Boss Strategies

[DJC]

Not all of the bosses are listed here yet, and there is some repeat information. Enemies currently listed alphabetically:
Aegir
Aquaron
Bahamut
Black Dragon
Blue Dragons
Calbrenda
Carbunkle
Charybdis
Demon Keeper
Dragona
Druidbane
Dragur Gerovitus
Gold Dragon
Grand Dragon
Kuwadora
Pale Dim
Phoenix
Tyrano
Valkyrie
Water Dragon
White Dragon
Wind Dragon
Yarthkin
Zombie Dragon

Aegir
You should still have a Water Ring from the Water Caverns, maybe an Aqua Shield, and the Blue Beret from Tenebrosus Specus. I think you may even be able to buy Water Rings at one of the nearby towns (Alveus), but I'm not sure. I suggest giving Meredith the Water Ring. In addition give her the spell Water Shell. She can cast that to increase any hero's Water elemental defense. I would also give her the Blue Beret to halve Ice elemental damage. Giver either Justin or Glen the Aqua Shield.

The conditions you'll face are Bleed (Gore), Frozen (Icicle), and Daze (Shell Shock). The only party wide one is Shell Shock and that occurs as part of the bosses' pattern so you can predict it. At this point in the game I don't think you can protect against these so make sure you have plenty of Heal potions.

Use Thunder Slash and Lightning/Electorcute before Aegir casts Thunder Shell. They will still be effective afterwards, but not nearly as much.

Also of importance is casting Slow on Aegir, especially to counter his casting of Fast. If you do not do this he will keep casting Fast and have way more speed than you, resulting in multiple turns to your one.

Every 10 turns you'll be hit by Tsunami. You may want to figure this pattern out so you can DEFEND that turn and halve the damage from the attack.

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Aquaron
Elemental protection against Ice and Water damage will go a long way in this battle. As such you will want to make sure you are using the Water Shell and Ice Shell skills on your White Wizard. If you combine elemental protection from equipment with spell based elemental protection you can absorb (be healed by) attacks rather than damaged.

Example: Equip the Aurora Armlet to your White Wizard. During battle cast Water Shell on her. She will then be healed by all Water damage she receives.

It is important to remember, however, that Aquaron has a skill that can lower your elemental resistance to Water (Maelstorm). You can counter this by casting Water Shell on the target. Also when a character dies and is revived their elemental resistance is reset to normal.

Maelstorm is something you cannot ignore. If you have heroes that have been hit by maelstorm with no elemental protection and have not been affected by Water Shell, they will be taking double damage from Water attacks. This will cause Cleansweep to destroy your party almost every time.

Also of importance is keeping track of how many times Maelstorm is cast. After every second cast there will be a random attack, followed directly by Reversal and then Cleansweep. When you know reversal is imminent you do NOT want to heal. Keep your HP and let Reversal heal you. Then you will be in good shape to survive Cleansweep. You will also have your turns available so you can choose to DEFEND and halve the damage from Cleansweep.

So the keys to this battle are dealing with Water elemental protection (and Ice to a lesser degree) and predicting when Reversal and Cleansweep are coming. Also worth note is that positive status effects will be difficult to maintain since Aquaron uses Shatterjaw and Might Makes Wrong. Thunder elemental attaacks will not prove effective once Aquaron casts Thunder Shell. You will also need to counter Safeguard every time it is cast by breaking Aquaron's armor again with a skill.

The status effects you'll have to deal with are Silence (Mind Freeze), Paralyze (Squeeze), Daze (Ice Spikes), and Frozen (Icicle). Most of these aren't too serious and only affect single characters.

Some equipment that may prove useful: Aurora Armlet (Ice/Water), Blue Armguard (Ice/Water and Frozen), Blue Beret (Ice), Jade Armlet (+20 Speed), Tin Armor (+50 Speed), Ice Shield/Armor/Helm (Ice), Elementalist Cape, Tiamat Armor (Water), Minerva (Ice), Ice Ring, Water Ring, Aqua Shield (Water). Many of these items are along the eastern path to Guardian Tyrano.

Also be careful where you get walkthrough and help info on these boards. Most of the stuff in the rm2k section does NOT apply to the new version you are playing.

You may also find Drakeor very useful with his skill Aura that will increase his own Ice and Water elemental resistance.

Reversal is one of the many special monster skills in the game. If you had your ship/airship and you recruited Master Miyagi from the town of Dale you can talk to him to view a list of all these skills and get information on how they work.

Reversal either heals or damages based on your current HP. If a hero has low current HP out of their maximum it will be switched to a higher percentage. A high current HP will be switched too a low percentage of their maximum. But how much healing or damage?

The key is the hero's HP half-maximum. If you have 6000 HP then 3000 is the half-max point. Any current HP below 3000 will be less than 50% of the maximum. Above 3000 you will have more than 50% of the maximum.

Let's say you have 5000 current HP out of the 6000 HP max. This is well above 50% (83.3%). Therefore Reversal will change this to the opposite percentage (16.7%) of your maximum. Therefore you will take damage that reduces your current HP to 1000 (opposite percentage represented by MaxHP-Current HP). So the true damage you'll see is 4000. Basically when you started you were 1000 short of your max, and after Reversal that's all you have.

The other case is you're below 50%, let's say 2000 out of 6000. The opposite percentage here is 4000 (what you're missing out of your max). So Reversal is going to boost your HP up to 4000, and therefore it must heal you for 2000.

It seems complicated, but in battle you simply need to pay attention to your current HP and its percentage out of your maximum. When you know Reversal is coming soon you want your current HPs to be low, so Reversal will heal you rather than damage your team. You can even leave characters dead and Reversal will revive them to 100% health. The opposite, of course, is that heroes with 100% health instantly die from Reversal.

Elemental protection against Ice and Water damage will go a long way in this battle. As such you will want to make sure you are using the Water Shell and Ice Shell skills on your White Wizard. If you combine elemental protection from equipment with spell based elemental protection you can absorb (be healed by) attacks rather than damaged.

Example: Equip the Aurora Armlet to your White Wizard. During battle cast Water Shell on her. She will then be healed by all Water damage she receives.

