Final Fantasy V Walkthrough

Written by Djibriel

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2.10: Valley of Dragons

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Enemies: ??, Drippy, Grimalkin, Skelesaur, PoisnEagle, DrgnZombie, Golem, Dragon Grass, Dragon Bulb

Treasures: 5000 Gil, Armor Bonemail, Cottage, Helmet Coronet, Phoenix Down, Katana Wind Sword

Blue Magic: MagHammr

Valley of Dragons is home to many mysterious creatures; undead dragons are but a grim memory of Valley of Dragons's former glory as the roost of the Wind Drake populace, its critters are aggressive but never a picture of health and among the slopes of Valley of Dragons climbs a monster of mud and stone, the Golem.

?? is an odd encounter you won't be able to do anything with; this is the Golem we'll truly meet later. For now, he simply recognizes you as a threat (what, like you wouldn't mindlessly attack him), get in a physical attack and immediately Flee.

A Drippy is a Pao palette swap. They're like pygmy Berserkers, I dunno. You can Control them into using

MagHammr on a character with Learning if you didn't pick the attack up from Byblos. They may even use it normally on you. They're little threat and not that interesting.

Grimalkin attack in great numbers. They're weak to Fire-elemental attacks, so Fire Skills and Ifrit's Inferno both help clear them out. They may drop Holy Water, but that's about it.

Skelesaurs are one of the two more formidable opponents Valley of Dragons houses. Undead Dragons, they're weak to Fire-elemental attacks and may use Bone, an attack that's entirely like Hurricane; it drops a single character's HP to a single digit. They're not that hard to defeat; Requiem is a very potent weapon when facing these things.

PoisnEagles have only 100 HP, but evade a lot of attacks. Anything that's not normally blockable will help, such as spells, !Aim and Ninja Scrolls. They can't evade Bows and Whips either. You can rarely steal a Bow

Gale Bow from them; they have no common steal so that's nice. The Bow

Gale Bow is actually really powerful at this stage of the game; it's a shame it had to go toe-to-toe with the Spear

Doublelance surfacing as an option for Clothes characters, as that's a battle it loses. It has a 25% of performing !Sshot, which basically makes the Bow

Gale Bow attack four times in a row at half strength while disregarding the opponent's Defense. It's also unblockable. Basically, for a little randomness you get more power.

DrgnZombies are the hardest enemies you face here; they are Undead Dragons like Skelesaurs yet more sturdy. Next to physical attacks, DrgnZombies may use Poison Breath if the battle drags on (if it's allowed to take three turns, actually), so try to prevent that. Your Chemists totally ignore damage done by Poison Breath, by the way. Crank that Armor

Angel Robe.

On the whole, there are quite a few powerful attacking methods you can employ here. Requiem will deal around 2000 damage to the Skelesaur and DrgnZombies. A Ninja with two Spear

Doublelances can deal around 2500 damage when all four hits connect, using !Earth on the slopes may result into which is extremely powerful and the Bow

Gale Bow is fun to sling between 1000 and 2000 damage from the Back Row. You can't really go wrong, though take into account Valley of Dragons is simply a very handy place to level or even master the Bard Job in; in the future !Sing is an awesome ability while Bards are a bad idea due to all-round horrible stats and poor equipment options.

A note on every ?? formation and formation including the Golem opponent: when properly defeating a Golem, Skelesaur, DrgnZombie formation all these formations will be replaced by Grimalkin x5.

It's a straight path through Valley of Dragons for the most part. Just follow the trail! There's a small grotto containing a chest with 5000 Gil in it when you first enter Valley of Dragons; loot it and press up on the slopes. You'll go past a chest containing a Cottage before you get to a big bridge. Cross it, it's what it was made for. There's a small cavern pathway before you come across a slope with bones scattered around the place. There are two items of interest here; a Armor

Bonemail hidden in the bones just beneath the second dragon skull you see, and the illustrous Golem, Skelesaur, DrgnZombie monster formation.

