II. Common Strategies
2a. Weapons
2b. Boosting Attack
2c. Boosting Defense
2d. Defense and Gear
2e. Healing
2f. Reviving
2g. Turn Order Management
2h. Knight's Watch
2i. Low Level Boss General Discussion
2j. Low Level Boss Strategies
2k. Worst Case Scenarios
2l. Using Disruptive Wave and Wave of Relief
2m. High Level Boss Strategies
2n. Alternative Strategies at High Levels
III. Class Analysis
3a. Warrior
3b. Priest
3c. Mage
3d. Martial Artist
3e. Thief
3f. Minstrel
3g. Gladiator
3h. Armamentalist
3i. Paladin
3j. Ranger
3k. Sage
3l. Luminary
IV. General Gear Recommendations
4a. Head
4b. Shield
4c. Torso
4d. Arms
4e. Legs
4f. Feet
4g. Accessory
4h. Manuals, Workbooks, Guides, etc
4i. Items
I. INTRODUCTION
This guide will give a thorough review and of each of the 13 Legacy Bosses you
can fight after beating the main game including statistics, behaviors,
strategies, and so forth. Use Control+F and type in a Bosses name in all CAPS
to go directly to their section. Most of the Headings are used in ALL CAPS so
you should be able to search them in this way.
1a. MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
While your characters don't need to be at 99 to begin fighting Baramos or
Murdaw at Level 1 (in fact, Level 50 or even lower should be fine) you will
most definitely want to have the following skill trees for everyone.
100 Virtue
100 Fource (for at least one character that is not your healer)
90 Courage
82 Guts
76 Sword (100 for your Healer)
100 Shield (52 for your Healer)
100 Faith (for your Healer)
Those are the bare minimums in my opinion as those skills greatly enhance your
survivability and your offense. Once you face Bosses who are level 50 or high-
er you wil find that you need to max every skill tree that gives Resistance or
HP and your Healer will absolutely have to have 100 Focus and 82 Acquisitive-
ness for the extra Agility gains.
II. COMMON STRATEGIES
As you level up any of the Legacy Bosses, all of them become capable of wiping
out any unprepared party, even one composed of all Level 99 characters. There-
fore you need to be aware of which strategies prove effective against these
bosses.
2a. WEAPONS
By far the most prevalent weapon is the Uber Falcon Blade and attacking with
Falcon Slash. You will want every character to master swords, even your casters
so that you can use Falcon Slash for all four characters in a turn if necessary
Eventually, if you are using Gladiators the Dire Critical Fan will become
better vs some Bosses but it is only "arguably" better and very rare so if you
don't acquire any you can simply stick with the Uber Falcon Blade.
There are a few Bosses where it is almost a *requisite* to have at least one
Critical Fan but I will address that later. And if you run enough grottos you
should be able to pull one from a blue treasure chest eventually. If not,
there are also some "tricks" you can use to get one, depending on where you
draw the line as to what is "ethical" and what is "cheating"
The same thing is true with the Hypernova Sword. It might make sense to attack
with that weapon until you get its Sap effect and then switch to another weapon
But its not a necessity so you needn't be concerned if you don't ever get that
weapon.
Casters will likely want to use Swords, Wands, and Staves on various occasions.
All Wands and Staves are essentially the same for these purposes so you should-
n't feel you need to get the best ones.
I've also heard of people using an Axe on their Priest/Sage and attacking with
Helm Splitter trying for the Sap effect but I believe this is inefficient and
don't recommend it (see section 2i)
Also note that a couple weapons like the Dynamo Dagger say they give "first
strike" but this only applies if you attack with the Dagger. It would be very
handy if you could equip a dagger and always go first!
2b. BOOSTING ATTACK
Level 99 Baramos, the easiest of the 13 at 99, has 645 defense while the hard-
est Boss, Mokturnus, has 915. The maximum attack value a character can
have is 600 as a Gladiator at level 99. You then add your weapon's Attack
value to determine your total Attack. Against Baramos, using Falcon Slash with
the Uber Falcon Blade equipped on a Level 99 Gladiator should do about 455
damage and 253 to Nokturnus. Those Bosses have 13000 and 17000 HP, respective-
ly
What this means is that to win in a reasonable amount of time as these Bosses
become tougher, you will need to use skills that boost your attack power. The
best of these are the Armamentalist Album and the Minstrel Manual. A third
option is the skill Double Up, but it becomes very risky as the damage you take
from physical attacks can rise precariously and the damage amounts can be pre-
carious to start with!
