Final Fantasy V has seven enemy types, which affect how certain weapons interact with particular types. Specifically, the damage that certain weapons deal can be multiplied against certain enemy types, a status effect can be inflicted or critical chance boosted. In the case of Heavy and Undead enemies, additional flags are added. Not all enemies have a "type", and some enemies are in more than one category.
Enemy types[]
Magic Beast[]
Magic Beasts are vulnerable to whips and the Artemis' Bow. Whips are likely to Paralyze them, while the Artemis Bow simply deals extra damage.
| 2× damage dealt | Can inflict Paralysis |
|---|---|
Aevis[]
Aevis is a small type consisting of few enemies, and only the Aevis Killer bow has an interaction with it; it increases damage dealt towards these types of enemies.
| Critical damage inflicted |
|---|
- Dragon Aevis
- Lesser Lopros
- Rukh
- Tot Aevis
- Grand Aevis (boss)
- Jura Aevis (boss)
Dragon[]
Dragons have multiple interactions, and weapons which oppose dragons normally have a very strong effect. This is particularly useful as superbosses Shinryu and Neo Shinryu belong to the Dragon type.
| 2× damage dealt | 8× damage dealt |
|---|---|
Desert[]
The desert type includes every creature that can be only encountered in the desert, with the inclusion of the Sandworm and the exclusion of Dhorme Chimera, Ankheg, and Ammonite. The desert type's only interaction is that Aqua Breath deals 8x damage.
| 8x damage dealt |
|---|
- Bulette
- Cactus
- Desert Killer
- Desertpede
- Landcrawler
- Sand Bear
- Sandboil
- Sandcrawler
- Sandworm and Hole (Sandworm battle) (boss)
Humanoid[]
The human type is affected only by a single weapon, the Man-Eater, which does double damage to these types of enemies.
| 2× damage dealt |
|---|
- Alchymia
- Assassin
- Berserker
- Bio Soldier
- Black Warlock
- Covert (monster-in-a-box)
- Cherie
- Death Dealer
- Drippy
- Druid
- Dueling Knight
- Duelist
- Elm Gigas
- Exdeath's Soul
- Executor
- Farfarello
- Flaremancer
- Gigas
- Gobbledygook
- Grand Mummy
- Gravitator
- Ice Soldier
- Iron Fist
- Iron Muscles
- Jackanapes (Castle Exdeath)
- Lamia Queen
- Lemure
Heavy[]
Heavy is a flag automatically enabled on certain enemies. It has a variety of functions in the game's code, blocking many effects that would normally enable battles to be completed quickly, such as instant death. In a unique instance in the series, the Chemist Mix Dragon's Kiss will add the Heavy flag to its target during battle, whether enemy or ally, allowing the party to benefit from these effects as well.
While mostly used on bosses, not every boss is qualified as Heavy; some bosses which rely on form changes also aren't qualified as Heavy in every form, such as Twintania.
When Heavy is present, it grants the following:
- Nullifies a number of instant death effects, such as the Black Magic spell Death. This is a separate factor from standard status immunity: some abilities will be blocked by either immunity or Heavy, while some abilities are only blocked by one or the other. The Blue Magic spell Level 5 Death ignores both normal immunity and Heavy, but is restricted by other factors.
- Nullifies Near Fatal effects.
- Nullifies effects that deal damage based on a % of the target's remaining HP. This does not include effects that deal damage based on maximum HP.
- Immunizes against Charm and Control.
- Nullifies the Mystic Knight's instant kills from elemental weakness via high level Spellblade, causing them to instead deal quadruple the regular damage.
- Nullifies the instant death that can normally occur to undead enemies when targeted by spells such as Raise or items such as a Phoenix Down.
- When at least one Heavy type enemy is present, summoning Odin will cause him to perform Gungnir instead of Zantetsuken, excluding when summoned via the Magic Lamp, which always triggers Zantetsuken. Heavy targets will not be instantly slain by Zantetsuken if summoned via Magic Lamp, however.
- Regular enemies
- Bosses
- Apanda
- Calofisteri
- Azulmagia
- Alte Roite
- Catastrophe
- Halicarnassus
- Twintania
- Omega (superboss)
- Shinryu (superboss)
- Exdeath (tree form)
- Neo Exdeath (final boss; all parts besides Back)
- Neo Shinryu (superboss)
- Enuo (superboss)
- Dummied
Undead[]
The Undead flag has various effects. It causes all instant death attacks to fully revive the undead enemy (including Level 5 Death, and allowing enemies using the Death spell on themselves to heal to full), and inversely, curative abilities deal damage. Full-cure abilities cause their HP to reach critical levels and revive spells cause instant death, unless the enemy is also the Heavy type. Strangely, the undead flag does not prevent Killer Bow from killing them.
| 2× damage dealt | 8× damage dealt |
|---|---|