The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

20 May 2009
S.A. Renegade

Throughout the game, whenever the New Moon arrives, there's a chance that a fiend will appear and try to kill you. These are the four horsemen. They're pretty strong, and will be almost impossible to defeat early on. You can negotiate with them and give them tribute in exchange for letting you escape. However, you'll want to kill them at some point. When that will be is up to you. In this section I'll detail my strategies for defeating them as well as what level I was when I did it.

---Boss: Fiend Black Rider---
My level: 11

You're not supposed to win this fight at such a low level, and it shows. The damage you do to Black Rider with your sword is pitiful. On the other hand, one solid hit from him and it's over for you. This is going to be a very long battle. It took me 45 minutes. Furthermore, Black Rider isn't frail to any of the elements, so that's out of the question. The consequence of this is that you WILL run out of MAG in this battle, and once you do, the only way to replenish it will be to rely solely on strikes while you let it naturally regenerate excruciatingly slowly.

Stock up on medicines before the fight. 10 should do it, but make it 20 just to be safe. And even more than that never hurt anyone.

Bring in the demon with the highest Ma you have. Have him set to attack Black Rider with any of the four basic elemental spells. This is the best way to damage him, because each spell should do around 50 damage. That's a lot compared to your sword and gun, which do like 1 damage.

So this demon's spell will be your big guns. However, don't just leave your demon unattended and let it do its own thing. Not only because it can easily set it up to get one-shotted by Black Rider, but also because MAG consumption is a serious problem throughout this fight, and you don't want your demon to miss. You have to make every spell count. This is why you should only have the demon with the highest Ma using a spell. Set the other demon to strike. You're going to be doing some serious babysitting throughout this fight when it comes to your demons. You should keep them hidden at all times and ONLY bring them out when it's absolutely 100% safe to attack.

That goes for you as well. Only attack Black Rider when it's 100% safe to do so. This only happens during two situations. First of all, when you see him cast Mudo. When you see that, that's your cue that Black Rider is about to go into a loop where he casts Mudo, teleports, casts it again, and does this about 5 times or so. This is one of the two situations where you and your demons can safely attack him. While he's readying the Mudo spell, run to his side with your demons, unhide them, and start slashing at him and let your main demon hit him with a spell ONCE (twice is too risky. It's likely to miss and that's wasted MAG. If you have your demon set to spamming the spell, hide them after it uses it so that it won't use it a second time). The Mudo should NEVER hit you if you're at Black Rider's side when he casts it. Also, if you're lucky, your sword strikes will cause him to flinch and you can get a second, sometimes even a third combo on him.

The second situation in which you can attack him safely is when he uses Begin Starvation. This move leaves him vulnerable for a long time if he misses with it, and he should. Every time. Unless you seriously screw up. No, really, you shouldn't get hit with this move even once. It's the easiest one to avoid, and getting hit by it is too devastating since it halves your MAG. The cue is pretty easy to see. Black Rider will teleport, and then not do anything at all for a second. Then he'll use Begin Starvation. But even if you don't see it, it's still very hard to get hit by it if you just keep moving at all time. In any case, when you see him doing that attack, that's the cue that tells you he's about to go into a loop where he uses Begin Starvation, teleports, then does it again and repeats this about 5 times or so. What you're supposed to do is avoid it by running, and while he's in the middle of the move, run up to his side, or preferably his backside, unhide your demons, and start slashing him before he finishes using the move and keep on attacking him during the recovery (though, again, only permit your main demon to use its spell once). Make sure your demons are very close to Black Rider before you unhide them if you're going to attack him while Begin Starvation is still onscreen, because if they're not, there's a small chance that the demon set to strike will stupidly waltz right in front of Black Rider and get killed.

Anyway, those are the two situations which are most beneficial to you. However, Black Rider has some other attacks. Attacks which are not as beneficial to you. His two physical attacks are extremely dangerous. His strike has a VERY short cue and is quite deadly. However, you should never be close to him if he's not using Mudo or Begin Starvation, so you should never get hit by this. If you see him teleport near you, roll away immediately just in case he's about to use his strike. The other physical attack he has is Mad Rush, and this one is even more deadly. It has a longer cue than the strike. You shouldn't be near him when he's readying it. To avoid Mad Rush, simply run to the side or roll to the side before he uses it. Remember that when you see him use either of these two physical attacks, that's your cue that he's about to go into a loop where he keeps doing physical attacks about 10 times or so. Just something to keep in mind. Slashing him during this process is NOT safe. Don't try it. And keep your demons hidden. If you want to damage him a little during this, you can shoot him with your gun after he whiffs every strike and Mad Rush. You should get about 7 damage per clip. If you do it right. But be careful.

