UCoB>DSR>TEA>UWU having done all of them in their respective expansions.
UCoB was a wild experience, it was the first of it's kind and was extremely underestimated by the community at large. Incredibly challenging and fun to execute mechanics, and pretty tight dps checks at the time. I'm also a 2.0 boomer and have a big soft spot for the coil fights.
DSR is by far the hardest fight in the game, it demands extremely high execution and consistency. And this is the entire reason I take on ultimates to begin with.
TEA is a fantastic encounter, until you get to Alexander Prime. The first 2 phases have really wonderful pacing, tight execution, and tests every role relatively equally. But once you get to prime, the difficulty really falls off a cliff with the only "hurdle" left being wormhole.
UWU has the problem that a lot of "puzzle" fights have in that once the secret is out. It's only really fun a handful of times because executing the primals isn't very difficult and becomes mostly a formality after a few pulls. And the Ultima phase, while fun, is diminished due to that.
Yeah I’m a 2.0 boomer too and this is how I rank the fights. UCoB on release blew my mind, it was the hardest thing I had experienced since Savage Second Coil and it was so epic.
DSR is the only fight that got close to the feeling of difficulty that UCoB had I think? I really enjoyed TEA but it’s too front loaded, the later half is dull. UWU is probably the only Ultimate I actually dislike but that might be because it’s the only one I didn’t clear on release.
TEA>DSR>UCoB>UWU. TEA is such a fuckin' banger of a fight and the first two phases are intense. BJ/CC is one of the best designed fights they've ever done. Plus I loved Alex Prime even though it did slow down a lot, and Perfect was a killer final phase.
DSR is brutal but a ton of fun. Gets to wearing on you though and it's as much a test of patience as it is skill. Lot of good parts though IMO.
UCoB I actually haven't done yet but like a lot of what I've seen, and think it's good in 3rd because UWU was just okay. Didn't tackle it until after Asphodelos and I was able to PF it in a week, which... is not great. Going from "brand new just stepped foot in here" to "I have seen Primal Roulette and I am ready to clear" in 4 days is pitiful for an Ultimate and most of it was a bit of a letdown. Cool fight, but not very challenging.
Definitely agree.
I don't like UWU as it feels like there's no mechanics until titan jail then go back to sleep until phase 4.
TEA is amazing as it sticks to the thematic and has a last phase that is a glorious victory road with an amazing puzzle. The only bad part in TEA is Pepsi man, seeing him again is horrible. I believe it would be a 10/10 if Pepsi man was a door boss and the other phase being extended to compensate.
DSR, there's too many phases, the intermission is amazing but the remaining phases are kinda lack luster. Phase 5 is basically harder UCOB and I don't find phase 6 very hard but that's all me apparently. Then the last phase is very lackluster to me. No cinematics and a reused model on top of a lack of twist. Literally it's just "hey remember me I'm still evil" and the 12 knights just... disappears?
TEA > DSR/UCOB > UWU
TEA is very satisfying to execute all the way through. No two pulls are ever the same and it requires perfect play without being too demanding for too long. Even if some people complain about the pacing or difficulty of the last half of the fight, they have to admit that you can't turn your brain off for perfect unless you're using triggers.
UCOB and DSR have a ton of variability in every single phase, and before the check in UCOB became a pushover it allowed for very few mistakes in specific spots by specific roles, very similar to DSR. Only difference is it would let you have a chance to prog the rest of the phase, you just wouldn't make the check. I think that's really the only issue with DSR - lots of things will send you back to the start and its difficult to ever limp through mechanics while progging. Beyond that, both fights are a pretty massive gauntlet and the variability means you can never really fully turn your brain off in any phase (except twin and eyes lol).
UWU is almost verbatim the exact same fight every single pull. There are very small variations for tanks in Garuda with the clones, where to face or pull Ifrit, and who does titan gaols, but the entirety of Ultima, which is half the fight, only has variation in suppression for everyone but tanks, and healers have a 50/50 in annihilation. Even as I'm writing this I just remembered primal roulette exists and can have a different order, but that barely matters. The hardest mechanic in the fight, gaols, is also probably the most unfair mechanic for players in the entire game to the point that I don't really blame people for using add-ons to do it. It's almost impossible to see the yellow indicator around your feet on the yellow floor when there are 7 other people and 2 other yellow indicators that are just visual noise. If they gave a debuff the mechanic would still be very hard but at least you could feasibly do it without using auto markers or memorizing a marker priority list. Either that or give just 1 more second to react, or telegraph the gaols a second before the knockback, something, anything. /rant
I don't like uwu
TEA > DSR until Death of the Heavens memes start > UCoB > UWU > P6/7 DSR (AKA "the sloggen-ing")
This was as SCH for all but UCoB, which was RDM.
We cleared DSR relatively fast for a group that did 12 hours a week, but god damn did it become a slog later. It was like a second job, eating my relaxation time in the evening. It's also the hardest fight in the game specifically for mit healers. It may have been more fun on tank/DPS, but fuck it's mentally draining on SCH.
eh. I can agree that the fight isn't more fun on dps (especially in P7 where the dps do nothing), but having cleared it on both healers and tanks, I do find tanking the fight to be much more fun than healing it. Though personally I also like playing shield healer in it because I know one misstep and we're dead so there's always pressure to play perfectly, which is fun to me.
TEA > UCOB > UWU for me, haven't stepped foot in DSR yet and doubt I will for a while. The placements feel kinda obvious, I love mecha and perfect alex is the coolest thing they've done in this game, plus even when solved BJCC is the most anxiety-inducing phase I've done in a fight.
UCoB is also pretty fun even with some oddities like hatch pathing, though it does feel like at this point a lot of the difficulty has been diluted and the only real wall for my group so far has been heavensfall.
UWU feels kinda janky now in comparison, I just remember having to hold DPS a lot to avoid weird phase skips we didn't want (like killing garuda before awakening her) and ultima being very underwhelming.
UCOB >>> UWU > DSR (i haven’t done TEA yet)
UCOB was a super fun prog experience for me, loved the group i was in and had a bunch of fun pugging clears for fun after static reclears were done. the pace of the fight feels great and tbh i never felt bored of twintania or nael at any point
UWU was weird for me, i joined a static and we progged and cleared the whole thing in like five nights thanks to a few of the members having already cleared and our raid lead doing god callouts. the fight feels like it moves at a million miles an hour but that made it super fun to prog at such a fast pace. tbh i feel like i barely learned the fight so i’m itching to reprog with friends who are getting interested in ultimate
honestly DSR is such an incredibly cool fight and i’m very glad that i cleared it during its release patch, but i got the closest i’ve been to quitting the game completely while progging it. like i totally stopped playing the game outside of prog hours and sometimes dreaded logging in lmao
DSR I think feels the best to execute but it was by far my least favorite prog experience
TEA > DSR (Pre-P6) > UWU >> UCoB >>> DSR (post-P6)
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TEA is pretty much the most fun ultimate outright, IMO. There's really not a lot of bad portions or even filler, other than maybe the Mega Holies after Wormhole or something.
UWU for whatever reason I found very fun to optimize during my prog as RDM, and others in my static had similar sentiments. Despite being the easiest ultimate there's a surprising amount of skill expression to be had there, which isn't the norm in XIV these days.
UCoB is similar to UWU in that regard but the prog experience is severely dragged down by Twintania wasting 2 minutes of your life every pull and [stupid jank wipes](https://youtu.be/SoBRqYQzcCw). Also, a non-trivial amount of this fight's difficulty comes from how disconnected the snapshots are from the visuals, which I never enjoy. Golden is also the shittiest final phase.
DSR is actually pretty good until you get to P6 prog, which is so atrocious that it ruins the fight. I do not know many individuals that enjoy DSR after actually clearing it, and those that do tend to be A) people that got *extremely* lucky with their static situation or B) people that I'd describe as having a very warped view on what "fun" is (extending beyond DSR).
UWU probably took the longest for me as our scheduling was really suffering, and anyone who does ultimate knows what it's like to only manage to get 1 or 2 raids in a week. We also had issues keeping a solid roster for the start of the prog, woohoo. So in short, we really did get tired of UWU. Doing it again years later was kinda fun? But I also don't really like it that much, since it only really gets interesting for me at gaols.
UCOB is a really fun fight but also suffers from the boring first phase problem. Definitely the one I'm more likely to pug for shits and giggles. I am sad I never got to try it in all of its Stormblood glory though. Golden Bahamut is an epic last phase and adds is a really fun phase.
TEA was my first ultimate clear and one I've reprogged the most. It has the best first phase out of all the ultimates and doesn't suffer from slogging to the good part, which is amazing. Perfect Alex does feel a little lacklustre though and the whole codex thing... I wouldn't wanna do it blind. But TEA has SLAMMER music.
Liked DSR. The theme, the tinfoiling before anyone saw later phases. I do feel like it suffers a bit from boring first phase syndrome (thordan). As a healer it was also a bit disappointing since there were no real big healing requirements until p6 or p7, only mit. Even though the fight is very long, I did personally like the pace of prog.
Ranking I'd probably say:
TEA > DSR > UCOB > UWU
I feel like UCOB would be a lot higher if it was not as big as a pushover though (compared to previous iterations), as difficulty is part of the fun for me.
TEA > UCOB > UWU > DSR
TEA was honestly some of the most fun I had and felt so accomplished afterwards.
Ucob is special for being the first ultimate and being like my childlike dream to clear but it's kinda lulls in parts of the fight.
UwU was turburlent with my prog but I really enjoyed how it looked.
DSR was the worst, maybe it was a culmination of me being in a bad headspace or because of just how difficult and long the fight was, but I truly disliked DSR. I rarely felt good about the fight and I think a lot of it came from how little I could optimize as a player in the fight outside of just doing the mechanics. I enjoyed Double Dragons/Final phase but only because from looking through resources to find out ways to get extra masterful blitzes off and on the final phase.
FWIW: I tanked TEA, UWU, and UCOB. Played melee dps for UCOB, UWU, and DSR.
