Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
I am not exactly doing a mandatory encounters only challenge, I just tried to finish the game's bosses for as low as possible on my own terms (and for a challenge I am doing later). I recall this boss being a hurdle for people genuinely running Low Level, to the point that they have to get to 53 to get Thunder Call for on-demand shock stunlock strategies (for the record, you can get Thor at level 52 with an accident, that's how I got him here). But I noticed a little quirk to this boss' AI that may not need that.
In essence, this boss is The Reaper without Break skills. Instantly going for Almighty spells the moment a -karn skill is applied. The same occurs if you go solo and have null/drain/repel all. But if you are with a party while the protagonist repels magic, the latter AI quirk does not occur since technically, the protagonist is not alone.
Do this until the boss is below 50% HP, which is where phase 2 occurs. The World Balance changes its strategy to IKs and more Almighty spam in general. Due to the lower amount of skills to pick, the World Balance picking Almighty is much more likely than the first phase. But I have seen runs where they went for IKs more than 6 turns in a row so in theory, this can be passed through with enough luck. But I would imagine that this is not a fun idea, so my idea is to reduce the amount of times the World Balance can choose to use Almighty by stunlocking them using Deathbound. What this does is allow the members to revive and help to push them to the last phase. While this occurs, try to set up a final nuke to push them below 25-20% HP (In my case, I am using Surt sword but I would imagine a Mind Charged dyne works better or Boost Amp Spear Master Gae Bolg for a low level setting).
Whatever the case may be, the final push to this last phase gets you back to repel magic strategies. So whoever you used for the last attack must repel most or all magic as well. I believe in general, a weakness being open makes them less likely to use almighty, so I had Yukari's weakness not covered (This is my speculation at the moment). But as you can see, you can win with a repel at the end. Although in theory, you can stunlock them for longer to have everyone alive, but that is unreasonable amounts of luck at that point.
While I *am* at a lower level by one for this fight in comparison to the others here (Which is also eligible for Thunder Call stunlocks), I believe this repel magic strategy can be adapted for lower leveled settings, but it will be much harder.
I am not exactly doing a mandatory encounters only challenge, I just tried to finish the game's bosses for as low as possible on my own terms (and for a challenge I am doing later). I recall this boss being a hurdle for people genuinely running Low Level, to the point that they have to get to 53 to get Thunder Call for on-demand shock stunlock strategies (for the record, you can get Thor at level 52 with an accident, that's how I got him here). But I noticed a little quirk to this boss' AI that may not need that.
In essence, this boss is The Reaper without Break skills. Instantly going for Almighty spells the moment a -karn skill is applied. The same occurs if you go solo and have null/drain/repel all. But if you are with a party while the protagonist repels magic, the latter AI quirk does not occur since technically, the protagonist is not alone.
Do this until the boss is below 50% HP, which is where phase 2 occurs. The World Balance changes its strategy to IKs and more Almighty spam in general. Due to the lower amount of skills to pick, the World Balance picking Almighty is much more likely than the first phase. But I have seen runs where they went for IKs more than 6 turns in a row so in theory, this can be passed through with enough luck. But I would imagine that this is not a fun idea, so my idea is to reduce the amount of times the World Balance can choose to use Almighty by stunlocking them using Deathbound. What this does is allow the members to revive and help to push them to the last phase. While this occurs, try to set up a final nuke to push them below 25-20% HP (In my case, I am using Surt sword but I would imagine a Mind Charged dyne works better or Boost Amp Spear Master Gae Bolg for a low level setting).
Whatever the case may be, the final push to this last phase gets you back to repel magic strategies. So whoever you used for the last attack must repel most or all magic as well. I believe in general, a weakness being open makes them less likely to use almighty, so I had Yukari's weakness not covered (This is my speculation at the moment). But as you can see, you can win with a repel at the end. Although in theory, you can stunlock them for longer to have everyone alive, but that is unreasonable amounts of luck at that point.
While I *am* at a lower level by one for this fight in comparison to the others here (Which is also eligible for Thunder Call stunlocks), I believe this repel magic strategy can be adapted for lower leveled settings, but it will be much harder.
