Final Fantasy VI Bosses

Kaiser Dragon is the ultimate victory of Final Fantasy III (US!) junkies the world over. We knew this thing was lying dormant in the game's code for years. We figured out the highlights of this guy's speech when you could play but Tetris on handheld consoles. We invented this guy's HP loop trick, and all Square-Enix could do was copy it. But we're not smug. Well, not most of us, apparently.

There's basically two phases in this battle. First, you'll have to survive Kaiser's first four lives, during which he'll use attacks according to a particular weakness. By survive, that's all I mean: his HP will replenish with each of these four shifts, so any damage you inflict doesn't count. Second, once he's down to his last life and won't replenish his HP again - this is the part where you attack and stuff - you'll have to stay alive, deal sufficient damage and survive Kaiser Dragon's final Ultima spell.

At the start of the battle, Kaiser Dragon will use Barrier Change to assume an offensive skillset. Here's what he'll use; you can use the attacks listed to determine his weakness at the time:

When weak to Fire-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will randomly use Firaga, Meteor, Flare, Meltdown and will counter 66% of your attacks with Southern Cross on the entire party.

When weak to Ice-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will randomly use Blizzaga spells, Absolute Zero, Avalanche and Northern Cross, and will counter 66% of your attacks with Freezing Dust on a random party member.

When weak to Lightning-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will randomly use Thundaga, Plasma or Gigavolt, and will counter 66% of your attacks with Wave Cannon on the entire party.

When weak to Poison-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will use a combo of Scintillation, Venomist and a Doom attack on its first turn, use a combo of Lullaby, Crypt Dust and Disaster on the second turn and will use Cloudy Heaven on its third turn. It will counter 66% of your attacks with a Bio spell on a random party member.

When weak to Wind-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will randomly use physical attacks, Tornado spells, Aero and Cyclonic, and will counter 66% of your attacks with a Wind Slash attack.

When weak to Holy-elemental attacks:

The first time Kaiser Dragon gets a Holy shift, he'll cast Reflect on a single character and follow with the Reflect ??? attack. Its second turn will be used to cast Protect, Shell and (useless due to Slow immunity) Haste. When Kaiser Dragon has done these things earlier, he'll just attack with physical attacks, Holy spells and the Lv. ? Holy attack. Kaiser Dragon will counter 66% of your attacks with a Hyperdrive attack on a random party member.

When weak to Earth-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will attack ferociously with combinations of physical attacks, every third turn using !Last Breath twice, and will counter 66% of your attacks with a Quake spell.

When weak to Water-elemental attacks:

Kaiser Dragon will randomly use Aqua Breath, Tsunami, Flash Rain and El Niño in quick succession, and will counter 66% of your attacks with an Acid Rain attack on a single character.

Some elemental skillsets are more dangerous than others. The Fire-elemental one is nasty because Meteor and Flare are both non-elemental and barrier-piercing; coming from Kaiser Dragon's bloated Magic stat they'll probably kill whatever they hit, so Magic Evasion is your only salvation. Kaiser Dragon's Ice-elemental shift is nasty because Freezing Dust is such a pain; you have no business attacking at this point though, so you shouldn't worry. Quake kills you if you're not floating, doing about 6000 damage to character without elemental affinities for it. Kaiser Dragon's Poison-elemental shift is the worst; if he manages to pull off Cloudy Heaven, your battle is over since, though you need Ribbons equipped, Ribbons will make it so that you can't cure the Zombie status (in this game, immunities work both ways; if you have it despite being immune to it, it's unremovable).

Since Kaiser Dragon's attack pattern depends on its weakness in this phase, you can actually change its attack pattern with the Debilitator Tool. The game checks the elemental weaknesses in a certain order, and the first weakness it finds will be the one which defines Kaiser Dragon's attack type. Look at the elemental-based attack pattern table above; this is the order in which the game checks for elemental weakness. This means that the Fire element is the most dominant one – if Kaiser Dragon's Barrier Change has set a Fire weakness, it can't be changed no matter what weakness the Debilitator sets. On the other hand, Earth is a relatively submissive one, meaning that you have a large chance of changing it. There's hardly ever a guarantee, but the Debilitator might be able to change Kaiser Dragon's code of conduct if you smell Cloudy Heaven approaching, for instance.

