Final Fantasy V Optional Battles

Final Fantasy V is known for having a wide array of tough battles - back when it was an underground game, never officially released outside of Japan, gamers who played the unofficial translation would often whisper the names "Shinryu" and "Omega" in hushed, reverent tones. These names were often followed by the words "gave me a serious beating and I threw my controller through a wall." However, thanks to Djibriel's guide, maybe things aren't so bad. Below you can find strategies for all of what he calls "The Undeathables," which includes the aforementioned megabosses as well as some foes who were never quite intended to be killed but can be anyway.

• The Not-Quite-Superbosses
  • Magic Pot
  • Famed Mimic Gogo
• The Actual Superbosses
  • Omega
  • Shinryu
  • Omega Mk. II
  • Neo Shinryu

Magic Pot

Only a single Phoenix Down or Aevis Killer is hidden beneath that most impish of encounters, the Magic Pot. Truly a crazy, crazy, gimmicky fight, the battle with Magic Pot is not actually meant to give you a Game Over if you piss it off (as was the case with the Famed Mimic). Attacking the Magic Urn is like bashing your head against a wall: a wall made of titanium, backed up by other walls made of titanium that are cheering it on and underwater. Well, you get the idea. But have no fear, I'll help you.

If you left one alive in the Phoenix Tower, now's the time to kill it, for it can be done! Search out the Black Chocobo you tamed and fly it to the forests to the east of the great desert between North Mountain and the Phoenix Tower. Descend from the Chocobo, walk over to the Phoenix Tower, and start climbing to the vase you left the Magic Pot in.

Here's the thing. The battle starts with Mute already set, so !Black, !White, !Time, !Blue (unlike in normal Mute, where Blue spells still work), !Sing and !Spellblade are out of the question. Things that do work are !Condemn, !Predict, spells cast by using an item (such as Masamune's Haste or Flame Rod's Firaga), !Call, the Magic Lamp and all Bells. As far as the Diamond Bell and Tinklebell go, that's definitely an inconsistency. Apollo's Harp also works.

Magic Pot uses (full heal) every turn; it shares an animation with the Elixir, and fully heals the Magic Pot back to 65255 HP. Magic Pot has ridiculous Defense, Magic Defense, perfect Evasion and Magic Evasion, a level of 91 and is weak to no elements or status ailments. It is the perfect roadblock of a battle.

Mute is set, so the characters can't speak, sing or chant, but even if nothing can come out, stuff can still go in! Increasing the level of a single character is the key to Magic Pot's defeat. !Sing can't be used, so Hero's Rhyme is out. Instead, !Mix a Potion or Hi-potion with a Dragon Fang to create a brew called Dragon Power, which increases the character's level by 20. With a one or two Dual-Wield !Rapid Fire attacks between its turns, this thing must go down. Since both Slow and Haste can be set during the battle, you can get in more than just a single attack.

Now, for the specifics! Obviously, Dual-Wield !Rapid Fire is a must. !Rapid Fire allows us to always hit and pierce Defense. Sadly, Protect is still up, and we can't cast Dispel to remove it. Using the Judgement Staff as an item gets the Job done, and the Wonder Wand can even cast Dispel if you don't have a Judgement Staff and are reluctant to fight Istory Lythos creatures for one.

With Protect down, it's time to start buffing. Keep creating Dragon Power and stack them up on your designated kill machine. Using the Masamune in-battle allows you set Haste to the character. You can also set Slow to the Magic Pot; while you could theoretically release a Gloom Widow to use a Web attack, the chances it'll hit are astronomically small. No, you'll want to !Combine some gunpowder with a Turtle Shell for a clean 75% shot at setting Slow.

With Magic Pot Slowed and un-Protected, you're pretty much set; with one or two !Rapid Fires you'll be done! An alternate strategy would require you set the Dragon nature through Dragon's Kiss and have your super-warrior wield two Dragon Lances or a Dragon Lance and a Dragon Whisker. Every successful attack with these weapons will deal twice as much damage; you'll hardly need to boost your level if you have these weapons preset. Apollo's Harp and Dragon Cannon deal some damage if you're short on it, but you shouldn't be.

Congratulations are in order: you've accomplished nothing you couldn't have done by simply feeding the guy.