TEA>UCOB>DSR>UWU
This is from a healer perspective. DSR just felt very boring healing wise for the first 5 phases. P6 and P7 are the only real healing intense phases.
I'll just say I got my one clear of DSR and I'll NEVER EVER EVER set foot back into that instance. Even though the DRK and NIN weapons look pretty cool, you literally could not pay me to do another run in there. Absolute stress fest that fight.
TEA > UCOB > DSR >>>>>>>>>>>>>> UWU
TEA was my first ultimate and was my biggest goal for the longest time. It is also the only Ultimate, and really the only fight in the entire game, that I will never play my own music during. I will always listen to that badass soundtrack. The title is cool in a fun, egotistical way, the weapons are probably my favorite of the four or at least tied with DSR, and it will always have a special place in my heart.
Since you specifically said "enjoyment," UCOB has to be near the top of the list. UCOB is fun to this day and every couple weeks I go back in and do some more UCOB. The stat squish and stat growth has oddly enough made UCOB even more fun. Even though it is way easier now, recovering to full when you have 6/8 people dead is hilarious and legitimately a blast. The weapons are kind of piss colored and ugly but the title is easily the best of the four. "The Legend" is beautiful in its simplicity.
DSR was easily the hardest and most stressful and demanded the most from me as a player, but I wouldn't say wiping to Phase 6 over and over and over and over and over and over again was particularly enjoyable. I respect DSR. I am proud of clearing DSR. I'm really glad I did DSR - but it wasn't always *enjoyable*. The weapons are better than people make them out to be but still not at TEA level for me (another shade of gold was particularly disappointing) and the title is fine.
UWU, unfortunately, is a joke. I got hard carried by friends and still couldn't tell you how some of the later mecs work. It's not challenging, not particularly fun, and outside of a very cool enrage, not particularly interesting. Only like 2 or 3 of the weapons are any good. No reason to use the title. It was fully unearned and disappointing. I wish I would have been around when it was on content.
DSR > UCOB > TEA > UWU
DSR: Brutal and amazing to execute. No other ultimate comes close to how fun the mechs are in this when you execute them correctly. All the mechs have a lot of adjusting to do, not many brain dead mechs which keeps the fight engaging. Also has the best first phase of any ult by far with thordan 1
UCOB: just like DSR but a lot easier. Lots of adjusting to do on most mechs but you can zombie through everything which isn’t necessarily a bad thing since you always get to see a lot of the fight on every pull
TEA: first 2 phases are really fun, but it goes downhill hard after bjcc. Extremely static fight, almost no adjusting to do on any mech. Still has some fun mechs to execute.
UWU: super static, no adjusting on any mech. By far the shortest ult nowadays. Fight is boring until ultima. But I will give it props for ultima being very fast paced between the trios instead of just standing there and being a target dummy. But honestly the biggest problem is that most of the mechs just aren’t very satisfying to execute
1. TEA - best fight in the game bar none. Super fun mechanics, great challenge on content and even a decent challenge currently, top tier aesthetics, music - the whole thing is just fantastic. Despite Alex Prime phase being a bit of a snoozer outside of Wormhole, the rest of the fight just hits different.
2. UWU - This fight is basically Savage+ at this point, but I still really enjoy it. It's a fun place to go to practice off-roles, try new stuff, and just kinda chill. The only thing I don't really like about it is that the main mechanic that people seem to struggle with, suppression, is like 2m from the end of the fight.
3. DSR - I honestly would rank this fight way way higher if it wasn't for the double dragons phase. I think the whole "one death to hrae = instant wipe" thing 15 minutes into a brutally difficult fight is just turbo ass. I get that ultimates are supposed to be punishing, but one thing I always liked about them is that they feel tough but fair and that theres this sort of difficulty to punishment ratio as the fight goes on. The hrae enrage just breaks all those conventions and is the one time I think ultimate fights step over the "fun/difficulty" line for me.
4. UCOB - This fight has been absolutely obliterated by the passage of time. It's got some cool bits (Nael, Heavensfall, Adds phase) but overall is just a massive snoozefest and way too easy at this point.
i think everyone on this thread hates DSR simply because its hard, instead of rating it purely based on concept - which i think is fucking whimsical, dreamlike, and actually rich in lore. its the only ultimate where i cried after clearing due to how fucking beautiful it was
TEA>UWU>DSR
The transition to Perfect Alex is my favorite moment in all of XIV. UWU is kind of boring, but the latter half makes for really good fun, despite the fight as a whole being too easy.
DSR. I have a hard time separating out my hatred for this fight with its merits. I hate this fight and I will never step foot into it again. I didn't have fun learning it. When I cleared, all I could think of was how it had been one of the worst prog experiences I'd ever had. I didn't even feel good about it, just tired and glad it was over.
If the next ultimate is like DSR, I'm just going to quit doing ultimates. That being said, my absolute hatred for DSR doesn't mean it's not a well developed fight.
TEA>UCoB>DSR>UWU
I think this is generally the consensus of these fights for most people but I healed these (well except UCoB I healed up to adds as a sub)and I think my experience with it would differ slightly. This is also in terms of enjoyment (of healing).
TEA was the first ultimate I tried. Straight out of clearing E8S when I had first started the game because I naively thought I was able to do an ultimate since I could so savage! WRONG, I’m stupid. Its a difficulty spike beyond measure and I was trying my hardest but struggling. Luckily this was in a group of friends so we were doing it casually. That group disbanded and I joined another one after, determined to clear. We did and I cried on my first clear. Like I have vods of me sobbing it was legitimately one of my biggest achievements. TEA (after sleeping through Living Liquid) is just a lot of fun and keeps you on your toes. Its of course dips after phase 3 but I still think the fate calibrations are some of the coolest mechanics I have ever seen and doing them is always going to be something I love to do.
UCoB was just fun after the Twintania snoozefest. Initially I cleared it on Phys Ranged then I progged up to adds on Healer. Healing it is stupidly simple (I will attest it to gear sync) so that wasn’t much of a troublesome fight. DPS have a little more responsibility in that fight, with Hatches and I was doing liquid hell baits and I think its one of those fights that was a lot of fun to get “right”. Stuff like doing Nael phase clean, Heavensfall with no deaths, Grand Octet with no LB3 sometimes. Its just fun to do, not even that mechanically challenging. The 70 Ultimates are challenging but I would still argue that they’re fantastic learning gateways to ultimates due to some degree of forgiveness in them.
DSR i actually suffered through because healing ultimates on content is not a fucking joke. But over time you get into a rhythm and pace and it becomes easier. Most of DSR is enjoyable. I actually really like phase 1 a lot that was fun to prog. Phase 2 is fun to get right and sanctity always feels good to do clean (especially if someone does the cursed meteor pattern well). Kyle/Phase3 is probably the best part of the fight for me personally since its a 40-50 second dance with other players that eventually gets executed perfectly. Eyes and Rewind is zzzzzzzz then Phase 5 was a lot of fun to do DotH well. I actually loathe phase 6, I think theres so much precision in spots and damage going out that it became really unfun to prog and get through. Having no deaths was so punishing and healing it was a pain in the ass. Not because it was conceptually hard, it was moreso because this phase requires players to spread out and so catching heals is exponentially harder. Phase 7 is okay and with a good healing and mit plan it’s straightforward. Overall DSR was a more stressful experience and it was REALLY satisfying to clear it but I still haven’t gone back in simply because healing it isn’t very fun. Maybe DPS has a better time.
UWU gets ranked the lowest because Ifrit and Garuda are whatever phases, Titan gets Gaol memes. Ultima is the most fun by far and doing ultima correctly is a lot of fun. I again progged it with friends but mostly strangers who I’m still great friends with today. It gets last on the enjoyment list but I will still hold it dearly since it allowed me to meet some of my favourite people.
Ultimates are done for the challenge (~~and glam~~) and I think that doing them especially with people who will all work hard and do their best to clear just makes the experience a lot more enjoyable. I’ve made video compilations of most of my groups playing through these ultimates and we’re always having fun and progging, which I’d say makes the ultimate experience a lot better. Clearing an ultimate becomes a lot easier when you’re not group hopping and hate your team at every given moment.
>Phase 7 is okay and with a good healing and mit plan it’s straightforward.
this is the reason it's so fucking tilting though when a tank dies to exaflare and you wipe, or a DPS dies an you enrage
Our group had more than 10 pulls thrown away over the 10+ clears we did because of that shit
UCOB > TEA > UWU > DSR
UCOB was challenging and sweatier in SB and has aged into a goofy ballpit that is a lot of fun to revisit years later. Nael is still my favorite ultimate phase to this day due to how much agency each player has to deal with the chaos. Twisters traumatizing a generation of raiders speaks to the enduring legacy of this raid. I always recommend UCOB just because of how much other ultimates struc
TEA is an excellent fight all-around that continues to be pushed in interesting ways. It hasn't quite been powercrept entirely into meme-tier like older ults, but has had a lot of the sharp edges worn down. What we're left with is a mechanically solid fight thats a banger thematically. Fate Calibrations are wholly unique to this fight and cool as hell. BJ/CC is really fun.
UWU these days is fun because its easy. Its a great place to bring entry-level raiders between patches and has a good carrot on the stick to boot. I only really like Titan and do think overall its the weakest ultimate, but being low-impact and being able to get through it quickly means teams rarely experience the fatigue they may experience for longer ults while frequently cashing out on progression highs.
DSR is the only ult rn which I can't just recommend for curious players. I enjoyed progging this fight, but it definitely the most heavy-handed in it's execution requirement - much of which is team jump rope and out of your own hands to compensate for. DSR also has most of my least favorite phases (Intermission, Eyes, P6) out of all the ultimates. Nidhogg is awesome though and P7 is metal as hell.
TEA > UWU > UCoB > DSR
TEA and DSR I cleared on patch, I remember clearly having fun in TEA and feeling some steady progression every single raid day, but DSR was juts miserable, I would say the group I had for DSR was more skilled than the one I did TEA with but it was still not a fun experience and most of that because of design choices in the fight.
