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The following article is based on a subject that has not been officially named in any official Square Enix material; the current title is merely a placeholder.

Heavy is a generally hidden enemy type that typically provides immunity to fractional damage and instant death. Games with "heavy" type enemies include Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy V. Many bosses have the "heavy" type, but some bosses exist without it and some non-boss monsters exist with the "heavy" type.

Appearances[]

Final Fantasy IV[]

The Heavy flag prevents the enemy from being affected by the Tornado attack.

Impresario-ffvi-iosThis section in Final Fantasy IV is empty or needs to be expanded. You can help the Final Fantasy Wiki by expanding it.

Final Fantasy V[]

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; 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 following instant death abilities work on Heavy enemies but do not bypass Death immunity:
The following instant death ability even works on Heavy targets with Death immunity:
    • The Blue Magic spell Level 5 Death ignores both normal immunity and Heavy, but is restricted by the target's level. It will also restore the Undead to full health.
The following instant death abilities fail on Heavy enemies:
    • Time Magic spell Banish
    • Gaia's Quicksand and Bottomless Bog
    • Blue Magic spell Doom
    • Samurai's Iainuki
    • Summon spell Odin
      • 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.
  • Nullifies Near Fatal effects.
  • Nullifies effects which deal damage based on a % of the target's remaining HP. This does not include effects which 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.
  • In the mobile and Steam versions, several Release effects are ineffective on enemies with the Heavy flag.
Regular enemies
Bosses
Dummied

Final Fantasy IX[]

Separate from the class system, there is a flag assigned to most bosses that ensures instant death attacks are guarded (if immunity is otherwise not set), ensures the enemy cannot be eaten (which is otherwise only prevented by being a member of the Humanoid class), and offers the exclusive benefits of causing Scan and fractional damage attacks to always miss.

Enemies with this flag usually have an AI script that triggers their death animation when their HP falls below 10,000. For example, the Masked Man boss has 10,188 HP, but as soon as it hits 10,000 the battle will end. If one were to remove the flag and allow the enemy to be hit with instant death, the battle would never end and hang indefinitely. Since no attacks break the damage limit, these enemies' HP would never otherwise reach 0. Since the flag also prevents Scan from connecting, the player can never see these enemies' true HP values.

List of Heavy types:

Final Fantasy X[]

Enemies that have the Heavy property will not be lifted into the air by Energy Rain and Tornado. Hellfire and Thor's Hammer also have alternate animations against Heavy enemies.

A similar property, Tough, prevents enemies from being pushed back by Delay Attack and Delay Buster.

Final Fantasy XII[]

Safety is an enemy-exclusive augment that prevents instant death and fractional damage effects, such as Warp, Gravity, Poach, Sight Unseeing, and Bonecrusher. It also prevents Syphon and Charm and Achilles from working, and makes undead enemies immune to Renew. Prior to the Zodiac versions, Safety also protected against Wither, Addle, and Numerology.

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