Final Fantasy VI Bosses

Fiend 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 Demon, even ignoring Stop). Her normal moves include the ever-present Battle, Blizzaga spells, Absolute Zero, and the annoying Northern 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 Fiend hits 32640 HP, the message "Fiend's aura is trembling violently!" appears, and, my goodness, so it appears.

By doing this, Fiend 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 Slowga 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, Fiend 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, Fiend will use Battle and Targeting. Targeting does absolutely nothing more than 'store' that target in her memory, and the very next turn she will use !Fiendish Rage on that person, period. Should this person suddenly be unavailable, !Fiendish Rage will be used on a random person. Of course, the game would have us believe that the Targeting move somehow makes !Fiendish Rage unblockable, but !Fiendish Rage is unblockable in itself, so the act of using Targeting 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 Fiend with the strongest attacks you have. Strago might be able to get some play out of his Lv. ? Holy 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 Fiend starts nullifying the elements. The Holy spell is really useful when Fiend is in her 'easy' phase, but beware that you don't waste turns casting zero-damage Holy spells when she's left said phase. Make sure you don't allow Fiend to maintain her Image, Haste, or Reflect statuses: everybody who knows the Holy spell knows Dispel too, and Terra learned it naturally at level 37. Expand Full Strategy

Here's the deal; these five have amazing Defense and will try to set all kinds of status ailments on your party, eventually turning you into the Berserked characters, likely Imped. They won't use Mega Berserk 'til their third turn, but you'll be effectively screwed when Imp Song makes an appearance. Protect yourself from all this by equipping Ribbons and taking advantage of their own status ailment vulnerabilities. Summon Raiden to take care of most, if not all of them immediately. The remaining will still fall to Banish spells, Edgar's Noiseblaster or a Silence spell. Flan Princess is an easy enemy as long as you don't try to get past their Defense. Expand Full Strategy

Gargantua's the biggest, baddest giant out there. With emphasis on 'bad'. Physical attacks are pretty powerful coming from this guy, but the Quake spell is laughably weak so no worries there. Trading blows with this guy is no problem whatsoever but Esuna/Phantom'll net you invulnerability easily enough. 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. Lv. 5 Death offs him easily, as do Break, Catoblepas, Snare (Mu Rage), and Death. 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/Death combo if you're evil enough. For all your trouble, you get a Sasuke blade, a stronger weapon for Shadow without the Assassin's Dagger'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's Knife or Assassin's Dagger. Expand Full Strategy

Goddess is, in my eyes, the toughest of the trio to defeat. Not only are there no crippling status ailment weaknesses to exploit (not even Slow!) and no elemental weaknesses, Goddess also tends to use your own characters against the party, and that's just plain rude. Her Lightning-elemental nature isn't your biggest concern as you can easily absorb or nullify those attacks; it's her sneaky manipulation attacks you need to watch out for.

Her normal AI script features Battle, Thundara, Thundaga, Lullaby, and Entice. Lullaby is the same multi-target Sleep-inducing attack as it was when fighting Still Life, and Entice is still as grotesquely annoying as ever. Since this is the only battle in the game where the danger of Entice isn't limited by quickly eliminating the monsters that use it, it might be wise to kill off the character affected to make sure no really horrible things come shooting out of the affected character (Banish, Soul Spiral, Transfusion, Meteor, and Ultima all come to mind).

When damaged below the 32640 HP mark (that's the critical number of Ultima Buster and all three Goddesses; coincidence?), she actually becomes less of a threat. She'll focus more on plain damaging attacks: Flash Rain, more Thundaga spells and the non-elemental barrier-piercing Lore, Quasar, which is for all relevant purposes a slightly weaker version of Grand Delta. But we haven't touched the true power of Goddess yet.

When she is hit by a Fight command, she has a 1/3 chance of employing the Overture attack, which I discussed earlier (when facing Coco). It basically causes every Fight and Special attack your characters perform to hit the affected character. This is bad news for the Lockes, Gaus, and Setzers of your party. When damaged in any other way, she might counter with a Thundara spell, which is nowhere near as bad.

But here's the kicker: When damaged eight times, Goddess will use her unique Cloudy Heaven attack. It looks all swirly and features those cute little angels that have thus far been seen only when using Raise, Arise, or Reraise. What exactly does Cloudy Heaven do? Basically, two things. First off (and this would be bad enough by itself), it sets Doom on the entire party. This means that once the timer reaches 0, your entire party will die unless you managed to get rid of the timer, either by using Rippler or by dying and reviving preemptively. There's yet another catch, however. When a character hit by Cloudy Heaven dies, it doesn't simply receive the traditional Wound status, but is infected with the Zombie status instead. This means that your deceased characters may attack you as well, and that reviving them back to maximum HP is impossible.