The Armor

Bonemail falls in the 'Clothes' category, and it gives vastly superior Defense and Magic Defense to anything you have at the moment. It allows the wearer to absorb Poison-elemental attacks and protects against the Poison, Darkness, Old, Confuse and Berserk status ailments. This, however, comes at a great cost. A character wearing the Armor

Bonemail becomes Undead in every sense of the word; what would work on Undead monsters now works on Armor

Bonemail wearers. Spells such as

Cure2 and Nightingale deal damage rather than heal,

Doom spells and Death Potions instantly restore a Armor

Bonemail wearer to full health and revival items kill one instantly. In addition, when a Armor

Bonemail character actually dies due to HP loss, there is no way to revive him or her because revival items don't work on the dead undead. To make the picture complete, Armor

Bonemail wearers obtain some properties the game designers felt were more or less inherent to Undead creatures; a characters wearing the Armor

Bonemail will take double damage from Fire- and Holy-elemental attacks and Regen can't be set.

It's difficult to say if the Armor

Bonemail is fit to replace 'normal' equipment. In any normal fight where you're not planning on healing by any means next to the Blue

WhitWind spell, the Armor

Bonemail will simply grant you extreme defense, additional magic defense and a whole slew of status immunities. However, in boss fights you'll want to be able to cure, and an inability to revive one-fourth of your cast is a bad thing. Personally speaking, I know you'll get by fine without the Armor

Bonemail and I'm just annoyed to see a random Nightingale hurt a character, but there are many who disagree with that statement and the Armor

Bonemail will from now on always be equipped by Optimum so you'll have to decide for yourself.

Now, for the Golem battle.

Golem	Type	Level	HP	MP	Gil	EXP	Speed
	None	3	2500	1000	1	5000	10
	Strength	Attack Mult.	Magic Atk.	Evasion	Defense	Mag. Def.	Mag. Evade
	40	8	0	0	0	0	0
	Stolen Items			Dropped Items
	Common: Soft Rare: Soft			None
	Command Immunities			Elemental Immunities
	Catch, Control			None
	Elemental Absorb			Elemental Weakness
	None			None
	Blue Magic			Status Immunities
	None
	Strategy
	You don't actually want to defeat this boss, merely the enemies attacking him. The best way to do that is multi-target attacks that won't damage Golem, and the best way to do that at this point is with Love Song (for Stopping) and Requiem (for damage).

Here's the deal. Even though Golem is a non-human creature like the rest of Valley of Dragons's inhabitants, that doesn't mean that sometimes, just sometimes, ugly humanoids have feelings too. Anyway, these undead dragons are attacking Golem as soon as you find them, and Golem asks for your help. If you manage to kill them before Golem dies, he'll be grateful as a fistful of nearly-drowned kittens and drop you the 'Golem' item, which you can use to teach your Summoners how to utilize Golem's mighty protective prowess. If you fail, however, you'll just have to try again; he'll still randomly appear as the ?? creature and versus the two dragons.

Golem's biggest enemies are Skelesaur's Bone (which reduces his 2500 HP to a single digit, and it can hit) and your random or multi-target attacks. Lay off the !Earth; you don't want a Cave-In raining down. Don't ever bring a Berserker in this fight. Focus attacks on the dragons. It might even be a good idea to protect Golem; the

Protes and

Blink spells or a potion (Mix a Dragon Fang with a Maiden'sKiss) protect respectively against physical attacks sent his way and Bone (Dragon's Kiss gives Golem a Heavy nature, so Bone will never connect).

Requiem is the best attack to use in this battle as it will deal massive damage to both dragons but won't hit Golem. As long as you've got the ability to use Songs, Love Song sets Stop on both dragons as well. The Skelesaur is vulnerable to Petrify, so you might want to take advantage of that fact. These dragons are tougher than usual, having more HP and defenses; they shouldn't be able to kill Golem before you can save him, though.

So what does the one-armed bandit do? His attack is called Earthen Wall and it protects you from every physical attack sent your way. Golem's hand of mud and clay shoots forth from the earth to absorb physical attacks, but only stops those coming from the enemy. However, Golem can only take so much punishment before the effects of Earthen Wall wear off again; the amount of HP damage Golem can take before disintegrating equals (the Summoner's level + 20) * 50. You can put up Golem's Earthen Wall when it has been taken down, but you can't 'refresh' the thing; if Earthen Wall is still in effect, summoning Golem will do nothing. Golem is great on a Summoner who is able to use !Drink; he or she can double her HP with a Giant Drink, doubling Golem's staying power as well.

