FFXIV UWU – The Weapon’s Refrain Ultima Weapon has been cleared by your local Lizard Lady. I did it! I cleared an ultimate raid in Final Fantasy XIV and I am feeling pretty damn proud of myself. It may not be the current or even a recent FFXIV Ultimate but it’s still an Ultimate. My experience of progressing this fight and eventually getting that all important first kill is a pretty positive experience all around. I am super grateful for the team that had me join them and come along despite the many memes and deaths along the way. I did manage to film the clear and have uploaded that onto YouTube.
The Weapon’s Refrain: Ultima Weapon
Currently there are six Ultimate raids in FFXIV and The Weapon’s Refrain: Ultima Weapon (frequently shortened to UWU) was launched in the Stormblood expansion with patch 4.31. It’s an eight player raid that is level and gear synched to level 70. You need to first clear the Savage Sigmascape V4.0: Kefka (which you can do these days unrestricted for very low effort) to be able to unlock Ultimacy in Kugane via The Wandering Minstrel. You can then recruit other players via Party Finder or form a static group of 7 other people that also want to progress, clear and potentially farm the fight. As a reward you get the achievement Ultimatum which grants you The Ultimate Legend title, and with every kill you get an Ultima totem which can be exchanged in Rhalgr’s Reach or Kugane for a weapon. There are a total of 15 weapons available for UWU, so to have them all, you need 15 kills.
Once you’ve found a committed group of people that want to go for it or if you feel confident to clear in party finder with randoms it’s just a case of planning time to go and do it. For some people this could be a few hours and for others it can be weeks. There’s no real time to say exactly how long it will take you to clear. The group I was progressing with got their first clear during week 9 after 2 or 3 weekly 2 ish hour sessions. The two biggest blocks were Titan Gaols and getting the positioning for those right alongside Ultimate Suppression which is a non-dps mechanic of the fight close to the end which requires each player to do their thing consistently well, but it’s RNG based so knowing what to do with which debuff, marker and dealing with all of the AOE chaos at the same time is a lot. I really struggled with this mechanic in particular so I’m very grateful for the patience of the party I cleared with. These two guides are particularly helpful to see the entire fight and each phase. I referenced them a lot to help me learn the fight.
Gear and Party Composition for UWU
I didn’t have BiS gear for a Machinist during this fight because I couldn’t be bothered to farm it. I used Dawntrail raid buffs such as Grade 8 Tinctures of Dexterity for my potions and Moqueca raid food because that is what I had available to use. I used potions twice in the fight I think, at the start of Ifrit and at the start of Ultima. You can probably line these up more but I didn’t really care to do that. Those two phases were the easiest to use potions for.
Below is a picture of my current MCH Dawntrail gear which is not BiS for anything because I’m not currently doing savage raiding. These were my MCH stats and attributes of the gear I used at the time of my first clear on 16th December 2024. The Balance discord probably has the BiS gear if you want to go for that. I read that the BiS weapon was the Shadowbringers relic with your chosen jobs optimal substats but I didn’t use it. I started progression with the Skyruin Extreme trial weapon and then changed to the tome weapon when I could buy it. You are synched down to 375 for the level 70 raid and it helps to know your jobs level 70 rotation very well. The level 70 alliance raids are a good way to practice this because, despite their being some downtime between boss fights, the length of the alliance raid and the level sync will solidify that rotation in your mind. Also they are without a doubt the best alliance raids in FFXIV with no exceptions.
In terms of party composition you need one player per job and you absolutely must have a caster DPS and a Melee DPS for the beyond limits LB phase. This is for the caster to take care of magitek bits with Caster LB3 and for the Melee to take care of Lahabrea when he appears. It is helpful to have a second ranged player to deal with certain mechanics like eruptions during Ifrit and Ultima phases of the fight. I played Physical Ranged DPS because that is what I have played in most difficult content and is the job I am most comfortable with at level 70. Red Mage would have been the other DPS I might have considered playing but I enjoy playing MCH a lot more so it made more sense. I can’t say what the most optimal jobs are for UWU because I don’t really pay much attention to it (Its not going to be MCH) but having two different tanks offering their unique partywide mitigations – Shake it Off from WAR is a very nice help for healers and giving shields to avoid Vulcan Burst knockback during Ifrit phases and two unique healers – A Regen and a Shield healer will just help keep the party protected and alive during heavy hitting raidwides. That is pretty standard practice for most raids in FFXIV anyway.
Is UWU an easy fight?
This is completely dependent on personal experience and what you, as a player, find easy or challenging. I’m sure when it was current it was much tougher and trickier and took a while to clear and clearing in 7.1 is likely a very different experience. UWU is still an ultimate raid so whilst it may be the ‘easiest’ of the six ultimate raids currently available in FFXIV mechanics still need to be respected. Raidwides and mistakes will kill you. It is a very fast fight and takes alot of mental energy to learn, progress and eventually clear. As I said above for some players this will likely be done in just a few sessions depending on how confident you are at your job, your ability to determine safe spots fast and retain mechanic information for the entire fight. For others it will take longer. The fight itself mechanically, I think, feels more like an extreme, but faster. The difficulty for me came from the length of the encounter with no down time. It is more a test of endurance, and, your reflexes, you might say, than having the absolute best DPS. I would know, because I play a job with considerably weak DPS and no ability to buff anyone. I am selfish and I will continue to be selfish in FFXIV until I unsubscribe.
Doing an Ultimate raid was never really something I planned to do, it was on the off chance that other people were going to try it and they needed an 8th person to fill in. I wasn’t sure if I would last but I did and I have two lovely new weapon glamours to show off.
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