Kingdom Hearts II Sephiroth FAQ

Sephiroth FAQ
Kingdom Hearts II
by Jon Randall
[email protected]
----------------------

4/4/06 Update: Added statistics and included ability names for
US version.
1/31/06 Update: Added Proud Mode strategy for Sephiroth. Enter 
Sephiroth: Proud Mode into your Find command.

===================
/////SEPHIROTH/////
===================

Where is Sephiroth?
-------------------

First and foremost, you will have to have sealed the
Space Paranoids keyhole in order to find Sephiroth.
He appears just beyond Crystal Fissure in the last
section of Hollow Bastion, which is now called
Radiant Garden, called the Dark Depths. Hit Triangle
to converse with him to engage in combat.


**Note**

You will gain NO experience from this fight, and you
can only fight Sephiroth once. After he is defeated
you cannot fight him again because he will be off
to bigger and better things afterward so make sure
you keep a separate save file if you'd like to fight
him again.

You WILL gain an extra drive gauge bar and get the
Fenrir keychain, plus the recognition of beating a
REALLY tough boss, harder than most bosses I've fought
in any video game so far.


Preparing for battle
--------------------

Before even attempting to fight Sephiroth, you'll want
to have the following abilities and items:

Items:

-Ultima Weapon (MUST have)
-supply of Elixirs (preferably), or Hi Potions

Abilities:

-Quick Run
-Aerial Dodge 
-High Jump Level 2
-Guard (to use Square to block an attack) 
-Retaliating Slash
-Combo Plus(es) and Air Combo Plus
-Second Chance (to keep at 1 HP during the length of a combo
so that you don't die)
-Leaf Bracer

*Level 70+ (preferably) with strength and defense 40+ each


Note: Just a heads up of what you are going to be up against.
Sephiroth is super strong and has 15 life bars. I beat him
at level 63 after some hard working at a sound strategy.
He has three different attack phases which will be discussed
in granulated detail below in the strategy section.
Also, Ultima Weapon is a must have (YES it is worth putting
the time into getting it) because of the MP Hastega ability
it possesses. You'll need speedy MP recovery to help heal
yourself when needed. More about healing below.



Strategy
--------

Stats
-----

HP: 3000
Str: 42
Def: 24
Exp: 0
Items: none
Battle bonus: Drive Gauge +1


1st Phase
---------

Press and hold Triangle at the start of the fight to block
all of the hits from Sephiroth's starting move, the Dash and
Cut move. You will block the attack and then Sephiroth will
be momentarily open to a combo attack. From here on is where
the battle starts. YOUR BEST OFFENSE IN THIS FIGHT IS A
GOOD DEFENSE, so wait until Sephiroth is vulnerable to attack.
Let him attack, then dodge and attack him, never the other
way around. Remember this because this is key to the entire
battle. Another key to remember is to do only a single combo
attack on him and then wait for him to attack again. Never
try and string more than one combo together as he will 
teleport out of the latter combo and you'll be open to
attack. One last noteworthy thing, you MUST be on the ground
to block the Dash and Cut attack. Even if you were in mid-air
and have only landed a mere second before he launches the
attack, you most likely will still get caught in the attack.

Sephiroth will randomly do the Dash and Cut attack as well as
Omnislash in this phase, along with the most annoying Teleport
then Uppercut attack. If you have Reflect Guard equipped,
you can block Omnislash and his Uppercut attack by pressing
Square. If not, simply use Air Slide to avoid the attack.
When he uses Omnislash, either block it or slide away and
attack him once he is vulnerable.

If Sephiroth teleports behind you, and you are quick enough
you may be able to block his uppercut. If you don't have
Reflect Guard equipped, dash away. But take note here as
well that he may choose to teleport more than once to do
a second or third uppercut. Either way, he will continue
with Omnislash afterward so don't attack until he is done
with this. In the most likely even that the Uppercut connects
with Sora, you will be shot up into the air where he will
perform a mid-air Omnislash combo. If this happens, wait 
about a full second while in mid-air and then press Square
to do the Revenge Slash: You'll break out of your ascent
upward and, if timed right, you'll have landed a hit on 
Sephiroth as soon as he teleports to the air landing him
open for an aerial combo. Even if you miss him you'll 
still be in a better position to avoid his combo. Simply
keep hitting Square until you land a hit and then combo.

Continue on with this strategy until you have depleted 
5 of his life bars, which will begin his second attack phase.