Each Boss is vulnerable to one of the Fource elements and takes 1.5 damage from
your attacks if you use that element. The Armamentalist Album applies that
bonus to all four of your characters. It also multiplies elemental damage by
1.1 so that your final mulitplier is 1.65x damage. Very handy.
Meanwhile, the Minstrl Manual gives a 25% bonus to your attack which roughly
translates into 1.5-2.0x damage. Also you can cast it a second time for an
even greater bonus of +50% attack. Note that vs the hardest Bosses at the
highest levels Gritty Ditty actually improves damage quite a bit more than
a Fource skill, even if you use it only once.
However, after a certain level -- normally in the teens or earlier -- each Boss
gains the skill Disruptive Wave which removes all beneficial effects on your
characters and also removes built up Tension. Some Bosses use this ability more
than others but it will always be something you have to keep in mind.
Finally, another important note on maximizing your offense is that Gladiators
do 50 more damage per attack than any other class. This is extremely signifi-
cant unfortunately, as it almost forces teams to use Gladiator's as their prim-
ary attackers.
2c. BOOSTING DEFENSE
On the other side of the equation, each Bosses attack rises above 1000 and in
some cases reaches 1500, meaning that defense will also be a concern. However,
because if you do not use the offensive Buffs listed above, the battles will
take so long as the Bosses gain levels that you will find that you lose by
attrition even if you cast Kabuff twice, Magic Barrier twice, Insulate twice
and so on.
Also, one Disruptive Wave will reset all of those spells and cause you to take
collosal damage again. Therefore such a turtle strategy simply cannot be
recommended.
There is one exception, which is the Fource skill. While you can only have
one element active at a time, many of the Bosses use an elemental attack that
corresponds to the element they are weak to. As an example, Murdaw is weak to
Ice and uses C-c-cold Breath. You will take 30-40 damage from this attack if
you have Frost Fource in effect when it would otherwise do 250-300.
This is an ENORMOUS advantage because that spell becomes almost negligible
in terms of damage, doing at most 20% of its full damage potential. This means
that if Disrupting Wave dispels your Fource skill, putting it back up is
priority #1 in those cases.
2d. DEFENSE AND GEAR
Since you likely won't be able to use defensive buffs effectively, the next
question is how DO you defend vs Boss attacks? First, make sure that you
have every HP bonus from all of the skill trees. You can gain 300 HP this way.
Next, when yoou consider which armor and other defensive gear to wear you will
want to look for elemental resistances more than defense. This is because
spells and breath attacks ignore defense and also becuase it takes 4 points of
defense to prevent 1 damage from a physical attack whereas elemental resistance
is measured as a percentage of the damage dealt.
So if an attack would do 400 damage and you have 20 resistance, that will pre-
vent 80 damage. Extra defense can't compete with that kind of mitigation so
knowing which elements a given Boss uses and then choosing the proper gear is
of the utmost importance.
2e. HEALING:
When fighting a Legacy Boss at lower levels, Multiheal will be more than
enough for healing purposes and often you won't even need to heal in battle.
However, you will eventually find that Multiheal's ~250 HP of healing cannot
keep up with the damage output you are facing each turn. At that point
you have little choice but to use a Priest because only the Priest class has
access to better heal spells in the form of Fullheal and Omniheal.
The one difficulty is that in protracted battles you can't simply cast Omniheal
every turn becaues it costs 96 MP assuming you have mastered the Sage skill
tree or 128 otherwise (master the Sage skill tree!). So you will want to use
it sparingly. Always check to see if Multiheal will be enough or even Moreheal
if only one character has taken serious damage. Also, learn how much Moreheal
can heal for (about 400) so that you conserve MP by not casting Fullheal (18 MP
) when Moreheal (6 MP) will suffice.
Finally, remember that you can trade in mini-medals for Elfin Elixirs so it
makes sense to make sure each character has some in their inventory to recharge
your Priest if necessary.
2f. REVIVING
This is also very important because for the first 50 levels (give or take) of
each Boss, character deaths will be very rare and normally not affect your
ability to beat them and revive that character after the battle using Zing.
However, there is a tipping point whereafter you will find that one casualty
leads to more casualties and eventually a wipeout. Thus you will need to
revive in battle and Zing is far too unreliable for this purpose. The only
class that has Kazing is the Sage and the only item that revives is the
Yggdrasil Leaf which is very difficult to come by.
