Final Fantasy VI Bosses

The battle against Ifrit and, if you allow it, Shiva, is not your classic battle of good vs. evil. Nay, two scared, dying members of an abused race turn like a dog in a corner on whoever comes near them. Ifrit, the fire Esper, and Shiva, the ice Esper... eternal counterparts.

Ifrit is the fire Djinni. Next to a physical attack, he performs Fire and Fira spells and a deadly Blaze attack that ignores Reflect Rings and Runic blade alike. If provoked by three Magic spells from you, he will charge up for a massive Firaga attack, which you'll want to avoid at all costs if you're not fully protected from the spell by Reflect Rings, Celes' Runic, or Gau's possible inherent Fire-elemental absorption.

Shiva, the Ice Queen, will come at you with the more basic Blizzard and Blizzara spells, on occasion switching on performing a nasty Snowstorm attack which, while not as strong, penetrates Reflect Rings and Runic. If damaged she can be quick to retort with a Blizzard spell, and when hit three times with a Magic spell herself she will cast a Reflect spell on one of your characters, which will send any Blizzard and Blizzara spell she will cast on you back at her, healing her.

The trick here is to defeat one of them. If this happens, the Espers will realize they're not fighting someone coming for their death and they will sense Ramuh's soul near you. However, you can't just focus on one just like that, as you will only fight one at a time. Every time the magical, behind-the-scenes bit 3 reaches an amount of 5, they'll switch in for the other. The quickest approach may lie in taking Ifrit down before he can call on Shiva, but that may not always be possible. Bit 3 is incremented when the Esper is damaged by any means or the Magic skill is used on them (even if it doesn't actually damage them). Their Defenses are through the roof, much like most opponents you've faced so far. You know how to deal with that, although these magical beasts also take no damage from elemental magic unless it's their own element (which they'll absorb) or their weakness.

So, you can forget about your Magic skill. If you're sure you won't be able to pull off a Blitzkrieg against Ifrit anyway, you might want to start the battle off with a Slow spell if you have it, else it's a wasted turn as it increments bit 3. Drill/Chainsaw does great damage, especially when backed up with a Gigas Glove. Celes can cast a Blizzard spell (Runic, with frequent counter-spells, doesn't work as well as you'd think and is entirely redundant if you are fully protected by Reflect Rings). Sabin can Raging Fist Ifrit and perform Rising Phoenix when Shiva's around. Locke has no business being a thief in this battle, and might as well grab the Icebrand against Ifrit (he might pull off the random Blizzard spell) and the Flametongue against Shiva (or plain cast the Fire spell if he knows it). Cyan's Fang is the only thing he can do with some success, useless cretin that he is. Gau's irresponsible nature makes him a bit untrustworthy here. With other characters backing him up, the wisest course of action will probably be Zaghrem, as it is non-elemental, magical damage against both targets.

Along with the violence, summoning Kirin to aid you throughout the battle and casting a lot of Cure spells is a probably a great idea as you may not have Reflect Rings here. The Runic blade, more often than not, catches an enemy Blizzard while letting the Blizzara spell slip by. Expand Full Strategy

The battle against Inferno is a rather simple one, although it is frustrating that the main body and the blades don't share elemental properties. As you would expect, the main body is the one with all the fancy spells and with the most HP.

Rahu is the left blade, and it just attacks physically with Battle and !Rapier. Once you destroy it, it'll take 20 seconds to grow back. Ketu, the right blade, is a tad meaner than Rahu; next to Battle, it also uses Metal Cutter, the magical non-elemental attack that's as strong as a level 3 spell. Like Rahu, it grows back 20 seconds after you destroy it.

Inferno uses a barrage of magical and mostly elemental attacks, such as Thundara, Atomic Rays, Shockwave, and Gigavolt. When Inferno has both blades, it will use Delta Attack every 30 seconds. Delta Attack is still an unblockable attack that sets Petrify, so watch out for it. When Inferno has only one blade, it will only use Thundaga and Meteor spells (Meteor is especially nasty). The first time you destroy both blades, Inferno will use Magitek Barrier to set both Safe and Reflect on itself. Every time you damage Inferno, it may respond with an annoying !Sobat attack.