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Famed Mimic Gogo

In Carwen, some cross-dressing dude fled from your gaze after transforming into, well, you. That isn't cool. Normal people would have followed him earlier, would have done nothing for a while, then got the Mime shard and continued playing. Normal people. BUT WE'RE NOT NORMAL PEOPLE. THIS THING WILL DIE NOW BECAUSE WE'RE SPECIAL.

Famed Mimic Gogo, for all his outlandish attire and speech, is one of the most difficult opponents in the game. If you provoke him with a physical attack (including !Steal), he may either counter with a normal physical, !Critical Attack or Strong Fight, which will kill a character. If you use a spell on him (even if it is beneficial), he will counter with either a Holy, Flare or Meteor spell, all of which are very powerful.

If you deal 14714 damage to him and survive to see it, he will become extremely agitated. "You uncultured boors! Know you nothing of an artist's soul? Cut! Cut! Stop TRYING to mimic! Start over, recenter, and begin!" Then, he will castMeteor thrice in a row and kill you with powerful attacks. You are not equipped to handle this fight at all right now, so this is a Game Over for you.

There is another thing to consider, however, and that is the fact that this fight is bugged. When Gogo starts the Uncultured Boors speech, he'll lapse into saying that and cast Meteor, which is good. Well, not exactly good, but that's the way it was meant to be. Then, he'll say it again! And cast another Meteor. Then a third Meteor will follow, with all kinds of useless speech at the end that's not meant to be there:

Dragged into another dimension!
Odin: All right, that's far enough!
Turning to stone...
Can't escape!
Countdown to Pestilence...4
KO'd!
Countdown to Eruption...5
KO'd!
Level halved!
KO'd!

The next two turns are 'normal' in that they do what they're meant to do: a consecutive Maelstrom, Ice Storm and Aqua Breath combo, followed that next turn by a consecutive Frost, Ice Storm and Aqua Breath combo. This sounds nasty, but you need to realize that by this point you have either killed Famed Mimic Gogo already or have failed. After these attacks, Gogo will try another Meteor, but it'll be followed by all the garbled text again. Loop from there.

See, the trick here is to defeat Famed Mimic Gogo really quickly and brutally. The fatal commands must be unstoppable in nature and given to the character before you actually see the 'uncultured boors' speech in the first place. Tactics capable of killing the Famed Mimic include:

• Get a single character with !Rapid Fire, !Spellblade 6 and two of your most powerful enchantable blades in the game. Enter the fight and start buffing that character with Dragon Potions (Mix a Potion with a Dragon Fang) to boost his level. If you deal around 6000 damage per strike with a Flared Up Rapid Fire Attack, you will be able to defeat the fiend.
• Use only attacks that circumvent counters! This is taking advantage of bugs, but if it works for you, it works for you. Set up three Reflected characters and one character to absorb, then cast the appropriate spell (Firaga or Blizzaga) on yourself. Chaos Cannon (Combine Blitzshot with Dark Matter) also doesn't provoke counters.
• Mix a Dragon's Kiss (Dragon Fang + Maiden's Kiss) to set the Dragon nature to Famed Mimic Gogo. Now, equip five Dragon Lances and use !Jump with them (at least one character will have to Dual-Wield). The Dragon Lance will deal 9999 a hit, killing Famed Mimic Gogo on the fifth one.

If you really have no shame, Famed Mimic Gogo has a rare Gold Hairpin; if you must have it, you can cast Reset until you get it; note that the Reset spell doesn't Reset your drown timer.

If you win, you get the Mime Job! Of course, you didn't need to kill him to do that.

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Omega

"The roiling skies let loose a vile beast without a soul; Omega was its name."
- Thousand-year-old book

Omega is not a coincidental weapon of mass destruction; it is a purposefully orchestrated one. Once, we learned that Galuf came from an 'alien' planet; now we know that the two worlds were once one and that there is no such thing as alien. Except for the two creatures that came here from above, the dread machine Omega and the dragon Shinryu. When the warriors wielding the Twelve Legendary Weapons defeated Enuo, they were unable to destroy this eldritch machine. But we have a fair shot, because Omega is not just a walking atom bomb spelling death for all that it encounters; it is also lonely at night (I promise this will make sense).

