Uploaded April 2019 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Promoted from status ailment
Discord: discord.gg/fdSaJv4
Lowdown on the restrictions of this challenge:
Ability Nodes Only (ANO) - You can only activate ability nodes, no raising characters' stats in anyway.
Own Sphere Grid (OSG) - Each character may not leave their own section of the sphere grid. Note that these rules combined mean you can still use key spheres to e.g. teach Lulu Doublecast, Yuna Auto-Life etc.
No Summons (NS) - Self-explanatory, Aeons are OP meatshields
No Overdrives (NO) - Mainly for getting rid of Rikku's Mix, which is ludicrously OP
No Items (NI) - No using items, in or out of battle. Chakra Drops, Revival Beads, Megido Rocks, all those classic FF staples are banned (you can still customize equipment though)
Initial equipment:
Tidus: (Strength +3%, One MP Cost, First Strike, Zombiestrike) + (Auto-Regen, Auto-Haste, Auto-Shell)
Kimahri: (Piercing, First Strike, Initiative) + (SOS Regen)
Auron: (Break Damage Limit, Triple Overdrive, First Strike, Counterattack) + (HP +30%, HP +20%, Defense +20%, Defense +10%)
Yuna: (One MP Cost, First Strike) + (Auto-Haste, SOS Reflect, Confuseproof, MP +30%)
Rikku: (One MP Cost, Magic Booster, Magic +20%, Magic +10%) + (Master Thief, Auto-Haste, SOS Reflect, Confuseproof)
Wakka: (One MP Cost, Slowtouch, Slowstrike, Zombiestrike) + (Auto-Haste)
Believe it or not, this is the fastest method I could come up with. Every 3 hits Bomb King will expand and the move he uses will change. He starts off with a regular physical attack, then switches to Fira, then Firaga, and finally Ultima. The only way to damage him without this happening is with counterattacks.
His defences are incredibly high, so the best way of inflicting damage is with Auron's Masamune. Not only do celestial weapons ignore defence, but this one also provides a nice damage bonus when Auron is on critical HP. With Protect, Sentinel, Cheer, and the right armour abilities, Auron can consistently survive BK's regular physical attack and hit back for ~1k.
The opening rounds must be performed precisely as they are here. The first attack might kill Auron - if it does you have to reset. Once you're past this you're set, but you need to fully heal him between every single enemy attack for the rest of the fight. This turns out to be trickier than it might seem, because Yuna is slightly slower than BK. Long story short, what this means is if you have Yuna in the front line all the time, you can end up in a situation where the turn order is Auron, BK, Rikku, BK which results in Auron dying since Rikku can't Copycat Curaga.
After 2 attempts ended like this I decided it was easier to use a front line of Rikku healing with Copycat and Kimahri (not hasted) changing weapons. Both these characters are guaranteed to always get an action between BK's attacks meaning you can switch Yuna in as needed for an emergency heal.
Beside all this, you also want to max out Luck and Jinx for extra crits. I also change Auron's armour to one with less max HP (+35%) once I've set up - this allows him to take the most possible %damage from BK's attacks while still surviving, which further boosts his damage output.
90 minutes is a very long time to go without making a stupid mistake, and if Auron ever dies it's impossible to recover, so this fight was pretty tense despite its repetitiveness. Around the 1:25:25 mark I decided to finish him off with Spare Change. I wasn't keeping track of his HP so I was just making an educated guess that it was safe to do this (He has 480k and I was doing about 5k damage per minute.) As long as he had 90k or less remaining when I started throwing macca then he'd die before I saw Ultima. I actually left it longer than necessary, but this still shaved ~12 minutes off the battle.
An alternative strategy would be to get him to spam fire magic on a character with Fireproof + Magic Counter. This would be less stressful, but would require Tidus' celestial weapon (which would mean playing the worst minigame ever conceived.) Plus, it would take 3 times longer.
Promoted from status ailment
Discord: discord.gg/fdSaJv4
Lowdown on the restrictions of this challenge:
Ability Nodes Only (ANO) - You can only activate ability nodes, no raising characters' stats in anyway.
Own Sphere Grid (OSG) - Each character may not leave their own section of the sphere grid. Note that these rules combined mean you can still use key spheres to e.g. teach Lulu Doublecast, Yuna Auto-Life etc.
No Summons (NS) - Self-explanatory, Aeons are OP meatshields
No Overdrives (NO) - Mainly for getting rid of Rikku's Mix, which is ludicrously OP
No Items (NI) - No using items, in or out of battle. Chakra Drops, Revival Beads, Megido Rocks, all those classic FF staples are banned (you can still customize equipment though)
Initial equipment:
Tidus: (Strength +3%, One MP Cost, First Strike, Zombiestrike) + (Auto-Regen, Auto-Haste, Auto-Shell)
Kimahri: (Piercing, First Strike, Initiative) + (SOS Regen)
Auron: (Break Damage Limit, Triple Overdrive, First Strike, Counterattack) + (HP +30%, HP +20%, Defense +20%, Defense +10%)
Yuna: (One MP Cost, First Strike) + (Auto-Haste, SOS Reflect, Confuseproof, MP +30%)
Rikku: (One MP Cost, Magic Booster, Magic +20%, Magic +10%) + (Master Thief, Auto-Haste, SOS Reflect, Confuseproof)
Wakka: (One MP Cost, Slowtouch, Slowstrike, Zombiestrike) + (Auto-Haste)
Believe it or not, this is the fastest method I could come up with. Every 3 hits Bomb King will expand and the move he uses will change. He starts off with a regular physical attack, then switches to Fira, then Firaga, and finally Ultima. The only way to damage him without this happening is with counterattacks.
His defences are incredibly high, so the best way of inflicting damage is with Auron's Masamune. Not only do celestial weapons ignore defence, but this one also provides a nice damage bonus when Auron is on critical HP. With Protect, Sentinel, Cheer, and the right armour abilities, Auron can consistently survive BK's regular physical attack and hit back for ~1k.
The opening rounds must be performed precisely as they are here. The first attack might kill Auron - if it does you have to reset. Once you're past this you're set, but you need to fully heal him between every single enemy attack for the rest of the fight. This turns out to be trickier than it might seem, because Yuna is slightly slower than BK. Long story short, what this means is if you have Yuna in the front line all the time, you can end up in a situation where the turn order is Auron, BK, Rikku, BK which results in Auron dying since Rikku can't Copycat Curaga.
After 2 attempts ended like this I decided it was easier to use a front line of Rikku healing with Copycat and Kimahri (not hasted) changing weapons. Both these characters are guaranteed to always get an action between BK's attacks meaning you can switch Yuna in as needed for an emergency heal.
Beside all this, you also want to max out Luck and Jinx for extra crits. I also change Auron's armour to one with less max HP (+35%) once I've set up - this allows him to take the most possible %damage from BK's attacks while still surviving, which further boosts his damage output.
90 minutes is a very long time to go without making a stupid mistake, and if Auron ever dies it's impossible to recover, so this fight was pretty tense despite its repetitiveness. Around the 1:25:25 mark I decided to finish him off with Spare Change. I wasn't keeping track of his HP so I was just making an educated guess that it was safe to do this (He has 480k and I was doing about 5k damage per minute.) As long as he had 90k or less remaining when I started throwing macca then he'd die before I saw Ultima. I actually left it longer than necessary, but this still shaved ~12 minutes off the battle.
An alternative strategy would be to get him to spam fire magic on a character with Fireproof + Magic Counter. This would be less stressful, but would require Tidus' celestial weapon (which would mean playing the worst minigame ever conceived.) Plus, it would take 3 times longer.
