Demifiend Strategy

--------------------------------------Boss-------------------------------------
   Demi-Fiend

 -HP: 18000
 -Null: All except Gun/Earth/Almighty
 -Recommended Level: 99 (Seriously)

 Now this is a battle. Unless all of your characters have maximum statistics
 and have mastered nearly every Mantra he will kick your ass all over the
 Junkyard and even if you do winning this battle will still depend more on
 luck than anything else. If you are someone who has to budget for replacement
 controllers that have been broken in rage you may want to just skip this
 battle and go play Soul Calibur or something.

 What makes this battle jump from merely very difficult to hair-pullingly
 aggravating is a single skill that Demi-Fiend uses, Gaea Rage. Gaea Rage is
 an all target almighty attack that... oh yeah, does well over 10000 HP worth
 of damage to you. (Considering your max HP can only go up to 999 I don’t need
 to explain why this attack is bad news.) Whenever one or more of your
 characters becomes immune, repels, and/or drains any element/ailment/whatever
 he will immediately retaliate with Gaea Rage. If you have a Null- skill set
 he will immediately use Gaea Rage at the start of the battle, and if you set
 up a shield (either through a skill or even an item) then he will use Gaea
 Rage on his next turn. For this reason, as a rule of thumb any skill with
 Void, Null, Repel, or Drain in its name is strictly forbidden in this battle.
 There are two exceptions to this rule however: Null Critical and Null Sleep.
 (more on this later)

 Demi-Fiend’s other attacks are almost as bad as Gaea Rage, but not quite.
 Most of the time the Demi-Fiend use either Javelin Rain or Xeros-Beat, both
 are all-target attacks that can cause ailments. (Javelin Rain causes Mute and
 Xeros-Beat causes Stun.) He occasionally uses Heat Wave, another all target
 attack which thankfully doesn’t cause any kind of ailment. Very rarely he
 will do a normal attack. All of his attacks will do well over 300 and if he
 gets a critical (which he does a lot) he’ll cause even more damage.

 He also brings backup for this fight. At any time he will have two demons
 fighting along side him and when you kill one of his buddies he will use is
 next turn to summon a new demon. The demons that he will summon are not
 random; he has a clearly defined sequence of six demons, and when he reaches
 the end of the sequence he will start over at the beginning of the sequence.
 (So when you kill a Parvati then Demi-Fiend will summon a fresh Cu Chulainn.)
 The list of demons and what they do are as follows:

 -Cu Chulainn: He spends a lot of time casting Taunt, (to which the next demon
               in line will use Dekaja to erase the Tarukaja aspect of this
               skill) when he doesn’t he uses physical attacks like Bloodbath
               and Executioner.

 -Girimehkala: When he’s not Dekaja-ing Cu Chulainn’s Taunts he’s casting
               Mamudoon every freaking turn.

 -Pixie: She mainly pelts you with Megidolaon while throwing in the occasional
         Maziodyne for spice.

 -Arahabaki: He uses Blood Curse, Gate of Hell, and Debilitate.

 -Titania: She uses all of the –Kunda skills against you, along with the
           various Ma-*-Dyne spells.

 -Parvati: She’s the only demon of this group that uses any kind of –Kaja
           skills. She also likes to use Mahamaon.

 Every one his demons have Dekaja and Dekunda, which they will use to
 immediately counter any –Kaja or –Kunda skills you might cast. (actually,
 that’s not entirely true, it seems that each of the demons will only have
 either Dekaja or Dekunda. From what I’ve seen it seems that Cu Chulainn,
 Pixie and Titania have Dekunda, while Girimehkala, Arahabaki, and Parvati use
 Dekaja)

 After every third demon he summons (Pixie and Parvati) on his next turn he
 will use Gaea Rage. When he summons a Pixie or a Parvati the first turn that
 Pixie/Parvati will use Dormina, and the Demi-Fiend’s next move after that
 will be Gaea Rage.

 Unfortunately you can’t just leave his backup alone and concentrate on the
 Demi-Fiend exclusively. Every one of his demons has an internal counter,
 after every move they make (that is not Dekaja or Dekunda) their counter will
 increase by one, and when this counter reaches 30 the demon will use
 Recarmdra, which will completely heal the Demi-Fiend. Also, the first time
 you reduce the Demi-Fiend’s HP by half one of his demons will cast Mediarahan
 and completely heal the Demi-Fiend. (Thankfully they will only use Mediarahan
 once.)

