The Sandman

[Sanctanox]

I had nothing against the 6 bosses before, but the Sandman is ridicoulisly hard. Its just to much spamming of jamming everything. At least give us level 45 or so.

[Critical Games]

Hey Sanctanox! He's definitely the hardest fight in the game, so I completely understand the challenge. When I was making the fight, he was so hard that I spent a whole night just fighting him, losing, making him easier, then repeating XD Finally he got to the point where I could beat him over and over without issue.

I used the Anti-All and Anti-Sleep Augments on two of my opening characters so that I could start buffing myself and/or hurting him right from the start. Oh, and if you haven't upgraded all of your equipment with Dreamstones, definitely do that (I'm assuming you already have though).

- When the poison swamp town background appears he becomes Earth elemental (i.e. gets weak to Water and Ice attacks)
- When the Ship Graveyard background appears he becomes Water element (i.e. gets weak to Electric and Wind attacks)
- When the burning city background appears he becomes Fire element (weak to Water and Earth attacks)
- When the Ice Cavern background appears he becomes Ice element (weak to Fire attacks)
- When the Desert background appears he becomes Wind element (weak to Electric and Ice attacks)

So this means that Emma and Mage can take advantage of all his weaknesses, while having high Magic Defence. Robot also has naturally high Magic Defence too, and he has multiple elemental parts. Trio Attacks can also be devastatingly powerful. Electric Blitz (Charlie, Emma, Robot) deals Electric damage, and Trio Blade (Warrior, Thief, Mage) does Fire damage. So use those at the right time, and the boss will lose thousands of HP.

Emma's Omega Burst is also insanely powerful in this fight, as it makes her near invincible (assuming she already had a high MDEF stat) and makes her elemental spells really powerful. Using Charlie's Cleave will also make these attacks even more deadly.

The second phase is hard, but if you can reduce the HP of one of the Sandman's clones, it'll stop attacking. So focus all of your fire on one target, and the battle will get a lot easier.

In the second phase, using Mage's Multi-Shell is also very useful, as it greatly improves the party's ability to survive.

No one's told me they couldn't beat him yet, so I'm confident that you'll be able to overcome it Sanctanox - especially since you've done the other six! Levels in 8BA2 make a lot less difference than Equipment and Augments, so that might be something to take a look at too.

If you need more tips or info, please just let me know. Good luck!

[g14classifiedasset]

The dev has covered phase one Sandman tricks, so I'll add some for phase 2 including a potential strategy if you're still struggling.

Focus fire on one of the three mages, each of the mage has an elemental weakness that you can focus on to deal heavy damage, which stacks with Charlie's cleave which weakens physical and magical defense. Red mage is vulnerable to water attacks(tidal wave, aqua burst), green mage is vulnerable to fire attacks(immolate, Kuro's burning blade) and I believe blue is vulnerable to lightning(thunderbolt works but have not tried C28's Zap and Electric Blitz). Kuro can also take the sting out of their attacks with demon's gaze, don't bother with Sunder HP though, all bosses in the DLC are resistant to it I believe.

If you're still having trouble you can try this tactic, you need to put Cover Ally on Charlie and some magic defense augments(optional)

Equip it onto Charlie and bench him until phase 2. Once phase 2 starts, pull him out and use his Parry Stance which makes him block attacks t for 2 turns. Cover Ally will transfer any damage to Charlie and with block he will negate damage from all but two attacks, with the two attacks that I've seen get through being the red mage's meteor storm and green mage's earthquake. Use Emma/Mage to deal elemental damage and check when block wears off on the status screen re-apply it so he can tank attacks for the party. Another party tactic is to put Warrior, Kuro, Charlie out when phase 2 starts and start the tanking strategy with Charlie before the Warrior weakens the mage's physical defense. From there use Slash Frenzy on whatever mage you choose and one of them should go down rather quickly, making the fight less stressful when one goes down. This tactic can be costly in terms of MP and some will need some MP restoring items

Charlie's Cover Ally/Block tactic doesn't work for every boss as all DLC bosses has attacks that can attack a party member without triggering cover ally's effect. In phase one of Sandman fight the Sandstorm attack he can block all hits, though if you forget to re-apply Parry Stance he will go down as he takes all three hits, even with AIn't Going Down applied and HP increasing augments on Charlie he'll go down if you don't use Parry Attack, so if you're gonna use this trick in phase 1 be sure to apply Parry Attack or he'll be downed and you'll have to revive him

[Sanctanox]

In Phase 2 i was totaly unable to do any ability attack because he blocked it. I was just onto healing and resolving the status he inflicted on me. I will try this strategy