Final Fantasy VI Bosses

The parts to this battle: Air Force, Laser Gun (the part to the right of Air Force), and MissileBay (the dark red part below Air Force). In the SNES game, the MissileBay was light grey like the Laser Gun. Why they decided to change *that* of all things will forever be a mystery.

MissileBay fires off Missile attacks. Nothing ground-shaking there. If it gets weak and reaches 1536 HP - that's after taking 1464 HP damage - it might get a shot at using Launcher. Laser Gun uses Tek Laser and Atomic Ray. If it hits 1536 HP – after taking 1764 HP damage - it loses the Atomic Ray option, but gains Diffuser, which is slightly weaker than Atomic Ray.

Air Force itself will just use Tek Laser and Diffuser. When Laser Gun dies, a Speck will be released. Speck is an opponent that takes no turns; the only thing it does is float about on constant Runic stand-by, absorbing all your Magic spells. At this point, Air Force will try to self-apply Haste status (and fail, as he's immune to Slow) and start counting down; at this point, the Speck will leave the battlefield and Air Force will use WaveCannon, a very strong multi-target Lightning-elemental attack. By this point, you should be fully healed though, so you won't die from it if all is well. After WaveCannon, Air Force will launch another Speck and start counting again.

The first thing on your mind is taking out MissileBay. If you have Locke in the party, try to Steal for as long as he's around; MissileBay has a rare Debilitator you probably don't have yet. Zoneseek is a brilliant summon here, as the Shell status can really help you out in this battle, and once MissileBay is gone, you can safely summon Kirin to override all Sap effects with the positive Regen blessings.

Heal regularly, keep your defenses up, and you'll defeat Air Force in no time at all. If you're really having trouble, you can break Thunder Rods. Something to remember if you're playing the game blindfolded. Or just blind.

An alternate strategy if you picked three characters that all heavily rely on Magic (Locke, Relm, Celes, for example) is the following. Since you want to prevent Speck from showing up above all else, don't kill Laser Gun. Instead, you can stop his attacks for long periods of time if you combine the Slow and Stop status ailments on it. Kill off MissileBay, use your speed-reducing grey magic on Laser Gun and focus all spells on Air Force. No Speck, no WaveCannon, no fuss. Expand Full Strategy

Remember when some scholar-type guy told you there were two so-called Atma Weapons? Strangely enough, you ought to own one and have defeated the other, so what's the deal with this guy? Clearly, now that Kefka has control over the Goddesses, he's made them craft an even stronger version of the legendary beast of mass destruction we destroyed a year ago. Or something.

I'm Atma... Left here since birth... Forgotten in the river of time... I've had an eternity to ponder the meaning of things... And now I have an answer!

Atma isn't as interesting as it hypes itself up to be. Normally, he uses the level 3 spells, switching to a N. Cross or S. Cross attack every now and then. When he hits 32640 HP, he'll revert to Fire 3, Quake, Meteor spells, Clean Sweep, and Flare Star. When you hurt the fiend, he may counter with Battle, but what Atma is actually doing here is storing the hate he develops from your blows into the ultimate attack: whenever he is hurt 12 times, he will stop acting and start storing energy: "Unknown light surrounded Atma!" The boss will proceed to glow yellow and do nothing for two turns before unleashing the strongest attack known to man: Ultima. It hurts really bad (count on around 2400 HP worth of damage), and you don't want that.

Atma's unique elemental coverage makes Pearl Lance Dragoons useless, so give them Partisans at the start of the battle. Summon your barriers: Big Guard, Haste 2, Zoneseek's Wall, Earth Wall, Moon Song, Life Guard, you know what works. Don't forget to set Slow on Atma, and you might try Stealing too, although there's nothing especially grand to obtain in this fight.

Keep yourself healed and make sure you only execute the strongest attacks. Ideally, if you don't have Runic, you want to take out Atma in twelve hits or less, which makes for a needed average of around 4600 damage a hit. That shouldn't be too much of a problem, right? If it is, there's a few ways around the situation:

• The Life 3 spell;
• Have a character summon Palidor around the time Atma flashes yellow for the second time, causing Ultima to miss all your characters.
• Don't attack Atma - just set Rflect and keep yourself healed with Heal Rods, Potions, and Pearl Wind until his own level 3 spells have damaged him enough to lower him into his 'dangerous phase'. Debilitator might help to speed things up there. Now that he's already fairly damaged, you should be able to kill him before he gets to Ultima.

Obviously, if you do have Runic at your side, there's nothing to worry about as, when Atma starts glowing, you can just initiate the Runic skill and watch the attack be absorbed by the blade. Expand Full Strategy

AtmaWeapon is quite a challenge. Not quite as disgustingly horrible as Air Force, but you don't have the ability to divide and conquer that made the Air Force battle palatable. AtmaWeapon starts like a rather tough monster, and as he has the most HP of any normal monster so far (Intangir excluded), he'll be quite the little troublemaker.

His normal battle script starts with a pretty rockin' speech, and then it continues to simply pound your character into submission with Attack, Flare, and Blaze. Flare is a snazzy new spell you're probably not familiar with yet. Flare is non-elemental and barrier-piercing, though you can protect yourself with Wall Rings and the like. This is, until he reaches 12800 HP, at which point he'll start casting Bio, Quake, or the enemy version of Meteor, use either Attack or !Full Power, use an multi-target Fire 2 spell, and end with Mind Blast.

