Final Fantasy VI Bosses

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Guardian has a puny, unimpressive AI script when he's 'normal': It features such outdated attacks as Magitek Laser, Missile, and Atomic Rays.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