It is important to remember, however, that Aquaron has a skill that can lower your elemental resistance to Water (Maelstorm). You can counter this by casting Water Shell on the target. Also when a character dies and is revived their elemental resistance is reset to normal.

Maelstorm is something you cannot ignore. If you have heroes that have been hit by maelstorm with no elemental protection and have not been affected by Water Shell, they will be taking double damage from Water attacks. This will cause Cleansweep to destroy your party almost every time.

Also of importance is keeping track of how many times Maelstorm is cast. After every second cast there will be a random attack, followed directly by Reversal and then Cleansweep. When you know reversal is imminent you do NOT want to heal. Keep your HP and let Reversal heal you. Then you will be in good shape to survive Cleansweep. You will also have your turns available so you can choose to DEFEND and halve the damage from Cleansweep.

So the keys to this battle are dealing with Water elemental protection (and Ice to a lesser degree) and predicting when Reversal and Cleansweep are coming. Also worth note is that positive status effects will be difficult to maintain since Aquaron uses Shatterjaw and Might Makes Wrong. Thunder elemental attaacks will not prove effective once Aquaron casts Thunder Shell. You will also need to counter Safeguard every time it is cast by breaking Aquaron's armor again with a skill.

The status effects you'll have to deal with are Silence (Mind Freeze), Paralyze (Squeeze), Daze (Ice Spikes), and Frozen (Icicle). Most of these aren't too serious and only affect single characters.

Some equipment that may prove useful: Aurora Armlet (Ice/Water), Blue Armguard (Ice/Water and Frozen), Blue Beret (Ice), Jade Armlet (+20 Speed), Tin Armor (+50 Speed), Ice Shield/Armor/Helm (Ice), Elementalist Cape, Tiamat Armor (Water), Minerva (Ice), Ice Ring, Water Ring, Aqua Shield (Water). Many of these items are along the eastern path to Guardian Tyrano.

You may also find Drakeor very useful with his skill Aura that will increase his own Ice and Water elemental resistance.

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Bahamut
There is a very specific trick to defeating Bahamut. You MUST use the DEFEND command just before he casts Mega-Flare to halve the damage received. In addition I suggest casting Protect, using Spirit Resist potions or Hero Drinks, equipping high defense equipment, and using only heroes with maximum or very high HP and very high Defense. Basically the more defense the better.

None of Bahamut's other attacks are particularly devastating. Mostly they hinder your ability to deal damage. Just remember to dispel Spin from Storm's Embrace, keep Armor Break inflicted, remove Power Break from your heroes if attacking physically, and keep Might up, though Might Makes Wrong will make you pay for this.

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Black Dragon
It looks like the threshold for the Black Dragon's counter attack with Backfire is 5,000 damage. So if you deal more than that, expect to ge hit big time. If you have White Dragon and it is dealing more than that amount, you'll probably have to stop using it. If your normal attack is dealing above 5,000 damage, then either A) don't weaken the Black Dragon with Spear Rain so you do less damage, or B) check if it's a Holy elemental weapon and switch to something else if so. You can also switch to a weaker weapon to lower your damage output.

You'll want to maintain Regen and Aura as best you can. You want to absorb Shadow elemental attacks as health. Make sure to quickly dispel using Jump any positive conditions the Black Dragon casts on itself (Might, Protect). You'll probably need to wear a Ribbon for this battle since the Black Dragon can cast Pharaoh's Revenge. Also, it is critical that you figure out the pattern to the Crush attack since this will take you down to near-death every time and you need to be ready to heal afterwards. After the Black Dragon casts Holy Veil you may be able to use White Dragon again and not inflict above 5,000 damage.

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Blue Dragons
Perhaps you should try gaining more levels until you hit the restriction limit and stop getting so many battles. You need to defeat the Blue Dragon in that chest and get the Ribbon, it will be extremely valuable later. Make sure you're equipped against Ice elemental attacks and Frozen for the Blue Dragon. Remove conditions that halve defense (Blind/Bleeding from Virulent Claw) or else Overpower will do insane extra damage (it is based on your defense). When Dragon Force is coming (Turn #6 + every 10 turns thereafter) use the DEFEND command to halve the damage.

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Calbrenda
Protection vs. Dark elemental attacks is a good start, but it's not enough. Calbrenda casts Midnight Shade, which in addition to high damage to all party members also lowers their Dark elemental resistance. This means you need your White Wizard to cast Shadow Shroud on every member every time Midnight Shade hits them in order to preserve their boosted elemental defenses. This can be difficult and time consuming since your White Wizard is probably busy doing other things like healing.

A few solutions: enter Drakeor who can cast Aura on his own to maintain his elemental resistances, and just let party members die. When they are revived their resistances are restored to normal + equipment boosts. You have to be careful about who you let die and when, but it's easier than trying to cast Shadow Shroud all day.

Calbrenda has Disaster, but all you need is someone with the Esuna spell wearing a Ribbon. They will be immune to the conditions, and can immediately cast Esuna and restore the party. Calbrenda has a couple Bolt elemental attacks if you have spare room for some more elemental protection. Phantasm and Soul Breaker may cause problems, so deal with the conditions they cause with Angel Whisper, a Heal spell or item. Force Stealer will need to be countered with Esuna unless you only have one or wo physical attackers; then Angel Whisper will suffice. If you plan on using positive conditions (Regen, Might, etc) then you will have to recast after every Disenchant by Calbrenda.

It's important to understand how Bloodlust works. Once someone is targeted, Calbrenda will keep draining their HP every turn, taking more away each time. Calbrenda is also healed for this amount, which can significantly draw out the length of the battle. I think Calbrenda, unlike the Ultimate Weapon's Blood Song, actually stops her Bloodlust on her won after 7 turns or something. Still, your best option is to let the targeted player die as fast as possible. BUT do not revive them until you see the message that Calbrenda's Bloodlust as subsided. Otherwise she will resume stealing health until the hero dies again or she decides to stop and find a new victim.

