Attack Patterns:

She starts off casting Reflect, Old, or Stop. If she has Reflect, she will bounce Bio off herself. If a party member has Reflect, she'll bounce buffs off them onto herself. Finally, she counters HP damage with Drain.

TIPS:

* Bone Mail + Running Shoes nullifies everything she does. Running Shoes prevents Stop, Bone Mail blocks Old and absorbs Bio, plus makes her Drain spell work against her.

* Even without those items, the scariest thing she does is Bio and Drain, and for this point of the game she has the HP pool of a piece of tissue.

Attack Patterns:

As you may expect from a Super Boss, Omega has a ton of nasty attacks available. His signature is Wave Cannon, which hits all party members for half their Max HP, and he will use it very often. Rainbow Wind blinds and silences, Delta Attack petrifies, Blaster paralyzes or kills, Rocket Punch confuses, Maelstrom reduces to single-digit HP, he has fire and earth attacks, and he can even remove a character for the entire battle with Encircle. He executes two moves every time he takes damage with a 2/3 chance of Rocket Punch for each and the other 1/3 being Mustard Bomb and Encircle respectively. Finally, his defenses and evasion for both physical and magic attacks are sky-high, plus he has Reflect and Shell. So yeah, good luck.

TIPS:

* Chemists are invaluable since a huge chunk of their mixes can nullify most of Omega's attacks. Dragon's Kiss for the instant death attacks, Resist Fire and Levisalve to avoid fire/earth attacks. Delta Attack can be reflected as well.

* Alternatively, Bards and Beastmasters can have three people spamming Romeo's Ballad/!Calm every single round in the hopes to prevent a large chunk of Omega's attacks while the last person attacks. Note that !Calm only works in the GBA version due to a bug.

* As for offense, the key is getting through his significant defenses and evasion. Hitting an elemental weakness reduces the opponent's defenses to 0, and fortunately Omega has such a weakness to lightning attacks. Rapidfire Thundaga sword is a favorite, but most thunder attacks will hopefully do decent damage to him. The key is finding a way to avoid both his evasion and his defense, so Thundaga Sword isn't enough, you need an always-hit ability like !Jump or !Dance to land those hits.

* Finally, strategy of champions: Quick + Venom Rod. HP Sap usually wears off quickly on Heavy enemies, but not while Quick is active. You can always play another game of FF5 while you wait this out!

Attack Patterns:

Apanda's attack patterns are very similar to Byblos's, which shouldn't be as threatening now. Wind Slash, Slow, Sonic Wave, Magic Hammer, and of course his Protect/Toad/Drain counters. He also wastes a few turns if Ifrit is cast on him.

TIPS:

* Much like Byblos, Apanda can be destroyed by fire damage. You shouldn't have much trouble with him if you have fire damage available. For extra fun, use Ifrit to make him waste some turns (though doing so results in him messing with your rows and removing debuffs from himself).

* Alternatively, you can Berserk him and ignore all the nasty stuff that he can do. Add Blind to further humiliate him.

* If you don't have access to those strategies, then Running Shoes will block Slow. Wind Slash isn't as bad this stage in the game, keep a weak weapon handy to break Charm, and have Ethers/Elixirs in the rare case Magic Hammer hits someone you need MP on. Sonic Wave's the only big threat here, and all it'd do anyway is prolong the battle. Focus on big hits to minimize counters since both physical and magical attacks have a 1/3 chance of Drain.

Attack Patterns:

Azulmagia casts nothing but Blue Magic. He knows a large amount of it, too much to really list here. He can also learn a few Blue Magic spells and will then have a 2/3 chance of casting them for a few rounds.

TIPS:

* One of the spells he can learn is Exploder. If he learns it, he'll use it. This is pretty much required to do if you're a Blue Mage because it's the most hilarious and appropriate way to kill a Blue Mage boss. If you're feeling merciful, you can teach him L3 Flare and have him waste turns on you if your levels aren't a multiple of 3.

* Otherwise, exploit his weakness to Poison since it'll tear through his HP. Venom Rods will do the trick if nothing else.

* As for surviving his spells, Blue Magic is largely level-based spells and status effects with a few direct-damage spells mixed in. Go in on an odd level that isn't 5 (multiples of 3 are fine since he doesn't start with L3 Flare), and predict status effects like paralysis, mini, blind, and sleep. Note that he can still ruin your day with certain spells like Mighty Guard, Revenge, and White Wind, so there still may be luck involved if you can't kill him quickly enough.

