Superbosses are optional bosses in Final Fantasy X that are harder than any enemy you will find going through the normal story. There are a total of 12 superbosses in the game, and they can all be found once you have access to the airship (though a couple require extra steps to unlock).
There is a lot of prep work required to prepare yourself for these enemies, especially the hardest of the bosses. In the sections below we will outline the central information and useful tips to help you with this endeavor.
To take on the superbosses, you will need to get each character’s Celestial Weapon, at least for the main three characters you want in your party. The main reason for this is because the weapons have an automatic Piercing effect, which allows them to ignore an enemy’s Defense. This is essential: without it you will barely do any damage to the later bosses, even if all of your stats are maxed out.
Maxing Out Stats
Another important thing for superbosses is your stats. For the later bosses, you will need to get most of your stats maxed out (all stats cap at 255), and this will require a lot of farming for both AP and Spheres to fill out your Sphere Grid.
The only stats you need to get to 255 are Strength, Defense, Magic, and Magic Defense. There is no need to get Agility past 170, and getting Luck to 130 will already guarantee that your attacks hit just about every boss (with the only exception being Dark Mindy, requiring at least 205 Luck). Evasion and Accuracy are negligible.
Kimahri with superboss-ready stats
There are two options for how you want to handle your HP. You can leave it maxed out at 9999, or you can get armor with the ‘Break HP Limit’ passive effect and max it out to 99,999. Note that while it is possible, it’s harder to completely max out your HP on top of maxing your stats in the Expert Sphere Grid, as there are less nodes overall.
Either way is viable, but will require different setups. Getting your max MP close to 999 is good, and there is no need to break the limit for 9999.
The last step that you will need to take to get ready for these bosses is your armor. You will want to customize armor for your characters to give them a setup that works on every boss to help you survive. There are two different armor setups you can use, depending on if you decide to break your HP limit or not.
If you choose to stay at the base 9999 HP, you will need two sets of armor: one for most of the superbosses (in particular the Dark Aeons), and one for Penance. For the first set of armor, you will want the following effects:
Auto-Haste – You want your characters to get as many turns as possible during these fights. Having Auto-Haste means you will not have to spend a turn using Hastega, your party can’t be Slowed, and Haste will not be removed when a party member dies.
Auto-Protect – The majority of the attacks you will take during these fights are physical, so keeping Protect up at all times is very useful, and this will keep it from dropping at any point.
Auto Phoenix – During these fights, your party members WILL die, so being able to get them up immediately without wasting a turn will keep them running smoothly.
Ribbon – Many of the bosses will have negative status effects they can inflict on you, and Ribbon will negate almost all of them (you will still have to deal with some Instant Kill attacks though). While you will get a ‘free’ Ribbon once you unlock the Ultima Buster (you are rewarded with 99 Dark Matters), getting Ribbon for your entire party is extremely time consuming and unneeded, so it is recommended you give one piece of armor the Ribbon effect, and give the rest an alternative:
Stoneproof – While the negative status effects the bosses can inflict can be annoying, most of them are manageable. However, some of them are able to inflict Stone on you, and if a party member dies while Stoned, they will be removed from battle entirely. Stoneproof will prevent this from happening, and is far easier to create than Ribbon is.
Once you reach Penance, you will want a different set of passives on your armor, which is Auto-Haste, Auto-Protect, Defense +20%, and Auto-Potion. Defense +20% (along with Auto-Protect), will prevent its attacks from killing your characters in one hit, and Auto-Potion will save you turns on healing yourself from the damage. For the best results on Auto-Potion, sell all of your Potions besides X-Potions, and stock up on at least 60-70 X-Potions.
If you do decide to break the HP Limit, you can use one set for every boss. You will want your armor to have Auto-Haste, Auto-Regen, Ribbon/Stoneproof, and Break HP Limit. With 99,999 HP, most attacks will not be able to one shot you, and the Regen will heal you for enough to where you won’t have to heal your characters frequently, and can focus more on attacking.
Kimahri with his Celestial Weapon and fully set armor
The easiest way to get the armor you need is to first buy some that have four blank spaces. You can get these from Wantz, who is in the Macalania Forest near the Thunder Plains entrance (each piece of armor will cost 100,000 gil). Then, farm the materials you need for each passive effect you want and customize the armors you are able to until they’re complete.
Farming Gil
You’re going to need a lot of gil to buy the required armor and to bribe monsters to get the materials for the various passives. The easiest way to farm gil will be in the Omega Ruins. Equip a weapon with the ‘Gillionaire’ passive (or use Rikku’s Celestial Weapon), and get into a random battle with a treasure chest. Use Steal on the treasure chest, and if it turns into the Mimic enemy, defeat it and finish the battle. With ‘Gillionaire,’ a Mimic will drop 100,000 gil every time, making this the easiest way to get gil quickly.
Superbosses and Locations
The following is a list of all of the Superbosses, and where you can find them.
