Final Fantasy VI Bosses

Goddess is, in my eyes, the toughest of the trio to defeat. Not only are there no crippling status ailment weaknesses to exploit (not even Slow!) and no elemental weaknesses, Goddess also tends to use your own characters against the party, and that's just plain rude. Her Lightning-elemental nature isn't your biggest concern as you can easily absorb or nullify those attacks; it's her sneaky manipulation attacks you need to watch out for.

Her normal AI script features Battle, Bolt 2, Bolt 3, Lullaby, and Charm. Lullaby is the same multi-target Sleep-inducing attack as it was when fighting Still Life, and Charm is still as grotesquely annoying as ever. Since this is the only battle in the game where the danger of Charm isn't limited by quickly eliminating the monsters that use it, it might be wise to kill off the character affected to make sure no really horrible things come shooting out of the affected character (X-Zone, Spiraler, Pep Up, Meteor, and Ultima all come to mind).

When damaged below the 32640 HP mark (that's the critical number of Atma and all three Goddesses; coincidence?), she actually becomes less of a threat. She'll focus more on plain damaging attacks: Flash Rain, more Bolt 3 spells and the non-elemental barrier-piercing Lore, Quasar, which is for all relevant purposes a slightly weaker version of GrandTrain. But we haven't touched the true power of Goddess yet.

When she is hit by a Fight command, she has a 1/3 chance of employing the Love Token attack, which I discussed earlier (when facing Barb-e). It basically causes every Fight and Special attack your characters perform to hit the affected character. This is bad news for the Lockes, Gaus, and Setzers of your party. When damaged in any other way, she might counter with a Bolt 2 spell, which is nowhere near as bad.

But here's the kicker: When damaged eight times, Goddess will use her unique Overcast attack. It looks all swirly and features those cute little angels that have thus far been seen only when using Life, Life 2, or Life 3. What exactly does Overcast do? Basically, two things. First off (and this would be bad enough by itself), it sets Condemned on the entire party. This means that once the timer reaches 0, your entire party will die unless you managed to get rid of the timer, either by using Rippler or by dying and reviving preemptively. There's yet another catch, however. When a character hit by Overcast dies, it doesn't simply receive the traditional Wound status, but is infected with the Zombie status instead. This means that your deceased characters may attack you as well, and that reviving them back to maximum HP is impossible.

Thankfully, Big Guard covers the entire team, even when they're split across the screen. Haste 2 isn't quite as strategic in the area, even though you still may want to speed up your characters, especially since Goddess herself has inherent Haste status. Throw out your most damaging attacks, and know that Goddess (with her high Magic Defense and inherent Shell status) is most susceptible to Ultima, Quake, and Flare (in that order of potency, too). Your Pearl Lance Dragoons are useless, as Goddess will absorb their Jump attacks. Switch to the Aura Lance or a Partisan if you haven't already. Make sure you keep an eye out if Love Token is in effect and act accordingly.

Quickly throwing out your strongest attacks, covering the party in Thunder Shields and Safety Bits, and just having a little bit of luck are the keys to success against Goddess. Lacking any one of those three elements can really break this battle in Goddess's favor, so be prepared, keep yourself healed, and make sure Charm, Love Token, and Overcast don't catch you off-guard. Expand Full Strategy

What does Gold Drgn do? First off, every four Fight commands, it will get especially pissed and the message "Gold Drgn begins to store energy!" will be displayed. Gold Drgn will spend a turn doing nothing (aka, charging for Bolt 3) before casting a Bolt 3 spell on the entire party. We faced a level 3 spell with fair warning halfway through the WoB, for crying out loud! If any living character has the Reflect status, Gold Drgn will cast the Rflect spell on itself and will start bouncing Bolt and Bolt 2 spells off at the party. Every Magic spell can be countered by a Bolt or Bolt 2 spell normally, but Gold Drgn will not counter Magic spells when he is charging for the Bolt 3 spell. Normally, Gold Drgn will just attack with Bolt and Bolt 2 spells, and Giga Volt attacks.

