Final Fantasy X: Dark Magus Sisters

The Magus Sisters are one of the superbosses in Final Fantasy X, as well as one of the Dark Aeons. This is the only boss that you can fight in two completely different ways: either separate the sisters, or fight them together.

Location

Dark Magus Sisters can be found on the Mushroom Rock Road, near the exit to the Mi’ihen Highroad. Once you run into one of the summoners, a short cutscene will begin where they will summon the Dark Aeons. This is when you choose whether you want to separate them or fight them together.

How to Separate the Dark Magus Sisters

If you want to fight them together, simply run into them immediately.
To separate the sisters, you must run down the valley. Once you get halfway through, Dark Cindy will give up the chase. You can either fight the remaining two together, or keep running.
If you reach the elevator at the end of the valley, Dark Mindy will give up the chase and you will fight Dark Sandy alone. You can then backtrack to fight Dark Mindy and Dark Cindy on their own.

Prep

For this fight, you will want your Sphere Grid completely filled, or at least close to being finished. You are also going to want your armor fully set up with passives to keep up your important buffs and keep your party alive. It’s a good idea for everyone to have their Celestial Weapons, too.

Strategy: Separated

Dark Sandy

Dark Sandy’s physical attacks inflict Stone on the character hit. She can also use Razzia, which deals around 170,000 physical damage and removes Auto-Life. Her Overdrive is Mega-Graviton, dealing 7/16ths of the party’s maximum HP. The Overdrive also inflicts Doom, Slow, Sleep, Darkness, and Silence. Her Overdrive gauge increases by 5% when being attacked, and by 20% when attacking.

ffx dark magus sisters 3 — *Dark Sandy using Razzia*

At 2,500,000 HP, Dark Sandy could be defeated quickly. Using Quick Hit will be the fastest way to deal damage to her, along with high-damaging Overdrives. Keep everyone’s HP above half to survive Mega-Graviton, and use Esuna on any party members without ‘Ribbon’ afterwards.

Dark Mindy

Dark Mindy’s main attack is Passado, which will hit one character 15 times and instantly kill them if they don’t have ‘Ribbon’ or ‘Deathproof.’ She can also use Calamity, which will inflict Curse, Poison, Darkness, Silence, and Full Break on one target. Like Dark Sandy, her Overdrive is Mega-Graviton. Her Overdrive gauge increases by 5% when being attacked, and by 20% when attacking.

ffx dark magus sister 5 — *Dark Mindy using Passado*

While Dark Mindy only has 2,000,000 HP, she is the most evasive enemy in the game. You will need 205 Luck to guarantee that your physical attacks won’t miss. If your Luck isn’t high enough, Aim, Luck, and Jinx will help with hitting her. She has low Magic Defense, meaning that using Doublecast Ultima or Flare will do a good amount of damage as well.

You can use Dispel to get rid of the Full Break, Holy Water to cure Curse, and Esuna to cure the rest of the negative status effects from Calamity and Mega-Graviton.

Dark Cindy

Dark Cindy’s physical attack will Dispel the character attacked. She can also use Cascade, which deals around 120,000 HP to one character and damages their MP. Like her sisters, her Overdrive is Mega-Graviton. Her Overdrive gauge increases by 5% when being attacked, and by 20% when attacking.

ffx dark magus sister 4 — *Dark Cindy using Cascade*

At 3,000,000 HP, Dark Cindy has the highest health of the Dark Magus Sisters. The quickest way to take her down will be with Quick Hit. However, since she has low Magic Defense, Doublecast Ultima and Flare will deal great damage as well. Keep everyone’s HP above half to survive Mega-Graviton, and have Esuna ready for the status effects. Auto-Phoenix or Auto-Life will help keep everyone alive (just keep in mind that you will have to recast Auto-Life on anyone who takes a physical attack).

Strategy: Together

If you decide to fight the sisters together, this becomes arguably the hardest fight in the game. On top of having to deal with all of their individual abilities at the same time, they now have access to Delta Attack when all of their Overdrive gauges are full. In addition, they will be full immediately at the start of the fight (however, only Dark Cindy can use the Overdrive). Delta Attack deals 99,999 damage to the entire party six times and removes Auto-Life.

The ONLY way to survive Delta Attack in the beginning is to summon an Aeon to take the hit for you. Preferably, you want to summon the Magus Sisters, as any other Aeon can potentially get killed before Dark Cindy’s turn, causing your party to get hit by the Overdrive.

ffx dark magus sister 2 — *Delta Attack on your party will cause an instant game over*

After surviving Delta Attack, you will want to kill one of the sisters before their Overdrives fill again. Doublecast Ultima and Overdrives that hit all enemies (such as Tornado and Attack Reels) are a good way to damage all three of them at once.

However, if you only use these attacks, all of their gauges will fill together, giving you less time before they cast Delta Attack again. If only one of them has their Overdrive gauge full, they will waste it on using Mega-Graviton on their next turn. Because of this, it’s better to focus on one of them with Quick Hits and Flares first while using some attacks to damage all of them. Dark Sandy would be the quickest one to take down, since she has the lowest HP.

Once you kill one of the sisters, they will no longer be able to use Delta Attack and the fight becomes a lot more manageable. Having Auto-Life or Auto-Phoenix will keep everyone alive through all of the attacks. In addition, have Dispel, Holy Waters, and Esuna ready to deal with the various negative status effects the three can put on your party.