Your strategy is simple. You have no business caring about Rahu and Ketu whatsoever. Cast Slowga at the start of the battle and cast Stop spells on both blades to make sure they are out of the action for a while. Cast Hastega and summon Zona Seeker, or call out a Mighty Guard attack if Strago is around. Now, focus all your offensive prowess on the main body. Let's not bother with Meteor and Magitek Barrier.

The biggest weakness of Inferno is the Thundaga spell. It's an incredibly strong Lightning-elemental spell you can easily target to hurt Inferno exclusively (it'll heal Rahu if you multi-target it), and one or more of your characters should be able to cast it with considerable power. If Shadow and/or Gogo is around, you can have him/it chuck a few Thunder Blades at the infernal machine for large amounts of damage. Expand Full Strategy

Kaiser Dragon is the ultimate victory of Final Fantasy III (US!) junkies the world over. We knew this thing was lying dormant in the game's code for years. We figured out the highlights of this guy's speech when you could play but Tetris on handheld consoles. We invented this guy's HP loop trick, and all Square-Enix could do was copy it. But we're not smug. Well, not most of us, apparently.

There's basically two phases in this battle. First, you'll have to survive Kaiser's first four lives, during which he'll use attacks according to a particular weakness. By survive, that's all I mean: his HP will replenish with each of these four shifts, so any damage you inflict doesn't count. Second, once he's down to his last life and won't replenish his HP again - this is the part where you attack and stuff - you'll have to stay alive, deal sufficient damage and survive Kaiser Dragon's final Ultima spell.

At the start of the battle, Kaiser Dragon will use Barrier Change to assume an offensive skillset. Here's what he'll use; you can use the attacks listed to determine his weakness at the time:

When weak to Fire-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will randomly use Firaga, Meteor, Flare, Meltdown and will counter 66% of your attacks with Southern Cross on the entire party.

When weak to Ice-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will randomly use Blizzaga spells, Absolute Zero, Avalanche and Northern Cross, and will counter 66% of your attacks with Freezing Dust on a random party member.

When weak to Lightning-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will randomly use Thundaga, Plasma or Gigavolt, and will counter 66% of your attacks with Wave Cannon on the entire party.

When weak to Poison-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will use a combo of Scintillation, Venomist and a Doom attack on its first turn, use a combo of Lullaby, Crypt Dust and Disaster on the second turn and will use Cloudy Heaven on its third turn. It will counter 66% of your attacks with a Bio spell on a random party member.

When weak to Wind-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will randomly use physical attacks, Tornado spells, Aero and Cyclonic, and will counter 66% of your attacks with a Wind Slash attack.

When weak to Holy-elemental attacks:

The first time Kaiser Dragon gets a Holy shift, he'll cast Reflect on a single character and follow with the Reflect ??? attack. Its second turn will be used to cast Protect, Shell and (useless due to Slow immunity) Haste. When Kaiser Dragon has done these things earlier, he'll just attack with physical attacks, Holy spells and the Lv. ? Holy attack. Kaiser Dragon will counter 66% of your attacks with a Hyperdrive attack on a random party member.

When weak to Earth-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will attack ferociously with combinations of physical attacks, every third turn using !Last Breath twice, and will counter 66% of your attacks with a Quake spell.

When weak to Water-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will randomly use Aqua Breath, Tsunami, Flash Rain and El Niño in quick succession, and will counter 66% of your attacks with an Acid Rain attack on a single character.

Some elemental skillsets are more dangerous than others. The Fire-elemental one is nasty because Meteor and Flare are both non-elemental and barrier-piercing; coming from Kaiser Dragon's bloated Magic stat they'll probably kill whatever they hit, so Magic Evasion is your only salvation. Kaiser Dragon's Ice-elemental shift is nasty because Freezing Dust is such a pain; you have no business attacking at this point though, so you shouldn't worry. Quake kills you if you're not floating, doing about 6000 damage to character without elemental affinities for it. Kaiser Dragon's Poison-elemental shift is the worst; if he manages to pull off Cloudy Heaven, your battle is over since, though you need Ribbons equipped, Ribbons will make it so that you can't cure the Zombie status (in this game, immunities work both ways; if you have it despite being immune to it, it's unremovable).