So you will most certainly need a Sage for the higher Levels of Legacy Bosses
with the exception of Baramos and possibly Murdaw. Yggdrasil Leafs are far
better than Kazing but you will want to conserve your limited supply for when
each Boss gets insane in the 80s and higher.
Note that Sage hurts your ability to win as fast as possible so you may choose
not to play one until character deaths start to become an issue.
2g. TURN ORDER MANAGEMENT
It helps greatly if you can cast your Fource spell first in a turn and then
have your other characters attack with it in effect. The same holds true with
Gritty Ditty from the Minstrel Manual. The most commonly used strategy is to
have your Priest cast Gritty Ditty on turn 1 because they will be your fastest
character and also because you do not need to heal on turn 1.
Your Sage should also be faster than your two attackers so it is a good idea to
let your Sage have the Armamentalist Album to move before your attackers.
Finally, unless you are attacking with Martial Artists, the rest of the attack
classes are slow, so you are well-advised to NOT max all of their agility
bonuses from skill trees. This is because you will get extra damage from
"chaining" attacks -- if you perform the same attack back to back the second
attack will get multipled by 1.2 damage. The best way to insure this happens
is to have both attackers be much slower or much faster than the Boss, typical-
ly slower. This is more noticeable when the Bosses are at lower levels and you
can use three Gladiators which yields a "chain" of 1.0, 1.2, 1.5
2h. KNIGHT's WATCH
This gets its own subheading because it is a strategy unto itself. If you
manage to get a Paladin's Coup de grace, you can use it to buy yourself several
free turns to attack without the threat of taking damage.
Knight's Watch always goes first the turn you use it, is not dispeled by
Disrupting Wave, and makes its user immune to status effects as well.
So once you have it activated, you can have the character that has it use
Forbearance to take damage and block status effects for the entire party. The
only thing it doesn't stop is Disrupting Wave which will still effect other
party members but not the character using Knight's Watch.
Eventually Paladin becomes the strongest character in the game because of
this move. However, the strategy to take advantage of it becomes extremely
tedious making it a viable option vs ONLY the hardest Legacy Bosses at the
highest levels.
2i. LOW LEVEL BOSS GENERAL DISCUSSION
If you plan to acquire any of the best gear and upgrade it, you should know
that you will need the rare Orb drops from the Legacy Bosses to do so. While
the drop rate improves as you level up the Bosses it never rises very high (10-
15%) at 99 so even though it is 2% at level 1, that is the best time to try and
get them.
The simplest way is to use the Hoimi table although it is EXTREMELY tedious.
You can find out how to use this method by searching the word "Hoimi" on the
GameFAQs Dragon Quest IX messageboard. If you are not using the Hoimi method
I don't think it is very likely that you will need to worry about this since
the gear is very rarely dropped by grotto bosses (Atlas.. et cetera). Later in
this guide I will detail how you can win each battle WITHOUT having any of that
gear as it is not necessary, however helpful it might be in some battles.
One other thing that is very helpful is to have one character with the Thief's
Theory album. While I don't know exactly how the mechanic works it will
occasionally produce an extra Orb and when you are lucky enough to get one to
drop normally it has a VERY high chance to net you a second one.
Also, your best option for leveling if you are below Level 55-60 is to fight
a Level 1 Baramos or Murdaw. It really doesn't make sense to level either
of them past 16, which is the point at which they drop the map for the next
Legacy Boss. Also, that is around the time they learn Disruptive Wave which
is simply an unncessary hassle when you are trying to gain levels as quickly
as you can.
They will still be your best source of experience until you find a map with
Metal King Slimes on it. At which point you should go and fight Metal King
Slimes until you are level 99.
2j. LOW LEVEL BOSS STRATEGY
Since fighting each Boss 99 times is very tedious, you will want to win the low
level fights as quickly as you can. There are two well established ways to do
this, producing turn 2 and turn 3 wins
The first is
Turn 1: Priest uses Gritty Ditty, Gladiator uses Fource, other Gladiators Fal-
con Slash
Turn 2: Priest uses Gritty Ditty, all Gladiators Falcon Slash
Then you can heal after battle, close and reopen the grotto and immediately
make another run. This method means that you will only have to sort through
one menu to change one Gladiator from his Fource skill to Falcon Slash and back
At early levels it will also help to equip everyone with a Meteorite Bracer as
all of your characters should move before the Boss resulting in him not getting
to attack on turn 2 which saves time and MP that is not spent on healing.