Thankfully, Mighty Guard covers the entire team, even when they're split across the screen. Hastega isn't quite as strategic in the area, even though you still may want to speed up your characters, especially since Goddess herself has inherent Haste status. Throw out your most damaging attacks, and know that Goddess (with her high Magic Defense and inherent Shell status) is most susceptible to Ultima, Quake, and Flare (in that order of potency, too). Your Holy Lance Dragoons are useless, as Goddess will absorb their Jump attacks. Switch to the Radiant Lance or a Partisan if you haven't already. Make sure you keep an eye out if Overture is in effect and act accordingly.

Quickly throwing out your strongest attacks, covering the party in Thunder Shields and Safety Bits, and just having a little bit of luck are the keys to success against Goddess. Lacking any one of those three elements can really break this battle in Goddess's favor, so be prepared, keep yourself healed, and make sure Entice, Overture, and Cloudy Heaven don't catch you off-guard. Expand Full Strategy

What does Gold Dragon do? First off, every four Fight commands, it will get especially pissed and the message "Gold Dragon begins storing energy..." will be displayed. Gold Dragon will spend a turn doing nothing (aka, charging for Thundaga) before casting a Thundaga spell on the entire party. We faced a level 3 spell with fair warning halfway through the WoB, for crying out loud! If any living character has the Reflect status, Gold Dragon will cast the Reflect spell on itself and will start bouncing Thunder and Thundara spells off at the party. Every Magic spell can be countered by a Thunder or Thundara spell normally, but Gold Dragon will not counter Magic spells when he is charging for the Thundaga spell. Normally, Gold Dragon will just attack with Thunder and Thundara spells, and Gigavolt attacks.

Gold Dragon is an incredibly easy enemy at this point; all of its attacks are either Battle or Lightning-elemental. The magic attacks are all vulnerable to Celes's Runic, and Lightning is very easily absorbed or nullified by equipment such as the Thunder Shield, Paladin's Shield, Minerva Bustier, or Berserker Ring. The bane of Gold Dragon's existence, however, is summoning Phantom in conjunction with the Berserk spell. Heck, set Berserk in some other way; the neat thing about late-game battles is that you have so many options. Expand Full Strategy

Gold Dragon (Redux) absorbs Magic exactly like Celes does. This means that most of your spells will be absorbed and have no effect. Though you'll probably immediately understand that means Firaga and such are out of the question, the real threat here is that you can no longer use support and healing spells either.

Just in case you never did pay much attention to Celes, notable spells that can't be used: Cure, Cura and Curaga, Drain, Osmose, Esuna, Float, Dispel, Berserk, Haste and Hastega, Libra, Raise, Arise, Reraise, -aga spells, Flare and Ultima. Also, note that the only enemy attack that's vulnerable to Runic's effects worth mentioning that you can use is Northern Cross, which Ragers can use by emulating Fiend Dragon.

Notable spells that you can use include: Quake, Meteor, Flood, Meltdown, Valor and Quick. You can also summon Espers without any troubles. FYI, If you have both Celes on Runic stand-by and you cast a spell, both will try to absorb it. If it's a multi-target spell, both will absorb half of the MP normally used to cast the spell. Gold Dragon (Redux) will, due to a cute bug, even use Celes' blade animation when that happens. When the spell is single-target, a dominant Runic user is picked at random and only that one will gain MP, but still half of the MP normally used to cast the spell. Man, fun stuff.

Gold Dragon (Redux)'s battle logic is pretty simple. Since it can't use the most prominent Lightning-elemental attacks (it would absorb them), Gold Dragon (Redux) is pretty much stuck with Plasma and Wave Cannon. It'll use physical attacks a lot, countering with them and possibly with !Mighty Claw as well, which sets Confuse. Make sure to summon Golem or otherwise null Confuse effects, since you can't restore affected characters with Esuna for obvious reasons. Once past 25600 HP, Gold Dragon (Redux) will set Protect to buff up its Defense and will start to attack more, adding Wave Cannon to the list. Very simple and not threatening at all!

So yeah, Gold Dragon (Redux) is absorbing magic, which isn't that big a deal since about the strongest spell you can use against it not called Ultima flies past Runic: Flood! Flood spells are very powerful and feed off of Gold Dragon (Redux)'s weakness to water. Very sweet. In addition, Valor-centric set-ups are powerful, since you can cast Valor no problem, then unleash Fang, Drill, physical attacks, you name it.

