Key Takeaway
You’ll find the Notorious Mark known as the Bomb King in the Holy Empire of Sanbreque—within an isolated area called the Crock. The closest obelisk to the Crock is the one in the Dragon’s Aery. From there, head south into the Imperial Chase region and then turn north through a wooded path up ahead.
Keep in mind that you can’t access the Crock until you start the main quest Things Fall Apart.
When you get the Weird Science side quest that mentions the Bomb King hunt in Final Fantasy 16, you won’t be able to chase down this infernal monarch just yet—you must first progress a bit more in the main quest. Once you do, you can get to this Notorious Mark.
Table Of Contents
Where to Find the Bomb King
The reminder text for the Weird Science side quest makes it clear that the Bomb King is ruling from the Holy Empire of Sanbreque’s area called the Crock. However, you can’t get to the Crock (or the Imperial Chase area) until you reach the main quest Things Fall Apart.
Once you begin the aforementioned main quest, the area south of the Dragon’s Aery becomes accessible. For the quickest way to the Crock, start from the Dragon’s Aery obelisk and go southwest. To the south, there’s a stone wall with an opening that leads into the Imperial Chase.
While venturing through the Imperial Chase, keep your eyes trained to the north so that you can spot the forest trail that leads up to the Crock. The level 33 Bomb King is waiting within some ruins. For reference, check out the image above.
How to Beat the Bomb King
The Bomb King is one of the few Notorious Marks that doesn’t have a Will Gauge. As a result, you can’t stagger it—but you can knock it down with Eikon abilities! With this in mind, you should equip abilities that focus on dealing damage instead of those designed to stagger enemies.
When it comes to the Bomb King’s attacks, there are some explosive maneuvers of which you need to be wary.
- Basic Fireballs: These tiny flaming orbs get shot at you between bigger attacks. They don’t deal much damage and can be dodged somewhat easily.
- Melee: Sometimes, the Bomb King and its minions try to headbutt or charge at you for rather pathetic assaults. These don’t hurt much but are hard to see coming.
- Coronation: When you see this ability’s name appear, the Bomb King is about to launch a large fireball at you. Despite being a pretty strong attack, you can sidestep this one without much issue by walking or dodging to the left or right.
Note- Witan: This ability’s name on the screen heralds a fiery slam attack from this Notorious Mark. You can clearly see the area of impact before the ground pound occurs, so stay away from it! Also, this ability summons one or more purple clones of the Bomb King (named Petit Purobolos) that begin attacking you.
Note- King’s Justice: Yet another minion-summoning ability! When you see this one’s name appear, get ready for one or more Bombs to join the fray: dark red ones named Bomb Babes.
Both Petit Purobolos and Bomb Babes have small health bars—so you can take them out fairly fast. However, these minions explode once their health bars get low (like generic Bomb enemies), so make sure to stay away from them when you see their burning bodies expanding! Thankfully, if you defeat them before they start to expand, they won’t explode.
WarningWhen we were fighting this Notorious Mark, we found that high-damage and AoE (area of effect) abilities were the best for murdering this monarch. Flames of Rebirth (Phoenix), Aerial Blast (Garuda), Gigaflare (Bahamut), and Flare Breath (Bahamut) are all helpful when trying to hurt this enemy and its minions.
If timed well, you can use the above-mentioned abilities to take out all of the summoned foes just after their spawn. What’s more, these high-impact abilities may temporarily knock down the Bomb King and its minions. Use such windows of opportunity to land as many risk-free hits as you can.
The Bomb King Hunt Rewards
You’ll get some nice goods for completing the Bomb King hunt—the best of which is the Bomb Ember: a unique crafting material.
- 1,000 Experience
- 65 Ability Points
- 12,150 Gil
- 20 Renown
- 1 Bomb Ember
Fighting a force of firework-like fiends is dangerous but worth the trouble. After you put out these furious flames, the Bomb Ember reward gets you one step closer to crafting Excalibur. At this point in Final Fantasy 16, Excalibur is one of the best swords—so it’s worth crafting to increase Clive’s damage output. Use this legendary armament to cut down tougher and tougher foes. The sharper the blade, the swifter the battles!
