Final Fantasy VI All Enemies and Bosses

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