This is such an easy battle compared to the previous one! Spellcasters should just focus on Flood and Quake spells (Flood is stronger). Shadow and Gogo can Throw Water Scrolls or Tridents, depending on your ammunition. Other Water- elemental attacks such as Aqua Breath and Tsunami are too weak to really take into consideration, and Dancing the Water Harmony is nowhere near as powerful as Dragon Horn Jumping. Hastega is out and you can't cast Reraise, but it doesn't matter. Summon the Maginot Line which all suffer no ill effects from Gold Dragon (Redux)'s Runic status to make sure !Mighty Claw doesn't become a problem. Absorbing all Lightning-elemental attacks and having negated physical ones, there's no threat so we can just kill the thing. Expand Full Strategy

Unless both Mog's team and Locke's team have been beaten down severely, there's no good reason to use the four-generic-Moogle party against the Guard Leader. Between the other two, the choice is up to you. As you cannot get a Game Over in this part of the game - a defeated party is sent back to a certain point with all characters at 1 HP - you can always fight Guard Leader with Locke until you have stolen a Mythril Knife. If you have trouble with the actual 'killing' part of the Guard Leader battle (Power-wise, not moral-wise), Mog has extremely dangerous attacks to offer, so you can use him for that.

If you picked Mog's team, the Twilight Requiem will make short work of the fight regardless. If you picked Locke's team or the third and inferior party, you will want to kill one Silver Lobo and then focus your attack on the Guard Leader. As long as he's not alone, he won't use !Charge, an extremely strong physical attack that can kill weaker units in the Front Row. He will, on the other hand, use the Net attack to stop some of your party members. You can try to stall if Locke is hit if you want to. Expand Full Strategy

Truth be told, the Guardian is one of the few battles in which a high amount of Magic Power (25) and strong magical attacks are combined in such a fashion that things could look grim for your party due to the sheer force of Guardian's attacks. Thankfully, most of this can be circumvented one way or another.

Guardian has a puny, unimpressive AI script when he's 'normal': It features such outdated attacks as Magitek Laser, Missile, and Atomic Rays. Guardian quickly detects you are far too strong to be beaten in this manner, however, and after two turns Guardian will load one of its battle programs. It'll try this out on you for a while, before powering down to its 'normal' state for another two turns before loading another battle program. Here's the rundown on Guardian's four battle programs:

"ACTIVATING Ultros BATTLE PROGRAM"

This is what could be considered the boss' weakest program. It'll use Tentacle here (which is nowhere near as painful as it once was) in addition to Entwine (unblockable, but you can counter this with a Hastega spell), !Ink, and Stone. It'll spend four turns emulating Ultros before settling back into its normal AI script, and Entwine will always be the last move it'll use.

"ACTIVATING Dadaluma BATTLE PROGRAM"

Shockwave and Battle are nothing to be worried about, but, on the third turn, Dadaluma Guardian will throw a or Ashura (doing extreme amounts of damage and killing non-Reraise characters) and use three healing potions (either Tonics or Hi-Potions) just before using Magitek Barrier to set both Safe and Reflect. You'll want to use Dispel or Rippler as happens result. After this has happened, Guardian will go back to its normal.

"ACTIVATING Air Force BATTLE PROGRAM"

This is simply Guardian's upgraded machine phase. It'll use such predictable beauties as Magitek Laser, Diffractive Laser, and Launcher. In its fourth turn mimicking Air Force, the opponent will say:

"INITIALIZING WAVE CANNON COUNTDOWN" "COUNT: 3" "COUNT: 2" "COUNT: 1"

All in one turn and use Wave Cannon on you, which is pretty impressive noting that 25 Magic Power we've been taking hits from so far. It'll hurt a bundle if you're not protected from it. After Wave Cannon, it's back to normal for Guardian.

"ACTIVATING Ultima Buster BATTLE PROGRAM"

Far and away the most dangerous of Guardian's battle programs, Ultima Buster's battle program will have Guardian use Battle, cast Flare, and use Meteo. On the fourth turn, Ultima Buster Guardian will say "Vast energy focused", glow yellow twice and use Flare Star, which actually isn't as threatening as you might have feared.

After this sequence is complete, Guardian will revert back to normal, after which it will load the Ultros program and start the process all over again.

