The Man in Black

Overview

 * Origin: Final Fantasy IV
 * Type: Challenge Event
 * Reference: Announcement
 * Related Event: The Tower of Zot
 * Event Period: 11/17/17 00:00 - 11/23/17 23:59 PST

Challenge the boss in this high difficulty dungeon and enrich your party with the bountiful rewards that can be obtained during this limited-time event!

Abilities

 * Binding Cold: Set HP (10) to all enemies.
 * Binding Cold: Set HP (10) to all enemies, and inflict paralyze (30%) to all enemies.
 * Come forth, my creature of shadow!: Set HP (10) to all enemies, and summon Shadow Dragon.
 * Firaga: Fire magic damage (1.8x) to all enemies.
 * Thundaga: Lightning magic damage (1.8x) to all enemies.
 * Bio: Dark magic damage (1.5x) to one enemy, and inflict poison (100%) to one enemy.
 * Osmose: Magic damage (1x) as MP drain (50%) to one enemy.
 * Drain: Magic damage (4x) as HP drain (100%) to all enemies.

Abilities

 * Black Fang: Fixed damage* (999999) to one enemy.
 * Black Fang: Fixed damage* (999999) to all enemies.

Phase 1: >50% HP

 * Golbez's attack pattern:
 * Firaga or Thundaga, once
 * Bio, up to 3 times
 * Normal attack, no limit
 * The order of the skill may change.

Phase 2: <50% HP

 * Golbez HP is capped at 49%, once he reached this point he will summon a Shadow Dragon. The summoning skill will reduce your party HP to 10, and both Golbez and Shadow Dragon will end turn immediately. A scripted event will then restore your HP to 50%.


 * Golbez's attack pattern:
 * Drain, once.
 * Drain or Bio, once.
 * Firaga or Thundaga, once.
 * Bio or Drain, once.
 * Aside from the first Drain, the order of the skills may change.


 * Shadow Dragon's attack pattern:
 * Black Fang (ST) once and then end turn.
 * If you kill Golbez, it'll use Black Fang (AoE) every turn.
 * The only way to avoid Black Fang is to use reraise, magic evasion, hide, or jump. Otherwise it's a guaranteed death.

Phase 3: Shadow Dragon is dead

 * After you killed Shadow Dragon, Golbez will use one random skill at the beginning of his turn. This only happen once per battle.
 * The random skill evocation includes two Binding Colds, and Summon Shadow Dragon. However, Shadow Dragon has one summon limit, so the skill can be used but the dragon will not be summoned. This means 3 out of 8 times (37.5%) he will use these skills which set your party HP to 10, followed by an AoE, possibly wiping your party.


 * Golbez's attack pattern:
 * Osmose, once.
 * Firaga or Thundaga, once.
 * Osmose or Bio, once.
 * Drain or Firaga or Osmose or Binding Cold (Paralyze), once.
 * Aside from the first Osmose, the order of the skill may change.
 * The first and second Osmose from the list will target highest MP unit, but not the third Osmose, which is random.
 * The chance of him using Binding Cold is around 20% per turn. However, there is a small chance that he use it before his last action. If he were to follow it with Firaga or Thundaga you will wipe, while Bio will simply kill a unit.

Tips

 * See testimonials and discussions.
 * Golbez's regular magic spells: Firaga, Thundaga, Bio, Drain, Osmose can be reflected. They can also be sealed, except for Bio.
 * The only physical damage source is from Golbez's normal attack. Once you pass the first phase, there is no more physical damage. Having high SPR and using a good SPR buff will make Golbez deal negligible damage.
 * To avoid the chance of Binding Cold into Firaga/Thundaga into wipe in the third phase, you can kill Golbez and the Shadow Dragon on the same turn on the second phase OR use Rikku's LB just before you kill the Shadow Dragon.
 * A provoke tank (Snow, Earth Veritas, Warrior of Light, Wilhelm, Cagnazzo) with a source of reraise (Meliadoul, Ayaka, Grim Lord Sakura, White Witch Fina, Charming Kitty Ariana) will trivialize the second phase as Golbez still does the same amount of magic damage as in the first phase.
 * Golbez's health will lock at 49% before he summons the Shadow Dragon, so it is not possible to bypass Phase 2 of the fight.
 * if you choose to kill Golbez in phase 2 first it is possible to simply have double reraise on ayaka (or charming kitty ariana) and a damage dealer. The dragon will wipe the party out but only has one attack. Then you just keep on reraising and attacking, unless you need to give ayaka an elixer or two.
 * If you are in for a long battle, Ayaka with 650+ spr and enough mp regen can solo the battle with reraise on herself and banish. This can take several hundred rounds of battle though.