike walls backwards to where you started. Carefully slip through close spike walls and jump at the end towards the button that will open the last door at the end of the hall. Congratulations! You're a bit over a third of the way done.

The Pitioss Ruins - Spike Wall

This door spins. You may notice metal bars jetting out of the walls where the door's axis is. You're going to want to jump to these from the door, then jump back to the door to make it past. Watch as a skull-endowed spike wall comes towards you, then head west as it retreats backward. You need to be very quick and jump across objects to reach the bottom of a stone staircase; do this by reaching the southwest corner of the room and dropping down, then continuing from there. Go up the staircase when the spike wall is on the east side of the room (this will be referred to as out, with west being in). Ride the bars you find all the way back towards the west wall and make your way to the bottom of a slope.

Walk up towards the wall when it's in to find a path leading up it. Try to quickly jump out towards a wall in the northwest corner, then stay there until the wall comes back in. A small platform jetting out of the wall will allow you to jump past a hand statue to the other side. Walk across some stairs along the southern wall and stop when you're at the bars in what you can consider the southeast corner for now. Taking a path to the south will put you behind a barrier statue, which you should break to make backtracking easier if things go wrong. When that's done, make your way back and walk into another path in the wall that leads to a dead-end - unless you turn around. Jump to another chunk of metal and wait there until you can make your way to a higher ledge to the south. From here, shimmy along and re-enter the wall by jumping to a new area, which should put you on top of most of the wall.

Jump between the metal bars on top of the wall and wait until the wall is fully out so you can jump from the skull towards the high slope to the east. Carefully walk up and to the north, then move your camera around as you descend and find new places to jump down to. Take into account that Noctis might roll after falling a certain distance. At the bottom of the next slope is another barrier statue. This one is particularly useful because it links back up with the area you entered from. Break it and walk up.

You can now jump to a higher platform above the wall when it comes back. Do so and ride over towards a staircase on the southern wall halfway through the room, then carefully walk across metal beams all the way until they end, which will be when they put you facing towards the west wall. Jump onto the platform you used to reach the beams when it gets across, then jump towards an orange button on the wall to finally get this part of the dungeon over with. The door leading to this new place will fall over, so there's no longer any need to run across those beams ever again.

The Pitioss Ruins - Space Junk Road

This next part is actually kind of sensical, though everything being slanted can get confusing at times. Because Noctis should move far slower (and therefore in a way that's easier to control), you shouldn't have trouble navigating through this next bit. Finding the way ahead is what should be considered challenging, but it shouldn't be too taxing. A major issue with this part of the dungeon is that falling at any part of this place will send you back to the start.

Reaching the end of this garbage void will put you at the mercy of a rotating wheel. Drop down when the time is right to enter a 2D platforming area. Fortunately, there are lots of camera shifts, so this can be described far more easily. Head down a small slope to the next big wheel and ignore it entirely; drop down below it and fall down the gap near a rising pillar. Once there, ride another wheel just to its left side and carefully walk towards the screen to fall to a stone platform. Jump to the left from here after the pillar moves out of your way and drop down slopes until you hit a bridge-like area. There are gaps in the bridge that should be fairly obvious, but you'll have to jump to the left at the end as well. This will bring you to a small area with a handful of items and a thin path leading towards a metal beam. Jump across to a stone platform. This is the handle of a dumbbell-like contraption.

Walk to the west after the pieces start to move again and try to work your way upwards. The entire thing will continuously move from here on out, and you're going to have to keep moving through things so you're not dropped out. You may want to bring up a video for this part if you don't already have one open, because the path up to the front of the statue is extremely difficult to put into words. Either way, once you manage to get there, jump across a gap to another piece of stone so you can then hop over to the statue's left breast. Quickly, run up towards the neck and watch as the statue falls, then head to the belly button and pick up the Genji Gloves. These are an optional item people often look for in this dungeon, so you may as well get them for yourself.