Ultima Weapon can be found in the Omega Ruins, around halfway through the dungeon. At only 99,999 HP, this is by far the easiest superboss, but it can still do some damage if you’re not prepared, and has a few negative status effects to deal with.
Omega Weapon is the final boss in the Omega Ruins. It is similar to Ultima Weapon, but it hits harder, has a lot more HP (999,999), and has access to additional attacks such as Shimmering Rain. This is also one of two enemies that Kimahri can learn the Nova Overdrive from.
Nemesis is the final enemy in the Monster Arena. To unlock it, you must capture ten of every fiend in the arena, and defeat every monster in the Area Conquest, Species Conquest, and Original sections.
With 10,000,000 HP, and plenty of powerful attacks, this is one of the harder superbosses in the game, and one of the longest fights. This is one of two enemies that Kimahri can learn the Nova Overdrive from.
The easiest of the Dark Aeons, Dark Valefor can be found at the entrance to Besaid Village, where you will be forced to fight her if you try to enter. This is the only Dark Aeon that cannot break the damage limit with normal attacks, however her Energy Blast will deal around 50,000 damage.
Dark Ifrit can be found in the Bikanel Desert by talking to someone disguised as an Al Bhed woman. He has a powerful physical attack that he will counter with any time an action is taken against him, including Steal. Dark Ifrit has access to Meteor Strike, which causes a Delay, and Hellfire, his only attack that’s not single target.
Dark Ixion can be found in the Northern area of the Thunder Plains by talking to someone disguised as a Yevon Soldier. Ixion is actually fought twice, unlike most bosses.
In the first battle, he will counter every attack, can lower your defenses with Armor and Mental Break, and can Dispel many of your buffs with Aerospark. During the second fight, he will no longer counter, but is now able to inflict Confuse, and gets access to Thor’s Hammer, which will inflict Full Break on the party. This is also one of the only bosses that the party can flee from.
Dark Shiva can be found in the entrance to the Macalania Temple, and you will be forced to fight her if try to enter it. She is very fast and will attack you frequently, and her Heavenly Strike causes Instant Death. Her physical attack also Dispels whoever it attacks.
Dark Bahamut can be found in the Zanarkand Dome, where you fight Yunalesca in the story. He counters every five attacks with Impulse, which will inflict Full Break and Delay. His Megaflare attack will Dispel the entire party of most positive status effects except for Auto-Life.
Dark Yojimbo can be found in the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth, where you recruit Yojimbo. If you don’t defeat Dark Yojimbo quick enough, he will use Zanmato on your party and instantly kill them while also removing Auto-Life, resulting in an instant game over. He will also Ambush the party on the first encounter.
You will have to fight Dark Yojimbo five times before leaving the Temple of the Stolen Fayth, but Dark Yojimbo’s moves are the same in all fights. If you leave the Temple before defeating him all five times, he will completely reset and you will have to do all of the battles again. This makes Dark Yojimbo the only Dark Aeon that you can farm.
Dark Anima can be found at the entrance to Mt. Gagazet after completing Wakka’s ball trial inside the cave again. She specializes in inflicting a wide range of negative status effects.
Physical attacks can Petrify, Pain instantly kills a party member (even if immune to Instant Kill normally), and Mega-Graviton can deal many negative status effects at once, on top of dealing 7/16ths of the party’s HP. Oblivion deals MP damage on top of its normal damage, and Dispels the party of many positive status effects.
The Dark Magus Sisters can be found on the Mushroom Rock Road near the exit to Mi’ihen Highroad. They are unique in that you can fight this boss in two possible ways. You can choose to separate the sisters and fight each one alone, or you can fight them all together.
Separately, the sisters aren’t too difficult compared to some of the other fights, but each have their own mechanics to deal with. Fighting them together is arguably the hardest challenge in the game, as on top of having to handle all of their mechanics at the same time, they will have access to Delta Attack. This attack automatically deals six hits of 99,999, and bypasses Auto-Life, meaning getting hit by this is an instant game over.
The final superboss, Penance, is unlocked once you’ve defeated all of the Dark Aeons, and can be found by choosing it as a location in the airship. At a massive 12,000,000 HP, and arms you need to continuously defeat on top of that, this is by far the longest fight in Final Fantasy X, and arguably the most difficult, as you cannot make this any easier like you could with the Dark Magus Sisters.
The fight requires keeping track of your party and your damage the entire time, in order to prevent Penance from casting Judgement Day, which deals 99,999 HP and 9,999 MP to the entire party.
Zanmato
Something to keep in mind is that there is an easy way to defeat all of these bosses. Yojimbo’s Zanmato attack will instantly kill any enemy in the game, and not even the superbosses are immune to it. If you’re able to get him to use it, you can beat Penance in an instant.
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KainHighwind27
I'm a huge gamer who especially loves the Final Fantasy series. I will play just about any game, especially if it has anything resembling a Dragoon.