Mind Blast is a multi-target attack that randomly selects a character four times and sets one randomly selected status ailments out of the following possibilities: Darkness, Zombie, Poison, Imp, Petrify, Doom, Silence, Berserk, Confuse, Sap, Sleep, Slow, and Stop. If a character is never chosen, he won't be affected by the spell; if a character was randomly selected three times, he'll get three randomly selected status ailments set on him. As you can imagine, you can come away from this attack with relatively minor damage, or with some fairly severe damage. It might be a good idea to summon Unicorn if you have it after Mind Blast has been used.

After Mind Blast, AtmaWeapon will get even stronger. The message "Vast energy focused" will appear, and AtmaWeapon will give himself Protect, Shell, and Haste status and glow an eerie yellow. He'll wait for his next turn and glow yellow again. That next turn, he'll glow yellow for a long time, some cogwheels will spin (as a hobby assembly enthusiast, I wonder how the heck they did that), and AtmaWeapon will use the move Flare Star.

Flare Star is a neat attack. It's fire-elemental and its damage depends on your level. It multiplies the level of a random party member by 80 and splits the damage by the amount of characters you have. So, if you have a four-headed party, all level 25, the damage will be 500 per party member. After Flare Star, he basically starts over again with Bio/Quake/Meteo, etc.

When you knock him below 6144 HP, he'll start using another set of spells: Attack, Quartr, W Wind, Rasp, and Blaze. Every time he is damaged in this stage, he'll have a 33% chance of countering the attack with Flare. He'll keep this up until he dies.

You can basically do two things here. In both scenarios you'll want your party covered in Wall Rings. Celes shouldn't need to use Runic until the final stage of AtmaWeapon, when he gains the ability to cast Quartr, as this can be absorbed by Celes' Runic blade yet flies past Wall Rings.

If a lot of your characters know the Rasp spell (say, three or four), you could try to Rasp his 5000 MP down to 0 and kill him that way. It will take longer than HP violence will, but if you just stick with attacking his MP, he'll never leave the 'safe' offensive scheme (Attack, Flare, and Blaze), against which Zoneseek and Wall Rings result in easy victory. Even without those two, it'll still be easier on you to handle it than the standard HP-depletion method will.

If you decide to just smack him to death with your ouchies, beware. Start the battle off with Zoneseek to soften the blow of his magical attacks. Make staying alive priority one: Flare can do over 600 damage, so be prepared for a Flare spell at all times if you're not covered in Wall Rings. Cast Slow on him to slow him down.

Try to steal a Ribbon with Locke; you'll thank yourself for the effort later. If Edgar is in your party and can use a Debilitator, use it until you've nailed a nice weakness to exploit. Then exploit it (as if you needed me to say that!).

If he uses Mind Blast, cure the most dangerous status ailments and proceed. If the message "Vast energy focused" appears, use Dispel to remove your adversary's positive status effects (and don't forget to cast Slow again).

Basically, it's a story of heal first and damage later. Terra, Celes, and Relm should just use their level 2 spells (Ice 2 is, by a very slight margin, the strongest of the three – unless, of course, you've Debilitator'd him to have a weakness). Have Locke steal until he has acquired either an Elixir or a Ribbon, and use Hawk Eyes to fight with for the duration of the battle. Edgar can use Drill and Sabin Aurabolt for superior damage.

Mog's Dance is up for debate. The Earth Blues is the home Dance, so it will never fail, and it also has the most damaging attack of all Mog's attacks: Rock Slide. The Water Rondo, on the other hand, has a more constant damage output, as both El Niño (most common attack) and Plasma (2nd most common attack) will work. In contrast, Earth Blues' Sonic Boom will fail whenever it's used. I'm leaning toward Earth Blues myself, but it's more a matter of personal preference.

Setzer will probably want to stick to Gil Toss. Even with double Earrings, his level 2 spells are inferior to Gil Toss and his Slots aren't very useful in this fight. 7-Flush can't compare to Gil Toss, Chocobop misses entirely due to AtmaWeapon's inherent Float and the other attacks are too rare to consider an option.

Cyan's Quadra Slam out-damages Dispatch, so try to have other characters attack while you wait for Quadra Slam to load. It might be safer, if you're less experienced, to simply stick to Dispatch and have him run utility work if that's necessary. If you seriously brought Cyan for some reason I expect you to have taught him at least one level 2 spell; with one pair of Earrings, a level 2 spell will outdamage Dispatch.

Strago's Aqua Rake attack is the strongest he'll be able to do. If you equipped Wall Rings, his Pearl Wind move will be very nice to have around. Step Mine might be stronger than Aqua Rake, but it should also be much more troublesome on your MP. Try it out and see what works for you. An added benefit of Aqua Rake, by the way, is its dual-elemental nature; if you brought Edgar, there's a double chance Strago can exploit the Debilitator-induced weakness with the attack.

