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Guides - Beating Ozma

Guide to beating Ozma

• Introduction
• What is Ozma?
• Ozma's Statistics and Abilities
• Preparations and Countermeasures
• The Battle
• The Rewards
• Miscellaneous Notes

This is an extensive guide for beating Ozma, the Living Planet, in Final Fantasy 9. All the information in this guide comes from bits of information from Heretic’s Ozma FAQ from Gamefaqs, as well as my own personal experience fighting (and taking the time to steal from) it. And as an early word of warning for those lucky enough to read this before finding Hades in Memoria: DO NOT USE YOUR PUMICE PIECES TO MAKE PUMICE. Pumice Pieces are invaluable in the fight against Ozma; far more useful then Pumice, or the Ark summon for that matter. They are also good add-ons in general and besides, defeating Ozma will reward you with a complete Pumice, eliminating the need for actually having Hades synthesize one.

Ozma is one of the secret bosses in Final Fantasy 9 and easily the hardest opponent in the game. It can be found in Chocobo’s Air Garden and sealed within the Eidolon grave, which looks basically like an arrangement of stacked stones. Upon examining the grave, Mene will rush up to you and warn you about the potential danger and give you a chance to back out. Unless you’ve saved and feel you are prepared take the chance.

As the requisite Final Fantasy superboss, Ozma has both a high amount of HP (approximately 55,535) and tremendous offensive power. It is weak to Wind and Holy damage but oddly seems to shift in its defenses toward Shadow damage (sometimes taking damage, sometimes being immune, or sometimes absorbing) and has 9999 MP. In addition, Ozma possesses incredible speed and can sometimes get in multiple turns in between your own characters’ individual turns. Ozma cannot be hit directly with physical attacks unless you equip the Long Reach ability, are using a Racket class weapon (which you probably won’t for the sake of dealing damage), or complete a certain side quest. Ozma also carries an Elixir, a Robe of Lords, Dark Matter, and another Pumice Piece; all of which can be stolen by Zidane provided you can survive long enough.

Ozma’s abilities consist of a number of Black Magic spells, White Magic spells, Blue Magic, and some other attacks used by certain other bosses in the game.

What players need to understand is that beating Ozma is just as much about having luck as it is about preparation. No matter how high level you are, if Ozma decides to cast Meteor and Curaga multiple times there may not be much you can do other then reload and try again. But, in regards to how you can prepare there are several things you can do.

While completely unnecessary, you can undertake the Friendly Monsters side quest, which will allow you to attack (and steal from) Ozma directly without the Long Reach ability equipped. It is likely that throughout the course of the game you have already run into some of the friendly monsters during a random battle with a distinctive cheery tune and they have asked for specific jewels. When given said jewels they will reward you with AP and other jewels needed for other friendly monsters (always hang on to the jewels they give until you find the monster that wants it). Here is a list of all the friendly monsters and their locations.

As for the actual party setup, it is recommended that your characters be at least in the 60s. While it is possible to beat Ozma at a lower level your chances will be much slimmer. Each member of the party should equip all the status defending abilities (except Bright Eyes) they can to decrease the danger of Curse. Also make sure you have some Remedies, Magic Tags, Phoenix Downs, Elixirs, and other useful expendable items and manually sort them to the top of your inventory to decrease scrolling time if and when you need to use them. The Auto-abilities are also useful, especially Auto-Haste and Auto-Regen. Just don’t equip Auto-Reflect, as you don’t want to bounce your Cures onto Ozma just to reflect only a few of its attacks. Chemist can also be used to supplement Auto-Potion and if you do use Auto-Potion make sure you get rid of all regular Potions and stock up on Hi-Potions. Also, watch out for the Zombie status, as it will cause Auto-Regen and Auto-Potion to become damaging to the person effected. The HP+% and MP+% are also useful and abilities like Concentrate, Half MP, and Boost should be considered for the mages. The party should also equip armor and add-ons that provide defense to Holy and Shadow damage. Items like Ninja Gear, Chimera Armlets, Egoist’s Armlets and especially Pumice Pieces are very useful. Hopefully, you have saved your Pumice Pieces rather then have Hades fuse them into Pumice. While Pumice does teach Ark, the summon itself won’t be very useful for this fight given Ozma’s erratic Shadow damage alignments and the fact that Pumice Pieces absorb both Holy and Shadow damage with just one equipment slot make them incredibly useful. Besides Pumice will be rewarded from winning the fight anyway.

It is also imperative that none of the party members levels are a multiple of five. In addition to having Level 5 Death and Level 4 Holy, Ozma seems to have the ability to instinctively know your party members levels and will use the spells accordingly. But because of this reason, it’s also a good idea to equip items that defend against Holy damage and have characters with levels that are multiples of four. This way, Ozma may spend several rounds using Level 4 Holy while doing no damage or healing you party members!