The trick here is to act fast. If you have prepared decently thus far, you shouldn't need to see Air Force's battle program in action whatsoever, let alone Ultima Buster's. And this is good, since facing Ultima Buster Guardian is something you want to avoid if you're going for a victorious battle. Cast Slow on Guardian and Hastega on yourself ASAP and throw up a Mighty Guard (if you have Relm but not Strago, Sketch will give it to you 3/4 of the time) or Wall. Golem and Fenrir won't be a real asset now since the only physical attacks worth fearing - Tentacle and the Thrown blades - will hit you anyway. It might be a good idea to cast Reraise on all of your characters when he's not pulling out the big guns. That said, go all out on the guy!

The fact that Guardian is a machine and therefore weak to Lightning really helps out here, as Thundaga is a spell most (if not all) of your mages should have. If you have Thunder Shields to spare, you could break them for barrier-piercing Thundaga attacks too. If you have a Stealer in your midst, Stealing is definitely a swell idea: A Ribbon isn't too shabby, and the Force Armor is one of the useful yet finite items in the game. Tempest, Valigarmanda's Tri-Disaster, Phantom Rush, Bahamut's Mega Flare, Fixed Dice, Valiant Knife, and Jump attacks are all effective. Expand Full Strategy

Hell's Rider is a durable fellow who has an extremely strong physical attack in !Silver Lance, which he also uses to counter a successful Steal attempt. Every fourth attack, he has a 1/3 chance of using Venomist, a multi-target Poison-elemental attack with low accuracy that also sets the Poison status.

Gau can take him out in a single hit with Mu's Snare and the Break spell from Darkwind and/or Commander. If you have nothing along those lines, Areneid's !Numb and Primordite's !Numbclaw will stop him in his actions. If you lack Gau (shame on you), Cyan's Tiger works great if used first, and any combination of your strongest attacks should suffice. He can also counter any Attack with Reverse Polarity on that character. Expand Full Strategy

Hidon attacks with Battle and Bio. That's what he does. He has a 33% shot at using Bio, and a 66% shot at Battle. If you hit him with something, he has a small chance of countering with the Poison spell. Whenever a character dies in-battle (aka the Wound status), Hidon will try to revive the fallen character as a Zombie with the Crypt Dust attack, which will fail if the fallen character is immune to the Zombie status ailment. When Hidon is alone, its first turn will be devoted to glowing with an eerie yellow light and attacking with the magnificent Lore Grand Delta, which will deal between 900 and 950 damage on your sorry posterior. That's about when you'll notice that Hidon is particularly mean when it's by itself; it'll start attacking with all kinds of crazy spells, including Venomist (the multi-target Poison-elemental attack that misses a lot yet looks funky) and Leech (the non-elemental HP draining spell). Eighty seconds after the last of the Erebus has perished, Hidon will call his minions back into existence. If you kill them all again, Hidon will cast Grand Delta again, and then revive them again.

Throw up your barriers where possible (Hastega, Mighty Guard, Golem/Fenrir, Kirin) and set Slow on Hidon. Evasion of physical attacks is doubly important, as all the Erebuses will try to set nasty status ailments on you with their Specials. Now, it's time to take care of the Erebuses. While Bahamut's Mega Flare attack is by far the best way to take care of them all at once, well-timed doses of Cyan's Eclipse attack, possibly paired with Edgar's Auto Crossbow or Flash Tools, should get the job done. The most difficult Erebuses to dispatch is the one in the lower-left corner (it is inherently Reflective, absorbs all elements, and has Instant Death protection). Shadow's stronger throwing stars work well against this one, as does Strago's Traveler attack, Setzer's Fixed Dice, and Edgar's Drill. Also, don't forget to throw around stealing attempts until you've stolen something from Hidon; the common steal is a meager Teleport Stone, but the rare steal is a Thornlet, an elusive item that, provided you choose the Ragnarok sword over the Ragnarok Esper once the time comes, can only be found here.

The Thornlet is an odd piece of Headgear. The only thing it has going for it is the fact that its Defense is superior to everything, not including the Saucer on Imps. On the downside, the Thornlet grants inherent Seizure to the wearer (thorns inflict pain) and has no Magic Defense whatsoever. The verdict, then, is that the Thornlet should be ignored. The only valid reasons for getting one are either to complete your item list as much as possible or to bet it later for a Mirage Vest.

