Demon Wall (Final Fantasy XII)

The Demon Wall is a boss in Final Fantasy XII; two Demon Walls are guarding the Tomb of Raithwall from intruders. It is said they have the Dynast-King's likeness carved onto them.

Bestiary Entry

 * Genus: Boss
 * Classification: Guardian

Battle
The Demon Walls will continually advance on the party and its proximity to the back wall is indicated by a gauge to the right of the screen. When it gets to the end of the hall a cut scene shows the wall crushing the party, inflicting KO on all active and reserve party members, causing a Game Over.

The first Demon Wall is optional and can be fought later. The second Demon Wall is not, and once the player enters the Hall of the Sentinel the Demon Wall will advance towards the player. The Demon Wall has a special attack, Telega, which inflicts X-Zone, a status effect that teleports a character to an alternate dimension, which makes the character inaccessible until the player moves to a new area. It also has some powerful spells in its arsenal. Demon Wall inflicts characters with Poison, Sleep, Blind, and Silence.

A potential aid is the placing of several pedestals lining both sides of the Hall of the Sentinel. Touching these pedestals will either slow down or speed up the Demon Wall, depending on which pedestal is chosen. The order of the pedestals is the same every time. Battle speed plays a role in this battle: if the battle speed is set on high, the party's attacks will be faster on the Demon Wall, even though it will be moving at the same speed.

Strategy
The most efficient means of bringing down the Demon Wall, short of launching an all-out assault, is the use of Reflect and Aero. Aero is the spell of choice here because it's available at an early time, and after Dark, it's one of the few early spells which targets multiple enemies.

Aero, despite a higher MP cost, is also preferable to Dark because the Cherry Staff enhances its damage, like the Flame Staff does with fire-type spells. If all members of the party have the Cherry Staff equipped and know Aero, the player can simply buff them with Reflect and set their gambits to spam any ally with Aero.

Every time Aero is cast, all four party members (including Vossler), will project a missile at the Demon Wall for around 300-600 damage each. If the player is using a more traditional party, and not everybody knows Aero, they can try casting Berserk on the heavy hitters before applying Reflect. With one character covering magic, and another character keeping the Reflect buff active, Vossler and the other attackers can make up the difference quite nicely.

Optional Demon Wall
The optional Demon Wall is much stronger and more difficult than the required one (hence the location name Hall of the Destroyer). Beating the optional Demon Wall leads to the possibility of obtaining an unlimited supply of Demonsbane Swords, an advanced weapon for this point in the game (Attack power of 59).

Because of the short time in store before the Demon Wall crushes the party against the wall, combined with the arsenal of negative status effects it constantly casts on the party, the party stands little chance of winning a battle when they first encounter it if they have not learned their Quickenings yet.

Quickening chain is by far the best early-in-the-game strategy. However, if the party is around the level 16-18 the above strategy for the non-optional Demon Wall can be used, but it is recommendable to turn the battle mode to Wait, rather than Active, so the player can keep spells coming out quickly. The player should also have either Ethers, Channeling augments, and/or two to three mist charges for MP.

Demonsbane Sword
After having defeated both Demon Walls, the party can touch the Blue Crystal where the first demon came out to reveal a secret area. The treasure, which sometimes contains the Demonsbane sword, is at the bottom of either stairwell (they both lead to the same place). Because the chances of the sword spawning are slim, it is advised to save the game before entering. If the sword is not in the chest, one can restart and try again. Demonsbane will keep on re-spawning endlessly.

At this point in the game, it is one of the most powerful weapons, being beaten only by; the Burning Bow (rare drop from Dive Talons), Arcturus (Bazaar), Francisca (Bazaar) and Zwill Crossblade (Bazaar), but these four weapons are much harder to obtain before entering the tomb.

The chest has a 70% chance to spawn and if the chest spawns, it has a 27.5% chance to contain Demonsbane. The player may not equip the Diamond Armlet.

In the International Zodiac Job System version of the game, the chest contains only a Scathe Mote.

Gallery
Dämonenwall (FFXII) Muro diabolico (Final Fantasy XII)