Gau's best choices are probably Ninja (Water Skean), Chimera (Aqua Rake), Bomb (Blaze) or Ing (Lifeshaver). Ninja is the strongest offensively, but you probably didn't go back to pick it up. Ing is very defensive; since it makes Gau absorb Fire-elemental attacks, is inherently Floating, and gives the Undead property, Ing will protect against Fire 2, Bio, Quake, Blaze, Flare Star and (due to a bug) all the effects of Mind Blast. If you have level 2 spells on Gau, I'd advise you to use Magic rather than Rages in this battle, as the level of control will be nice to have. And, with all the Attacks Gau uses, damage output will be higher overall. Expand Full Strategy

If you have any Imp equipment (Tortoise Shield, Titanium, Imp's Armor), throw it on! The Blue Drgn is all about Water-elemental attacks, and that's what Imp equipment absorbs. Don't equip Ice Shields, as Aqua Rake will hit twice as hard when you don't have any Imp equipment; Flame Shields are even worse, as they are weak against Water-elemental attacks in general. Thunder Shields are great as they null the effects of Aqua Rake (as it's part Wind-elemental) and halve all damage done by Flash Rain (as it's part Ice-elemental); Force Shields halve the damage done by Water-elemental attacks in general, too. Minerva wearers shine once again; Minerva nulls Aqua Rake and Flash Rain and halves damage done by all other Water-elemental attacks. Equipping Snow Mufflers on Gau, Mog, and Umaro will allow them to absorb the Flash Rain attacks. Relics protecting from Seizure (that'd be Ribbon, Cure Ring and Marvel Shoes) are great, too.

As soon as the battle starts, the Blue Drgn will attack with Clean Sweep. If Strago is in your party and hasn't learned Cleansweep from either the Enuo random encounters or the Master Pug enemy yet, here's your chance. Normally, the blasted creature will attack with Battle and Flash Rain; believe me, Seizure will get very annoying very quickly if you don't have protection against the status. When Blue Drgn dives beneath 16384 HP, he'll also start attacking with Aqua Rake and Flash Rain. Every 40 seconds, Blue Drgn will have stored enough water for a Clean Sweep attack as well. All in all, you will be continuously pounded by multi-target attacks. Any Magic spell or damaging attack you use against the Blue Drgn may be countered by Battle, as usual.

The difficult part of the Blue Drgn's AI script is the Rippler spell. To put it simply (or as simply as possible), Blue Drgn will use Rippler if:

1. One of your characters has the Haste status. If so, it will target that character; if more than one character has the Haste status, it picks the first one with the status in your formation, going from top to bottom.
2. If Blue Drgn isn't already enhanced by the Haste status.
3. If Blue Drgn isn't enhanced with the Safe status.
4. If it has been two turns since (not counting the 40-second Cleansweep attack) Blue Drgn last used Rippler.

If all those conditions are met, Blue Drgn will cast Slow on itself and proceed to use Rippler to try to steal the Haste status and give your character the Slow status instead. So what to do? Throw up the boring old blah-blah barriers: Big Guard, Wall, Life Guard, Earth Wall, Moon Song, and so on. If you brought Shadow, you do not want him to be the victim of Rippler, ever (Interceptor could be stolen). Don't apply the Haste status. Attack with Lightning-elemental spells if possible. Tritoch's Tri-Dazer isn't absorbed, so that works; Bolt 3 is stronger, though. Bolt Edges work great, but Thunder Blades are even more powerful. The same old stuff still works. The mages should stick to Lightning-elemental attacks. Edgar makes a good Dragon Horn Dragoon, as usual. Sabin's Bum Rush beats all, like usual. Setzer's GP Rain is still stronger than Slot, while the Fixed Dice (especially when paired with the Offering) are superior to both of them. Cyan can't really do his job as usual (though you can set him up as a utility man). Gau's Aspik Rage allows him to absorb all Water-elemental attacks while making him attack with Giga Volt, a strong Lightning-elemental attack that will really hurt Blue Drgn. Actaneon and Exocite also allow Ragers to absorb Water-elemental attacks.

You know, this battle's ease doesn't mean that the Blue Drgn is weak; on the contrary, with regular multi-target magical spells packing some power behind them and no crippling status vulnerabilities, the Blue Drgn is a fairly solid contender. It's just that the fact that your characters are becoming more overpowered really begins to show by now. If Bum Rush and Dragon Horn Dragoons weren't enough, you get to use Fixed Dice/Offering, equip armor like the Minerva and Cat Hood, and have access to all the awesome no-questions-asked attacks such as GrandTrain and Bum Rush. Expand Full Strategy

Interesting trivia: the Japanese game showed much more skin on the Chadarnook (Goddess) image. Nothing horrifying and ungodly like any kind of ladyparts, but still, more skin. Anyway, here's an odd encounter. It's a living painting of the Esper Starlet, possessed by the demon Chadarnook. You already knew that. Even if you don't care about art in general or Owzer's pathetic pleas, there really isn't any point to damaging the painting; as soon as Chadarnook (Phantasm) is exorcized, it won't be a threat anymore. So, the strategy is clear to us; wait until Chadarnook (Phantasm) shows its face, and hurt it until it dies. We've been doing an awful lot of hurting so far, so we should be well prepared. You'll start out facing the Goddess painting. It'll use either Battle or the dreaded, blasted Charm attack. Fortunately, the effects of Charm are undone whenever your opponent changes, so it's not as much a bother as it could have been in this specific case. After that first turn, the demon will reveal itself.