Finally, Black Rider's arena-encompassing attack is Soul Balance. This attack has a very long and obvious cue in that you get a message saying "Black Rider is preparing for something." Soul Balance takes off half your HP if you block it. However, you can also get off scot free from it! When you see the message that Black Rider is preparing for something, don't stay grounded in place. Rather run just a little bit in any direction and THEN go into block stance. There's a good chance that Soul Balance will miss you completely. There's also a chance that it'll hit you anyway though, but don't worry. Just heal yourself afterwards.

Speaking of healing, use medicines for your healing purposes. Never use Dia unless you absolutely have to. Remember that MAG is a serious problem in this fight, and you want to use as much of that MAG as possible to damage Black Rider.

Also, Black Rider uses Luck Roulette of the Dragon regularly throughout the fight to confer a variety of bad luck effects on you. These can range from pretty bad (Raidou's attacks will whiff, and cannot use items), to somewhat bad (Enemies hate you, demons may get lost), to virtually inconsequential (order sealed). Just deal with it. There's nothing you can do about it anyway. Remember that when Black Rider is angry at you, he won't flinch, and his attacks will do more damage so be careful. Also, don't summon a demon when demons may get lost is in effect. When cannot use items in effect, you'll have to rely on Dia. Which brings me to my next point:

You WILL run out of MAG in this fight. When you do, set both your demons to strike and switch to damaging Black Rider with only physical attacks while your MAG very slowly recuperates. However, just in case cannot use items comes up on the luck roulette of the dragon, stop using magic attacks when you're down to about 20 MAG or so. This gives you the opportunity to be able to use Dia a couple times if you have to heal when you can't use items.

Well, that's about it. It'll be a long and arduous fight, but if you follow this strategy you'll wittle him down eventually. After the battle, he gives you so much exp that I went from level 11 to level 17. I really didn't want that much exp, but oh well.

---

---Boss: Fiend Red Rider---
My level: 18

If you've defeated Black Rider, then chances are good that you're just strong enough to survive Red Rider's unavoidable attack if you block it. Which means you can win against him. Mind you, you're not supposed to fight him at such a low level, but if you wanna be a renegade, read on. This fight will take a very long time. Not quite as much as Black Rider, but it took me 32 minutes to beat him. To be fair, I likely could've done it much faster if I had used the strategy I'm about to put forth from the start, but I only developed it about halfway into the fight.

First off, make sure you have a lot of medicines and ox bezoars. 20 medicines should do it, but more never hurt anyone. Next, Red Rider is frail to electricity. Which means that you'll be able to siphon MAG off him, and thus MAG consumption will not be nearly as much of a problem as in the Black Rider fight. That's not to say you can just use attacks with impunity though. No. You still have to be careful and make most attacks count. Hence why you need medicines and ox bezoars: so that you don't have to use dia as much and waste MAG.

Now, for this fight, make sure you bring in a demon who knows Mazio. Zio will not cut it. You need Mazio for this strategy. The demon who knows this skill is Volt Makami. To create him, fuse a Wind Moh Shuvuu with a Pyro Enku. Once you have Makami, you're ready. The second demon doesn't matter, since he'll be set to strikes only or dia. So that you don't waste any MAG, only Makami will be using Mazio throughout this fight.

Red Rider is immune to bullets, so you will not be using your gun in this fight. Unlike Black Rider, Red Rider has very few moments in which he's vulnerable, which will make this fight tougher than Black Rider, and is the reason why you need Mazio.

Red Rider's attacks are very dangerous. Be especially wary of his physical attacks. You should strive to never get hit by them as they will take off most of your HP. His strike has a long start up, so you should always see it coming and be able to get away. His Rush is harder to avoid than Black Rider's. Even if you run or roll to the side as he's preparing it, he will adjust his trajectory to try and hit you anyway. A good way to avoid the rush is to get a lot of distance between you and him so that he can't reach you with it. If you can't get any distance, you can also avoid it by rolling to the side at the very end of his preparation. After rolling, make sure to block just in case he hits you anyway. He'll still deal a nasty 40-50 damage to you, but it's better than taking the full brunt of the attack. If you see him use a physical attack, that means he's about to go into a loop where he uses a combination of strikes and rushes about 5 times or so.

