Final Fantasy VI Bosses

What's the point of this battle? There are four Tentacles. It gets rather confusing because each Tentacle has its own set of status immunities and elemental properties. But there is one thing that all Tentacles have in common; the attacks they perform, of which the most noticeable is the Grab, the attack both !Stun and Entwine are centered around.

What does Grab do? Grab seizes a character and renders it completely helpless. During a period of about 30 seconds, the Tentacle that used Grab holds the character and gradually drains his or her HP. It's a weird little formula. It's non-elemental and barrier-piercing and has a 5/8 chance of dealing about 60 HP of damage at each interval (which means that damage is taken less regularly if the Tentacle is slowed and more often if Hasted).

Tentacles just use their normal attacks: Battle, !Stun to set Slow, Entwine as a multi-target means of setting Slow, Poison and Bio. If they're damaged, they have a 33% chance of countering with Battle. However, whenever a character is Slowed, a Tentacle will always use the Grab attack and will grab the character from which it drains HP. The Tentacle that has grasped a character doesn't perform attacks, and the character that is under a Grab cannot act. This lasts for about 30 seconds, at which point the Tentacle will use Release to remove all the effects of Grab. Slow was removed when the Grab attack was used.

This is why Hermes Sandals are so nice: with inherent Haste, both !Stun and Entwine will never work and thus Celes and Sabin will never be Seized during the battle.

Start the battle off by summoning one or both of your physical protection Espers, Fenrir and/or Golem; both protect against Battle and, more importantly, !Stun. Employ Edgar's Bioblaster to Poison up to three of the Tentacles. If one of your characters has Siren equipped, send her out to stop the Poison and Bio spells used by two of the Tentacles. Now that the multi-target offenses and defenses have been cast, it's time to kill off one Tentacle at a time.

Cast Death on the bottom-left Tentacle to dispatch it instantly. Obviously, the newly acquired Banish also works, but Death's Hit Rate is superior and the Death spell is more MP-efficient.

If you summoned Siren, the most dangerous Tentacle right now is the top-left Tentacle, as that's the only Tentacle capable of casting Poison and Bio. Cast Stop if you have it, and focus Edgar's Drill and Sabin and Celes's level 2 spells on it until it dies. If you didn't summon Siren, you should cast the Silence spell on both the bottom-right and top-right Tentacles to achieve the same effect. If this isn't an option, it's best to kill the most fragile Tentacle first: the bottom-right Tentacle. Drill and Blizzara will kill it very quickly.

From this point, the remaining Tentacles are left to your imagination. Don't bother using Poisona when a character is Poisoned; the battle won't take that long, so sticking to Cura spells to keep your HP up will suffice. If Sabin knows Razor Gale, use it exclusively. Have Edgar focus on his Drill attacks, and keep Celes around to whip out a level 2 spell that won't be absorbed whenever possible (the lower left Tentacle is the only one that absorbs Blizzara; once you've used Death or Banish to dispatch it, this spell is your best elemental option).

The fight against the Tentacles can be a pain, but only if you don't prepare properly. You'll pull through. Expand Full Strategy