Status Effects Are Your Friends

[Forsaken Lover]

So I never used Saboteur in FFXIII because "bosses aren't vulnerable to status effects" was my experience with FF games. I certainly never thought the final boss would be vulnerable to poison. The Undying in FFXII, the last FF I beat before XIII, certainly wasn't.

But apparently, status effects are more than just those things that annoy you to high hell. They can be a great ally and make bosses very easy. Every boss is susceptible to Slow in FFIV I hear and in FFV you can beat the superbosses with...Berserk and something else...Stop maybe?

I mean, I remember the Breaks were pretty good in FFX but that was about the only experience I had with using debuffs against bosses prior to FFXIII.

Oh and Vit 0 in FFVIII but that's FFVIII and we all know FFVIII is a goddam broken mess of a game.

Which game and which bosses are best for status effects from the perspective of the player? Which bosses can be made a joke using which statuses?

P.S.

Another reason I never used statue effects is because you often don't know if they can work but the enemy is just resistant, or if they are completely immune. Best to just not even bother with them was my way of thinking. Waste of valuable turns.

[Wolf Kanno]

Honestly, FFIII (Famicom Version) was probably the only game in the series where exploiting status effects was mandatory for survival. You often ran into groups of 6-8 opponents and they could all tear through your team pretty easily if you weren't nailing them with blind, paralyze, and poison to slow them down and save you some valuable healing.

Status magic is one of those things that was very useful in the early entries and then went out of style for a few games and then came back into being useful again recently. Slow, Sap, and Paralyze are invaluable in FFIV for instance but by FFV, status magic that isn't really Time Magic goes out of style for the next few days. I mean FFV-X all have certain bosses/enemies that are significantly easier if you exploit status ailments but there are also very direct methods for dealing with as well so it's not as useful as early entries. XI makes them good again, XII made them almost mandatory for the Mark Hunts and XIII made it one of the game's more useful roles. It will be interesting to see if XV will bother with it though.

[Electroshock Therapy]

I used to be in the camp that thought that status effects were useless. Why bother wasting a turn when you can just kill them? Then I played FF II. Not just played, but REALLY played.

Final Fantasy II was the first game that basically made status effects useful (or magic in general). Sooo many enemies use special spells against you that you really need to have your own butt prepared with status effects to counter! If you think you're going to get through just by pressing "Attack" every round, then you're in for a world of hurt. Learning strategies, especially status effects, is one of the reasons this game is either fun and easy or a complete nightmare for the player. This game actually taught me how to be a better FF player!

Anyway, specific examples. Shrieker is probably the first boss in the SERIES that absolutely requires status effects unless you want to be there for an hour. Actually, just about every boss needs something to make them more manageable. Gigas enemies in the early sections of the game almost require them, too, but luckily the game practically hands you the necessary material to fight those guys. Large groups of Imps... shudder!