Go up the statue's arms and to the hands, then drop down from the circular thing she's holding; it's a long fall, but unfortunately, Noctis will live, and you'll have to continue through the dungeon.

Walk forward a bit and watch as an elevator takes you very, very high up. You'll end up in front of a lot of items. Walk up the metal sloped bar and VERY CAREFULLY drop down to metal bars below an item. You must just as carefully traverse the rest of these bars, which create a path leading to the top of another Ifrit statue. Walk onto the bar sticking out from behind him and jump, somehow, onto the bar on your left. Once there, walk up to the south to the top of the bar so you can jump north. Look back down to the south once you reach the top and jump to some more bars, then continue VERY CAREFULLY (it looks safe, it's not at the end) to a button that opens a big door.

You should find yourself in a room near the starting area. Jump from the door to the left so you can return to the starting room, then book it outside so you can save your game. You definitely don't want to do all this crap over again.

The Pitioss Ruins - The End

Come back inside (you're almost done) and enter the southern room using the pillars again. Jump to the golden door you made fall over just recently. From the door, platform to the east and towards a spike corridor. This looks intimidating as heck, but you should be able to just walk at a normal pace through it as long as you keep an eye on your direction. Use some more metal bars to head north and take a small set of stairs down to find a barrier statue and four chests. Look past the barrier for a second and notice where you are; this is that very early barrier you saw at the start of the dungeon.

Return to the stairs that brought you here and go up the metal ramp leading north. Continue by platforming across a lot of junk until you reach what can be considered the northeast corner of the area. Drop down a slope at the corner and break another barrier statue. Head up the nearby stairs and continue to platform across an even worse set of junk, followed by slopes near spikes and onto some small rocks. There's a moving platform in the distance, and you're going to want to jump from the rocks towards it. Ride the platform to its peak and jump to a button, opening another gold door.

Jump to the top of the door and to the west to a tiny metal thing sticking out of the wall, then to the orange button above the central door. This opens said door, allowing you to take a platinum bangle from a chest, but if you're not interested in that, go to the stairs in front of the door and use the metal bars to go upwards towards some rock pillars. This is nearly the end, and if you think you can see something too absurd to jump to, it's probably the thing you have to jump to. Move around each of the pillars using the stuff sticking out of them until you can activate the final important button.

Drop down and use the metal beams to get onto the door you just opened, then jump from there to more metal. A thin beam has a lot of items on it. Jump off the beam at the end, break the barrier statue connecting the very end of the dungeon to the very start, and then continue up the small set of stairs to a button. At the very top, you will find a black hood on the ground. Get this valuable accessory and reunite with the party.

Back up when in the Regalia and mash to take off as soon as possible so you don't hit the rocks when you leave the ground.

Side Quest: Menace Beneath Lucis

First, complete all of the dungeons at least once, not including the Pitioss Ruins. A woman named Ezma resides at the Meldacio Hunter HQ, and she's willing to give you the key to all of those hidden doors tucked behind most of the Lucian dungeons. Be aware that the reward for finishing all of the quests is pretty useless since you can get something just like it from killing a zu for its beak. If you want to skip to getting the goods, check A Menace Sleeps in Balouve/Steyliff. These are where some of the best weapons in the game are, and they'll also give you enough datalog entries to push you over the 80% threshold. Well, they will if you have every other datalog entry aside from the ones hidden past these doors.

Finish all of the sub-side quests below (a lot easier said than done), then return to Ezma for a hunter's medal, which you can use to craft limit breaking spells. There are other, far easier to get treasures that do this exact same thing but at a lower ratio of spells given back to you. Make sure you keep this medal for later.

Side Quest: A Menace Sleeps in Keycatrich

Follow the quest marker to the secret door in the trench. You should notice right away that the map is useless past this door. You'll have to fight through room after room of enemies. Keep an eye out for a quality building stone item; this room has three paths to choose from instead of the usual straight line. Identify which door you came out of - northwest - and head northeast.