Since Kaiser Dragon's attack pattern depends on its weakness in this phase, you can actually change its attack pattern with the Debilitator Tool. The game checks the elemental weaknesses in a certain order, and the first weakness it finds will be the one which defines Kaiser Dragon's attack type. Look at the elemental-based attack pattern table above; this is the order in which the game checks for elemental weakness. This means that the Fire element is the most dominant one – if Kaiser Dragon's Barrier Change has set a Fire weakness, it can't be changed no matter what weakness the Debilitator sets. On the other hand, Earth is a relatively submissive one, meaning that you have a large chance of changing it. There's hardly ever a guarantee, but the Debilitator might be able to change Kaiser Dragon's code of conduct if you smell Cloudy Heaven approaching, for instance.

Thunder Shields are a blessing. In the elemental shift phase, it'll protect you against all Lightning-elemental attacks and Aqua Breath, and will halve damage done by Fire- and Ice-elemental ones. Afterwards, Lightning Shields will help you against Meltdown spells Kaiser Dragon may cast. Ribbons are also an absolute necessity; without them, Kaiser Dragon's Poison-elemental shift will spell your doom and every Mind Blast attack it's going to regularly use will just murder you. Too bad for set-ups that require both Relic slots (such as successful Dragoons); they have to go in favor of a Ribbon.

Kaiser Dragon's first phase is relatively simple. You'll need to see Kaiser Dragon use Barrier Change five times before you can attack. Any damage you inflict in this first phase won't actually register in its fifth and meaningful life (all your damage will be reset) and it'll only get you nasty counterattacks. So far so good. If a character falls (likely due to Flare, Meteor, Doom or a particularly strong elemental attack on a character not protected from it), revive. Multi-targeted Shell is very important to absorb the multi-target attacks Kaiser Dragon possesses.

Kaiser Dragon's last and true life, after its fifth elemental shift, is simple but brutal. Every 15 ATB intervals, regardless of its normal AI script, it'll have a 2/3 chance of using Heartless Angel, possibly followed by a 1/3 Mind Blast attack. This is where your Ribbons kick in. If you've got Ribbons (or White Capes) equipped, the attack will fail. If you don't, you've lost your battle right there, as you don't have the time to heal.

Kaiser Dragon's normal AI script includes Meltdown spells, Quake spells, Hyperdrive attacks, relatively weak multi-target attacks such as Gale Cut, Flash Rain and Absolute Zero and physical attacks including !Last Breath. If you target Kaiser Dragon with anything, it may use !Last Breath or Revenge Blast as a counter-attack.

If you're wrapped in Thunder Shields, Meltdown should only bother you if the attack also heals Kaiser Dragon (if so: too bad). The nastiness stems from the incredibly fast-paced Kaiser Dragon, Hyperdrive attacks which will kill a target, Revenge Blast attacks which will kill a target and the continuous usage of Heartless Angel, which you need to cure since anytime a Flash Rain or Absolute Zero attack may come around the corner.

You will need Reraise for this fight. It's extremely difficult to track Kaiser Dragon's HP, especially since Libra will provoke counter-attacks. Always value revival over healing and healing over offense, since Kaiser's nastiest attacks are counter-attacks and the one big threat in its random AI script is only single-target. I've found that since you die so often due to Revenge Blast and Hyperdrive, applying things such as Mighty Guard and Hastega are often pointless, as you'll only see it quickly removed in most cases.

Your offense may be a problem, since Kaiser Dragon will only have a single randomly decided weakness when things get serious, and will nullify or absorb the other seven. You can use Libra to check its current weakness; there's a good chance your mages will be able to nail it even when lacking the likes of Flare and Ultima. Kaiser Dragon has above-average Defense and Magic Defense, so barrier-piercing attacks work the best. Particularly damaging combinations are Locke with the Valiant Knife/Master's Scroll and Setzer with Fixed Dice/Master's Scroll, as both will ignore defenses.

