Lucrezia steamrolls FF14 Patch 7.4 world-first — but DDOS drama still stings

Lucrezia’s clear makes the Arcadion Heavyweight world-first feel settled – despite network chaos

This one cut through the usual world-first drama: Japanese team Lucrezia finished Final Fantasy XIV’s Patch 7.4 Arcadion Heavyweight Division well over an hour ahead of the next team, claiming their third victory in the Dawntrail raid series. That gap matters – it turns what could be a contested finish into a clear statement: Lucrezia knew this fight better, practiced smarter, and executed cleaner than the field, even while a wave of DDOS-related disconnects continued to dog several North American competitors.

• Lucrezia dominated – more than an hour lead and a third Dawntrail raid win.
• Patch 7.4’s Heavyweight Division leaned hard into pro-wrestling spectacle and left memorable encounters.
• DDOS instability affected North American runs and remains an unresolved problem for competitive raiding.
• Transparency helped: most top teams streamed their attempts live, reinforcing Lucrezia’s legitimacy.

Why this result actually matters

This caught my attention because world-first races in FF14 are as much about mental endurance and information management as raw mechanical skill. When a team posts a lead of more than an hour, it’s not a fluke — it’s a reflection of steady progress, strategy refinement, and the ability to adapt under pressure. Lucrezia’s clean win is the kind of outcome that reduces argument: their streams and play showed repeatable approaches rather than a one-off lucky pull.

Breaking down the finish: M12S and the two-stage fury

The Heavyweight finale leaned into spectacle. The M12S encounter starts with a cinematic first phase and then — in classic FF14 fashion — flips into a second stage where a Lindwyrm wraps itself around a humanoid figure that spawns multiple clones. Those clones tether to specific players to unleash devastating coordinated attacks, which is exactly the kind of precise execution test that separates the good teams from the great. Lucrezia’s final pulls showed crisp assignment discipline and recovery plans that made the second stage look tidy rather than chaotic. If you want the dramatic beat, the climactic moments land around the 4:33:00 mark of the recorded run for anyone digging through the VODs.

The raid’s flavor: pro-wrestling never looked so weird

Patch 7.4 leaned into a pro-wrestling-as-theatre angle and it paid off in memorable boss design. From idol-act Honey B Lovely to the gundam-catboy Howling Blade, even the more eyebrow-raising set pieces — the raid’s self-described “dominatrix” and a pair of surfer bros who tag-team with fire and water attacks — fit the over-the-top tone. That thematic risk makes encounters more than just mechanical hurdles; they’re moments players will quote and cosplay for months. It’s a creative win for Square Enix’s encounter designers.

DDOS: the recurring cloud over competitive raiding

But this patch’s world-first didn’t play out in a vacuum. Square Enix has repeatedly acknowledged “network technical difficulties caused by DDOS attacks” — most recently on Tuesday, January 6 around the savage raid release — and those outages clearly skewed the competitive picture for North American teams. Disconnects are simply unfair in a race that rewards uninterrupted practice and attempt windows. Streaming helped maintain transparency — most top teams were live, reducing room for cheating allegations — but it doesn’t fix the underlying infrastructure problem. The recurring nature of these attacks means tournament organizers and Square Enix need better mitigation plans if they want high-stakes raiding to be credible across regions.

What this means going forward

Lucrezia’s win cements them as the dominant force in Dawntrail’s raid trilogy. For players, this race reinforces a couple predictable truths: streaming cultivates trust and shared learning, and knowledge often outpaces brute force — when strategies are visible on the internet, the more prepared teams convert faster. For Square Enix and the community, the takeaway is uglier: ongoing DDOS problems still threaten fairness. If you care about competitive raiding, this should be a moment to push for technical fixes or revised schedules that protect players across time zones.

TL;DR

Lucrezia won the FF14 Patch 7.4 Arcadion Heavyweight world-first by a decisive margin, proving their mastery over the two-stage M12S finale and the raid’s theatrical design. That victory is legitimate — livestreams removed much of the usual suspicion — but persistent DDOS disconnects affecting North American teams remain an unresolved stain on the race’s fairness.