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This is an attempt to document how I defeated Dullahan with a Lv 38 party without summon rushing or needing a large amount of Water of Life and Mist Potions. I wasn't able to find any suitable strategies online with my party parameters so I made my own and actually had it work.

Intended to submit to a FAQ but things are too disorganized. I decided to post my notes so that someone can benefit in the meantime.

The parameters:
- Party at Lv 38. This was what I reached upon making it to the last chamber and I didn't want to go out of the way to grind.
- All Djinn set at start of fight. I did end up doing most of my damage with summons, just not in the space of two rounds.
- All combo summon tablets acquired. Not all of them end up being used.
- No Psy Crystals, Water of Life, Potions, or Mist Potions used. Ended up not having to resort to them. Did use 3-4 Nuts and Vials and a few Elixirs at times.
- I didn't RNG for any rare drops or try for any Excaliburs. If you have Excaliburs, Riot Gloves, and/or higher levels, this does speed things up.

My own strategy made for a 2 hour battle. A 2 round summon rush is much quicker but I didn't have the stats or equipment to make it work.

Dullahan is in some ways like the Omega Weapon in Final Fantasy 8. Nasty attacks but they come in a mostly fixed pattern. Maybe sometime I'll jot it down but here are the key points to watch for.

- Dullahan has a loop of 24 actions that occur in a fixed sequence and uses three of them a turn.
- Element Swap is used exactly three moves before Charon.
- Condemn is used exactly three moves before Djinn Storm.
- Break will be skipped if there is no buff to dispel.
- If Dullahan is paralyzed, the next move will be entirely canceled.

The killers are Djinn Storm, Charon, and Formina Sage. Dealing with them effectively and minimizing deaths as much as possible is key to waging a prolonged battle. Charon and Djinn Storm are telegraphed so you'll have advance warning.

If Charon will be the first move Dullahan uses that round, use Petra or Ground. Otherwise, use Flash, Shade, or Granite to prevent taking full damage from the attack. Using higher Luck classes is advisable to lessen the chance of instant death.

Ideally, use Petra or Ground to cancel a Djinn Storm. Failing that, Haze can protect a single member from the effects and anyone already down won't be affected. Charon comes two moves before Djinn Storm by the way.

Formina Sage is quite survivable at high HP with most of a character's Djinn set. Of course, after a Djinn Storm, it's going to be fatal. Plus, one comes two moves right after Djinn Storm. This is the only battle in the main game that I actually put the Defend command to strategic use as someone with 320 or more HP has a decent chance of surviving a Formina Sage hit while waiting to be swapped out. Barring Djinn Storm situations, just avoid using too many Djinn from a single character at once that their class drops too low.

Luck still plays a role even with maximum preparation. I've had a good rhythm going then the person with Petra or Ground goes down from Charon and is unable to cancel Djinn Storm next round. I've also had an attempt where Charon downs an entire party twice in the same battle. While my party management kept me from total defeat, I aborted that attempt as those setbacks make a 2 hour battle even longer.

Yet to be answered is how I manage to deal out damage faster than Dullahan recovers from it.

This post has been edited by DragonKnight Zero on 9th February 2010 07:43

Grrr, I very much dislike that guy!! I've been stuck on him forever! Eventually I got tired of level grinding and finished the game (without Isis, or whatever summon Dullahan drops) on a different file. I should probably pick it back up, seeing as Golden Sun DS is (hopefully!) coming withing the next year...

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"My name is Atma...I am a power both ancient and unrivaled... I do not bleed, for I am but strength given form...Feeble creatures of flesh...Your time is nigh!"

Party setup: pre-battle

I spent the most time with Djinn distribution but I do have comments on other aspects.

Classes: Because of the usage of Djinn abilities, I discourage using triple-element classes. Probably the most important aspect of class selection is to have a solid number of folks with Revive and the Wish (or Aura) series. Restore and single target healing are handy as well, though less vital. Stat buffs are handy for baiting Break. Attack Psynergy are mostly useless as they'll generally not do enough damage to bother with.
The other recommendation I have is to avoid using low Luck classes. Luck affects the target's ability to resist negative status. Dullahan's move list includes Curse, Haunt, and Bind. The more these miss entirely, the easier things will be. Luck may decrease the likelihood that Dullahan will recover HP with True Collide but I'm not certain.
Here's the class setup from my file
Earth adepts are Guardians (2 Venus, 7 Mercury)
Fire adepts are War Adepts (2 Mars, 7 Jupiter)
Wind adepts are Oracles (2 Jupiter, 7 Venus)
Water adepts are Gurus (2 Mercury, 7 Mars)

Very dull, symetrical, and somewhat lacking in high-end offense. However, there's 4 Revivers, 4 capable of using the Wish series, 4 with Restore, and 4 with single healing abilities. A symetrical party made in-battle management simple.

Item distribution: Simple. Give people without healing access to the most used items. In my case, these are Nuts, Vials, and Elixirs Water of Life on those who can't revive. Mist Potions on people without full party healing.