Gold Drgn is an incredibly easy enemy at this point; all of its attacks are either Battle or Lightning-elemental. The magic attacks are all vulnerable to Celes's Runic, and Lightning is very easily absorbed or nullified by equipment such as the Thunder Shield, Paladin Shield, Minerva, or Rage Ring. The bane of Gold Drgn's existence, however, is summoning Phantom in conjunction with the Bserk spell. Heck, set Berserk in some other way; the neat thing about late-game battles is that you have so many options. 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 Tek Laser, Missile, and Atomic Ray. 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:

"Ran 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 Haste 2 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.

"Ran battle program!"

This nameless battle program heavily resembles the combat style of Dadaluma, so we can chalk it up to that foe should we really need a name (the PSX Anthology Bestiary also mentions Dadaluma as the source of this battle program). Shock Wave and Battle are nothing to be worried about, but, on the third turn, Dadaluma Guardian will throw a Mithril Knife or Ashura (doing extreme amounts of damage and killing non-Life 3 characters) and use three healing potions (either Tonics or Potions) just before using TekBarrier 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.

"Ran Air Force's battle program!"

This is simply Guardian's upgraded machine phase. It'll use such predictable beauties as Tek Laser, Diffuser, and Launcher. In its fourth turn mimicking Air Force, the opponent will say:

"Wave Cannon! Count down!!""Count 3!""Count 2!""Count 1!"

All in one turn and use WaveCannon 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 WaveCannon, it's back to normal for Guardian.

"Ran Atma's battle program!"

Far and away the most dangerous of Guardian's battle programs, Atma's battle program will have Guardian use Battle, cast Flare, and use Meteo. On the fourth turn, Atma 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 Atma's. And this is good, since facing Atma Guardian is something you want to avoid if you're going for a victorious battle. Cast Slow on Guardian and Haste 2 on yourself ASAP and throw up a Big 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 Life 3 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 Bolt 3 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 Bolt 3 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. Quadra Slice, Tritoch's Tri-Dazer, Bum Rush, Bahamut's Sun Flare, Fixed Dice, Valiant Knife, and Jump attacks are all effective. Expand Full Strategy

Hidon attacks with Battle and Bio. That's what he does. He has a 33% shot at using Bio, and a 66% shot at Battle. If you hit him with something, he has a small chance of countering with the Poison spell. Whenever a character dies in-battle (aka the Wound status), Hidon will try to revive the fallen character as a Zombie with the ChokeSmoke attack, which will fail if the fallen character is immune to the Zombie status ailment. When Hidon is alone, its first turn will be devoted to glowing with an eerie yellow light and attacking with the magnificent Lore GrandTrain, which will deal between 900 and 950 damage on your sorry posterior. That's about when you'll notice that Hidon is particularly mean when it's by itself; it'll start attacking with all kinds of crazy spells, including Virite (the multi-target Poison-elemental attack that misses a lot yet looks funky) and Raid (the non-elemental HP draining spell). Eighty seconds after the last of the Hidonite has perished, Hidon will call his minions back into existence. If you kill them all again, Hidon will cast GrandTrain again, and then revive them again.

Throw up your barriers where possible (Haste 2, Big Guard, Golem/Fenrir, Kirin) and set Slow on Hidon. Evasion of physical attacks is doubly important, as all the Hidonites will try to set nasty status ailments on you with their Specials. Now, it's time to take care of the Hidonites. While Bahamut's Sun Flare attack is by far the best way to take care of them all at once, well-timed doses of Cyan's Stunner attack, possibly paired with Edgar's Autocrossbow or Flash Tools, should get the job done. The most difficult Hidonites to dispatch is the one in the lower-left corner (it is inherently Reflective, absorbs all elements, and has Instant Death protection). Shadow's stronger throwing stars work well against this one, as does Strago's Step Mine attack, Setzer's Fixed Dice, and Edgar's Drill. Also, don't forget to throw around stealing attempts until you've stolen something from Hidon; the common steal is a meager Warp Stone, but the rare steal is a Thornlet, an elusive item that, provided you choose the Ragnarok sword over the Ragnarok Esper once the time comes, can only be found here.

