DRAGON QUEST IX LEGACY BOSS GUIDE I. Introduction 1a. Minimum Requirements 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 V. Legacy Bosses 5a. Baramos 5b. Murdaw 5c. Dhoulmagus 5d. Dragonlord 5e. Psaro 5f. Nimzo 5g. Malroth 5h. Mortamor 5i. Estarl 5j. Zoma 5k. Nokturnus 5l. Orgodemir 5m. Rapthorne 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. RECOMMENDED HEAD GEAR: Fur Hood, Dragon Warrior Helm, Spellward Circlet, Mercury Banada, Phantom Mask, Papillon Mask, Heavenly Helm (or better) 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. RECOMMENDED SHIELDS Brain Drainer (or better), Erdrick's Shield, Godess Shield, Metal Slime Shield (or better), Silver Shield, Ethereal Shield (last resort) 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. RECOMMENDED TORSO: Victorious Armor, Metal Slime Armor, Ethereal Armor, Trop- otoga, Angel's Robe, Ethereal Robe, Celestria's Raiments. 4d. ARMS 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. RECOMMENDED ACCESSORIES: Meterorite Bracers, Mercury Prize, Sober Ring, Rousing Ring, Full Moon RIng, Catholicon Ring, Lucky Pendant, Critical Acclaim, Combat Action Medal 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. V. LEGACY BOSSES 5a. BARAMOS Lv 1 LV 99 HP: 6500 13057 Atk: 400 803 Def: 400 600 Spd: 200 320 Orb Drop: Silver Attacks: normal attack that can critical, Kaboom(le), blazing fire/Hell Fire, Kafrizz(le), Disruptive Wave Elements: Baramos attacks with Fire except for Kaboom which is a Wind attack Weakness: Ice, use Frost Fource to multiply your damage by 1.65 Special notes: The Beginner Legacy Boss and the easiest 5b. MURDAW Lv 1 LV 99 HP: 6750 13559 Atk: 525 1055 Def: 415 623 Spd: 240 384 Orb Drop: Yellow 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 5c. DHOULMAGUS Lv 1 LV 99 HP: 7000 14061 Atk: 545 1095 Def: 430 645 Spd: 300 480 Orb Drop: Purple 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. 5d. DRAGONLORD Lv 1 LV 99 HP: 7500 15066 Atk: 640 1286 Def: 450 675 Spd: 190 304 Orb Drop: Red 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. 5e. PSARO Lv 1 LV 99 HP: 7500 15066 Atk: 665 1336 Def: 510 765 Spd: 280 448 Orb Drop: Green 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. 5f. NIMZO Lv 1 LV 99 HP: 7500 15066 Atk: 690 1386 Def: 520 780 Spd: 170 272 Orb Drop: Blue 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. 5g. MALROTH Lv 1 LV 99 HP: 7500 15066 Atk: 650 1306 Def: 480 720 Spd: 260 416 Orb Drop: Blue 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. 5i. ESTARK Lv 1 LV 99 HP: 8000 16070 Atk: 675 1507 Def: 590 885 Spd: 320 512 Orb Drop: Green 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 5j. ZOMA Lv 1 LV 99 HP: 8000 16070 Atk: 675 1356 Def: 570 855 Spd: 350 560 Orb Drop: Silver 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 5k. NOKTURNUS Lv 1 LV 99 HP: 8250 16572 Atk: 780 1567 Def: 610 915 Spd: 350 560 5l. ORGODEMIR Lv 1 LV 99 HP: 8000 16070 Atk: 680 1366 Def: 540 810 Spd: 260 380 5m. RAPTHORNE Lv 1 LV 99 HP: 8500 17074 Atk: 700 1406 Def: 550 825 Spd: 230 336