Equipment notes: I did obtain some items from the Lemurian Springs. Also did some resetting when forging items if I got something useless. I did make sure everyone has something equipped in the Boots and Shirts categories. As stated before, I didn't bother going out of the way for any rare drops.
The only weapons worth anything for attacking are Sol Blade, Excalibur, and Tisiphone Edge. Maybe one or two more but these are the star performers. Excalibur is best due to hitting weakness. Masamune's unleash hits Dullahan's strongest resist so it's not as useful. I only had Sol Blade in my winning attempts.
PP restoration is extremely helpful on characters who will be healing or reviving. Doable without though does call for more attention to avoiding running out of PP at a crucial moment.
Critical hit boosters actually only matter on characters with useful unleashes on their weapons. Attack boosts fall in the same category and are always less important than boosting criticals.
The more characters with 270+ Agility, the more convenient things will be.
Elemental power really helps out with damage and is always handy for healers.
Elemental resist is less crucial. Formina Sage is Jupiter elemental. True Collide and Charon are Venus damage.
Luck is always useful. I'd prioritize Agility over it unless the character is already plenty fast.
Other benefits don't play as large of a role. Static HP and PP boosts have a rather small impact, HP recovery doesn't matter enough, and there's almost always something better than raw Defense.

Djinn distribution:
I spent the most time with this part of pre-battle preparation. Despite all those notes on equipment, I just went in with what I had on and didn't have to exit the dungeon to tweak it or obtain something I didn't have or was sitting in the Artifacts selection.
Anyways, I divided the party into two teams that could independently function. Certain Djinn pairs are best split between the teams and absolutely do not have them on the same character.

Barrier: Flash and Shade. Granite goes on either team. Separate Haze as well.
Paralyzing: Petra and Ground.
PP restoration: Ether and Aroma. Ember goes with either, Aroma suggested.
Agility down: Vine and Mud
Defense up: Iron and Corona
Agility up: Zephyr and Coal
HP restore, party: Crystal and Flower. Spritz goes wherever.
HP restore, single: Fizz and Spring. Give Breath to someone without healing magic.
Status curing: Tonic and Salt. Only means of curing Haunt.
Lull, Eddy, and Kite. Though their abilities aren't alike, they're useful enough to warrant having them spread out.
Revival: Tinder, Dew, and Balm. Others don't really matter; they only revive at 50% and miss about the often as well.

Lull is best given to the slowest of Adepts with Jupiter Djinn who still outspeeds Dullahan.

Still to come: more in-depth battle strategy, the most difficult portion for me to document.

This post has been edited by DragonKnight Zero on 9th February 2010 07:40

Wow... and here I just did the level grind for a bit and then summon-rushed him like no tomorrow. x)

The next time I have two free hours, I'll give this a shot.

In-battle tactics

Ready to roll? I can give a consistent first round set of actions but after that, it becomes just as much a battle of judgment and adaptation. I can give tips to maximize survival but there will still be times where I'm not able to do everything i want to in that round. In both of my winning attempts, Dullahan started with Charon, Curse, Djinn Storm so luck on the opening round isn't required..

First round, I have someone use Iron or Corona, another person use an Agility modifying Djinn (Coal, Vine, and Mud work in either case), and the other two can do mostly whatever. Then things can get unpredictable.

So many things to keep track of. The general strategy is using low to mid level summons frequently. I stuck with summons I could set up in one or two rounds. Zagan, Flora, and 2 Djinn summons saw the most use. Eclipse and Ulysses take more planning ahead and a bit of luck to have enough free turns but are worthwhile. I avoided Mercury summons when I could due to Dullahan's resistance but still ended up using them occasionally so that they wouldn't be on standby the whole battle (Balm, for one). It pays to plan ahead. When I'm using Djinn abilities, I generally have some idea of who I intend to summon the next round or the one after that.
Definitely do not let someone's class degrade too low with all that Djinn usage. I know Djinn Storm can't always be helped though that's a different matter. In the case of double element classes, that means having no more than 3 Djinn of the non base element out at a time.

Of course, Dullahan is out to defeat your party all the while and is quite capable of doing so, otherwise I wouldn't be writing out all this. In no particular order, here's some tips on dealing with whatever is coming your way.

Curse: aka the death sentence. I found that many times, characters go down from another source before the 7 turns pass. Still worth curing if the timer is at 4 or less and someone can spare their turn for Restore or an Elixir. The countdown is halted for back row characters. There's a bit of judgment too. If Mia has her turn free (no need for healing, summoning, or Djinn unleashing), I'm likely to have her cast Restore even if Curse hit the previous turn because her attacks aren't that damaging. Whereas Felix has my Sol Blade so I want him attacking whenever he can safely do so.

Haunt: Very low priority, especially on characters that don't do most of the damage. Only way to cure is dying or the Djinn that can cure it, Tonic and Salt.

Tonic and Salt: I recommend only using them if there's at least 3 combined statuses to remove.

Break: The strategy part comes when deciding if you want Dullahan to cast Break or not. Having him skip this alters which move will come first on a given round. Most times, I want Dullahan using Break so I keep a single Defense up effect active as that also reduces damage from Formina Sage and True Collide.

Reviving: Revive at most one person a round unless using Balm. The Revive spell is preferred though sometimes I'll use Tinder to double as summon fuel.

Djinn Storm: It doesn't hit downed allies. If I'm not able to cancel it, I don't bother reviving anyone. If able to, use Haze on someone with Revive psynergy as you're likely to need that ability soon.

Switching in and out: Ideally, characters in the back row are alive and have no Djinn on standby.

Currently incomplete, more to come.

This post has been edited by DragonKnight Zero on 11th March 2010 09:10

Dullahan is made of Fake Difficulty due to Djinn Storm.

With my party at around level 48-50 I think (don't remember clearly; I played the game about two and a half years ago) I still didn't have an easy time defeating him. Though in my case, I was trying to defeat him without letting my party get wiped out, because I wanted everyone to get XP. However, even without that, he's very difficult without summon spamming.

Of course, summon rushing him was another story. I just summon rushed him such that the GS1 team got the experience points since they were lower-leveled.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

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