Defeating Nightmare (optional boss)

Simply what is needed to survive this boss fight.

Main Guide

Nightmare is probably the highest difficulty optional boss. He has very high agility (many turns) and does very high damage (as much as 2200 in one shot). In order to nullify both of these problems, you need to have more turns than him, and be able to tank a lot of damage, because your blessings will not be enough.

Things you need for the fight:

• Stats: At least 1800 HP (or half of that if you have the Dark Shield). Nightmare opens the fight with an immediate attack, which could kill you instantly (vigor check!)
  
• Weapon: Life Staff (starting staff, life path, preferably Stage 4), which you need for the special skill: Life Fruit
  
• Spells: 6 or 7-Pillar Ice with Advanced Focus Circle (they both do about the same amount of damage)
  
  • Ice will keep Nightmare's agility low, meaning he will have far less turns between yours
• Pets:
  
  • Seed Spirit: Keeps your MP high, combined with the cheaper ice spells
    
  • Lucca: Gives you extra turns (free agility)
    
  • Nekomis or Tia Rion: This covers you for keeping the ice debuff on, in case you need to do something other than cast ice (like cast Life Fruit)
    
  • Do not summon Justice, even though he is free. His fire attack will remove the ice debuff, allowing Nightmare to suddenly and unexpectedly attack
• Armor: You will probably already have the best armor by this point
  
• Consumable Items: The very occasional MP potion. Only needed after some of Nightmare's attacks, which drain MP.

That's it, now it's just a battle of attrition, except you will win. Keep the ice debuff up, and cast Life Fruit whenever it's available. You will have tons of turns versus Nightmare, and you will have a massive health pool built up from Life Fruit (as high as 7000) which will mitigate any high damage attack when it arrives. You probably want to defend when your total health pool is below 4000 and Nightmare is going to attack soon after your turn, otherwise just attack because you can tank his upcoming attack now.

[parkssgo4]

🤏🤏😂🤏🤏😂🤏🤏😂

[LazyLeo]

Beat it with same mage build, had 800 mag, 230 def, 270 spd and 1000 hp. Had plenty of turns from the ice and as long as I remembered to defend i wouldn't die even to to charge sword move. Sure took a while. I forgot to equip my advanced Mithra armour before the fight, used a basic combat top lol. Dark shield is the true saviour.

[Duce]

This is really makes it seem like easy mode. I managed to barely beat him using a physical build. but i did not use shadowshield but had ice shield. Nekomis was the game changer for me and if I knew justice would ruin the debuff then i would have not used him. Either way though. That fight was amazing

[Harmless]

I was like giga strong when I fought him, i had like 3.5k mag/ 800hp/560 agi/2k mana/250 def and used fox pet+nekomis+ lucca+seed spirit. Could just keep taking turns on him with the slow from ice debuff and just did enough damage to kill him right after he does the morning star attack, which is like 1 turn after the 2 turn invuln blessing runs out for me

[Rai]

I did a new game run as full phys build since fighting nightmare as sword is a bit harder than mage.
I got a comfortable kill at chapter 6 (no gravity blessing)
Base Stats: 1k HP, 850 str, 250 agi, 200 def
Gear: +60% Esteran, +80% lucca spike, shadow shield, adv mithril armor
Secondary: Awakening Pendant, valor ring, wind bangle, white fox marble
Special: Bedos headband, Lite stone.

It seems like 400 agi is the minimum where he won't have two consecutive turns before you, 450 without stall. Bedos headband is pretty important as it removes the summon count and replaces it with a limit.
Start with lucca out so you can get absolute defense before his special, summon zirconia jr, brillion, and justice. Once you get the free turn from lucca replace him with bell lightning, his armor lets you tank normal hits without having to defend (will do around 800 damage, 1k otherwise) but you need to defend against the flail (shadow shield will greatly reduce damage).

[Rai]

I beat nightmare with just 800 hp. But yeah the key item is just the dark shield, both the staff and the sword are viable as I've beaten him with both.

[cro]

I figured there might have been a trick with physical damage, good to know! Thank you

[Hentaika]

Pretty easy if you simply use physical build. Physical build is just infinitely stronger compared to a mage one in this game.

Beat him on chapter 5 with relatively whatever gear(blacksmith recipe book + the shadow shield from shipwreck) before even unlocking ice magic.
Didn't even need the revival but it's a good safety mechanism.

Lucca pet is by far best, nothing really beats that.

Unlike other 'superboss' weapons you ironically can get this one 'the earliest'.
The other weapons require more story progress.

Shadow shield is the key to this battle. At the cost of MP consumption you basically are nigh immortal(boss needs either 2 or 3 turns to kill you depending on skills it uses. A stack of water frog 50% HP/MP healing would be more than enough. And the bird can usually do it frequent enough so that you don't even need to waste turns.