One of the strongest traits of Final Fantasy 14 is its memorable boss fights. The music, the bosses' designs, the mechanics, and the story all build to these really rewarding trials and raids. These trials take eight players to beat and often require a lot of strategies.

Typically, it is these fights that test a player's skills the most. These skills include DPS output, facing the boss away from the party as a tank, healing party members quickly, dodging AOES (Area of Effect), and quickly learning the mechanics.

Some bosses are way more epic than others. The top-tier fights are the kinds of fights that players wouldn't mind tackling over and over again. They love the difficulty, the music gets them hyped, and/or the boss, and its attacks are beautifully designed. With all that in mind, here are some of the most epic boss fights in Final Fantasy 14.

Updated October 26, 2023 by Paul Woodward: If there is one thing that has remained consistent in Final Fantasy 14, it would be how epic the boss fights can be. While early on players won't have to deal with much, the intensity gets dialed up to 11 long before they have even gotten close to starting Endwalker. Fortunately, Endwalker did not disappoint when it came to boss fights. Whether it was a trial or raid boss, the pay-off at the end of the 6.0 storyline was immense. There is no doubt that more incredible boss fights await players when Dawntrail releases next year.

A warning, there will be spoilers for the game ahead.

12 Hells' Kier

Suzaku is a boss that is unlocked in the Four Lords' questline. She is a phoenix but will transform into a humanoid form during the fight with her, and her design is gorgeous. She was in love with Tanzen and yells about that a lot while players fight her, which makes the fight have an emotional weight to it as well.

Her attacks are also pretty, using a flute to summon flames as a humanoid being, and flying around in her phoenix form.

11 The Pool Of Tribute

This level 63 boss is a product of the Stormblood expansion. Like many of the bosses in the game, he is a Primal. His music is fun, and the boss's personality is one of chivalry. He loves the fight and loves that the player can match up to him.

If someone plays as a tank, they get one of the most epic fight moments with him. At a certain point, he swings down a giant blade, and it is up to the tank's tiny form to block it from killing them and the rest of the party. The player will feel cool and all the other party members will be jealous enough to consider leveling a tank job.

10 The Singularity Reactor

It is hard not to feel something when one hears the haunting chorus music at the beginning of this fight. Past the beginning, the music turns into what feels like an awesome rock concert, so the soundtrack lends a lot to this fight.

Other than the chorus and rock music though, players are fighting giant armored giants. They come at their opponents in pairs at various moments in the fight and then try to attack the player altogether. The one reason this fight isn't ranked higher is that many players have mentioned that the fight is too easy. Fortunately there is an extreme version of this trial for players who want more of a challenge.

9 The Royal Menagerie

This is basically the final boss of the Stormblood extension. Shinryu is a giant primal dragon controlled by Zenos, and it is up to the player and their party to stop it from destroying the world. It is more a fight with decent difficulty as well. There is a lot of dodging AOES and trying not to fall off a platform. There is a cool quick-time maneuver where players jump on and ride the dragon while it destroys the platform they were standing on.

8 Eden’s Verse: Refulgence

The players' characters' friend, Rhyne, loses control as she summons the Primal Shiva. The design is pretty and keeps changing throughout the fight to resemble the Goddess Hydaelyn more and more.

One of the best parts is towards the end when Gaia suddenly jumps into the fight to help the player, who has a time limit to stop Rhyne from going all out in a final attack. Her fight is also not the easiest, especially on Savage difficulty. On top of that, the music for this boss fight is absolutely stellar.

7 The Final Steps Of Faith

In this trial, players face off against a significant antagonist of Heavensward: Nidhogg. He has possessed one of the player characters' close allies and plans to continue his war with Ishgard.

Like Shinryu, he is not the only epic dragon boss fight in the game. The music is epic in that its solemn. It is a fight that makes the player feel more reflective than scared or hyped. Nidhogg has stewed in his grief for far too long and cannot be persuaded to leave the path of destruction he has chosen, and so there is only one way this conflict can end.

6 The Dancing Plague

Titania is the prettiest boss of the series. They ruled as King of the Il Mheg before becoming a Light Warden, therefore the boss has a somewhat tragic backstory. While they may not look like the other Sin Eaters, players should not underestimate them.

The boss is not only pretty, but they have pretty epic magic. They change the castle around the players into a forest where they have to fight plant-based monsters. The music is also quite unique, and fairy-like, but also has a slightly sinister tone to it which makes it fitting for a boss fight against this corrupted creature.

5 Cinder Drift

The Ruby Weapon is horrifying. The longer one fights it, the more strange and monstrous it reveals itself to be. After the fight, players learn there was a young soldier in there that seemed to have been transformed into a monster by the weapon. So, that is disturbing.

The music is hard rock with a chorus, giving it the same sort of top-tier epic music as The Singularity Reactor while also paying homage to the music played during the fight against Ultima Weapon. Unlike The Singularity Reactor though, this is a decently hard fight. All players also need to punch away meteors back into the sky in a similar fashion to tanks with the giant sword in The Pool Of Tribute. The final phase of this fight is also very intense and can easily wipe players if their DPS is not up to par.

4 The Dying Gasp

Hades is the final boss of Shadowbringers (excluding the bosses in the 5.X storyline that leads into Endwalker) and a favorite character for many players. Most Ascians have pretty forgettable fights, but not Emet-Selch. He transforms and attacks the player with dark magic and masks that reflect the grief that has driven Emet-Selch to do all the terrible things he and his fellow Ascians have done over the course of the story.

The music does a lot for this fight, as it's the same music from the Shadowbringers trailer. The build-up to this fight is very cool as well, as the Crystal Exarch summons other players to come to your aid. The music also changes as players progress through the fight, which makes it very memorable.

3 Castrum Fluminis

Castrum Fluminis is a fight that is not considered the most important story-wise. However, between its story, mechanics, and design, it is certainly an epic and memorable encounter. The boss is a primal, Tsukuyomi, who is summoned by Yotsuyu after regaining her memories of being a villain in Stormblood.

Her heart is split into two, and that is shown in the primal's design. She realizes that the primal feeds on her suffering, so she literally summons horrible memories and the players have to defeat the phantoms of those memories. It is an amazing piece of storytelling melded into boss fight mechanics and design. Her music goes from solemn to empowered as she summons the spite to fight back.

2 The Mother Crystal

The boss fight against Hydaelyn is easily one of the most unique trials in the game. At present, this is the only trial that can be done entirely with an AI party rather than other players. Hydaelyn doesn't hold back at all, as she wants to make sure the Warrior of Light and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn are ready to go to the edge of the Universe to prevent the Final Days. In fact, this fight is so hard that players get several "lives" (for lack of a better term) in case they struggle to keep up with the mechanics of this fight.

While the premise and setting for this fight certainly make for an epic encounter, the music kicks it up a notch. Masayoshi Soken, the composer for Final Fantasy 14, was able to take "Answers" and turn it into an excellent boss battle theme for this epic encounter.

1 The Final Day

The battle against the Endsinger is the final trial of the 6.0 storyline of Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker. Players fight the Endsinger on Shinryu's back at the edge of the Universe to prevent an apocalypse on a cosmic scale. As far as boss fights go, it doesn't get more epic than this fight.

The music draws inspiration from every single final boss up to this point in the story all the way up until phase two. After a brief cutscene, the music and scenery change as the Endsinger realizes its losing and desperately tries, and fails, to stand against the Warrior of Light and their companions. Final Fantasy 14 will have a hard time coming up with a more epic boss fight than this, but Yoshida and his team are more than capable of finding some way to top this encounter.