There's a camp inside the cave at the halfway point (the tenth floor), so use it to rest up and some kind of food. A marker near the next tunnel downward holds a datalog entry for this haven. Make sure you read it, as well as pick up the massively powerful Dominator greatsword. If you don't plan on using it, make sure you give it to Gladio.

The next junction is just two rooms away and holds two marshmallow enemies. You entered from the northwest door and you can continue downwards through the southeast door, but you can check the other paths for more experience and items. The last intersection is in a room with four hecteyes in it. You entered from the northwest door once again and will have to go down the southeast door to continue. Checking the southwest and northeast paths for items is well worth it this time.

The boss on the 20th floor is the Lakhmu Flan, a titanic flan that's strong just because it has a lot of health. What amazes me to no end is that Alterna, the void spell on the Ring of the Lucii, can instantly send the boss out of here, finishing the battle with a snap. Pick up the hyper magnum weapon on the ground after the battle ends.

You'll have to leave the dungeon by using the map to return to the entrance.

Side Quest: A Menace Sleeps in the Grotto

This'll be just like Keycatrich Trench, except this gauntlet has 30 floors (and therefore two havens/datalog entries). The first intersection is twelve floors down and the side paths aren't entirely worth your time. Make sure you read the monoliths at each haven; this should become a ritual as you play through these dungeons from now on.

At the first intersection, go into the southwest door. At the second, go southeast. The third intersection is a long ways away, past the second haven, and you should take the northeast path there. The boss on the 30th floor is a Kengo, one of those samurai enemies. The guy has a resistance to Alterna, meaning it might not always work, but it's worth a shot. Defeat the daemon to end this dungeon's replay value. On to the next!

Side Quest: A Menace Sleeps in Fociaugh

Fociaugh Hollow only has 20 floors, just like the trench. When you reach the first intersection on the sixth floor, take the northeast path and reach the end for a unique accessory for Ignis called The Grand Chamberlain. Return to the sixth floor and go southeast when you're ready to move on towards the haven. There's only one intersection after the haven, and there's another special accessory if you take the northeast door. Taking the southwest door continues with the dungeon.

The boss here is a tough variant of the iron giant that's totally immune to Alterna and Death, so you're going to have to fight a fair fight here. Use Armiger Unleashed when your tech bar is full, then use Legacy of the Lucii for massive damage.

Side Quest: A Menace Sleeps in Daurell

The Daurell Caverns's Menace dungeon has 30 floors, so there are two datalog entries here. These might be the last two entries that push you past the 80% limit if you've gotten everything else and are moving through these dungeons in order. To get to the door, you have to warp to a ladder you could otherwise never reach, but you can only warp during battle, so let the others kill the enemies nearby. This ladder is at the lower end of the cave's main map, and you'll know it's the right ladder when you find an iron giant nearby. If you kill the enemies without warping up here, use the Return to Entrance feature in the map and come back. What's most important is that you make the ladder descend so you don't have to do this tactic later for whatever reason.

The first intersection is on the fourth floor. You're going to want to take the southwest path to get a high-Vitality accessory called the emperor's anklet, then take the northeast door to continue downward. There's a Moogle charm at Gainough Haven, which you should definitely pick up. If your team already has one charm each, putting another on will increase the bonus even further.

Right after Gainough Haven, and often from that point onward, custard enemies will appear. These are immune to all standard weapons but should be instantly killable with Death. At the next intersection, take the southeast path, and at the intersection after that, go southwest. That'll be the last intersection, so everything after Pauperess Haven will be a straight shot to the boss.

As you reach the 30th floor, you'll run into dolces (dolci?) and iseultalon, both of which are resistant to Alterna, with the former still being immune to standard weapons and still weak to Death. Dolci should instantly die to Death, however. The boss, a Mahanaga, is highly resistant to Alterna and Death, so you should try to use Armiger Unleashed and Legacy of the Lucii to deal high amounts of damage. It shouldn't take too long after using it once.

