Final Fantasy VI Bosses

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