After that strategy no longer produces turn 2 kills you can do the following
Turn 1: see above
Turn 2: Falcon Slashx4
This produces more damage as long as all four characters attack consecutively
although it requires your Priest to have Omnivocational Swordmaster and it also
requires you to sift through more menus.
Eventually this tactic will stop working as well becuase the Boss becomes too
fast or his defense increases too much. Then you can simply use the first
tactic to win on Turn 3.
The thing that will stop your "speed" runs is when the Bosses damage output
forces you to Multiheal on turn 1, meaning that you can no longer have your
Priest Gritty Ditty twice in a row. The final nail in the coffin is when you
start suffering character deaths and therefore have to replace one of your
Gladiators with a Sage.
Up until this point, you should note that you can experiment with a variety
of strategies and teams to beat a given Legacy Boss. You also will not need
level 99 characters. You can personally experiment to find how high your level
needs to be to fight each Boss as you advance their level.
2k. WORST CASE SCENARIOS
If Your Priest Dies: you should definitely try to revive, but there are two
possible tricks that can help prevent a wipeout. First, if any character is
in the orange or red health Zones and likely to die you can cast Defending
Champion. Defending Champion will cause every Boss attack to do 60 or less
damage, making it incredibly powerful.
Also, make sure your Priest has the Secrets of the Shield scroll to prevent
critical hits as this is your most indispensable character.
Also, if your Healer is dying it is time to move them to the back row. If your
Healer is NOT dying, I recommend keeping them in the front row to cause the
Boss to spread his attacks out more and also because that way your Secrets of
the Shield scroll will prevent more critical attacks that may otherwise go to
other characters.
Finally, one other trick is to give your Healer a Staff or Fists. Unfortunate-
ly, Priest does not naturally use either of these weapons so you will need to
master the weapon first. However, if you do, equipping either of those weapons
gives you an extra 4% dodge which is most helpful.
Note that Yggdrasil Dew is probably not helpful because the Boss is likely to
get the first move of the turn. Also note that with only three characters your
survivability is reduced because the Boss has less targets to choose and is
thus more likely to double attack one character which is a likely death even at
full health.
Second, if your Sage is near death you can cast Forbearance on someone with
higher health, letting them take the brunt of the bosses attack so that your
Sage can survive to revive your Priest, letting you try and stabilize on the
next turn
If Your Sage Dies: this is the only time you should break out an Yggdrasil Leaf
until the very highest levels of a Legacy Boss simply because these Leafs take
so long to get.
I recommend the same otherwise as for your Priest: put them in the back row and
give them a Staff.
If A Gladiator Dies: you MUST revive on the next turn because otherwise you run
the risk of having another character dying and once you have only two living
characters you are easy pickin's for physical attacks. The only exception is
if you are very close to dealing lethal damage and think you can win on the
following turn with the attackers you have left.
2l. USING DISRUPTIVE WAVE AND WAVE OF RELIEF
If you do not have 100% protection against Dazzle or Paralysis you will
definitely want to have Wave of Relief handy. For the most part those are the
only status effects that doesn't wear off meaning Wave of Relief will likely
waste your turn (War Cry and Sleep tend to wear off).
Finally, if any Boss casts Buff Disruptive Wave IMMEDIATELY. Buff makes them
virtually invincible even after one cast so don't take it lightly. Disrupting
Wave if they increase tension normally doesn't work because they will probably
get to attack before your Disrupting Wave gets cast.
2m. HIGH LEVEL BOSS STRATEGY
Once you have a Boss that is knocking you around handily, it may be time to
put your Sage on the bench for a third Gladiator for the extra damage and then
rely exclusively on Yggdrasil Leafs for revial, depending on how many you've
managed to stockpile. I highly recommend this vs all of the Bosses past Dhoul-
magus because you're going to need the full heal of Yggdrasil Leafs and
Sage's weak offense will also hold you back substantially.
Finally, as I referenced above..good luck using a conventional strategy of
attacking + healing to beat 90s Estark, Dragonlord or Nokturnus. As I already
alluded to above the strategy I used to beat them was
2xPaladin with Dire Critical Fan (but you really only need one Critical Fan)
2x Gladiator
All used Defending Champion until a Paladin got her Coup de grace. Then after
I used Knight's Watch I had that character use Forbearance while the other
three buffed and attacked until Knight's Watch wore off.
Then I simply repeated this process until the Boss was dead. My record was
14 turns vs Estark 99, 9 turns vs Dragonlord 99, and 22 turns vs Nokturnus 99.