Chadarnook attacks with Lightning-elemental spells (Bolt 2 and Bolt 3) and the confusing Flash Rain; sparkly as it may look, Flash Rain is actually Ice- and Water- elemental and has nothing to do with Lightning. The demon won't use Flash Rain until it starts getting weaker though: when it hits 15360 HP (after taking 14640 HP worth of damage, in other words), to be precise. The demon Chadarnook will always hide when he has been damaged five times, as well as after 40 seconds. Unfortunately, (and possibly unintentionally), it seems that the painting's timer is also used when Chadarnook checks his 40 seconds, so if you faced Chadarnook for 35 seconds and the monster changes, Chadarnook will only be there for five seconds before returning. This is particularly frustrating, especially if you'd just finished putting in all your commands as soon as Chadarnook appeared, leaving you to attack the Goddess a few times in a row. Speaking of which, attacking the Goddess is bad news. Not only is it pointless (as soon as you deplete her HP, she'll just regenerate - she's immortal), it's rather dangerous, as she has a mean counter. 33% Battle, 33% not doing anything, and 33% Phantasm.

Phantasm is a multi-target attack that sets the super-duper-special HP Leak status on a target, which can only be seen in this battle. It's the same as Seizure, only it's much more dangerous because it isn't Seizure. This means you can't protect from it with Relics, you can't override it by setting Regen, and you can't cure it in any way. As soon as HP Leak is set, any current Regen status (even if it's from a Cure Ring or Marvel Shoes) will be removed. Trying to set the Regen status on a character with the Regen spell or Kirin's Life Guard attack will accomplish nothing. All in all, the constantly dropping HP gets annoying quickly, even dangerous if you don't watch your party's HP. Don't be afraid to spend some turns healing even when it isn't immediately necessary. Chadarnook (Goddess), by the way, will also attack normally after her first appearance; her arsenal consists of Battle, !Doom Kiss (sets Condemned), the dreaded Charm, and the surprisingly crippling Lullaby, which (as you know) sets Sleep on all characters.

So what to do? You should be covered in equipment that protects against the Phantasm's Lightning-elemental spells and possibly against that Flash Rain attack too. Patiently wait out the first turn against the Chadarnook (Goddess) picture, then quickly throw whatever you have when the demon appears. The monster is extremely weak to Fire-elemental and Pearl-elemental spells, as it has both a weakness to the element and a Magic Defense that really isn't all that stellar.

Terra and Celes's Fire 2 and (preferably) Fire 3 spells will really hurt Chadarnook (Phantasm) (Fire 3 takes priority over Pearl, too), but keep in mind that, because Chadarnook (Phantasm) absorbs Lightning-elemental spells, Tritoch's Tri-Dazer will be absorbed. Shadow's Fire Skeans should be boosted by Hero Rings and Earrings to ensure a lot of damage, although it should be noted that the much more expensive Flame Sabres will hurt considerably more. Setzer should throw his Fixed Dice around if possible; if not, Fire 2, Pearl, and Fire 3 take priority over the Coin Toss-induced GP Rain. Sabin should stick to Bum Rush regardless of his spell selection, whereas Edgar is probably better off sticking to Drill unless you're really sure that when he lands from a Dragon Horn Jump, he'll be landing on the demon (in which case, with the Pearl Lance, he'll be doing a massive amount of damage). The same really goes for Mog: his Dances are useless, as he will also attack the Chadarnook (Goddess) painting when he's in a trance. Stick to spells if you don't want to risk Jump attacks (or just plain don't have the right equipment). Cyan is horrible in this scenario (as often before), as his charge times mean you would have to waste a lot of time in a battle where speed is top priority. Gau and Umaro (while certainly hard to take down) suffer from the uncontrollable nature. Gau, if used, should stick to his Magic spells if possible, while Umaro should be... Yeah, killing him in the middle of battle seems a little harsh, so you might be better off setting Stop on him if you for some reason defied me and brought him here.

You can't do anything when Charm connects, and you can't do anything when Phantasm connects. Fenrir/Golem will help against the physicals (especially !Doom Kiss can be a pain), while the Haste 2 spell is an asset as always. If you have a few characters unprotected from Chadarnook (Phantasm)'s attacks, Zoneseek's Wall attack can help. Basically, throw up your barriers when the demon is hidden and go all-out on the offensive when the demon is around while making sure your HP stays in the four digits at all times wherever possible. Expand Full Strategy

Crane (Right) is fire-based. It will attack physically and use the Fire and Fire 2 spell. When hit by a Fire-elemental attack of any kind, it will charge, going through "Heat source LV 1" to "Heat source LV 2" and finally to "Heat source LV 3 - Unleashed thermal energy!" at which point it will, indeed, release all that thermal energy (target the entire party with a Fire 3 spell). When alone, the right crane will boost its defenses with TekBarrier, which grants both Protect and Reflect, protecting it from Magic spells. After one minute of fighting, the message "The crane shakes the deck!" will appear and the Crane (Right) will perform a Magnitude8 attack. Finally, every third time it has been damaged, it will perform a Bolt 2 spell on the other Crane (Left), charging it. It has a rare Debilitator steal that you might want; it's another Tool for Edgar.

The Crane (Left) is pretty much the same, only lightning-based. From "Electrified LV 1" it will pass through "Electrified LV 2" and "Electrified LV 3 - Unleashed electric energy!" performing a multi-target Giga Volt attack. All other features are the same, only it will cast a Fire 2 spell on the other crane every third time it has been damaged.