Now, behold the power of Grand Delta! As soon as that's all over, it's time to defeat this wretched being. Valigarmanda's Tri-Disaster attack, Fira, Firaga, and Quake spells really hurt, as does Shadow's Flame Scroll. Having Shadow Throw a Flametongue, Gravity Rod, or Holy Rod hurts Hidon very badly. Equipping Mog or Edgar as a Dragon Horn Dragoon paired with a Holy Lance can also deal great amounts of damage. Mog should definitely refrain from using Dances; the Twilight Requiem sucks. Phantom Rush and Fixed Dice are reliable as always. Strago and Relm themselves really need to rely on their Magic skillset if used; if Strago's selection is extremely poor, I would suggest Aero or Traveler. Obviously, if Strago is level 43, his Stone attack surpasses all other options (except Firaga). Cyan should probably stick to his Flurry skill, unless you've put in the time to teach him Firaga. Gau has a few options, but most of them are kind of odd. Devil Fist is nice enough, as it allows Gau to absorb Poison, Bio, and Venomist. Inherent Haste and Will o' the Wisp are good enough too. If you're not too concerned about that Poison ailment, have Gau engage (don't forget to cast Float on yourselves beforehand, since Litwor Chicken uses Quake). Finally, Magic Urn turns Gau into an ever-present tank that heals your party. Nice. And Umaro? Just let him go, man. Expand Full Strategy

Wow. There is just so little I can say about Holy Dragon here. He casts up to three Holy spells every turn. When hit by a Magic spell, he has a 66% chance of countering with Dispel. And that's it. Heck, you've even seen a palette swap of the thing earlier.

Holy Dragon casts nothing but spells, and is vulnerable to Mute. That's all there is to it, just cast a Silence spell and you're done. You don't have to bother with Slow, Stop, and all that, just cast Silence and attack the thing with offensive spells. If you're getting low on MP, use Osmose. Try not to swallow anything sharp while playing, as that's the only situation I can imagine where a loss on your part is actually possible. If you brought either Locke or Shadow, equip a Thief's Knife and go for Holy Dragon's steal items, as both are nice.

If you arrived here with a solo-Mog party (with the hopes of raiding chests), the strategy is only slightly different; since you don't want to take any chances, be sure you're equipped with a Reflect Ring. If Mog doesn't know the Silence spell, equip Siren so Mog can summon her for the Hope Song attack. Now that Holy Dragon is at Mog's mercy, just attack until he's dead. Expand Full Strategy

In simpler times, white magic was all about loving thy neighbor. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, cast Protect and take it. Holy Dragon (Redux) does not concern itself with ethics, never read Aristotle, is probably not even really related to your holy man of choice anyway. Holy Dragon (Redux) is an elemental weapon, and bad news for us, it's a rocket launcher.

Holy Dragon (Redux) perhaps isn't the most difficult fight in the Dragon's Den, but it's definitely a lot harder than any sparring match we engage in with his peers. The Holy element is the only element we can't really absorb without a lot of fuss. A single character can be safeguarded with the Paladin's Shield, and there's up to two Ragers that can absorb or null the Holy element, this much is true. However, the odds you've got the Shield and two Ragers on your team aren't so large.

Holy Dragon (Redux)'s attacks are nasty. It can use up to three Saintly Beam attacks in every odd turn, swapping to the occasional Holy spell after the general battle timer has exceeded 20 Doom intervals (which is about 13 seconds uninterrupted by slowdown you may have installed with the 'Wait' option in the menu). Every even turn will feature physical attacks; of which !Heavenly Wrath is extremely powerful. If Holy Dragon (Redux) is attacked it has a 66% chance of using Curaga on itself, regaining about 6000 HP. It may also counterattack with Heartless Angel 1/3 of the time.

On a character with average defenses (say, Thunder Shield, Circlet and Genji Armor), Saintly Beam will deal about 1000 damage, and up to three of them will kill those characters unless they're high-leveled. In addition, there's the risk of attacking Holy Dragon (Redux), getting a Heartless Angel counter and then seeing your entire party get slaughtered by Heartless Angel. Oh yeah, and there's the barrier of Curaga. We can cast Reflect on Holy Dragon (Redux) to stop it from healing itself for a while, but this also means we can't cast spells that bounce off Reflect barriers (such as -aga spells and Flare), nor can we choose to Rage Great Malboro or Baalzephon, since they use Bio and Blizzaga, respectively. Nasty, nasty.

