Final Fantasy 16: How to Defeat Barnabas

After defeating the boss Sleipnir, players will face the boss Barnabas in the Final Fantasy 16 main quest “Through the Maelstrom”. This is the only boss that needs to be defeated in this quest. As usual, we advise you to take into consideration the strategies and advice that we have developed in this article, in order to have an easier life and be able to defeat Barnabas.

Location, rewards, and abilities

As mentioned earlier, you will be able to face this boss in the main quest “Through the Maelstrom” which takes place in The Naldia Narrow area in the Neutral Region. As usual, whoever manages to defeat this boss will receive rewards as thanks for his efforts. These rewards include items such as Steelsilk, Meteorite, Bloody Hide, Dark Shard, and The Will of Light, as well as 6500 XP, 500 AP, and 6700 Gil.

As usual, however, we advise you to pay attention to this boss, as it is able to put even the most experienced players in difficulty if you do not use the right strategy to follow. Keeping our advice in mind, however, you will be able to defeat Barnabas and continue in the game. Furthermore, we remind you that, like the other bosses in the game, Barnabas also has some special abilities that he will draw on during the fight. These skills include The Lord’s Measure, Gungnir, and Iron Flash.

How to defeat Barnabas

The boss fight with Barnabas has points in common with the one with Sleipnir, since Barnabas will also teleport to various places in the arena and then appear in front of or behind the player to attack with his sword. In this phase, Barnabas will make use of different attacks which include a simple sword attack, horizontal slash waves, and 360 spin moves. The thing we advise you to do is wait for him to finish teleporting and then use a Precision Dodge and a parry at the right time, then start attacking with your skills.

Keep in mind that Barnabas will be able to parry your attacks, so you will only have a chance to hit him after each of his combos ends and he will enter a very short cooldown. For this reason, you will have to be very quick in executing your attacks. Again, use a Precision Dodge and then a Precision Attack to deal as much damage to him as possible before he resumes his attacks.

In the second phase of the match, Barnabas will make use of an aerial attack called Blinding Steel that releases energy throughout the arena from where the boss is. Since before launching this skill, he will have to charge up, what we advise you to do is to quickly go behind him so as not to be hit and at the same time to attack him with your skills. Also, after reducing his life bar to 60%, a cinematic scene will start in which you will have to repeatedly press the square button to avoid being hit by an attack from him.

The third phase of the match begins with Barnabas ready to launch his Ultimate Zantetsuken attack. What you have to do is try to empty the gauge bar in order to prevent Barnabas from releasing his powerful attack. In case you fail in this enterprise, we advise you to equip Limit Break which you will need to not die, since this attack is deadly. Finally, during the fourth phase of the fight, Barnabas will transform into Odin, which means that he will be even more powerful than before. He will start attacking you with sword combos which you need to dodge since there will be no opportunity to attack him at this stage.

Barnabas’ abilities

Barnabas has several skills that he can use during his long fight. One of the first skills he will use is The Lord’s Measure which allows him to summon energy beams in a cross-shaped pattern. It’s an aerial ability that, fortunately, is quite easy to dodge since it doesn’t cover a large portion of the area.

When you enter the heat of battle, Barnabas will also start making use of an ability called Iron Flash and you must be able to empty the meter before the time runs out. In this part of the fight do not try to attack him as you will meet certain death. The thing you have to do is to focus on dodging his attacks to try not to take damage.

The second phase of the fight allows Barnabas to have access to more powerful versions of his abilities Gungnir and The Lord’s Measure, as well as the possibility of being able to use them in succession to inflict greater damage and make the fight more difficult. As we mentioned earlier, the most effective strategy against these abilities is to dodge them. Once Barnabas activates Quieting, he will be able to use two new abilities called All-winder and Great Divide which he will unleash at you in different directions using a large energy sword which he will use for the rest of the battle. Again, both skills can be dodged and so you won’t take any damage.

During the last phase, as already mentioned, Barnabas will transform into Odin and then return to his original form. At this very moment, the boss will have access to another ability, Circle of Malius. Thanks to this ability, he will be able to transform into a wheel and will move towards you twice to attack you. Also, once you finish this ability, he will use his sword to hit you, so be ready to dodge these attacks as well.

Finally, we want to clarify that Barnabas is now able to combine Blinding Steel and The Lord’s Measure into one powerful ability. As we have already explained several times in the course of this article, you will have to be careful and quick to be able to dodge this skill, so as not to be hit. Once you dodge his attacks and get behind Barnabas, you will have the opportunity to unleash all your attacks and combos to try to end the fight as soon as possible.