During Chapter 12 of the main story, you will return to the Gold Saucer to find the Keystone. You’ll get suckered into helping out Dio against his grudge match with Corneo, over the naming rights to the Gold Saucer. Prior to this is when all of the relationship stuff comes to an end, as you go on a date with one of your party members then. Once that is over, you can rest up at the Ghost Square, then you’ll participate in some battles at the Coliseum, after which, the first of three bosses will be fought, Don orneo and Abzu.

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Abzu, along with Don Corneo, are back!

All of Abzu’s Attacks¶

There will be two phases to this battle, with the second occurring at around 50% HP or so.

• Bash: Abzu will smack the ground in front of him with his one hand. It might be a little difficult to dodge, but you can also block it.

• Belly Flop: Abzu will jump into the air and then do a belly flop on someone. There is a little bit of an area around him that’s affected, making it a bit hard to dodge.

• Counterpose: As the name suggests, Abzu strikes a pose and if you do a normal attack against him, he will use Reversal to deal some damage.

• Charge: Abzu does a quick dashing attack towards one of your characters. Either try to dodge out of the way, or simply block it to mitigate the damage.

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(1 of 5) Bash is nothing but a simple ground pound with his one fist.

• Ground Pound: Abzu will pound the ground right in front of him, dealing damage in an area of effect.

• Bash and Smash: Not much difference to the Bash attack, except Abzu will smack the ground three times, instead of only once.

• Enrage: Corneo feeds Abzu some concoction that increases his attack, but lowers his physical defense. This will also put him into a frenzy-like state, giving some new attacks.

• Pounce: Unblockable. Abzu will charge at a character and attempt to basically grab them, pinning that character to the ground. He’ll then proceed to attack them a few times, then toss them away. If he misses, he seems to become pressured.

• Flail: Abzu will spin around, like a top and try to suck you towards him. Doesn’t really seem to do a lot of damage, though, and it can be hard to dodge.

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(1 of 2) Ground Pound will always hit in front of Abzu, but it’s pretty easy to avoid otherwise.

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Ground Pound will always hit in front of Abzu, but it’s pretty easy to avoid otherwise. (left), Flail will suck you in towards Abzu, so it can be hard to escape. (right)

• Ready to Rampage: Abzu will begin stringing together a bunch of moves in quick succession when he does this.

• Frenzy: Similar to the Enrage, but without the defensive debuff. Only happens in the second phase.

• Ferocious Charge: Happens in second phase. Similar to Charge above, but instead of doing it just once, he’ll do it three times in a row.

• Upheaval: Unblockable. Abzu’s biggest attack and one that hurts a lot. He will begin charging up, then hit the ground and unleash a huge, circular shockwave that extends far from its body. Either move as far away as possible, or attempt to dodge through the shockwave.

Abzu Boss Strategy¶

The fight with Abzu is split into two phases, although the second phase isn’t really all too different from the first. It should be stated that only two attacks during the battle will be unblockable, so if you are good at timing your blocks, then you can mitigate a lot of damage with perfect blocks. Abzu is weak to fire and dealing enough fire damage will cause him to be pressured. This will change a bit in the second phase, but it’s also not the only way to pressure this beast.

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(1 of 3) Enrage will increase the attack of Abzu, while decreasing his defense.

When the battle begins, you can exploit the fire weakness to help out a lot during the first phase. This is one of the ways to pressure the boss, although you can also do the same thing by dodging the Pounce move. Considering the arena is quite large, you should have a lot of room to maneuver, which makes dodging most attacks simple. Some of the few attacks that can be hard to avoid are Belly Flop and Flail. The latter is a pain to dodge, due to the move sucking you in while trying to get away from it.

Ready to Rampage is less of a skill and more of an indication that Abzu will be using his other moves back to back in quick succession. He does seem to use this whenever Enrage is used, so it’s not something that is use often, at first. Once you get the boss to 50% HP or so, the second phase will begin. While not too much changes here, instead of Enrage, the boss will use Frenzy, which will be the same thing without the defense down debuff.

Abzu will also start using two new moves in the second phase, one of which is just an enhanced version of Charge. Ferocious Charge is simply multiple dash attacks, but it can be blocked/dodged all the same. The biggest attack, and one that really does a huge damage, is Upheaval. He seems to only use this whenever he’s in the Frenzy mode in the second phase. The big shockwave produced from this attack can be dodged through, but you can also run away to get out of its range.

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(1 of 3) Frenzy is the same as Enrage, but without the debuff.

Note that Abzu will begin dodging Fire in the second phase and on the off-chance you get it to stick, Corneo will put out the fire, so it’s best to ignore it unless you have Abzu not moving. The second phase is definitely a lot more challenging than the first, since Abzu will spend more time in his frenzied state. If you focus on dodging the charges, though, you can quickly build up the stagger gauge and eventually emerge victorious.

After the battle is over, there will be some scenes, then you’ll have the chance to rest up and buy items before your next boss battle, against Elena and Rude.