The Thornlet is an odd piece of Headgear. The only thing it has going for it is the fact that its Defense is superior to everything, not including the Titanium on Imps. On the downside, the Thornlet grants inherent Seizure to the wearer (thorns inflict pain) and has no Magic Defense whatsoever. The verdict, then, is that the Thornlet should be ignored. The only valid reasons for getting one are either to complete your item list as much as possible or to bet it later for a Mirage Vest.

Now, behold the power of GrandTrain! As soon as that's all over, it's time to defeat this wretched being. Tritoch's Tri-Dazer attack, Fire 2, Fire 3, and Quake spells really hurt, as does Shadow's Fire Skean. Having Shadow Throw a Flame Sabre, Gravity Rod, or Pearl Rod hurts Hidon very badly. Equipping Mog or Edgar as a Dragon Horn Dragoon paired with a Pearl Lance can also deal great amounts of damage. Mog should definitely refrain from using Dances; the Dusk Requiem sucks. Bum Rush and Fixed Dice are reliable as always. Strago and Relm themselves really need to rely on their Magic skillset if used; if Strago's selection is extremely poor, I would suggest Aero or Step Mine. Obviously, if Strago is level 43, his Stone attack surpasses all other options (except Fire 3). Cyan should probably stick to his Quadra Slam SwdTech skill, unless you've put in the time to teach him Fire 3. Gau has a few options, but most of them are kind of odd. Scrapper is nice enough, as it allows Gau to absorb Poison, Bio, and Virite. Inherent Haste and Elf Fire are good enough too. If you're not too concerned about that Poison ailment, have Gau engage Chickenlip (don't forget to cast Float on yourselves beforehand, since ChickenLip uses Quake). Finally, Magic Urn turns Gau into an ever-present tank that heals your party. Nice. And Umaro? Just let him go, man. Expand Full Strategy

Tiger will act very rarely, but, when it does, the effects tend to be less than desirable for your part of this ordeal. Characters that absorb Fire are relatively safe from Tiger's attacks, but it'll be rough for the others. Tiger's normal AI script reads Nothing - strong attack - Nothing - 1/3 Battle - loop, but once you pound it below 11520 it'll get mad and start using the strong attacks every turn, with a 1/3 chance of using !Doom Tusk in the same turn immediately afterwards. This frenzied Tiger is far and away the most troublesome opponent of this tier and is priority number one as a result. Since his elemental weakness is the popular and easily exploitable Ice-elemental variant, Ice 3 spells and Thrown Blizzard blades are extremely strong attacks versus the ferocious feline. Did you know: Tiger's image is the exact same one as Sabin uses when he executes his Desperation Attack 'Tiger Break'?

If you'd thought that you had seen the last of those repetitive machine moves when you destroyed the Empire's most powerful weapon, you had better think again. Tools is less than picky with its AI script and will randomly use any of its attacks in any situation with only one quirk: Once Tools hits 11520 HP, it'll stop using Atomic Ray and start using the ever-so-slightly stronger Absolute0 attack.

Magic uses spells. A lot of them. It has all kinds of conditions too, so allow me to present them to you: Normally, it's Poison, Drain, Bio, Fire 3, Muddle, Haste, Imp, Haste 2. When its HP drops below 30720, it's: Ice 3, Bolt 3, Pearl, Flare, Sleep, Stop, Rflect, Slow 2, Life 3. Below 20096, another change: Ice 2, Fire 3, Bolt 3, Pearl, Flare, Rasp, Mute. Below 10240, same story: Starts using 33% Quartr spell as an omni-counter. Finally, below 5120: Starts using 33% Quartr and up to two Dispel spells as an omni-counter. Note that when Magic dies, its Mute status will be removed and its final counter will definitely produce results.

Hit hits you. Every turn it uses Battle. It never rests or does something remotely interesting; it just sits there and pounds every character it can get its hands on. When it dies, it uses !10 Hits once and follows up with nine Battle attacks before croaking for good. Obviously you were supposed to expect a tenth hit here, but luckily you have me to suck the fun out of every single one of those little tricks.

