Edea (boss)

Edea is a boss in Final Fantasy VIII. She is fought twice in the game; the first time after the sorceress parade, and the second in Galbadia Garden.

Before fighting Edea for the first time, Squall faces off against his rival, Seifer, alone. After defeating him, Rinoa and Irvine arrive to help Squall, and Edea takes the stage.

Edea is confronted the second time at Galbadia Garden. Once again, you must first waste Seifer before you can touch her. Fortunately, defeating Seifer is easy; defeating Edea is not.

Battle One: Sorceress Parade
The evil sorceress is no pushover during your first encounter with her, particularly if your Junctions are lacking. She casts all three -aga level spells at you, easily dealing over 300 damage per pop, and can cast Dispel to rid you of any positive statuses--Protect, Shell, Reflect, etc.--you might cast.

However, there is a trick to beating her, and once you know it, you can't lose. Just previous to this battle, you should have fought a pair of Iguions that were attempting to savage Rinoa. If you Drew the GF Carbuncle from either one of these Iguions and Junctioned it to somebody (preferably Rinoa) before fighting Edea, you can continually summon Carbuncle to cast Reflect on your party. If you are Reflected, then Edea must either waste turns Dispelling your Reflect shield or settle for using her Astral Punch physical attack (which does about 12 damage, if she's lucky).

Essentially, as long as you have Carbuncle Junctioned to Squall, Rinoa, or Irvine and continually summon him, you cannot lose this battle. Just be sure to Mug Edea for an Elixir before you finish her off.

If you do not have Carbuncle, you're in for a much tougher fight. Junction Thunder magic to your Ele-Def-Junc beforehand to protect against Thundaga, which is her most commonly-used -aga spell, and Junction some heavy-duty magic to your Strength. Edea has a very high Spirit stat, so most magic and GFs will prove unhelpful against her. Boost your own Spirit stat, preferably with Shell magic, and equip a couple HP+ abilities from the Brothers GF if you can. Then whale away at Edea with physical attacks. She has Cura and Life for you to Draw, so you should be able to keep yourself alive long enough to finish her off even without Carbuncle.

Should Edea defeat you, the game still goes on, but you lose out on 20 AP.

Battle Two: Galbadia Garden
This second time around, Edea is even tougher than before. Her spell list has increased drastically, focusing around the core spells of Blizzaga, Death, Silence, and Maelstrom. Silence is particularly annoying because it can stop your attempts to heal yourself, and Maelstrom is just deadly. It halves every target's current HP and inflicts the Curse status upon them, which prevents them from using Limit Breaks. On top of that, Edea will cast Reflect on herself, perhaps a trick she picked up from your using Reflect so effectively against her last time around, and can still Dispel any positive effects you place on yourself.

Good Junctions are integral to winning this battle. Junction Blizzaga and Firaga to your Ele-Def-Junc and Death to your Stat-Def-Junc to take care of three of Edea's most powerful spells. There isn't anything you can do about the damage from Maelstrom, but Junctioning Pain to your Stat-Def-Junc will protect you from the Curse status (and, incidentally, from Silence as well). If you can't Junction Pain magic (as it is rather hard to obtain,) then Junction Silence instead and equip the Draw command so that you can Draw-Cast Esuna to get rid of Curse instead.

Once the battle begins, Draw Alexander from Edea immediately, Mug her for a Royal Crown, and commence beating on her with physicals. If you're protected from Curse, Maelstrom will make Limit Breaks easy to obtain and shorten the battle drastically. If not, get ready for a lot of Draw-Casting Esuna. Since the only way Edea can actually hurt you is Maelstrom, which halves your HP and thus can never kill you, the proper Junctions actually make you invincible.

Without the proper Junctions, however, you're in for one hell of a fight. Equip Leviathan's Recover and Siren's Treatment to the characters Junctioned with them in order to provide you with healing methods even when Silenced, and keep on your toes constantly. Edea has no healing magic to Draw this time, so make sure every character has the Item command and a large supply of Hi-Potions and Phoenix Downs. Edea is vulnerable to Sleep, so have your best magic-user (probably Selphie or Rinoa) try to hit her with it to give you a little breathing space.

Again, you don't have to defeat Edea to move on with the game, but you miss out on 50 AP if you lose. If you are dying, however, just be certain you've Mugged her Royal Crown and Drawn Alexander before you fall!!!