Flunky Boss: Difference between revisions

** '''Every single boss''' in ''[[Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles]]'' have two mooks fighting alongside them. These respawn all the time, and give no supplies whatsoever. They serve only to distract you from the main boss. Worse, the final boss have the hardest enemies in the game as its minions, and they instantly respawn if you kill both. Add to that two hits will kill you no matter unless you're seriously leveled, and you have yourself a fun battle. Infinite full-heal Cure spells is the only thing that keeps this boss from being [[Nintendo Hard]].

*** To be fair, the respawn rate on the minions is NOT instantaneous, just exceptionally fast unless you kill them shortly after respawn, causing the AI to usually wait anywhere from one to several attacks before respawning the mooks.

** A small list of bosses from ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'' that like having buddies: Jailer of Justice, Vrtra, Jailer of Love, [[Nigh Invulnerable|Absolute Virtue]], Pandemonium Warden... there's also [http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Pulling_the_Strings one fight] where it's actually ''recommended'' to only kill the flunky, as fighting the boss will probably get you killed.

** It would probably be easier to list the bosses, [[Bonus Boss]] or otherwise, that ''didn't'' have mook minions in ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]''. Notable examples include Adrammelech and Zeromus, both of whom come equipped with almost-infinitely spawning (that's ''spawning,'' not respawning; ignoring them may lead to over a dozen on the battlefield at any given time), status-effect-spewing undead that can easily overwhelm the player, and Zalera, who has the gall to be ''invincible'' so long as his minions are on the field (oh, and that fight has a time limit on it as well).

*** The fight gets easier once you have gotten the Exodus or Mateus summon. A group of four carbuncles on Mateus or Exodus can hold back HORDES of zombies, leaving the greater bulk of your party to attack Zalera. (if you invested in some Cu Chulains, then this battle will be cake, even more so if you have Basch and Vaan unleash all their skills at once on Zalera at the same time.)

*** This becomes HORRIBLY easy if you actually wasted the time to get Bahamut first because Bahamut by himself is already capable of mowing down hordes of Zombies on end without a care in the world especially since every blast of Mega flare means disable. A horde of zombies is not very scary if they can't attack at all.

** ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'' had the Dragon Pod with its Dragon Flowers. All the Dragon Pod will do is summon Dragon Flowers, which will use status effect-laden physical attacks. The battles becomes much easier once you get the summon Golem, found in the same dungeon.

** The segment where you had to fight the Guado and [[Final Fantasy X|Seymour]], especially since they gave him buffs when they died (usually via [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|Valefor's Overdrive]]). The boss immediately following (with the stupid giant and two Guado) was nearly as frustrating solely if you're out of the aeons' Overdrives.

* ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'' has Demyx. His weapon is a sitar, but while it's not as threatening as a sword, he uses it to conjure up watery clones of himself. There are a couple of ways he can do this-- the first isn't so scary. He'll usually just summon two or three of them, and they 'might' attack you--but most of the time, they float around aimlessly, basically just getting in your way as you're fighting him. You can even use the clones against him to attack him. Sounds like a good deal, right? Until he summons about fifty all at once, and you have to defeat all of them in forty seconds or less, or it's an instant game over.

* ''[[Super Mario RPG]]: Legend of the Seven Stars'' loves these. Mack, Punchinello, Booster, Jonathan Jones (who converts to a [[Duel Boss]], challenging Mario to a one-on-one fight, when his flunkies are dead), Belome II, Megasmilax, Czar Dragon, Exor, and Smithy himself.

*** Interestingly, hitting the beans to spawn the mooks is good for mid-boss grinding, as the mooks award the normal amount of experience and money as they would outside the boss battle.

** Shows up in ''[[Paper Mario (franchise)|Paper Mario]]'', where most of the (main) bosses after Tubba Blubba are Flunky Bosses who are significantly more deadly if the player ''doesn't'' kill the mooks first, making area-of-effect attacks important. Most noteworthy of all would have to be [[That One Boss|Huff N. Puff]], who spawns small cloudlike creatures every time he is attacked based on how much health the attack cost him - more damage, more mooks. These mooks, if not immediately dispatched, will either attack Mario on their own, combine with any one of Huff N. Puff's special abilities to make them stronger, or simply be sucked up by the boss himself, replenishing his health.