Last few notes about her attack pattern: Midnight Shade always follows Disaster, so get that Esuna off quick then have your White Wizard heal all if necessary or just have everyone defend (unless Midnight Shade will heal them). Also, Gravija comes after Force Stealer. You want to heal right after Gravija, because if anybody is in the yellow (low HP range) Soul Drain will instant kill them on Calbrenda's next turn. Then she follows that up with corpse feast, which has the potential to heal Calbrenda for a massive amount if you have lots of dead heroes.
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Carbunkle
There are several things you must do to win this fight:
1) Counter Carbunkle's Fast spell with Slow, perhaps even several castings of Slow. You want to prevent Carbunkle from gaining speed above his base value, or better yet lower him below his starting speed. Slow is more effective the higher your caster's Mind power and the lower the target's, so inflict Mind Break on Carbunkle at least or for extra punch cast Focus on the hero casting of Slow.

2) Remove positive conditions on Carbunkle caused by spell Ruby Light. After Carbunkle casts this spell it has Regen, Might, Protect, and Focus. The Regen is especially devastating because it will heal for astronomical amounts every single turn. It must be removed immediately, so take multiple characters that have dispel skills. Hopefully you have the Dispel Slash skill scroll which many sword wielding heroes can use.

3) Re-inflict breaks and reduce physical resistance after every cast of Big Guard. This spell removes any break conditions you previously inflicted on Carbunkle, and increases his resistance to all physical attacks. Keen is a good choice with Banishing Blade since it inflicts all 4 breaks. There's a wide array of heroes that have skills that reduce physical resistance.

Now with those three critical pieces of strategy in mind, there are some other keys to the battle that will help:
*Equip all the Ribbons you have to prevent Disaster from decimating your team. Give at least one to someone with Esuna, so they can cast it following Disaster and get the entire party back on its feet.

*After you are hit with the spell Vulnerability, you have 1 turn before Quasar. You must heal quickly and get everyone's HP high enough to survive Quasar (approx. 3000 damage). Use a Mega-Potion if your White Wizard cannot be bothered to cast Recover at the moment.

*Do not waste time trying to maintain positive conditions like Regen, Boon, Focus, Might, etc. Carbunkle will frequently cast Dispel and Shatterclaw, removing positive conditions from everybody.

*You want heroes with high Mind and Defense, since Carbunkle casts Overpower and Psi Duel. High stats can also hurt, however, since God's Eye damages based on the sum of all your attributes.

*Specific conditions you'll face: Bleed (Gore, Virulent Claw), Silence (Virulent Claw), Blind (Virulent Claw), Mindblow (Phantasm). And of course, Disaster inflicts everything. But for characters without Ribbons you may want to give casters (Vixen, Vetu, Julia, Meredith) something to protect against Silence. Maybe a piece of Elven equipment if you can fit it in to stop Bleed.

*Carbunkle uses no elemental attacks so don't worry about elemental protection.

I suggest using the first few rounds where Carbunkle does nothing to cast Slow on him. If you can spare them, use Green Cherries on your fighters too give them Might, and then they can inflict some good damage before Might is removed and it becomes too hard to maintain it. Also, try to anticipate Carbunkle's pattern:
*Disaster (Starting turn #6, then every +14x turns after, where x is # of turns Carbunkle has taken)
*Big Guard (#7+14x)
*Ruby Light (#8+14x)
*Dispel (#9+7x)
*Vulnerability (#10+7x)
*Quasar (#12+14x)
*Fast (#13+14x)
*Overpower (#15+14x)
*Anguish (#16+14x)

It looks like Dispel and Anguish can overlap on turn #16 and every 14x afterwards, so you can't be sure which will take precedence.

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[DJC]

Charybdis
Make sure you're assigning skills via the Skill Shard System, accessed from the Primeval Shard item. Sammy can equip the skill Mantra, for example, that heals all allies for ~500 HP and also removes Blind (from the Ink attack). Brad can help out with Heal Blade on a single target. You can also equip Brad with the spell Spark, but using this or anything that deals over 800 damage to Charybdis will result in the boss using its counter attack for extreme damage.

For equipment make sure somebody is wearing the Water Ring and a different character the Aqua Shield, both items found inside the Water Caverns dungeon. This will halve damage from Water elemental spells.

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Demon Keeper
1. Keen's "Banishing Blade" and Glen's skills can break Demon keeper's abilities.

2. Managed to "Slow" it down.

3. You should equip "Dark" elemental equipments. Drakeor can use "Aura".

4. Demon Keeper is afraid of "Holy", so you could equip weapons with "Holy" attribute.

5. Be aware of many negative conditions. You could equip "Ribbon" or other equipments to prevent from bad conditions.

#5 on zamil's list is probably the most important, you need the Ribbon on your White Wizard to survive both Disaster and Mega-Death. If you have Esuna someone can follow Disaster with that to bring the party back to full working order. If you lose a lot of party members to Mega-Death I suggest using a Mega-Phoenix.

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Dragona
If you're at Dragona then you should have found the Mirror Shield (it was along the path from the second stone fort). If not go back and get it. The Mirror Shield halves all elemental damage to the wearer. If you already did the snow boss Kuwadora on the east path you'll also have a second Ribbon and a bunch of other stuff.

Dragona is mostly Bolt and Air elemental, not Firethough there are some of those types of attacks. Here's an attack list for you. Pay attention to the elemental types of the attacks and the conditions inflicted. These are what you need to think about when preparing equipment and battle strategy. You can discover these for yourself by looking at the beginning of attack skill names when they are executed (descriptor at top of screen). A fire icon means Fire elemental damage for example, or a down arrow means elemental resistance reduction or speed reduction etc.:

Twister (Air/Bolt, decreases elemental resistance to Air/Bolt)
Storm (Bolt/Air, all targets)
Enervate (Bolt, Power Break)
Giga Volt (Bolt)
Electrocute (Bolt)
Pico Volt (Bolt)
Tornado (Air)
Cyclone (Air)
Fireball (Fire)
Fire Breath (Fire, all targets)
Sneeze (multi-hit attack)
Swallow (swallow condition, cannot remove)
Inferiority (multi-hit attack, compares bosses total attribute values vs. target's, damage based on difference)
Roar (Daze all targets)
Overpower (multi-hit attack)
Flare (non-elemental high damage)
Soul Breaker (inflicts all four Break conditions)
Dragon Breath (non-elemental high-damage to all targets)
Purge Impurities (removes all conditions)
Dispel (Dispel all targets)
Shatterclaw (Dispel)
Ultima (only casts upon death, extreme damage to all targets)

Twister is bad news because it lowers the target's elemental Air and Bolt damage. Drakeor can nullify this easily by recasting Aura, both other heroes will need both Air Shell and Bolt Shell cast upon them, and this is usually difficult to do. It might be better to just let them die and have their elemental attributes reset. You're going to want to figure out the pattern to Dragon Breath and DEFEND against it since it is extreme damage. When you're getting towards the end of the fight keep your HP at maximum. Make sure you're using a fighter hero with high HP, otherwise you won't survive Ultima when Dragona dies.

