What a pretty little girl. I do like 'em pretty! But look at this boy, he's even prettier!
Ultros is a downloadable content monster along with Typhon in Final Fantasy XIII-2 in the match, "Uninvited Invertebrate". Being part of post-launch content, his stats are not listed in the official guides.
Stats[]
- ↑ Perfect Cinematic Bonus
Battle[]
Frost Breath.
During the first battle phase, Ultros uses Octopus Ink for low damage and Slow and Curse. His basic attack hits for low damage, and his most powerful attack, Frost Breath, is spread across a wide angle. If the party is far from Ultros, his Frost Breath attack does small damage, but can hit multiple times if the position allows him to do so. Ultros is susceptible to Poison and other debuffs.
When Ultros hits half HP, he will summon Typhon through a cutscene and be restored to full health. In addition to his attacks, Ultros will bestow Typhon with Bravery and Faith, Protect and Shell, Veil and Vigilance, and Haste and Enfire.
When Typhon loses motivation, Ultros will dedicate himself to removing his status ailments and restoring Typhon's HP, bringing him back into the fight. At this point, Ultros temporarily becomes immune to all status ailments and gains a 200% stagger point, with his chain resistance dropping to 85. Despite this, he will never fall below 1 HP, and Typhon will fully restore his HP if he is damaged significantly. However, it can still be beneficial to quickly stagger Ultros at this stage, as he cannot remove status effects on Typhon during stagger, leaving him very vulnerable.
Ultros using his ink to run away.
When Typhon is defeated, Ultros attempts to run away, but Serah and Noel combine their attacks to fry Ultros by means of Cinematic Action. Achieving the "Perfect" score from the Cinematic Action bestows Ultros's summon crystal to the player.
Strategy[]
Battle with Ultros.
In the first battle, it is recommended to damage Ultros by means of Relentless Assault and Cerberus paradigms. Ultros is for the most part an easy opponent, as his attacks during the first phase are not life-threatening. If the player is leveled enough they can easily cripple Ultros's HP via Poison.
When the second phase starts, Ultros becomes dangerous, not because his powers grow, but because he becomes the biggest annoyance. The player must focus on Typhon, and since Typhon will be buffed for most of the fight, the player should do the same, as well as attack and heal constantly.
A party with maxed out Crystarium will be crucial, as well as using a strong Paradigm Pack of COM/RAV/SYN monsters. (Saboteurs are useless.) Equipping Serah and Noel with 100% Dispel resist can ease recovery and rebuffing after Typhon uses Snort. It is not worth giving Resist Dispel to a monster, as unless the resistance is 100%, it will not work.
Useful paradigms include:
- Cerberus-X (COM/COM/COM)
- Tri-Disaster-X (RAV/RAV/RAV)
- Supernatural (SYN/RAV/SYN)
- Convalescence (MED/MED/SYN)
- Malevolence (RAV/RAV/SYN)
- (SEN/SEN/ANY)
Starting the battle in Cerberus-X with everyone attacking Typhon, the party can shift to SYN/RAV/SYN to buff the team and do some slight damage to the stagger bar. The aim is to build chain on Typhon but not stagger him. Healing and protection paradigms should be used when needed; the party need their buffs up and to build Typhon's chain slowly. Typhon loses motivation when he runs out of buffs. This places every debuff on him, and will cause Ultros to come to his aid to remove them over time. When he loses motivation, there are a couple options the party can take. (If Typhon used Snort, the party must remove Daze.)
- The party could quickly stagger Ultros (once he begins to aid Typhon, his chain resistance drops and stagger point becomes 200%) via Tri-Disaster-X, and continue to use it to stagger and raise the chain gauge on Typhon to very high or max (RAV/RAV/SYN can be used when the team needs Faith/Bravery/Enthunder). They can then switch to Cerberus-X and beat him down. Feral Links are helpful. This option is the better choice if the party can stagger Ultros before he removes useful debuffs from Typhon, and can defeat him in the first stagger.