2n. ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES AT HIGH LEVELS
Since Tension boosts damage and not attack it will work with Sage's Magic Burst
Therefore I've heard someone suggest using Feel the Burn to raise the Tension
of several Sage's and then go for huge Magic Burst damage. However, this
is an impractical strategy since you will need a way to refill your MP after
every battle. You won't be able to get enough Elfin Elixirs or Sage's Elixirs
and you don't want to go back to town or use 20 Magic Waters per character.
Also, Magic Burst can only deal a maximum of around 4,000 damage so eventually
even 4 Magic Bursts won't kill the very highest level Bosses.
User Elyon on the GameFAQs board also reports that he has beaten Estark 99 by
healing and spamming Back Atcha which reflects all physical attacks for moder-
ate damage. You can speed this up with Buffs and just have to hope your healer
doesn't die since you will still need to heal from the breath and magic attacks
The quick way to win against the two Super Bosses (Dragonlord and Nokturnus) is
to put your Buffs in place then use Defending Champion until a Gladiator gets
his Tension Boost Coup de Grace. While your Gladiator is boosting his tension
have your other characters use Tanglewebs and heal. The next turn all four
characters will hopefully be fast enough to strike consecutively with the Glad-
iator going third or fourth. Have all of them use Clap Trap because it has the
most damage potential and make sure your Gladiator has a Falcon Blade to strike
twice. If this goes right you should kill every Boss then and there.
Finally, against Dragonlord I've heard that using Reverse Cycle to reflect his
Breath attacks is effective although I have not personally been able to repli-
cate this strategy.
Please submit any other strategies you might devise to me and I will be sure to
update the guide and list them along with giving you credit of course.
III. CLASS ANALYSIS
3a. WARRIOR
Not taking into account their skill tree which any class can master,
Warriors are not very good. They would primarily be used to Attack or Tank
but they deal 50 less damage per attack than Gladiators and their Coup de Grace
is weaker as well. For Tanking, they are statistically weaker than Paladins
who get more HP but more importantly Paladins have the insane Knight'S Watch
Coup de Grace making it no contest.
3b. PRIEST
A staple due to the need for Omniheal and also because only the Priest can gain
enough agility to reliably move before higher level Legacies Bosses each turn.
This is your only realistic option as a primary healer.
3c. MAGE
Attack magic simply doesn't provide enough "reach" to be useful. And while the
Mage has Oomph which is extremely good, you will not have room for a fragile
support character. Also, Gritty Ditty fills the role of Oomph. Finally,
Mage cannot heal without using something like the Sage's Stone or Hustle Dance
and has only the Zing Stick for revival. Those spells are laughable vs Legacy
Bosses.
3d. MARTIAL ARTIST
While Martial Artist is the one class to always moving before every Legacy Boss
the primary difficulty is that it trails Gladiator by so much in the damage
department. Also, it does not combo well with slower attackers for the purpose
of putting together damage chains.
They are not a bad class to use as an attacker but the consensus is that Glad-
iator's are better. However, note that their speed provides many strategic
advantages such as being able to use an Yggdrasil Dew if you healer dies.
Their Coup de Grace only prevents one of the Bosses three attacks unfortunately
so it is bad (as is Luminary's which is functionally the same).
Overall they are an underexplored class that I personally feel have some
potential but could use a little more damage output to really be a top class.
3e. THIEF
Unfortunately there is just not any redeeming value to using a Thief vs Legacy
Bosses. Perhaps if Deftness did more to increase Critical Hit %
3f. MINSTREL
Minstrel's array of spells simply doesn't hold up and their attack power is
ridiculously low. Further, while Charm in general is very good for enthralling
enemies and thus wasting their turns, all Legacy Bosses have a 90% resistance
to being enthralled which means that Minstrels one advantage is mitigated
heavily. Further, if you did want to try and use a Charm Offensive you would
possibly pick a Luminary.
3g. GLADIATOR
Gladiator has the highest attack by a sigificant margin, has low agility and
also, perhaps surprisingly, the third best Resilience. Also, if you can dodge
Disruptive Wave, their Coup de grace can really accelerate your damage. That
in a nutshell is why they're omnipresent on Legacy Boss teams.
3h. ARMAMENTALIST
While they are definitely a better choice than Mage for using Oomph, that is
still probably not enough to make them optimal as the Legacy Bosses get harder.
One reason is that Gladiator's can already get the Oomph effect by using Double
Up, albeit at the cost of some defense.
