Boss Overview: Boiling Lizard


Boiling Lizard
Level: 38HP: 21300STR: 46TEC: 49VIT: 39AGI: 33LUC: 32DS: 113
EXP Given: 24920
Damage Vulnerabilities:
100% 100% 100%
0% 150% 100%
Disable Vulnerabilities:
40% 30% 20% 30% 50% 30%
LR 3 LR 3 20%
40% 40% 40%
Notes:
  • When this enemy is killed, the battle ends, even if other enemies are still alive.
  • Scorching Fire: Deals heavy (weakened) or colossal (unweakened) fire damage to all party members. Extremely slow, and very accurate.
  • Fireball Cannon: Deals 2 (weakened) or 4-5 (unweakened) instances of heavy fire damage to random party members. Slow.
  • Fire Wall: Places a buff on the user that counters all melee damage against them with medium (weakened) or heavy (unweakend) fire damage for 6 turns. Extremely accurate.
  • Fire Regen: Places a buff on the user that heals them for around 4% (weakened) or 3% (unweakened) of their maximum HP at the end of the turn for 6 turns.
  • Upward Thrust: Deals heavy (weakened) or severe (unweakened) stab damage that pierces rows.
  • Venom Tail: Deals heavy (weakened) or severe (unweakened) bash damage to one row of party members. Attempts to inflict poison on hit targets, with a high (weakened) or very high (unweakened) base chance. The poison deals 71 to 80 (weakened) or 101 to 110 (unweakened) damage each turn.
  • Scorching Fire: Deals 70% (weakened) or 150% (unweakened) ranged TEC-based fire damage to all party members. Has a speed modifier of -30, and a base accuracy of 110% (weakened) or 120% (unweakened).
  • Fireball Cannon: Deals 2 (weakened) or 4-5 (unweakened) instances of 90% ranged TEC-based fire damage to random party members. Has a speed modifier of -5, and a base accuracy of 99%.
  • Fire Wall: Places a buff on the user that counters all melee damage against them with 50% (weakened) or 100% (unweakend) ranged TEC-based fire damage for 6 turns. Has a speed modifier of ±0 and a base accuracy of 150%.
  • Fire Regen: Places a buff on the user that heals them for 441-446 (weakened) or 735-740 (unweakened) HP at the end of the turn for 6 turns. Has a speed modifier of ±0.
  • Upward Thrust: Deals 140% (weakened) or 200% (unweakened) melee STR-based stab damage that pierces rows. Has a speed modifier of ±0, and a base accuracy of 99%.
  • Venom Tail: Deals 100% (weakened) or 150% (unweakened) melee STR-based bash damage to one row of party members. Attempts to inflict poison on hit targets, with a 60% (weakened) or 90% (unweakened) base chance. The poison deals 71 to 80 (weakened) or 101 to 110 (unweakened) damage each turn. Has a speed modifier of ±0, and a base accuracy of 99%.
  • The Boiling Lizard always uses Scorching Fire on the first turn.
  • If four scales are in the battle, the Boiling Lizard gains a chance to use Scorching Fire, regardless of what phase it's in.
    • After the first use of Scorching Fire this way, the Boiling Lizard needs to use Upward Thrust or a normal attack in order to use Scorching Fire again.
  • The Boiling Lizard summons scales every fourth turn, if there are less than four in the battle.
    • If the Boiling Lizard is weakened:
      • Once it falls below 25% HP, it will start summoning two scales at once if there are less than three scales in the battle.
    • If the Boiling Lizard is not weakened:
      • Once it falls below 60% HP, it will start summoning two scales at once if there are less than three scales in the battle.
      • Once it falls below 30% HP, it becomes even more aggressive, and will summon three scales if there are less than two scales in the battle.
  • The Boiling Lizard will always use Scorching Fire on the turn after it summons a scale.
  • The Boiling Lizard will use Fire Regen the first time it reaches 15% HP if it is weakened, 25% if not.
  • The Boiling Lizard will use Fire Wall the first time it reaches 25% HP if it is weakened, 50% if not.
  • Aside from the behavior noted above, the Boiling Lizard's phases are as follows. The first HP range is if it is weakened, the second HP range for if it is not:
    • 50% to 38% HP or 100% to 50% HP:
      • Uses Fireball Cannon, Upward Thrust, and normal attacks.
      • Fireball Cannon is slightly more likely than the other two actions.
    • 38% to 0% HP or 75% to 0% HP:
      • Starts using Venom Tail.
      • Guaranteed to use Venom Tail at the start of this phase.
      • After the first use, Venom Tail has a low chance to be used instead of the Boiling Lizard's other attacks.
  • If the scale pile is broken:
    • If this is the first turn, or if the last action taken was summoning a Scale:
      • Use Scorching Fire.
    • If there are four Scales on the field, and Upward Thrust or a normal attack was used since the last use of Scorching Fire:
      • 40% chance to use Scorching Fire.
    • If the current turn is a multiple of 4:
      • If the Boiling Lizard is below 25% HP, and there are less than three Scales in the battle, summon two Scales.
      • If there are less than four Scales in the battle, summon one Scale.
    • If the Boiling Lizard is below 15% HP, and Fire Regen hasn't been used yet:
      • Use Fire Regen.
    • If the Boiling Lizard is below 38% HP:
      • If Venom Tail hasn't been used yet:
        • Use Venom Tail.
      • If the above didn't happen:
        • 20% chance to use Venom Tail.
    • If the Boiling Lizard is below 25% HP:
      • If Fire Wall hasn't been used yet:
        • Use Fire Wall.
      • If the above didn't happen:
        • 50% chance to use Fireball Cannon.
        • 40% chance to use Upward Thrust.
        • 10% chance to attack.
    • If none of the above happened:
      • 40% chance to use Fireball Cannon.
      • 30% chance to use Upward Thrust.
      • 30% chance to attack.
  • If the scale pile is not broken:
    • If this is the first turn, or if the last action taken was summoning a Scale:
      • Use Scorching Fire.
    • If there are four Scales on the field, and Upward Thrust or a normal attack was used since the last use of Scorching Fire:
      • 40% chance to use Scorching Fire.
    • If the current turn is a multiple of 4:
      • If the Boiling Lizard is below 30% HP, and there are less than two Scale in the battle, summon three Scales.
      • If the Boiling Lizard is below 60% HP, and there are less than three Scales in the battle, summon two Scales.
      • If there are less than four Scales in the battle, summon one Scale.
    • If the Boiling Lizard is below 25% HP, and Fire Regen hasn't been used yet:
      • Use Fire Regen.
    • If the Boiling Lizard is below 75% HP:
      • If Venom Tail hasn't been used yet:
        • Use Venom Tail.
      • If the above didn't happen:
        • 20% chance to use Venom Tail.
    • If the Boiling Lizard is below 50% HP:
      • If Fire Wall hasn't been used yet:
        • Use Fire Wall.
      • If the above didn't happen:
        • 50% chance to use Fireball Cannon.
        • 40% chance to use Upward Thrust.
        • 10% chance to attack.
    • If none of the above happened:
      • 40% chance to use Fireball Cannon.
      • 30% chance to use Upward Thrust.
      • 30% chance to attack.
Drops:
  • Fiery Horn: Obtained if the conditional drop was not obtained. 100% chance. Sells for 4483 en.
    • Apollo (104 ATK, +21% Fire Imbue): Made from 1 Fiery Horn. Costs 9880 en.
  • Effulgent Horn: Obtained by killing the enemy with fire damage. 100% chance. Sells for 20000 en.
    • Fairy Chain (DNC Only; 136 DEF, +2 STR, +2 TEC): Made from 1 Effulgent Horn and 2 Sky Iron Claws (Mauler Mole Drop). Costs 142680 en.
First things first: if you don't destroy the large scale pile before you fight the Boiling Lizard, unless you have a party specifically built for it, you will lose. It will have its full 21300 max HP (remember that the icy pincer, which was already kind of a tough fight, had only 3744 max HP), you will not be able to get a preemptive attack, it will deal way too much damage, and Fire Regen will probably outpace your damage output. That's way too many disadvantages.