Side Quest: A Menace Sleeps in Balouve

The Balouve Mines Menace dungeon only has 20 floors, but it provides you with the best greatsword (Apocalypse) and gun (Death Penalty) in the game, though you may have obtained the gun from the O Partner, My Partner side quest. These two weapons should greatly improve your team's damage output. To reach the door to the Menace dungeon, reach the boss area on the bottom floor and take the stairs on the west side until you get to the bottom of a ladder. Instead of taking the ladder, look north on this level for a thin crack that you can squeeze through.

Use the Ring of the Lucii's Death spell on hobgoblins to speed up the battles with them. There should be no intersections until after you reach Cobbitrice Haven, which is where you'll find the Apocalypse greatsword. If you've obtained the datalog trophy, feel free to stop reading the monoliths in these dungeons, but if you plan on going through all of them anyway, you may as well keep reading them.

Imps die instantly to Death, so keep using that ring spell on them and the hobgoblins. Mindflayers are susceptible to Alterna, but you should be able to take single mindflayers on pretty well. At the first intersection, going northeast will take you further, but there's a chance you might get another emperor's anklet and oracle earring if you take the other two paths to their end. These two side paths have one mindflayer per floor. Take the northeast room at the second intersection as well.

The boss on the 20th floor is a psychomancer, resistant to Alterna. Try to use it once before switching over to Armiger Unleashed and other attacks.

Side Quest: A Menace Sleeps in Steyliff

Steyliff can only be accessed at night. This dungeon has 100 floors to it (and therefore nine havens), so make sure you have the time and healing items to make it through to the end. The best sword (Balmung) and best polearm (Flayer) are within the grove, making the trip well worth it. You need to go to the bottom of the dungeon and pass through a small crack in the wall near the quest marker in order to reach the door.

Havocfangs and imps instantly die to Death, but psychomancers are more durable. Try using Alterna on them to see if it works, but be ready for a fight just in case. Ronin appear after the first haven, and they should have a chance of dying to Alterna as well. Look around on the twelfth floor for a celestriad accessory before continuing on. The continuing floors until the second haven are battles against ronin, psychomancers, and havocfangs.

Floors 21-30 contain matcha mousse enemies that also die instantly to Death. Check the 26th floor for a possible emperor's anklet. Tonberries are at the 29th floor and should be Alterna'd away if they let you. These four guys are protecting Balmung, the most powerful sword in the game. From floors 31-40, there are regaltrices, which die instantly to Death, killer wasps, which take a few seconds to be killed with the same spell, and some ronin. Pretty simple stuff. Floors 41-50 introduce the royalisk, a very large bird that you should be able to easily stunlock and topple over. These, tonberries, and matcha mousse will be in your way until you reach Terrecephe Haven, the dungeon's halfway point.

Kingatrices appear in the next set of floors. They should be as easy to take down as the royalisks since they can also be stunned until they become vulnerable. Wyverns aren't weak to Death, but it'd be worth it to try to Alterna some out of that room. There are only psychomancers and matcha mousses from floors 61-70, which means that these floors should pass smoothly. Look on the 62nd floor for the Robe of the Lord, a one-of-a-kind accessory.

Floors 71-80 have mindflayers, dolci, and custards. Mindflayers can be Alterna'd or fought normally, whereas the jellies can be killed instantly with Death. There are only three floors with two mindflayers each. Things get a bit more difficult in floors 81-90; all enemies on each floor are resistant to Alterna, but it's still worth trying each time. Tonberries are popular in this set of ten and will eat up a lot of time due to their immense HP. You'll definitely want to finish off the master tonberry on the 89th floor with Alterna instead of having to fight him.