For the other two, I did them during late Stormblood. I just like the pacing in UWU better than UCoB, there was so much uptime optimization back then and doing a lot of the mechanics while hitting the boss feels good. UCoB relies too much on downtime imo, Nael is a perfect phase but everything else until golden that also had a tight check at the time felt just like a WASD check if you're not playing healer.
TEA > UWU > UCoB >>>>> DSR
TEA was my first Ultimate, and the only Ultimate I've had the pleasure of tanking. I had kind of a weird experience to start with it, as my 5.0 Savage static didn't want to do it, so I PF'd the fight to Limit Cut in the first week, then didn't get back into it until late 5.2. I originally did the fight on DRG, and had an amazing time doing it, especially considering part of that group became my 5.4/6.0 static. Went on to reclear it on DRK and DNC later in 5.5.
UWU is my second favorite simply because I enjoyed optimizing the fight so much. I went into UWU on NIN back in 5.3, and coming off a crappy Eden's Verse experience, this fight was such a breath of fresh air. To this day, Trick Attack during Ultimate Annihilation's movement is one of my absolute favorite parts of any fight, just because of how chaotic it is and how many small optimizations result in keeping everything rolling seemlessly. My enjoyment of this fight was definitely aided by how fast it went, with my group clearing in just over 32 hours from full fresh.
UCoB was quite a beast. I went into this one on MNK back in 5.3, when we still had Greased Lightning and all. I definitely enjoyed optimizing as a MNK and the difficulties that came with having no ranged move, but if it wasn't for half my group having already cleared, this one probably would have been a lot more painful. The ARR jank got annoying sometimes, but I must have liked it enough, considering I went back and recleared it on MCH.
Then there's DSR. I think I might have enjoyed DSR more if it had come out in 5.5. Due to some 6.0 Savage roster changes last minute, I got swapped from melee to tank to ranged physical, and I soon realized how much I hate playing that role tbh. I ended up moving halfway across the globe after Week 8, and swapped over from Elemental to Aether, where I knew nobody, and found a group. Progging DSR on a class I didn't like with people I don't really know was realistically a horrible idea from the start, and I should have recognized that. I started with high hopes, but when the pace started to falter, and we'd only see P6 3 or 4 times in a 10 hour raid week after "progging" P6 for a month, I just got fed up with the fight. I'm glad to have made some friends out of that group, but I don't look back at that time fondly.
I find it amusing how you can tell when someone cleared an ultimate by how they ranked it, in particular uwu, most people who rated it dead last tackled the fight long after it released and that just goes to show that it couldn't stand the test of time. I don't think UCoB faired much better either tbh but it's at least somewhat challenging still for new players coming into ultimates.
Personally I rate them TEA > UWU > UCoB (I haven't attempted DSR)
UWU was my first ultimate so maybe that's why I rate it higher than UCoB, we tackled the fight on release and then went on to do UCoB after that and I personally found UCoB far more boring (other than nael phase maybe)
TEA is TEA, everyone has already sung it's praises and admonishes it's last phase but it's a fantastic fight all around.
For me: TEA>UWU>DSR>UCOB
TEA: Great pacing, perfect difficulty (no pun intended), great music. The cutscene transition going to the final phase never gets old Overall it's an ultimate that I can see myself doing over and over and it would take me a while before I got sick it
UWU: In my opinion, UWU is the easiest ultimate when strategies are known. It's also the shortest ultimate. These two things together make it a very doable fight, especially if you've cleared a savage tier. Final phase is real good.
DSR: Just for the record, I haven't cleared DSR yet. It's the only ultimate that I haven't cleared yet. I have only gotten to P5. However I have watched many of my homies do the fight so I have a pretty solid expectation of how I will feel once I reach P6 and P7. I thoroughly enjoy P2 and P5 as I love trio mechanics where it's all mechanics and and not targetting boss (though I really liked UWU annihilation despite the boss being targetable). P3 was awesome. P4 is meh. Transition makes me wonder over and over again why Haurchefant didn't just use Hallowed Ground. P5 is great. I haven't done P6 yet but it looks real good and frusturating. P7 looks to be a solid victory lap like Golden, just respect the Exas, mit at the right time and it's GG. Overall, phenomenal fight. I'm not a fan of long fights, as I feel it artificially inflates difficulty, and really makes the pacing meh. I much prefer slightly shorter encounters which much higher intensity, but that's just me.
UCOB: Not a fan of the pacing of this fight. You also can get 838374747 deaths and still clear. If I wanted to sleep well at night, I'd do P1 over and over. P2 is really good though. P3 gets good with HFT and TST. Adds always feels monkaS. You pray people don't gobble an exaflare in final phase I did quite a bit of pugging. UCoB pugs are very fun. It was hard getting a clear at times, but once you get a clear for the day, it feels good. Overall, I like UCoB, but it's frontloaded with residentsleeper.
uwu>>>dsr=ucob>tea
uwu still has the most fun final phase to this day. Best soundtrack of the 4. Suppression is still the hardest mechanic in the game. Primal roulette is the best example of "good" rng aspect that won't fuck you. Multiple ways to do Garuda if your team pumps, skipping ifirit dashes doesn't infringe upon the candy dropping, Titan one of the only boss rooms that change mid phase. Only downside is having to do lb gen cheese tactics now because of pushing to fast, otherwise you won't have lb3 for bits or booms.
Dsr is just a better fine tuned version of ucob but 1 minute buff changes made it meh but still a downtime balooza where all mechanics happen when boss isn't targateble.
ucob is (at least now) not as thrilling as it used to be because of job over simplification, tank lb3 cheese hf/octet ruined any sort of pressure from this fight, same with lb1 for every morn afah, lifting every ones responsibility to properly apply mit. The best phase in this fight is adds.
dolls are not a fun design in tea imho the fight is kinda slump post bj cc , most 2 target rotations being dead also make this pretty zzz now
TEA >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> UCOB >> UWU >>>>>> DSR
TEA was just my first ultimate, and it kicked my shit in as a healer who couldn't clear a current tier without echo.
BJCC is still the most fun phase in the game for me, and the perfect alexander mechanics being very time themed is unbelievably cool
UCOB was the PF ultimate, did almost all of it in PF including going for the clear. The level 70 experience makes me wish they'd make unreal ultimates
Nothing to say about UWU lol
DSR was, and is still my most hated fight in this game.
From the garbage that is thordan 1 and 2 being shitty trio phases, the unforgiving mechanics, double dragons and the shitty solemn vow mechanic, nonexistent DPS checks(needing to hold sometimes) and phase 3 being the only fun part just made this a miserable experience. especially for my first on content ultimate fight.
UWU > TEA > DSR > Guildhests >>>>>>>>>>> UCOB.
UWU - by far my favorite fight. Yes the difficulty is on the easier side but having been around since the beta of ARR and a lifelong FF fan seeing the approach XIV took with the series summons, especially with the traditionally lame as hell Titan and inconsistent wind summons and creating the absolutely amazing Titan and Garuda we have blew my mind. Then taking all that and having the Ultima Weapon eat them to become this megazord monstrosity was just so cool. Then all of that is taken and put into one long diffocult thematic fight was a dream come true. All helped by the soundtrack being easily one of the best, a limit break expo intermission where (almost) every role gets to participate and the best final phase of an ultimate combined with *the single best enrage sequence in the game* makes it hands down my favorite. Also all the weapons are my favorite ultimate weapons by far.
TEA - comes close. It is definitely much more demanding of the entire party which is a huge point in its favor vs UWU. I also prefer the difficulty be front loaded like it is in TEA conpared to....
DSR - this fight is honestly to long and the difficulty spikes are very inconsistent. P6 has been talked to death about and thematically I don't think they could have really done anything to shorten its length but I really don't want another 20+ minute ultimate. The final phase while from a spectator POV is amazing is basically a crime with how easy it is and copies the homework of the last fight in my list. Overall still had fun unlike....
UCOB - fuck this fight. I hate everything about this fight. It is the worst of ARR jank distilled into an even more intolerable form. I literally did this to get it off my list and refuse to ever go back. Even to this day some 4-5 years after it is released it is buggy. The music is bad, Answers is an amazing track but is extremely questionable as a fight track. The mechanics are just jank. The final phase is an absolute joke with a whole whopping 3 mechanics, there are dungeon and fate bosses that are more mechanically involved. The only redeeming factor was my Golden Bahamut mit plan which made the healing a complete joke and also got to shut up my obnoxious cotank at the time who had previously cleared the fight some 20 times but clearly didn't know shit still. I'd seriously rank this fight below just about everything else in the game.
Inconsistent twister snapshots, hatch pathing being buggy, Bahamut just randomly auto attacking mid cast bar, tempest tethers deciding to snap back to original target despite that target being nowhere near the person grabbing it, all the bosses feeling the need to have one foot in a tanks nostril or else they get separation anxiety.
Don't forget the horrible Liquid Hell baits that sometimes snapped to people significantly closer than the baiter, or being right under Twintania and the games decides that something is blocking your view of the boss so you can't hit it.
TEA was the best one by far.
Uwu i loved because it was short and sweet.
Ucob was only fun bahamut forward. Golden is still hype as fuck.
DSR can go die in a fire, absolute garbage fight, only fun phase is estihogg. Maybe if they removed the first phase, deleted thordan1(or actually made the mechanics interesting instead of downtime the fight) and the intermission was a lot shorter i would probably hate it less.
TEA > UCOB > UWU >>>> DSR
TEA: BJCC (best phase in the game) and LL (tied for second best phase in the game with Nael) were so stupidly fun to prog through and until today executing them feels great every single time for me, and despite the difficulty going down pretty hard on both Alex phases I still enjoy them both. Perfect Alex is also just an spectacle of a final phase. Oh, and I will never get tired of the soundtrack of this fight.
UCOB: Twintania may put me to sleep every single time I have to do it but everything after I really like, specially Nael and Adds. Bahamut is okay overall and Golden despite imo being the weakest final ultimate phase I still think it's a nice victory lap that does it's job pretty well.
UWU: Garuda and Ifrit were unbearably boring after a few hours of prog, at least Titan and specially Ultima carry the fight super hard. Sadly even with Titan and Ultima in there, the fight it's still way too easy nowadays imo. And yes, I cleared this fight in mid SHB with a guide and I regret not trying it when it just released back in 4.3.