You should still be buffed up from the previous battle, so there's no need to redo it now. Don't touch Golem/Fenrir yet. Start by killing Tools ASAP; once again, the Air Anchor really helps. Doom spells are a suitable replacement. Cast the Mute spell on Magic, or use the Sour Mouth Lore. If Magic managed to set Haste on Hit, cast Slow to counter the effects. By this point, you should have killed Tools, crippled Magic into uselessness, and Slowed the inherently inferior Hit. What's left is Tiger.

Focus all your attacks on Tiger. Like I said, Ice 3 spells and Thrown Blizzard blades really hurt it. When N. Cross hits home, use a Fire spell to recover. Don't let Zombies roam either; cure immediately and make destroying Tiger a priority over healing as Tiger is the only dangerous opponent on the field (not to mention the fact that, if you're in trouble, he can't be more than 10000 HP away from defeat based on his AI). Once Tiger is down, recover from any wounds you might've obtained and go for Magic instead.

After you've killed Magic (there's no special tricks), you'll probably have one or more characters who have lost their positive statuses due to !Doom Tusk, dying in some other manner, or Dispel. Re-set them (since Hit won't be KO-ing anybody anytime soon) before finally going for the kill on the final part. Hit's !10 Hits shouldn't hurt too bad; even in such large numbers, its weak and inaccurate physicals fail to impress. Expand Full Strategy

Go ahead and gawk at those status vulnerabilities if you like. However, I can't say that the Ice Dragon is the weakest of the eight brethren; as you'll see in the future, Gold Drgn is about as silly, while White Drgn is even more pathetic. The Ice Dragon can be fairly easily screwed over though. Sadly for Ice Dragon, his element is easily absorbed, his amount of HP rather low, and his status vulnerabilities are downright horrible, but I'll try and treat Ice Dragon with the same amount of dignity I firmly believe everybody deserves. Except for Nerapa, obviously.

What does Ice Dragon do? He can use all three spells normally. If you damage him, he might counter with Battle. If he dies, he might use one final Surge attack before rolling over, but that's about it. Honestly, Ice Dragon might very well be the least interesting boss in the game.

How to stop him? There are tons of ways! It doesn't really matter who you bring here. All you need is the Bserk spell and the Esper that teaches it, Phantom. Set Berserk on Ice Dragon, summon Phantom, and sit back. Use Poison or Bio to set Poison on the freezing fiend, and even Haste if you like: it will only speed up the Poisoning, as you'll be immune to everything he does. If you brought Mog, make sure you don't execute a Dance; the only one that doesn't have an inherent chance to remove your Clear status is the Dusk Requiem, which is pretty much useless anyways (there's only a 3/16 chance you'll damage him once you get it working). Gau's (or Gogo's) Io-induced Flare Star attack will do 9999 damage every time it appears regardless of what level the caster is at, while Leafer or the Mag Roader P. make Gau and Gogo absorb the Ice-elemental attacks without any equipment. If you brought Edgar, you can tease the Ice Dragon by trying to make Poison his weakness (if you get it, Poison will take off about 3200 damage a hit at the peak of its glory).

If you have the equipment and the status ailments to throw around, Ice Dragon is a joke. If you don't, his Absolute0 and Surge attacks will hurt real bad. The Mute status effect will prevent it from being able to use N. Cross and Absolute0. If, for some reason, you don't opt for Bserk/Phantom, try setting Slow, Poison, and Mute (a neat way of doing this is casting Rflect on the guy and have Strago/Gogo execute Reflect???, but that's just novelty). Equip the easily obtained Ice Shields, Flame Shields, Snow Mufflers, and/or Minerva bustier and you won't feel a thing from Ice Dragon's attacks. Golem should be more than sufficient for Ice Dragon's physical attacks, but you can humiliate him further by summoning Fenrir in addition. Expand Full Strategy

The battle against Ifrit and, if you allow it, Shiva, is not your classic battle of good vs. evil. Nay, two scared, dying members of an abused race turn like a dog in a corner on whoever comes near them. Ifrit, the fire Esper, and Shiva, the ice Esper... eternal counterparts.

