Attack Patterns:

He uses nothing but physical attacks, with a 1/3 chance of criticals. Once he's below 10000HP, he'll run away.

TIPS:

* Stop, Mini, and Blind are particularly useful status effects for this fight since physical attacks are all he does. High evasion also helps.

* Make sure you're adequately prepared. It's not a difficult fight if so, but it's easy to forget to gear up Galuf first.

* If you made the mistake of going #Natural in a Four Job Fiesta and get stuck with Dragoon, make sure you have a knife on hand. Thanks to alcharagia for being in such a situation that I need to point this out.

Attack Patterns:

Gilgamesh has four rotations. The first is always a physical attack, and each round after Gilgamesh has a 2/3's chance of a physical attack. The other attack varies between GoblinPunch, Aero 2, and Wind Slash. Once he goes below 2500HP, Gilgamesh will cast Haste, Protect, and Shell on himself and then jump on a character. After that, his rotation includes a 1/3 chance of jumping, 1/3 chance of a physical attack, and the last 1/3 rotating between a physical attack and a lightning attack.

TIPS:

* If you can time it just right, you may be able to Silence Gilgamesh before he casts his buffs on himself, making the latter part of the fight easier (NOTE: This method was removed in the GBA and mobile versions). You can also use Time Magic Mute to stop his magic (and yours of course). Even if you can't or if you mess it up, Slow will counter Haste at least. And of course Blind is useful for his physicals. You can even Berserk him if you have a Chemist (Turtle Shell + Holy Water).

* If you have a Chemist and feel particularly crazy, you can drain his 1000MP completely with mixes. If you're even crazier, you can wait for him to waste it using those 1/3 chance Aero 2's, but seriously don't do that.

* If your characters can do obscene damage, it's possible to get him as close down to 2500HP as possible and then rush him. Of course, if you can do 2500HP in four attacks at this stage in the game, you probably don't need this guide.

* Wind Slash is probably his worst attack in his first phase, but it only shows up every fourth attack at a 1/3 chance. If you're getting wrecked by this a lot, keep an eye on what attack he's on and prepare to heal accordingly.

* Second-phase Gilgamesh is sturdier due to his buffs, but he focuses on single-target damage from powerful physicals. High evasion and Protect will help reduce the damage from his attacks.

Attack Patterns:

Tyrannosaur will simply use physical attacks. If attacked with physical attacks, it will counter with a 2/3 chance of a physical attack or a 1/3 chance of ????/Revenge, the Blue Mage spell that does (max HP - current HP) damage. It also can counter something with Poison Breath, but the Algorithms guide isn't very specific as to what triggers the counter. Have fun finding that one out!

TIPS:

* This guy is undead and not heavy. This means one measly Phoenix Down will kill him instantly. Enjoy the freebie!

* If you want to fight this guy legit, then avoiding physical attacks is recommended in favor of magic. Blind in particular neuters him if you do this. Fire magic works wonderfully, of course, as does Cure spells.

* If you're stuck with physical attacks, just keep in mind that there's a 1/3 chance he'll instantly kill a character as a counter. Make sure you stock up on all the Phoenix Downs you're not using to kill this guy immediately.

Attack Patterns:

Abductor has a 2/3's chance of physical attacks, with the latter attack alternating between Hurricane (reduces one person to 1HP) or Vampire.

TIPS:

* Vampire can kill a person and undo a lot of progress if he uses it late, so be aware of that. Silence helps.

* Otherwise, he's vulnerable to a lot of stuff and lacks the Heavy trait, so anything you can throw at him will kill him. Death Claw, a Chemist's Death Potion, a Berserker's Death Sickle, A Samurai's Iainuiki, or a Beastmaster releasing one of the Bal Basement statue enemies will all do it instantly, and you can neutralize him with Stop from Time Mage or Bard or Sleep from Black Mage or Confuse from Tempting Tango or fifty other ways. This guy's a chump, honestly, I don't even know why I'm writing a strategy for such a giant chump.

Attack Patterns:

The Dragon Pod itself does nothing but summon Dragon Flowers, at first three specific ones at a time before it starts summoning all of them. The flowers have a 1/3 chance of doing nothing and a 2/3 chance of doing a physical attack that inflicts a certain status effect, which is different for each flower. From left to right, the status effects are confuse, paralyze, blind, age, and poison. The Dragon Pod and Flowers all have inherent Regen.

TIPS:

* The Dragon Pod itself is not heavy, so stuff like Gravity attacks and Death Claw will work wonders, as will any instant death attack. Stop and Slow are also useful in stalling it from summoning more Flowers.

* After the four initial waves of summoning flowers, the Dragon Pod will waste several turns before resummoning them if at least one flower is still alive. It's best to keep the poison one alive because it's not nearly as dangerous as the other status effects. If all flowers die, the Dragon Pod will revive them all more quickly.

