Shiva’s Dominant (or Shiva Dominant, or just Shiva) is a boss battle in Final Fantasy 16 (FF16). You, as Clive, encounter Shiva’s Dominant in the Nysa Defile desert during the Chance Encounter quest. It’s the longest and most challenging fight in the game so far.
At this point in the game, Clive is still a member of an Imperial unit known as The Bastards, so you’re accompanied by Tiamat and another branded soldier for this battle. You’re still outnumbered, though, as Shiva’s Dominant is guarded by a squad of Ironblood soldiers.
How to defeat Shiva Dominant in Final Fantasy 16
First of all, you should find a Stoneskin Tonic and a Strength Tonic on the path leading to the Shiva boss fight, so I’d recommend taking both of those when the battle starts. Don’t worry about the Ironbloods, your Imperial allies will quickly take care of them. Instead, focus on Shiva’s Dominant and, in particular, on evading her attacks.
In general, I found it best to keep my distance, hitting her with magic attacks until she charged at me, then using combos and Eikon abilities while she recovered from her charge. This way both her charge attack and her projectile attacks are much easier to avoid. You don’t even need to evade, you can just side-step them.
Related: All voice actors for Final Fantasy 16: Full cast list
When you do take the opportunity to attack her at close quarters, look out for ice spreading across the ground around her. This means that she’s about to unleash a powerful area-of-effect (AoE) attack that you should quickly evade away from.
Whenever you manage to stagger her, hit her with Eikon abilities if you can, and with lots of combos. It’s worth noting that mid-air combos do a little more damage than those delivered with your feet on the ground, so try to jump before bashing the attack button.
Once she’s down to below 50% health, Shiva’s Dominant gets some more powerful attacks. First, there’s Blizzaga which plunges numerous columns of ice onto the battlefield. You get plenty of warning as to where they’re going to hit though, so evade out of the way. You can keep hitting her with magic attacks while she casts this.
You’ll also now notice icy spots all over the place from now on, and you should avoid those, as ice magic will inevitably rain down onto them. Shiva’s Dominant also gets two new long area-of-effect attacks, but you get plenty of warning for these, so it’s usually easy to side-step or evade. Just remember that the more powerful of the two has two waves, and can actually steer and home in on you a bit.
Once you defeat Shiva’s Dominant, Clive will realize he’s seen her somewhere before, and both Benedikta and Cid will show up.
