Current Events > Finally beat Yiazmat in FF 12 Zodiac Age, the ultimate boss. 50 million HP!

(+) Yeah! (+)

And that's it, I've finally done everything I wanted to in this game. I couldn't believe I beat trial 100, but I did. Didn't think I'd beat the omega mark but I did. And now I've beaten yiazmat as well!

That's all the marks done.
---

He's a bit easier/faster in Zodiac Age no? Since it has a higher damage cap than the original game (I think 9999 damage compared to 999).

I remember spending a solid hour beating him in the original game with the optimal stuff like Genji Gloves Muramasa (I think that's what it was?), that best gun with dark bullets, etc.

---

I remember people would occasionally post on the board about how they accidentally healed him back to full health by using Renew/Full Cure instead of Curaga. He casts reflect on your party when he gets low on health and people usually have gambits set up for healing, imagine wasting all that time only to full heal him back to 50,000,000 hp lmao.

---

Oh I'm assuming definitely easier, I didn't bother doing half the stuff in the original game, I can't even imagine beating yiazmat with that stupid damage cap. Especially since he forces your attack to drop by a third so it becomes even lower than 9999, which is already pretty low and damn tedious.
---

Touch posted...

He's a bit easier/faster in Zodiac Age no? Since it has a higher damage cap than the original game (I think 9999 damage compared to 999).

I remember spending a solid hour beating him in the original game with the optimal stuff like Genji Gloves Muramasa (I think that's what it was?), that best gun with dark bullets, etc.

9999 was the cap in the original. Zodiac Age has no attainable damage cap apparently.

---

MC_BatCommander posted...

9999 was the cap in the original. Zodiac Age has no attainable damage cap apparently.

There ya go. Thanks for the clarification

---

What's funny is that I beat the superbosses with my B team. Ever since trial 100 I've beaten the final trial and the ultimate enemies with what I consider my B Team.

Throughout the entire game my main party has been Vaan, Balthier, and Fran. Leaving Basch, Ashe and Penelo as the substitute team for emergencies.

But Basch, Ashe and Penelo are actually the team that prevailed against those enemies. Maybe it's because team A wore the enemies down for team B to swoop in for the victory. Maybe it's because I gave Zodiark to Basch (whose summon pretty much saved my bacon against trial 100 and facing off against all 5 judges, all souped up on steroids) but the sub team won the day.
---

I beat him on the PS2 version when I played it back when it first came out. On my recent playthrough of Zodiac Age, I didn't even bother, remembering how long it took previously.

I guess it doesn't take as long in Zodiac Age though? I probably won't go back to it just to beat him

---

Basch Ashe and Vaan are the three strongest characters in the game stats-wise. Fran and Penelo are the worst. Maybe that's why?

---

i just cant bring myself to even try RPG superbosses. Its usually more about the prep than the actual battle, and grinding for all these skill and equipment is too boring. >_>

but congrats lol. Must feel great

---

AlCalavicci posted...

I beat him on the PS2 version when I played it back when it first came out. On my recent playthrough of Zodiac Age, I didn't even bother, remembering how long it took previously.

I guess it doesn't take as long in Zodiac Age though? I probably won't go back to it just to beat him

Oh it still takes a long time, over an hour, nearly 2 with me and that's with me intermittently speeding up when I felt I set up my gambits just right (still needed manual override a lot of the time, especially with his damn instant death attack that's unblockable!)

I'm surprised you weren't tempted to try though with Zodiac Age, I wanted to try the new features like the job system as well as how old things like marks felt while using the new stuff like jobs.
---

Touch posted...

There ya go. Thanks for the clarification

In addition to this they added new invisible weapons that are much stronger than anything else in the game and don't need licenses to equip

---

Highwind07 posted...

I beat him on the original PS2 version. It took me a while to realize that strafing and hitting him with that one dark elemental dagger was the way to go, but I spent so much time and money just to beat him.

