How do I prevent Kaiser's meltdown?

I've fought Kaiser a number of times on previous playthroughs and this is the very first time I'm actually having trouble with the guy.

At some point in the fight, I get the message "Kaiser's power levels are going critical. Use the elements to contain it." Shortly after, it uses meltdown and kills my whole party. The problem is, I am using elements. Whenever that message pops up I throw elemental attacks at him like crazy (bolt, fire, aurabolt, bio blaster, pretty much anything) and it melts down anyway.

What am I doing wrong? On my previous playthrough of the same version I never even got that message, I just killed it. And really fast at that.

Remember the old man in the first WoR town? The legend he cites could come in handy, in fact it spells the strategy out for you less-than-subtly. Good thing too, because this is one of those bosses that just kills you if you don't play it his way. Spoiler-tagging the strategy, though mods may want to delete it if the in-game hints are meant to be enough.

I tried that approach, he still used meltdown. I hit him with all eight elements, then hit it with a non-elemental and some physicals. It worked for one round, then he used purge, I repeated the cycle, and he used ultima and meltdown instead. I'm stumped

Nope, seems you were correct after all. Thank you.

Thank you for this thread, was very helpful.

Yes, I am also struggling with this boss.  Which is actually kind of fun because Kefka's tower so far has been fairly easy.

I've tried some of the strategies here but am struggling to even make it to the first meltdown sometimes.  He is very fast and spams strong magic attacks no matter what I do.  On my best attempt I ignored the elements mechanics and intended to use Rerise to survive meltdown, but the Ultima/Meteor spam was too much.  Anything obvious to try or is it just time to grind some levels?  I'm currently low 30s.

Any good late game leveling areas besides Kefka's tower?

My strategy for him didn't involve grinding, I just came up with a party that could cover all elements and non-elementals, then came up with a rotation. He will become able to use each element when you attack him with it, so you start with those you either absorb or resist, and make sure to complete the rotation quickly. The only thing I didn't quite figure out is whether we need to hit him only once with each element or if there is a specific amount of damage that has to be dealt. Either way, hit him enough times with all elements and he'll reset the cycle. You'll know it happened when he uses purge. Took me a few tries to get it to work, though.

On 8/15/2020 at 11:15 AM, Dufaux said:

... start with those you either absorb or resist, and make sure to complete the rotation quickly.

You'd think, right? This was more or less my approach to Kaiser (except I'd end each burst of elements with one that I was resistant to rather than leading with it), and is probably exactly why your first few attempts didn't succeed, and why you felt like it wasn't clear if the mechanic was working for you. I felt the same way.

In 2.0.1 there's an update to the NPC hint about Kaiser's gimmick that makes the necessary pacing of this battle a bit clearer:

Now that makes a lot more sense. I had no idea version 2.0.1 was already out, though

It's in beta. And the hint is actually now clearer than what was posted above.

I like how the guy's quote gets more and more oddly specific and detailed with each update. I fully expect him to go "look, dumb shits; here's how you beat Kaiser..." by the time 2.0.5 rolls around.

This thread got revived just in time for my question. I'm stuck at this fight at the moment with a party of Terra, Celes, Locke, and Shadow. Between them I've got Fire, Ice, Bolt, Holy, Storm (that's Wind and Water, right?), but no one has Poison. Am I screwed here?

FYI I seem to have the opposite experience of Noonic-- I found the random encounters of Kefka's Tower so tough and resource-consuming that I had to grind up for a while and try it again. All my characters were level 30 when I first tried it. 

According to the hints, I think you're safe as long as you pace your elements well and deal enough damage with them. You forgot earth too, though.

Gotcha, I'll try spacing them out more and give it another go.

That did the trick, thanks! Now off to try and kill Myria for the 5th time...

> FYI I seem to have the opposite experience of Noonic-- I found the random encounters of Kefka's Tower so tough and resource-consuming that I had to grind up for a while and try it again. All my characters were level 30 when I first tried it. 

