Belias

[Slothy]

When I first played Final Fantasy Tactics years ago, I will fully admit that this guy kicked my ass repeatedly and I had no idea how to fight him really effectively. Eventually I simply broke down and resorted to making every single character a fully equipped dragoon, leveling like crazy and killing him/staying alive by staying off the ground.

Recently I've been playing some of the War of the Lions PSP remake though and it occurred to me that I hate grinding and would like a more elegant solution. I'm presently about the same level as he is and other enemies in the game, so I'm probably doing somewhat well there. I do have Ramza and another character set to Dragoons but I'm willing to change that to try different builds. I also found the Wiegraf fight before he turns into Belias harder than I remembered.

So what say you FFT experts. Is there a better way? Some other viable strategy than jumping and killing him faster? Let's discuss the hardest boss in the game and see what worked for everyone to overcome this terrible beast.

[Gamblet]

Oracle's Drain spell works really well against him, it does around 300 damage.
The Lich summon should do about the same damage to Belias as Drain does.

Belias has around 900 HP if I remember correctly, so... with some luck and those spells, you should be victorious.

Oh yeah and I recommend Auto-Potion with only X-Potion in inventory on every character, it really helps.

[Slothy]

Oracle's Drain spell works really well against him, it does around 300 damage.
The Lich summon should do about the same damage to Belias as Drain does.

Belias has around 900 HP if I remember correctly, so... with some luck and those spells, you should be victorious.

Oh yeah and I recommend Auto-Potion with only X-Potion in inventory on every character, it really helps.

Cool advice. I had no idea that auto-potion even worked with X-potion either since I've usually had some regular potions in my inventory. I guess I'll have to fix that.

[Raistlin]

Yeah, auto-potion is only really effective if you make sure to ditch your weaker potions.

Wiegraf/Belias is always a bitch. The strategy of using a lot of dragoons is valid, and be sure to equip all the strength-increasing items you have. Damage is the key factor. I also liked to play keep away/heal at the beginning while using Ramza's squire ability Yell (or whichever one increases speed) and buffing my characters until I could attack a lot all at once. I generally had dragoons and monks/ninjas as my heavy hitters. It could take a while if you haven't done any leveling.

[Gamblet]

This reminds me that I once got stuck in that part of the game and I had overwritten my only save file and I was totally underleveled. I had to start the whole game from the start.

From that day on, I always use at least 2 save files.

[Mercen-X]

I find it funny that you not once mention whether/not you've already tried to defeat Belias in War of the Lions. You know the reputation of "remakes." By your post, you seemingly expect us to guess that you've already fought and lost to Belias recently, but I can't assume that. Have you, in fact, tried to fight him yet. Maybe you don't need elegance. Maybe you don't even need to grind. The battle may have been made easier for this version. YA?

E-lab-o-rate, ya?

[Slothy]

Fair enough. Yes, I did try fighting him the last time I played. Beat Wiegraf fairly handily. It was a bit tricky since I wasn't aware of X-potions and auto-potion, but I got past him. I then proceeded to get demolished by Belias by the second turn. I only had two characters equipped as dragoons and he and his demons simply managed to deal damage faster than I was able to handle.

Maybe auto-potion alone would be enough to save my butt until he goes down now, but the point of the thread wasn't so much needing help. Given enough time spent leveling my characters I can make them all dragoons and decimate him fairly quickly while spending little time vulnerable to attack. The point was simply that I was curious what other people do as I'm interested in trying some different strategies.

[ReloadPsi]

I'm presently about the same level as he is and other enemies in the game, so I'm probably doing somewhat well there.

I thought this game did the FF8 thing where everything was around your level and you had to keep yours somewhat low to prevent human enemies from having better equipment.

[VeloZer0]

Random enemy battles are determined by the party's level but story battles are always a set level. And as for armor I consider the armor you can by at the end of chapter 3 with the +stat bonuses to be superior to all of the armor you can by at the end of the game that just has +hp. I'm wearing a lot of Ch3 armor even in the post game.

(If you want to be a real wiener you level up and then steal off of the higher level enemies you encounter in random battles.)

[Slothy]

Everything except story battles level with you. The first time I beat the game I leveled like crazy to beat Belias and the rest of the game was a bit too easy. I never had to intentionally level again.

[Hollycat]

I just used a basic story party at that point, must have gotten lucky.

[Jowy]

Equip Ramza with a Chameleon Robe. Should be able to buy from Dorter around the beginning of chapter three iirc. As Lightning Stab or whatever it's called on PSP/iOS is actually Holy based damage, he flat out will not cast it as it would top your health off completely. He'll stick to just cheesing you with Earth Slash. If you have Hamedo/First Strike learned with a Blood Sword equipped, you pretty much won't even go below 100 HP. Keep your distance and keep spamming Accumulate until your AP is through the roof so you can hopefully do enough damage to Velius once your backup comes.