Some other tips: Enervate and Soul Breaker cause the Break conditions which are bad in this fight because they will cause Inferiority and Overpower to do lots of extra damage. Remove them quickly if you can. Remember to re-inflict whatever Breaks you're using against Dragona after she casts Purge Impurities. After Roar get Daze removed fast or else Overpower is going to do extra damage again.

Some good equipment pieces to use: Mirror Shield, Ribbon, Storm Jacket, Elementalist Cape, Thunder Gloves, Fire Armlet, Jade Armlet (Speed), Tin Armor (Speed), Stardust (Speed), Minerva, Thunder Armlet, Flame Shield/Armor/Helm, Rabbit's Foot (Speed), Tiamat Armor, Coronet, Yellow Beret.

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Druidbane
You have to kill the roots Druidbane sprouts quickly or the battle can get really complicated. When the Guardian Root appears concentrate all firepower on it. Hopefully you killed the first root by then and will be done with the guardian root before the third one shows up.

Give your Earth Ring to Julia. Also if you replenish your MP expect to get hurt bad by Energy Surge. Otherwise it will do zero damage if you have zero MP. If the Backfire Root is still alive and you start using your fire skills you're going to start suffering massive damage from Backfire and Counter Blow.

Druidbane and his roots don't have Instant Death attacks, so you don't need the Charm Shield, except it does have good defense anyways. You'll face Poison, Blind, Bleed, Paralyze, Stone, and Seize.

You'll find it difficult to make use of special skills for just this. Only Julia really needs MP for this fight, so make sure she has the Osmose skill equipped so she can absorb back MP from the enemy. Focus on killing the roots first. The Guardian (once it appears) will be your main target since it can heal. You may kill the first root before it even appears. Once the Guardian Root is defeated take out the remaining roots and then focus on Druidbane (Soul Cage). You do NOT want to use your high MP fire elemental attacks despite their high damage because the Backfire Root will counter with massive damage.

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Draugur Gerovitus
I believe Draugur Gerovitus, his second form when Altair reanimates him from the dead, uses mostly Dark elemental attacks and poison. o White Cape, Star Pendant, and any Dark elemental equipment would help reduce damage, as well as White Wizard's Shadow Shroud spell to increae Dark resistance.
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Gold Dragon

The Gold Dragon can be done before the Forgotten Continent, and if you already did the Leviathan Caverns you should be in good shape for this battle. There are only two elemental attacks to consider: Fireball (Fire) and Enervate (Bolt). It may not be worth fitting your equipment to protect against just these two elements when there are more important things like Speed and Defense to consider.

Conditions you will face: Bleed (Lacerate, Gore); Daze (Skull Crack); Power Break (Enervate). Unless you obtained a Ribbon from the Battle Arena already (very unlikely) you'll have to survive Daze and cure Bleed with a Heal item. If you're using normal attacks to deal damage you may want to keep Power Break off as well; if you're using normal attacks but they are dealing too much damage and triggering the Gold Dragon's counter, then leave Power Break inflicted.

Very important: you will need the skill Jump to dispel the Gold Dragon's Might spell. If you let him maintain Might then expect to get punished by his double physical attack. Any positive conditions (like Regen) that you cast will be stripped by Shatterclaw, but it may be worth trying to maintain them. You're getting to the point where Chakra can't heal enough, so it's either cast and keep Regen up or burn though healing items. Also important is the skill Spear Rain. Use it to make your normal spear attacks more effective, and recast it every time the Gold Dragon casts Safeguard.

The Gold Dragon's counter attack: If you deal more than 3500 HP of damage with a single Dragoon Skill (such as Spear Rain or Ice Dragon), you will trigger Backfire. This skill will hurt you for all the damage you just inflicted on your enemy, so try to avoid it. Use Spear Rain as previously suggested to make your normal attacks deal more damage, then just stick with those.

Couple last things: beware of Expose Wounds and Gold Breath. Both will be cast by the Gold Dragon in a set pattern of behavior that you can figure out. Try and get your HP healed to max just before Expose Wounds, since it deals damage equal to your MaxHP minus CurrentHP. Before Gold Breath you may want to choose to DEFEND and halve the damage from the attack.
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Grand Dragon
You've got to pull out all the strategic stops for the fight with the Grand Dragon. You'll probably want a Ribbon as your accessory rather than wear the entire Barrier set of equipment since that limits you too much. You've got to have that immunity to conditions. Next up is elemental protection; you want to cover all the elements you can. The Mirror Shield will do the job, but so will the Dragoon set from Atlantis or mixed and matched pieces of Omega and Zeus sets. Basically you want to combine your elemental equipment protection with the Aura spell so that all elemental attacks heal Drakeor.

Speed is also a key factor here. The Grand Dragon has 350 speed, so you want to try and be as near that value as possible to make it a 1:1 turn ratio. If the Grand Dragon is getting multiple turns before you can react you'll never win. You have to be able to respond to an attack with healing before he can get another attack off. To boost your speed think about using the Tin Armor or Titanium equipment.

So an ideal equipment setup might be:
Weapon: Gugnir/White Spear
Shield: Mirror Shield (+elemental protection)
Helm: Titanium Helm (+15 Speed)
Armor: Tin Armor (+50 Speed)
Accessory: Ribbon

It might be tempting to use the Rabbit's Foot accessory for that +50 speed boost, but then the conditions are going to rip you apart.