2nd Phase
---------

All of the above attacks remain in this phase with a few
additions or tweaks. Omnislash now has a much greater range
of attack and will requiere 2 Air Slides to dodge it (if you
can actually get away from it), or just block with Reflect
Guard. Sephiroth will produce black orbs that form around
Sora and pull toward his position. You can simply ignore 
them and dodge through them when few, but when there are
a lot of orbs, knock them away and even bat them back at
Sephiroth to do some minor damage. Don't get too caught 
up with the orbs, however, because Sephiroth makes his
way over to you and will perform Omnislash at his
earliest convenience so just worry about the orbs that are
in your way to escape, then slide out of the way of danger.
Note that you cannot attack after blocking Omnislash anymore
because from here on Sephiroth will just teleport away when
you try to attack, unlike the first phase.

Sephiroth will also perform Descend Heartless Angel (DHA)
in which he will mutter a few words while teleporting
away from Sora in order to rise into the air for this
nasty attack: It brings you down to 1 HP and 0 MP.
Here, you have two options. First option is to try and
hit him. This is where you'll need High Jump Level 2 
because he is too high out of normal High Jump attacking
range and you won't reach him. High Jump Level 2 enables
you to get to his position, with my suggestion of having
Air Dodge equipped, hit X and you'll gain some extra 
needed height to attack him. Once you land a hit he will
stop the sequense of DHA and he will forfeit his attack.
Your other option is what to do if he attack before
you can reach him. If you know you'll be out of range
then DON'T EVEN GO FOR IT. Reason is because he will
connect and drain your HP to 1, then with you at close
proximity he will perform Pillar of Fire, which now
draws Sora in toward him making it much harder to dodge,
in which case you die. (Note: either run or slide away
from Pillar of Fire, don't jump. If you jump you'll be
sucked in quicker in air and will get hit with the
fire)

When you know you can't reach Sephiroth in time to stop
DHA, hold your position and heal with an Elixir or Hi
Potion when the attack is over (if you are good enough
you can actually use Curaga at the precise moment before
DHA connects and you will fully heal HP, but still lose
MP). Be prepared that since you are at a distance now
he is going to go directly into his Dash and Cut attack.
You'll notice this right away because the screen will
turn it's usual darker shade. Heal, block the Dash and
then attack when he is open.

Continue all of this but be advised he may use Pillar 
of Fire at random. Once brought down to 5 health bars
remaining he will begin his final attack phase.


3rd Phase
---------

Sephiroth will stop dead and produce a pink aura that
glows around the upper portion of his outfit. This denotes
his last phase. He becomes even faster and will sometimes
even glide across the ground to attack Sora. His Omnislash
will now go the length of the battle field and he will
conjure dozens of black orbs to hit you.

He will still use Pillar of Fire, Dash and Cut and 
DHA still remain with the addition of Meteor. Still use
the previous strategies for the other attack: Block 
Dash and Cut, then attack; hit Sephiroth to stop DHA; and
try to block Omnislash (Air Slide is useless
as he will connect always due to it's massive range).

Once he summons Meteor, slide out of the way to avoid the
attack as best you can, making your way over to Sephiroth.
He is actually out of attacking range but stay as close as
possible to get in an attack once he lands. **What I did
was avoid Meteor, work my way over to Sephiroth while
target locked on him, jump as if to attack when close and
get hit by Meteor. Sounds dumb, but once you are hit once
and you are near Sephiroth, hit Square to Revenge Slash
and Sora will remain above most of the Meteors only to
hit Square again once hit (sustaining minor damage) until
the attack is over. You will have to wait and see what
he'll do when you land because he will not be vulnerable
for attack after meteor. He will teleport away to the
ground and prepare his next attack so keep your eyes
open.

To be quite honest and accurate, the only times when 
Sephiroth is really vulnerable to attack in this phase
is after Meteor and Dash and Cut. You'll simply have
to be patient and have some luck as to find an opening.
Quite difficult, but many failed attempts should yield
you a good eye for his attack and a win! You gain no
experience from the fight but you'll gain an extra 
gauge on your drive gauge. (Should be number 7 at this
point.)

***UPDATE***

Sephiroth: Proud Mode
---------------------

You'll need a bit of a tweek with your strategy if you
plan to defeat Sephiroth on Proud Mode. As opposed to 
my strategy above, my stats for Proud Mode were as follows:
Level 49, Strength 37, Defense 38. That's 14 levels lower than
standard mode so it can be done, but it really is NOT easy.

