Divine Revelry

The Twelve, Eorzea’s guardian deities, seek to fulfill their enigmatic aspirations, and for this they claim they must engage in battle with men. Continuing your efforts to uncover the truth, you and your comrades have turned your attention to the monument at the heart of the Omphalos, which contains an incomplete epigraph. The goddess Nophica promises you the key to deciphering it, but in exchange you must do battle with more gods, herself included. So it is that you prepare yourself for another grueling foray into their sanctum, there to grant the divinities their heart’s desire…
Final FAntasy XIV: Endwalker – Gods Revel, Lands Tremble

Introduction

In this tier, we return to meeting The Twelve and it is something I am starting to become disappointed about. During the first raid tier, it was said clearly that “they weren’t primal” but everything so far is hinting that all The Twleve are the bunch that helped Venet and are just a shade of them like the watcher and then shaped over the years by people’s believes.

I was hoping for more than just “the ancients did it” but it seems that will be the case. Still, the fights were fun and I will discuss them in more detail. I am also finding it sad that there is no special interaction with the guardian that you picked – you would like Nophica might make a comment saying “Oh cool, you believed in me right? That’s cool”.

Music

The music for the fights was wonderful and it is one of the first times I think the normal theme beat the final boss theme but one thing that annoyed me is the lack of songs for ALL of them. The Twelve is meant to be one of the most special things within the lore of Final Fantasy XIV and something that they built up going with for so long … and they don’t even get their boss theme?

Sure I do understand that it is possible it is due to time but it is lack blustering that when you mean your guardian you get a generic boss theme unless you picked two certain guardians because the final boss of the last tier is going to be the watcher or an unknown fourteen.

Fights

Nophica

Ah, Nophica I won’t deny this fight will always have held a special place for me due to being the guardian I picked way back even in the original Fantasy XIV but I am glad to say I enjoyed the fight.

The fight mostly involved having to pay awareness to the original arena and watching your buffs to know what is going on. Nophica will try her best to trick you to run into an AoE or to run out of them only to then forcefully go another way you did not intend to go. I am surprised we didn’t get the confusion added but this brings me to another problem I have which I will discuss at the very end.

Nophica design I do like although it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise seeing her design was well known but I still am annoyed we can not get that ginger hair in the game at least not for a Hyur.

Out of all the bosses I liked this one the most although I will say I am likely to be biased there!

Althyk and Nymeia

For the next fight, we are against the brother and sister duo with the main focus being on time and I guess fate. Sadly not much of the fight seems to play on what they could do as I would have loved to see a time reversal in the fight much like in Eden Savage (E12S) or something that plays on gravity much more.

In this fight, we only really have to focus on one mechanic speeding up and a bit where we have to stand in gravity to avoid something. This fight could have been so much more but it was limited to being an alliance fight.

I didn’t mind the fight tho but it was just a repeat of fire stop, ice move or look away at Nymeia while doing the same thing. It was nice to see a different combo of moves as it took doing this about five times to notice the fire / ice-style stuff.

Halone

I suppose in a way I have slightly lied as I feel Halone’s fight was more interesting in terms of a battle and relied much less on ice attacks and instead was better focused on watching what is happening. The best part of this was if you were aware of what is happening you could pre-move and predict what attacks are happening and move yourself to keep that sweet uptime.

There isn’t much special in this fight but there is a memory game involved you will be fine if you pay attention. Thankfully it isn’t one where you can just follow other people and call it a day.

This battle is another fight I feel was ruined because it was an alliance fight.

Menphina

While this fight was disappointing, Menphina’s puppy shows a good example that they are pretty much just fancy primal that is likely based on or are the soul of the ones that helped Venet.

The fight has a bunch of AoEs to watch out for and watch her and her puppy on where they are attacking so you can dodge accordingly. I honestly won’t remember this fight well in the patches to come beyond the fact she is one of The Twelve.

Conclusion

The fights were okay but what I am disappointed in is the lore and the fact it is an alliance raid. In Final Fantasy XIV the Twelve were meant to be this massive important setting and without it being an actual raid tier what these powerful beings can do is limited so people can face roll it.

I am also disappointed that it looks clear that they are heading towards the Twelve just being Venet’s crew or images of them and are just fancy primal even if they say otherwise. It is similar to the Watcher who hasn’t changed because no one knows theirs exist so their emotions can’t change what it looks like.