He also uses two area of effect attacks in the form of Makajam and Mamudo. Their cue is huge and their range is small. You shouldn't ever get hit by these moves. If your demons get hit by Makajam their skills will get sealed so just don't.

His other attack is called Summon Undead. If you see him use it, that means he's about to go into a loop where he uses Summon Undead about 5 times. However, this is nothing like Black Rider's Mudo. Summon Undead actually homes in on you, and if it manages to hit you, it will paralyze you, setting you up to get hit by a physical attack while you can't do anything and die. This is why I can't recommend trying to damage Red Rider while he's using this attack. Just concentrate on avoiding it. It's easy, as long as you're running away it shouldn't catch up to you.

Red Rider's unavoidable attack is Civil War. This attack is hell of all kinds of nasty. Every time you see the message that Red Rider is preparing for something, keep your demons hidden and block. Civil War will do 200 points of block damage to you. Which means that you'll need to use two medicines to heal yourself afterwards every time. Or two dias, but I'd rather use medicines than waste MAG. Red Rider also uses Luck Roulette of the Beast. This is a gimp version of Black Rider's Luck Roulette of the Dragon, in that very rarely it may actually confer a positive effect on you such as increased MAG recovery. Red Rider will always alternate between Luck Roulette of the Beast and Civil War. But block for both of them just in case.

Remember to always keep some MAG handy to dia yourself in case cannot use items comes up. Don't summon demons if demons may get lost comes up. If Red Rider gets mad at you, be VERY careful. Being angry not only makes him less likely to go into frail stun, but also acts as a Tarukaja. If he manages to get you with rush while he's mad, you WILL die. So be careful.

So how will you go about damaging Red Rider? While his physical attacks may be very dangerous, they also happen to be the best moment to attack him. Here's the deal: Red Rider is very, VERY likely to go into frail stun if he's hit by an electric attack just as he's teleporting in. And this is exactly why you need Mazio. Whenever you see Red Rider going into his physical loop, keep your demons hidden and very close to you, wait until after he uses his physical attack and he teleports out. Immediately unhide your demons, and depending on your timing and how close you were to Red Rider before he teleported out, Makami should begin casting Mazio immediately after coming out of hiding despite the fact that Red Rider is currently in the fourth dimension. By the time Red Rider teleports back in, (and he's very likely to teleport near to you), Makami will have already finished casting Mazio, and hit Red Rider with it just as he's teleporting in, making him go into frail stun. This is your chance to combo the shit out of him and get some MAG. As soon as he's about to get out of stun though, hide your demons again and quickly roll away. The fact that your demon needs to start casting before Red Rider appears is why Zio will not work. Because a demon with Zio will shoot it where Red Rider USED to be, and not where he WILL be. Mazio doesn't have this problem since it shoots all around you.

There are still a few potential snags though. Mazio has very short range. If for one reason or another Red Rider doesn't teleport in near you, immediately hide your demons before Mazio finishes casting so that the MAG isn't wasted.

As ever, you will keep your demons hidden almost all the time, letting them come out only to cast Mazio and to help strike Red Rider while he's in frail stun. If you're very careful with your Mazios you should never run out of MAG. If you do, however, you'll have to rely on strikes for a while. During this phase, let your demons do the hitting. Trying to slash Red Rider when he's not stunned is simply too dangerous, considering just one of his attacks can potentially end you.

So that's the strategy for him. Overall this fight is more dangerous than Black Rider, but a little shorter.

---

---Boss: Fiend White Rider---
My level: 20

The biggest obstacle to defeating White Rider early on is the fact that his unavoidable attack does more damage than god. If you watch my video, you'll see that at level 20, I just BARELY survive it with 10 HP left. This leads me to believe that at anything lower than 20 the chances of surviving Victory of Fire are very low.

Indeed, White Rider is stronger than Red and Black, at least in the damage he deals. Getting hit by his rush or even just his strike (which has almost no cue) will get you killed even if you have max HP. No two ways about it.