In the end, the fight versus Kaiser Dragon is a bit of a luck fight. Either way, you'll need to be tightly prepared with Ribbons, Thunder Shields, and all of the correct spells. But beyond that, if Kaiser Dragon decided to use Cloudy Heaven, or if Meteor connects on the entire party, or if you get the wrong counter at the wrong time, you're screwed. So even though specific potential scenarios might be nigh impossible, it's an entirely doable battle on the whole. Expand Full Strategy

Kefka is vulnerable to Stop, so have Gau use the Alacran and/or Acrophies Rages for best results. Always have Runic in place, as he knows some very powerful spells that can one-hit KO your characters when focused in a single-target blast, regardless of row. Have your other character(s) give it their best shot. Terra's Fire cannot be used with Runic in place so she should focus on her other powers; she can cast Magic when Celes isn't on Runic stand-by or simply wield the Rune Blade to some very nice result. Locke should Attack, Edgar should unload his Auto Crossbow, Sabin relies on good old Aura Cannon, Cyan can use Fang or his fourth Bushido, Flurry, if he has access to it, and that's about it. The battle is slightly anti-climactic when you consider the implications of it, but you'll pull through. Expand Full Strategy

So how does the final boss of Final Fantasy VI do battle? He'll start the battle with that demented little speech of his. Characters that were in the air when you defeated the third tier could land from their attacks before he starts it: That's kinda humorous. His first attack is Heartless Angel, which will reduce all of your characters' HP to 1. After that, it's all about physicals, !Havoc Wing, level 3 spells, and that most annoying of attacks, Trine. !Havoc Wing is his most popular and, in most instances, most powerful attack Kefka will perform.

As soon as Kefka hits 32640 HP, he will become quite a bit meaner. Calling a head into existence, he'll say "The end draws near..." and the screen will start to shake. The next turn, he'll execute the Forsaken attack. Forsaken is a multi-target magical non-elemental attack that, in terms of pure power, is the strongest attack in the game. It lacks the barrier-piercing ability, however, so sufficient Magic Defense should ensure that your characters all survive a single Forsaken slaughter. After this is completed, Kefka will use two attacks in two turns: !Havoc Wing, Trine, or Revenger. Revenger is also a new attack: it's like a multi-target Dispel that only removes positive status ailments. It removes Clear, Image, Regen, Haste, Shell, Safe, Reflect, Life 3, and Float. After those two turns, Kefka will once again start to charge up for Forsaken.

2560 HP later (at 30080 HP), Kefka will start employing a horrible omni-counter: For every attack directed at him, he may counter with either Battle or Hyperdrive. Hyperdrive is an extremely strong attack that's both unblockable and barrier-piercing, so any character struck by it is likely to die unless he or she was really power-leveled. At 10240 HP, this Hyperdrive counter even changes into an Ultima spell, which is obviously even worse, as it's fairly stronger than Hyperdrive, though the power is cut since it targets every character. Keep in mind that Ultima may be absorbed by a Runic blade. The Hyperdrive and Ultima counters are not employed when Kefka is charging for Forsaken. This is vital information, as, quite frankly, Kefka's counters are what make him a mean opponent. The last 'stage' of Kefka's battle tactic is when he hits 7680 HP, which is when he just charges up for Forsaken, uses it, cast a Meteor spell, and charges up for Forsaken again. Meteor is especially troublesome since it cannot be absorbed by a Runic blade. Kefka has a lot of strong spells that will fly past all your fancy elemental protection. The trick here is to keep reviving characters that die (I find this is mostly due to !Havoc Wing attacks) and try to avoid being hit by Hyperdrive and Ultima as much as possible. If you can employ the Runic skill, both attacks are vulnerable to its powers, so take advantage of that. If not, I suggest you only attack when Kefka is charging for Forsaken.

