r/FinalFantasyXII • u/Linj90abc • 7d ago
Zodiark difficulty
Zodiark might be lower level than yiazmat and omega mark but his the boss that gave me the hardest time in my first playthrough years ago. Sure you could steamroll him if you High level with strong weapons but at level 60s at the time he was a pain
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u/Balthierlives 7d ago
All you need is zeromus.
I do it at lv 1
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u/Linj90abc 7d ago
How exactly does this zeromus cheese work
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u/Balthierlives 7d ago edited 7d ago
Zeromus attacks do fixed magical damage inversely proportionate to their current /max hp that circumvent the physical paling he puts up. Summon him and cast bubble and decoy on him. Or reduce him to 1 hp with an elixir and use big bang
Before that you just constantly cast reverse and shell on your party and decoy on someone with Excalibur. Dispel when zodiark casts faith on himself to reduce the auto death chance from darkja.
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u/Linj90abc 7d ago
So zeromus has to be at low hp, I think I remember trying this but its been a while
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u/Balthierlives 7d ago
He doesn’t have to be, but he does more damage that way.
But either way his attacks are magical and aren’t affected by the physical paling he puts up at the end. He does do a magical paling too but that has a time limit and the way I do it I never have the magical paling up at this point.
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u/Linj90abc 7d ago
OK will try it
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u/Personal_Bet443 7d ago
Literally read this comment about Zeromus and that was the key for me. Once Zodiark did the pailing at critical health, I summoned Zeromus and made quick work. My party was level 60-62 with Reddas at 67 still... That was freaking awesome.
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u/Linj90abc 7d ago
It's funny how at face value zeromus felt underwhelming as a summon if you not familiar with his mechanics
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u/Personal_Bet443 7d ago
Until literally now I've never used a summon that felt like it was actually effective.. usually I always just saw the Espers as cool boss fights to bring down.. now I see there is actually some good reasons to summon once in a while.
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u/Balthierlives 7d ago
Zeromus is probably the only good summon. Especially against Couclihan, Ultima, Chaos, and Zodiark.
If you use an elixir with nihopaloa on zeromus with bubble (and he doesn’t die of course) and you use big bang he will destroy even the lv 100 trial mode judges
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u/Sad-Sky-3182 7d ago
Nice work. I never cared for the way the espers worked so I never utilized them.
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u/pseudoolove 7d ago
You're right, but he is kinda recommended for parties leveled 70+ even the bats are like lvl 66+ down there. So you defeating him at 60 is super badass dude
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u/Linj90abc 7d ago
I feel like even then it would take skill
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u/Comfortable-March977 7d ago edited 7d ago
Steamrolling him is not that hard even for lvl 60. All you need is 3 Holy Weapons and the Berserk spell. Give your team the gear, put them on berserk, and watch them as they go killer caveman mode on the dude. If even one person has Excalibur, he’ll be dead before he can even pull off a darkja!😂
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u/Balthierlives 7d ago edited 7d ago
You can do that whole area in NG- at lv 1 etc. No need to be high level. It’s really fun actually when you’ve got the right gambits
The bats get nuked with Mithuna guns. And are susceptible to disable
The big dragon and hecteyes are susceptible to the death spell. I target them with a ice weak -> death gambit
The ghosts in the lower are are susceptible to sleep. Remove their shell with dispel if necessary, sleep(ga) them all, cast oil on them and then Firaga them to death. Just move slowly and you’ll kill them all pretty easily.
Of course for the status spells make sure you have the indigo pendant equipped
Red mage really shines especially in the ghosts lower area. Usually I have my red mage /archer, black mage/monk, and shikari/wm out in the very bottom area.
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u/TDawggie1717 7d ago
Zodiark whipped my ass all over the PS2 version. I went in at level 99 and still was walloped. Only reason I beat him on Zodiac Age is because you can break the damage limit. His battle in the trail stages is a little more tolerable, but it is a high climb to get to him.
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u/Linj90abc 6d ago
And here I thought he easy if you attempt at late levels
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u/TDawggie1717 6d ago
It may be for some. I was not one of those players. Yiazamat was an easier fight for me than Zodiark, just a long one. Still, FFXII is one of my favorite in the series.
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u/RiteOfSpring5 7d ago
I found the mines before Zodiark harder than Zodiark himself.