White Rider decided to be a bitch and challenge me immediately after Red, when I had almost no items left. And I wasn't going to beg for mercy if I had a chance of beating him. Fuck 'im. I'd find my way around my lack of items! And that I did. If you follow my strategy, you'll kill him so fast that you'll barely even have to use any items. For the record, I killed him in just below 8 minutes.

The key to this strategy is a Pagan Lilim who knows Mabufu. Check the case file section if you're not sure how to create her. Notice that in the example I give, you fuse a Makami with a Jack Frost to make her. This is also key because Jack Frost learns Mabufu, which he can pass on to Lilim. The awesome thing about Lilim is that she drains death type attacks. White Rider abuses Mamudo throughout the fight, and with Lilim this'll work greatly to our benefit, since he will constantly be replenishing our MAG. For the second demon I would recommend another one who at the very least nulls death type attacks such as Alp (Sandman is even better since he drains, but his Ma is lower than Alp). Since you can't hide just one demon, if the second one isn't immune to death, he'll get killed while Lilim is draining Mamudo. Also, I suggest this second demon have Bufu (or even better, Mabufu), and also dia so that he can cure you without you having to use items. Of course, that's only if you're sorely lacking in items like me. If you're not, there's no need for dia. Unlike the previous two horsemen, curing with dia is an option here since draining Mamudo will give you a lot more MAG to work with.

In any case, here's how the fight's supposed to go. White Rider will always immediately start by using Luck Roulette of the Beast. As he's preparing to use it, hide your demons so they don't waste MAG while he's invincible, and run up to him. Stay right by his side until he uses the roulette, and then unhide your demons. As soon as the battle resumes your demons will use Mabufu before he gets a chance to do anything and he'll go into frail stun. Combo the shit out of him and steal his MAG. As soon as you see him come out of stun, roll away because he's about to use Mamudo. Now this is very important: EVERY time White Rider comes out of frail stun, he will counter with Mamudo. EVERY. Single. Time. No exceptions. This is a blessing to you. Roll away (you're not immune to death), but don't hide your demons! Let them keep punishing him with their Bufus while he's casting Mamudo, and then drain it for extra MAG on top of all that!

Now listen carefully, this is very important: wait for Lilim to absorb the Mamudo, but IMMEDIATELY after you see the draining animation HIDE YOUR DEMONS. This is because right after Mamudo there's a chance that White Rider will use his strike attack that has almost no cue and this WILL kill your demons even if they have max HP. So you will hide them right after Mamudo to prevent this. If he doesn't use his strike then just unhide them and let them use their Bufus on him while he runs around, hopefully frail stunning him again.

Throughout the fight, don't try to slash White Rider when he's not stunned. It's just too dangerous. One strike from him will kill you and you'll have to do everything all over. Keep your finger on the block button and let your demons do the dirty work. Whenever you see him use a physical attack, that means he's about to go into a loop where he uses a combination of strikes and rushes about 5 times or so. The general strategy to stun him with Mabufu is the same as it was for Red Rider. In fact, I'll just paste it here again with the relevant changes:

So how do you go about damaging this guy? While his physical attacks may be very dangerous, they also happen to be the best moment to attack him. Here's the deal: White Rider is very, VERY likely to go into frail stun if he's hit by an ice attack just as he's teleporting in. And this is exactly why you need Mabufu. Whenever you see White Rider going into his physical loop, keep your demons hidden and very close to you, wait until after he uses his physical attack and he teleports out. Immediately unhide your demons, and depending on your timing and how close you were to White Rider before he teleported out, Lilim should begin casting Mabufu immediately after coming out of hiding despite the fact that White Rider is currently in the fourth dimension. By the time Whitey teleports back in, (and he's very likely to teleport near to you), Lilim will have already finished casting Mabufu, and hit White Rider with it just as he's teleporting in, making him go into frail stun. This is your chance to combo the shit out of him and get some MAG. The fact that your demon needs to start casting before White Rider appears is why Bufu alone will not work. Because a demon with Bufu will shoot it where White Rider USED to be, and not where he WILL be. Mabufu doesn't have this problem since it shoots all around you.