 I should also point out that the Demi-Fiend gets an extra Turn icon, meaning
 that he will always get to go twice. (...and this isn’t taking in account his
 abnormally high chance of causing criticals, if you are especially unlucky he
 might be able to squeeze out three attacks.)

 So, now that I’ve said all that how the heck are you supposed to beat this
 guy? Well first off I would not even try this battle unless every character
 has at least 80 Vitality along with at least 700 Max HP. This is just a bare
 minimum; you want to Max out both Vitality and Magic as well as raise your
 Maximum HP as high as you can. (This means that you will have to do a bit of
 Noise hunting, fortunately Vital, Magic, and HP Noises are relatively easy to
 get if you know where to look.)

 Next you want to stop off at a Vendor and buy 99 Dis-Mutes along with some
 Dis-Stones and some Panaceas too. Be sure to also buy the Revival Orb if you
 haven’t already. It costs 600000 Macca, but it will be invaluable for the
 Demi-Fiend fight. You also want to stockpile as many Great Chakras, Somas,
 and Dekaja Rocks you can.

 As for characters, the one character that is absolutely essential for this
 fight is the one you would least expect. That’s right, Cielo finally gets a
 chance to shine in this battle because... well... he’s weak to ailments. (no,
 I haven’t lost what little sanity I might have had, just trust me on this
 one) For the other two I have Serph, with his Strength boosted to 99, and
 Argilla, because I like her. :-)

 Now it’s time to set the skills you’ll use. Remember what I said earlier
 about not using skills with “Null” in their name, and how there were two
 skills that wouldn’t get you Gaea Raged? Well those two skills, Null Critical
 and Null Sleep are vital to your success in this battle. You need to have
 Null Critical because Demi-Fiend criticals way too often and the last thing
 you need is to give this guy any more turns, and you need to have Null Sleep
 set to have a chance of surviving Gaea Rage. So be sure to set both Null
 Critical and Null Sleep set on all three characters.

 So that’s two skill slots filled, next you need Death Resist to protect
 yourself from Girimehkala’s Mamudoon and Arahabaki’s Blood Curse and Gate of
 Hell. The Titania uses a lot of elemental spells and Maragidyne in
 particular, so have Serph set Fire Resist to keep them from getting any extra
 turns. I’ve never seen her cast Mazandyne, so I guess you can get away
 without having her setting Force Resist. Cielo doesn’t have any elemental
 weaknesses so he doesn’t have to worry about setting an Elemental Resist
 skill.

 You can expect to do a lot of healing, and have a lot ailments inflicted on
 you during the course of the battle, so every character will need Salvation.
 (Mediarahan just won’t cut it here) You will also be hit with a bunch of
 –Kunda skills so be sure to set Dekunda on multiple characters. Dekaja isn’t
 as important, as only one of the demons will ever use a –Kaja skill, so you
 can get away without setting Dekaja and just use Dekaja Stones. This is
 risky, though, because if you run out of Dekaja Stones you are effectively
 borked. If you have 10 or more Dekaja Stones this might be worth trying it
 and freeing up a precious skill slot. Either way I wouldn’t have more than
 one character set Dekaja if you do use it.

 So, now that you have 5 or 6 skill slots filled is there anything else you
 need... Oh, yeah! You still need some way to actually damage this guy! If you
 look back all the way to the beginning of this section you will see that the
 ONLY way to damage is by using Earth or Almighty spells. (Well, you could
 also revert to human form and shoot him, but I don’t recommend it as you
 can’t use skills in human form and the damage you can do with guns is not
 great. Although there is always the chance of getting a critical when you use
 guns...) This rather limits what offensive skills you can use here. Celestial
 Ray does the most consistent damage of all you skills, so it is the
 recommended skill to have. (Unfortunately the Demi-Fiend and his posse are
 all immune to ailments, so don’t plan on using this to inflict some payback
 on them.) Just keep in mind that Celestial Ray will also hit his demon
 buddies, so every time you use this you are bringing yourself one step closer
 to another Gaea Rage. You could also use Fire of Sinai if you are so
 inclined, but the damage caused by Fire of Sinai is too random for my tastes.
 Having someone set Ragnarok is also highly recommended, not only because it
 does a good amount of damage, but because it has a Rakunda effect attached to
 it, which means that one of the Demi-Fiend’s cronies will waste a turn using
 Dekunda. Last Word does decent damage to a single target, so you don’t have
 to worry about inadvertently killing one of his demons before you are ready.
 Teradyne has a much lower MP cost than Last Word, but unless you are willing
 to sacrifice a skill slot for Earth Amp the damage caused is too small to
 really be effective.