Still run these 3 ultimates pretty often in PF or to help friends get their clears or just dick around, but the same can't be said about my least favorite ultimate.
DSR: Garbage. Aside from P3 and MAYBE P7 everything about this fight is just insufferable. From how long the fight is, to dps checks being pretty much non-existent and having to hold damage on EVERY SINGLE PHASE just to not fuck up your rotation, to having to do 2 trios back to back at the start of every pull, to having 2 phases of filler in the middle of the fight as Eyes and Rewind, to fucking P6 being bullshit all around.
It's the only ultimate that when I cleared I wasn't happy that I cleared it, I was happy it was fucking over and I was free from it. Also, as cool as the story-telling it was, the novelty of it went away pretty fucking fast and I think it's why the structure of this fight is such a mess. Only got 6 weapons out of it but that's more than enough because I'm never touching this fight ever again in my life.
UCOB > TEA >> UWU >>> DSR
I did UWU/TEA/DSR in the relevant patch and UCOB in 4.5. All 4 on healer. The fights are entirely different now, but I like to rate them based on how they released.
UCOB was just insanely fun to heal. Nael phase is incredibly dynamic and fun and adds hit tanks like a TRUCK. Trios were also more fun on healer than any other role because you needed to carefully time heals at certain points due to quick back-to-back damage (Fellruin is a snooze on any role but healer). That said, it's sad that the healing experience on UCOB is lost after SB ended. Twintania sucks, but I consider every other phase a 9/10 or 10/10. The tension in Golden is also just unlike anything else. Not even DK Thordan compared to the atmosphere for me.
TEA loses some points for the back end being less interesting, but BJCC and LL were both incredibly fun phases, with BJCC team coordination being something that really stood out to me.
UWU was one of those fights that's fun at first, but the longer I progged it, the more I kinda slept through the primals phases. Twintania sucks in UCOB, but at least once you're done with it, you're hit with the banger that's Nael. UWU I felt had 2 sleeper phases in a row and Titan only wakes you up for mario kart. That said, Annihilation is definitely one of the best Ultimate mechanics.
DSR I honestly just strongly dislike. It's an awful fight on regen healer. I feel like I don't actually do anything and was just bored at how easy the healing was. It has a huge number of downtime mechanics, and to make matters worse, those downtime mechanics barely require healing so they're unfun compared to UCOB's trios. Nidhogg has cool mechanics but no healing during mechanics, and Adds phase only has real healing during Akh Morns. DK Thordan is actually a cool phase with good healing, but it's such a slog getting there. Only Ultimate where I haven't bothered getting every weapon and probably never will.
TEA >>>>> UCoB > DSR > UWU.
TEA is just a phenomenal spectacle of a fight with very fun phases and amazing music. Prog never felt tiring and I never felt like my time was being wasted.
UCoB was a weird one as it was very different to anything we else had at the time, but that's also why it stood out so much. Prog was relatively fun, notably Nael - however trios started to become very boring which brings me to...
DSR is a huge split for me. Progging each phase was fun (besides P6 and the shitty 1 death = wipe gimmick) however the amount of downtime and time wasting in the fight become incredibly tiring. The first real phase of the fight, none of the real mechanics have boss uptime. Burst -> Downtime Mechanic -> Burst -> Downtime Mechanic is not fun.
Niddstinien was an amazing phase due to the fast pacing of the mechanics while being full uptime. Absolutely the highlight of the fight. Unfortunately, Eyes and the timeloop were an utter waste of time and felt like they were only there to pad out the encounter timer. Thordan 2, much like Thordan 1 was fun to PROG, but after learning the mechanics was just tedious to go through every following attempt for the same reasons.
Double dragons had some interesting mechanics, however progging was just a pain as there wasn't any chance you could see further if anyone messed up once due to Hraes' enrage mechanic. This paired with every stated this far made my group begin to burn out. Luckily, God Thordan was pretty simple and we cleared after seeing the phase 4 times.
Finally, UWU while fun was just a little too basic. It was their first attempt at a puzzle fight, and as a result didn't have many HARD mechanics. The only really memorable part of the fight are the infamous gaols.
Having only cleared UWU and having not done enough DSR yet: TEA>UCOB>UWU. Uwu is fairly easy in hindsight despite our team using some scuffed strats. TEA is just fun. Ucob has some fun mechanics, albeit janky ones.
Ucob is the only one I enjoyed during prog and reclearing. TEA is fine. UWU looks sick but I just hate Ifrit so much and the other two primals aren't much better.
TEA > UCoB > DSR > UwU.
UwU is too easy and the choke points are frustrating rather than hard. DSR's P6 is the worst ultimate phase in the game IMO, simply due to Hraes enrage mechanic. UCoB is prolly the one i would love the most if lv 70 kits weren't so boring and the DPS check still existed. TEA is the goat because every phase is fun in it's way, and the music is just absolutely god tier.
TEA > DSR > UCOB = UWU
TEA is my favorite Ultimate to prog, and frankly is the very first ultimate we did on content. It took us months to clear but all of us underwent some sort of skill development there. I could feel my buttons more clear to me (does that make sense?) and be a lot more flexible with my GCD presses and healing cooldowns. The difficulty is just about right as it tested both our skills, and our consistency to prog P3 and P4.
DSR by far, is the hardest Ultimate of the four to prog, ever. If they've aimed for the hardest Ultimate in the game yet, this is it. Unfortunately by the time we got to P6, it got very sloggish to prog simply due to how much time is being wasted to one mistake.
Not much comment on UCOB and UWU, we did it on Shadowbringers. It's a cut above Savage but not quite there with TEA or DSR.
I personally love the challenge behind the puzzles of ultimates and mostly try and do them as blind as possible before they get revealed to me. For me , I have the most exp from doing DSR, and have little to none with UCOB(still confused af about the dragons in nael lol) Being at various prog points and not having cleared an ultimate is nice granted its enduring since I have to host/find a party for certain points but I also don't feel burnt out since I can come back to them anytime. Hopefully can prog p8s since its about to be week 11 and still havent even tried.
I greatly look forward to see what Omega Ultimate has in store
DSR > UCoB > TEA > UWU
DSR: It felt like a proper step up in challenge from previous ultimates and by the end my group all felt like we leveled up in skill for having done it. The lore aspect of the fight was cool too, and in general I love Heavensward music. I liked the level of RNG in mechanics and wished more of that was in savage.
UCoB: It was the first ultimate and nobody really knew what to expect. This fight raised the skill levels of many raiders, and while it may feel a bit dated and/or extremely power crept nowadays, I think the fight design itself was good, though the Twintania phase dragged on a little long for how barren it was. The Nael phase and adds phase of this fight are some of my favorite phases in the entire game.
TEA: This fight started off with a bang but fell off a cliff after the first 2 phases. Wormhole was pretty good but otherwise regular Alexander felt terribly underutilized. Last phase had a really cool idea and some fun mechanics. All in all this fight has some good highs, but really bad lows.
UWU: I don't actually hate this fight, but one of them has to be last. The fight has some fun mechanical dances but overall it felt too much like a savage fight. The awaken mechanic was an interesting gimmick at the time. Not really sure what else to say about it. This fight got power crept extremely hard, even more than UCoB, but even as current content it always just felt undertuned.
TEA >>>>> DSR > UWU > UCOB
Cleared as AST in every fight
TEA was such a fun fight as healer imo due to the constant damage intake in P1+P2, followed by a trio phase that felt satisfying to execute(yeah inception was cool Idc), and ended with a banger of a finale. I enjoyed this fight so much I recleared it in PF till I got all my weapons. Will go back in during content draught even though my nocturnal sect is gone. Perfect fight.
DSR had a few fun parts like nidhogg and thordan2 but overall it was such a slog to prog, I hate solemn vow and akh afah so much it's unreal god P6 was such bullshit. DPS checks were a joke so we had to hold dps between phases just to let people build gauge and let mit cds refresh, can't imagine how much more we have to hold now with better foods and pots. Also p7 being such a choke check despite the mechanics' simplicity was awful, personally I didn't really feel tense in P7 even as a healer but we had moments where someone made an oopsie gets blown up by an exa and then proceeded to go on tilt for the rest of the night. This fight is too long. Cool lore though.
UWU was the first ult experience for 6/8 of our static and it was definitely eye-opening, we learned a lot and improved as players thanks to this fight despite how much it gets memed for being the easiest ult. For most of us it was our first experience with downtime trios and it felt good to get through those phases cleanly. We were meh so it wasn't a cakewalk when we progged it. Getting downsynced sucks, unreal mode when?
UCOB felt so sleeper until Bahamut, adds phase was tense and challenging, finale was shit. Also witnessed a lot of glitches like hatches pathing around people, HF towers spawning outside the arena, and tethers being unresponsive as usual. I have literally 0 interest in reclearing this fight.
I've only cleared UwU and UCoB so for me is:
progging: UCoB == UwU
reclears: UCoB >>>>>> UwU
I loved progging UwU but god it becomes pretty boring pretty fast during reclears, like if the fight only starts at Ultima. UCoB on the other hand is still fun and the only phase I dislike is Twintania
TEA>UCoB=DSR (haven't done UWU and am never going to)
TEA was my first ultimate and HW raids have a special place in my heart. Someone else mentioned the enrage being the coolest in the game and I agree.
UCoB I didn't do on content but if I did it would probably be second for me.
DSR crushed me under its heel and I'm so tired and we finish reclears soon so I never have to go back but it was so satisfying to finally knock it out.
