He was bloody annoying-must've renewed himself six times while I was fighting him. At first I thought the game was glitching.

He's annoying, but so long as you have some Fire Shields, you can mitigate the damage to somewhere less then "OMG WTF happened!?", especially when he pulls off his chain magic attack and chains off Self Destructs. That smarts.

Still, my party is in the low 30's, with my highest character being 34. Switching characters out who are running lowish on MP and having a berserk Basch go to town with the Francisca I got in the Bazaar doesn't hurt either.