Final Fantasy VI All Enemies and Bosses

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 Holy-elemental 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 "Holy cast if level is divisible by ?.", 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, an 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

Earth Dragon was once not so terrifying. That was before he got his two feet firmly planted on the ground. Disregarding its own menacing looks, it was a floating monster that you could gently put to sleep and wash away like so much mud on your jeans. Having been pushed around one time too many (this being one), Earth Dragon (Redux) pulled a Batman and swore to avenge his previous weakness by training his body to perfection and getting real good at science. Except for the science.

Earth Dragon (Redux), knowing full well that the element he got stuck with is the only one both vulnerable to elemental protection and generally avoided with an easily applied status - Float - has taken his own weaknesses into account. Earth Dragon (Redux) has enough physical strength to have an army of Greater Mantii soil themselves. Normally it'll just attack physically and with the occasional supremely powerful Earth-elemental attack. Quake is the nastiest; not only is it barrier-piercing and easily the most powerful one, it will also hit Earth Dragon (Redux), healing it for an average of 4400 damage. Obviously, there's an Attack omni-counter.

Whenever Earth Dragon (Redux) detects the Float status, he'll forego his normal AI script in favor of a combo attack of 50 Gs, Magnitude 8 and a Quake spell. This means that if you have even one character with unremovable Float due to Angel Wings or a Float-inducing Rage, this is all you'll see for the first part of the fight. Note that there are no physical attacks here except for the counterattack, so if you have a single permanent Floater, Gaia Gear will be more than sufficient. This is a life-saver if you find yourself, against my recommendations, without enough Angel Wings.

When Earth Dragon (Redux) hits 25600 HP, he'll get enraged. This means that your life is over. Nah, just kidding. He will drop his Earth-elemental attacks, as they obviously didn't succeed in killing you. Enraged, the Earth Dragon (Redux) unleashes a physical barrage unlike any other in the game. He'll start by four Attacks after the initial message, then start his new AI script. It's four Attacks in a row, then four physical attacks of which the last one has a 2/3 chance of being the !Savage special, and two !Savage attacks every third turn. He'll counter any damage done with either attack or !Savage. If you're not outright immune to physical attacks, this will kill you.

Here's the thing. With Angel Wings or Float-inducing Rages, you'll need to stick him in his 50 Gs loop, where you'll just have to deal with Earth-elemental attacks which are easily dealt with Gaia Gear and Angel Wings. An alternate strategy is using the Maginot Line paired with Gaia Gear to survive the first part of the fight. Now, unleash the damage until he gets mad at you for it. Now, quickly cast Vanish on the survivors of the first round of attacks. If you manage to turn even a single character Invisible, you've won the fight as it's just dealing damage from this point on.

As far as damage is concerned, Earth Dragon (Redux) is weak to Water- and Wind- elemental attacks. The introduction of the Flood spell makes life a lot easier for the spellcasters of your team, while Strago's Aero is stronger than his Grand Delta attack versus this foe. Any Float-inducing Rage will make a 255 Defense Gau unbeatable in this fight, but Marchosias has the best offense in Aero, which is also a tip for Gogo if he lacks Angel Wings. If you're having trouble beating the initial healing of Earth Dragon (Redux), you can cast Esuna on him so Quake will no longer heal him. In addition, it will be a painful reminder to him that once a floating sissy, always a floating sissy. Expand Full Strategy

This hulking brute will just attack physically two times every turn, and will counter any attack you use against it with !Megaton Punch, which kills anything it touches. If you cast Vanish, you can avoid its effects easily enough. Stop also works against it. If you Sketch Earth Eater, it may have a 25% chance of instantly killing it with its own attack. Expand Full Strategy

Fiend is one heck of an ice queen, I tell you. Not just a shell, this one! Luckily, she's also pretty predictable and one-dimensional, which in my opinion makes her quite easy to defeat (certainly easier than Goddess or Demon, even ignoring Stop). Her normal moves include the ever-present Battle, Blizzaga spells, Absolute Zero, and the annoying Northern Cross attack, from which one can be easily recovered by a simple Fire spell. Of course, she gets extra mean when you damage her enough. Once Fiend hits 32640 HP, the message "Fiend's aura is trembling violently!" appears, and, my goodness, so it appears.

By doing this, Fiend self-applies the Image, Reflect, and Haste statuses, meaning that you will want to cast Dispel to get rid of all three of them and quickly cast Slow or Slowga to reduce her speed even further. From this point on though, she will ignore her single- and multi-target Ice-elemental options and focus on a few select attacks.

Every twenty seconds, Fiend will use the Force Field attack, which is a Lore Strago will only be able to learn in this battle. Force Field takes an element (one not previously selected by Force Field, if using it a second time) and renders it completely ineffective. It doesn't matter how strong the caster is or if the target is weak to said element: Once the element has been picked, this element will do exactly 0 damage for the duration of the battle. Once all eight elements have been rendered useless, Force Field will do nothing. Aside from Force Field, Fiend will use Battle and Targeting. Targeting does absolutely nothing more than 'store' that target in her memory, and the very next turn she will use !Fiendish Rage on that person, period. Should this person suddenly be unavailable, !Fiendish Rage will be used on a random person. Of course, the game would have us believe that the Targeting move somehow makes !Fiendish Rage unblockable, but !Fiendish Rage is unblockable in itself, so the act of using Targeting is really just for show.

That's it! Pretty easy, I'd say. Set Slow at the start of the match, throw up the barriers you like, and pummel Fiend with the strongest attacks you have. Strago might be able to get some play out of his Lv. ? Holy attack now that you've a) obviously brought him here and b) made sure to rig it into always hitting. Have Gau engage in a Rage that will have him produce non-elemental damage, since you won't be able to easily stop him once Fiend starts nullifying the elements. The Holy spell is really useful when Fiend is in her 'easy' phase, but beware that you don't waste turns casting zero-damage Holy spells when she's left said phase. Make sure you don't allow Fiend to maintain her Image, Haste, or Reflect statuses: everybody who knows the Holy spell knows Dispel too, and Terra learned it naturally at level 37. Expand Full Strategy