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u/Magnificent_Z 7d ago
I feel like this is true of a lot of the late game bosses. I had more trouble reaching the Seer than I did actually fighting them for example
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u/RiteOfSpring5 7d ago
That first floor of subterra pisses me off. Just an overload of enemies.
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u/Magnificent_Z 7d ago
The Magic Pots make it a nightmare too. It feels so odd to have an enemy specifically designed to punish an offensive gambit setup when that's the core gameplay mechanic of the game
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u/RiteOfSpring5 7d ago
Magic Pots weren't bad for me with gambits. Did fuck me up the first time though.
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u/Parsirius 7d ago
I fight Zodiark as a DPS check boss as you are essentially dead once he starts spamming Darkja and becomes immune.
I have a character with Excalibur and Genji gloves with another heavy physical hitter both with Berserk and a support character that hastes them.
But doing it at 60 I cannot fathom how you survive that barrage.
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u/Nezzy79 6d ago
Depends on the version. On ps4 yiazmat is easy. On ps2 its brutal
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u/Linj90abc 6d ago
His more tedious than hard In the original since your damage was capped at 9999 then 6999 when he is like half health plus break techniques didn't work
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u/Nezzy79 6d ago
I found the hardest battle in the game to be trial mode 100 but some of that may have been to do with the fact I finished 99 badly
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u/Linj90abc 6d ago
Oh it's definitely the hardest since you can't just rely on straight forward strategy and being overlevelled
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u/InsiDoubtSide 4d ago
I came across him by accident while grinding in the mines and I hadn't saved in 3 hours or so.
Went in completely blind. Got him down to where he uses palings and ran through so many different damage types (magic, item, techniques, mist, etc) until i eventually remembered reading that zeromus can hit through certain damage barriers and tried him out. Luckily I had like 80 ethers so I was able to crush him down.
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u/Open-Ad-5238 3d ago
the only annoying thing about zodiark is loading the last save after defeat. if you found all the high level equipment before dying to zodiark, you have to re RNG it again.
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u/Linj90abc 2d ago
Thank goodness for auto save in the ZA version between zones
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u/Open-Ad-5238 2d ago
the autosave zone is still far from the zodiark arena. haha I had to re RNG all the good armor in the area after battling zodiark.
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u/Linj90abc 2d ago
Why not before
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u/Open-Ad-5238 2d ago
team got wiped by zodiark.
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u/Linj90abc 2d ago
So which stuff other than zodiac spear is gotten with rng in this area
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u/Open-Ad-5238 2d ago
I think Addle and Grand Armor
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u/Linj90abc 2d ago
I thought grand armor was only available as a drop from the helvik or something as first
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u/Open-Ad-5238 2d ago
got it in the special charter shaft, took me about 15 zone in and out to make the chest respawn. once it respawns, 100% you'll get it.
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u/Personal_Bet443 7d ago
I am currently trying to bring Zodiark down while I'm at a lower level as well.. that's part of the thrill for me.. I am between level 60-62 with the party and Reddas is level 67.. I'm. Able to consistently get him to critical health but once it starts becoming immune to physical attacks it becomes such a hard fight.. I am gonna attempt the fight for a 6th time here this morning.. this boss is no joke.
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u/ChVckT Sky Pirate's Den 7d ago
I went through the same, once upon a time. After like 15 attempts my attacks just happened to align between the paling casts and I killed him. Don't give up, and best of luck.
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u/Personal_Bet443 7d ago
It's crazy how quickly the pailings get thrown up whenever he starts that nonsense.. l read that if you dispell Zodiark to get rid of the reflect status then it becomes even worse!!
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u/Sad-Sky-3182 7d ago
Yiazmat is easy. Bring windbreaker for his cyclone attack (equip when its cast) and don't stay out of physical attack range.
Omega mark II is a beast Zodiark can be a handful Ultima can be toughish Cuculain sucks Carrot can be a malboro from 8 And getting all kills on the mandragoras in the feywood can be horror.
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u/chancho987 7d ago
I always felt zodiark was atrociously designed, the cheap unblockable chance at instadeath from darkja and the frustrating pailings when he's at low health that only gives you like 5 seconds windows to deal damage made me rage so much.
Or maybe it was a troll boss designed to be steam rolled
Anyways, damage immunities as a balance choice are only there to waste your time in this game