Attack Patterns:

If a character is Floating, he'll use Gravity 100 to remove it. Otherwise, he'll use Earth Shaker, Demon's Eye to petrify, and physical attacks.

TIPS:

* Gravity 100 can be reflected. Combine this with the Aegis Shield, and all any character has to worry about are weak physical attacks.

* Any job but Monk can get Float status before this boss by itself, most by confusing Poison Eagles in the Cave section of The Rift (rare encounter) with a 1/8 chance of Tempting Tango from the Dancing Dagger. Hopefully you don't need to go to that much effort since Catastrophe isn't too difficult, but the option is there. Just be sure not to use a Cottage after getting Float since then the status will go away.

Attack Patterns:

Halicarnassus will start by changing the whole party into Toads (unless they resist it). Then they'll spend six rounds using mostly physical attacks, with every odd round having a 1/3 chance of changing your rows with Dynamo and every even round having a 1/3 chance of Dispel, Haste, or Shell (for rounds 2/4/6 respectively). Then Hali casts Holy and the process repeats. Also Hali may have a strong physical counter to summon magic according to the algorithms guide.

TIPS:

* Ribbons block Toad, but it's a non-issue to spend a turn using Maiden's Kiss anyway.

* Halicarnassus isn't too threatening for a full party since they only use single-target attacks anyway. Solo characters should use Reflect Rings since Hali can get wrecked by Holy.

* Mini and Blind ruins Hali's non-Holy offense.

* Row-independent attacks like Jump, Whips, and magic are a good idea since rows will be switched a lot and all.

Attack Patterns:

The first form goes through three attack rounds with attacks like Atomic Ray, Snowstorm, Mind Blast, and Windslash. It has nasty counters, with a 1/3 chance of countering physicals with Tidal Wave and magic attacks with Mega Flare. After three rounds, Twin moves to Form 2, where it does nothing for a round before releasing Giga Flare, then going back to Form 1.

TIPS:

* The easiest thing to do is wait out for its second form and then go on the offensive. There's no counters in this phase and Form 2 has 0 defenses/evasion for physical and magic.

* In fact, this is where you want to go hog-wild on status effects. Instant death works here, especially since Form 2 Twin loses Heavy. Same with Stone. Stop gives you more time to beat it up. Toad isn't as useful since it wears off after Twin switches back to Form 1. Most everyone should be able to try to kill Twin quickly with just the Assassin's Dagger and hoping for the death proc, and some jobs have more reliable methods.

* A Coral Ring will make physical attacks much more advantageous. His counters become free healing.

* Likewise, a Reflect Ring means his Mega Flare hurts him, and lets you spam magic on him without fear.

Attack Patterns:

Gilgamesh does nothing but physical attacks. He'll usually do two rounds each with a 2/3 chance of a physical attack. Once he goes below 30000HP, he'll start spouting dialogue and then run away.

TIPS:

* This isn't really a boss fight, especially if you've reached this point, but Golem, high defenses, or evasion will make this part a cakewalk, as does healing or burst damage. You honestly have to try to lose at this point.

* If you've got multiple shield users, be sure to steal the Genji Shield from him. At this point you have the Thief Knife, so there's no excuse not to try at least. Aegis Shields are better, but if you have three shield users and don't want to try stealing more Aegis the Genji Shield isn't a bad alternative.

Attack Patterns:

Shinryu starts off with a powerful Tidal Wave. Afterwards, he can hit with a variety of nasty attacks, with instant death-ish attacks like Roulette, Maelstrom, and Demon's Eye, as well as elemental damage attacks like Snowstorm, Atomic Ray, and Thunder, and even a bit of blue magic like L2 Old, L3 Flare, and infuriatingly Mighty Guard. Once Shinryu goes below 20k HP, he has a 1/3 chance of countering any damage by using Zombie Breath and then another Tidal Wave a turn later.

TIPS:

* Tidal Wave will wipe your party unless you have very high HP. You either want Coral Rings on some or all of your party or you want to beat him to his first attack. Masamune and Running Shoes help with the latter.

* The very best way to take on Shinryu is using Berserk. Rod users can use the Wonder Rod until it casts Berserk, Beastmasters can release a Mammon from the castle portion of The Rift, Chemists can use the Bacchus Wine mix, and White Mages can cast Berserk. The Power Staff is also an option, but it's a rare drop you can only get in World 2 from Black Warlocks in Exdeath's Castle, and any job that can use it has another way to inflict Berserk anyway. Note that all of these abilities and spells will always hit, so you don't have to worry about going past his crazy-high 95% magic evasion.