Him and the other superbosses were basically what the elixirs and such I'd been saving the entire game were finally for. I had 99 phoenix downs and at the end of the fight I was down to 10 (items have no cast time and I needed every millisecond for this dude)
---

Tyranthraxus posted...

In addition to this they added new invisible weapons that are much stronger than anything else in the game and don't need licenses to equip

Yeah. IIRC I was the one who told saspa about the Seitengreit 100% method. If not, I remember telling someone here about it lol.

Makes me wonder if low hp Genji gloves Muramasa (or was it masamune or the daggers??) is still the top dps option for yiazmat

---

Touch posted...

Yeah. IIRC I was the one who told saspa about the Seitengreit 100% method. If not, I remember telling someone here about it lol.

Makes me wonder if low hp Genji gloves Muramasa (or was it masamune or the daggers??) is still the top dps option for yiazmat

Seitengrat is like just one of 3 I think. Although you can get multiple copies of each one. Seitengrat IIRC is the earliest one you can get.

---

I beat him on a couple different playthroughs in the original PS2 version. The second playthrough was when I 100%ed the game, with every Sky Pirate Den thingy, every boss beaten, every item obtained - I even, quite miraculously, managed to get my hands on a Danjuro. So since every character was at level 99 by the time I got to fight Yiazmat, I had the freedom to use every character equally as well as being able to use 'favorite' equipment over pure optimization; for instance I gave Ashe the Danjuro and based her equipment around maximizing it, since there was no way I wasn't using the damn thing for the small window of time I still had left with the game. Was a lot more fun the second time over the first.

Funny thing was that Vaan w/ Yagyu Darkblade ended up being the MVP of the fight, since I hadn't realized before then that Yiazmat had a weakness to Dark (nor did I ever expect an uberboss to have an elemental weakness).

---

AlisLandale posted...

i just cant bring myself to even try RPG superbosses. Its usually more about the prep than the actual battle, and grinding for all these skill and equipment is too boring. >_>

but congrats lol. Must feel great

I almost entirely avoid playing games that require what I call "active grinding" where I'm in a dungeon or whatever only for that one thing, grinding.

For me all the equipment, levels, skills etc should be acquired through my natural exploration of an area so that it never feels boring, and then at the end when I've gained 10 levels and found the best casting spell, it felt organic instead of me setting time for how I enjoy the game just to "grind"
---

I also really like that you can get the Wyrmhero Blade through trials instead of having to wait to beat Yiazmat and having nothing to use it on afterwards

---

Seitengrat isn't just the earliest weapon (right at the beginning of the game) it's also the easiest, and outright insane just how much damage it deals. The way it so easily outclasses the zodiac spear from vanilla ff12... just an amazingly fun weapon to use. Just a shame that they didn't bother giving the super weapons a model, just any texture model would do, instead of making them invisible for whatever reason.

Definitely glad I was told about it.
---

Mmhmm. Not only that but it's ranged so safer/easier to hit stuff AND it gives you an insane dodge bonus (50%+ IIRC correctly?)

---

Highwind07 posted...

I had to keep going back to the Port to buy Phoenix Downs since whenever he started doing that 12 combo attack it is R.I.P

I basically had Reverse on the entire time, I didn't even care. The idea of constantly healing was too much, when I could just have 1 or 2 of my characters constantly cast Reverse on my party so that I didn't worry about damage anymore. It's apparently a cheap strategy, one that I stumbled onto during the last 4 trials and was like "holy shit, I only just now discover this game changer after beating the game"

It was just trial 100 where it's no longer useful since those damn smart judges actually throw elixirs at you, those damn AI!
---

Touch posted...

Mmhmm. Not only that but it's ranged so safer/easier to hit stuff AND it gives you an insane dodge bonus (50%+ IIRC correctly?)

Yeah it's easily the best one, it can hit all enemy types. Even if there was a sword that did more damage, I would actually be shit out of luck when facing a flying enemy because attacks wouldn't connect without constantly casting telekinesis.
---

It feels good to have beat all those bosses, a great send off to the game and series overall. It wasn't perfect, and there are a few things I'd criticize about it, but a fun game all in all.
---

saspa posted...