The next nine floors contain master tonberries and griffons, which you ought to try Alterna-ing if you can, as well as kingatrices, which are still pretty easy to topple over. Griffons aren't hard to kill if things don't work out in your favor. The boss on the last floor is called Mictlantecihuatl and is immune to the Ring of the Lucii's main spells. Put the Magitek exosuits on all four party members before entering so the fight can pass like a calm breeze, but try Alterna as well (it worked for me). Pick up the Flayer, the best polearm in the game, after you defeat the beast.

Side Quest: A Menace Sleeps in Crestholm

The Crestholm Channels' Menace dungeon "only" has 30 floors. To reach the start, you need to go all the way back to the boss room and take a ladder in there. Coraldevils and killer wasps are weak to Death and the Ring of the Lucii can kill one in about two seconds. The first intersection is on the second floor; go northeast for a chance to receive an anklet of the gods (+150 Vitality) before going southwest to continue on.

Hvitrormrs are immune to Death and Alterna, so you might just have to use Armiger Unleashed on them. There are fortunately only two floors with these snakes in them anyway. At the next intersection, just go northeast to continue toward the first haven. Seadevils replace coraldevils from here on out, but they're also susceptible to Death. Go southwest at the next intersection for a chance to get a tarot card (+150 Spirit), then go southeast to continue.

Gaiatoads are highly resistant to Death, so just fight them normally. They're much softer than their size suggests, and they're slow enough to make blindside strikes very easy to pull off. At the next intersection, you can get a guaranteed tarot card if you go southwest. Going southeast continues through the dungeon. There's a phalaris on the 18th floor that has an immunity to the ring's effects, which you should know means that Armiger Unleashed is your best bet here. This is luckily the only phalaris in here.

All of the floors leading to the 30th are a straight shot without intersections. There are havocfangs that instantly explode to Death, gaiatoads, and two malbodooms - these resist Alterna less than they resist death, so try out an Alterna before going with a normal attack plan. A notable pickup is a blue diamond bracelet at the first malbodoom encounter, which increases strength by +80. The boss Manxom can be killed with Alterna, making the end of this dungeon a quick one.

Side Quest: A Menace Sleeps in Costlemark

Just like always, this dungeon is only accessible at night. I hope you're as prepared as possible to tackle 60 floors of the hardest Menace dungeon in the game. You have to return to the very bottom of the dungeon, which is annoying but should pass without any battles. Make sure you're at full health before passing through the Menace door because you can't use items in this dungeon. Fortunately, many floors of this place contain enemies that are weak to Death, but you'll want to use Alterna on any mindflayers you come across instead, just to see if it works before having to commit to a real battle.

Make sure to use every haven you come across so your maximum HP can be reset to full. These are also your only way of creating autosaves, and those are very important since you can't otherwise save in a dungeon. At the intersection on the 12th floor, explore the east room (a small dead-end) for a Magitek core before going southeast to continue. Goblins die instantly to Death. It should be smooth sailing towards the second haven.

The two new enemies past the second haven are malboros, easily killable by blindsiding them, and the dungeon's single jormungand. The jormungand has a chance of being removed with Alterna, so it's worth a shot.

Things step up after reaching Aechre Haven. Most of the floors 30-40 are filled with braindrainers and iron giants. Braindrainers, unfortunately, don't have a big weakness to Death, and nor do iron giants, but at least the latter can be wiped with Alterna (sometimes). Try Alterna on braindrainers anyway, as it has the same success rate against them as it did the mindflayers. There will be no more iron giants or mindflayers past Ingwen Haven.

Use Alterna for a chance to kill uttu enemies quickly. Uttu are generally easy to get behind and don't have as much HP as they probably should for being this late in the dungeon. Elder coeurls are too powerful to try to fight normally, so use Legacy of the Lucii as soon as possible. Fortunately, there are only three total elder coeurls in the place, but you still need to be wary of their instant-kill counterattack from their sitting position. The black hood reward from finishing the Pitioss Ruins should be of use against them, and so would a Ribbon to prevent sudden death to yourself.