I'd recommend that you be level 65-70 and have all of the abilities
as stated above. The only one I did not give myself time to acquire
this time around was glide, but that really isn't completely 
necessary, although it might've helped out a little bit. One thing
to note before the fight: Sephiroth is between 2 to 3 times as strong
as before, so you'll be in for a battle that's twice as hard. I 
don't even need to say that Combo Live is a MUST have here.

All I can say is to follow the strategy above with a few exceptions. 
If he teleports behind you during ANY phase, let him take the uppercut,
don't bother to try and block it. Take ANY opportunity you can to get
in some damage. I even reconfigured my abilities so that I could attack
him, end it with the Explosion attack and wait for him to land, he'd 
be open again for another attack so I'd slide forward and attack him
ending with a second Explosion for some really good damage before he'd
do his teleport away.

So attack whenever he's vulnerable, and don't block the uppercut.
Another thing you'll have to do is be a little more dynamic in your
strategy this time around. For instance, he changes up his attacks
in Proud Mode, or so I've experienced, and for example in his 3rd
phase when he would normally do Omnislash (usually after Meteor), he
would do a sort of mini-uppercut attack that knocks Sora into mid-air,
taking a nice big chunck of my life while at it, and THEN start Omnislash.
The outcome is simple: in a logical sense, they are two ENTIRELY different
attacks, so Combo Live is useless. The explanation is the small uppercut
does really good damage, and then the first slash from Omnislash does well
over half a lifebar in damage, so you'll end up dead. Some ways to get
around this are to watch for what attack he is prompting after Meteor, and
if he starts to fly swiftly over to you, try and jump/air dodge out of the
vacinity or just glide away.

***This is the most important part of the Proud Mode strategy so pay
attention here. Two things: 1. Customize Reflect(Reflega) to a button
so that you'll have quick access to it (doing this with Elixirs and
Hi-Potions wouldn't be a bad idea either); and 2. Conserve your MP.

The reason to customize Reflect is because in Proud Mode Sephiroth
produces TONS of black orbs during his 2nd and 3rd phases. No more
simply batting them away or dodging them. When he produces them, use
Reflect once (no more than once is needed, trust me, they will remain
for a moment and then burst) and the orbs will disappear. The orbs
become VERY cumbersome when trying to avoid Sephiroth's attacks while
the orbs magnate toward you. 

The reason to conserve MP is that you'll need it for using Reflect.
Yes, it's THAT important. That means that whenever you get hit with
an attack, due to Sephiroth's incredible strength, you'll need to heal
right away. No more using Curaga right away and waiting for your MP to
come back. It won't come back quick enough, even with MP Hastega on
your Ultima Weapon. So to heal, use a Hi-Potion that you've customized
into your corresponding buttons, and keep your MP full for his next
orb attack. You WILL have times when you'll be very close to death and
you'll need to use Curaga, especially because you'll be momentarily 
invulnerable with Leaf Veil equipped. Do so sparingly and pay very close
attention to his attacks, because he really is THAT much harder than
last time.

Some words of hope for this fight are these: With my abilities 
reconfigured this time around, I attacked with my normal attack
string, followed by Explosion, then I'd get in another string 
of the same combo because I configured it right so that he'd 
teleport after the SECOND combo string. This helps out because
with the two combos done at once, I'd take 3/4 of a lifebar off
in one opportunity with only 37 strength! Also, this gives you
valuable time to recover MP if you absolutely couldn't stay 
away from using Curaga and need to wait for your MP to recover. 
Watch for his newly changing attack patterns and follow this 
strategy to a win (GOOD LUCK!!)

After the Battle
----------------

Once the battle is won, go back to the beginning of 
Radiant Garden to speak with Cloud. He will then set off
to find Sephiroth, so head back to the Dark Depths. Here
you will watch the Showdown of Fate 2 FMV and Tifa will 
reward you with the Fenrir keychain afterward.

Fenrir has Attack +7, Magic Attack +1 and auto-ability
of Combo Minus (decreasing your overall combo hits by
one).

Well done! Congratulate yourself for beating one of the
hardest bosses I'd say I've ever faced.


-------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2006 Jon Randall ([email protected])
This document is not to be reproduced in whole or
in part without prior consent of the author.