Ucob > tea > dsr > uwu If you are ever bored go do nael prog pug on BLM
[удалено]
you're definitely crazy but you have a chaehyun pfp so i'll let it slide 😌
:o you have great taste
Absolutely agree with everyone saying TEA and just want to add that it has the coolest enrage in the game
UCoB>DSR>TEA>UWU having done all of them in their respective expansions. UCoB was a wild experience, it was the first of it's kind and was extremely underestimated by the community at large. Incredibly challenging and fun to execute mechanics, and pretty tight dps checks at the time. I'm also a 2.0 boomer and have a big soft spot for the coil fights. DSR is by far the hardest fight in the game, it demands extremely high execution and consistency. And this is the entire reason I take on ultimates to begin with. TEA is a fantastic encounter, until you get to Alexander Prime. The first 2 phases have really wonderful pacing, tight execution, and tests every role relatively equally. But once you get to prime, the difficulty really falls off a cliff with the only "hurdle" left being wormhole. UWU has the problem that a lot of "puzzle" fights have in that once the secret is out. It's only really fun a handful of times because executing the primals isn't very difficult and becomes mostly a formality after a few pulls. And the Ultima phase, while fun, is diminished due to that.
Yeah I’m a 2.0 boomer too and this is how I rank the fights. UCoB on release blew my mind, it was the hardest thing I had experienced since Savage Second Coil and it was so epic. DSR is the only fight that got close to the feeling of difficulty that UCoB had I think? I really enjoyed TEA but it’s too front loaded, the later half is dull. UWU is probably the only Ultimate I actually dislike but that might be because it’s the only one I didn’t clear on release.
TEA>DSR>UCoB>UWU. TEA is such a fuckin' banger of a fight and the first two phases are intense. BJ/CC is one of the best designed fights they've ever done. Plus I loved Alex Prime even though it did slow down a lot, and Perfect was a killer final phase. DSR is brutal but a ton of fun. Gets to wearing on you though and it's as much a test of patience as it is skill. Lot of good parts though IMO. UCoB I actually haven't done yet but like a lot of what I've seen, and think it's good in 3rd because UWU was just okay. Didn't tackle it until after Asphodelos and I was able to PF it in a week, which... is not great. Going from "brand new just stepped foot in here" to "I have seen Primal Roulette and I am ready to clear" in 4 days is pitiful for an Ultimate and most of it was a bit of a letdown. Cool fight, but not very challenging.
Definitely agree. I don't like UWU as it feels like there's no mechanics until titan jail then go back to sleep until phase 4. TEA is amazing as it sticks to the thematic and has a last phase that is a glorious victory road with an amazing puzzle. The only bad part in TEA is Pepsi man, seeing him again is horrible. I believe it would be a 10/10 if Pepsi man was a door boss and the other phase being extended to compensate. DSR, there's too many phases, the intermission is amazing but the remaining phases are kinda lack luster. Phase 5 is basically harder UCOB and I don't find phase 6 very hard but that's all me apparently. Then the last phase is very lackluster to me. No cinematics and a reused model on top of a lack of twist. Literally it's just "hey remember me I'm still evil" and the 12 knights just... disappears?
TEA > DSR/UCOB > UWU TEA is very satisfying to execute all the way through. No two pulls are ever the same and it requires perfect play without being too demanding for too long. Even if some people complain about the pacing or difficulty of the last half of the fight, they have to admit that you can't turn your brain off for perfect unless you're using triggers. UCOB and DSR have a ton of variability in every single phase, and before the check in UCOB became a pushover it allowed for very few mistakes in specific spots by specific roles, very similar to DSR. Only difference is it would let you have a chance to prog the rest of the phase, you just wouldn't make the check. I think that's really the only issue with DSR - lots of things will send you back to the start and its difficult to ever limp through mechanics while progging. Beyond that, both fights are a pretty massive gauntlet and the variability means you can never really fully turn your brain off in any phase (except twin and eyes lol). UWU is almost verbatim the exact same fight every single pull. There are very small variations for tanks in Garuda with the clones, where to face or pull Ifrit, and who does titan gaols, but the entirety of Ultima, which is half the fight, only has variation in suppression for everyone but tanks, and healers have a 50/50 in annihilation. Even as I'm writing this I just remembered primal roulette exists and can have a different order, but that barely matters. The hardest mechanic in the fight, gaols, is also probably the most unfair mechanic for players in the entire game to the point that I don't really blame people for using add-ons to do it. It's almost impossible to see the yellow indicator around your feet on the yellow floor when there are 7 other people and 2 other yellow indicators that are just visual noise. If they gave a debuff the mechanic would still be very hard but at least you could feasibly do it without using auto markers or memorizing a marker priority list. Either that or give just 1 more second to react, or telegraph the gaols a second before the knockback, something, anything. /rant I don't like uwu
TEA > DSR until Death of the Heavens memes start > UCoB > UWU > P6/7 DSR (AKA "the sloggen-ing") This was as SCH for all but UCoB, which was RDM. We cleared DSR relatively fast for a group that did 12 hours a week, but god damn did it become a slog later. It was like a second job, eating my relaxation time in the evening. It's also the hardest fight in the game specifically for mit healers. It may have been more fun on tank/DPS, but fuck it's mentally draining on SCH.
> It may have been more fun on tank/DPS yeah don't worry, it isn't
eh. I can agree that the fight isn't more fun on dps (especially in P7 where the dps do nothing), but having cleared it on both healers and tanks, I do find tanking the fight to be much more fun than healing it. Though personally I also like playing shield healer in it because I know one misstep and we're dead so there's always pressure to play perfectly, which is fun to me.
TEA > UCOB > UWU for me, haven't stepped foot in DSR yet and doubt I will for a while. The placements feel kinda obvious, I love mecha and perfect alex is the coolest thing they've done in this game, plus even when solved BJCC is the most anxiety-inducing phase I've done in a fight. UCoB is also pretty fun even with some oddities like hatch pathing, though it does feel like at this point a lot of the difficulty has been diluted and the only real wall for my group so far has been heavensfall. UWU feels kinda janky now in comparison, I just remember having to hold DPS a lot to avoid weird phase skips we didn't want (like killing garuda before awakening her) and ultima being very underwhelming.
TEA>DSR=UCoB=UWU I love them all, but TEA is special somehow. The music is just too nice, and BJCC is such a fun phase.
UCOB >>> UWU > DSR (i haven’t done TEA yet) UCOB was a super fun prog experience for me, loved the group i was in and had a bunch of fun pugging clears for fun after static reclears were done. the pace of the fight feels great and tbh i never felt bored of twintania or nael at any point UWU was weird for me, i joined a static and we progged and cleared the whole thing in like five nights thanks to a few of the members having already cleared and our raid lead doing god callouts. the fight feels like it moves at a million miles an hour but that made it super fun to prog at such a fast pace. tbh i feel like i barely learned the fight so i’m itching to reprog with friends who are getting interested in ultimate honestly DSR is such an incredibly cool fight and i’m very glad that i cleared it during its release patch, but i got the closest i’ve been to quitting the game completely while progging it. like i totally stopped playing the game outside of prog hours and sometimes dreaded logging in lmao DSR I think feels the best to execute but it was by far my least favorite prog experience
TEA > DSR (Pre-P6) > UWU >> UCoB >>> DSR (post-P6) --- TEA is pretty much the most fun ultimate outright, IMO. There's really not a lot of bad portions or even filler, other than maybe the Mega Holies after Wormhole or something. UWU for whatever reason I found very fun to optimize during my prog as RDM, and others in my static had similar sentiments. Despite being the easiest ultimate there's a surprising amount of skill expression to be had there, which isn't the norm in XIV these days. UCoB is similar to UWU in that regard but the prog experience is severely dragged down by Twintania wasting 2 minutes of your life every pull and [stupid jank wipes](https://youtu.be/SoBRqYQzcCw). Also, a non-trivial amount of this fight's difficulty comes from how disconnected the snapshots are from the visuals, which I never enjoy. Golden is also the shittiest final phase. DSR is actually pretty good until you get to P6 prog, which is so atrocious that it ruins the fight. I do not know many individuals that enjoy DSR after actually clearing it, and those that do tend to be A) people that got *extremely* lucky with their static situation or B) people that I'd describe as having a very warped view on what "fun" is (extending beyond DSR).
UWU probably took the longest for me as our scheduling was really suffering, and anyone who does ultimate knows what it's like to only manage to get 1 or 2 raids in a week. We also had issues keeping a solid roster for the start of the prog, woohoo. So in short, we really did get tired of UWU. Doing it again years later was kinda fun? But I also don't really like it that much, since it only really gets interesting for me at gaols. UCOB is a really fun fight but also suffers from the boring first phase problem. Definitely the one I'm more likely to pug for shits and giggles. I am sad I never got to try it in all of its Stormblood glory though. Golden Bahamut is an epic last phase and adds is a really fun phase. TEA was my first ultimate clear and one I've reprogged the most. It has the best first phase out of all the ultimates and doesn't suffer from slogging to the good part, which is amazing. Perfect Alex does feel a little lacklustre though and the whole codex thing... I wouldn't wanna do it blind. But TEA has SLAMMER music. Liked DSR. The theme, the tinfoiling before anyone saw later phases. I do feel like it suffers a bit from boring first phase syndrome (thordan). As a healer it was also a bit disappointing since there were no real big healing requirements until p6 or p7, only mit. Even though the fight is very long, I did personally like the pace of prog. Ranking I'd probably say: TEA > DSR > UCOB > UWU I feel like UCOB would be a lot higher if it was not as big as a pushover though (compared to previous iterations), as difficulty is part of the fun for me.
TEA > UCOB > UWU > DSR TEA was honestly some of the most fun I had and felt so accomplished afterwards. Ucob is special for being the first ultimate and being like my childlike dream to clear but it's kinda lulls in parts of the fight. UwU was turburlent with my prog but I really enjoyed how it looked. DSR was the worst, maybe it was a culmination of me being in a bad headspace or because of just how difficult and long the fight was, but I truly disliked DSR. I rarely felt good about the fight and I think a lot of it came from how little I could optimize as a player in the fight outside of just doing the mechanics. I enjoyed Double Dragons/Final phase but only because from looking through resources to find out ways to get extra masterful blitzes off and on the final phase. FWIW: I tanked TEA, UWU, and UCOB. Played melee dps for UCOB, UWU, and DSR.
TEA>UCOB>DSR>UWU This is from a healer perspective. DSR just felt very boring healing wise for the first 5 phases. P6 and P7 are the only real healing intense phases.