While I think Armamentalist is probably usable overall, it is still a fairly
significant handicap. Also note that if you are casting Oomph with your Arm-
amentalist they can't also use the Fource skill which is very awkward.
Still, Oomph is unbelievable and gets better as Boss defense improves so don't
totally rule Armamentalist out.
3i. PALADIN
As discussed already, Paladin is spectacular solely for Knight's Watch. They
are not as good for attacking as Martial Artist or Warrior but Knight's Watch
trumps any moderate loss of attack.
I believe Knight's Watch is one of the only ways to beat a very high level Nok-
turnus or Estark reliably. However, for most of the Legacy Boss fights before
that they won't be that useful but you can always just wait for them to get a
Coup de grace which lets you attack with abandon for about four turns.
3j. RANGER
Ranger and Thief are basically interchangeable with the problem still being
that Deftness only slightly increases your Critical Hit Rate and also the fact
that Critical Hits alone aren't going to win you any battles unless you do them
about one in three attacks. Ranger is unfortunately nowhere close to that mark
3k. SAGE
Sage has Multiheal and Kazing meaning that you are certainly going to use them
on your team at some point. They also have Magical Burst which can do large
damage although it can't compete with an attack while at 100 Tension. Note
that it is very helpful to keep their speed as low as you can because Kazing
leaves the revived character at 50% Health meaning that they have a strong
chance to die again if the Boss immediately attacks them. So it is better to
revive AFTER the Boss moves and then have your Healer restore them to full HP
to start the following turn. Strategically, this is a very key point.
3l. LUMINARY
Luminary's attack will make you cry and whats worse their spells suck. Perhaps
the most obviously unplayable class because they attack like a Mage but have no
offensive or healing magic. And Charm just doesn't do enough as I already men-
tioned under my listing for Minstrel.
IV. GENERAL GEAR RECOMMENDATIONS
4a. HEAD
Against any boss that has an Ice attack and no Status effects, Fur Hood is the
best choice for evey character. For anti-status effects it will be helpful to
have the Heavenly Helm but there are other ways to avoid status effects if you
don't.
The Dragon Warrior Helm is also handy as well.
If you have a female Sage, Spellward Circlet is also very nice.
And finally don't forget that your Priest will often be equipped with the Mer-
cury Bandana or Phantom Mask unless you are very confident that your Priest
will go first without them.
4b. SHIELD
If you have Brainer Drainer (or better), thats clearly your first option for
everyone. Erdrick's Shield is on par with the Alchemiracle Shield Soul Sucker.
Metal Slime Shield's also offer good magical resistance if you can acquire
of those. The Goddess Shield is also in the same league.
If you don't get any Brain Drainers or Metal Slime Shields, your next best
options are Silver Shields vs Bosses that don't use Ice or Dark attacks (or are
weak to Ice). After that your best option is likely the Ethereal Shield which
is a significant step down.
4c. TORSO
This fairly straight forward. Metal Slime Armor is the best unless the Boss
only uses Fire and Ice in which case you should use Victorious Armor. If you
don't have access to those you should use Ethereal Armor which is not a
terrible dropff.
On the caster side, Tropotoga is the best if you upgrade it at least once,
otherwise Angel's Robe is better because it covers more elements. If your
Priest must devote their accessory to Meteorite Bracer, its possible you might
want to use Celestria's Raiments vs Psaro. If you don't have Tropotogas or
Angel's Robes then you can once again use Ethereal Robes as well.
You will want Ethereal Gloves for everyone in every fight, except possibly vs
Bosses who use Kasap where you might choose to use Metal Slime Gauntlets
RECOMMENDED ARMS: Ethereal Gloves, Metal Slime Gauntlets
4e. LEGGINGS
If you have a female party Magical Skirt is very strong although sometimes
if you are not worried about Ice or Dark then the Sizzling Bikini Bottom is
superior. For males you will simply want to choose between Red Tights and
White Tights and Dragon Warrior Trousers for their resistances.
