Absolute Virtue

Absolute Virtue is an Aern High Notorious Monster in Final Fantasy XI and is among the hardest enemies in the game. He has a job class of Dragoon. Since its introduction, Absolute Virtue has toppled many players, as its ability to use multiple two-hour abilities over and over again raised questions on if the monster was possible to defeat by even the most seasoned of players. Before updates, no party in any server was known to have legitimately defeated Absolute Virtue, even after 18+ hours of fighting it.

In 2008, the development team released a video with hints on how to defeat Absolute Virtue. The video appears to suggest that using two-hour abilities will somehow block Absolute Virtue's use of them. Filled with jump-cuts and often zooming in at the dialogue box as if to show players something important, the video was heavily criticized for being too vague and not providing adequate hints on how to defeat the monster.

Absolute Virtue is actually the second enemy in a two-monster relay (with the Jailer of Love), both of which must be vanquished in under 120 minutes. At one time the Jailer itself was somewhat of an enigma, but since the time limit was placed on the fight its powers have been significantly lowered, and is often taken down in the first 10 minutes of the encounter. Time, it seems, does not prove to be much help in defeating Absolute Virtue regardless.



After a patch was released in response to the news reports filed against the marathon kill attempts of comparable foe Pandemonium Warden, Absolute Virtue now only has some 70,000 HP, less than other Notorious Monsters in the game. What makes Absolute Virtue so difficult though is its unique way to stack multiple two-hour abilities (essentially Final Fantasy XI's Job System's strongest, most devastating techniques available to players), one after another. One such ability, Benediction, the White Mage two-hour, is especially frustrating, as it will heal Absolute Virtue's HP to full instantaneously at any point in the conflict, as well as remove its negative status effects.

Absolute Virtue is rumored to have caused a number of players to quit the game on the spot. In respect to the first legitimate, organized attempt (during which its two-hours were accidentally locked, and fighting had gone on for some 30 hours), one well-placed Benediction is likely to blame for one instance of this.

In regard to rewards, several of Absolute Virtue's drops are fittingly desirable. Consequently, during brief spans of time, Absolute Virtue became susceptible to various means of killing via crude exploitation of terrain and the popular "Dark Knight Zerg" strategy (right after the patch) used on many other monsters in the game. The first wave of kills by illegitimate means took place via use of a terrain exploit, coined the "Wall of Justice", wherein players positioned themselves behind a wall that had unique programming enabling them to attack Absolute Virtue but preventing the opposite. However, game masters decided that users of this exploit were to be permanently banned from play, and the wall was quickly re-coded without mention in update notes.

Because of the patch and the ongoing level cap increases, Absolute Virtue has been proven to have been defeated legitimately. Despite the eventual limit of Lv.99 being released, enthusiasm for defeating the monster is still apparent, as even though its drops will no longer be the among the greatest, they are still highly useful for those progressing in level.