*** The Crystal King summons three Crystal Bits, who don't themselves attack but are used by Crystal King as ammo for his attack. Attacking them lowers the damage he can inflict but prevents you from damaging the King, so you have to ignore them if you want to win. Multi-hitting attacks like Multibounce, Shooting Star items and Star Power works, but you probably want to save them for when the Crystal King starts creating duplicates of himself.

* ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'' also has quite a few. The Guardian, Giga Gaias, most of Lavos's forms.

** The very last form of Lavos comes with two "bit" flunkies. {{spoiler|It turns out that one of the bits is actually the true boss, making this trope played with...}}

* ''[[Etrian Odyssey]] 2'''s first stratum boss is the Chimera, aptly subtitled "Lord of the Beasts". After a few turns, a massive flock of Slaveimps come to his cause, either casting Heal or Aura (an attack-up spell) on their master. If the Chimera dies, one still has to knock out any Slaveimps that made it into battle, but if there are any still trying to reach the battle, they disappear if the battle ends without them.

* The second ''[[Golden Sun]]'' game has a few of these; Briggs, Moapa, and the Star Magician come to mind (who are accompanied by Sea Fighters, Knights, and "Ball monster" minions, respectively).

* ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'' series has a couple of these: The solution is elegant in its simplicity. Fireball.

** Charm spells can be fun as well.

* ''[[Saga Frontier]]'' is very fond of these types of fights, typically surrounding some bosses with upgraded versions of normal enemies from that dungeon, and even one of the [[Final Boss|final bosses]] gets this treatment. To make matters worse, the bosses frequently unleash powerful attacks upon the party when all the flunkies are killed. In the case of Master Ring, one of the game's seven final bosses, killing all nine of its powerful companions causes it to unleash the Revolution9 attack, arguably the most powerful attack in the game, which deals catastrophic damage in addition to giving the boss a substantial defense buff.

** The Space Magic: Vortex makes the battle easier since it will negate Revolution 9, but it is much easier if you have Purple Eyes' equipped (negate Gazes) or have Mecs, and leave the Charm Gaze Monster alive, it will keep wasting turns using Gaze attacks meaning the only thing you have to worry about is Master Ring's Oscillation attack.

* ''[[Romancing SaGa]]'' [[That One Boss]] Ewei definitely fits this trope, and maybe a few others. Here's why: He has 2 beastmen of 3 different varieties that assist him in battle, and respawn the second turn after they are defeated, they act as a shield for Ewei, and to add insult to injury he uses A powerful Terrology Spell to negate most of the damage dealt to him and 2 types of Attack all spells that can prevent using magic or attacking normally, in addition he can heal himself. The only possible way to defeat him is to have an Archer know Rain of Arrows or a Hand Axe user use Rolling Slash to injure both Ewei and his beastmen and have one character equipped with the Amethyst (Negates his Demonology spells) in addition to the Opal (Negates Terrology Spells).

** Also the beastmen can use a technique that can knock your characters unconscious

* ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]] Mask Of The Betrayer'' has two. The first is against Okku and his spirit army. Since Okku is a god, his worshippers grant him oodles of HP and immunity to weapons until they die. After enough are down, he's killable, and he drops to far below his max HP by the time all of them are dead. In the second one, the boss is a Genus Loci, which consists of five trees that do nothing but spam summoned allies until they are destroyed. However, in both cases AoE blasting will handle them pretty easily.

* Several times in ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon'', but notably the fights versus {{spoiler|Regigigas}} and {{spoiler|Darkrai}}.

* Soma in [[Eien no Aselia]] has no fighting ability since he's just a normal human. He lets his brainwashed minions do all his fighting for him. And when they go down...

* The boss of the Queen Fury/Ghost Ship section in [[The Legend of Dragoon]] is actually a group of [[Respawning Enemies]]. Four Ghost Knights, accompanied by a stronger Commander, attack you. Killing one, including the Commander, simply 'downs' it for 1-3 turns, after which they stand back up at full health. If you are unlucky they may even rise back up before you even get your next action. The only way to win is to down all 5 enemies at the same time, which is easier said than done in a game where the only multi-hitting attacks you have are limited items and, at that point in the game, very few Dragoon Spells, only one of which is actually powerful enough to take them all out at moderate health, besides the Commander. May very well become [[That One Boss]] if you aren't prepared for it.