* The Dragon Flowers are pretty fragile and are vulnerable to every status effect in the game apparently. Their attacks can be brutal since they ignore defense and are 100% accurate (apparently their attacks are actually Vacuum Wave, go figure), plus the whole nasty status effect business. Destroy or neutralize the nasty ones.

* Other useful abilities include Romeo's Ballad since everything is vulnerable to Stop and Golem/Blink which blocks the nasty physical attacks. If you have Iainuiki, it could very well kill everything. Various multi-target attacks are also useful.

Attack Patterns:

Gilgamesh will spend the battle using mostly physical attacks, though he'll also use Missile and Death Claw at times. When Gilgamesh goes under 6000 HP, Enkidu will show up and immediately cast White Wind. Enkidu uses physical attacks and a variety of spells like Vampire, Missile, Wind Slash, and White Wind.

TIPS:

* Don't worry at first about dealing too much damage to Gilgamesh, as Enkidu will undo it all anyway.

* This is the first Gilgamesh fight where you can steal Genji equipment from him, in this case the Genji Gloves. The worst of the set due to being an accessory, but there you go.

* Dark Shock/L5 Death will end this fight rather quickly. Otherwise, Blind will make Gilgamesh less threatening, especially paired with Berserk.

* Enkidu is the real problem with this fight due to Vampire and White Wind. Silence or Berserk will help immensely. He's also vulnerable to instant death and is not Heavy, so there's a half-dozen ways to take him out instantly.

* You can equip someone with the Bone Mail and hope Enkidu tries to Vampire them, which heals the wearer and hurts Enkidu.

* Enkidu can apparently be Controlled as well, so you can have him use Hurricane on himself and then take him out.

Attack Patterns:

Atomos will perform two attacks in a row where it has a 2/3 chance of using Comet (and 1/3 chance of doing nothing) until at least one party member is dead. After that, Atomos will pull all dead characters towards itself. If they get too close, they'll be consumed and won't be able to be used for the rest of the battle. While pulling a character, Atomos will occasionally cast spells like Slowga, Age, and Graviga. If all characters are revived, it resumes its Comet spam.

TIPS:

* Dark Shock/L5 Death. Yep.

* Sleep is incredibly useful here, especially since it's the only status Atomos is vulnerable to. Black Mages, Mystic Knights, and Knights with Slumber Swords should take advantage of this. (Dream Harp won't work since non-Apollo harps always miss Heavy enemies).

* Keep one person down at a time and focus on dealing as much damage as possible. Once a character is close, revive them and let Atomos kill someone else. Rotate as necessary.

* Atomos can't actually kill anyone else while pulling characters since all it can do in that state are status and gravity attacks. Don't focus on healing, just revive as necessary and focus on damage.

* The big thing is dealing as much damage as possible. Defenses aren't important for this fight, speed and strength are (though you should have plenty of time unless you're underleveled and have poor damage-dealing jobs).

Attack Patterns:

His attack pattern is always 2/3 chance of a physical attack, 1/3 chance of Drain. If he takes damage from a character, he'll counter by targeting that character with Demon's Eye, which can petrify.

TIPS:

* Since Demon's Eye is a counter, you can get around it through abusing a Monk's Counter ability or only attacking with characters immune to petrification. You can also get around it by Stopping him, of course. You could also just Poison him and wait for the poison to take him down, but he's not really worth the effort.

* Otherwise, just have a bunch of Gold Needles handy. He doesn't have a lot of HP, even if Drain will recover some of it. Since Demon's Eye is a counter, it should be easy enough to manage it without getting your entire party turned to stone.

* Alternatively, solo with a Bone Mail wearer, sit in the back row, and watch Shoat kill itself when it decides to Drain.

Attack Patterns:

It starts with Protect and Shell. It does nothing but physical attacks if left to its own devices. If it takes physical damage, it'll counter with two attacks of Turtle Shell, which inflicts Old, Poison, Paralyze, Blind, Charm, and HP Sap. When it dies, it casts Quake.

TIPS:

* If you're using the GBA version, you can abuse Quicksave to avoid fighting Gilgame in the first place. Actually fighting it is not really worth it to begin with since it gives no rewards and has a ton of HP and nasty attacks.

* Gilgame hits hard. Protect and Blink are incredibly useful. So is Slow to reduce the rate he attacks, and Haste/Swift Song to give you more time to heal. Stick to the back row unless you have Ice 3 Sword Magic or other physical attacks that can do serious damage.

* Exploiting his Ice weakness is important, too. Bards can also use Requiem to do solid damage.

* If you can't evade its physical attacks, you'll want a lot of status protection beforehand for its counters. Ribbons are highly useful, of course.