So that's the deal. Except now that we have Lilim, unlike Red Rider, White Rider has even more vulnerable moments. He will also go into a loop where he casts Mudo about 5 times or so. I laugh in the face of your pathetic attacks, White Rider! Let your demons keep the pressure up while he uses Mudo. It's no threat, and even benefits you if it hits Lilim.

Finally, I've already talked about White Rider's unavoidable attack, Victory of Fire. This thing makes Soul Balance and Civil War look like a joke. I just barely survive it with 10 HP at level 20. This means that if you're lower than that, there's a high chance that you won't be able to fight White Rider yet. As ever, always keep your demons hidden and blocking whenever you see the message that White Rider is preparing for something.

And that's about it! White Rider killed me more times than Black and Red, but I also managed to kill him much faster. If you follow this strategy you shouldn't have problems either.

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---Boss: Fiend Pale Rider---
My level: 40

Ok. I think we're at a level where we can take this guy without it being retarded. First of all, preparation. The main thing you'll want for this fight is Pagan Nebiros. This guy is level 40 and Pale Rider's worst nightmare. Not only does he drain death, but he also nulls phys, making ANYTHING Pale Rider tries against him completely futile. This is an advantage so huge that you don't even need to have an area of effect spell on Nebiros (though it's always nice). He can just use a tiny Agi right in Pale Rider's face and not worry about anything. Try to get an elemental boost on Nebiros to up the damage on whatever spell you're going to use for damage. As usual, there are many ways to fuse a Nebiros. I went with combining a Frost Oukuninushi with a Volt Nue. Finally, to up damage even more, make sure you have another demon who can cast Makakaja at the start of the fight. This is important since you don't want your MAG to run out before the end of the fight.

Once you have all that... well. Let's just say Pale Rider better strap on his Compton hat 'cause he's about to get SMOKED, loc. He's actually quite a simple boss. He really only has two types of attacks, death and physical. That's why Nebiros is so good. As soon as the fight starts, cast Makakaja, then return the second demon to its tube. We'll only be using Nebiros for this fight. Pale Rider isn't frail to anything but he still takes good damage from spells, so set Nebiros to attack him with his hardest hitting spell, preferably the one that corresponds to the boost you hopefully gave him as a passive skill. I went with Agi and fire boost. This works well because Agi does surprisingly good damage and only costs a measly 8 MAG to cast. I recommend against using heavy piercing spells such as glacial blast, wind crush, shockwave and firebreath because at 36 MAG they're way too costly, and they require the enemy to sit still for a long time to maximize their damage. Something that Pale Rider doesn't do. At all.

In any case, all you're going to be doing throughout this fight is avoiding Pale Rider's attacks, and babysitting Nebiros so he doesn't waste MAG quite as much. You can more or less leave Nebiros to his own devices but since Pale Rider loves teleporting around so much, situations crop up where Nebiros may start casting a spell and Pale Rider will have already moved elsewhere. In which case you should make him stop casting by pressing L2. Try to position Nebiros so that he starts casting as soon as Pale Rider reappears and before he initiates an attack. This is usually done by hiding Nebiros, anticipating that Pale Rider will reappear close to you, and quickly unhiding Nebiros so that he can start casting immediately rather than waste time having to move to Pale Rider's location.

For some reason, it seems Pale Rider KNOWS he's screwed. So right from the start his Summon Undead will go straight for Raidou, ignoring Nebiros. This means that it'll be quite hard to replenish MAG by draining, but it's fine. You can still kill him before you're all out. Further, you can still drain his summon undead every now and then if Nebiros gets in their way while they're coming to you. This is really hard though since you don't really have any command that makes your demons stick close to you without being hidden. As such, you'll only drain Summon Undead rarely. But like I said, don't worry about it.

Pale Rider doesn't have an unavoidable special attack like his compatriots, but his special attack is actually much worse. When you get him down to 3/4s (should actually be really fast), he'll create a clone of himself, then when you get him down to 1/2 he'll create a third clone. This is what made Pale Rider so retarded before we had Nebiros. Once there are three Pale Riders on screen, it's just a clusterfuck of Summon Undeads, Rushes and strikes all trying to hit you and your demons. It orginally made it VERY hard to make any progress on damage without exposing yourself. Furthermore, to win the fight you have to kill ALL THREE Pale Riders. And since recovering MAG is almost impossible, you can see how dumb this would become.