- The other option is to go for Typhon and ignore Ultros, using the same paradigms and Feral Links as needed. This strategy may take a couple staggers to kill him, but might be more impactful if the party cannot stagger Ultros before he removes Imperil from Typhon (as well as Deprotect and Deshell before that).
To ensure that the Synergist gives Enthunder over Enfire, which is useful for both Typhon and Ultros, the party can use Cerberus-X to start the fight, and once all characters have attacked Typhon, the AI Synergist will use Enthunder (as long as Typhon's resistances are revealed).
Paradigm Pack[]
Ultros is a Synergist, and like many other Coliseum monsters, has six ATB gauge segments and his level caps at 13. While his stats are impressive, his skillset is not, for he only learns Protect, Shell and Endless Blessings. The player would need to make many infusions for Ultros to get more abilities; this can be an advantage, as the player can customize him to their liking.
Octopus Ink.
Ultros's Magic stat can potentially exceed 1,000, making his Feral Link powerful: Octopus Ink causes Magic-based damage and attempts to apply Curse, Pain, and Slow—a status ailment unavailable as a spell—on a group of foes. He has has Feral, Surge but not Feral Fatigue, meaning the moment his Feral Link gauge fills he is bestowed with Bravery, Faith, Vigilance, Veil, Protect, Shell, and Haste.
Ultros is a slow caster and sometimes suffers from repositioning issues, slowing him down further. However, the player is free to customize his skillset. One build is to give him all the defense-oriented buffs, as he is the only monster to have Defense Maintenance II, a passive ability that lengthens defensive buff duration. The player can also guarantee Bravega and Faithga if those are the only other spells one teaches him, or guarantee that he casts the longer-lasting single-target versions if one teaches him only those.
Monster stats[]
Abilities[]
| Ability | Level | Type | Infuse |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protect | Initial | Command | |
| Defense Maintenance II | Initial | Passive | |
| Feral Surge | Initial | Passive | |
| Shell | 5 | Command | |
| First Strike | 6 | Passive | |
| Auto-Veil | 10 | Passive | |
| Endless Blessings | 11 | Command | |
| Random: Nullify Ice | 12 | Passive | |
| Magic: +20% | 13 | Passive |
Crystarium[]
- Legend
- Green – HP
- Red – Strength
- Purple – Magic
Other appearances[]
Final Fantasy Portal App[]
Ultros and Typhon from Final Fantasy XIII-2 appear as Triple Triad cards.
Behind the scenes[]
Ultros in Final Fantasy XIII-2 is based on the recurring comic relief boss Ultros from Final Fantasy VI. His dialogue paraphrases things he said throughout Final Fantasy VI:
- "Have I been a mean octopus?" is what he says in the first battle, "Does that make me a bad octopus?"
- "Ink and run" is what he says in the second battle with him when he's defeated, "Well, kids, I hate to ink and run... but I AM an octopus!"
- "So sorry, so sorry!" is what he says in the third battle with him after he casts status buffs on himself, "I know what you're thinking... "Man, that was cheap!" Sorry, so sorry!"
- "Mr. Typhon, come on down" and "He's not so great with words, but his strength'll blow you away!" is what Ultros says in the fourth battle with him when he brings Typhon into the fight.
Ultros's personal running gags are seen in his introduction: his love for pretty girls, telling horrible jokes, and hatred of "muscle heads".
Despite referring to himself as an octopus, Ultros only has seven tentacles.
Gallery[]
Etymology[]
In Greek mythology, Orthrus or Orthus was, according to the mythographer Apollodorus, a two-headed dog who guarded Geryon's cattle and was killed by Heracles. He was the offspring of the monsters Echidna and Typhon, and the brother of Cerberus, who was also a multi-headed guard dog.
The Orthros of Final Fantasy has no connection with the mythical Orthros, save for their link to Typhon, which in the Greek myth was the father of Orthros and Cerberus.