Make Lasagna al Forno at the last haven if you want to have fire immunity for the boss. There are more uttu and goblins for many of the remaining floors, but two floors hold two serpentesses each. These are resistant to Alterna, so it's worth trying, but they're not very spongy with their HP anyways. The boss is a higher tier enemy from the jormungand named Bilröst. If you have fire immunity, you should only be damaged by its physical attacks, but if you'd much rather not bother with strategy after getting this far, put everyone in Magitek exosuits before entering the room so you're completely impervious to attack. Killing this monster will let you obtain a dark matter bracelet (+100 Strength), the strongest accessory that grants strength.

Side Quest: A Legend is Born

A man named Randolph is tucked away in an alleyway of Lestallum, and he claims that he can create incredibly powerful weapons. First, he needs you to slay the bennu in Leide. The bennu is weak to polearms and machines but still has a ton of HP, so it'd be wise to come with lots of healing items. Winning should be no problem if you received the armiger ugprade at the top of the side content section.

Bringing a piece of the bennu back lets Ranolph create a greatsword called the Iron Duke.

Side Quest: Dreadful Legend

The next boss to fight is a malbodoom near the Vesperpool. Try using the Founder King's Sigil as an accessory and using the armiger to make very quick work of the malbodoom and its brats, because this thing is incredibly durable. Any summon should also destroy most of the boss's health. There's a small chance that you can instantly kill the malbodoom with Alterna.

Giving the tentacle to Randolph rewards you with the Dragoon Lance, a polearm.

Side Quest: A Legend Wrapped in an Enigma

There are now tonberry knights near the Fallgrove that you have to kill. These are immune to Alterna, so you're going to have to actually fight these guys. The two enemies are pretty strong and have a ton of HP, which calls for Armiger Unleashed. That should really be all there is to it.

Giving the parts to Randolph rewards you with Ziedrich, a shield.

Side Quest: Cursed Legend

Your fourth target is a phalaris, which is a massive bull. It likes to roll around a lot, but it should be easy to do back strikes on its hind legs for extra damage. Just like before, it should still be no match to Armiger Unleashed.

The reward for the phalaris's horns is the Soul Sword.

Side Quest: Wondrous Weapon

Your final target is a Naglfar, which must also be fought at night. This enemy is similar to the deathclaw kind of thing, but you should know that Alterna works to instantly kill it. No issue here whatsoever.

This last reward is super popular, and are Zwill Crossblades.

Hunting Quest: Lonely Rumblings in Longwythe

Now that you're through the game, you're ready to take on the adamantoise. All you really need is the Ring of the Lucii because for some reason, Alterna has a tiny chance of working, and boy is it majestic when it works. This cuts out any strategy and planning you'd have to do for this battle, which is totally fine because Omega takes a lot of prep as-is.

Start the hunt and run up to the tortoise, use Alterna, and warp somewhere to restore your MP if it doesn't work. Some people like to use Magitek boosters to nullify MP costs for a short while, giving you three free uses of Alterna without having to warp, but these are hard to get by and could also be saved for Omega. I happened to kill the turtle on my first attempt of Alterna, making the fight last about ten seconds.

Turn in the quest to a tipster to get the trophy.

• Tortoise Toppler

  Defeated the adamantoise.

  
  2 guides

The reason this is at the bottom of the Past section of Chapter 15 is that this hunt can be repeated for experience, and everything above this part of the page would have helped to give you experience along the way. The absolute optimal way to fight Omega is, of course, at Lv120, but this requires a massive grind against even this boss. It takes 26 million experience points to move from Lv99 to Lv120, which is about 8.7 million if you use the Altissian Leville to give that number the x3 boost. Hitting Lv120 isn't required at all to fight Omega well, but it's helpful.