Things you will have to constantly do in this fight:

1) Use Jump to dispel any positive conditions (Might/Regen/Focus/etc) that the Grand Dragon inflicts on himself. Remove them immediately, especially Regen.

2) Recast Aura after your elemental defense have been lowered. Spells like Glare, Maelstorm, Twister, etc. will all lower a particular elemental resistance (notice they have a down arrow in their descriptor at the top of the screen). You want to maintain Aura so these attacks heal you. This doesn't mean cast Aura in response every time you get hit by one of these attacks. You need to judge when it's time to sacrifice a turn and cast Aura. Always recast Aura after Curse, since that spell lowers all elemental resistances.

3) Recast Spear Rain to lower the Grand Dragon's physical resistance. You need to do this to start with just to inflict normal damage. But you need to recast it after Protect, Safeguard, and Crystalis.

4) Recast Regen/Boon if you're trying to maintain either one when removed. Shatterclaw is the Grand Dragon's dispel attack and you only see it every 9+25x turns. So after Shatterclaw, recast your positive conditions and they'll be fine for 25 more turns. Boon isn't such a good idea since Energy Surge will make you pay for having lots of current MP.

Speaking of Crystalis: do NOT attack while the Grand Dragon hibernates in this state. You will just heal him for twice the damage. Instead take the opportunity to regroup. Heal yourself and recast Aura or positive conditions. You also need to remember to dispel the positive status effects Crystalis inflicts on the Grand Dragon immediately.

In addition to a huge list of random attacks, the Grand Dragon has an enormous amount of patterned skills (25 of them). This is a long pattern to memorize, I don't suggest trying that. Instead let's pick out the really bad ones that are worth keeping track of:

*Expose Wounds come right after Overpower. If you have high defense Overpower shouldn't do much damage and you're fine. If you get whacked by Overpower, however, or are already low on HP then make sure you heal. Expose Wounds deals damage equal to your Max HP - Current HP. If you're below 50% HP prepare to die.

*No action after Crystalis. You'll see the Grand Dragon take a turn and do nothing. This means Vulnerability is the next attacks, and this is very bad indeed. Your HP will be reduced to a single digit number. You must anticipate this and be ready and waiting to immediately follow up with an X-Potion for full heal, or an Elixer if you're low on MP too.

*Warrior's Bane is after Power Duel. Why is Warrior's Bane important? Well it depends on how much attacking you've been doing. The more attacks the more damage it reflects back onto you. It does reset counting every time it is used, however, so don't worry about the effects stacking up endlessly. If you've been attacking rather than healing or casting spells, get your HP up to deal with high damage from Warrior's Bane.

*No Action after Warrior's Bane. This means Grand Breath is coming up. So either heal to maximum if you think you can survive full damage or use the Defend command to halve the damage.

*Swap comes after Rasp. This is very evil. The Grand Dragon first attempts to drain your MP to zero or really low. Then he switches your HP and MP values. If your MP went down to 0 from Rasp, prepare to die as your HP is changed to 0 from Swap. See the problem? Even if you have high MP (say 600) after swap you're down to 600 HP. Sure you're MP trades with your HP and is probably maxed out, but you're almost dead. So after Rasp you need to make a decision: if MP=0 you must use an ether or die, then heal next turn; if MP>0 get ready to heal immediately following Swap.
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Kuwadora

Concentrate on the eyes first. You MUST begin by destroying the eye that heals. You'll have to use physical (non-elemental) attacks to damage it. Use Armor Break on it for extra damage. Then destroy the attacking eye that casts Laser. Only elemental attacks will work here; physical attacks do little damage.

Once you have killed both eyes you must start pouring on all the damage you can against Kuwadora. He will eventually restore both eyes after X number of turns, but if you're dealing enough damage the boss will die beforehand. Otherwise you have to kill the eyes again, then go after Kuwadora when he's alone a second time.

It is possible to kill Kuwadora with the eyes still alive, and he uses less powerful attacks, but it's difficult contending with the extra damage from the Laser eye and the healing of the other eye.
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[DJC]

Pale Dim

For the battle with Pale Dim it's really your call how you want to approach the battle. Armed with Ultimate Weapons you can easily break his armor and do plenty of physical damage. Or you can go the magic route and exploit his Ice and Shadow elemental weaknesses.

There are a few things, however, that any party will need to be capable of doing. One of them is the ability to slow down Pale Dim and speed up your own allies. Not only does Pale Dim have base 500 speed, but he will cast Fast to increase it. You must at least counter this with Slow, and better yet low him down even more.

Slowing down Pale Dim is not easy, however, since he has maximum Mind power of 999. Your Slow spell will be ineffective unless your first lower his Mind power. Either break his mind, cast Focus on your White Wizard to max her Mind, or better yet both. If you do not do this then you can cast Slow all day and not have much effect.

There's also the problem of Pale Dim slowing down your entire team constantly. This is especially bad thanks to the attack Speed Burn, which will dramatically deal more damage as you lose speed. I suggest starting with heroes with high speed. You can try countering Pale Dim's Slow All spell with Fast, but it's hard to use so many turns for that. Instead it may be best to just let character who have been slowed down too much just die. When they are revived their speed will be back to normal.

Another very important piece of strategy is to defend against Pale Breath, Before casting it, Pale Dim will always waste a turn doing nothing. Be on the lookout for this so you know when to defend. Choosing the defend command will halve the damage from Pale Breath. If everyone is too low on HP to survive even while defending, one of the heroes is going to have to sacrifice themselves and use a heal potion while everyone else defends.

Reversal is another big problem you must tackle to survive this fight. It always follows Hurricane, so watch for that spell too. Do NOT heal after Hurricane; instead let Reversal restore your HP and any dead allies on the next turn. If you heal past 50% and get hit with Reversal, you will be damaged instead. If you heal to 100% health then Reversal will kill that hero.

If you plan on using physical attacks you must dispel the Spin condition every time Pale Dim casts Storm's Embrace. Also you'll have to rebreak his armor after Safeguard.

Earth, Wind, and Holy are the elements you will face. Silence and Frozen are the only conditions.