 There are some other skills that are nice to have, but there might not be
 enough skill slots to put them in. You may want to set Close Call just in
 case Null Sleep doesn’t save you from Gaea Rage. I can’t recommend this
 skill, however, as when this skill kicks in you will be stuck in human form.
 This means you can’t use any skills and you have to waste one of your turns
 reverting back to demon form, which makes it much more difficult (but not
 impossible) to recover from Gaea Rage. You could set Close Call to one of
 your reserve characters instead, and then if no one falls asleep before a
 Gaea Rage switch out one of your active characters for a reserve with Close
 Call. After the Gaea Rage switch out the reserve for the active character and
 go from there. This will give you a couple of free passes if your unlucky
 enough to have nobody fall asleep. Even when he’s not Gaea Raging you the
 Demi-Fiend’s other attacks still cause way too much damage so you may want to
 set Phys Resist to blunt the damage he inflicts. Recarmdra is a good skill to
 have when a single character survives a Gaea Rage and you can use Recarmdra
 to revive the other characters, and then one of the other characters can use
 the Revival Orb next turn to revive the Recarmdra character. Try to get
 Recarmdra on Cielo at least. The Black Sun combo
 (Ragnarok + Megidolaon + Salvation) may seem tempting, since it is the most
 damaging attack in the game. (It does a little over 1500 damage to all
 targets) I would advise against using this, however, because although two of
 the skills are useful in this battle, the third one (Megidolaon) is not and
 will likely be dead weight in this battle. The biggest problem about using
 Black Sun is that it will take all of your turn icons to use it. That means
 you won’t be able do any healing or casting Dekaja/Dekunda for that turn, and
 turns where you aren’t low on HP or suffering from some kind of Ailment, or
 need to use Dekaja and/or Dekunda are few and far between.

 Here is how I would set my skills:

      --------------------------------------------------------------------
     |       Serph          |        Argilla       |         Cielo        |
      --------------------------------------------------------------------
     |    -Ragnarok         |    -Celestial Ray    |    -Last Word        |
     |    -Last Word        |    -Last Word        |    -Recarmdra        |
     |    -Dekunda          |    -Dekaja           |    -Dekunda          |
     |    -Salvation        |    -Salvation        |    -Salvation        |
     |    -Death Resist     |    -Death Resist     |    -Death Resist     |
     |    -Fire Resist      |    -Phys Resist      |    -Phys Resist      |
     |    -Null Critical    |    -Null Critical    |    -Null Critical    |
     |    -Null Sleep       |    -Null Sleep       |    -Null Sleep       |
      --------------------------------------------------------------------

 This is a rather Magic-heavy set up, and you will likely burn through a lot
 of MP over the course of this battle. But that’s alright, you can use Cielo’s
 Recarmdra to restore Argilla’s and Serph’s MP, and if you are desperate you
 can always dip into your items and use a Great Chakra/Soma to restore
 everyone’s HP/MP.

 All right, after all that it’s FINALLY time to fight this damn battle. At the
 start of the battle you will face Demi-Fiend with Cu Chulainn and Girimehkala
 supporting him. They will always go first, so you can expect to have been
 Taunted or hit with a Mamudoon, and have someone (Cielo) either stunned or
 Muted before you even get a chance to move. (Remember, if he uses Gaea Rage
 on his first turn, it means you have a bad skill set.)

 The key to this battle is facing as few Gaea Rages as possible. For this
 reason you to try to get the most out of those 30 turns before a demon uses
 Recarmdra. You probably want to keep a piece of scratch paper handy so you
 can keep a tally of how many turns each demon has made. When a demon is first
 summoned spend a few turns lowering its HP down to the red zone. After that
 concentrate on Demi-Fiend with Last Word/Teradyne until they are just about
 ready to Recarmdra and then they should go down in one or two hits. I would
 also recommend trying to kill both of the demons that are out at the same
 time so it is easier to keep track of turns.