A Congratulatory Meeting

Go to the Longwythe Rest Area and talk with Dave to get more valuable coins from your friends. These should be used to trade for ribbons at the Palsino Street Station in Altissia. A guy at a table will be doing the trading. You're going to want two ribbons, assuming you have one from Sania's last quest and plan on finishing the last of the hunting quests.

Hunting Quests

Five more hunting quests are available from Surgate's Beanmine in Lestallum. You can use these or the Adamantoise quest to get more stars. The last hunting quests will open up in the following areas if you're Rank 9:

• Meldacio Hunter HQ (x3)
• Cauthess Rest Area

To save yourself a lot of frustration when fighting the daemonwall in Steyliff Grove: Alterna. Keep trying until it succeeds. The same goes for the Ayakashi and the Molokujata. Finishing all of the remaining hunting quests will finally bring you to Rank 10, at long last. The reward you get is a dark matter bracelet, which increases your strength by +100 when worn.

Experience Grinding

This is saved for the very end of your time in the standard map because you naturally should have earned a lot of experience points from playing through the rest of the post-game (don't feel bad about skipping this step either). This method is very simple and shouldn't be very taxing, but will still take about an hour of your time if you have enough of the resources required. To start, there are certain items in the game that give your spells an expericast effect, meaning they give you experience depending on how high the expericast level of that spell is.

To start, have as many Moogle charms on you as you want to have. Each charm raises your experience gain by +20%, and since each character can wear three accessories, you can get a maximum +60% bonus this way. You can farm more charms using the Altissian Justice Monsters Five arcade machine and collecting 40-44 boxes (going higher changes the reward). At a minimum, you'll want one charm on each of the four characters. After that's set up, make some lasagna al forno or buy some from Maagho in Altissia - this dish gives you a +100% experience boost, meaning it's possible to be getting 260% the standard experience rate per character.

Make spells of a weak elemental type using either rare coins, old books, debased coins, debased silverpieces, debased banknotes, cockatrice crests, fine crests, or magnificent crests until the spell is near Lv99 in expericast. Rare coins provide a +12 in expericast, for example, so you wouldn't want to waste one moving a spell from Lv96 to Lv99 when it could be used better when making another spell. You're going to want to make as many spells of this kind as you can (finish off the rest of these items for spells later if you don't have enough magic flasks) and then fight the adamantoise again. The turtle's intense HP will allow you to cast as many spells as you have without inflicting serious enough damage to kill it, meaning you can break out all of your spells in one go.

After you've exhausted all of your expericast treasures for spells and have used the spells on the adamantoise, kill it, preferably using Alterna once again to save yourself the hassle. You should also get a lot of experience from killing the turtle again. Turn your experience into the Leville's x3.0 counter in Altissia and see how high you can level up.

The Present

Omega Preparation

Omega, if you've been reading the datalog entries about it, is strong enough to kill gods and is no laughing matter. It resides in the plaza east of the resting spot called LR Citadel Station in Insomnia.

Omega will be at Lv119, one under maximum. It's very important that you have unlocked Armiger Unleashed, are as high a level as you're willing to reach, have as many ascension perks as possible, and have as many of the useful rewards from the new post-game material as possible. Below is a chart listing what should be as close to the best setup as possible. Not all of these things are required, but the more things you have that match this chart, the better your odds are of coming out on top. What's listed in the far right column is what matters and why these things were chosen.

Here are some notes on this setup:

• Magitek exosuits do not work to make you invulnerable to Omega's attacks.
• The Blue Diamond Bracelet is the next best thing from the Dark Matter Bracelet.
• Alternate choices for the third accessory are here in the event that you don't have immediate access to four ribbons.
• Swapping out the Founder King's Sigil for a Dark Matter Bracelet will give Noctis more Strength when he isn't able to use Armiger Unleashed at the moment. This is increased with the sushi recipe, so doing this is important.
• Swords of the Wanderer and Zwill Crossblades can be used to quickly build up the Armiger bar, and at a much faster rate than other weapons could. A higher attack speed means you'll be dishing out more damage than something like a slower sword type of weapon would.
• The sushi's +75% Strength boost means that you should try to give your party members a solid strength total, hence the build.
• It's up to you if you want to use the black hood from the Pitioss Ruins instead of something else.