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Phoenix
Fire and Air elemental protection: this is what you need. And you need your White Wizard to have Flame Shell. Combine Fire elemental equipment + Flame Shell and your hero will be healed by all Fire spells. Phoenix does cast Glare, however, and this lowers Fire elemental protection. When this happens counter with Flame Shell to increase again. This can be difficult to do for all four party members, so just maintain it for a couple heroes.

I suggest taking Drakeor who can use Aura and increase his elemental defense without the help of Flame Shell. Then only worry about keep your White Wizard's Fire elemental protection at maximum (always healed by Fire) using Flame Shell, and let the rest of the party die if you have to. When a hero dies their elemental defense is reset so they won't be weak anymore vs. Fire due to Glare.

Maintaining positive conditions may also be difficult in this fight, but it's your choice to try or not. Phoenix uses Shatterslash both randomly and in pattern.

Make sure your White Wizard has a Ribbon (as usual) and try and get as many heroes as you can protected vs. Instant Death. Otherwise, you may be all but wiped out by Death Requiem.

Vetu's spells can do some good damage since Phoenix is weak vs. Ice, Water, and Wind; however, Phoenix also uses Energy Burn which will cause massive damage to heroes with high MP. So if you decide to go with casters you will be taking extra damage from Energy Burn, but you'll also deal more as well. Vixen can use Typhoon, Shiva, or Leviathan. Drakeor's Ice, Water, and Wind dragons won't pack much of an extra punch, however, since they aren't powerful to begin with.

If you're inflicting any of the breaks on Phoenix, remember to recast after Phoenix uses Angel Whisper, since this removes all conditions.

Very Important: Phoenix uses Reversal every #9+18x turns. You need to anticipate when Reversal is about to be cast. Flame Bath will come right before it. Do NOT heal this damage. You want your HP to be as low as possible just before Reversal. That way Reversal heals you instead of inflicting damage (if your hero is below 50% health). If your hero is at 100% health then they are going to die from Reversal. Dead heroes will be revived to 100% health. This makes using Flame Shell + elemental equipment to absorb Fire damage a problem, since Flame Bath will likely heal these heroes to full HP, causing Reversal to kill them next turn.

Always remember you can Defense to halve damage from attacks. So for example, Phoenix will always take No Action before casting Burn to Ashes, which deals 6,000 Fire damage. You know when it's coming, just look for Phoenix to take a turn but do nothing. Then choose to defend and you'll only take 3,000 damage. Of course, heroes with maximum Fire element protection should not defend, because they want to absorb the maximum as healing.

You will want very high Speed for this battle, first to keep up with Phoenix and second because of Speed Burn.

Ultra Sonic Wave can cripple your party, so quickly use Esuna to remove the effects from everyone.

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Terrapin
It's probably not worth trying to upkeep all three elemental protection spells. This will take too much time, and having both White Wizards in your party will severely lower your offensive capabilities.

I suggest just sticking with equipment to halve elemental damage. Try use Drakeor and then he can cast Aura and be healed by the elemental damage (if he's wearing Ice/Fire/Bolt equipment). The Body will use Dispel to remove positive conditions (Might/Protect), so don't bother with those until you kill it. Also you will have to inflict any breaks you're using repeatedly, since the Body removes conditions from itself and the head with Purge Impurities.

And here's the big reason you're having difficulty: Healing Seed. The Body will keep casting this, and it heals both the Body and Head for the Body's current HP/8. The body starts with 80,000 HP, so that's 10,000 HP heal to both enemies every turn at the start. This is why you need heavy offense. You must take down the Body fast or its Healing Seed will recover all the damage. As you damage the Body its Healing Seed recovers significantly less. So only use one White Wizard (Recover and Angel Whisper should be enough healing), and maybe think about giving Drakeor a shot.

One more tip: when you see the Head hesitate and take no action, that's a signal to DEFEND because the next turn it's going to use its Eye Laser attack on the entire party.

I'll go through Terrapin Head's attacks for you:
1) Regular Physical attackx2, will hit twice, but if you maintain Power Break on the Head it does practically no damage
2) Skull Crack, Daze on a single target + damage
3) Shatterjaw, Dispel on a single target + damage
4) Ram, Bleed on single target + damage
5) Beak, single target damage
6) Step Mine, single target high damage
7) Stomp, multi-target damage
8) Conflaguration, multiple target Fire elemental damage
9) Avalanche, multiple target Ice elemental damage
10) Luminare, multiple target Bolt elemental damage
11) Shellshock, multiple target Daze + damage
12) Overpower, hits 4 times and based on target's defense
13) Eye Beam, single variety high damage and multi-target high damage
14) Aggressor's Folly, deals damage based on how many times your heroes have targeted the enemy since the last time Agressor's Folly was cast; if you target the enemy more you receive more damage, hits two times

Here's your attack pattern:
Shell Shock (1+10x) starting turn 1, then every 10 turns thereafter
Overpower (2+10x)
Shatterjaw (3+10x)
Eye Beam (Single) (4+10x)
Aggressor's Folly (6+10x)
No Action (7+10x)
Eye Beam (All) (8+10x)

You want to remove Daze real quick after turn Shell Shock, because anyone under Daze has 1/2 Defense and that means Overpower will deal extreme damage to them, and Overpower follows the next turn. Shatterjaw and Dispel (cast by Body) will make maintaining positive conditions difficult. Other than that just watch out for the No Action turn and then Defend so you halve the damage from Eye Beam. Conflaguration, Avalanche, and Luminare are Fire/Ice/Bolt respectively, so do what you can with elemental equipment to prepare for them. Drakeor can cast Aura just once and halve damage from all of these. If he dies, just recast. Make sure your White Wizard has Recover and Angel Whisper for maximum healing power. Don't hesitate to use your good items like Mega_Phoenix if multiple party members are dead, or Mega-Potions for extra party-wide healing.

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Tyrano
First you'll want to make sure you're loaded up on elemental protection, specifically Fire, Ice, Bolt, and Earth. Equip the Elementalist Cape from Viridis Mons on someone. If you give it to Drakeor he can combine it with Aura and be healed by all elemental damage.

Drakeor can also be given the Tin Armor (or another armor wearing hero) to boost speed significantly. Then go for high defense to protect against the skill Overpower. Casting Protect will help versus Overpower as well, but only if you can maintain it. This is difficult because of Shatterclaw. Be quick about removing Armor Break or else Overpower will destroy you big time.