* If you do go with Berserking Shinryu, be aware he hits fast and hard. You'll want lots of evasion (Blink/!Image is huge) and lots of Phoenix Downs (Dualcast Raise, Phoenix, or the Chemist !Revive ability are also very handy). Blind helps immensely if you can get it to land through his crazy-high magic evasion. Don't bother healing against him, just revive as necessary.

* As for offense, be aware that he has high physical and magical defenses. Ideally you'll have something that does huge damage to dragons (Bards, Dragoons, and Beastmasters have such weapons available to them) or that can pierce defense (Flare and Flare Sword for instance, or !Rapidfire). It's not nearly as tough to damage him as Omega, but if you don't have the right tools it can be tedious.

* If you have no Berserk access but have Bards, you could always have your Bard !Hide while three Zombies with Reflect Rings wail on themselves. Atomic Ray will bounce off Reflect and hurt Shinryu slightly. You can also reflect weapon procs onto Shinryu to speed things up if you have the proper jobs. Such weapons include the Wind Slash katana, Gaia Hammer, Fire Lash, and Gaia Bell.

* Fighting him the normal way is not recommended, but if you go this route you definitely want to kill him as quickly as possible by doing large amounts of damage. Avoid attacking at level multiples of 2 or 3, use two Aegis Shields on people if at all possible, and be prepared for an onslaught of horrible attacks. In particular, try to wear down that last 20k HP in as few attacks as possible because his counter can be devastating. Good luck!

Attack Patterns:

The Barriers have Reflect and will bounce the -aga spells, Flare, and Holy off themselves to hit your team, with the -aga spells targeting all enemy targets. Necrophobe cannot be damaged until all four barriers are down, which after a quick speech he uses Flash to blind your party and becomes vulnerable. At this point, he'll start attacking twice a turn, always with a 2/3 chance of physical attacks and occasionally Vacuum Wave to inflict large damage and HP Sap, Hurricane to bring a character to single digits, or rarely Doom. Once he's below 10k HP, if you've done the rest of the Gilgamesh fights, Gilgamesh shows up to save the day.

TIPS:

* The Barriers need to go down or else the damage will add up quickly. If you don't have good multi-target damage like !Zenigage or Syldra, instead focus on bringing down the front two barriers first. It'll make the magic damage more manageable. You'll even have a bit of breathing room when you're down to one barrier.

* Alternatively, the Barriers are vulnerable to death and stone and have pretty low magic evasion.

* Necrophobe is weak to all elements and thus if you have any elemental damage you should use it to great effect, especially if boosted from weapons.

* Since Necrophobe's offense is mostly physical, Blind and Blink are useful. He has high magic evasion though so if your Blind method doesn't always hit it may not be worth using.

* Finally, if you're feeling benevolent you can just rush Necrophobe to death and skip the Gilgamesh trigger. But then you also miss out on stealing the Genji Armor. You're kind of on a time limit for this one so if you're stuck with the Thief Knife keep attacking and hope you grab it before the battle ends!

Attack Patterns:

He starts off using either physical attacks or White Hole, an attack that inflicts both stone and instant death on a character. Once he gets below 30,000 HP he starts using Flare, Holy, and Doom as well. Once he's below 10,000 HP, he has a 1/3 chance of either casting Meteo, using a physical attack, or doing nothing. Finally, killing him will reveal the true final boss.

TIPS:

* The stone immunity from the Aegis Shield and Ribbon block White Hole, and both are things you should be using anyway if possible.

* At the 30k threshold, Exdeath can only use Flare or Holy in the first attack of his four-round rotation, and Doom in the last. Reflect helps for the former, but if you're doing a solo be prepared for a potential Doom here.

* Once he gets close to 10k, be prepared to rush him to death quickly. You do not want him wasting your party with Meteor right before you tackle the next form.

* If you're playing the SNES (and maybe PS1?) version, you can use the Kiss of Blessing mix to override its death script and completely skip the final boss! This was fixed in the GBA version but there's a similar ability the Cannoneer can use to trigger this. Doing this isn't Fiesta-legal though.