Lucis - Final Preparations

When your gear is all aligned and your experience has been spent, buy as many elixirs, phoenix downs, mega phoenixes, remedies, and other types of standard healing potions and elixirs as you can. Killing Omega should be the last thing you need to do in the base game anyway, so money should not be an object. Make the sushi dish at the haven near the Prairie Outpost due to its proximity to a trailer that you can use to call Umbra. Travel into the present once your food buff, gear, and items are all ready to go, then head towards Omega east of the LR Citadel Station resting spot.

Approaching Omega

When starting the fight, switch to the Swords of the Wanderer and use them on Omega's front legs until they break (the other two royal arms only act as stat buffs). In Omega's "neutral" state, it has a high resistance to normal weapons but is more vulnerable to the royal arms. This should cause a pretty fair amount of damage when they break. Move to the back legs afterward, as a broken leg cannot be targeted until it's fixed. Breaking all four legs should make Omega stop moving entirely for only a short while; when this happens, target Omega's face and break that as well (it's far more durable). Breaking the face should make the main piece pop out and should prompt a cross-chain to begin. Pull it off as a ten-hit link for a unique animation and a hefty amount of damage dealt towards Omega. This is the general process that should be repeated.

Prompto's Piercer ability temporarily cuts Omega's defenses by some amount and Ignis's Enhancement gives your weapons the strength that an enemy is weak to; in this case, Omega is weak to electric damage. When going for any part of Omega's body, try to remember to use these two techniques, but also pay attention to when you need the tech bar to be full for when you use Armiger Unleashed.

When the Armiger bar is full, go into the menus and switch out one of Noctis's dark matter bracelets for the Founder King's Sigil, then use Armiger Unleashed - Legacy of the Lucii for heavy damage. The final blow of Legacy of the Lucii will actually heal Omega, but the damage dealt by everything else surpasses the amount he gets back enough to make the attack worthwhile. Just make sure that you're not in the Armiger Unleashed state when Omega's head has popped out, or you won't be able to initiate a cross-chain. If you'd like to keep spamming this move, it's worth noting that switching characters (+) stops the Armiger bar from decreasing and reverts Noctis back to his normal state, making it easier to regain Armiger Unleashed. Put the dark matter bracelet back on after the Armiger bar wears out if you'd like to continue as normal.

Omega has an antenna that's weaker than the rest of him, but when broken, will cause him to put up a shield that freezes you in place and drains your health. Avoid Omega's general area if the antenna starts to go berserk and wait it out. In its berserk state, Omega is immune to the royal arms but is more susceptible to normal weapon damage (hence the use of the Zwill Crossblades). It's not suggested you go in to attack Omega during this phase since he tends to deal a lot of damage quickly when it's going nuts, but they're here in the event you get a close shot at its legs again.

Throughout the battle, Omega's legs will become targets again after breaking all four. Additionally, it'll gain a petrification smog attack that shoots out of its rear after losing enough HP, along with a homing missile attack. The missiles are easy to dodge - just hold - but the petrification can be averted by just wearing a ribbon or by using remedies/gold needles to come back to life.

This battle took me 25 minutes, and I had blue diamond bracelets on Ignis and Prompto instead of the dark matter bracelets with all four characters at Lv109. Save as soon as you defeat Omega and revel in your accomplishment. If you wanted to start New Game+ for a speedrun or to see how overpowered you are now, this would be the perfect time now that you've basically done everything you could and have tons of the best equipment in the game.

• Through the Dimensional Rift

  Defeated Omega.