Final Fantasy 16 Grimalkin Guide [Moves & Build]

Grimalkin is a Notorious Mark in the Cattery close to the Jaw Obelisk. This Notorious Mark is a Level 32 C-tier boss with relatively predictable moves. Here’s my complete guide, including the location, recommended abilities and items, and how to defeat the Mark.

Grimalkin Location

1. Grimalkin is located in the Cattery. But before that, you must complete the “Into the Darkness” Main Quest and accept the “Out of the Shadow” Main Quest. This is when the hunt will become unlocked.
2. After that, travel to the Jaw Obelisk in the Dhalmekian Republic. From here, go North and follow the trail until it forks into two paths, one going East and the other going North.
3. Take the East trail from here, and you’ll enter the Sickle.
4. Go South, and you’ll enter the Cattery. Keep going, and you’ll find Grimalkin.

Initially, Grimalkin will be standing on top of a rocky platform, and you won’t be able to fight it. Instead, you’ll need to fight waves of five Wild Nakks. These can be seen in the arena even before the fight starts.

The arena is quite limited, surrounded by rocky walls all around. There are no other obstacles, however. If you can stay in the middle of the arena, you’ll be done with this fight in no time.

Grimalkin Moves

Grimalkin has a minimal move pool. How the fight plays out makes this Notorious Mark more challenging than other C-rank Marks. None of its moves are named.

Here is Grimalkin’s complete move pool:

1. Wild Nakks: Before taking on Grimalkin, you must deal with a few Wild Nakks. These come in five waves, and they will only try to bite you or hit you with melee attacks. The melee attacks may ignore Evasions. However, dodging isn’t your strategy anyway.
2. Pound: Grimalkin will approach you at close range, dealing contact damage.
3. Lunge: Grimalkin will jump at you from a distance, dealing contact damage.
4. Savage: The boss will unleash multiple swipes and strikes that last a while, dealing tons of burst damage. This move only becomes available during the second phase.

All of these moves are close-range attacks except for Lunge, which is a long-range attack.

How To Defeat Grimalkin

Defeating Grimalkin is trivial as it’s a C-tier Notorious Mark. Here’s how you should go about defeating Grimalkin:

1. First, I highly recommend reaching at least Level 30. You will typically have reached this level in Final Fantasy 16. To grind EXP, I recommend taking down other low-rank Notorious Marks in another region.
2. Before you enter the fight, you’ll need to fight the Wild Nakks.
3. I highly suggest building Eikon abilities with AoE damage, such as Rising Flames, Scarlet Cyclone, Aerial Blast, Wicked Wheel, Thunderstorm, and Lightning Rod.
4. Be sure to dodge the Wild Nakks’ attacks and avoid losing much of your HP ahead of the battle. For this purpose, Flames of Rebirth is perfect, as it grants you some HP regeneration.
5. When fighting Grimalkin, learn to anticipate and evade attacks before you get hit.
6. This boss has a lengthy recovery period between attacks. Hence, use your Eikon Abilities and Eikonic Feats in between.
7. When it reaches its second phase after losing half of its HP, you should watch out for the Savage attack.
8. Make use of parrying. This lets you counter Grimalkin’s attacks with some of your attacks.
9. This works best against Savage. But you can also use it against its Pound and Lunge attacks.

My Grimalkin Build

When you reach Grimalkin in the main story, you will have unlocked all of the Eikons except Bahamut, Shiva, and Odin. 

I highly recommend using the Garuda, Phoenix, and Ramuh Eikon abilities for this fight. To help make the fight against Grimalkin a short one, I would suggest the following Eikonic Feats:

• Phoenix Shift: You close the distance between yourself and Grimalkin, being able to deal damage during the dash.
• Deadly Embrace: Grab the enemy and pull it toward yourself. For heavier enemies, Clive will instead be thrown airborne.
• Blind Justice: Create an arena of lightning balls that attach to an enemy, with the targets being decided beforehand. If you hit any of the balls, they will explode and deal damage.

These Eikonic Feats are incredible for single-target damage. Phoenix Shift is perfect for dashing and quickly dealing damage while dodging Grimalkin’s attacks. Deadly Embrace, however, is ideal for repositioning and dealing massive amounts of damage to Grimalkin.

Finally, I suggest building Blind Justice, as this Eikonic Feat can lock onto a single enemy several times and deal immense burst damage.

For the weapon, at this point in the game, you’ll have access to the Enhancer, which you can buy at Charon’s Toll when you first begin the “Out of the Shadow” Main Quest. The Grindstone is an excellent alternative, but it will require some crafting and grinding for materials.

As for the armor, you will have already unlocked the Hunter’s Waistcloth, which grants a decent bit of defense and HP. A good alternative is the Platinum Belt, which you will unlock after finishing the “Fire and Ice” quest.

Since most of Grimalkin’s melee attacks are evadable, the Ring of Timely Focus will be helpful here. You can also opt for the Ring of Timely Evasion, which will automatically evade the attacks.

Grimalkin Rewards

For defeating Grimalkin, you receive the following spoils:

• 500 EXP.
• 45 Ability Points.
• Grimalkin Hide.

Additionally, you receive the following rewards for completing the hunt:

• 6,100 Gil.
• 10 Renown.

My Experience With Grimalkin Fight

Grimalkin is a C-tier Level 32 Notorious Mark that you can find in the Cattery in the Dhalmekian Republic. Before you fight Grimalkin, you must fight a wave of five Wild Nakks with AoE Eikon abilities.

Grimalkin is relatively easy to defeat, provided you have the Eikonic Feats. In my experience, you should be using Phoenix Shift, Deadly Embrace, and Blind Justice to deal massive amounts of single-target damage to Grimalkin.

Check out our other hunt guides:

• Final Fantasy 16 Muddy Murderer Guide.
• FF16 Belphegor Strategy Guide.
• Final Fantasy 16 All Hunt Locations.