Omega is a murder machine, and it was designed to be very good at it. This is the AI Script Omega was coded with:

• 33% chance of either Atomic Ray, Delta Attack or Blaster
• Wave Cannon
• 33% chance of either Rainbow Wind, Flame Thrower or Atomic Ray
• Wave Cannon
• Without interruption:
  • 33% chance of either Delta Attack, Blaster or Wave Cannon
  • 33% chance of either Maelstrom, Earthquake or Rainbow Wind
• Search (save target until end next turn)
• 33% chance of either Rainbow Wind, Flame Thrower or Atomic Ray (on Search target)
• Wave Cannon
• (return to start)

Counterattack to all HP damage:

• Without interruption:
  • Target: Random target
  • Rocket Punch, Rocket Punch or Mustard Bomb (33% chance each)
  • Rocket Punch, Rocket Punch or Encircle (33% chance each)

See what I did there? By directly listing the AI Script, I not only displayed the relevant information in the clearest manner possible but provided a reminder of Omega's mechanical nature. Form and Function baby, form and function.

So, any attack that deals damage will cause two counter-attacks. Rocket Punch will set Confuse to all characters lacking protection against the ailment (Lamia's Tiara, Rainbow Dress, Genji Helm, Genji Armor and Bone Mail are all means of avoiding the status), Mustard Bomb will kill a character and Encircle will remove a character from the battlefield for the rest of the fight.

Search will save its target, and Omega will exclusively deal with this target until the end of its next turn. If Atomic Ray is the next attack, it will only be fired at the Search target; if any counter-attacks are provoked in the meantime, they'll all home in on the search target as well.

Omega will wait for a small margin of time before starting its onslaught; it'll start the encounter automatically inhibited by a Stop status that will quickly expire. But you can re-set it if you want! Omega may be the most powerful creation of all, but it has never known the love of a woman. Or probably anything, for that matter. Exploit this weakness in the circuits that make up its heart with Romeo's Ballad, which stops the eldritch machine in its tracks. Despite Omega's stellar level and Magic Evasion, Romeo's Ballad will never miss. Know that the small duration of the Stop status is less than the time it takes for Omega to reach a new turn, and it's also shorter than the time a single Hasted character takes to reach a new turn, so a single Hasted Bard is not enough to keep Omega at bay. Two should do the trick. There's a catch, however, in the fact that Romeo's Ballad overlaps; if you have both Bards sing right after each other, Omega will still get some turns. You'll have to find a flow in which you can spread out the two timers so that one takes effect shortly after the other expires. This is something I can't really tell you how to do; you'll just have to experience it.

Omega's got an inherent Shell up, so even barrier-piercing attacks will deal less damage than you'd expect. Its inherent reflect barrier stops what would have otherwise been assumed as proper fighting tactics when facing this thing: Thundaga spamming. Sappy poetry is all well and good, but it will only delay the thing. We need to destroy it, and that is where !Spellblade comes in. The solution to the Omega problem is Thundaga spellblade paired with Dual-Wield !Rapid Fire. Set Thundaga spellblade effects on the swords, unleash !Rapid Fire, win the battle.

A single character can do this. For maximum potency, equip the Omega Slayer with a Ribbon (protects against Delta Attack), Bone Mail (protects against Blaster's Death) and a Flame Ring (protects against Atomic Ray and Flame Thrower). The other three characters will need to keep Omega busy while your Slayer sets up the Spellblade effect; characters that can Sing Romeo's Ballad and wear Hermes Sandals are a good idea; White Mages can respond quickly with Curaga, Arise and Esuna as well, so take your pick there.

When your Slayer is set, unleash !Rapid Fire. You'll kill Omega in a single turn. Good for you! As they say, it is better to have loved and lost then to have never loved at all and be killed in a waterfall cave for no clear reason whatsoever.

The above strategy is not the only one; a party draped in Flame Shields (a rare steal from Grenades in the Ruins), Ribbons, Bone Mail and Reflect Rings can withstand most attacks Omega can dish out. The goal here is to cast Thundaga on your own party in return (to reflect back at the colossal machine). White Wind can heal Bone Mail wearers between the Wave Cannon attacks and Rocket Punches (these will not Confuse due to our equipment choices, but they can still damage). This is a messy, uncertain tactic, but a viable one; Slow Cannon will help out here, as it's the only way of setting Slow to something with a level of 119 and a Magic Evasion as high as Omega's. Carbuncle can help out as well; it reflects Delta Attack, Blaster, Atomic Rays and Search (Search!). Yes, that is as awesome as it sounds: if you Reflect Search to back on the boss, it'll attack itself the next turn.

