any strategy for beating Yunalesca?

[Wolfie]

Always struggle with this one...

[Hinnyuu]

The key thing to keep in mind is the Zombie status she inflicts with her Hellbiter attack - while it prevents healing on your team, it ALSO makes them immune to death effects. Make sure to use that to your advantage when she casts Death! After that, it's just a matter of surviving her Mind Blaster. If you can use equipment to negate confusion, you're all set; otherwise you have to gamble not to get too unlucky with who gets confused.

If you're very far ahead on the Sphere Grid, you may also be able to reach the Holy spell - Yunalesca is weak against that element and the spell deals absolutely massive damage against her.

You may also want to use Aeons, particularly if they're in overdrive.

[barracuda-rostigraben]

Yeah, while it seems counterintuitive to do so, always keep at least one character Zombified.

[BaHaMuT]

I needed no strattegy for such an easy boss, I recommend you to train in zanarkand ruins until fully sastisfied, then face her in combat, leave at least one character with curse

[Silamon]

If you feel like cheesing the fight you can actually get the items needed for deathproof and zombie proof from the calm lands arena.

Capture one of every enemy in calmlands will give you 60 farplane winds for deathproof, then if you capture 1 of every monster in mushroom rock road you can get 10 candle of life for zombie proof.

If you have both you literally cannot lose to yunalesca, this is how you kill this boss on a solo challenge. You can also go for auto-med, which you can customize with a lot of remedies that can be stolen from Marlboros.
Witha group you can probably just get deathproof and make sure to cure zombie on that char right away.

[Wolfie]

Originally posted by Silamon:

If you feel like cheesing the fight you can actually get the items needed for deathproof and zombie proof from the calm lands arena.

Capture one of every enemy in calmlands will give you 60 farplane winds for deathproof, then if you capture 1 of every monster in mushroom rock road you can get 10 candle of life for zombie proof.

If you have both you literally cannot lose to yunalesca, this is how you kill this boss on a solo challenge. You can also go for auto-med, which you can customize with a lot of remedies that can be stolen from Marlboros.
Witha group you can probably just get deathproof and make sure to cure zombie on that char right away.

Interesting. How do you get a 'solo challenge' - doesn't the party need 3 at all times?

How long would it take to capture these monsters for deathproof and zombie proof?

[Silamon]

You cannot take the party members out true, but you can have the other 2 characters perform useless actions like swapping weapon every turn, or just kill them yourself with the solo character. Around the time you get to calmlands the other 2 characters will mostly just die in one hit anyway.

As for how long it takes, unless you are doing something like Lulu only, capturing is pretty easy and you only need 1 of each monster from calmlands to get the farplane winds.

You would need to capture one each of:
Skoll:
Nebiros
Flame Flan
Shred
Anacondaur
Ogre
Coeurl
Chimera Brain
Malboro

Some of the monsters only spawn in the northwest areas of the map, so if you dont see them thats why. The only one that could pose a problem would be malboro and Flame Flan. For Malboro it shouldnt be too hard to fight it normally and land the last hit with a capture weapon, if you are running a solo playthrough you would need something with confuse and sleep proof for it.
Flame Flan is a bit trickier to capture, you can either use Demi to get it really low health, or if you have Auron I am fairly sure armor break works.

Edit: For Auto-Med just steal from 20 remedies from Malboro's, it would be a lot easier to get that than the candles of life for zombie proof, and the auto med/deathproof item can be useful for things after yunalesca, while zombieproof wont have much use afterwards.

Second Edit: If you are interested in doing a solo challenge there are guides for different characters over on https://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/197344-final-fantasy-x/faqs , including the rules for the challenge and what you will need to beat the bosses.

[Wolfie]

Originally posted by Silamon:

You cannot take the party members out true, but you can have the other 2 characters perform useless actions like swapping weapon every turn, or just kill them yourself with the solo character. Around the time you get to calmlands the other 2 characters will mostly just die in one hit anyway.

As for how long it takes, unless you are doing something like Lulu only, capturing is pretty easy and you only need 1 of each monster from calmlands to get the farplane winds.

You would need to capture one each of:
Skoll:
Nebiros
Flame Flan
Shred
Anacondaur
Ogre
Coeurl
Chimera Brain
Malboro

Some of the monsters only spawn in the northwest areas of the map, so if you dont see them thats why. The only one that could pose a problem would be malboro and Flame Flan. For Malboro it shouldnt be too hard to fight it normally and land the last hit with a capture weapon, if you are running a solo playthrough you would need something with confuse and sleep proof for it.
Flame Flan is a bit trickier to capture, you can either use Demi to get it really low health, or if you have Auron I am fairly sure armor break works.

Edit: For Auto-Med just steal from 20 remedies from Malboro's, it would be a lot easier to get that than the candles of life for zombie proof, and the auto med/deathproof item can be useful for things after yunalesca, while zombieproof wont have much use afterwards.

Second Edit: If you are interested in doing a solo challenge there are guides for different characters over on https://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/197344-final-fantasy-x/faqs , including the rules for the challenge and what you will need to beat the bosses.

Thanks, I'll look into that. :)