Okay, here's what we're going to do. Max out Magic Defense on all characters. This will make all physical attacks hurt like hell, but after throwing up the Maginot Line we shouldn't really have to worry about them. Or, at least not as much as Saintly Beam and Holy spells. Tortoise Shields and Reed Cloaks have very high Magic Defense, as do Force Shields. Stick to your Minerva Bustiers, as they halve damage done by Holy-elemental attacks. If your Magic Defense exceeds 200, it's pretty doable. Make sure to equip Zona Seeker as well; you'll want Shell on all characters throughout the match. Mighty Guard works just as well. Equip Prayer Beads as well, as while we've been preparing for the magical attacks it's the stray physical ones that may hand us defeat. If you have a Paladin's Shield, know that revival takes top priority. If you can combine the Soul of Thamasa and the Paladin's Shield with anybody that knows Arise, you're in business.

Take any Holy Lances off of Edgar and Mog, and take note that the random Holy spell from the Lightbringer may heal Holy Dragon (Redux). As soon as you enter the battle, cast Hastega, summon Golem and Fenrir, use Mighty Guard or summon Zona Seeker and cast Reflect on Holy Dragon (Redux). Ragers can be awesome, but only with either Magic Urn, a great healing asset that absorbs Holy-elemental attacks, or Io, that negates the element but uses Flare Star, which is quite damaging to Holy Elemental Evil II.

Here's the kicker. Never attack Holy Dragon (Redux) when you know he's free to Curaga the damage away afterwards, as likely you'll deal less damage than 6000. The less you attack the less you run the risk of Heartless Angel/Saintly Beam, which spells your demise in most cases, so make your hits count. The biggest ally you have in this battle is the Quick spell. Since the first attack you make in your Quick-induced double turn will never provoke counters, you can entirely avoid Holy Dragon (Redux) casting Curaga and using Heartless Angel. Another great help is the Force Field attack; once Strago or Gogo has managed to nullify the Holy element, Saintly Beam will never kill a character again. Note that (obviously) Curaga still works.

That's all the advice I can give you. Holy Dragon (Redux) is a nasty critter, but if you find your flow you should be able to take him down eventually. If you really can't get past the thing, set a 255 Defense Back Row Gau up with anything that nullifies or absorbs Holy-elemental attacks (preferably Io or Baalzephon) and go watch a movie. After the movie, you should've won. Expand Full Strategy

This is better. Humbaba (1) will start the battle with a physical attack, be it either Battle or !Solar Plexus. Then, he'll start using Thundara and Thundaga spells; finally, he can use 1000 Needles, which will likely be ill received, as 1000 damage is nothing to laugh at when it's coming for you. Humbaba (1)'s name, if you're wondering, comes from the old Babylonian heroic poem 'Gilgamesh'. He was a monster there. He got killed, too.

If you have a Celes/Sabin team, have Sabin use his dual Venom Claws for great damage. Don't bother going on the offensive with Celes due to her lower damage output; have her on Runic standby. Both should start the battle by calling up Golem's Earth Wall if they have him equipped. If Sabin is weak, you should break the Runic guard to cure him. Smack Humbaba (1) with Sabin's fists until he runs off.

If you have a solo Celes party, summon Golem to start, and fill all other turns by casting Bio (or, if lacking Bio, Blizzara) as quickly as you can. Fighting this guy with Celes only is a risk as no matter what you do, 1000 Needles is very dangerous and Humbaba (1) can kill you. If you're low at HP, sneak in an X-Potion or Elixir.

Any other team needs little guidance; you've obviously been around the world, collected at least four characters, and have better equipment than neccessary. Bio spells still come in handy. What else is there to say? Setzer can't spin Joker's Death here. The best Dance is Earth Blues, while the home dance, Wind Rhapsody is nigh worthless. Spritzer absorbs Thundara and Thundaga while dealing acceptable damage, although a Magna Roader (Purple) Rage with a Reflect Ring is better. Expand Full Strategy

This isn't all that difficult, so I'll make it kinda quick. You rush out of the house to find Humbaba (2) approaching. You do battle with him. The first round, he'll throw a Battle or !Solar Plexus attack. The next round consists of Thundara or Thundaga, and the third round is Thundara, 1000 Needles, or Battle. It loops from this point. As soon as it reaches 15360 Hit Points, it'll counter the next attack you throw at him with a double Humbaba Breath attack. Humbaba Breath is a Humbaba (2)-only attack that's exactly the same as Sneeze; it only looks different. Humbaba (2) targets two random characters and blows them away. They will also be removed from your party and can be found at the Falcon later. Here, the battle ends.

If you somehow managed to completely circumvent this event by doing more than 15360 damage in one turn, he'll use Humbaba Breath only once and die. This is odd, as the thing going on here plot-wise is that you can't really handle Humbaba (2). Sure, you pound on him for a while, then he disables two of your characters just like that.