You now receive 50000 Gil, 100 ABP and an Omega Badge! Congratulations.

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Shinryu

"The dragon Shinryu came upon (Omega's) heels. Not e'en the legendary weapons twelve were able to subdue these evil beasts. Inside the Rift the demons were interred; so should they stay until forever's end their names to stay unspoken evermore."
Thousand-year-old book

Omega paced back and forth inside its cave, either incapable or unwilling to go beyond its prison. But where a machine is easily confined, a dragon adapts. Especially if that dragon is a God-King of dragonkind, which are assumed to be wicked smart. So the Ancients, who could not defeat Shinryu, had to put him in a chest. You know, to seal him away. It's like a mystical chest, hidden away in the darkest corners of reality. They also put a really good sword in the chest. Some might argue that hiding ancient treasures somewhere along with unspeakable evil is a great way to encourage dumb-ass adventurers to seek out the treasures, releasing the evil and messing up everything in the process. But what were the Ancients to do? Just let the sword lying around in some treasure chest not guarded by a God-King of Dragons? That's not how the Ancients roll.

Shinryu starts its battles off with a Tidal Wave of enormous magnitude; it deals over 8000 damage. That means that every character not equipped with a Coral Ring or, in a stroke of luck, protected by an Aegis Shield (33% chance) will be dead. Tidal Wave - or any other Water-elemental attack - will not make an appearance for the rest of the battle, so even though you'll want at least two characters with a Coral Ring, you don't need to have them across the board as long as you're prepared to fully revive any character not protected at the start of the battle. Both !White 6 and !Mix grant access to full HP recovery.

Important note: Shinryu will have to get a turn before it can use Tidal Wave; a character with a Masamune or sufficient Agility and the Hermes Sandals can outspeed the God-King of Dragons to do stuff like set Berserk before this wave comes crashing down, thus allowing you to avoid it altogether. More on Berserk later.

The first turn following Tidal Wave can mean either Maelstrom, Attack or Roulette. Roulette may kill a character, Maelstrom can be very dangerous, given that Shinryu's high level means Maelstrom is quite accurate and will often hit. Curaga is great way of countering its effects; Arise can counter Roulette.

The next turn means either Ice Storm, Atomic Ray or Lightning. Lightning isn't too bad: only 25% of the character's maximum HP in damage. Those equipped with Coral Rings will take double damage though, so watch out for that. Atomic Ray and Ice Storm are both really powerful. Atomic Ray will be nullified by Coral Ring characters, but Ice Storm will kill everybody; Ice Shields can protect against this, as can Resist Ice potions (Mix a Phoenix Down with some Antidote) or Dragon Shield (Mix a Dragon Fang with an Ether). Dragon Shield also helps against any Atomic Ray and Lightning attacks Shinryu may unleash at a later time.

If you're still alive by this point, Shinryu will get serious. The dragon's third turn is a double-turn. Its first move is either Maelstrom, Attack or Roulette (just like it's first turn), and his second action will be either Mighty Guard, Level 2 Old or Level 3 Flare. Level 3 Flare either kills or does nothing; Mighty Guard is a nuisance which you can Dispel with the spell or the Judgement Staff.

The fourth turn is another double-turn, and the last unique one before Shinryu loops its AI script. The enemy will begin with either an Attack (66%) or Evil Eye (which sets Stone to a single character), followed either an Attack (66%) or Poison Breath (which deals Poison-elemental damage to all). Compared to stuff like Ice Storm, this turn is not as nasty, this meaning it doesn't kill you outright. After the fourth turn, that is, the second double-turn, it doesn't use Tidal Wave but just picks an attack from the first turn again.

When Shinryu hits 20000 HP, it'll let loose with a one-time Zombie Breath attack. So, you know, watch out for that, 'cause it kills you and turns you into Zombies.