As for who to bring into the battle, my recommended setup is Zidane, Dagger, Eiko, and Quina. The reason for having Zidane is obvious as he must be in the party at all times. It’s recommended that he should come into the battle with his Thievery attack maxed out in damage (which is done by stealing enough times). If your feeling bold you can also equip the Master Thief and Bandit abilities and try and steal items from Ozma. Zidane’s trance attacks are powerful, but shouldn’t be counted on as even the Dyne attacks become pitiful if Zidane is miniaturized and Thievery can consistently do 9999 damage, at a lesser cost, and whether or not Zidane is small. In fact, it’s probably best if Zidane come into the fight with a completely empty Trance gauge.

Dagger is here for healing as well as supplemental damage with Bahamut. With Boost equipped, it will do high damage. Concentrate is recommended to increase the power of her spells. Eiko serves much the same purpose as Dagger, and can easily do 9999 damage with a Boosted Madeen. However, given the MP cost it’s generally more efficient to use Holy, which can do 8000+ damage to Ozma and remove the need to equip Boost but Concentrate is still recommended. With her in your party, there is also the possibility that Phoenix will save you should Ozma wipe everyone out. Her Double White Magic Trance is also very useful, and Eiko should really be the only one who you should consider equipping with High Tide.

Quina might be the most useful party member of the bunch. If you’ve caught enough frogs Frog Drop will do 9999 damage. Quina can also clear a variety of status effects on all party members with Angel’s Snack and can heal all party members with White Wind. Magic Hammer can also be used to eventually deplete Ozma’s 9999 MP. Take note that this might not be the best strategy as Ozma can completely drain a character’s MP and use it to get in some attacks while you work to replenish it.

As for the reasons not to use the other characters… Vivi might have had some potential in terms of dealing damage and healing party members with Doomsday. But the fact that Ozma can also be healed by Doomsday and Vivi having low HP (and hence, low survivability) make him of little use in the battle when Dagger and Eiko can do much the same as he can and more.

Both Steiner and Freya can deal 9999 damage with Shock and Dragon Crest respectively, but their other abilities are of little use in the fight (Reis’s Wind might have been useful if your characters didn’t have Auto-Regen already). And their armor selection doesn’t provide with as much Holy or Shadow defenses as other characters. Amarant can be used to both damage and heal the party with his abilities. But only in Trance does he even come close to Quina in versatility.

55,535 HP might not seem like a lot to deplete if all your characters can do 8000+ damage, but given the speed and power of Ozma’s attacks as well as it’s ability to cure itself, you may find yourself struggling to survive while looking for opportunities to attack.

How the battle goes depends greatly on four major factors: how well you have prepared yourself, how lucky you are, how quick you are with the controls, and whether or not you want to try and steal items from Ozma. If you are well prepared, which you should be if you follow this guide, and have luck on your side and just want to defeat Ozma this battle could possibly go very quickly. If you want some of Ozma’s items this battle could prove both long and grueling.

The trick to reacting to Ozma’s powerful attacks is to always have two characters on standby or with a nearly full ATB gauge to be ready to heal or revive someone if possible. To do this you have to allow the characters ATB gauge to fill regularly without inputting a command for all of them. Use the triangle button to cycle between characters whose ATB gauges are filled if you prefer to take action with one character over others. Ozma’s speed is such that it will probably get a few attacks in between characters individual turns regardless of how fast you input commands, thus it is better to have two characters ready to act just as Ozma initiates an attack.

Because Dagger, Eiko, and Quina are capable of both offensive actions and healing, it is best for two of these characters to serve as standby roles. They all have at least one strong offensive ability (Boosted Bahamut, Concentrated Holy, and Frog Drop respectively) as well as healing abilities that affect all party members. Zidane’s main role is to either use Thievery continuously or Steal. Naturally, you should have him use healing and restorative items if the party is in bad shape. In the likely event that a party member is KO’ed, have anyone whose turn is up other then Eiko use a Phoenix Down but make sure someone else’s ATB gauge is full so you can heal the revived character immediately. Dagger should avoid using her Life spell to save MP, but Eiko can use Full-Life which is better overall then reviving someone while leaving him or her vulnerable to Ozma’s next attack.

While it is possible to steal items from Ozma, it may be more prudent to just steal until you get the Robe of Lords and then start killing it. It is arguable whether or not you need another Pumice Piece given that you may already have some and a whole Pumice is awarded for winning, and Dark Matter is hardly worth the effort when there are other ways to get it (including simply beating Ozma).

Ozma drops both a complete Pumice and Dark Matter after you defeat it. In addition, Mene awards you with Ozma’s Tetra Master card and a Strategy Guide key item. The latter of which is a rather nebulous item that seems like it’s mostly there to prove you beat Ozma; though it also gives some hints as to how to maximize your Tetra Master Collector’s Rank.

Remember, you don’t need to complete the Friendly Monster side quest or meet Hades to fight and beat Ozma. You can use the Long Reach ability if you want to attack or steal from Ozma, and Hades’ synthesis shop won’t make a big difference in the battle unless you fuse the Pumice Pieces. For some amusement and a bit of extra challenge, try beating Ozma and then meet them as both the friendly Yan and Hades will react differently to you if you do so. ?>

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