On the offensive, Humbaba (2) is temporarily resistant to the Sleep status, so that doesn't work. Focus on your strongest attacks; Sabin's Phantom Rush, Mog and Edgar's Jump attacks, Setzer's GP Rain attack (his Fixed Dice are stronger if you have them), Cyan's technique, what have you. If you brought Gau to the scene, !Catscratch at decent level (30 and above) is the best bet versus Humbaba (2) for Gau. If this isn't an option for Gau, Tyrannosaur's Meteo is also decent, followed in usefulness by Marchosias's Aero and Trillium's Bio. Spritzer absorbs Thundara and Thundaga, which is a great defensive choice if you didn't bring Reflect Rings or a Runic user. Keep in the back of your head that Spritzer is undead, though. Destroyer isn't, but that really kills Gau's offense in the matter. Baalzephon absorbs the Lightning-elemental spells and has superior offense in Blizzaga, but chances are slim you chose to pick up Gogo before Terra. Your Mages and lesser-trained characters have the Bio spell to use, and if any character has learned Quake then it is pure magic here (don't forget to cast Float, obviously). Note that since this battle fades out rather than actually ends, Strago won't be able to learn any Lores (aka 1000 Needles) from this battle.

Anyway, despite your perfect set-up and the little amount of damage Humbaba (2) will be able to do against your party, you still get your face handed to you on an IKEA faux-silver platter according to the storyline. No fair. So, Terra comes to save you! Sensing that her friends are in danger or something cheesy like that, she rushes to the rescue, unleashing the Esper within herself on her way. Round two: Fight!

There you stand, with one or two less characters than what you picked beforehand but with a permanently Morphed Terra as a replacement. Basically, just continue to attack Humbaba (2) in the same fashion. If Terra knows the Bio spell, have her use it. Since Terra doesn't have a Reflect Ring and likely lacks the Minerva Bustier as well, it might be a good idea to cast Shell or Reflect on her in this battle, even though she already takes half as much damage from the attacks due to her Morphed state. The Sleep status ailment works now, so have one of your characters cast it if possible and focus on using magical attacks only. Before long, Humbaba (2) will fall. Interesting tidbit: This is actually the only battle in the entire game in which you can see the fallen Esper Terra sprite. In normal situations, Terra will automatically revert to human form when she is killed, but not so in this battle. Expand Full Strategy

Go ahead and gawk at those status vulnerabilities if you like. However, I can't say that the Ice Dragon is the weakest of the eight brethren; as you'll see in the future, Gold Dragon is about as silly, while Holy Dragon is even more pathetic. The Ice Dragon can be fairly easily screwed over though. Sadly for Ice Dragon, his element is easily absorbed, his amount of HP rather low, and his status vulnerabilities are downright horrible, but I'll try and treat Ice Dragon with the same amount of dignity I firmly believe everybody deserves. Except for Nelapa, obviously.

What does Ice Dragon do? He can use all three spells normally. If you damage him, he might counter with Battle. If he dies, he might use one final Avalanche attack before rolling over, but that's about it. Honestly, Ice Dragon might very well be the least interesting boss in the game.

How to stop him? There are tons of ways! It doesn't really matter who you bring here. All you need is the Berserk spell and the Esper that teaches it, Phantom. Set Berserk on Ice Dragon, summon Phantom, and sit back. Use Poison or Bio to set Poison on the freezing fiend, and even Haste if you like: it will only speed up the Poisoning, as you'll be immune to everything he does. If you brought Mog, make sure you don't execute a Dance; the only one that doesn't have an inherent chance to remove your Clear status is the Twilight Requiem, which is pretty much useless anyways (there's only a 3/16 chance you'll damage him once you get it working). Gau's (or Gogo's) Io-induced Flare Star attack will do 9999 damage every time it appears regardless of what level the caster is at, while Leaf Bunny or the Magna Roader (Purple) make Gau and Gogo absorb the Ice-elemental attacks without any equipment. If you brought Edgar, you can tease the Ice Dragon by trying to make Poison his weakness (if you get it, Poison will take off about 3200 damage a hit at the peak of its glory).