If you brought Gau and he knows how to perform the Anguiform Rage, you're in luck, as the Aqua Rake attack is incredibly powerful in this battle, up to the point where an Earrings-boosted Aqua Rake will probably kill one Crane in one hit. Do not let him enter a Rage that performs either Fire or Lightning based attacks, and don't let him enter a Rage with a special attack that is Reflectable. Locke can do little here but try to Steal the Debilitator from the Crane (Right). Focus on one Crane at the time where possible. Drill / Chainsaw and Aurabolt are songs often sung right now, and Cyan can enjoy his Tempest. Setzer is easily the weakest link at this point, lacking in proper equipment. Just try to nail a diamond or Chocobo on your first spin; that will make for the most consistent damage output. Expand Full Strategy

Dadaluma is...yeah, what the hell is he anyway? He's a crazy lying dog like the entire population of Zozo, charging at you as soon as he's finished saying he's going to let you by unharmed. He's some hybrid between a martial artist and a thief: The love child of a Harvester and an Iron Fist plus a load of anabolic steroids. Most of his attacks are physical, and his most powerful ones are thrown weapons. Your Invisible characters are relatively safe if he doesn't expose them with Shock Wave, which is a weakish attack with the power to hit your Invisible targets. When he's taking enough damage to dive below 1920 HP, he'll use either a Tonic or Potion three times and cast Safe on himself. That's only slightly annoying for Locke, as all other characters are going to attack either with barrier-piercing attacks or those that are magical of nature.

There are some more twists and turns to Dadaluma's battle script! When you've hurt him with the Magic command two times, he will Throw one weapon and Jump in the air, being temporarily untouchable. He'll come down to damage a character for some minor physical hurting. He won't do all this if he has the Slow status, but since the only way to set it is by using Gau's Poplium Rage, there are much better things to set on Dadaluma.

If you've hit him with the Attack command four times, he will Throw two weapons. Such violence. Obviously, you're never going to use Attack that much, but if you brought Locke and Cyan and went Attack-happy for some reason, watch out. Finally, after 30 seconds, he will call some aid. God knows he needs it by then, if he's not dead already. He'll whistle for two Iron Fists that you'll never face alone and thus escape their one and only strength: Stone.

So yeah, you can imagine what to do. Try to nick that rare Sneak Ring with Locke. Edgar can play with his new tools. Aurabolt with Sabin. Cyan's Quadra Slam will be better before Dadaluma has cast the Safe spell on himself, but Dispatch comes out victorious after he's successfully done so. Even when Protect isn't in effect, the wait time might make Dispatch more appealing to you. Celes' Imp spell can seriously cripple Dadaluma, as it actually works on him. His physicals will now always do twice as much damage, but his Shock Wave/Throw days are over, so if you have any characters under Invisible, you're destined to win. Have her pose as a back-up Cure caster if necessary, and if you choose not to turn Dadaluma into an Imp, you'll want her ready with Runic to disable Protect for the Lockes and Cyans of this world. Gau's Araneid and Primordite Rages will set Stop on Dadaluma, turning him completely useless. Trilium also offers Bio, which will hit for CRAZY damage. Shadow can simply toss his stuff; his Scrolls (especially when Earrings-boosted) will come out stronger than his Shuriken, but you might not want to waste them on an easy fight like this. Expand Full Strategy

The Dirt Drgn is fairly unique; he's the only elemental dragon that doesn't absorb his own element (instead, he uses the Float status to circumvent almost all Earth-elemental damage). Why they chose to do this is beyond me, as even with Quake healing, Dirt Drgn wouldn't have been that crazy of a challenge. We may well never know. Every 20 seconds, the Dirt Drgn will use his 50 Gs attack, a Dirt Drgn-only move that removes the Float status on all targets. Irremovable Float, like the one given by the Cherub Down and Float-inducing Rages, will not be removed. Given the fact that Earth's G is, as you might expect, 1 G, 50 G is plain crazy; you'd effectively become 50 times as heavy as you normally are. Shadow would suddenly become 7250 lbs, for instance. But enough with the first-grade science. He has a one-third chance of countering any damage done to him with the dreaded !Honed Tusk attack, which really is quite strong. Any other attack he uses will be either Battle or ground-based. Quake always misses Dirt Drgn himself, and the Magnitude8 and Slide attacks should either miss or heal you if you've been smart up until now.

Start the battle off by throwing up your barriers. Golem and Fenrir are particularly useful, as the only real threat in this battle should be Dirt Drgn's !Honed Tusk and Battle attacks. Strago's Big Guard should also help in that department. Haste 2 is great as always, and Kirin doesn't hurt either. Cast a combination of Sleep and Slow on the Dirt Drgn as well: remember that Sleep can also be set with Strago's Sour Mouth attack, which also can set Poison on the Dirt Drgn. Now that you've been bulked up plenty, (and the Dirt Drgn is vulnerable in his extended slumber) it's time to start the magical offensive.