 Cu Chulainn has 3000 HP and Girimehkala has 3500 HP. When one of them goes
 down get ready, because Pixie is next, and that means its Gaea Rage time!

 After Pixie is summoned she will use Dormina. You had better hope somebody
 falls asleep, because the only way to survive the coming Gaea Rage is Null
 Sleep, and that only kicks in you are asleep. (Of course it usually works out
 so that Pixie will cast Dormina, but the Gaea Rage won’t come until the next
 turn, which means your characters might wake up before Demi-Fiend can use
 Gaea Rage. That sucks. A lot.)

 Assuming you survived Gaea Rage you will now have Pixie and Arahabaki to deal
 with. Be careful here, because Pixie only has about half the HP that
 Arahabaki does. (Pixie has 1700, while Arahabaki has 3500)

 Next up is Titania and Parvati, and Parvati means another Gaea Rage is coming
 your way. Even if you survive the Gaea Rage these two are the most annoying
 demons out of Demi-Fiend’s posse. Titania loves casting –Dyne level elemental
 skills, which if they hit one of your demon’s weaknesses can really ruin your
 day, while Parvati uses Mahamaon a few too many times for comfort. An
 interesting strategy to try for these two is to have one of your characters
 revert to human form. If a character is in human form then Titania can’t hit
 that character’s weakness and if Parvati uses Mahamaon the human character
 will block it and they will lose two turn icons. Demi-Fiend is not immune to
 guns so the human character can still damage him (although it doesn’t do a
 whole lot of damage, even if you have 99 Strength and Magatama Bullets) and
 he won’t Gaea Rage you because of the human’s natural resistance to Expel.
 Titania has 2000 HP and Parvati has 1800 HP. After Parvati its back to Cu
 Chulainn and this whole mess starts all over again.

 One last thing to note is that the first time you take off half of the
 Demi-Fiend’s HP (that’s 9000 HP for those of you keeping score) then one of
 his demons will cast Mediarahan. This can be used as a barometer of how well
 you are doing in this battle. If it takes until after he summons Parvati for
 them to use Mediarahan then things are not going good and maybe should think
 about think about cutting your losses and reloading.

   The Red Star Strategy
   ---------------------

 If you are having trouble defeating Demi-Fiend you might want to try the
 so-called “Red Star Strategy.” (named after the poster on GameFAQs who first
 came up with it) The basic idea behind this strategy is to “stun lock” his
 demons by having them cast Dekaja and Dekunda every turn. When you fight
 Pixie she will usually run out of MP before she uses Recarmdra. You can take
 advantage of this by using Debilitate and she won’t be able to Dekunda it.

 To start off you need to have set Debilitate on one or two of your
 characters, and a –Kaja skill (preferably Sukukaja) on the other.

 When the battle starts fight normally and kill both Cu Chulainn and
 Girimehkala and he will summon Pixie and Arahabaki, (That means you will
 still have to survive a Gaea Rage...) when he does it’s time to implement
 your strategy. When Pixie is unable to cast Megidolaon because of
 insufficient MP cast both Debilitate and your –Kaja skill on every turn. She
 still has some MP so she can still use Dekunda a couple of times, but when
 you drain off the rest of her MP she will try to use Dekunda, but will fail
 because of insufficient MP. When this happens you can Debilitate them four
 times and they won’t be able to erase them. With Demi-Fiend fully Debilitated
 he is a lot less threatening, he will rarely hit you and when he does he will
 hardly cause any damage, (You will still have to deal with his ailments,
 though) and your attacks will cause much more damage. Make sure to cast the
 –Kaja skill every turn to keep Arahabaki wasting his turn on Dekaja. (A nifty
 thing about this strategy is that when you take off half of Demi-Fiend’s HP,
 Pixie will try to use Mediarahan, but can’t since she doesn’t have the MP for
 it.)

 Note that this strategy is not foolproof, as by the time Pixie is unable to
 use Megidolaon anymore she is dangerously close to a Recarmdra, and if
 Demi-Fiend gets in a critical before you get rid of the rest her MP then she
 can use Recarmdra. (and don’t forget that you still have to survive until you
 get to Pixie and she runs out of MP) The Red Star Strategy still depends a
 lot on luck, but not quite as much as the normal strategy, so if you are
 having trouble you might have more success with this one.