But it's fine. We'll win this time. Since there are so many Pale Riders all hell-bent on killing you, scale back the amount of babysitting you do with Nebiros and concentrate more on avoiding attacks during this phase. You're going to have 3 summons undeads after you pretty much all the time, so be very careful and run around in such a way that you don't bump into any. If you see that you can't avoid one, make sure to block. Even if they hit you though, we're high enough level now that it doesn't mean an instant kill. It'll only take about half your HP. During the fight, make sure you heal your wounds with medicines (or Ox Bezoars if you're in a real pinch). It's best to use items rather than Dia since MAG is so precious in this fight.

It doesn't matter which Pale Rider Nebiros attacks. You have to kill all of them anyway. Something worth noting though, is that during this phase when there are 3 Pale Riders, while two of them are attacking, one of them may decide to just sit in one place, not doing anything for a very long time. If you notice one doing this, command Nebiros to go attack it repeatedly. You can usually get off a LOT of damage quickly like this. Just don't get too close to him yourself, since that usually slaps him back into reality and returns him to his regular pattern. Also, try not to get caught between the wall and a Pale Rider, as this will usually cause him to spam strikes on you repeatedly and it can be a bit hard to break free.

But yeah, just concentrate on avoiding attacks and healing up with medicines if you get hit, eventually Nebiros should kill off one of them, making the rest a bit easier. Just make him move on to the next one after that, and finally the last one. You should theoretically be able to take them all down without losing all of your MAG like I did in my video.

---Boss: Fiend Kageboushi---
My level: 46

One disclaimer, even if you kill this guy, he'll appear again on the next new moon. He's very hard and I honestly think we'd have a much easier time with him if we waited a mere 3 levels more. Still, he is technically doable right now even if I don't recommend it. So if you want to kill him just for kicks, here's how.

This guy can be very hard to kill for one reason alone: you need to do it FAST because he will run away about 1-5 minutes into the fight if he's still standing. Furthermore, his weakness is in constant flux. He will always be frail to the element opposite of the attack he just used. For example, if he uses Pyro Blade, he will be frail to ice. If he uses Diamond Crush he will be frail to fire. But guess what? None of this matters. Because that's not how we're going to fight him. Not only is he extremely resistant to frail stun, but there is simply no time to waste waiting for him to use something so you can counter.

So here's what we're going to do. The play by play. The day by day. We're going to overwhelm him with a nonstop physical assault. First off, make sure you have the strongest sword you can muster at this point. I went in with a Bakuya. Next, we're going to need the strongest demons you can create. I'm talking about strength. Create demons with ridiculously high St. I'm talking over 35 St and preferably 40. But that's not all. They also need to have very high damage physical skills. A nice demon at this level is Pyro Cerberus. He's level 46, extremely high natural St, and comes out of the box with Mighty Blow, a decent physical skill. The other one I went with was Raja Naga who has Rush. If you're willing to wait until level 49, I'm sure Atavaka and his Mad Rush would be VERY awesome.

Next, you need to make your two strong demons learn skills that will further increase the strength of their attacks. First and foremost, Tarukaja is ESSENTIAL. An easy way to make them learn this is to create a Spirit Ara Mitama, and level it once. Then fuse the Ara Mitama with one of your demons. This will result in the same demon, except with higher St and some of Ara Mitama's abilities. Remember that it needs to be a Full Moon for a spirit order demon's skills to pass on to another. Next, Warcry is also very useful. Finally, good passive skills to have include Power Chakra, Hero's Might, and Moonlight Rage. If you do have moonlight rage, a way to make sure it activates is to run around near the dungeon's entrance until you get the fiend's presence during a New Moon, then exit out to a place without random encounters and run around until a Full Moon, then go back into the dungeon and the fiend's presence will still be on you, except now you'll go into battle during a Full Moon. Oh and one last thing. Having Rakukaja isn't a bad idea either.

Ok. Once you have all these preparations it's time to fight him. When the fight starts, set both your demons to use their best phys skill repeatedly, and command one of them to cast Tarukaja (and Rakukaja if you have it) right at the start. The nice thing about assaulting him like this is that it causes him to not only flinch but even to fall down, and this opens up the opportunity for an even bigger smackdown while he's down without fear of retaliation. Even still though, Kageboushi's attacks are VERY dangerous. And he has a lot of them. Generally speaking though, most of them are linear attacks that hit in the area right in front of Kageboushi. So if you're behind him and he decides to attack one of your demons, you can call them quickly to your side and they will avoid the attack. If Kageboushi decides to attack you, just hide your demons and block the attack, then resume the attack after you've blocked it.

