How to Beat Yiazmat

This page contains information about the boss Yiazmat in Final Fantasy XII (FFXII, FF12). Read on to know more about the boss fight including its movesets and optimal strategies to beat it.

How to beat Yiazmat

Details

The ultimate optional boss, Yiazmat, is a high-level Elite Mark that was infamous for taking so long to defeat in the Original games. In the Zodiac Age, however, he can be defeated under an hour or two if the player sets the speed at 4x; the reason he takes so long to defeat is because he has 50 million HP.

He is found at the Ridorana Cataract's Colosseum. Yiazmat frequently changes tactics during the battle, but the moves to watch out for are Instant Death and Cyclone, which inflicts the Sap status.

Moveset

Aside from Instant Death and Cyclone, Yiazmat uses White Breath, which can inflict Stop on the party. He also has the strongest Rake in the game, which is capable of taking out a character in two hits or even one.

Yiazmat also has a Stone Breath attack which can inflict Petrify on your party. His attacks have no charge time, and he is also aligned towards the Holy element.

Gambit

Strategy

If the party has the technicks Expose, Shear, Addle, and Wither, they should not hesitate using it, as it will help a great deal in the battle. Equipping a Shikari with the Yagyu Darkblade + Black Robes will make the battle shorter. However, if that's not the case, then hunker down and prepare for a long, drawn-out battle.

An effective strategy in this case is to use the Decoy + Reverse method on one member of the party, usually the tank or highest damage-dealer. Have a Mage with access to Dark-element Magicks cast those on Yiazmat. Remember to keep a constant eye on your Reversed character, cast Reverse when necessary, and remember to only attack him and avoid using healing spells on him.

Cheese Strategy

Another effective strategy which enables low-level parties to defeat Yiazmat is to make use of the Colosseum's stairways. It is possible to defeat Yiazmat with long-ranged characters who can target him while out of range of its close-quarters attacks.

Remember to be quick on the draw to revive characters who will be KO'ed by Yiazmat's Instant Death attacks. While this is a longer method than just using Expose and other technicks and hitting him with Dark-element weapons, it is another alternative to fall back on, especially without weapons like Yagyu Darkblade and Magicks such as Dark/ga.

Final Fantasy XII Related Links

List of Boss Battles