Golbez is a boss in Final Fantasy IV. He is encountered twice. The first time is a cinematic battle between Tellah and Golbez that the player can only witness to its conclusion, and the second is a playable battle.
Stats[]
Tower of Zot
Dwarven Castle
Battle[]
First battle[]
The first battle is a cutscene battle where Tellah fights Golbez. Tellah will cast Bio, Firaga, Thundaga, and Blizzaga, until he ends the battle with Meteor.
Second battle[]
In the second battle, the player has little time before Golbez paralyzes the party with Binding Cold and then summons the Shadow Dragon to use Black Fang to kill the party members one by one. With only Cecil remaining, Rydia arrives and uses the Mist Dragon to blow away the Shadow Dragon. Cecil is cured of his paralysis and the battle begins as Rydia joins the party. If Cecil has been KO'd by Calcabrina in the previous fight, he should be revived immediately; if Golbez uses Binding Cold before the player has revived Cecil it is a Game Over, as Rydia is only scripted to show up when Cecil is the last one standing.
Depending on the version, the battle proceeds differently from this point onward.
Strategy[]
If the player times it properly, Kain can use Jump to avoid the sequence where Golbez uses Binding Cold and summons the Shadow Dragon. He will land after Rydia has arrived, giving the player another party member to aid in the battle. The timing varies between versions, however. If Kain lands before Golbez speaks to Cecil, the Shadow Dragon will use Black Fang on him even though he is not paralyzed and he will still perish. The player's attacks against Golbez will miss at this time. All the player can do to prepare is have Rosa cast Shell on Cecil and have Cecil use a Hermes Sandals on himself.
With Rydia's arrival, Golbez attacks with a simple attack pattern: Bio, Thundaga, and Fira, over and over. His spells are not overly powerful, but can KO any freshly revived party members. The safest way to revive the party is to have one party member revive them, then have another party member use a Hi-Potion or have Cecil use Cura to restore their HP immediately after. If the player revives Rosa first, they can then have Cecil and Rydia revive Yang and Kain (if Kain was KO'd as well) and have Rosa cast Cura to heal them all at once.
The player does not need to revive the party to win. Despite the bestiary giving him over 20,000 HP, Golbez will perish once he has taken 9,999 damage. This is easily accomplished by having Cecil attack while Rydia summons. Any of her summons will do significant damage. Golbez's spells only do a couple hundred damage each, so as long as Cecil enters the fight with full HP there is no danger with fighting him with only Cecil and Rydia alive.
Gallery[]