There are two strategies, the first of which would be to Berserk Shinryu. In its rage, it'll be a far easier target and can either be completely nullified or just be outmuscled. The Berserk spell is a simply infallible way to enrage the dragon; calling its father a 'fat, flatulent git' is not quite as effective but twice as fun. I would perhaps suggest using the two in conjunction. Another strategy is to pile up enough super-effective damage quick enough that Shinryu will be dead before he realizes what's going on. Both are popular and effective, so you can take your pick.

Setting Berserk to Shinryu is easy, as the White Berserk spell is unblockable and lasts forever. The Power Staff can duplicate its effects, as can the !Mix outcome Bacchus' Wine (Holy Water + Turtle Shell). Now, Shinryu will unleash a simple physical attack each turn; when it lands, it will kill a character. If the character charged with setting Berserk is given the Masamune as a weapon, he or she can act before the Tidal Wave hits. Golem and Mirage Vests can combine to cause a lot of physicals to miss, even before Evasion kicks in. With !Mix, you can set Darkness with a Dark Sigh (Eye Drops + Dragon Fang): it'll never miss. Going in with three characters who are near-death and a character with !Guard gives you immunity as well. You could even just keep up with Shinryu's death count and revive any character that falls. Basically, Shinryu was dead in the water as soon as Berserk was set; the rest is just being fancy about it.

If you want to let Shinryu go about its business like normal, you'll need to be more careful. Shinryu is a Dragon; an archaic strategy would have you acquire six Dragon Lances from assorted Crystal Dragons right here in the Void, set Dual-Wield to three Dragoons and !Jump for joy. This is possible, but not necessary.

A character with the Quick spell (!Time 6) and Apollo's Harp can deal comparable damage, since Apollo's Harp is so effective against dragons. Giving a Quick spell to a Dragoon with a Dragon Lance is also a great idea; you'll give the Dragoon two !Jump attacks in the time-pocket you create with Quick, so you'll get the same result without having character disappear from the battlefield, the Dragoon will still be able to wield a Shield, you'll only need a single Dragon Lance for that character and you won't be giving Shinryu time to utterly annihilate you, as he so often does. Thus, with but a single Dragon Lance, you already have four extremely powerful hits. Dualcasting Flare, Meteo or Bahamut is also as effective as usual, since Shinryu lacks a Shell status (unless he gets Mighty Guard up).

With enough Agility and inherent Haste status, you can have all characters act before Tidal Wave appears; give Quick to all, and you can take out Shinryu no problem without Coral Rings at all. A risky venture, but hey, that's us. Danger is our middle name. Unless you just went with the first option in which case efficient is our middle name.

You get a Dragon Seal for your trouble, and a Ragnarok. Following this walkthrough, you could've stolen Ragnarok swords from Neo Exdeath; this is your most likely source, though. It's not as good as a fully-powered Brave Blade, but it doesn't lock you into a no-run game. The Dragon Seal is useless. Hooray!

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Omega Mk.II

When you took Omega down, maybe somebody somewhere was looking at you. We are not alone. Omega was a perfect killing machine, with only two weakness. An emotional weakness to Romeo's Ballad, but you can't change a soul. Then there was Spellblade Thundaga !Rapid Fire, which functions like a Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique. And this is what was upgraded.

Omega Mk. II has some higher stats than its prototype, most notably higher HP. Its AI script is mostly identical, with the exception of his new software which allows it to respond to !Rapid Fire.

• First turn only: Barrier Change
• 33% chance of either Atomic Ray, Delta Attack or Blaster
• Wave Cannon
• 33% chance of either Rainbow Wind, Flame Thrower or Atomic Ray
• Wave Cannon
• No interrupt:
  • 33% chance of either Delta Attack, Blaster or Wave Cannon
  • 33% chance of either Maelstrom, Earthquake or Rainbow Wind
• Search (save target until end next turn)
• 33% chance of either Rainbow Wind, Flame Thrower or Atomic Ray (on Search target)
• Wave Cannon
• (loop)

Counterattack to Fire, Ice or Lightning element when its currently weak against it:

• No interrupt: Barrier Change (change to either Fire, Ice or Lightning weakness)

Counterattack to !Rapid Fire:

• 33% chance of (Full HP heal), Encircle or nothing (since !Rapid Fire hits multiple times but may only provoke two counters at most, this counter is executed twice)

Counterattack to all HP damage:

• No interrupt: Target: Random target
  • 33% chance of either Rocket Punch, Rocket Punch or Mustard Bomb
  • 33% chance of either Rocket Punch, Rocket Punch or Encircle

So he functions like Omega, but when you hit it with an elemental attack that strikes its weakness, it changes form into any of its three forms. It's either weak to Fire, Ice or Lightning. When !Rapid Fire is used and it's not fatal, Omega Mk. II may either respond with Encircle (bad) or a nameless full HP restorative move. I guess it has something to do with nanobots, I dunno.

