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Octopath Traveler How to Beat Gideon (Boss Fight)

Octopath Traveler How to Beat Gideon

Items Acquired
Gideon’s Dagger

This fight is a rather unique one. We start off against Gideon, and as you can see he is rather weak to most physical attacks. You can break down his shield points pretty quickly with a variety of boosted melee attacks.

The trick to this fight (for Gideon, anyways) is that he will soon summon 2 Dancing Bones enemies to shield him with his “Animate Bones” move. While they are alive actually, you cannot target Gideon. That’s the biggest gimmick to this fight.

So, our target is the Dancing Bones. Cyrus’ dual-fire spell helps here (you can use it to build BP) and Ophilia’s Light attacks help, but you’ll want her to focus on healing as well. Ophilia and anyone able to use items can do this (again, BK has Alfyn as a permanent party member, so Healing Grape Bunches and the “Healing Mist” spell, which is Soothing Dust + Essence of Grape worked very well here).

The bones have quite a bit of health, but our main goal here is to have someone focus on healing while we burn down the bones shield points. You may end up having to have two people on healing at times as this fight includes several status effects that can hamper us (read up on the moves below). Cyrus himself should be dual-hitting the skeletons with fire attacks and saving his boost for when they are both broken to do boosted fire magic damage (hopefully you have the SP-Regen item on him as this is going to drain his SP). Ophilia can help here with Light attacks, but remember that you can also have someone use items (soulstones) or even use Alfyns concoct ability to help heal or do hit-all magic damage in a pinch (you can use Injurious items with Noxroot for hit-all fire damage, which can help a ton).

It will take awhile, but once you kill off the skeletons you can start to break Gideon and do major damage to him. This is where your skills like Cross Slash (Olberic) and Amputation (Alfyn) will come in handy. It’s likely that Gideon will re-summon his minions at some point though, although when he does they have much less health than before.

OK, let’s go over Gideon and his Dancing Bones attacks:

  • Attack: Gideon’s basic melee attack. Pretty weak, really, so hopefully you see this a lot (it does around 150-200 damage).
  • Animate Bones: Gideon will summon two Dancing Bones to guard him. A very annoying move that makes this fight unique as you can’t target Gideon while these enemies are out (but he can still be damaged by hit-all effects).
  • Hands of Darkness: Now this is an annoying attack. Gideon will do a hit-all dark attack on our paty for 600+ damage (you really should heal after this). The most annoying thing about this move is the fact that you may be blinded afterwards, which really hampers any physical attackers. I often use them as item jockeys if they do get blinded.
  • Executioner: Now this is a rough attack. Gideon will hit a single party member for 1,400+ damage. This can easily kill someone off, so be ready with an Olive of Life from someone if needed. It’s going to happen, unless you are just really over-leveled.
  • Creepy Laugh: This is another annoying move, but at least it won’t kill us! Gideon laughs creepily and inflicts several status effects on us (ATK and DEF down for three turns). Doesn’t really affect magic or breaking through shield points at least! If you’ve got a large physical attack lined up, consider erasing these status effects if you can.
  • Terror Claw: This is one of the skeleton’s moves where they will target a single party member and hit for 500+ damage, while trying to inflict the Curse status on you (so you can’t use your boosted attacks).
  • Skull Toss: This is one of the skeleton’s moves (as the name sure implies!). They will throw their head at you (even if it still stays attached) for 600-900 damage. This can ruin an injured target’s day, but if you stay topped up on health you can survive this.
  • Bone Toss: Another annoying attack from the skeletons, but less deadly than their skull. They will hit three times for 200-300 damage randomly.

This can be a hard fight for sure, but with some dedicated healing and the dual-fire spell Cyrus has this can definitely be won. Be ready to have someone else help with the healing and time your boosts for when Gideon is broken to really help yourself out. Make him pay!

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