To be clear I also struggled some with the random encounters.  Learning who the priority targets were and strategies for the various characters has made things go more smoothly but there were still some hairy moments.   When I said things were "fairly easy" I was referring more to the bosses.  I had one shot all of them.  I was also around 30 when I first started the tower.

I did finally clear Kaiser with an average level of 35.  I never grinded for levels, but I did end up taking 4 different parties into Kefka's tower to Kaiser before I found a winning combo.  For me it was:  Mog, Celes, Terra, Strago.  All of these characters had equip loadouts that blocked, halfed or absorbed most elements. 

This is what it felt like it took to beat him.  Unsure if these tips are right or not, but it's what I did:
- Always be applying elements.  If I stopped applying elements he would cast Meteor, Ultima, Bonebreak or other nasty attacks that wiped me out.  If Terra's turn came up and I had nothing better to do I'd just cast Fire 1.
- Identify elements you're weak to (holy, dark) and make sure you can immediately apply a different element afterward
- Look at all your spells.  I didn't realize that Demi was Earth until this fight.  Also even though he is immune to Demi it counts as applying Earth.
- <3 Strago Shield
- I don't think he has that much health.  I was prioritizing stability over damage (often casting level 1 Elemental magic just to apply the element) and I killed him right before the third purge

I'm unsure about the "pacing" conversation above, but the first time I tried the second purge with Black Omen it failed and I panicked a bit.  When Strago's turn came up next I Black Omen'ed a second time and it worked.

Overall the strategy of this fight was cool, but I'm not sure if I ever would have figured it out just from the in game hint.  The idea is really good, but maybe it just needs to be relaxed a bit so its more easily discoverable in game?  Dunno.  Not meaning to criticize.  I had a ton of fun tracking all the elements I had applied on a sheet of paper and making sure I did everything right.  Felt like a kid again :).

I completely agree with that, it was even more fun than the Kefka fight. I even found two parties that worked on different playthroughs:

Party 1 (99% of the actual damage came from Sabin's physicals, as Celes and Edgar had been built tanky and Gau just healed):

• Celes (Holy and Ice)
• Edgar (Water, Poison and MP heals)
• Sabin (Holy again, Fire, Wind and Bolt)
• Gau (yes, Gau) (Earth and healing with Gargoyle rage, total winner)

Party 2 (I did this one without Holy somehow):

• Tanky Terra (Fire, Ice, Bolt)
• Magical Mog (Wind, Earth, Ice)
• Setzer (Fixed Dice and healing, dealt more damage than the other 3 combined, because for some reason Mog got a fixation on casting Mirage during Snowman Jazz)
• Edgar again (Water, Poison and MP heals)

Looking forward to the third playthrough

so I'm at Kaiser right now and after a couple of tries came here to lurk for advice. I have terra mog setzer and cyan right now. So for the Holy element, am i screwed? No way to cast holy, but what if I hit him with the Longinus (holy damage) or another weapon that hits for holy damage, does that count as the element? I guess I will try and see, if he hits me with holy afterward I guess I'll know it worked. On my first try I got him to the purge part without using any holy damage so maybe all 8 aren't 100% required.

Edit: geez this guy is no joke. I ran out of MP so fast since my only non-elemental spell is ultima on Terra. And my tintures have all been depleted from all the other dragons and what not. I think I'll have to just exit the dungeon and go back in with a stacked team for this spot. Did get him past two purges though, but my Terra just doesn't have a ton of MP and even cycling through I got hit with an Ultima and needed to heal and start hitting elementals again but was out of options. Tough but I like the challenge. I had planned on leaving before Kefka and coming back anyway so I'll just do that earlier than expected!

2nd edit: question- do you have to cycle through each element in order, or do you just keep hitting him with just any element and as long as you cycle through them all you're ok? like if i went fire-ice-fire does this "reset" anything or impact negatively?