Locke should definitely try to Steal the Megalixir Kefka possesses; it's a great way to heal up after a Heartless Angel attack. Mog should Jump as usual; he's a real asset in this battle since, in addition to doing a lot of damage, his 255 Defense means that he will be practically immune to !Havoc Wing. The same goes for Gau. The best Rages for him are the pure offensive ones. Stray Cat, possibly paired with a Sniper or Man-Eater, will really hurt Kefka. Edgar should do nothing but Jump. If you've taken Cyan up there, try to reach Tempest. Quick is a real asset to Cyan in this battle, as it is in all. For Setzer, it's Fixed Dice, which should be obvious. Shadow should first empty your stash of Impartisans. Other weapons that are more powerful than Pinwheels/Fuma Shurikens that you are unlikely to have equipped include Gladius, Kagenui, Excalibur, Holy Lance, Mutsunokami, Murakumo, Healing Rod, and Wing Edge. Strago should use Grand Delta. Sabin and Gogo should use Phantom Rush. If Terra is Morphed, she should definitely stick to level 3 spells, but if she's not, Flare is the superior option. Relm should just use Flare or level 3 spells too. If Celes is around, I suggest keeping her on Runic stand-by, as it's really awesome in this battle. If Runic conflicts too much with your other characters' offensive plans, it should be avoided, obviously, so take a look at your options and decide what's best.

Kefka isn't extremely tough; he can just catch you off-guard with some of his more powerful attacks. So long as you make sure that doesn't happen, he's an entirely beatable final boss. If your characters are all decked out with Quick spells, a Soul of Thamasa here, a Master's Scroll there, and Ultima everywhere, the final battle with Kefka will feel like a walk in the park. Expand Full Strategy

Yeeesh. First turn, he casts a level two spell. Then, he casts a level 3 spell. Then, he casts two level 3 spells. After that, it'll follow up with another double cast of two level 3 spells. On the fifth turn, it'll use a single level 3 spell, and, on his last turn before looping, Magic Master can make use of Death, Bio, or Silence. All of this is coupled with a spectacular 50 Magic Power, which means that if you don't absorb the attack or have the Reflect status, you'll likely die a painful death. If Magic Master has the Reflect status, he will bounce a level 3 spell off of himself every turn; Magic Master will never self-apply the status though, and there's no reason for you to cast it.

You may have noticed that every spell Magic Master uses is reflectable; yes, that they are. However, the thing about Magic Master is that not only is he the ultimate mage, he's also fiercely loyal to Kefka. Given this, it's only logical that Magic Master would be able to cast the strongest spell in the game: Ultima, and he won't let you go before casting it. As soon as you kill the Magic Master, he will cast Ultima. It will deal between 5400 to 6100 damage to all of your characters; unless you've overleveled (level 53 with Muscle Belt, 58 with Red Cap, 67 without any HP boosting equipment), that gonna kill you dead.

Let's go through a few potential situations now:

If you've followed the walkthrough, or know Reraise at the very least, keep yourself draped in Reflect Rings at all times, as this will essentially make you invincible. Do not attack Magic Master; as soon as you do this, he will use Barrier Change and he start countering all your attacks with Barrier Change, making him that much harder to take down. He will also counter to his own spells reflected back at him. If you just keep still, he won't start using Barrier Change, not even under the torment of his own attacks. Cast Reraise on all your characters, and just wait this one out. Eventually, when Magic Master has killed himself, he'll cast Ultima: everybody dies and is subsequently revived. You're free to go.

Without Reraise, this one's a tricky pony. You can cast Rasp over and over and over again until his 50000 MP are all gone; he won't be able to cast Ultima as a result. You'll have to keep him alive this way. This is easily done by casting the Berserk spell on Magic Master while casting Vanish or summoning Phantom to protect yourself. Now, Rasp away. It'll take a very long while. You can check his MP periodically with the Libra spell. When he has less than 80 MP, you can kill him. There you go.

Alternately, you could just damage the boss a lot and summon Quetzalli; the trick here is to kill Magic Master with one or more characters in the air. Ultima won't hit them, so you win. If you want to do this, carefully keep track of his HP with Libra; for optimal damage output, you'll want to equip barrier-piercing weapons where possible (Ultima Weapon on Terra/Celes/Edgar/Locke, on Locke, Fixed Dice or Dice on Setzer) to try and circumvent Magic Master's crazy 250 Defense.