Also, if you have the Invincible Trousers and upgrade them, they are the best
anti-Status gear. However, there are quite a few Trousers with status
resistances that you can use: Battle Britches stop War Cry for Gladiators only,
Green Tights resist Whack and Paralysis, Impregnable Leggins resist Sap,
RECOMMEDED LEGGINGS: Magical Skirt, Sizzling Bikini Bottom, Red Tights, White
Tights, Dragon Warrior Tights, Battle Britches, Green Tights, Impregnable Leg-
gings, Immortal Trousers (or better)
4f. FEET
This is pretty simple. Everyone should get Pixie Boots from the mini-medal
shop unless you happen to get any Sensible Sadals for your casters
4g. ACCESSORY
Well, you will definitely want Meterorite Bracers on occasion and Mercury Prize
if you have it from revocating a Martial Artist. Your Priest should be wear-
ing one in nearly every high level battle to insure he heals at the start of
every turn.
The Sober Ring is fantastic vs the few Bosses that use Bliner, Rousing Ring and
Full Moon Ring are also useful if the boss has Paralysis (Orgodemir) or Snooze.
Note that the gleaming eye effect that puts you too sleep (Rapthorne, Mortamor
and on occasion, Nokturnus) is NOT stopped by Rousing Ring.
Catholicon Ring is also extremely useful.
If you are not worried about status effects, then Lucky Pendant is a good
choice since it provides 3% evasion.
Finally the best revocation items are Critical Acclaim (from Gladiator) and
Combat Action Medal (from Armamentalist) and Mercury Prize (Martial Artist) as
mentioned above.
4h. MANUALS, WORKBOOKS, GUIDES, ETC
The ones you want are the Armamentalist Album and Minstrel Manual (obviously),
Priest's Primer, Warrior's Workbook, Gladiator's Guide and Thief's Theory (but
not in battle). Ranger's Revelation I don't think is worth an inventory spot
but may be useful in other sitautions. Luminary's Lore is pretty good for ran-
dom battles but won't help here. The Mage, Martial Artist, and Paladin books
are the weakest of all of them and certainly not useful here.
4i. ITEMS
The only items you will really use are Yggdrasil Leafs, Elfin Elixirs to re-
store your Priest's MP and/or Yggdrasil Dews to supplement Omniheal. I have
also heard it suggested that if you are having severe speed problems with a
Boss you can use Tanglewebs to slow them down. I've used this strategy but
you should be aware that the effect wears off very quickly and the Tangleweb
has about a 25% chance to fail.
Attacks: normal attack that can critical, blazing/Hell Fire, C-c-cold Breath,
Apocalyptic Lightning, Disruptive Wave, Kasap, Dazzleflash/Blinder, Buff
Elements: Murdaw attacks with Fire and Ice but you can use Frost Fource to
negate his C-c-old Breath. Apocalyptic Lightning is a Lightning attack and
Blinder is a light attack.
Status Effects: Murdaw uses Kasap and Blinder which causes Dazzle. He also
Buffs himself
Weakness: Ice, use Frost Fource to multiply your damage by 1.65
Special Notes: It is more important to protect agaisnt Dazzle than Sap. The
Sober Ring is very useful because then you never have to worry about using
Wave of Relief if someone gets blinded. You may be better off using gear for
elemental resistance to Fire than gear that resists Sap because Kasap does not
work every time to begin with. Also, his Apocalyptic Lightning is not as
common so Fire is your biggest elemental worry
Finally, you MUST use Disruptive Wave if Murdaw casts Buff because it multipl-
ies his defense by 1.5 and then 2.0x
Attacks: normal attack that can critical, Combo Slash (random targets),
Kazamm(le), blazing/Hell Fire, Break Down, War Cry/Raging Roar, Disruptive Wave
Elements: Dhoulmagus attacks with Fire and Dark but because he is weak to Dark
you are mainly concerned about Fire
Status Effects: Dhoulmagus uses Raging Roar which is classified as a Stop
effect. You will want to use your gear to resist this as much as possible.
Weakness: Dark, use Frost Fource to multiply your damage by 1.65
Special Notes: Dhoulmagus at 99 is almost fast enough to give your Lv 99 Priest
trouble, so you may choose to give her some agility raising gear if Dhoul-
magus is rudely interrupting your turn order.
Attacks: normal attack that can critical, blazing/Hell Fire, Dark Breath, Party
Popper, Disruptive Wave
Elements: Fire and Dark, you will need to make sure you are well insulated vs
both
Status Effects: none
Weakness: Earth, use Gale Fource to multiply your damage by 1.65
Special Notes: Dragonlord is HARD at high levels because he makes each of his
three moves count by either attacking or using a breath attack. Most of the
other bosses give you a reprieve by trying to cast a status effect or something
that does low damage but not Dragonlord. The third hardest Boss in my testing
and one who you will have to get creative to beat at high levels.