If you want to keep Dirt Drgn sleeping, keep Gau busy with Magic spells. Back Row Gau with 255 Defense and a Float-inducing Rage is invulnerable, but it may come at the cost of fallen party members. If that sounds a bit cheap to you, and since all characters are either draped in Gaia Gear or protected by Cherub Down, I should mention that Rages like Harpiai, Ninja, Hornet, and Luridan really help (especially Harpiai). Strago's Aero packs a proverbial wallop, and Shadow's Water Skeans are pretty strong. If you don't care for the Sleep status, Thrown Blossoms are extremely painful to Dirt Drgn. Sabin's Bum Rush still gets the job done as always, and it is superior to Air Blade even though it doesn't exploit a specific weakness. Mog's Water Rondo is a superior alternative to Jump attacks if you're trying to maintain a snoozing Dirt Drgn. His Wind Song is also an option; Wind Slash is weaker than El Nino, but you might prefer Wind Song's 6/16 Sun Bath to Water Rondo's 6/16 Plasma attack. All other characters should just stick to Magic spells. Umaro should be kept far away from this battle, as usual. His presence makes the Sleep status strategy rather impossible. Expand Full Strategy

Doom is one heck of an ice queen, I tell you. Not just a shell, this one! Luckily, she's also pretty predictable and one-dimensional, which in my opinion makes her quite easy to defeat (certainly easier than Goddess or Poltrgeist, even ignoring Stop). Her normal moves include the ever-present Battle, Ice 3 spells, Absolute0, and the annoying N. Cross attack, from which one can be easily recovered by a simple Fire spell. Of course, she gets extra mean when you damage her enough. Once Doom hits 32640 HP, the message "Doom's aura is shaking!" appears, and, my goodness, so it appears.

By doing this, Doom self-applies the Image, Reflect, and Haste statuses, meaning that you will want to cast Dispel to get rid of all three of them and quickly cast Slow or Slow 2 to reduce her speed even further. From this point on though, she will ignore her single- and multi-target Ice-elemental options and focus on a few select attacks.

Every twenty seconds, Doom will use the Force Field attack, which is a Lore Strago will only be able to learn in this battle. Force Field takes an element (one not previously selected by Force Field, if using it a second time) and renders it completely ineffective. It doesn't matter how strong the caster is or if the target is weak to said element: Once the element has been picked, this element will do exactly 0 damage for the duration of the battle. Once all eight elements have been rendered useless, Force Field will do nothing. Aside from Force Field, Doom will use Battle and Targetting. Targetting does absolutely nothing more than 'store' that target in her memory, and the very next turn she will use !Demon Rage on that person, period. Should this person suddenly be unavailable, !Demon Rage will be used on a random person. Of course, the game would have us believe that the Targetting move somehow makes !Demon Rage unblockable, but !Demon Rage is unblockable in itself, so the act of using Targetting is really just for show.

That's it! Pretty easy, I'd say. Set Slow at the start of the match, throw up the barriers you like, and pummel Doom with the strongest attacks you have. Strago might be able to get some play out of his L? Pearl attack now that you've a) obviously brought him here and b) made sure to rig it into always hitting. Have Gau engage in a Rage that will have him produce non-elemental damage, since you won't be able to easily stop him once Doom starts nullifying the elements. The Pearl spell is really useful when Doom is in her 'easy' phase, but beware that you don't waste turns casting zero-damage Pearl spells when she's left said phase. Make sure you don't allow Doom to maintain her Image, Haste, or Reflect statuses: everybody who knows the Pearl spell knows Dispel too, and Terra learned it naturally at level 37. Expand Full Strategy

No restrictions. However, Vanish/X-Zone, Vanish/Atom Edge, Vanish/True Edge, Vanish/Cleave and Vanish/Snare all cause the final bit of 'Doom Gaze has died' to not be set (as that's his final 'counter', so to speak), meaning that you won't gain the cutscene at the end. This means no Bahamut Magicite either. What you do get if you use one of those attacks is that Doom Gaze will have gained back all HP and will be still available for you to defeat, so you'll have gained nothing in the end. Other ID attacks won't result in this sad situation, however, so Vanish/Doom and Vanish/Antlion and such (any others I didn't mention to avoid above) are all fine.

You've heard it all over the place... Doom Gaze soaring over the skies of this new world, terrorizing all in its path. An ancient demon who knows no remorse; no satisfactory pack of unlikely heroes could possibly let this continue! Doom Gaze is a relatively simple yet tough opponent, so prepare well.

Doom Gaze will start every battle by using L. 5 Doom; Safety Bits and Memento Rings protect against it if your level is right (or wrong, depending on your interpretation), but it's most likely that you don't have the former and can't use the latter, at least when you first encounter the thing. Doom Gaze may cast an Ice 3 or Doom spell in its the first turn, and may cast Doom or use Aero the second. After every two turns (not counting the initial L. 5 Doom), Doom Gaze has a 66% chance of using Escape to flee the battle. When damaged, it may counter with Battle, as all bosses tend to do.

So Doom Gaze has inherent Safe and Shell status boosts, a weakness to Fire- and Pearl-elemental attacks to consider, the ability to absorb Ice- and Poison-elemental attacks and no status ailment vulnerabilities to exploit. How are we going to take this guy down as effectively as possible?