Weapon strikes count, yes.

On 9/17/2020 at 1:34 PM, JonTheMurse said:

so I'm at Kaiser right now and after a couple of tries came here to lurk for advice. I have terra mog setzer and cyan right now. So for the Holy element, am i screwed? No way to cast holy, but what if I hit him with the Longinus (holy damage) or another weapon that hits for holy damage, does that count as the element? I guess I will try and see, if he hits me with holy afterward I guess I'll know it worked. On my first try I got him to the purge part without using any holy damage so maybe all 8 aren't 100% required.

Edit: geez this guy is no joke. I ran out of MP so fast since my only non-elemental spell is ultima on Terra. And my tintures have all been depleted from all the other dragons and what not. I think I'll have to just exit the dungeon and go back in with a stacked team for this spot. Did get him past two purges though, but my Terra just doesn't have a ton of MP and even cycling through I got hit with an Ultima and needed to heal and start hitting elementals again but was out of options. Tough but I like the challenge. I had planned on leaving before Kefka and coming back anyway so I'll just do that earlier than expected!

2nd edit: question- do you have to cycle through each element in order, or do you just keep hitting him with just any element and as long as you cycle through them all you're ok? like if i went fire-ice-fire does this "reset" anything or impact negatively?

Cyan's Eclipse bushido (6) is non-elemental as well. 

After some testing with this boss, here's a breakdown of what to do from what I can tell:

After a certain amount of time has passed, Kaiser will check to see if you've completed an elemental cycle. If not, it uses Ultima and starts flipping out, eventually ending with Meltdown. I don't know if there's a way to survive at that point. However, if you have completed a cycle, then it will use Purge instead and the cycle starts anew.

A "cycle" is when you hit Kaiser with each element in turn: Fire, Ice, Bolt, Wind, Water, Earth, Dark, Holy, and finally Neutral (non-elemental spell or physical attack). It doesn't seem to matter what order you use, and I'm not sure if the neutral/physical attack specifically has to be at the end or not. Kaiser will attack with elemental attacks of the element he was last hit with. Kaiser only counterattacks if you hit him with an element that you have already used this cycle. So the fight isn't really that hard, you just have to do two things: 1) Make sure every element can be hit (even if an attack fails, it still counts for the cycle) and 2) Keep careful track of which elements you've used.

The party I used was Terra, Celes, Sabin, and Setzer. All elements are covered here (Storm counts for Water, Demi counts for Earth, and I was using Ultima for the neutral element). Sabin largely used Chakra to keep up MP or the occasional Mantra when healing was needed. Once a cycle was completed, I just waited for Kaiser to Purge and started again. It doesn't seem to matter how quickly you apply elements, as long as the whole cycle is completed he should use Purge. If anything is missing, you'll get Ultima instead and that's pretty much a wipe.

You're pretty close to the mark, and close enough that you'll probably get him most of the time with this approach. Differentiating between his regular elemental responses and his "repeat element" counterattacks is an important piece in figuring out your way through this fight, as well as understanding that you're up against a timer that you need to run out.

Note also that physical attacks can count for either elemental or non-elemental contributions to this gimmick. So between claws + weapon-switching and Blitzes, Sabin alone can technically hit all 8 elements, if you kept both Stormfang and Frostgore. Even lowly Cyan can hit up to 5, counting a Mutsu proc (6 even, with a Crusader summon, but only once). I used to think I needed to nope out if I brought a ragtag bunch of fighters to Kaiser, but I've come to appreciate that pretty well any team can pull it off if they have enough healing resources (or elemental immunities).

BNW 2.0, having a lot of trouble after 15 tries on this boss, even with this very helpful thread.
I simply don't understand what I'm supposed to do, because it ends up killing my party sooner or later.