It feels good to have beat all those bosses, a great send off to the game and series overall. It wasn't perfect, and there are a few things I'd criticize about it, but a fun game all in all.

Indeed. Story was hit or miss but I enjoyed 12. People get too hung up on Vaan and Penelo or "bUt tHe GaMe pLaYs iTsElF!!!" as if you're forced to use gambits for every single thing and as if repeatedly tapping X to do stuff in other entries was engaging gameplay

---

Yeah it's a shame focus was pulled from Basch or Balthier, who I would have liked to see more, and the political intrigue in the Archades empire with the senate and emperor could have been really good if it wasn't just waved by them easily being gotten rid of. There was just something missing from the game for an extra oomph.

I personally loved the idea of a political jrpg, something different from the same old story that's been done in every other jrpg... but then they introduced the occuria and kept reiterating "reigns of history in the hands of man" and went absolutely nowhere with it.

Just a shame since this was the last final fantasy that could have made the series go out with a bang.

But I enjoyed the gambit system, and removing damage caps was definitely a point in its favor for me.
---

Congrats. I got the platinum on FF12 Zodiac when it dropped. Had over 100 hours on the file. Would have been a lot more if it didnt have a fast forward feature. Fun game, but not in my top FF games. Probably somewhere in the middle.

I did beat the superboss of DQXI on the Switch recently though.

---

I never understood the notion of "Making the boss long and boring means it's epic"

Yiazmat is just so boring
---

Yiazmat is so much easier in the remastered version simply due to the facts that you can break his attack until he barely deals any damage.

---

Grats!

It felt good when I beat him since I never did on the original. Pretty sure I was cruising so I didn't save then got destroyed in the last 20%. I definitely struggled though near the end, so much death. I wonder if summons would have helped me because I honestly forget they exist.

---

why are people pretending yiazmat is hard in 2020, even back when the game came out most people knew that he was a joke compared to omega who actually required some semblance of strategy

Reiss posted...

why are people pretending yiazmat is hard in 2020, even back when the game came out most people knew that he was a joke compared to omega who actually required some semblance of strategy

I remember back in early gamefaqs someone talked about how he could be beat Yiazmat with the right Gambits in place without you even touching the controller. That you could leave the system on overnight and come back and he'd be dead.

yeah you could do that, I literally did that

Ivany2008 posted...

I remember back in early gamefaqs someone talked about how he could be beat Yiazmat with the right Gambits in place without you even touching the controller. That you could leave the system on overnight and come back and he'd be dead.

Is that about gambits?

I thought there was just a spot you could stand where Yiazmat can't attack you but won't trigger him healing himself either
---

The first part of fighting him legit is setting up the right stuff, but once you are done with setup, the rest is tedium and waiting. So I was glad Zodiac Age added the fast forward feature.

---

KainWind posted...

Grats!

It felt good when I beat him since I never did on the original. Pretty sure I was cruising so I didn't save then got destroyed in the last 20%. I definitely struggled though near the end, so much death. I wonder if summons would have helped me because I honestly forget they exist.

They helped me exclusively with trial mode. Did you do trial 100? Near the end of the main game I realized that I hadn't bothered with summons once besides seeing one or two animations, and after getting all 13 Espers I wondered if I would ever even use them.

But then I was struggling over and over in the final stage of trial mode against all the judges who were the closest thing to intelligent AI with their constant elixir throwing and healing each other and such, I could see no way to win. Out of desperation I summoned some of my level 3 summons like Ultima and Zodiark. And that's when I noticed that Zodiark's signature long (unskippable for some reason?) summon attack hits all the judges for 60,000 damage. And my eyes lit up, I realized this was my only chance at winning. If I were to even have a chance at killing 2 or 3 judges out of the 5 so I don't feel so overwhelmed, it was through Zodiark.