If you don't have Rasp... and you don't have Quetzalli either... eh... yeah. Last chance, honest. Equip a character (Terra, Celes, Edgar) with a Reflect Ring, Genji Glove, Rune Blade/ Ragnarok/Lightbringer, and the Soul Sabre. The MP-critical weapon in the Right Hand, the MP draining weapon in the Left Hand. Now, cast Berserk on Magic Master, vanish your party, and then cast Berserk and Haste on your magical weapon character. Every turn, he or she will attack and deal twelve to nineteen MP damage. If you're setting this up so you can go do something else in the meantime (I trust you have taken a liking to your sanity?), Berserk a Healing Rod character to make sure Magic Master doesn't die from the physical blows. Go take in a museum or something. Honestly, this is going to take ages. Expand Full Strategy

Malboro Menace will just try to take you down with status-inducing attacks such as the bloody obvious Bad Breath and the surprising Diabolic Whistle and some physicals. A rare !Tentacle sets Poison, so that's not too bad. Whenever you attack the thing, it has a 1/3 chance it'll counter with a Blaster attack on a random character, so that sucks. Also, whenever you kill the Malboro Menace, two appear; when you kill the last one of those two, four appear. That's a multitude of Malboro. Luckily, Malboro Menace is vulnerable to instant death attacks, which allows is to circumvent both troubles; target with Malboro Menace with either Banish, Shin-Zantetsuken or some such and you should never see more than the initial one. Note that only instant death attacks that stall counterattacks work like that; Malboro Menace will be more than happy to multiply after being successfully struck by a Death spell. Expand Full Strategy

Master Tonberry is very mean. He'll start the battle off with a Battle attack, and after this the madness will begin. Every 15 seconds, Master Tonberry takes a step forward; after seven steps, he'll use !Knife on a random character and retreat halfway back, meaning that he'll have to take just four more steps after that to reach the !Knife position again. Every step is accompanied with the ever-frustrating Barrier Change attack. Master Tonberry casts spells of the type opposing his current weakness, not unlike Number 024 way back in the day. Each time he changes his weakness, he has a two in three chance of using a magical attack that will indicate what his new weakness is. This will give you a chance to load up on that weakness until it changes again.

Indicator Attack	New Weakness
Firaga	Ice
Blizzaga	Fire
Thundaga	Wind
Bio	Holy
Tornado	Lightning
Holy	Poison
Quake	Water
Tsunami	Earth

One of the worst parts of this battle, though, is Master Tonberry's Traveler counter to every damaging attack you perform. Depending on your actions and style of playing this game, this move can do a lot of damage.

The way to victory lies in the enemy's status ailment vulnerabilities. Cast Sleep on Master Tonberry, and pair it up with Slow as well. If you have enough people with control over the Rasp spell, you might try removing all his MP first; better safe than sorry, right? If you're done with that or simply don't want to bother, start attacking him with magical attacks. Physical attacks will wake him; stick to magical ones only. It's highly possible you may manage to kill him before he even wakes up once. If he does wake up, just cast Sleep again; Strago's Bad Breath Lore also works (sets Poison too, by the way). Expand Full Strategy

Curlax is the strongest of the three Dream Stooges, and also the most vital one to take down. He has a random shot at casting White Wind every now and again, which heals the other Stooges and himself. Even worse, he will cast Arise on a fallen comrade when he notices they're down. He'll attack with the status-inducing spells when all three brothers are alive, and with the Fire-elemental offensive spells when a comrade has been slain (which is a useless bit of the AI script, as Curlax will always immediately make sure this is never the case with Arise). When he's hit four times by a Magic spell, he'll cast Reflect on himself and start bouncing Fira and Firaga spells off himself. When all three Stooges are alive, he'll cast Delta Attack every 30 seconds; Delta Attack is an unblockable single-target attack that sets Petrify (doesn't work on targets immune to Petrify, obviously). He has a 33% chance of countering any of your attacks with a Fira spell.

Laragorn is the weakest of the three Dream Stooges; his amount of HP is the lowest and his status vulnerabilities are horrible; as if Death wasn't enough, he's an almost exclusive spell caster susceptible to Silence and Confuse. He's the Ice-elemental of the three. Like Curlax, he'll cast Delta Attack when all three Stooges are alive and 30 seconds have passed since the beginning of the battle/the last time Delta Attack appeared. He'll cast Reflect once he's been hit by Magic four times and start reflecting Blizzara and Blizzaga spells off himself. Laragorn will normally just attack with Battle; he'll start using Blizzara and Blizzaga spells when one Stooge is down. He'll counter 33% of the time with Blizzara. The interesting thing about Laragorn is that he may run away in the middle of a battle. When one of the Stooges is down and Laragorn has been hit by four Magic spells, he'll run away. After 30 seconds (if you haven't won the battle yet), he'll return; his HP will be back to maximum, but his MP won't have changed and any status ailments you might've set will still be there.