* Make sure to have Float beforehand for its death attack.

Attack Patterns:

Carbuncle has two forms. It starts in the first form, which has Float and Reflect. Carbuncle reflects spells off itself for three rounds before switching to the second form, which casts Cura on itself before reverting back to the first form. The second form does not have Float or Reflect. The first form bounces elemental -ra spells until Carbuncle hits below 10,000HP. Then it bounces Bio, Stop, or Confuse until it hits 3000 HP, at which point it casts Break, Banish, and Death.

TIPS:

* Obvious solution is to wait for the second form to pop up after three rounds of the first form's attacks, and exploit its myriad of weaknesses. Instant Death shines here, of course, though anything that blocks Carbuncle's form changes like Stop, Sleep, Confuse, or Paralyze will work great. Other status effects will go away when Carbuncle switches back to its first form. It's weak to all elements and has significantly lower defenses so the longer you keep it in the second form, the better.

* Otherwise, Silence will neuter the first form, though you'll need to get it past Carbuncle's Reflect. Black Mages would also need to get past Reflect, but they should just Sleep the second form and blast it with magic anyway.

* Blue Mages: Three Dark Shocks + L5 Death on first form. Like you need any help.

* If you're sticking with the first form, be careful to rush it to death when you get near the 3000 HP threshold, since at that point it'll start throwing instant death spells. Of course, if you're quick enough you can just throw Phoenix Downs/Raises to make up for it, especially since at this point healing is meaningless anyway. Aegis Shield/Bone Mail will block Break/Death, too.

Attack Patterns:

Gilgamesh has a 1/3 chance of doing a physical attack and a whole bunch of magic attacks he'll release on you. He has a lot of status effects to unleash, including a few Blue Mage spells. Once you knock off 13k HP from him, he'll do several more attack rounds between conversing with the team, then do his form change. From there, it's just one big cutscene.

TIPS:

* The big thing is managing all the status effects Gilgamesh throws at you. Mini, Toad, Blind, Confuse, and Sleep/Old are the main ones. Esuna helps a lot, as does a weak physical attack (especially the Healing Rod). Otherwise, you might want to come stocked with curative items ahead of time.

* Other things to watch out for include his level-halving attack and Hurricane, which sends a character to single-digit HP.

* Alternatively, you can just not fight him. He's optional, in fact. Unless you have a Thief and someone to wear that Genji Helmet he has, of course, or you really want Excalipoor. Note that the Helmet is under the second form, not the first one.

Attack Patterns:

Considering he's the last boss of World 2 and the game's big bad, expect lots of nasty attacks, including a 2/3 chance of Condemn in the first round. Attacks include Earth Shaker, Zombie Breath, L3 Flare, Hurricane, and the hard-hitting Vacuum Wave. He has a 1/3 chance of countering a physical attack with Dispel. He'll also counter Slow by casting Haste on himself, so don't do that. Once he goes below 16000HP, he switches to just physicals, Vacuum Wave, and the elemental -aga spells, and usually doing two attacks in a row. When he's under 7000HP, apparently he'll also start casting Meteor (though I've never actually seen this so this could be wrong). And of course he always has Regen (Mobile/Steam only).

TIPS:

* Don't have your levels be a multiple of 3 in case L3 Flare gets cast. It gives you a potential free round of breathing room that way.

* Reflect is fantastic to have for this fight. It's recommended to grind Reflect Rings in the Barrier Tower from Reflect Knights (a rare drop) partly for this fight. Of course, if you're reading this, it might be too late to get some, so...sorry? At any rate, Reflect nullifies much of his offense once he loses half his HP.

* If you can cast Reflect, if you cast it on a character and Exdeath, you can bounce Slow onto Exdeath and then he'll bounce his Haste counter on the party. Convoluted, but it's probably worth it for this fight if you can pull it off.

* If you have a staff user, you can go to Ghido's Cave and grind Metamorpha (original form) for the Staff of Light (rare drop). You can break these to cast Holy, which Exdeath is weak to. Of course, this is one of the more annoying grinds you can do, but it might still be less painful in the long run considering how much of a roadblock Exdeath can be.

* Float helps for Earth Shaker, though Exdeath can nullify it as well.

* Protect, Blink, and Golem are very useful here since Exdeath's physicals hit hard, especially Vacuum Wave. Likewise, Shell's handy to have for those instances where Reflect wears off.

* Make sure to be as healed as possible before Zombie Breath hits, or else you might have one or more zombies beating up your living guys (Zombie Breath turns people "killed" by the attack into zombies). Exdeath's first phase has ten different attack sets before looping, and Zombie Breath has a 2/3 chance of hitting on the eighth set. It goes away after the first phase shift, though.