Bhunivelze (boss)

Bhunivelze is the final boss of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.

Battle
The fight consists of four phases.

1st Phase
Bhunivelze will start casting Doom on the player (this is the only time he will do it). He can use his scythe as a boomerang that will deal more hits if Lightning is too far away. If she is next to Bhunivelze, he will toss her away with his scythe. He will also cast periodically Almagest. When near loss, Bhunivelze will cast Ruinga and Giga-Graviton back-to-back and sometimes simultaneously. He often Debraves and Defaiths too.

2nd Phase
Bhunivelze adopts his bird-like form. As a starting attack, he will summon three Monads that follow Lightning. When he has the chance to do it, he can use Wings of Destruction to explode these Monads. The attack itself inflicts damage, but can be reduced by destroying the Monads first. He can shift between four spirits: Fire, Wind, Ice and Thunder. This grants him the En- status. When in one of them, he will cast many times the respective tier 2 (-ra) elemental spell. When Lightning is too far away and he has most of the half HP lost, he will use randomly Genethliac Hymn, making himself resistant to all kind of damage and summoning random thunders across the stage. After this, he will throw the giant blue orb he charged for a long time via Dancing Mad. After that he can either summon new Monads or change his elemental affinities.

3rd Phase
Bhunivelze returns to his familiar appearance and gains more HP. He also gains several new abilities that deal great damage, including Ultima, Divine Punishment, and Hypernova. He uses his scythe more often and with great violence. He can launch Lightning if catches her off-guard, and can often employ Divine Punishment as a finisher. Divine Punishment comes at any time. When far from Lightning, he can either toss his scythe with violence or cast Ultima. When next to Bhunivelze, he will toss his scythe with a yo-yo fashion across a wide area. Hypernova is his strongest attack and can cast it when near loss. This works similarly to Jet Bahamut's Giga/Tera/Exa Flare, as the player won't be allowed to perform any action during the cinematic. When staggered he won't do anything in particular.

Final Phase
He will fall down, losing his scythe in the act, but will eventually kneel and half of the stage folds vertically. He will cast Disaster and Cataclysm randomly, being this last one the most dangerous because of the number of hits. Divine Efflux is his most used ability. Damnatio Memoriae is his strongest attack this time: First he will fire a giant spell to Lightning, and she is launched. Then, he bombards her with Ruin spells. Heartless Angel comes at any time, and will reduce Lightning's HP to 1 via two Eden minions that surround her for 10 seconds. Overclock can be a great alternative as it stops Bhunivelze from casting hazardous spells like Heartless Angel or Damnatio Memoriae.

Trivia

 * Some of Bhunivelze's abilities allude to previous Final Fantasy games:
 * Almagest originally comes from Final Fantasy V and is used by Neo-Exdeath.
 * Dancing Mad is Kefka Palazzo's final battle theme in Final Fantasy VI and the visual effects seen when the giant sphere hits the ground resemble Forsaken.
 * Wings of Destruction can be a synonym of Havoc Wing, a lethal ability also used by Kefka.
 * Heartless Angel is originally used by Kefka.
 * Hypenova can be considered as a much stronger version of Safer∙Sephiroth's Supernova. Hypernova's animation resembles the animation of Supernova from the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VII.
 * Divine Efflux resembles Orphan's Requiem from Final Fantasy XIII: both have the appearance of narrow beams, and are fired through the eyes.
 * Divine Punishment comes originally from Dissidia Final Fantasy and is used by Chaos. Due to the visual effects and the number of hits, it can be affirmed that Chaos's version is the stronger one.
 * If Bhunivelze is encountered on a new game+ and the extra day has been unlocked, he becomes Bhunivelze+. In his + form he has much more health and has only two phases
 * Phase one is a combination of the first three forms of the normal Bhunivelze with one massive hp bar for all of it. In this phase, he can freely switch between any of the forms that this new phase encompases.
 * Phase two is identical to phase four of the ordinary Bhunivelze, other than that it now has a significantly higher hp and can cast doom in phase four as soon as the phase begins.