Moebius is the middle child, and the only one without an elemental weakness. His bane is the Berserk status, and he has the Lightning-element. Like his brethren, he casts Delta Attack after 30 seconds, will cast Reflect on himself after four Magic spells, and start casting Thundara and Thundaga on himself which bounce off; normally he uses support spells (Protect, Shell, Haste, and Cura), but he will start to cast offensive spells (Thundara and Thundaga) when one of the Stooges is down. He may counter any attack with a Thundara spell. Moebius is certainly the most boring of the three.

A note about Delta Attack: when the global battle timer reaches 30, the first Stooge to act will attack with Delta Attack. After that, the global timer is set to 0, so that neither of the other two Stooges can use it. In other words, every 30 seconds only one Delta Attack will appear, not three.

How to fight this battle? Set Mute on Laragorn (the Silence spell is obviously the most prominent way, but Strago's Bad Breath is also a highly acceptable means of setting the same effect (not to mention that it'll also set Confuse); and Berserk on Moebius (with the Berserk spell, possibly). Don't kill off Laragorn with a quick Death spell just yet; our main priority is Curlax. Cast a Sleep spell on him (once again, Bad Breath works there) and pound him with magical attacks, preferably Ice-elemental attacks. When he's dead, abuse Laragorn's vulnerability to instant death attacks and dispose of him quickly. What you have left is a Berserked Moebius who is no threat whatsoever.

So long as you know what you're doing, it's really an easy battle; barriers like Mighty Guard, Hastega, Moon Song, Earth Wall, and Life Guard are nice, but really not necessary. You don't get any items for beating the Dream Stooges, but you will receive 6 Magic Points. Expand Full Strategy

The big sparkle's name is Nelapa. He gets 10 out of 10 for style, but minus one billion for good thinking. I mean, here you are, with a timer quickening your pace, and he thinks it's a good idea to cast Doom on the party. A bit redundant, if not outright illogical.

Sillier yet, the battle with Nelapa (or a Naude) will automatically terminate as soon as the global timer hits 0:04 seconds; enough time to dive from the Floating Continent to "safety". What was the point of the timer in the first place? 0:04 isn't enough time to wait for that special someone, though...

Anyway, after the pompous chatter and casting Doom on the party, he will finally get around attacking you. He can use Attack, Fira, Firaga, and Fireball. Very spooky. Firaga actually hurts a bit. Now here's a hoot: If you hit Nelapa with six Attack commands, he'll use Roulette. Next to the fact that Roulette can actually take Nelapa himself down, the mere thought that Nelapa could even survive six Attacks is laughable in itself. You'd need a Healing Rod or a rat-flail in order to pull that off.

Anyway, back to not insulting this guy into submission (although you could). He's weak to Lightning and Ice and Holy. He's also Floating. Just make sure you keep in the back of your mind this guy is inherently Reflective, which means you'll need to resort to your skills and summon attacks. There are literally hundreds of ways to off this guy, and they're all very easy. Gau's Mu Rage can enSnare him for a one-hit KO, as can a fatal Chainsaw attack. Bouncing a few Rasp spells off yourself will kill him. Bouncing a Death spell off yourself will kill him. You can even confuse him; enemies don't get any more pathetic than that.

Just use your strongest attacks, be it Gigavolt, or Aura Cannon, or Diamond Dust, or what have you. Nelapa has 2800 HP. That's it. If you played your cards right, you were doing 2800 in one attack back there against Ultima Weapon. Pushover. Expand Full Strategy

Here's the thing. Neslug's Head will pop in and out of the shell every now and then. It'll start the battle with a Slowga spell and will randomly use physical attacks, set Stop with !Tongue Bath or use Sticky Goo to set Slow. Bo-oring. The shell will use White Wind once every time the Head is out of the shell, counter any attack with the instant-kill !Megaton Smash and will randomly attack with !Megaton Smash as well. Did I mention the shell is invulnerable to attacks and will therefore always heal the full extent of 9999 HP?

