Final Fantasy VI All Enemies and Bosses

Demon would have started out with inherent Image too, but since the game designers also gave her Image immunity, this status is never applied. Too bad for her. Demon is the least inventive Goddess of the bunch, as she shows us no new attacks. But we can forgive her, as she's so especially awesome. So, what will she try to do to us?

Her normal AI script has her use Battle, !Tyrfing, Metal Cutter (this one is kind of painful when it hits), and the Stop spell. You should immediately remove the Stop status with a Dispel spell if a character is affected, since, as soon a character suffers from the Stop status, Demon will use a Blaster attack to kill the person off. If the Stopped character isn't immune to instant death attacks, this will hit, so beware. A little note about !Tyrfing: The Japanese game calls this Special attack 'Tyrfing', after a cursed sword from gothic folklore.

Demon becomes increasingly mean once you damage her beyond 32640 HP, as she will start the heavy artillery with the powerful multi-target attacks: Aero, Southern Cross, Flare Star, and Meteor. At this point, you don't have to worry about any kind of physical attack or the Stop/Blaster combo anymore. Finally, every time Demon is damaged, she may cast a Firaga spell on the attacker. After she has been damaged eight/sixteen/etc. times, her next move will be Wave Cannon.

You have two proverbial trump cards against her. First off, you're draped in equipment that absorbs and/or nullifies her elemental attacks. Make Fire-elemental protection a priority, as you'll see that element the most, especially with the existence of that Firaga omni-counter. Second, Demon is vulnerable to the Stop status, so what are we even worrying about? Do note that since Demon is inherently Hasted, the status won't stick around as long as you would usually expect, so barriers and Fire-elemental protection certainly aren't excessive luxuries.

Set Stop on Demon right away and make multi-target Shell your next priority by means of Mighty Guard, Wall, or individual Shell-casting. Hastega is grand as usual to keep up with Demon, and while buffs such as Regen and physical protection aren't really necessary or all that useful, it wouldn't hurt either. Now, start pounding Demon with everything you have! Make no mistake; the Poison-elemental weakness is nothing you can really work with, as a neutral level 3 spell is stronger than Bio even when the latter is hitting a weakness. You might even want to set a better elemental weakness with the Debilitator to speed things up.

Your Dragoons will have a hard time penetrating Demon's Defense and Safe status, so you might want to keep them around for utility shift this time. Shadow can throw Poison Rods for great (barrier-piercing) damage. Gau is great Raging certain monsters, including Baalzephon (Blizzaga, absorbs every element but Fire which the Snow Scarf takes care of), Great Malboro (same story, casts Bio), Ouroboros (absorbs Fire-elemental attacks, casts Quake), or just an offensive Rage such as Stray Cat (care to give Gau a Poison Rod?), Purusa, Tyrannosaur, or whatever. Locke, Sabin, Cyan, Setzer, and Strago shouldn't have any trouble penetrating Demon's defenses. For the pure Magic skillset characters, the Quake spell is the second-best option after Ultima. If you don't have it or Float isn't an option, it's all about Flare.

In the end, Demon is the easiest of the three Goddesses to defeat, and that's all due to the Stop status vulnerability. If it hadn't been for that, I would've ranked her in the middle. Demon is all about the multi-target violence, and, if you have the defenses and elemental resistances to keep up with that, you're basically in the clear even if you choose not to apply the Stop status. Expand Full Strategy

Dullahan is a stud. Although he looks like he'd rather impale you with that lance of his any day, he's almost exclusively a spell caster with inherent Haste. Both his spells and Magic Power are relatively strong, so expect a challenge here. The boss' name comes from an ancient spirit from Irish mythology: a headless horseman who only travels to collect somebody's life. His carriage is made of bone, his horses have flaming eyes, and he will stop at nothing...

Dullahan always starts the battle off with Lv. ? Holy. This is a strong attack, in terms of power similar to level 3 spells. Its drawback is that it will only hit targets whose level is divisible by the last digit of your GP. This is why I told you to make sure that it never hits; it will leave quite a mark if it does.

Under normal circumstances, he'll just focus on his three main spells: namely, Blizzara, Blizzaga, and Holy. When he detects any characters in your party with the Reflect status, he'll use Reflect ??? on your entire party. It will display "", setting Dark, Mute, and Slow on every character with the Reflect status. If he dives beneath 10240 HP, he'll use Cura instantly. If he passes through four normal turns, he'll regain the ability to cast Reflect ??? and/or Cura if the situation calls for it. Finally, there is a 33% chance that it will counter your attack with Battle. Oh, my.

After damaging him eight times, he'll get four turns where he will use some of his nastier spells. Blizzara and Lv. ? Holy can make another appearance, but so can !Morning Star, Absolute Zero, and Northern Cross. You can't Runic your way out of these new spells, which makes them harder to stop. Northern Cross, while being vulnerable to Runic, is the most dangerous of the five.

