Scene: Chapter 5

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Location: Mushroom Rock Road

Lucil is really quite easy to beat, especially if you've levelled up any this chapter. The worst thing she'll do is cast Doom on each of your party members in quick succession. This is encouragement for you to finish her quickly.

Rikku isn't that intense of a battle. The hardes part about the battle is that Rikku is exceptionally fast and she hits fairly hard. Use your strongest attacks to take her down quickly, recovering with Hi-Potions as needed.

Paine hits a good deal harder than Rikku does so she'll take your life down more quickly if you're not careful. If necessary use an X-Potion. Again, attack with your hardest attacks to take her down quickly.

Barelai is fast and powerful. He's a lot like the time you fought him in Bevelle but he's learned some new tricks. He has attacks that will siphon your MP and silence any spellcasters. Therefore you'll want to avoid magic usage. Instead use heavy physical attacks from dresspheres like Dark Knight. You'll want to keep your health up because Barelai uses a powerful attack where he swings his staff to attack the entire party. You won't want to be caught unprepared for that attack.

The battle with Gippal can get nasty really quickly. The positive side is that he's not as anti-magic as Barelai. He will occasionally use a Hush Grenade on someone but it shouldn't hinder you too much. However, Gippals attacks are hard, frequent, and directed at the entire party. As his HP drops he'll perform his stronger attacks like Bullseye and Mortar much more frequently. When his HP drops below 5000 every attack he does is devastating. To counteract these problems you'll need an Alchemist healing every round. Then you'll want your attackers using the highest level spells they have (like Flare) and the hardest physical attacks. If you up a Dark Knight's HP they should be able to do significant damage with the Darkness ability.

Nooj is by far the most difficult battle in the Den of Woe. Be prepared to die a few times before you get your tactics ironed out. Nooj uses powerful attacks that in the beginning can do more than 1500 damage to a character. He is also extremely anti-magic. He will drain the MP from all of your characters at once. When he drops below 3000 HP he will use an attack that deals over 5000 points of damage to all three characters in one shot. You can attempt to take out Nooj using heavy physical attackers and an Alchemist but we recommend using either Machina Maw or Full Throttle. Both have extremely low (or non existent) MP costs and the ability to restore MP to any member. They hopefully have their power up items by this point which allow Break Damage and Break HP Limit. Both are extremely helpful. Of course if you're doing this battle really late in the game you might have garment grids that allow these abilities without being in a special dressphere.