Final Fantasy 14's 'solo only' streamer, RathGames, has just done the barely-possible: Engaging in a weeks-long grind, dodging the executioner's axe of patch notes, and reaching level 100 on a lean diet of level 63 content—all to topple a single boss in Stormblood.
If you're completely unfamiliar with Final Fantasy 14, I want to make sure you appreciate the magnitude of this accomplishment before we proceed. Solo Only is a challenge devised by RathGames and documented in a rather excellent YouTube series. In it, he has to be entirely self-sufficient.
This not only means they can't interact with the marketboard, trade, or party with other players—Solo Only can't even use the NPC duty support system or, masochistically, quest rewards. Anything he achieves has to be done on his own, with gear he's crafted or earned from the sweat of his brow.
The only exception to this rule has been the Crystal Tower raids, which RathGames couldn't even enter without at least three players (and which has mechanics that unavoidably require at least three, too). However, RathGames knocked over that raid with a bare-bones party made entirely of other Solo Only players, which is such an ingenious workaround I'm more than happy to let it pass.
He's gotten far further than I ever thought possible, making it through both the base game A Realm Reborn and the Heavensward expansion without any help. However, Susano, a level 63 trial boss in Stormblood, has been a massive wall.
This is because of a phase wherein the Lord of Revel takes a swim, pulls out a giant sword, and slams it into the arena twice—requiring both tanks (or a particularly spicy-feeling DPS) to run in and block it while the other players melt the sword down. If the damage check isn't passed, it's curtains for everyone involved. Given Solo Only can only either block the sword or attack it, it seemed like the end of the road.
It took almost a full month between Solo Only's first encounter with Susano for a plan to form, as explained in a later livestream: "For the past two weeks, I've been trying to figure out a plan to get me past Susano … I was pretty confident that Pictomancer was gonna be able to do it, it had the burst potential to make it happen, and I hit a dead end."
One major issue was the inability to get the Echo buff, which gives a stacking boost after a wipe as long as a certain amount of time has passed in the fight. Solo Only simply wasn't living long enough (on a job that could do enough damage) to harvest it. This was important because, as RathGames figured out, Solo Only had about 14 seconds to kill Susano before its fatal sword phase began.
"Susano, from 40% to 0%, has approximately 800,000-850,000 HP. 40% is when Susano will start its sword phase … In the absolute best case scenario, you can get 14 seconds to damage Susano before he goes and actually starts swapping to his next phase. So I needed a class that could burst Susano for 40% of his health in 14 seconds."
He proceeded to put out a 50 million gil bounty—money funded from his main character—to anyone who could puzzle out a road to victory "where we can solo Susano within my restrictions, and with the items that I had [access to].
"Within 4 to 6 hours … somebody had an answer. It is verified as completely within my restrictions, it is something I can get, something I can realistically do, and Susano can die completely solo."
This was the plan:
- Step 1: Get Pictomancer to level 100. Pictomancer, at present, has an obscene amount of damage that, with the echo buff, could definitely put out 850,000 damage in 14 seconds (or 60,700 DPS).
- Step 2: Make use of Star Prism, a skill that heals you for 400 potency, allowing Solo Only to barely squeak by and fight Susano long enough to trigger the stacking echo buff.
- Step 3: Do the impossible.
Step 1 is what took the longest, by far. Given that Solo Only is currently in Stormblood, good sources of experience are few and far between: "I have to level to 100. I have to reach level 100 through Palace of the Dead, through weeklies, through Wondrous tales. Once I reach level 100, I will not be able to use Wondrous Tales anymore."
It's a huge sacrifice for the overall run—Wondrous Tales is a great source of EXP and tomestones, however, when you reach level 100 the game starts throwing late-game duties at you for its completion. You can get Second Chance points to repeat lower-level duties, but you get those by doing content with other players which, you know, doesn't fly for this challenge run.
After surviving patch notes that could've nerfed Pictomancer, RathGames embarked on a gruelling, 200+ hour, six week long gauntlet to reach level 100. On July 14, he began the grind in earnest. By September 8, he was ready for the showdown. And, after all that work, the mad lad pulled it off:
The final run is impossible not to hold your breath for, as RathGames literally counts out the time until his death—given a few generous extra seconds by a stroke of luck: "Yes! Oh my god! That's it, dude, that's it!" He all but roars.
While RathGames might be on his lonesome in material help, in terms of moral support he's far from solo—RathGames leaves the instance to find an entire crowd of carefully-lined up mounts there to salute him. "I cannot load all of you," he notes, through audible tears, "and I'm running at three frames per second. Thank you for being here for this."
This achievement is, genuinely, staggering. Susano is not a boss you're meant to fight on your own—not even with a 110% boost to your damage at the highest possible level from two different echo buffs, meant to give struggling parties of eight players an edge.
A 50 million gil research bounty, weeks of grinding, surviving a set of patch notes that could've brought it all crumbling down, and a race against a 14-second timer before an unavoidable death. There'll be more bosses like Susano, and I fear Solo Only will eventually hit a wall he can't climb—but for now, to borrow a quote from the boss he just killed: "Resilient souls, I salute you."