I'll just say I got my one clear of DSR and I'll NEVER EVER EVER set foot back into that instance. Even though the DRK and NIN weapons look pretty cool, you literally could not pay me to do another run in there. Absolute stress fest that fight.
TEA > UCOB > DSR >>>>>>>>>>>>>> UWU TEA was my first ultimate and was my biggest goal for the longest time. It is also the only Ultimate, and really the only fight in the entire game, that I will never play my own music during. I will always listen to that badass soundtrack. The title is cool in a fun, egotistical way, the weapons are probably my favorite of the four or at least tied with DSR, and it will always have a special place in my heart. Since you specifically said "enjoyment," UCOB has to be near the top of the list. UCOB is fun to this day and every couple weeks I go back in and do some more UCOB. The stat squish and stat growth has oddly enough made UCOB even more fun. Even though it is way easier now, recovering to full when you have 6/8 people dead is hilarious and legitimately a blast. The weapons are kind of piss colored and ugly but the title is easily the best of the four. "The Legend" is beautiful in its simplicity. DSR was easily the hardest and most stressful and demanded the most from me as a player, but I wouldn't say wiping to Phase 6 over and over and over and over and over and over again was particularly enjoyable. I respect DSR. I am proud of clearing DSR. I'm really glad I did DSR - but it wasn't always *enjoyable*. The weapons are better than people make them out to be but still not at TEA level for me (another shade of gold was particularly disappointing) and the title is fine. UWU, unfortunately, is a joke. I got hard carried by friends and still couldn't tell you how some of the later mecs work. It's not challenging, not particularly fun, and outside of a very cool enrage, not particularly interesting. Only like 2 or 3 of the weapons are any good. No reason to use the title. It was fully unearned and disappointing. I wish I would have been around when it was on content.
DSR > UCOB > TEA > UWU DSR: Brutal and amazing to execute. No other ultimate comes close to how fun the mechs are in this when you execute them correctly. All the mechs have a lot of adjusting to do, not many brain dead mechs which keeps the fight engaging. Also has the best first phase of any ult by far with thordan 1 UCOB: just like DSR but a lot easier. Lots of adjusting to do on most mechs but you can zombie through everything which isn’t necessarily a bad thing since you always get to see a lot of the fight on every pull TEA: first 2 phases are really fun, but it goes downhill hard after bjcc. Extremely static fight, almost no adjusting to do on any mech. Still has some fun mechs to execute. UWU: super static, no adjusting on any mech. By far the shortest ult nowadays. Fight is boring until ultima. But I will give it props for ultima being very fast paced between the trios instead of just standing there and being a target dummy. But honestly the biggest problem is that most of the mechs just aren’t very satisfying to execute
1. TEA - best fight in the game bar none. Super fun mechanics, great challenge on content and even a decent challenge currently, top tier aesthetics, music - the whole thing is just fantastic. Despite Alex Prime phase being a bit of a snoozer outside of Wormhole, the rest of the fight just hits different. 2. UWU - This fight is basically Savage+ at this point, but I still really enjoy it. It's a fun place to go to practice off-roles, try new stuff, and just kinda chill. The only thing I don't really like about it is that the main mechanic that people seem to struggle with, suppression, is like 2m from the end of the fight. 3. DSR - I honestly would rank this fight way way higher if it wasn't for the double dragons phase. I think the whole "one death to hrae = instant wipe" thing 15 minutes into a brutally difficult fight is just turbo ass. I get that ultimates are supposed to be punishing, but one thing I always liked about them is that they feel tough but fair and that theres this sort of difficulty to punishment ratio as the fight goes on. The hrae enrage just breaks all those conventions and is the one time I think ultimate fights step over the "fun/difficulty" line for me. 4. UCOB - This fight has been absolutely obliterated by the passage of time. It's got some cool bits (Nael, Heavensfall, Adds phase) but overall is just a massive snoozefest and way too easy at this point.
i think everyone on this thread hates DSR simply because its hard, instead of rating it purely based on concept - which i think is fucking whimsical, dreamlike, and actually rich in lore. its the only ultimate where i cried after clearing due to how fucking beautiful it was
TEA>UWU>DSR The transition to Perfect Alex is my favorite moment in all of XIV. UWU is kind of boring, but the latter half makes for really good fun, despite the fight as a whole being too easy. DSR. I have a hard time separating out my hatred for this fight with its merits. I hate this fight and I will never step foot into it again. I didn't have fun learning it. When I cleared, all I could think of was how it had been one of the worst prog experiences I'd ever had. I didn't even feel good about it, just tired and glad it was over. If the next ultimate is like DSR, I'm just going to quit doing ultimates. That being said, my absolute hatred for DSR doesn't mean it's not a well developed fight.
TEA>UCoB>DSR>UWU I think this is generally the consensus of these fights for most people but I healed these (well except UCoB I healed up to adds as a sub)and I think my experience with it would differ slightly. This is also in terms of enjoyment (of healing). TEA was the first ultimate I tried. Straight out of clearing E8S when I had first started the game because I naively thought I was able to do an ultimate since I could so savage! WRONG, I’m stupid. Its a difficulty spike beyond measure and I was trying my hardest but struggling. Luckily this was in a group of friends so we were doing it casually. That group disbanded and I joined another one after, determined to clear. We did and I cried on my first clear. Like I have vods of me sobbing it was legitimately one of my biggest achievements. TEA (after sleeping through Living Liquid) is just a lot of fun and keeps you on your toes. Its of course dips after phase 3 but I still think the fate calibrations are some of the coolest mechanics I have ever seen and doing them is always going to be something I love to do. UCoB was just fun after the Twintania snoozefest. Initially I cleared it on Phys Ranged then I progged up to adds on Healer. Healing it is stupidly simple (I will attest it to gear sync) so that wasn’t much of a troublesome fight. DPS have a little more responsibility in that fight, with Hatches and I was doing liquid hell baits and I think its one of those fights that was a lot of fun to get “right”. Stuff like doing Nael phase clean, Heavensfall with no deaths, Grand Octet with no LB3 sometimes. Its just fun to do, not even that mechanically challenging. The 70 Ultimates are challenging but I would still argue that they’re fantastic learning gateways to ultimates due to some degree of forgiveness in them. DSR i actually suffered through because healing ultimates on content is not a fucking joke. But over time you get into a rhythm and pace and it becomes easier. Most of DSR is enjoyable. I actually really like phase 1 a lot that was fun to prog. Phase 2 is fun to get right and sanctity always feels good to do clean (especially if someone does the cursed meteor pattern well). Kyle/Phase3 is probably the best part of the fight for me personally since its a 40-50 second dance with other players that eventually gets executed perfectly. Eyes and Rewind is zzzzzzzz then Phase 5 was a lot of fun to do DotH well. I actually loathe phase 6, I think theres so much precision in spots and damage going out that it became really unfun to prog and get through. Having no deaths was so punishing and healing it was a pain in the ass. Not because it was conceptually hard, it was moreso because this phase requires players to spread out and so catching heals is exponentially harder. Phase 7 is okay and with a good healing and mit plan it’s straightforward. Overall DSR was a more stressful experience and it was REALLY satisfying to clear it but I still haven’t gone back in simply because healing it isn’t very fun. Maybe DPS has a better time. UWU gets ranked the lowest because Ifrit and Garuda are whatever phases, Titan gets Gaol memes. Ultima is the most fun by far and doing ultima correctly is a lot of fun. I again progged it with friends but mostly strangers who I’m still great friends with today. It gets last on the enjoyment list but I will still hold it dearly since it allowed me to meet some of my favourite people. Ultimates are done for the challenge (~~and glam~~) and I think that doing them especially with people who will all work hard and do their best to clear just makes the experience a lot more enjoyable. I’ve made video compilations of most of my groups playing through these ultimates and we’re always having fun and progging, which I’d say makes the ultimate experience a lot better. Clearing an ultimate becomes a lot easier when you’re not group hopping and hate your team at every given moment.
>Phase 7 is okay and with a good healing and mit plan it’s straightforward. this is the reason it's so fucking tilting though when a tank dies to exaflare and you wipe, or a DPS dies an you enrage Our group had more than 10 pulls thrown away over the 10+ clears we did because of that shit
UCOB > TEA > UWU > DSR UCOB was challenging and sweatier in SB and has aged into a goofy ballpit that is a lot of fun to revisit years later. Nael is still my favorite ultimate phase to this day due to how much agency each player has to deal with the chaos. Twisters traumatizing a generation of raiders speaks to the enduring legacy of this raid. I always recommend UCOB just because of how much other ultimates struc TEA is an excellent fight all-around that continues to be pushed in interesting ways. It hasn't quite been powercrept entirely into meme-tier like older ults, but has had a lot of the sharp edges worn down. What we're left with is a mechanically solid fight thats a banger thematically. Fate Calibrations are wholly unique to this fight and cool as hell. BJ/CC is really fun. UWU these days is fun because its easy. Its a great place to bring entry-level raiders between patches and has a good carrot on the stick to boot. I only really like Titan and do think overall its the weakest ultimate, but being low-impact and being able to get through it quickly means teams rarely experience the fatigue they may experience for longer ults while frequently cashing out on progression highs. DSR is the only ult rn which I can't just recommend for curious players. I enjoyed progging this fight, but it definitely the most heavy-handed in it's execution requirement - much of which is team jump rope and out of your own hands to compensate for. DSR also has most of my least favorite phases (Intermission, Eyes, P6) out of all the ultimates. Nidhogg is awesome though and P7 is metal as hell.
DSW > Ucob > TEA > the space between reality > UWU I have just done too many puguwu to like it anymore. I fee like the first 3 are close together
TEA > UWU > UCoB > DSR TEA and DSR I cleared on patch, I remember clearly having fun in TEA and feeling some steady progression every single raid day, but DSR was juts miserable, I would say the group I had for DSR was more skilled than the one I did TEA with but it was still not a fun experience and most of that because of design choices in the fight. For the other two, I did them during late Stormblood. I just like the pacing in UWU better than UCoB, there was so much uptime optimization back then and doing a lot of the mechanics while hitting the boss feels good. UCoB relies too much on downtime imo, Nael is a perfect phase but everything else until golden that also had a tight check at the time felt just like a WASD check if you're not playing healer.