If you have the equipment and the status ailments to throw around, Ice Dragon is a joke. If you don't, his Absolute Zero and Avalanche attacks will hurt real bad. The Mute status effect will prevent it from being able to use Northern Cross and Absolute Zero. If, for some reason, you don't opt for Berserk/Phantom, try setting Slow, Poison, and Mute (a neat way of doing this is casting Reflect on the guy and have Strago/Gogo execute Reflect ???, but that's just novelty). Equip the easily obtained Ice Shields, Flame Shields, Snow Scarfs, and/or Minerva Bustier bustier and you won't feel a thing from Ice Dragon's attacks. Golem should be more than sufficient for Ice Dragon's physical attacks, but you can humiliate him further by summoning Fenrir in addition. Expand Full Strategy

What's cooler than bein' cool? Ice Cold, that's what. Ice Dragon (Redux) is the living, breathing proof of one of the few certainties in this life: the small ones always have to overcompensate. Once upon a time, the Ice Dragon was just a cool brother chilling in the snowfields of Narshe (puns intended). These days, he's pumped himself up to measure up to the expectations of his larger brethren in the most pathetic way possible: By means of his mirror images.

As soon as you enter the battle with Ice Dragon (Redux), he'll create three more of himself, presumably out of ice or something. They stack behind each other on-screen, so you'll only ever see a single one. All four are identical, but the more mirror images you destroy the more aggressive the remaining combatants get. When all four targets are still alive, they will attack with physical attacks, !Freeze (which sets Stop), and a rare Blizzaga spell. Do note that these physicals are rather nasty coming from a level 97 monster and that there will be four monsters attacking you, so this ain't no cakewalk. It'll counter with a physical Attack every time you hit one, meaning that when you use a multi-target attack you'll have to endure four separate counters. When you destroy a mirror image, it will use one final multi-target Ice-elemental attack against its killer (making it a very strong single-target multi-hit attack): either Northern Cross, Absolute Zero or Avalanche.

Once one mirror image has been destroyed, the Ice Dragons will start using (Umaro's) Snowstorm and Freezing Dust. Once a second mirror image is dust, the two Ice Dragons will stop goofing around and start attacking every round (as opposed to randomly doing nothing). In addition, they'll adapt their counter to include a possible !Freeze attack. Once the three mirror images have been destroyed, Ice Dragon (Redux) will start trying to multi-target Freeze you with Northern Cross and straight-up kill you with Absolute Zero and Avalanche attacks. My, oh my.

The prescription here is easy. If you don't absorb or negate Ice-elemental attacks, you're dead in the water. Snow Scarfs, Ice Shields and Minerva Bustiers all work. Flame Shields work too, but not as well. Either way, the only source of damage you should have to worry about is physical. Obviously, with all the magical attacks flying around the Invisible status is no help, so we'll have to go with substitutes. With the mass amounts of pounding Ice Dragon (Redux) will unleash, nothing is too much. Fenrir's Howling Moon will set Image on every character; Shadow and Gogo can self-apply the status with a Shadow Scroll once Howling Moon's effects have expired. Prayer Beads make sure that even before taking Evasion into account, 50% of the incoming physical attacks will be avoided. Should neither Fenrir nor Prayer Beads be good enough, Golem can stop physical attacks, but the Earthen Wall can't last forever, so if you have acces to Mighty Guard, apply it.

So, with our defenses in place, it's time to go on the offense. Even with our carefully planned strategy, it's likely that before the end is reached you will see physical attacks rain upon your head, so Reraise is a good idea to cast in the early stages of the fight. Since every multi-target attack from the party provokes up to four counters, stick to single-target attacks and take out one target at a time. Your main annoyance will likely be the Stop and Freeze statuses. As soon as a single mirror image has been blasted to bits, Freezing Dust will start appearing which is unblockable and ignores any kind of defense you could've possibly set up. You can't prevent it, but you can fight it! Hastega serves more than the obvious cause in this fight, as it means a faster dispelling of Stop of Freeze. Of course, Freeze is more easily removed by any Fire-elemental attacks. Ice and Shields and the Minerva Bustier deal with Fire as easily is Ice, so no problem there.

Firaga is the ultimate spell to cast, as it's single-target by default. Meltdown is awesome as well once you absorb/nullify Fire-elemental attacks, as it's wicked powerful and will heal any character lucky enough to absorb the element. It's multi-target, but the healing will offset the damage. Thrown Flametongues will deal massive amounts of damage as well. Ragers will like using Devil Fist (inherent Haste and the single-target Will o' the Wisp) or Io (Flare Star, which is very powerful dealing with a level 97 enemy weak to the element), assuming the Rager in question absorbs Ice-elemental attacks. If not, Twinscythe or Leaf Bunny will be defensive choices. Expand Full Strategy