Ifrit is the fire Djinni. Next to a physical attack, he performs Fire and Fire 2 spells and a deadly Blaze attack that ignores Wall Rings and Runic blade alike. If provoked by three Magic spells from you, he will charge up for a massive Fire 3 attack, which you'll want to avoid at all costs if you're not fully protected from the spell by Wall Rings, Celes' Runic, or Gau's possible inherent Fire-elemental absorption.

Shiva, the Ice Queen, will come at you with the more basic Ice and Ice 2 spells, on occasion switching on performing a nasty Storm attack which, while not as strong, penetrates Wall Rings and Runic. If damaged she can be quick to retort with an Ice spell, and when hit three times with a Magic spell herself she will cast a Rflect spell on one of your characters, which will send any Ice and Ice 2 spell she will cast on you back at her, healing her.

The trick here is to defeat one of them. If this happens, the Espers will realize they're not fighting someone coming for their death and they will sense Ramuh's soul near you. However, you can't just focus on one just like that, as you will only fight one at a time. Every time the magical, behind-the-scenes bit 3 reaches an amount of 5, they'll switch in for the other. The quickest approach may lie in taking Ifrit down before he can call on Shiva, but that may not always be possible. Bit 3 is incremented when the Esper is damaged by any means or the Magic skill is used on them (even if it doesn't actually damage them). Their Defenses are through the roof, much like most opponents you've faced so far. You know how to deal with that, although these magical beasts also take no damage from elemental magic unless it's their own element (which they'll absorb) or their weakness.

So, you can forget about your Magic skill. If you're sure you won't be able to pull off a Blitzkrieg against Ifrit anyway, you might want to start the battle off with a Slow spell if you have it, else it's a wasted turn as it increments bit 3. Drill/Chainsaw does great damage, especially when backed up with an Atlas Armlet. Celes can cast a Ice spell (Runic, with frequent counter-spells, doesn't work as well as you'd think and is entirely redundant if you are fully protected by Wall Rings). Sabin can Pummel Ifrit and perform Fire Dance when Shiva's around. Locke has no business being a thief in this battle, and might as well grab the Blizzard against Ifrit (he might pull off the random Ice spell) and the Flame Sabre against Shiva (or plain cast the Fire spell if he knows it). Cyan's Dispatch is the only thing he can do with some success, useless cretin that he is. Gau's irresponsible nature makes him a bit untrustworthy here. With other characters backing him up, the wisest course of action will probably be Brawler, as it is non-elemental, magical damage against both targets.

Along with the violence, summoning Kirin to aid you throughout the battle and casting a lot of Cure spells is a probably a great idea as you may not have Wall Rings here. The Runic blade, more often than not, catches an enemy Ice while letting the Ice 2 spell slip by. Expand Full Strategy

The battle against Inferno is a rather simple one, although it is frustrating that the main body and the blades don't share elemental properties. As you would expect, the main body is the one with all the fancy spells and with the most HP.

Rough is the left blade, and it just attacks physically with Battle and !Rapier. Once you destroy it, it'll take 20 seconds to grow back. Striker, the right blade, is a tad meaner than Rough; next to Battle, it also uses Shrapnel, the magical non-elemental attack that's as strong as a level 3 spell. Like Rough, it grows back 20 seconds after you destroy it.

Inferno uses a barrage of magical and mostly elemental attacks, such as Bolt 2, Atomic Ray, Shock Wave, and Giga Volt. When Inferno has both blades, it will use Delta Hit every 30 seconds. Delta Hit is still an unblockable attack that sets Petrify, so watch out for it. When Inferno has only one blade, it will only use Bolt 3 and Meteor spells (Meteor is especially nasty). The first time you destroy both blades, Inferno will use TekBarrier to set both Safe and Reflect on itself. Every time you damage Inferno, it may respond with an annoying !Sobat attack.

Your strategy is simple. You have no business caring about Rough and Striker whatsoever. Cast Slow 2 at the start of the battle and cast Stop spells on both blades to make sure they are out of the action for a while. Cast Haste 2 and summon Zoneseek, or call out a Big Guard attack if Strago is around. Now, focus all your offensive prowess on the main body. Let's not bother with Meteor and TekBarrier.