So the mission here is to set up either Firaga, Blizzaga or Thundaga spellblade on a Dual-Wield character. That takes at least two turns, and Omega Mk. II is wicked fast. Second, we need to know which element we want and make sure we don't provoke a Barrier Change before the properly applied elemental is unloaded upon Omega Mk. II's robust robotic posterior.

Reflect Rings across the team protect against Delta Attack, Atomic Ray and Search. In addition, you can cast Libra on one of your characters to find out Omega Mk. II's current elemental weakness. Flame Rings on everbody is possibly an ever better option since you absorb Atomic Ray and Flamethrower and you can steal cast Curaga and Mighty Guard, but you'll have to have !Analyze if you want to discover how to hurt Omega Mk. II.

With either Flame Rings or Reflect Rings combined with Ribbons and Float, all that can really hurt you is Wave Cannon. As long as you use nothing but !Rapid Fire, the regular counters won't appear. With at least two characters with either Curaga or White Wind (Curaga is not an option with Reflect Rings), you can simply outlast Omega Mk. II's attacks. If you can check its elemental weakness, apply the relevant one and let loose with !Rapid Fire. If not, you can just try 'til you get it right. It's possible that Omega Mk. II survives the first !Rapid Fire, but if it's of the proper element the Barrier Change counter will take precedence over the Encircle/full heal counter. You can then attack it with the proper !Rapid Fire a second time, thus ending Omega Mk. II.

Flame Rings with !Analyze are really the best. If you bring Omega Mk. II to near death with a good !Rapid Fire, then heal it a bit with a wrong !Rapid Fire it may respond with a full heal or Encircle, which could remove your !Rapid Fire character from the fight. If you go in with Reflect Rings, Flame Thower plus Wave Cannon may kill a character, also bad news.

You get a Force Shield out of the deal. It's got superior Defense and nullifies all elemental attacks, which is just grand. No, really, it's super-awesome. Imagine nullifying Holy, Almagest, Firaga and all that. I highly suggest you use it if you have any Shieldbearers in your party; it's a good combo with the Mirage Vest. The downside of the Force Shield is its lack of Evasion; during a random encounter, you're unlikely to absorb more than a single physical hit on any character, and the Mirage Vest will allow you to dodge it.

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Neo Shinryu

Neo Shinryu doesn't kiss nice. He's a real bad-ass kind of dragon. He goes from 0 to murder in under 8 seconds. If you're having just the worst day, it's this thing's fault somehow. Don't fight him. This is his game, and the only way to win is not to play. Or play really well, I suppose, that also works. But he's way difficult, you should know that. He's the mostest difficult. This dragon makes the Dalai Lama say very bad words.

Okay, here's the thing. Neo Shinryu has a lot of attacks. A lot of them will kill you. By healing and reviving alone, you can't outlast him and still deal sufficient damage. So the defensive strategy doesn't work. At the same time, Neo Shinryu has this shtick where he randomly cancels out your attacks. In addition, he has three dummy targets, which will randomly absorb your randomly targetted !Rapid Fire and Meteor attacks (among others). So the offensive strategy also doesn't work. What does work? The super-defensive and the ultra-offensive strategy! More on that after the break.

First I want to talk about Neo Shinryu's random negation of your attacks. This is what will happen. First off, Neo Shinryu has three dummy targets; we've seen this sort of unfair play before with Enuo, among others. It severely cripples your chances with !Rapid Fire to the point where !Attack has a higher average damage output due to all the missing !Rapid Fire will do. This also means that the Meteor spell, !Released monsters and other random-target attacks will have a 75% chance of striking a dummy target.