Breaking Rods have always been powerful, but against Doom Gaze, they're a blessing; since spells executed by breaking Rods gain a barrier-piercing property, you'll be able to break Fire Rods for a barrier-piercing Fire 2 spell and Pearl Rods for a barrier-piercing Pearl spell (the latter is much more powerful). Dragon Horn Jumps with a Pearl Lance are pretty powerful (though the damage inflicted is impaired by the Safe status), but if your Edgar is still working with the Gold Lance, you should stick to Atlas Armlet with Drill/Chain Saw. Bum Rush is also barrier-piercing so that works rather nicely. Setzer's GP Rain surpasses all his other forms of damage output. For other characters: Terra, Celes, and Relm should cast Fire 3, Pearl, Fire 2 (in order of preference), Umaro should not be equipped with a Blizzard Orb as Doom Gaze absorbs Storm; Rage Ring/Atlas Armlet is the way to go.

Never mind Mog's Dances, they're far too weak here; Dragon Horn Pearl Lance Jumps or his strongest spells are the best alternatives for this character. Gau's Io-induced Flare Star will deal 9999 damage with every Flare Star while nullifying the effects of Aero; Gau's Powerdemon Rage will cast Flare, which is decent enough, and with the inherent Undead property, he won't have to fear the Doom spell. Strago should stick to Step Mine (or Grandtrain if he has it), Shadow should throw Pearl Rods or Flame Sabres (Pearl Rods are stronger) or even plain Ninja Stars if you don't have any elemental weapons to abuse, and Gogo is probably best off Raging Io if possible or throwing out Bum Rush attacks (via Mimic, of course). Locke equipped with a Valiant Knife delivers barrier-piercing damage to begin with and Cyan should stick to Atlas Armlet-boosted Dispatch attacks (the only other barrier-piercing attack he has is Quadraslice and we can't wait that long). Note: I know that Flame Shields are even stronger than Pearl Rods. This is only by a small margin though, and Pearl Rods are far easier to acquire in bulk in addition to being less useful in other battles. Expand Full Strategy

Dullahan is a stud. Although he looks like he'd rather impale you with that lance of his any day, he's almost exclusively a spell caster with inherent Haste. Both his spells and Magic Power are relatively strong, so expect a challenge here. The boss' name comes from an ancient spirit from Irish mythology: a headless horseman who only travels to collect somebody's life. His carriage is made of bone, his horses have flaming eyes, and he will stop at nothing...

Dullahan always starts the battle off with L? Pearl. This is a strong Pearl-elemental attack, in terms of power similar to level 3 spells. Its drawback is that it will only hit targets whose level is divisible by the last digit of your GP. This is why I told you to make sure that it never hits; it will leave quite a mark if it does.

Under normal circumstances, he'll just focus on his three main spells: namely, Ice 2, Ice 3, and Pearl. When he detects any characters in your party with the Reflect status, he'll use Reflect??? on your entire party. It will display "???? on wall-protected person", setting Dark, Mute, and Slow on every character with the Reflect status. If he dives beneath 10240 HP, he'll use Cure 2 instantly. If he passes through four normal turns, he'll regain the ability to cast Reflect??? and/or Cure 2 if the situation calls for it. Finally, there is a 33% chance that it will counter your attack with Battle. Oh, my.

After damaging him eight times, he'll get four turns where he will use some of his nastier spells. Ice 2 and L? Pearl can make another appearance, but so can !Morn Star, Absolute0, and N. Cross. You can't Runic your way out of these new spells, which makes them harder to stop. N. Cross, while being vulnerable to Runic, is the most dangerous of the five.

N. Cross sets the Freeze status ailment, which you might have already encountered in the fight against Naughty, who could set it with Cold Dust. N. Cross is multi-target, but uses an 'interesting' way to determine whether it hits or not. After the game checks if N. Cross is blocked (after looking for Clear, Magic Block, the usual), it randomly misses from 0 to 4 characters. This ensures that even when all characters are normally hit by the move, you'll almost never see a party entirely frozen. That is good, as it's basically mega-Stop and there is no way to protect against it at all. Remember that the fastest way to dispel the Freeze status is to hit the party with a Fire-elemental attack; the Fire spell is obviously the best one.

There are two strategies you can employ. I'll list them both, as both should be perfectly fail-safe if you know what you're doing. Here they are:

Strategy #1: Hit Points

This is the strategy where we use violence to end Dullahan. First off, let's set up our available defenses. Zoneseek is nice should Absolute0 make an appearance, as is Golem or Fenrir for !Morn Star and Battle counters. Have Celes use Runic, continuously. If she isn't wearing Running Shoes, make sure you cast the Haste spell on her. Now, let's get to the violence! Your main damage dealers here are Sabin and Edgar. Sabin should be in the Front Row with two Fire Knuckles. If Celes isn't busy with absorbing one of Dullahan's spells, sneak a Bserk spell on Sabin for increased damage. If Edgar is equipped with the Dragon Horn, have him Jump. If not, stick to Tools; you can see what I want to do with him. Setzer should just stand by and use Potions on hurting characters. Since Celes should pretty much absorb all of Dullahan's attacks, you should be safe in that regard. In the end, you should prevail.

Strategy #2: Magic Points

Dullahan dies if you rasp away his MP. Thus, the entire offensive arsenal required for this strategy is Rasp. The advantage of the strategy is that if you have two to four Rasp casters, you'll find that the battle is over far more quickly. Its downside is that it does require two to four Rasp casters, and that, since Rasp is vulnerable to Runic, you can't protect yourself against Dullahan's attacks and will, consequently, have to regularly heal.