Thunder Shields are a blessing. In the elemental shift phase, it'll protect you against all Lightning-elemental attacks and Aqua Breath, and will halve damage done by Fire- and Ice-elemental ones. Afterwards, Lightning Shields will help you against Meltdown spells Kaiser Dragon may cast. Ribbons are also an absolute necessity; without them, Kaiser Dragon's Poison-elemental shift will spell your doom and every Mind Blast attack it's going to regularly use will just murder you. Too bad for set-ups that require both Relic slots (such as successful Dragoons); they have to go in favor of a Ribbon.

Kaiser Dragon's first phase is relatively simple. You'll need to see Kaiser Dragon use Barrier Change five times before you can attack. Any damage you inflict in this first phase won't actually register in its fifth and meaningful life (all your damage will be reset) and it'll only get you nasty counterattacks. So far so good. If a character falls (likely due to Flare, Meteor, Doom or a particularly strong elemental attack on a character not protected from it), revive. Multi-targeted Shell is very important to absorb the multi-target attacks Kaiser Dragon possesses.

Kaiser Dragon's last and true life, after its fifth elemental shift, is simple but brutal. Every 15 ATB intervals, regardless of its normal AI script, it'll have a 2/3 chance of using Heartless Angel, possibly followed by a 1/3 Mind Blast attack. This is where your Ribbons kick in. If you've got Ribbons (or White Capes) equipped, the attack will fail. If you don't, you've lost your battle right there, as you don't have the time to heal.

Kaiser Dragon's normal AI script includes Meltdown spells, Quake spells, Hyperdrive attacks, relatively weak multi-target attacks such as Gale Cut, Flash Rain and Absolute Zero and physical attacks including !Last Breath. If you target Kaiser Dragon with anything, it may use !Last Breath or Revenge Blast as a counter-attack.

If you're wrapped in Thunder Shields, Meltdown should only bother you if the attack also heals Kaiser Dragon (if so: too bad). The nastiness stems from the incredibly fast-paced Kaiser Dragon, Hyperdrive attacks which will kill a target, Revenge Blast attacks which will kill a target and the continuous usage of Heartless Angel, which you need to cure since anytime a Flash Rain or Absolute Zero attack may come around the corner.

You will need Reraise for this fight. It's extremely difficult to track Kaiser Dragon's HP, especially since Libra will provoke counter-attacks. Always value revival over healing and healing over offense, since Kaiser's nastiest attacks are counter-attacks and the one big threat in its random AI script is only single-target. I've found that since you die so often due to Revenge Blast and Hyperdrive, applying things such as Mighty Guard and Hastega are often pointless, as you'll only see it quickly removed in most cases.

Your offense may be a problem, since Kaiser Dragon will only have a single randomly decided weakness when things get serious, and will nullify or absorb the other seven. You can use Libra to check its current weakness; there's a good chance your mages will be able to nail it even when lacking the likes of Flare and Ultima. Kaiser Dragon has above-average Defense and Magic Defense, so barrier-piercing attacks work the best. Particularly damaging combinations are Locke with the Valiant Knife/Master's Scroll and Setzer with Fixed Dice/Master's Scroll, as both will ignore defenses.

In the end, the fight versus Kaiser Dragon is a bit of a luck fight. Either way, you'll need to be tightly prepared with Ribbons, Thunder Shields, and all of the correct spells. But beyond that, if Kaiser Dragon decided to use Cloudy Heaven, or if Meteor connects on the entire party, or if you get the wrong counter at the wrong time, you're screwed. So even though specific potential scenarios might be nigh impossible, it's an entirely doable battle on the whole. Expand Full Strategy