Continue!

Enter the next cave, and go left to find two chests containing the Katana

Wind Sword Katana and the Helmet

Coronet. The Katana

Wind Sword has a 12% chance of performing a Gale Cut attack instead of a normal physical strike and boosts Wind-elemental attacks (not that you're likely to use those with Heavy Armor characters). The Helmet

Coronet is another heavy piece of equipment (how slow do we want our Trainers to be?) which about doubles the chances of the !Cntrl ability to work.

Trace back your steps and take the other path. It takes you past a chest with a Phoenix Down and an entry to a Save Point. Use it and take the other exit. Here's one final slope (the Golem, Skelesaur, DrgnZombie formation appears here as well, so if you haven't found Golem, now's the time) to take you to the purpose of your visit to Valley of Dragons; the dragon grass. If you're looking for some kind of preparation and you're traveling with a Trainer, try catching a Skelesaur; its Bone attack will serve us well in the upcoming battle.

Approach the grass and say along: "You've got to be kidding me."

"Grass isn't supposed to attack people!"

The last Wind Drake of Lenna's world is still alive as far as we know, but the last Wind Drake of Galuf's world is dying as we speak. Things aren't looking too hot for the Wind Drake race as a whole, I'd say, and that's partly because of this vile thing; the dragon grass mutated. Maybe this is what Darwin meant, but that doesn't make it a useful thing to have happened. We still need the dragon grass no matter how big and powerful it grows, so let's see if we can cut down this thorned rose.

Dragon Grass	Type	Level	HP	MP	Gil	EXP	Speed
	Humanoid	33	12000	1000	0	0	39
	Strength	Attack Mult.	Magic Atk.	Evasion	Defense	Mag. Def.	Mag. Evade
	40	6	50	0	0	40	50
	Stolen Items			Dropped Items
	None			Common: Elixir
	Command Immunities			Elemental Immunities
	Catch, Control			None
	Elemental Absorb			Elemental Weakness
	None			None
	Blue Magic			Status Immunities
	None
	Strategy
	Summon Golem to protect yourself from physical damage, then focus on the Dragon Grass. It lacks Heavy status, so most attacks that can remove mass amounts of HP will work. DoomClaw might be your most accessible option.

It's a silly battle, trust me. Dragon Grass does nothing but sit there and remain fairly sturdy what with its 12000 HP and soaring Magic Defense. In the meantime, every turn it takes it summons Dragon Bulbs. These little things attack physically with their damaging specials; a combination of !Silver Powder (adds Old), !Poison Powder (adds Poison), !Paralyze Powder (adds Paralyze), !Darkness Powder (adds Darkness) and !

Muddle Powder (adds

Muddle). That's annoying!

Defensive options a-plenty, though. A Armor

Bonemail character will only take effects from !Paralyze Powder and Golem's Earthen Wall will stop all these attacks completely. Setting

Bersrk on the Dragon Bulb (either by Mixing a or Bacchus Wine) causes the Dragon Bulb to start attacking but will stop him from resurrecting the Dragon Bulbs constantly.

The Dragon Grass, though having a lot of HP and Magic Defense, lacks a Heavy Nature so there are a LOT of things to cripple this thing quickly. The Killer Bow's special effect, a Death Potion (Phoenix Down + Dark Matter), the Blue spells

Missile and

DoomClaw, it all works. If you want to kill this thing with Harps, the Harp

Lamia's Harp deals 32.5% current HP damage to it. When you Release a Skelesaur you could Catch right here in Valley of Dragons, its Bone attack will drop Dragon Bulb's HP to a single digit.

Simply summon Golem at the start and you're pretty much set, all the rest is just especially quick. You get an Elixir for your troubles.

If you need anymore ABP or Dragon Fangs, you can hike back down; the Time spell

Telepo instantly takes you to the foot of Valley of Dragons as well. Now, travel all the way back to Val Castle. There's nothing of interest in Kelb. You'll have to take a detour through the moat of Val Castle to actually enter, but that's a quick thing. Everybody needs to break into his own house every now and then, right?

Right?

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En Route to Kelb…

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Gill the Sage and Ze…

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Caves of Narshe: Final Fantasy V
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