But make no mistake. Even with all these preparations Kageboushi is still very hard. This is largely due to his most dangerous move: Headcrush. This attack is not only INSTANTANEOUS but the damage is ABSURD, ranging from 600 to over 1000. That's right, more than the max HP you can get in the game. And the scary thing is... you can't afford to play it safe by hanging back where he can't hit you because you need to do as much damage as you can as fast as you can.

Let me stress that this is a very difficult fight. Even with all your preparations you're still going to need a little bit of luck in a few areas: the frequency of his Headcrushes (hopefully he never uses it), the frequency of the times you stun or make him fall down, and when he decides to run away. The time he fights seems to randomly fluctuate from 1 to 5 minutes, so you're going to have to hope he stays for a reasonable amount of time.

When you see that he's about to start attacking, hide your demons and run circles around him. This will cause him to start his attack (usually Pyro Blade or Slice and Dice, both dangerous) and miss you, then when you're behind him you can unhide your demons and unleash your attacks while he's finishing his move.

Watch out for his Dismiss Demons move. This is a powerful charm skill. The startup is reasonable, so when you see it, hide your demons and block. Don't unhide them TOO soon though because it can still hit them after you've blocked. Further, keep some Anti-Minds handy in case you screw up and they get charmed.

This fight is so difficult that I'm going to recommend using your best items. That's right. Bead, Bead of Life, and even your Soma. Normally I'm loathe to use such valuable items but this isn't a normal fight. You can't waste ANY time healing with Dia or attacking with anything but your best moves since you don't know when he'll flee. Unless you're very lucky, you will run out of MAG before the fight is over. Depending on your luck, you can get away with just using your chakra chip, but most of the time you'll have to use your Soma. I know it hurts to use these items but there's simply no time to waste casting Dia and whatnot. At least with other bosses you can whittle them away slowly if you don't have MAG, but here you don't have that luxury. It's also for this reason that I'd suggest waiting until you're a little bit stronger so you can hopefully get by more easily without using up that Chakra Chip.

---

But if you want to beat Kageboushi without items like it should be... then read on.

---Boss: Fiend Kageboushi---
My level: 49

Once you've attained level 49, you have access to a very powerful demon. One that will be invaluable for this fight. Fury Atavaka. Atavaka is not only very strong, he also learns Mad Rush, a VERY good phys skill, and he's also resistant to both phys and gun, two of Kageboushi's most dangerous attacks.

So I'm going to recommend you get an Atavaka, and another strong demon who knows a good phys skill such as Rush, and preferably is resistant to phys as well. I went with Frost Long myself but there are plenty other choices, particularly in the Fury order. Tarukaja is still essential, and Rakukaja and Warcry are still nice but not necessary (I didn't use them in my video). Make sure both demons have a lot of St. The closer to 40, the better. Give them a lot of passive skills that will enhance their damage like Power Chakra, Hero's Might and Moonlight Rage. Atavaka has a very nice passive skill that he learns called Agni's Blessing, so make sure to max out his loyalty beforehand. The rest of the preparations go just like my previous strategy.

Now here's the interesting thing. I'm not completely sure why, but when I fight Kageboushi with Long and Atavaka, he's more likely to use his worst moves like Diamond Crush and Wind Blade instead of his most dangerous stuff like Headcrush, Gun and Megidolaon. These worst attacks are great because they have a really long start up and only hit directly in front of him. This means that you can hit him during the time he's beginning the attack, and then hide your demons and run behind him to avoid damage, all the while hitting him more while he finishes the attack.

Set Atavaka to use Mad Rush, and your other demon to use Rush. At the start of the fight cast Tarukaja, and then assault him relentlessly while using the strategy I mentioned above to avoid damage. He might still use Dismiss Demons or another attack infrequently so stay on your toes, but that's really all there is to it! With Atavaka's great Mad Rush, you will eat up his health bar like NOTHING. In fact, you will do so much damage that you can end the fight before your MAG runs out completely or at the least, your MAG will run out when he's almost dead and only a few more strikes will end him.

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