Second, Neo Shinryu itself will randomly troll you out of well-deserved damage output. Here's how that happens: forget about two of the dummy targets, they're not important now. There are two Neo Shinryu enemies. One is the one in charge of attacking every round; this one is immune to damage, always, so it's essentially a third dummy target that also attacks. It's invulnerable like Necrophobe when surrounded by his Barriers, or like an invisible dummy target.

Second, there's the Neo Shinryu that is in charge of counters; this one toggles its invulnerability states every turn, and it moves like greased lightning. You won't be able to keep up or track his turns; to your inferior human naked eye, you'll never know if this Neo Shinryu is vulnerable to damage or not until you try. Neo obviously does not take turns when a character has just cast Quick, so during those two turns Neo Shinryu is either vulnerable to both attacks or immune to both attacks. When wielding two weapons, either both strike a vulnerable target or neither; this goes for !Jump with two weapons as well.

So, since the vulnerable part of Neo Shinryu toggles its invulnerability at every turn, it can be said to have a 50% chance of letting your attacks inflict damage. A random-target attack must face its three dummy targets and thus has only a 12.5% chance of inflicting damage. When Neo Shinryu is vulnerable, it has a 25% chance of connecting, but the player won't have this information until it first sees damage appear. If you fight Neo Shinryu a couple of times in a row like yours truly did, you'll get a knack for the flow of this battle; you see an attack deal no damage, you wait a bit and then unleash hell for a great chance of finding Neo Shinryu vulnerable.

So in conclusion, there are four targets, only one can ever be damaged at a time, and this target toggles its invulnerability every turn. Cute!

Neo Shinryu, having set up these defensive perimeters, will do the following. It'll start off with Mighty Guard, which cuts down any hits you do land by 50%. A Judgement Staff or Dispel spell is needed to counter. Then, the following AI script will loop:

• Maelstrom
• 33% chance of either Ice Storm, Ice Storm or Blaze
• Zombie Breath
• 33% chance of either Earthquake, Earthquake or Lightning
• No Interrupt:
  • Attack
  • Attack
• 33% chance of either Poison Breath, Poison Breath or Breath Wing
• Curse
• 33% chance of either Tidal Wave, Tidal Wave or Almagest
• (loop)

When you bring Neo Shinryu down to 15000 HP or less, it'll cast Mute and switch to physical attacks only.

• No Interrupt:
  • 33% chance of either Attack, Attack or !Critical Attack
  • 33% chance of either Attack, Attack or !Critical Attack
• No Interrupt:
  • 33% chance of either Attack, !Critical Attack or Nothing
  • 33% chance of either Attack, !Critical Attack or Nothing
  • 33% chance of either Attack, !Critical Attack or Nothing
• (loop)

Note that all of these attacks are executed by the continuously invulnerable Neo Shinryu. The Neo Shinryu you hurt will never attack, just toggle its invulnerability and employ counter-attacks. When struck by !Rapid Fire, it may counter a 33% chance of either Zombie Powder, Doom or nothing. Since !Rapid Fire is most inaccurate already and there's no room for Angel Rings in our set-up, that means !Rapid Fire is pretty much the worst attack to use versus Neo Shinryu ever. Any other damaging move may provoke a 33% shot at White Hole, but with Ribbons in place it will have no effect.

When you kill Neo Shinryu, it'll have two last aces up its sleeve; Giga Flare and Meteor. It'll cast both, in that order, as a final counter-attack. These attacks are not as strong as most of NS' attacks, but should still be in the back of your mind when you're approaching Neo Shinryu's demise. Giga Flare deals about 1500 damage to a non-Shelled party.

It all looks fairly managable, but until you've seen the terrifying competence and speed that accompany these attacks, the dread will start. Luckily for you, we at Djibriel Enterprises (a subsidiary of Caves of Narshe Special Military Industries) have constructed not one but two strategies to employ. They've done studies, you know. 15% of the time, they work every time. We guarantee it.