The defense isn't difficult. Throw up the Maginot Line to protect yourself from !Tongue Bath and !Megaton Smash and the stray physicals and equip Hermes Sandals to turn yourself immune to Slowga and Sticky Goo. The thing is that you'll need to do more than 9999 damage to the Head, preferably targetable. It can be multi-target, but only if you have Golem up.

Neslug's awesome Magic Defense ensures that things aren't quite as simple as you'd like them to be. Barrier-piercing fire-elemental attacks reign supreme. Flare Star is a good one coming from Gau and/or Gogo, as is the Meltdown spell if you have it handy, though you'll want to make sure you don't suffer from any kickback. Breaking Flame Rods is great and/or Flame Shields are great as well. It may be cheap, but so is total invulnerability/White Wind combinations, so shut up, Neslug. You can target the head only by trying to set yourself as a target for the broken item, then switch back to the monster's side, where you'll find the pointer has gone single-target. Clever!

Valor is another way to make targetable attacks even more powerful. Valor will triple the power of Fuma Shuriken, Attack commands and Edgar's Drill (superior to Chainsaw now that it's so powerful, since Chainsaw will do nothing 25% of the time). Those that are stuck without targetable attacks such as Sabin and Gau just aren't all too suited for the fight, thus making them prime candidates for casting Valor. Expand Full Strategy

Machines tend to have that crippling weakness to Lightning, and they also usually have some sort of Program ## move to dish out. This guy has neither. He uses spells and wields swords, so you'd almost assume he was a human if it wasn't for the 'System error!' message that goes off in the middle of the battle. A cyborg, then, like the Sergeant? We can only guess. The facts remain that Number 024, while no real challenge even if you forget about his status ailment weaknesses, is just so darn versatile we still love him anyway.

The guy's main move, Barrier Change, shuffles all the elemental properties of the caster and picks one element to set as its weakness. Then, it sets one element as the element it absorbs. First effects: You'll never know what exactly your elemental attacks will do: 75% chance they'll do nothing, 12.5% chance they'll heal him, 12.5% chance they'll do double damage. Conclusion: Waste of time, think of alternative means of violence. But this fellow adapts his fighting style according to his weakness. You can sort his weakness from what he hits you with, if you like. If his weakness is fire, you'll see ice attacks. Vice versa, too. If lightning, you'll see water. Again, vice versa. If it's wind, he'll use earth-based attacks like Magnitude 8 and Cave In, and if it's earth he'll go to wind attacks like Sonic Boom and Gale Cut. If he's weak to poison, he'll try to cure himself, and if he's weak to Holy-elemental, he'll try to attack you physically or use Reverse Polarity.

Here's what he'll do. He'll simply strike you physically for 30 seconds (this first round doesn't indicate Holy weakness). Then, he'll do his first Barrier Change. When you manage to strike his weakness (you can figure it out via Libra spell), he'll perform it again. If 30 seconds of action elapses first instead (are you taking a nap?), he'll perform another Barrier Change anyway. After he has performed a Barrier Change three times, he'll go haywire, even though you haven't destroyed him; the result of this 'System error' is apparently calling up Arctic Hares (the more successful branch of the Lagomorph family), enjoying Sunbaths, and finding his true self with the Libra spell. After 30 seconds of this, he'll snap out of it again, starting over as if he had cast his first Barrier Change of the battle. Weird stuff, man.

But you won't have to see all this madness. The Sleep spell, taught to you by Siren, works on the fiend, as does Cait Sith's Imp spell. Alone, they severely cripple him; together, they are an unstoppable force. Keep him sleeping and make sure you only cast Magic. If that blasted neutral Tapir shows up and awakens him, cast Sleep again as soon as possible. If Gau is among your forces, just have him relax. Try to steal with Locke; Rune Blade or Blood Sword, both are nice additions if nothing else. I'd especially go for the Blood Sword if you have any choice in the matter, as it's quite unique. In the end, Number 024's Hit Points will run out, and he will die. Victory dance, coffee break, et cetera. Expand Full Strategy