Attacks: normal attack that can critical, Kacrack(le), Kazamm(le), Hellfire,
C-c-cold Breath, Sweet Breath, Kabuff, Meditation, Disruptive Wave, (Th)Whack
Elements: Fire, Ice, and Dark but he is weak to Ice
Status Effects: Snooze and Whack. You will want to guard heavily vs both of
these effects because either can be devastating. Also, Psaro is quite fast so
your Priest will need a Meteroite Bracer. Because your Priest will not have an
accessory slot to use vs Status Effects, you might use Celestria's Raiment
which resists both Snooze and Whack
Weakness: Ice, use Frost Fource to multiply your damage by 1.65
Special Notes: While he is tough, a strategy of buffing, attacking and healing
will take him down even at Lv 99 as long as you are prepared for his Status
Effects. Once again, make sure to Disrupting Wave his Kabuffs.
Attacks: normal attack that can critical, Kaboom(le), Kafrizz(le),
blazing/Hell Fire, Bounce, Kasap, Disruptive Wave, Air Pollution, Meditation
Elements: Nimzo attacks with Fire and Bang. Since Gale Fource will already
protect against Bang, your main concern is guarding against Fire
Status Effects: Sap
Weakness: Wind, use Gale Fource to multiply your damage by 1.65
Special Notes: Nimzo casts Bounce, Kasap, Air Pollution and Mediation (restores
some HP) fairly frequently, which lessens his challenge signficantly. You
should think of Air Pollution as a lesser Disruptive Wave since it will cancel
your attack Buffs but will not remove Tension or Fource buffs.
Attacks: normal attack that can critical, blazing/Hell Fire, Psyche Up, More/
Fullheal, Blinder, Disruptive Wave, C-c-cold Breath
Elements: Fire and Ice
Status Effects: Dazzle
Weakness: Wind, use Gale Fource to multiply your damage by 1.65
Special Notes: You won't be able to effectively use Disrupting Wave against his
Psyche Up, but in geneal he attacks with 5 Tension and the Damage is less than
if he'd just attacked twice. Once again, the Sober Ring is a good idea although
your Priest and Sage won't really need it.
If you give your Priest the Mercury Bandana you may find that to be enough agi-
lity but you are probably better off giving her a Meteroite Bracer to feel
absolutely confident.
5h. MORTAMOR
Lv 1 LV 99
HP: 6000 12052
Atk: 670 1346
Def: 520 780
Spd: 300 438
Orb Drop: Yellow
Note: I believe these stats are for Mortamor's head only and not his claws
Attacks: normal attack that can critical, Kafrizz(le), Kaswoosh(le), blazing/
Hell Fire, C-c-cold Breath, Ferocious Roar (attacks everyone), Lullab-Eye,
Magic Burst, restore all MP, Disruptive Wave
Elements: Fire, Wind, Cold
Status Effects: Sleep, but Lullab-Eye is very rare from Mortamor and also seems
to be very hard to resist. You can be fall asleep even with a Rousing Ring
equipped. I do not understand how the mechanic works so I advise equipping as
much sleep resist gear as you can
Weakness: Dark, use Funerak Fource to multiply your damage by 1.65 but only
against his head
Special Notes: His claws can cast Kazing to bring his head back at 50% HP so
they are your first priority. Also, it seems that the Claws almost always do
a single target attack but they are also capable of Disruptive Wave. All of
the other attacks are used by Mortamor's head only, as far as I can tell.
Attacks: normal attack that can critical, Gigagash/slash, Kaboom(le), Kafrizz-
(le), blazing/Hell Fire, C-c-cold Breath, Psyche Up, Disruptive Wave
Elements: Fire, Ice, Earth, Lightning
Status Effects: none
Weakness: Dark, use Funeral Fource to multiply your damage by 1.65
Special Notes: He and Nokturnus are the hardest two Bosses in the game and an
buff/attack/heal strategy simply won't work vs them as their levels advance.
You will need to use a "turtle" strategy involving Defending Champion and
Knight Watch to beat them at the higest levels although I did discuss a few
alternate strategies above as well
Attacks: normal attack that can critical, Kacrack(le), C-c-cold Breath,
Psyche Up, Bounce, Disruptive Wave, Air Pollution
Elements: Ice
Status Effects: none
Weakness: Light, use Life Fource to multiply your damage by 1.65
Special Notes: Another Boss that helps you out by spending turns casting things
that don't deal damage. You will thank your lucky stars becuase that greatly
contributes to your ability to beat him