The biggest weakness of Inferno is the Bolt 3 spell. It's an incredibly strong Lightning-elemental spell you can easily target to hurt Inferno exclusively (it'll heal Rough if you multi-target it), and one or more of your characters should be able to cast it with considerable power. If Shadow and/or Gogo is around, you can have him/it chuck a few Thunder Blades at the infernal machine for large amounts of damage. Expand Full Strategy

First off, a note of warning: KatanaSoul is unique in the fact that he's a monster in a box you can run from. Doing so hurts your game though; you won't be able to fight him when you return to the chest, and thus you'll miss out on the Offering.

KatanaSoul is the perfect hybrid between a Samurai and a Ninja, as will become apparent by his AI script. Normally, his attacks will consist of Battle, any of the three offensive ninja scrolls (Fire Skean, Water Skean, or Bolt Edge), and Gale Cut, Blowfish, or Shock Wave. This isn't half bad for an opponent, but nothing spectacular either. It's when the enemy is aggravated that it becomes lethal. When you've battled him for longer than 40 seconds, he'll pump himself up. The message "KatanaSoul's power up!" will appear, and he will self-apply the Image and Reflect statuses, making him immune to every blockable Fight attack for the duration of Image and most Magic spells for the duration of Reflect. He'll also try to set Haste, but with inherent Slow immunity it will fail. Sad thing.

He may counter Fight, Magic, and Lore with a Battle, but that's not the purpose of his counter script there; when hit six times by Fight, he'll use !SlayerEdge on a random party member, which is a simple one-hit Wound attack with an admittedly poor Hit Rate of 100. When hit three times by any combination of Magic spells or Lore attacks, he'll chuck a weapon (either Imperial or Ashura) at a random party member, doing about 8000 damage to him/her. He'll then spend the next turn using Setzer's GP Rain, dealing exactly 915 HP worth of damage to four party members (1220 to three if one is still down from the thrown blade).

KatanaSoul's glaring weakness is the combination of vulnerability to the Confuse status and its own Special, !SlayerEdge. By setting Confuse with the Muddle spell, Strago's Sour Mouth Lore, Stray's Cat Rain, Edgar's NoiseBlaster, or whathaveyou, KatanaSoul has a 50% chance of killing himself with !SlayerEdge. Sketching nets you a 25% shot at !SlayerEdge too. Exploit this weakness for a far easier battle.

If you're looking for more of a challenge or for some other reason don't want to muddle the poor warrior into defeat, here's what you'll want to do. First, throw up your barriers. Focus on the magical side; Big Guard (for Shell) or Zoneseek's Wall, Haste 2, Kirin's Life Guard, etc. Golem and Fenrir help against !SlayerEdge, but you shouldn't see it directed at you anyway.

Now, let loose with your characters. There's no reason to use Fight, Magic, or Lore on KatanaSoul. Terra, Celes, and Strago should really just wait out this battle. Attack with Bum Rush Blitzes, Cyan's SwdTech skills (Quadra Slice is nice), Jump attacks, the Drill Tool, etc. If you're really unlucky and brought all the wrong characters, just Fight (!SlayerEdge every sixth Fight attack isn't all that bad). When KatanaSoul powers up, Dispel removes all three positive statuses immediately. If you want to be evil, you can break the no-Lore rule one time and steal all three with Rippler (provided Strago's not prancing around with something like a Pod Bracelet or Marvel Shoes). Expand Full Strategy

Kefka is vulnerable to Stop, so have Gau use the Araneid and/or Primordite Rages for best results. Always have Runic in place, as he knows some very powerful spells that can one-hit KO your characters when focused in a single-target blast, regardless of row. Have your other character(s) give it their best shot. Terra's Fire cannot be used with Runic in place so she should focus on her other powers; she can cast Magic when Celes isn't on Runic stand-by or simply wield the Rune Edge to some very nice result. Locke should Attack, Edgar should unload his Autocrossbow, Sabin relies on good old Aurabolt, Cyan can use Dispatch or his fourth Bushido, Quadra Slam, if he has access to it, and that's about it. The battle is slightly anti-climactic when you consider the implications of it, but you'll pull through. Expand Full Strategy

So how does the final boss of Final Fantasy VI do battle? He'll start the battle with that demented little speech of his. Characters that were in the air when you defeated the third tier could land from their attacks before he starts it: That's kinda humorous. His first attack is Fallen One, which will reduce all of your characters' HP to 1. After that, it's all about physicals, !Havoc Wing, level 3 spells, and that most annoying of attacks, Train. !Havoc Wing is his most popular and, in most instances, most powerful attack Kefka will perform.