What's weird is that they got rid of the esper summoning animation without an option in config to toggle between short/long animation, yet no skip feature for their long technick attack animation. So the summoning animation is just a fade to white where you stare at a blank white screen for a bit.
---

UnicornWizard posted...

Congrats. I got the platinum on FF12 Zodiac when it dropped. Had over 100 hours on the file. Would have been a lot more if it didnt have a fast forward feature. Fun game, but not in my top FF games. Probably somewhere in the middle.

I did beat the superboss of DQXI on the Switch recently though.

Fast forward feature was such a godsend. You know that whole "oh, I'm going the right way, need to turn back" in a dungeon? With quadruple speed now it no longer feels tedious, so you can go to that endlessly long corridor in a dungeon that has the hidden treasure of a mid-tier weapon/possibly useful spell and back to where you initially wanted to go in the blink of an eye. It no longer feels like tedium which is a note that jrpg developers should probably keep in mind, that long winding dungeons lose their fun factor if they're just stretched out for no reason. I also clocked in at nearly 100 hours so that's a testament to how fun it was and how much time was invested even with quadruple speed.
---

UnfairRepresent posted...

I thought there was just a spot you could stand where Yiazmat can't attack you but won't trigger him healing himself either

I know there's a way (at least in the original, I'm not sure if it works in TZA but it probably does) you can stand in the hallway such that you can pelt him with dark magic but he can't get to you, at least not physically since I think he still has some magic to use but it definitely gets out of the way of his death combo claw swipes which are the biggest threat, especially as he gets lower in health.

---

saspa posted...

They helped me exclusively with trial mode. Did you do trial 100? Near the end of the main game I realized that I hadn't bothered with summons once besides seeing one or two animations, and after getting all 13 Espers I wondered if I would ever even use them.

I don't think I actually did the trials. Yiazmat was easily the hunt I had the most trouble with.

---

did you get the spear?

---

The zodiac spear? The seitengrat is so much stronger than the zodiac spear it's not even comparable. Before getting the game I wanted to see if the zodiac spear was still in the game and then was told that it was outclassed by so many better weapons.
---

Now that I've beaten the game... I don't know what to play next.
---

saspa posted...

Now that I've beaten the game... I don't know what to play next.

This War of Mine
---

I'm thinking of switching to switch for a while, maybe try that luigi's mansion 3. Just a light single player game, non rpg intensive or anything like that.
---

Touch posted...

He's a bit easier/faster in Zodiac Age no? Since it has a higher damage cap than the original game (I think 9999 damage compared to 999).

I remember spending a solid hour beating him in the original game with the optimal stuff like Genji Gloves Muramasa (I think that's what it was?), that best gun with dark bullets, etc.

... you beat him in AN HOUR?!

i setup my gambits and walked away from the game for like 4-5 hours and when i came back he was at like 10% HP lol

i did not do the genji gloves / masamune setup for max dps though, i geared up for survival.

---

Such a boring and forgettable boss. I'm glad most games have done away with these ridiculously long marathon battles.

---

Giant_Aspirin posted...

... you beat him in AN HOUR?!

i setup my gambits and walked away from the game for like 4-5 hours and when i came back he was at like 10% HP lol

i did not do the genji gloves / masamune setup for max dps though, i geared up for survival.

Yeah. Like I said, IIRC I had the optimal stuff and I think he and Omega was all I had left to do in the game.

---

Prismsblade posted...

Such a boring and forgettable boss. I'm glad most games have done away with these ridiculously long marathon battles.

IDK I like marathon battles but they have to be actually interesting. Dragon's Stand from GW2 is probably the best fight in any RPG.

---

Prismsblade posted...

Such a boring and forgettable boss. I'm glad most games have done away with these ridiculously long marathon battles.

I don't typically like these kind of bosses, if at all, but removing the damage cap certainly helped. I didn't know if I was even gonna attempt the boss this time around but I did and am glad I beat him.
---