Northern Cross sets the Freeze status ailment, which you might have already encountered in the fight against Naude, who could set it with Freezing Dust. Northern Cross is multi-target, but uses an 'interesting' way to determine whether it hits or not. After the game checks if Northern Cross is blocked (after looking for Clear, Magic Block, the usual), it randomly misses from 0 to 4 characters. This ensures that even when all characters are normally hit by the move, you'll almost never see a party entirely frozen. That is good, as it's basically mega-Stop and there is no way to protect against it at all. Remember that the fastest way to dispel the Freeze status is to hit the party with a Fire-elemental attack; the Fire spell is obviously the best one.

There are two strategies you can employ. I'll list them both, as both should be perfectly fail-safe if you know what you're doing. Here they are:

Strategy #1: Hit Points

This is the strategy where we use violence to end Dullahan. First off, let's set up our available defenses. Zona Seeker is nice should Absolute Zero make an appearance, as is Golem or Fenrir for !Morning Star and Battle counters. Have Celes use Runic, continuously. If she isn't wearing Hermes Sandals, make sure you cast the Haste spell on her. Now, let's get to the violence! Your main damage dealers here are Sabin and Edgar. Sabin should be in the Front Row with two Burning Fists. If Celes isn't busy with absorbing one of Dullahan's spells, sneak a Berserk spell on Sabin for increased damage. If Edgar is equipped with the Dragon Horn, have him Jump. If not, stick to Tools; you can see what I want to do with him. Setzer should just stand by and use Hi-Potions on hurting characters. Since Celes should pretty much absorb all of Dullahan's attacks, you should be safe in that regard. In the end, you should prevail.

Strategy #2: Magic Points

Dullahan dies if you rasp away his MP. Thus, the entire offensive arsenal required for this strategy is Rasp. The advantage of the strategy is that if you have two to four Rasp casters, you'll find that the battle is over far more quickly. Its downside is that it does require two to four Rasp casters, and that, since Rasp is vulnerable to Runic, you can't protect yourself against Dullahan's attacks and will, consequently, have to regularly heal.

On a normally leveled party, I find both strategies equally satisfying; it's your pick, really. Expand Full Strategy

The Earth Dragon is fairly unique; he's the only elemental dragon that doesn't absorb his own element (instead, he uses the Float status to circumvent almost all Earth-elemental damage). Why they chose to do this is beyond me, as even with Quake healing, Earth Dragon wouldn't have been that crazy of a challenge. We may well never know. Every 20 seconds, the Earth Dragon will use his 50 Gs attack, a Earth Dragon-only move that removes the Float status on all targets. Irremovable Float, like the one given by the Angel Wings and Float-inducing Rages, will not be removed. Given the fact that Earth's G is, as you might expect, 1 G, 50 G is plain crazy; you'd effectively become 50 times as heavy as you normally are. Shadow would suddenly become 7250 lbs, for instance. But enough with the first-grade science. He has a one-third chance of countering any damage done to him with the dreaded !Honed Tusk attack, which really is quite strong. Any other attack he uses will be either Battle or ground-based. Quake always misses Earth Dragon himself, and the Magnitude 8 and Landslide attacks should either miss or heal you if you've been smart up until now.

Start the battle off by throwing up your barriers. Golem and Fenrir are particularly useful, as the only real threat in this battle should be Earth Dragon's !Honed Tusk and Battle attacks. Strago's Mighty Guard should also help in that department. Hastega is great as always, and Kirin doesn't hurt either. Cast a combination of Sleep and Slow on the Earth Dragon as well: remember that Sleep can also be set with Strago's Bad Breath attack, which also can set Poison on the Earth Dragon. Now that you've been bulked up plenty, (and the Earth Dragon is vulnerable in his extended slumber) it's time to start the magical offensive.

If you want to keep Earth Dragon sleeping, keep Gau busy with Magic spells. Back Row Gau with 255 Defense and a Float-inducing Rage is invulnerable, but it may come at the cost of fallen party members. If that sounds a bit cheap to you, and since all characters are either draped in Gaia Gear or protected by Angel Wings, I should mention that Rages like Marchosias, Ninja, Hornet, and Luridan really help (especially Marchosias). Strago's Aero packs a proverbial wallop, and Shadow's Water Scrolls are pretty strong. If you don't care for the Sleep status, Thrown Sakuras are extremely painful to Earth Dragon. Sabin's Phantom Rush still gets the job done as always, and it is superior to Razor Gale even though it doesn't exploit a specific weakness. Mog's Water Harmony is a superior alternative to Jump attacks if you're trying to maintain a snoozing Earth Dragon. His Wind Rhapsody is also an option; Wind Slash is weaker than El Nino, but you might prefer Wind Rhapsody's 6/16 Sun Bath to Water Harmony's 6/16 Plasma attack. All other characters should just stick to Magic spells. Umaro should be kept far away from this battle, as usual. His presence makes the Sleep status strategy rather impossible. Expand Full Strategy