Vetu might not be the best choice in this battle because of Mage's Folly. This attack deals damage based on how many spells have been cast, and that's pretty much all Vetu does.

Also if one of your heroes gets hit with Curse say goodbye to them and just let them die. Curse lowers all elemental defenses, but when you hero dies and is then revived these defenses are restored to normal. Drakeor can counter this on his own with Aura, so it's not necessary to let him die.

You may find using Sammy useful as an additional healer with White Wind, which will also help remove conditions such as Bleed. Mantra will help with Blind and Silence from Virulent Claw, but make sure Sammy is wearing something to make him immune to Silence so he can cast it.

Lastly be careful about how you damage Tyrano. If you hit him for excessive damage he will counter with Backfire and probably annihilate someone with it. This means you may not want to break his armor depending on how much your melee damage is doing and whether it is triggering Backfire.

For Tyrano some of the biggest keys are: remove any conditions (Armor Break, Bleed, Blind) that halve defense or else Overpower will do insane damage. Elemental protection will go a long way in this battle, and Drakeor using Aura will help tremendously (especially if combined with Elementalist Cape from Viridis Mons). Don't bother trying to cast and maintain the White Wizard Shell spells, however, since you're simply up against too many elements. You may want to DEFEND against Tetra Breath before it hits to halve the damage. Don't go caster heavy with your team (such as Vixen+Vetu+White Wizard) or you will take a lot of damage from Caster's Folly. If someone gets hit with Curse just let them die unless it is Drakeor since he can nullify the effect by casting Aura to raise all his elemental protection back up. Also beware dealing too much damage and triggering Backfire.

First you'll want to make sure you're loaded up on elemental protection, specifically Fire, Ice, Bolt, and Earth. Equip the Elementalist Cape from Viridis Mons on someone. If you give it to Drakeor he can combine it with Aura and be healed by all elemental damage.

Drakeor can also be given the Tin Armor (or another armor wearing hero) to boost speed significantly. Then go for high defense to protect against the skill Overpower. Casting Protect will help versus Overpower as well, but only if you can maintain it. This is difficult because of Shatterclaw. Be quick about removing Armor Break or else Overpower will destroy you big time.

Vetu might not be the best choice in this battle because of Mage's Folly. This attack deals damage based on how many spells have been cast, and that's pretty much all Vetu does.

Also if one of your heroes gets hit with Curse say goodbye to them and just let them die. Curse lowers all elemental defenses, but when you hero dies and is then revived these defenses are restored to normal. Drakeor can counter this on his own with Aura, so it's not necessary to let him die.

You may find using Sammy useful as an additional healer with White Wind, which will also help remove conditions such as Bleed. Mantra will help with Blind and Silence from Virulent Claw, but make sure Sammy is wearing something to make him immune to Silence so he can cast it.

Lastly be careful about how you damage Tyrano. If you hit him for excessive damage he will counter with Backfire and probably annihilate someone with it. This means you may not want to break his armor depending on how much your melee damage is doing and whether it is triggering Backfire.

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Valkyrie
Valkyrie inflicts a large array of conditions, and at this point in the game there's no way you can prevent them all, even on a single character. That means you'll have to spend turns using Heal potions and casting Heal, Antidote, etc. Here's a list of the status effecting attacks she uses:

Lance of Meekness (Power Break)
Shatterslash (Dispel)
Blinding Stab (Blind)
Lance of Silence, Acid, Fever (Silence, Armor Break, Poison)
Enrage (Berserk)
Lance of Atrophy (Instant Death)

There are some handy items you should have that will be of great help. First is the Peace Ring. Equip it to your White Wizard to prevent her from getting Berserked and unable to heal/restore HP. Next up you can use the Charm Shield to prevent Instant Death. Then there's Star Pendants for poison. If you're using Sammy just cast Mantra to remove Blind/Poison on all heroes. The Protect armlet may also prove useful if you kept it to prevent Silence. Only remove Power Break from characters physically attacking. Remove Armor Break immediately or else the Overpower attack will be super effective.

Make sure you have somebody who can Dispel Valkyrie's Protect spell. Don't use too many physical attackers since they will take high damage from Power Surge (damage based on attack power). Also beware of Expose Wounds and its cast pattern. It will deal damage equal to your Max HP minus your current HP.

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Water Dragon
One thing to be careful about with the Water Dragon is to not trigger his retaliation skill Backfire. If you constantly see this spell being used against you, try using a different means of offense that deals less damage per strike.

Use Spear Rain at least once to lower the dragon's resistance to spear weapons, allowing you to normal attack for more damage. Don't use Fire elemental weapons since they won't do much damage.

For defense the most important thing is to have some sort of Water elemental protection, probably an Aqua Shield, Water Ring, or Blue Armguard. You can buy the ring at the Water Tower on the West Continent I believe. The shield should be available at Revirdok. You can forge a Blue Armguard at Costa del Sol if you have the correct items.

If you have enough skill shards also equip the skill Aura. Using this skill + Water elemental equipment will make most of the Water Dragon's attacks heal Drakeor's HP.

I believe the skill Maelstorm that the Water Dragon uses will LOWER your Water elemental resistance. Cast Aura to nullify this effect. If you try to go into this fight with no Aura spell and no Water elemental equipment, Maelstorm will make you take double damage from Water attacks.

For healing use Chakra and items. The only conditions you'll face are Bleed from Lacerate and Daze from Skull Crack. Just use a Heal right away to remove Bleed, but for Daze you'll just have to survive a few turns until you regain control.

Try to have at least 100-110 Speed for Drakeor, and as high of defense as possible since you will be facing the skill Overpower, which deals damage based 100% on defensive rating.

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White Dragon
For the White Dragon obviously you're going to want to max your Holy elemental protection. So you'll want to wear something (probably Mirror Shield) to give you some equipment based Holy protection, then stack that with the Aura skill. You'll then absorb all Holy damage, until you get hit Prayer, which will lower your resistance. Always counter this with another casting of Aura.

Step 2 is to have Regen (a skill scroll) equipped and keep that positive condition up as much as you can. It will get dispelled by Shatterclaw but then you can recast.

