Purobolos (Final Fantasy V)

Purobolos is a boss in Final Fantasy V. The party encounter a group of them at one of the meteor crash sites, and are forced to battle them.

Strategy
The party are attack by a group of six Purobolos. While they pose no real threat, the trick is that when you kill one, it will cast Arise, reviving all the other ones you have killed. This can make the battle long and tedious if you are not prepared.

The best strategy is to have a Black Mage constantly cast their highest level magic on them all at once. A Blue Mage can help by using Aqua Breath. Having a Ninja throw a scroll or a Summoner cast Ramuh is also a very effective tactic. Another way to secure a victory is to use the Samurai ability, Zeninage, or Gil Toss, albeit at the cost of one's expenses. As long as you keep this going, they should all die at once.

Another method is to take advantage of the fact that when they Self Destruct, they will not cast Arise. So have your physical based Jobs attack each one separately, until their HP is low, then wait for them to use Self Destruct. Hopefully you will have gotten them down to 100 - 200 HP, so they do not do too much damage to your characters. Of course, you could just use Knights, have them Guard, and use Phoenix Downs on dead characters, though this is unreliable.

Worst case scenario is that you can keep attacking them and they can keep casting Arise once they die. However, they will eventually run out of MP therefore making it impossible for them to cast Arise. This is very ill-advised as it takes a considerate amount of time and should only be done if your characters are at a moderately higher level.

A Blue Mage and a Beastmaster make this battle a lot simpler. Control can be used to force them to Self-Destruct and Missile is an excellent way to damage them without killing them. If you just want to cut loose, Magic Hammer will get rid of their MP so they cannot cast Arise.

Related enemies

 * Bomb
 * Grenade