Final Fantasy 12

Begin the battle by immediately using the Eksir Berries that you got for finishing the Urutan-Eater miniquest. As the Moogle described, the Garuda does not like them and the berries should deal a fair amount of damage to the boss.

Once those are out of the way it's time to move on to ranged attacks (since this boss flies you won't be able to hit it with melee weapon swings). It has no elemental weaknesses so all Magick is equally effective here. Whoever is wielding a gun (Balthier?) should be attacking normally and ideally with the Silence Shot equipped so that you have a good chance of hindering the boss' ability to basically do any damage to you.

It's going to be a hell of a task trying to take this guy down, but I know one method (aside from hours of powerleveling) that should help you get through the battle. That is of course, the biggest chain of back-to-back Quickenings you can possibly muster.

You're going to need one of two things: either a lot of Ethers, or a Quickening on each of your characters. This won't be difficult assuming you (like myself) allow LP to pile up on the characters you don't use. Make sure as many members of your (six person) party have Quickenings before the battle begins.

The first thing to do (go figure) is to use a Mist Quickening. You're looking at ideally trying to chain eight hits or more (though sometimes that's just impossible). Actually I've seen six hit chains do more damage than 8 hits on occasion, so there is a random element there as well.

4000 damage (or less) is bad. 8000 damage (or more) is great. 6000 damage is acceptable. Use that as a gauge for how you are doing. I would estimate the boss' total HP at around 20,000.

After the first Quickening, wait. Wait until someone is hit with the X-Zone effect and removed from the battle. This will inevitably happen every time. After that, start replacing that X-Zone'd person with whoever is on reserve. Now use their Quickening, then sub them with another, use their Quickening, etc. This should ideally yield four Quickenings without using any Ethers.

Boss still isn't dead? Resort to Ethers. Use them on anyone with low MP (so it fills it to the max) and then use another Quickening. Given the randomness of Quickening chains and damage, if you fail the first, second or even third time, there's no reason you won't win on the fourth. Keep trying.

** An interesting point to note is that the boss' speed seems unaffected by battle speed, thus increasing the battle speed to maximum should give you a serious advantage (it won't make any difference while you are spamming Quickenings.)

The difficulty of the Demon Wall brings back memories of a similarly difficult boss in Final Fantasy VII, however this time around we have a few more tools at our disposal to ease the plight. Your goal is to stop the boss (by killing it) before it is able to either cut your party down, or smear them into a thin paste against the wall.

First and foremost are the Gambits you will need to set up. This boss will constantly inflict negative status ailments on your party, the most debilitating of which is Sleep. A sleeping party member is one more party member not mowing this boss down before the inevitable paste-ing.

Create a Gambit to automatically use an Alarm Clock on the sleeping character, or (if you find yourself in my shoes) and have none, create a Gambit for your weakest character to attack any sleeping party members. Just remember you may need to manually do it yourself should the character with the Gambit succumb to Sleep.

An interesting aspect to this battle are the torches on the side of the path. When you examine and touch them, they will either speed up or slow the boss' movements. Obviously this can be either good or bad. I'm not sure whether the effect is random, but I will just say that in my case (starting from the door and toward the boss) the THIRD set of two both slowed the boss down. You can experiment with them as you see fit, just remember you can still easily take him out without the help of torches.

Offense-wise, just stick with the usual tricks. MP should be saved for powerful Cure spells like Cura. Avoid Cure like the Plague in this battle. If you want a quick heal, use Potions, if you're going to die, use Cura. You don't have the time to sit around charging weak spells like that. Additionally, since the boss' defense is relatively average, your best bet for the most damage in the least amount of time is simply normal physical attacks.

Finally, I would note that this is a perfect battle to let loose some insane chained Quickenings right at the beginning. They may deplete your MP, but with any luck you'll be looking at between 5000 - 10000 damage (assuming you chain at least a few of them.) With that much of a punch from the start, you won't even need the lost MP to heal.

** As I mentioned above from those who did not fight the previous boss, an interesting point to note is that the boss' speed seems unaffected by battle speed, thus increasing the battle speed to maximum should give you a serious advantage.

Your very first battle with an Esper. There are a few things that may surprise you about this battle. The first surprise comes when your basic intuition that shouts "Ice spells against fire enemy" yield damages in the 30 - 50 range. For whatever reason, Blizzard (and to extend that, almost all magic, especially Fire) is ineffective against him. If you want to do damage, stick with physical attacks and Quickenings.

The second surprise is how utterly slow this boss is. He attacks maybe once, for every two or three attacks you do, and while it may be powerful, you are just as likely to end up blocking it and go for lengthy periods of time without taking any damage at all.

That all changes of course when he charges up and explodes into a fiery inferno, damaging every character on the field. This attack seems devastating until you casually drop a single Cura spell only to realize your party is nearly at full health again.

There's no substitute for a good offense here, and while I still assert that his attacks are weak considering his size and status, they will no doubt get the better of you if you let the battle drag on too long.

Obviously those wielding the Demonsbane will have this boss down cut down six ways from Sunday with their sword slashing efficiency. For the majority of players, you'll have to play the patience card. Just gradually whittle down Belias' HP and don't forget to stop and heal whenever he musters up the energy to bash you with that giant metal doily of his.