On a normally leveled party, I find both strategies equally satisfying; it's your pick, really. Expand Full Strategy

Short Arm is incapable of doing anything magical, and it will normally just use Battle. It has a 66% chance of countering any damage it takes with Battle too. When it hits 10112 HP, Short Arm may start to use !VacuumWave, which is a tad stronger. Did you know '112' is the Dutch alarm number? Did you care? Long Arm is only slightly more inventive than its shorter twin; it switches between Battle and Shock Wave. When it hits 10240 HP, Long Arm takes a break from the Shock Wave attacks and uses either Battle or does nothing whatsoever. Bold strategy, Cotton. If Long Arm is the last target to be taken out in this first battle, it'll use up to three Shock Wave attacks before going palm-up.

Face is one that only a mother could love, I suppose, and since there is no mother to speak of, it only makes sense that this creature is trapped in a state of continuous furious torment. It doesn't really do a lot normally, very rarely using either R.Polarity or !Slip Hit. Every fifth turn it'll use either Safe or Haste on one of its Arms. Of course, the trouble begins once you pound it enough and it hits 10240 HP. From this moment on, it'll never rest and use either !Slip Hit or the Petrify-inducing Dread attack. In this damaged state, every fifth turn may feature Dread, Magnitude8, or R.Polarity. If Face is the last target to be killed, it'll go with a Quake spell.

The first tier of the final battle is beyond any doubt the easiest tier, and, since every succeeding tier will be more difficult to handle than the previous one, it makes sense to use the relative harmlessness of this titan to your advantage. Start the battle off by reducing the damage you're taking. Take out Long Arm easily by employing an instant death attack: either use the Air Anchor on it or cast Break spells until one hits. Now, cast Slow on Short Arm and you're good to go. Make sure that you do not summon Golem or Fenrir right now: Their effects won't carry to the next tier and you'll need them much more up there.

Now that you're just taking !Slip Hits and occasional physical hits from the fiend, it's time for your barriers. Cast Haste 2, Big Guard, Regen, Life 3, you've got all the time in the world and there's nothing stopping you from applying all the positive status ailments you see fit. Know that if you brought Terra to this battlefield, you can have her Morph and let her Morph timer run out while she's Sleeping to make her Morph status permanent. If you're done, it's time to finish this titan off.

You'll want to take out Face before Short Arm, so focus your attacks on it. Since Face is weak to Fire-elemental attacks, an single-target Fire 3 spell leaves a huge dent, as do Thrown Flame Sabres. There's nothing particularly interesting to say about the do's and don't's of this battle: focus your powers mainly on Face, as you want to take it out first, and simply inflict damage as efficiently as possible. You've had much more experience with your characters than I have, so go with what has proven itself in your particular situation. Expand Full Strategy

The GhostTrain will start with the battle with either a physical attack, !Wheel, or Evil Toot. The next four turns will be spent using normal physical attacks and his Special !Wheel; the fifth turn will be Evil Toot, but only if there are at least two characters still alive.

After every 15 seconds of battle, GhostTrain will use either Acid Rain (2/3) or Scar Beam, an attack that deals multi-target Holy-elemental damage to your party. Finally, if GhostTrain has been damaged, he has a one in three chance of using !Wheel.

For trivia, Scar Beam used to be GhostTrain-exclusive until White Drgn Redux showed its pasty face for the Advance release. Given it's such a nasty move in that fight, its occurrence here at least shows the GhostTrain was on the right track.

The fight against GhostTrain can be real easy and real bad, and it all depends on his Evil Toot attack. This sets one random status ailment on your party out of the following: Darkness, Poison, Imp, Doom, Berserk, Confused, Sap and Slow.

The ones you need to be concerned about are Imp, Berserk, and Confused. If one of your characters is Imped, you'll want to use Potions to damage GhostTrain. Potions inflict 250 worth of HP damage, which is superior to your crummy Imped Attack command. Smack your Confused characters, as there's nothing more fatal than Confused characters, especially when they have access to Fire Dance or barrier-piercing attacks.

The GhostTrain battle is very much like the Specter battle in the sense that using a Fenix Down is the coward's way out, and that the strategy revolves around allowing Cyan to start the battle with his third Bushido skill, Slash. After this, have Sabin come in with an Aurabolt and Shadow with Shuriken. A lot of people have dubbed it 'hilarious' to have Sabin use Suplex on the GhostTrain. If you want to see a tiny sprite lift a huge train, be my guest. Expand Full Strategy

Here's a purely physical fighter that can kill a Front Row character in one go with !Throat Jab. Gigantos will start the battle off with three !Throat Jab attacks, and continue to switch between Attack and !Throat Jab while countering any damage you do with two Attacks and a !Throat Jab. That's a lot of physical damage. If you self-applied the Invisible status like I advised, you're invulnerable in this fight. Boom.

If you're fighting him, one-hit KO attacks work best. L. 5 Doom offs him easily, as do Break, Shoat, Snare (Rhodox Rage), and Doom. You can, of course, toy with him a little bit; try to steal his rare Elixir or common X-Potion. He's vulnerable to Stop as well, so for ensured victory, you can use a Stop/Doom combo if you're evil enough. For all your trouble, you get a Hardened blade, a stronger weapon for Shadow without the Assassin's one-hit KO property. Since you should not be using Attack at all, I recommend sticking to your current blade, which should be either the Thief Knife or Assassin. Expand Full Strategy