As soon as Kefka hits 32640 HP, he will become quite a bit meaner. Calling a head into existence, he'll say "The end comes beyond chaos." and the screen will start to shake. The next turn, he'll execute the Goner attack. Goner is a multi-target magical non-elemental attack that, in terms of pure power, is the strongest attack in the game. It lacks the barrier-piercing ability, however, so sufficient Magic Defense should ensure that your characters all survive a single Goner slaughter. After this is completed, Kefka will use two attacks in two turns: !Havoc Wing, Train, or Revenger. Revenger is also a new attack: it's like a multi-target Dispel that only removes positive status ailments. It removes Clear, Image, Regen, Haste, Shell, Safe, Reflect, Life 3, and Float. After those two turns, Kefka will once again start to charge up for Goner.

2560 HP later (at 30080 HP), Kefka will start employing a horrible omni-counter: For every attack directed at him, he may counter with either Battle or HyperDrive. HyperDrive is an extremely strong attack that's both unblockable and barrier-piercing, so any character struck by it is likely to die unless he or she was really power-leveled. At 10240 HP, this HyperDrive counter even changes into an Ultima spell, which is obviously even worse, as it's fairly stronger than HyperDrive, though the power is cut since it targets every character. Keep in mind that Ultima may be absorbed by a Runic blade. The HyperDrive and Ultima counters are not employed when Kefka is charging for Goner. This is vital information, as, quite frankly, Kefka's counters are what make him a mean opponent. The last 'stage' of Kefka's battle tactic is when he hits 7680 HP, which is when he just charges up for Goner, uses it, cast a Meteor spell, and charges up for Goner again. Meteor is especially troublesome since it cannot be absorbed by a Runic blade. Kefka has a lot of strong spells that will fly past all your fancy elemental protection. The trick here is to keep reviving characters that die (I find this is mostly due to !Havoc Wing attacks) and try to avoid being hit by HyperDrive and Ultima as much as possible. If you can employ the Runic skill, both attacks are vulnerable to its powers, so take advantage of that. If not, I suggest you only attack when Kefka is charging for Goner.

Locke should definitely try to Steal the Megalixir Kefka possesses; it's a great way to heal up after a Fallen One attack. Mog should Jump as usual; he's a real asset in this battle since, in addition to doing a lot of damage, his 255 Defense means that he will be practically immune to !Havoc Wing. The same goes for Gau. The best Rages for him are the pure offensive ones. Stray Cat, possibly paired with a Sniper or Man Eater, will really hurt Kefka. Edgar should do nothing but Jump. If you've taken Cyan up there, try to reach Quadra Slice. Quick is a real asset to Cyan in this battle, as it is in all. For Setzer, it's Fixed Dice, which should be obvious. Shadow should first empty your stash of Imp Halberds. Other weapons that are more powerful than Tack Stars/Ninja Stars that you are unlikely to have equipped include Graedus, Stunner, Excalibur, Pearl Lance, Sky Render, Strato, Heal Rod, and Wing Edge. Strago should use GrandTrain. Sabin and Gogo should use Bum Rush. If Terra is Morphed, she should definitely stick to level 3 spells, but if she's not, Flare is the superior option. Relm should just use Flare or level 3 spells too. If Celes is around, I suggest keeping her on Runic stand-by, as it's really awesome in this battle. If Runic conflicts too much with your other characters' offensive plans, it should be avoided, obviously, so take a look at your options and decide what's best.

Kefka isn't extremely tough; he can just catch you off-guard with some of his more powerful attacks. So long as you make sure that doesn't happen, he's an entirely beatable final boss. If your characters are all decked out with Quick spells, a Gem Box here, an Offering there, and Ultima everywhere, the final battle with Kefka will feel like a walk in the park. Expand Full Strategy