The Benedikta boss fight is one of the easier fights in Final Fantasy 16. However, Clive himself is far from the peak of his powers at this stage of the game, so you still need to be careful to avoid defeat.
That said, you can win this fight fairly easily by identifying the patterns of Benedikta’s attacks to help avoid them while timing your attacks and counterattacks to perfection.
There are two phases to the boss fight. In the first phase, Benedikta is in complete human form and the duel should be pretty short.
In the second phase, she partially transforms to hone some of Garuda’s powers. This makes the duel a bit trickier, but you can win easily using the same techniques as the previous phase.
We’ll get to the details on how to beat Benedikta in both phases but first, let’s talk about preparing for the fight.
Before the Fight
While completing quests and killing enemies all over the not-so-open world that the game is set in, Clive gains ability points that you can use to improve his skill in certain areas. You can access and use these ability points in the “Abilities” section of the pause menu.
Be sure to use these points to upgrade your abilities before you encounter Benedikt. In fact, I recommend doing so before any boss fights to put yourself in the strongest possible position to win the fight.
For this particular fight, I recommend upgrading your Precision Dodge, Aerial Attacks, and Melee Attacks first.
You should also assign your Heatwave ability to the Phoenix attack slots. It came in pretty handy for me, particularly for counterattacks. You can reassign abilities in the “Gear and Eikons” section of the pause menu.
Always keep an eye out for potions to pick up as you traverse the grounds and defeat enemies. Hopefully, by the time you get to the Benedikta boss fight, you have potions in your item slots in case you take enough damage to require healing.
If you have the Ring of Timely Healing assigned amongst your gear, it’s even more convenient because your potions are automatically used when your health drops below a certain level so you don’t have to worry about consciously using them.
This ring is automatically assigned from the start if you’re playing the game in Story-Focused Mode.
Finally, be prepared for Cinematic QuickTime events. If you’ve gotten this far in the game, then you’ve already been introduced to them, and there’ll be a couple of such events for defense and offense during this fight.
During the Fight
As I said, there are two phases here. Let’s talk about the first.
First Phase
In the first phase, Benedikta is still in her fully human form while she directs a range of varied attacks at you. Some of these attacks have their names indicated in red text near the top of the screen just before she executes them.
The first attack is called Aerora. Benedikta uses the air around here to build a ball/s of wind that she throws at you. The good thing is, you can usually tell when she’s building up a missile like this one, so all you have to do is prepare to run or dodge to avoid them.
When facing multiple balls at once, I recommend dodging instead of running because you might just run into one while trying to avoid another. This is why I also recommended upgrading your Precision Dodge ability before the fight.
The second attack is called Aeroga. Again, Benedikta builds up a ball of wind and throws it at you but this time, the ball explodes at the intended location, leaving a whirlwind in its wake. You can escape this by running or dodging.
The third type of attack in the first phase is called the Wind Blade. You can tell when she’s setting this up because there will be blue particles building up around her. Be prepared to dodge or run.
The Wind Blade attack features vertical and horizontal blades of wind that she throws at you in quick succession. You won’t always be able to outrun the horizontal blades, so be prepared to jump in that scenario.
When there are green particles instead of blue, it indicates that she’s preparing to lunge at you. You can get a good counterattack here if you dodge the lunge in time and retaliate before she recovers.
Second Phase
In this phase, Benedikta draws on the power of Garuda to make herself more powerful. Her form changes to semi-human as she grows a pair of wings and some other physical features are modified. Expect many aerial attacks here.
The three named attacks in the first phases recur in this phase as well, but the wind balls and blades that she throws at once increase in number.
In addition, there are many more types of attacks to prepare for here – most of them are named and some are not.
The Aero Rain attack features when Benedikta flies into the sky and starts to hurl wind orbs at you while she circles the arena. Dodging is more efficient than running here, but wait until the orb almost hits the ground before you dodge so you don’t just dodge into the line of fire of another orb.
You should also be extra intentional about escaping these attacks because they are usually followed up with other types of attacks that have significantly more impact on your health if successful.
For the Nosedive attack, Benedikta flies vertically into the air, disappearing for a moment before she comes crashing back down on you. You can tell where she’s going to land by a blue spark appearing there, so all you have to do is avoid the area.
The Tornado attack features one or more green lights suddenly appearing on the ground, building up a gust of wind that quickly grows into a tornado. Avoid the lights and you’re good.
The Gathering Clouds and Rammelfall attacks work together. For the former, Benedikta tries to build a circle of wind that traps you in preparation for Rammelfall which is when she hurls pieces of the surrounding tower at you. If you avoid the circle of wind, then you’ll be able to avoid the second attack as well. If not, you’ll be trapped and caught by the broken pieces of the tower.
I previously mentioned having the Ring of Timely Healing assigned before the fight. This will be especially helpful for attacks like the Deadly Embrace and the Twister where Benedikta grabs you. It’s a bit harder to time dodging these grabs, although you can still escape the Deadly Embrace before she completes the move.
However, if you’re grabbed for the Twister attack, prepare to be flung into the air and dashed to the floor. Since you have little to no control of Clive in these moments, the Ring of Timely Healing protects you from dying if you were already on low health because it uses a potion to replenish you automatically (if you have potions left, that is!)
If you don’t have the ring assigned and you’re low on health when grabbed for the Twister, quickly use a potion before being dashed to the ground.
If you’ve read this far, then you should know when to run, attack, or prepare for a counterattack without necessarily memorizing Benedikta’s moves. The key is to keep an eye out for the gusts of wind, the lights, and the build-up animations that indicate she’s about to throw something.
Always be on the move, try to time your dodges, and use combo attacks to build up your Phoenix meters for those overpowered moves. It’s the most efficient way to drain Benedikta enough to drastically drop her Will meter, and staggering her a couple of times makes the fight much shorter.
If you pre-ordered the game and have claimed the Braveheart sword that comes with the game as a bonus, you should notice a stronger effect on enemies (and bosses) when you attack.
However, I suggest sticking to the original sword if you want the fights to be more challenging, especially if you’re already playing in Story-Focused mode which makes enemies generally weaker and easier to defeat.
After defeating Benedikta at this stage, Clive gains some of Garuda’s powers from her. I will not drop any spoilers, but things get very interesting following this sequence of events.
Speaking of Garuda, there’s a fierce fight against her not long after this one. You’ll face a handful of creatures called Wind Elementals on your way there, so check out the linked guide to help you prepare.