Hi again MCP -

   This guy is a beast and I wiped on him just like you did.  It has been a while since my play through but I seem to recall that 'spamming' through the cycle of elements didn't do the trick?  I tend to remember that I had to hit it with an element, then do something to hit him hard, then element but try not to ever repeat the same element back to back?   I think the answer for me was to 'grind' him out by playing 'his' game.

On 5/15/2022 at 4:00 PM, MCP said:

  Reveal hidden contents

After more than 15 tries, at this point I'm deciding whether I want to pause the game and write down literally every single thing I do, or just stop playing.

I thought I understood: Cover all 9 things, 8 elements + Non Elemental (NE)

Do I cover all 9 things before purge and then wait for it?
That is, if I restart my cycle of covering all 9 before purge, the boss will counter attack, and none of those count to the total of things we need to cast?
Do I have to do anything specific after purge to reset the elemental cycle?
 

Celes, Gogo, Strago, Relm
They all have Auto shell & safe and Strago has auto haste+regen.
Celes, Strago, Relm: lvl 37
Gogo lvl 27 with Blitz and Lore.
Multiguard on all four with as much half to wind/water. Strago and Relm don't have water reduction and it doesn't matter as aqualung counter attack is weaker than 1 or 2 regen cycles.
Float all available from Celes pre-match, hopefully to evade quake.

Start of battle:
Relm: RegenX
Celes: Magic Demi
Dark: Strago: Magic Dark
Holy: Gogo: Blitz Aurabolt
Relm: Tincture Celes or Strago

Water: Strago Lore Aqualung
Fire + Wind: Gogo: Lore Blaze
Earth: Celes: Magic Bolt 2
Non-Elemental Relm: Flare

Ice: Strago Ice/Ice2
Gogo: Chakra magic regen
Celes: Seraph esper
Strago: Tincture or wait
Adapt if got hit with slow, poison, etc.

No counter attacks yet.

I don't see purge or a text window "Kaiser has reset the elements" (don't recall what it says).

I cast some buffs/items trying to wait for purge...

When purge happens, I cast float, and I cycle through all the elements again
I get counter attacked this time.

But I make sure to to do all 8 attacks to cover all 9 things we're supposed to hit with.

This is where I started pausing to write down what I'm doing after each Purge, to make sure I've covered all the things.
Edit: I tried it again after a break. Same problem. I don't understand what's wrong. I wrote down every action I took and nobody died until Ultima. After the 2nd purge I had all nine before Kaiser did their killing attacks.

But I always end up at Bonebreak, Ultima, Meltdown every time.

BNW 2.0, having a lot of trouble after 15 tries on this boss, even with this very helpful thread.
I simply don't understand what I'm supposed to do, because it ends up killing my party sooner or later.

Your main problem is that you're trying to cover all 9 elements. That is not required at all (as that would be really bad design, forcing constraints that tight on your party). Purge is a triggered attack that occurs when you use a nonelemental attack of any sort after certain conditions have been met (NONE of those conditions involve using a certain number of elements). If your nonelemental does not cause purge, you'll have to use a new nonelemental or purge will never occur. Once the conditions are met, a nonelemental will force Kaiser's next turn to be purge. If the conditions are not met, it will not accomplish that, and once that turn passes, Kaiser will forget it was hit with a nonelemental at all. This is probably something you were having trouble with.

The problem that the most people have is that they try to flood Kaiser with elements too quickly. Slow it down and observe how Kaiser reacts to certain elements over longer periods of time and you will probably be closer to solving the fight.

Thanks. My game is saved in stasis on my PSP-3000 until the day I will try again.

This boss is gonna be toast

I have an alternate strategy.
 

Just reporting back that I did beat Kaiser on BNV 2.0. I wrote down the party/plan I used. Major spoilers for how it works.
Sometime last year I made it to Kaiser, realized my party couldn't do it... I thought I'd come back later, but ended up just re-playing the entire game from scratch.

Then after that, spoilers for boss(es) after Kaiser