Final Fantasy VI Bosses

No restrictions. However, Vanish/Banish, Vanish/Atom Edge, Vanish/True Edge, Vanish/Oblivion and Vanish/Snare all cause the final bit of 'Deathgaze 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 Deathgaze 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/Death 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... Deathgaze 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! Deathgaze is a relatively simple yet tough opponent, so prepare well.

Deathgaze will start every battle by using Lv. 5 Death; 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. Deathgaze may cast an Blizzaga or Death spell in its the first turn, and may cast Death or use Aero the second. After every two turns (not counting the initial Lv. 5 Death), Deathgaze 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 Deathgaze has inherent Safe and Shell status boosts, a weakness to Fire- and Holy-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 Deathgaze, they're a blessing; since spells executed by breaking Rods gain a barrier-piercing property, you'll be able to break Flame Rods for a barrier-piercing Fira spell and Holy Rods for a barrier-piercing Holy spell (the latter is much more powerful). Dragon Horn Jumps with a Holy Lance are pretty powerful (though the damage inflicted is impaired by the Safe status), but if your Edgar is still working with the Golden Spear, you should stick to Gigas Glove with Drill/Chain Saw. Phantom 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 Firaga, Holy, Fira (in order of preference), Umaro should not be equipped with a Blizzard Orb as Deathgaze absorbs Storm; Berserker Ring/Gigas Glove is the way to go.

Never mind Mog's Dances, they're far too weak here; Dragon Horn Holy 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 Rage will cast Flare, which is decent enough, and with the inherent Undead property, he won't have to fear the Death spell. Strago should stick to Traveler (or if he has it), Shadow should throw Holy Rods or Flametongues (Holy Rods are stronger) or even plain Fuma Shurikens if you don't have any elemental weapons to abuse, and Gogo is probably best off Raging Io if possible or throwing out Phantom Rush attacks (via Mimic, of course). Locke equipped with a Valiant Knife delivers barrier-piercing damage to begin with and Cyan should stick to Gigas Glove-boosted Fang attacks (the only other barrier-piercing attack he has is and we can't wait that long). Note: I know that Flame Shields are even stronger than Holy Rods. This is only by a small margin though, and Holy Rods are far easier to acquire in bulk in addition to being less useful in other battles. Expand Full Strategy

Demon would have started out with inherent Image too, but since the game designers also gave her Image immunity, this status is never applied. Too bad for her. Demon is the least inventive Goddess of the bunch, as she shows us no new attacks. But we can forgive her, as she's so especially awesome. So, what will she try to do to us?

Her normal AI script has her use Battle, !Tyrfing, Metal Cutter (this one is kind of painful when it hits), and the Stop spell. You should immediately remove the Stop status with a Dispel spell if a character is affected, since, as soon a character suffers from the Stop status, Demon will use a Blaster attack to kill the person off. If the Stopped character isn't immune to instant death attacks, this will hit, so beware. A little note about !Tyrfing: The Japanese game calls this Special attack 'Tyrfing', after a cursed sword from gothic folklore.

Demon becomes increasingly mean once you damage her beyond 32640 HP, as she will start the heavy artillery with the powerful multi-target attacks: Aero, Southern Cross, Flare Star, and Meteor. At this point, you don't have to worry about any kind of physical attack or the Stop/Blaster combo anymore. Finally, every time Demon is damaged, she may cast a Firaga spell on the attacker. After she has been damaged eight/sixteen/etc. times, her next move will be Wave Cannon.

You have two proverbial trump cards against her. First off, you're draped in equipment that absorbs and/or nullifies her elemental attacks. Make Fire-elemental protection a priority, as you'll see that element the most, especially with the existence of that Firaga omni-counter. Second, Demon is vulnerable to the Stop status, so what are we even worrying about? Do note that since Demon is inherently Hasted, the status won't stick around as long as you would usually expect, so barriers and Fire-elemental protection certainly aren't excessive luxuries.

Set Stop on Demon right away and make multi-target Shell your next priority by means of Mighty Guard, Wall, or individual Shell-casting. Hastega is grand as usual to keep up with Demon, and while buffs such as Regen and physical protection aren't really necessary or all that useful, it wouldn't hurt either. Now, start pounding Demon with everything you have! Make no mistake; the Poison-elemental weakness is nothing you can really work with, as a neutral level 3 spell is stronger than Bio even when the latter is hitting a weakness. You might even want to set a better elemental weakness with the Debilitator to speed things up.

Your Dragoons will have a hard time penetrating Demon's Defense and Safe status, so you might want to keep them around for utility shift this time. Shadow can throw Poison Rods for great (barrier-piercing) damage. Gau is great Raging certain monsters, including Baalzephon (Blizzaga, absorbs every element but Fire which the Snow Scarf takes care of), Great Malboro (same story, casts Bio), Ouroboros (absorbs Fire-elemental attacks, casts Quake), or just an offensive Rage such as Stray Cat (care to give Gau a Poison Rod?), Purusa, Tyrannosaur, or whatever. Locke, Sabin, Cyan, Setzer, and Strago shouldn't have any trouble penetrating Demon's defenses. For the pure Magic skillset characters, the Quake spell is the second-best option after Ultima. If you don't have it or Float isn't an option, it's all about Flare.

In the end, Demon is the easiest of the three Goddesses to defeat, and that's all due to the Stop status vulnerability. If it hadn't been for that, I would've ranked her in the middle. Demon is all about the multi-target violence, and, if you have the defenses and elemental resistances to keep up with that, you're basically in the clear even if you choose not to apply the Stop status. Expand Full Strategy