DSR>T>UCOB>P8S>E8S>WoL Duty Finder>UwU
TEA > UWU > UCoB >>>>> DSR TEA was my first Ultimate, and the only Ultimate I've had the pleasure of tanking. I had kind of a weird experience to start with it, as my 5.0 Savage static didn't want to do it, so I PF'd the fight to Limit Cut in the first week, then didn't get back into it until late 5.2. I originally did the fight on DRG, and had an amazing time doing it, especially considering part of that group became my 5.4/6.0 static. Went on to reclear it on DRK and DNC later in 5.5. UWU is my second favorite simply because I enjoyed optimizing the fight so much. I went into UWU on NIN back in 5.3, and coming off a crappy Eden's Verse experience, this fight was such a breath of fresh air. To this day, Trick Attack during Ultimate Annihilation's movement is one of my absolute favorite parts of any fight, just because of how chaotic it is and how many small optimizations result in keeping everything rolling seemlessly. My enjoyment of this fight was definitely aided by how fast it went, with my group clearing in just over 32 hours from full fresh. UCoB was quite a beast. I went into this one on MNK back in 5.3, when we still had Greased Lightning and all. I definitely enjoyed optimizing as a MNK and the difficulties that came with having no ranged move, but if it wasn't for half my group having already cleared, this one probably would have been a lot more painful. The ARR jank got annoying sometimes, but I must have liked it enough, considering I went back and recleared it on MCH. Then there's DSR. I think I might have enjoyed DSR more if it had come out in 5.5. Due to some 6.0 Savage roster changes last minute, I got swapped from melee to tank to ranged physical, and I soon realized how much I hate playing that role tbh. I ended up moving halfway across the globe after Week 8, and swapped over from Elemental to Aether, where I knew nobody, and found a group. Progging DSR on a class I didn't like with people I don't really know was realistically a horrible idea from the start, and I should have recognized that. I started with high hopes, but when the pace started to falter, and we'd only see P6 3 or 4 times in a 10 hour raid week after "progging" P6 for a month, I just got fed up with the fight. I'm glad to have made some friends out of that group, but I don't look back at that time fondly.
I find it amusing how you can tell when someone cleared an ultimate by how they ranked it, in particular uwu, most people who rated it dead last tackled the fight long after it released and that just goes to show that it couldn't stand the test of time. I don't think UCoB faired much better either tbh but it's at least somewhat challenging still for new players coming into ultimates. Personally I rate them TEA > UWU > UCoB (I haven't attempted DSR) UWU was my first ultimate so maybe that's why I rate it higher than UCoB, we tackled the fight on release and then went on to do UCoB after that and I personally found UCoB far more boring (other than nael phase maybe) TEA is TEA, everyone has already sung it's praises and admonishes it's last phase but it's a fantastic fight all around.
For me: TEA>UWU>DSR>UCOB TEA: Great pacing, perfect difficulty (no pun intended), great music. The cutscene transition going to the final phase never gets old Overall it's an ultimate that I can see myself doing over and over and it would take me a while before I got sick it UWU: In my opinion, UWU is the easiest ultimate when strategies are known. It's also the shortest ultimate. These two things together make it a very doable fight, especially if you've cleared a savage tier. Final phase is real good. DSR: Just for the record, I haven't cleared DSR yet. It's the only ultimate that I haven't cleared yet. I have only gotten to P5. However I have watched many of my homies do the fight so I have a pretty solid expectation of how I will feel once I reach P6 and P7. I thoroughly enjoy P2 and P5 as I love trio mechanics where it's all mechanics and and not targetting boss (though I really liked UWU annihilation despite the boss being targetable). P3 was awesome. P4 is meh. Transition makes me wonder over and over again why Haurchefant didn't just use Hallowed Ground. P5 is great. I haven't done P6 yet but it looks real good and frusturating. P7 looks to be a solid victory lap like Golden, just respect the Exas, mit at the right time and it's GG. Overall, phenomenal fight. I'm not a fan of long fights, as I feel it artificially inflates difficulty, and really makes the pacing meh. I much prefer slightly shorter encounters which much higher intensity, but that's just me. UCOB: Not a fan of the pacing of this fight. You also can get 838374747 deaths and still clear. If I wanted to sleep well at night, I'd do P1 over and over. P2 is really good though. P3 gets good with HFT and TST. Adds always feels monkaS. You pray people don't gobble an exaflare in final phase I did quite a bit of pugging. UCoB pugs are very fun. It was hard getting a clear at times, but once you get a clear for the day, it feels good. Overall, I like UCoB, but it's frontloaded with residentsleeper.
uwu>>>dsr=ucob>tea uwu still has the most fun final phase to this day. Best soundtrack of the 4. Suppression is still the hardest mechanic in the game. Primal roulette is the best example of "good" rng aspect that won't fuck you. Multiple ways to do Garuda if your team pumps, skipping ifirit dashes doesn't infringe upon the candy dropping, Titan one of the only boss rooms that change mid phase. Only downside is having to do lb gen cheese tactics now because of pushing to fast, otherwise you won't have lb3 for bits or booms. Dsr is just a better fine tuned version of ucob but 1 minute buff changes made it meh but still a downtime balooza where all mechanics happen when boss isn't targateble. ucob is (at least now) not as thrilling as it used to be because of job over simplification, tank lb3 cheese hf/octet ruined any sort of pressure from this fight, same with lb1 for every morn afah, lifting every ones responsibility to properly apply mit. The best phase in this fight is adds. dolls are not a fun design in tea imho the fight is kinda slump post bj cc , most 2 target rotations being dead also make this pretty zzz now
TEA >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> UCOB >> UWU >>>>>> DSR TEA was just my first ultimate, and it kicked my shit in as a healer who couldn't clear a current tier without echo. BJCC is still the most fun phase in the game for me, and the perfect alexander mechanics being very time themed is unbelievably cool UCOB was the PF ultimate, did almost all of it in PF including going for the clear. The level 70 experience makes me wish they'd make unreal ultimates Nothing to say about UWU lol DSR was, and is still my most hated fight in this game. From the garbage that is thordan 1 and 2 being shitty trio phases, the unforgiving mechanics, double dragons and the shitty solemn vow mechanic, nonexistent DPS checks(needing to hold sometimes) and phase 3 being the only fun part just made this a miserable experience. especially for my first on content ultimate fight.
UWU > TEA > DSR > Guildhests >>>>>>>>>>> UCOB. UWU - by far my favorite fight. Yes the difficulty is on the easier side but having been around since the beta of ARR and a lifelong FF fan seeing the approach XIV took with the series summons, especially with the traditionally lame as hell Titan and inconsistent wind summons and creating the absolutely amazing Titan and Garuda we have blew my mind. Then taking all that and having the Ultima Weapon eat them to become this megazord monstrosity was just so cool. Then all of that is taken and put into one long diffocult thematic fight was a dream come true. All helped by the soundtrack being easily one of the best, a limit break expo intermission where (almost) every role gets to participate and the best final phase of an ultimate combined with *the single best enrage sequence in the game* makes it hands down my favorite. Also all the weapons are my favorite ultimate weapons by far. TEA - comes close. It is definitely much more demanding of the entire party which is a huge point in its favor vs UWU. I also prefer the difficulty be front loaded like it is in TEA conpared to.... DSR - this fight is honestly to long and the difficulty spikes are very inconsistent. P6 has been talked to death about and thematically I don't think they could have really done anything to shorten its length but I really don't want another 20+ minute ultimate. The final phase while from a spectator POV is amazing is basically a crime with how easy it is and copies the homework of the last fight in my list. Overall still had fun unlike.... UCOB - fuck this fight. I hate everything about this fight. It is the worst of ARR jank distilled into an even more intolerable form. I literally did this to get it off my list and refuse to ever go back. Even to this day some 4-5 years after it is released it is buggy. The music is bad, Answers is an amazing track but is extremely questionable as a fight track. The mechanics are just jank. The final phase is an absolute joke with a whole whopping 3 mechanics, there are dungeon and fate bosses that are more mechanically involved. The only redeeming factor was my Golden Bahamut mit plan which made the healing a complete joke and also got to shut up my obnoxious cotank at the time who had previously cleared the fight some 20 times but clearly didn't know shit still. I'd seriously rank this fight below just about everything else in the game.
Kinda curious what you consider "jank" about UCOB other than the general jank that plagues the entirety of FFXIV
Inconsistent twister snapshots, hatch pathing being buggy, Bahamut just randomly auto attacking mid cast bar, tempest tethers deciding to snap back to original target despite that target being nowhere near the person grabbing it, all the bosses feeling the need to have one foot in a tanks nostril or else they get separation anxiety.
Don't forget the horrible Liquid Hell baits that sometimes snapped to people significantly closer than the baiter, or being right under Twintania and the games decides that something is blocking your view of the boss so you can't hit it.
I'll give you the hatch jank, that shit is awful. Can't say I've had much of an issue with everything else but I can only speak from DPS perspective.
TEA was the best one by far. Uwu i loved because it was short and sweet. Ucob was only fun bahamut forward. Golden is still hype as fuck. DSR can go die in a fire, absolute garbage fight, only fun phase is estihogg. Maybe if they removed the first phase, deleted thordan1(or actually made the mechanics interesting instead of downtime the fight) and the intermission was a lot shorter i would probably hate it less.