Attack Patterns:

All four Forms do different things. Form 1 casts various high-end Black Magic spells like the -agas, Flare, Holy, and Aeroga, as well as Delta Attack and Dispel and some physical attacks. Form 2 does some physical attacks and Dispel, but mainly casts Grand Cross, a party-wide attack that will inflict one of any negative status effect in the game to each character. Form 3 does nothing but cast Almagest, a party-wide Holy-elemental attack that can do around the range of 1800 damage. Form 4 does nothing but Dispel and physical attacks, including the defense-ignoring Vacuum Wave. Finally, once only one form is alive, it'll go into crazy mode and do two attacks each round, each attack pattern being slightly different depending on the part still alive but usually throwing in stuff like Meteo, Almagest, and Vacuum Wave.

TIPS:

- FORM 1:

* Form 1 is the easiest part to take care of because it's the only part that isn't Heavy. Instant death attacks that work on non-Heavy enemies like Iainuki will work on Form 1, but by far the most reliable way is to use the Magic Lamp to summon Odin, which kills Form 1 instantly. Note that summoned Odin does not work this way, only Magic Lamp Odin will use Zantetsuken.

* Otherwise, Form 1's entire offense is nullified by Reflect, especially the Reflect Ring. It may even be worth leaving Form 1 alive to try to bounce Delta Attack onto Form 3 to kill it instantly.

* Theoretically you could try absorbing Firaga or Blizzaga, but the spells are too infrequent to be reliable even in a solo run, so it's not advisable.

- FORM 2:

* Form 2 can be the most dangerous part for some parties due to Grand Cross. The key thing is if Grand Cross hits a status a character is immune to, then the status effect is ignored. Thus it's useful to use equipment with a variety of status immunities like the Ribbon, Hermes Sandals, Genji equipment, and if you're feeling risky the Bone Mail.

* Otherwise, it somewhat resets its battle patterns at certain threshholds (30k HP and 15k HP), so if you rush it down you might reduce the number of Grand Crosses you encounter. Alternatively, you can try paralyzing it to slow it down (A Blue Mage's Mind Blast is guaranteed to work).

* Finally, Form 2 is Dragon-type, so the Dragon Lance, Dragon Whisker, and Apollo's Harp should all deal major damage to it.

- FORM 3:

* Almagest is the scariest part for most teams, especially lower-level ones. Unfortunately, the only options are to reduce damage with Shell (the Wonder Wand could cast this in a pinch, Beastmaster can catch a Crystelle for Mighty Guard but the process is tricky), dodge it with !Jump or !Hide, pray for a lucky 1/3 chance Aegis Shield block, or simply tank the hit with a high-HP job. Unfortunately, there is no equipment that nullifies or absorbs Holy.

* Form 3 is susceptible to stone, but due to its high magic evasion using Break or Catoblepas can take a good number of attempts to successfully stick. Magic Lamp Catoblepas is unreliable since it targets randomly (though it affects all enemies in the mobile version). However, Break Blade from Mystic Knight will kill it easily.

* Form 3 is Creature type, so weapons like Beast Killer and Artemis Bow will do major damage to it as well. Rushing it down isn't a bad idea.

- FORM 4:

* Form 4 is easier to deal with due to its physical attacks, though keep in mind you may have a character hit by Almagest and Vacuum Wave in succession at times.

* Blink and high evasion help a lot. If Form 3 is down, using higher-evasion shields over the Aegis Shield may not be a bad idea.

* Form 4 is vulnerable to Blind, which will eliminate a large chunk of its offense.

- OVERALL:

* Definitely, definitely, definitely do not leave only one form alive. Even if you're using single-target damage jobs, you can use the Magic Lamp to bring the last two parts down at the same time with Bahamut or Syldra (depending on whether you use Odin on Form 1). You don't want to experience the joys of Meteor/Vacuum Wave or double-Almagest.

* If you have a Thief, you can steal Ragnarok from Form 1, Dragon Lance from Form 2, and Murakumo from Form 4, weapons your Knight, Dragoon, and Samurai will really appreciate (and the Dragoon can even return the favor against Form 2!).

* Finally, if you're stuck with all Berserkers, you can either try to abuse the magic underflow glitch in the SNES/PS1 versions to try to kill Neo with powerful Gaia Hammer procs, or use the Thief Knife to steal Bone Mails and Aegis Shields and have one or more zombie characters alive to try to "heal" characters with Death procs. You'll still want very high levels for this and it will be miserable. And if you're doing solo Berserker...well, it may theoretically be possible, but you will not keep your sanity in the process. You probably have to learn the inner workings of the game itself and find out how to manipulate the RNG to your utmost advantage every single step of the way and that still may not be enough. The very act of attempting Neo with a solo Berserker will break your very mind and leave you gibbering in madness. But yeah, good luck!