Dragoons Execute Airborne Tactics Hopefully (or D.E.A.T.H.):

Neo Shinryu is a Dragon. The 'strategy' here is to set up four characters with Dual-Wield and two Dragon Lances, Hermes Sandals, !Jump and !Time 6. You cast Quick, then launch your terrified combatants into the air. Due to Quick, you won't have to suffer ATB increase while your character plunges screaming towards his or her doom. There's a 50% chance that landing will deal a lot of damage. If so, you can !Jump again. If not, your next !Jump will fail as well, so you might as well cast Hastega, heal or revive if necessary. Cue the next character! You can have one character not use Quick so he or she is in the air when Giga Flare/Meteor appears. Also note this front-loaded team can use Dispel by equipping the Judgement Staff mid-battle.

This is a high-risk, high-reward strategy, and likely the cause of the infuriating "Lolz Neo Shinryu is 2 Ezy" shout-outs across the internet. Note that this strategy requires a lot of Dragon Lances and characters knowing !Time 6, !Jump and Dual-Wield, which is not at all the case for everybody. In addition, you have straw for defenses here, so Neo Shinryu will rip you some interesting new holes when he gets the chance. He'll get those chances a lot.

Chemists Outlast Wyrm's Endless Rampage (or C.O.W.E.R.):

The polar opposite of the strategy listed above, this turtle-like defensive strategy is almost sure to work and demands much more reasonable parameters. The basic idea is to postpone offense until you're so hopped up on buffs that you can casually trade blows with Neo Shinryu. Since his arsenal is so incredibly diverse, that requires a lot of buffs. Enter with Coral Rings and Ribbons. The Force Shield will be a tremendous benefit; have the character most adept at buffing (ideally a !Time/!Mix Freelancer) equip it. Ice Shields for the others, they will nullify Ice Storm and Blaze. Since Defense and Magic Defense mean almost nothing in this fight, the Mirage Vest is a great equip.

!Blue and !Time are just incredibly useful here, but !Mix is without a doubt the most important skillset. !Blue is only used for White Wind and Mighty Guard. !Time is used for Quick, Hastega and, in a pinch, Float. !Mix is used for all of these things: X-Potion, Resurrection, Dragon Shield, Goliath Tonic and Dragon's Kiss.

Right. From the get-go, Ribbons are in place to protect you from White Hole (a counter) and most everything that Curse has to offer. With Ice Shields and Coral Rings, you've also taken care of Ice Storm, Blaze and Tidal Wave. Dragon Shield helps to absorb Blaze and Lightning. Giant Drink helps survive damage from Zombie Breath, Breath Wing and Almagest. Dragon's Kiss gives immunity to Maelstrom.

Try to keep Mighty Guard up at all times; it reduces damage by a lot and its Float prevents a Game Over from Earthquake. Second, Giant Drink is top priority. The doubled HP will stay with you even if you fall, which you will do a lot. Dragon Shield and Dragon's Kiss protect you against 2 out of 8 turns, these being the Ice Storm/Blaze turn and the Maelstrom turn. Note that your Force Shield-using character doesn't need Dragon Shield.

Reviving (and curing Zombie) should always take priority over healing, healing should always take priority over buffing. You will gradually gain more and more turns during which Neo Shinryu performs an attack you can just ignore. Make no mistake, you will die all the time. But you can always revive with full HP and MP, and those that have both !Time and !Mix can revive two characters in one turn. Your Force Shield character can only die from physical attacks. All buffs except for Mighty Guard will remain with the character even when he or she dies.

Eventually, you will have a party with massive HP, Shelled across the board. Only physical attacks, Breath Wing, Tidal Wave and Almagest will still leave a mark, but they can be healed with White Wind. Stray physicals may still kill a character even with Protect and Giant Drink active, but they're quickly revived. It is now time for offense!

It will be a slow process, since you really only have !Attack to work with. Give Apollo's Harp to a Quick caster; Dragon Lances work okay even without !Jump. Since Neo Shinryu has 100 Defense, anything that doesn't automatically score a Defense-ignoring Critical Hit will not leave a mark. 20% Evasion may randomly be a hindrance for Dragon Lance wielders. Again, the Judgement Staff can be used to remove Mighty Guard from Neo Shinryu.

When all is said and done and Neo Shinryu dies an unimpressive working-class death, an Ultima Weapon is yours! It's the best weapon. It's even a normal Sword, so Blue Mages, Mystic Knights and Cannoneers can use it as well. It's a sword with the power of destruction. Contrast this to the Derrida Weapon, which only has the power of deconstruction! What a blade!

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