Next in importance is Jump, which you MUST have to dispel the positive conditions the White Dragon will use on itself (Might, Protect, Focus). Dispel these conditions as soon as you can before the boss uses them to its advantage.

If you don't have or plan on using the Black Dragon for your main offensive damage, you'll want Spear Rain so you can cause your spear attacks to do extra damage (don't use an axe). You'll have to recast it after Protect to make the White Dragon's resistance lower again. The Black Dragon will also become significantly less effective once the White Dragon casts Shadow Shroud.

Be aware of the status effects you'll face and prepare accordingly. A Ribbon might be a good idea if you can afford not using a Rabbit's Foot (try using Tin Armor or Titanium stuff instead if you have it). Strike causes Instant Death, very nasty if it hits. Virulent Claw can inflict Bleed, Blind, and Silence. Lunar Waves will put you to sleep.

Lastly try and max your speed, your target being over 300. Otherwise expect to take your turn after the White Dragon. Try and pay attention to the bosses' pattern of attacks. Knowing when Magic Missile is coming so you know the heal up before it can help you survive. Also if you get hit with Prayer its good to know if you're about to get blasted with White or White Breath, which will do massive damage if you're not absorbing them.

Remember you have to keep your damage up because the White Dragon casts Angel Whisper to heal as part of its pattern, so don't get too defensive.

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Wind Dragon
The Wind Dragon's counter attack should only be triggered if 2 conditions are met: 1) You dealt more than 1500 damage and 2) You used a Dragoon skill to inflict that damage. So if you normal attack the WD for more than 1500 you should not trigger Counterblow.

Now the Wind Dragon has ~20,000 HP so it should not be a long battle even if you are using regular attacks to deal damage. The WD is weak against Ice, but probably all that you have so far is Ice Dragon and not any Ice elemental weapons. The Ice Dragon skill will probably trigger the counter, so it's not worth using. Instead try using Spear Rain once to lower the WD's piercing resistance. This will allow your normal spear attacks to deal extra damage. If you use Spear Rain again you'll probably trigger the counter.

You will have to use a spear weapon for this fight, not an axe, because you must be able to use the skill Jump to Dispel the Spin condition the WD casts on itself via Storm's Embrace.

Also of obvious importance is elemental protection versus Air magic. You might have to equip a Wind Ring if you don't have anything else for Drakeor that's Air resistant. Combine this with the Aura skill and every Air attack will heal you. Be on the lookout, however, for the skill Twister, which will lower your Air resistance. You must counter this by recasting Aura. Otherwise you'll not only lose your elemental healing from Air magic, but also start taking extra damage the next time it is cast on you.

You'll want to pump your Speed at least around 110 so you're near equal footing the Wind Dragon. Get your defense as high as you can too, since the WD uses Overpower, a skill based solely on the target's defense rating. The conditions you'll face are Bleed (Ram), Blind (Dust Torrent), and Silence (Roaring Winds), and Daze (Headbutt). Make sure you remove Bleed quick with a Heal item. Use Chakra to remove Blind and heal yourself. Silence will require a Heal item. You'll just have to survive Daze, which usually lasts only a turn or two.

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Yarthkin

Yarthkin is an Earth elemental monster; he relies heavily on attacks that deal damage of this type and he is also strong against these types of attacks (and therefore may also have some weaknesses too). Earth is immune to itself and strong against Bolt and Wind, but is weak against Ice and Water. Thus you could have Glen use Ice Slash and Vetu Ice or Blizzard (if you have enough skill shards) to do extra damage. Yarthkin is also a Reptile and a Demon, so weapons with those attributes will score better hits as well.

On the defensive side you want to protect against the Earth elemental, since Yarthkin mostly uses those kinds of attacks. Boulder, Eruption, Terra Spiral, Terra Rage, and Seismic Shift are all Earth based. You can tell this by the graphic icon that precedes the attack name when it is used (top of the screen descriptor bar). You want to wear equipment or cast defensive spells with this same icon. For example, in this fight give Meredith the Earth Ring (could have been found in woods before Valiantide hideout) and Vetu the Gaea hat (purchased at Dale). This will cut the damage they take from Earth attacks by 1/2, so instead of 1000HP lost they take a hit of 500HP, a huge difference.

Meredith can also cast Earth Shell to raise a single ally's Earrth resistance once. You will probably want her equipped with the Osmose skill by this point in the game, however, so you may not have enough skill shards for Earth Shell yet.

In addition to the Earth element, Yarthkin employs some nasty conditions. Poison from Bio can be a real problem, so you may want to wear Star Pendant accessories if you have any to prevent Poison. Gore and Spiked Tail will cause Bleeding, which you cannot yet prevent, so you'll want to remove the condition with a Heal item or Meredith's Heal spell quickly. Silencing Claw will inflict Silence, which could shutdown Vetu or Meredith, but is easily remedied with a Heal item. Roar causes Daze, which you also cannot prevent yet. You can remove it with Heal, but Daze dissipates very quickly, usually after an ally or two takes a turn. Do be aware that many of these conditions (Poison, Daze, Bleeding) will HALVE your defense while inflicted, a very serious problem against physical attacks and some special attacks like Overpower (you won't see that in this battle at least.)

After Yarthkin casts Soul Shield you will find your elemental attacks are less effective since that skill raises his resistance to all elements. Try and figure out the pattern to Gravija, and use Meredith to Heal AFTER it is cast. Gravija halves the target's current HP, so you don't want to heal beforehand.

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Zombie Dragon

You will also find the Tortoise Shield in East Tower, or you could use a White Cape except you may want to use have something else in your accessory slot since there's still Silence, Poison, Death, and Bleed to worry about. I also think Gargoyle equipment prevents stone. If you still have the Charm Shield this is probably your only protection at this point against Instant Death.

Also for the Zombie Dragon be aware that if you deal too much damage he will counter attack with Life Transfer and either kill you, or heal himself for a ridiculous amount of HP.

You will want Shadow+Earth elemental protection, and combine that with Aura spell to be healed by all elemental attacks. Try to figure out the pattern to Gravija so you don't heal before it and waste the heal.