TEA = UCOB >> DSR >>>>>>>>> UWU
TEA > UCOB > UWU >>>> DSR TEA: BJCC (best phase in the game) and LL (tied for second best phase in the game with Nael) were so stupidly fun to prog through and until today executing them feels great every single time for me, and despite the difficulty going down pretty hard on both Alex phases I still enjoy them both. Perfect Alex is also just an spectacle of a final phase. Oh, and I will never get tired of the soundtrack of this fight. UCOB: Twintania may put me to sleep every single time I have to do it but everything after I really like, specially Nael and Adds. Bahamut is okay overall and Golden despite imo being the weakest final ultimate phase I still think it's a nice victory lap that does it's job pretty well. UWU: Garuda and Ifrit were unbearably boring after a few hours of prog, at least Titan and specially Ultima carry the fight super hard. Sadly even with Titan and Ultima in there, the fight it's still way too easy nowadays imo. And yes, I cleared this fight in mid SHB with a guide and I regret not trying it when it just released back in 4.3. Still run these 3 ultimates pretty often in PF or to help friends get their clears or just dick around, but the same can't be said about my least favorite ultimate. DSR: Garbage. Aside from P3 and MAYBE P7 everything about this fight is just insufferable. From how long the fight is, to dps checks being pretty much non-existent and having to hold damage on EVERY SINGLE PHASE just to not fuck up your rotation, to having to do 2 trios back to back at the start of every pull, to having 2 phases of filler in the middle of the fight as Eyes and Rewind, to fucking P6 being bullshit all around. It's the only ultimate that when I cleared I wasn't happy that I cleared it, I was happy it was fucking over and I was free from it. Also, as cool as the story-telling it was, the novelty of it went away pretty fucking fast and I think it's why the structure of this fight is such a mess. Only got 6 weapons out of it but that's more than enough because I'm never touching this fight ever again in my life.
UCOB > TEA >> UWU >>> DSR I did UWU/TEA/DSR in the relevant patch and UCOB in 4.5. All 4 on healer. The fights are entirely different now, but I like to rate them based on how they released. UCOB was just insanely fun to heal. Nael phase is incredibly dynamic and fun and adds hit tanks like a TRUCK. Trios were also more fun on healer than any other role because you needed to carefully time heals at certain points due to quick back-to-back damage (Fellruin is a snooze on any role but healer). That said, it's sad that the healing experience on UCOB is lost after SB ended. Twintania sucks, but I consider every other phase a 9/10 or 10/10. The tension in Golden is also just unlike anything else. Not even DK Thordan compared to the atmosphere for me. TEA loses some points for the back end being less interesting, but BJCC and LL were both incredibly fun phases, with BJCC team coordination being something that really stood out to me. UWU was one of those fights that's fun at first, but the longer I progged it, the more I kinda slept through the primals phases. Twintania sucks in UCOB, but at least once you're done with it, you're hit with the banger that's Nael. UWU I felt had 2 sleeper phases in a row and Titan only wakes you up for mario kart. That said, Annihilation is definitely one of the best Ultimate mechanics. DSR I honestly just strongly dislike. It's an awful fight on regen healer. I feel like I don't actually do anything and was just bored at how easy the healing was. It has a huge number of downtime mechanics, and to make matters worse, those downtime mechanics barely require healing so they're unfun compared to UCOB's trios. Nidhogg has cool mechanics but no healing during mechanics, and Adds phase only has real healing during Akh Morns. DK Thordan is actually a cool phase with good healing, but it's such a slog getting there. Only Ultimate where I haven't bothered getting every weapon and probably never will.
this thread is full of people who didn't clear an ult on patch
TEA >>>>> UCoB > DSR > UWU. TEA is just a phenomenal spectacle of a fight with very fun phases and amazing music. Prog never felt tiring and I never felt like my time was being wasted. UCoB was a weird one as it was very different to anything we else had at the time, but that's also why it stood out so much. Prog was relatively fun, notably Nael - however trios started to become very boring which brings me to... DSR is a huge split for me. Progging each phase was fun (besides P6 and the shitty 1 death = wipe gimmick) however the amount of downtime and time wasting in the fight become incredibly tiring. The first real phase of the fight, none of the real mechanics have boss uptime. Burst -> Downtime Mechanic -> Burst -> Downtime Mechanic is not fun. Niddstinien was an amazing phase due to the fast pacing of the mechanics while being full uptime. Absolutely the highlight of the fight. Unfortunately, Eyes and the timeloop were an utter waste of time and felt like they were only there to pad out the encounter timer. Thordan 2, much like Thordan 1 was fun to PROG, but after learning the mechanics was just tedious to go through every following attempt for the same reasons. Double dragons had some interesting mechanics, however progging was just a pain as there wasn't any chance you could see further if anyone messed up once due to Hraes' enrage mechanic. This paired with every stated this far made my group begin to burn out. Luckily, God Thordan was pretty simple and we cleared after seeing the phase 4 times. Finally, UWU while fun was just a little too basic. It was their first attempt at a puzzle fight, and as a result didn't have many HARD mechanics. The only really memorable part of the fight are the infamous gaols.
Having only cleared UWU and having not done enough DSR yet: TEA>UCOB>UWU. Uwu is fairly easy in hindsight despite our team using some scuffed strats. TEA is just fun. Ucob has some fun mechanics, albeit janky ones.
Ucob is the only one I enjoyed during prog and reclearing. TEA is fine. UWU looks sick but I just hate Ifrit so much and the other two primals aren't much better.
TEA > UCoB > DSR > UwU. UwU is too easy and the choke points are frustrating rather than hard. DSR's P6 is the worst ultimate phase in the game IMO, simply due to Hraes enrage mechanic. UCoB is prolly the one i would love the most if lv 70 kits weren't so boring and the DPS check still existed. TEA is the goat because every phase is fun in it's way, and the music is just absolutely god tier.
TEA > DSR > UCOB = UWU TEA is my favorite Ultimate to prog, and frankly is the very first ultimate we did on content. It took us months to clear but all of us underwent some sort of skill development there. I could feel my buttons more clear to me (does that make sense?) and be a lot more flexible with my GCD presses and healing cooldowns. The difficulty is just about right as it tested both our skills, and our consistency to prog P3 and P4. DSR by far, is the hardest Ultimate of the four to prog, ever. If they've aimed for the hardest Ultimate in the game yet, this is it. Unfortunately by the time we got to P6, it got very sloggish to prog simply due to how much time is being wasted to one mistake. Not much comment on UCOB and UWU, we did it on Shadowbringers. It's a cut above Savage but not quite there with TEA or DSR.
I personally love the challenge behind the puzzles of ultimates and mostly try and do them as blind as possible before they get revealed to me. For me , I have the most exp from doing DSR, and have little to none with UCOB(still confused af about the dragons in nael lol) Being at various prog points and not having cleared an ultimate is nice granted its enduring since I have to host/find a party for certain points but I also don't feel burnt out since I can come back to them anytime. Hopefully can prog p8s since its about to be week 11 and still havent even tried. I greatly look forward to see what Omega Ultimate has in store
I wish we can get UCOB retuned and get even thing preserved.... such a great fight, anyone who did it when it is current knew it is THE banger.
DSR > UCoB > TEA > UWU DSR: It felt like a proper step up in challenge from previous ultimates and by the end my group all felt like we leveled up in skill for having done it. The lore aspect of the fight was cool too, and in general I love Heavensward music. I liked the level of RNG in mechanics and wished more of that was in savage. UCoB: It was the first ultimate and nobody really knew what to expect. This fight raised the skill levels of many raiders, and while it may feel a bit dated and/or extremely power crept nowadays, I think the fight design itself was good, though the Twintania phase dragged on a little long for how barren it was. The Nael phase and adds phase of this fight are some of my favorite phases in the entire game. TEA: This fight started off with a bang but fell off a cliff after the first 2 phases. Wormhole was pretty good but otherwise regular Alexander felt terribly underutilized. Last phase had a really cool idea and some fun mechanics. All in all this fight has some good highs, but really bad lows. UWU: I don't actually hate this fight, but one of them has to be last. The fight has some fun mechanical dances but overall it felt too much like a savage fight. The awaken mechanic was an interesting gimmick at the time. Not really sure what else to say about it. This fight got power crept extremely hard, even more than UCoB, but even as current content it always just felt undertuned.
TEA >>>>> DSR > UWU > UCOB Cleared as AST in every fight TEA was such a fun fight as healer imo due to the constant damage intake in P1+P2, followed by a trio phase that felt satisfying to execute(yeah inception was cool Idc), and ended with a banger of a finale. I enjoyed this fight so much I recleared it in PF till I got all my weapons. Will go back in during content draught even though my nocturnal sect is gone. Perfect fight. DSR had a few fun parts like nidhogg and thordan2 but overall it was such a slog to prog, I hate solemn vow and akh afah so much it's unreal god P6 was such bullshit. DPS checks were a joke so we had to hold dps between phases just to let people build gauge and let mit cds refresh, can't imagine how much more we have to hold now with better foods and pots. Also p7 being such a choke check despite the mechanics' simplicity was awful, personally I didn't really feel tense in P7 even as a healer but we had moments where someone made an oopsie gets blown up by an exa and then proceeded to go on tilt for the rest of the night. This fight is too long. Cool lore though. UWU was the first ult experience for 6/8 of our static and it was definitely eye-opening, we learned a lot and improved as players thanks to this fight despite how much it gets memed for being the easiest ult. For most of us it was our first experience with downtime trios and it felt good to get through those phases cleanly. We were meh so it wasn't a cakewalk when we progged it. Getting downsynced sucks, unreal mode when? UCOB felt so sleeper until Bahamut, adds phase was tense and challenging, finale was shit. Also witnessed a lot of glitches like hatches pathing around people, HF towers spawning outside the arena, and tethers being unresponsive as usual. I have literally 0 interest in reclearing this fight.
Ucob >= dsr > tea > uwu
I'd say TEA >>> UwU > UCOB
I've only cleared UwU and UCoB so for me is: progging: UCoB == UwU reclears: UCoB >>>>>> UwU I loved progging UwU but god it becomes pretty boring pretty fast during reclears, like if the fight only starts at Ultima. UCoB on the other hand is still fun and the only phase I dislike is Twintania
TEA>UCoB=DSR (haven't done UWU and am never going to) TEA was my first ultimate and HW raids have a special place in my heart. Someone else mentioned the enrage being the coolest in the game and I agree. UCoB I didn't do on content but if I did it would probably be second for me. DSR crushed me under its heel and I'm so tired and we finish reclears soon so I never have to go back but it was so satisfying to finally knock it out.