Now, if you do destroy the scale pile, now you actually have a fighting chance. Destroying the scale pile not only immediately lops off half of the Boiling Lizard's HP (meaning it has an effective max HP of 10650), but it also gives you a completely free preemptive attack on it (should you choose to take it). Additionally, all of its skills get weakened when the scale pile is destroyed, with over half of them dealing less than half the damage they would under normal circumstances.

Regarding the first skill on the list, Scorching Fire, we need to talk about the adds that the Boiling Lizard summons.

Scale
Level: 38HP: 228STR: 10TEC: 40VIT: 10AGI: 30LUC: 30DS: 100
EXP Given: 800
Damage Vulnerabilities:
100% 100% 100%
100% 100% 100%
Disable Vulnerabilities:
0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
0% 100% 0%
0% 0% 0%
Notes:
  • This enemy evades all attacks that do not deal ice damage.
  • Attacks that deal ice damage will freeze this enemy, preventing it from acting for 2 turns.
  • Using an ice stake on this enemy will permanently kill it.
  • Instant death will permanently kill this enemy.
  • Scale Chase: Used after the Boiling Lizard uses a skill that deals fire damage. Deals medium fire damage to any player characters hit by the Boiling Lizard's attack.
  • Scale Chase: Used after the Boiling Lizard uses a skill that deals fire damage. Deals 50% ranged TEC-based fire damage to any player characters hit by the Boiling Lizard's attack. Has a base accuracy of 99%.
Scales are a problem, and managing them is key to actually defeating the Boiling Lizard. There's three ways to deal with them: brute force, the sucker's way, and the normal way.

Brute force, here, means you just take the extra fire damage on every fire attack the Boiling Lizard uses. This, unless you bring an immense amount of fire resistance for everyone in your party, is not feasible. Even one scale's chases brings Scorching Fire to a near total party kill. Two or more is absolute doom. Additionally, leaving scales alive means that multi-hit random-target attacks, such as Glacier Rune and Squall Volley, will be near-useless, as Scales will take hits meant for the Boiling Lizard.

The sucker's way of handling scales is by dealing ice damage to them every third turn. This doesn't actually deal any damage to a scale, but it does prevent it from chasing the Boiling Lizard's attacks for two turns. This is, again, not a feasible strategy long-term. Unless you have grinded a runemaster up to above level 40, in order to learn Blizzard Rune, you are essentially depriving yourself of at least one party member's action every third turn in order to keep these things from killing you. Every attack you use against a scale is an attack you were not using against the Boiling Lizard. The same problem as the brute force method also applies: even when they're frozen, scales will still disrupt multi-hit random-target attacks.

The normal way of dealing with scales is, in my opinion, very unintuitive, and nothing like it has ever shown up in any other EO game. You remember how you need to use ice stakes to destroy scales on the field? Of course you do, you had to do that several times in order to actually start this fight normally. Something you may not have noticed is that ice stakes are usable in battle. Up until now, they haven't actually been of any use—they deal some ice damage to one enemy, and that's it. They're far more valuable for destroying scales.

And therein lies the rub. Ice stakes, if used in the battle against the Boiling Lizard on a scale, will permanently destroy it. Instant death. They are far and away the best option for managing scales. I'd recommend bringing two, at minimum, to the battle, possibly more depending on how good your party's offense is. You will still need to waste one person's action on the turn after every fourth turn on destroying the scale, which is annoying, but that's the way it goes.

Back to the Boiling Lizard itself, its attacks are nothing you haven't really seen before. It's got a mixture of physical and fire damage, meaning there's no one-size-fits-all passive defensive solution against it. However, there are partial solutions available to you. Its fire damage is probably the easiest to deal with: you should have access to fire charms from the shop at this point, which halve any fire damage taken by the wearer. Additionally, if you really want to lay on the fire protection, you can eat a sweet fish (the rare 3rd Land fish), which will provide +20% fire resistance to all party members. Stacking both would result in your party only having 30% vulnerability to fire damage, rendering Scorching Fire, Fireball Cannon, and Fire Wall's counterattacks mostly harmless. From there, you can just deal with Upward Thrust and Venom Tail as they come; given that neither of those skills are party-target, you should be capable of taking hits from them without being put into crisis mode.

Additionally, head binds provide an absurd amount of value against the Boiling Lizard. In addition to their normal passive effects, all of the Boiling Lizard's skills except for Venom Tail (and summoning scales) require its head be unbound to use. Given that the Boiling Lizard doesn't even start using Venom Tail until you've taken off 25% of its effective HP (or 50% of its max HP if you're fighting it unweakened), an early head bind can provide a decisive advantage—at least two turns where the Boiling Lizard is completely helpless, and takes extra damage from TEC attacks on top of it.

One thing to note, though, is that you will probably want to bring either someone with access to Roar (the bushi skill), or at least one metopon. Fire Regen, even when weakened, is worth purging off immediately. If you're not stacking fire resistance, then Fire Wall will need to be purged immediately, as well. If you're taking Kibagami to the fight, then you're covered on this front, since he knows Roar.

Much like last time, I will be bringing Kibagami, plus the following two characters to the fight against the Boiling Lizard. Voting will be to determine the remaining three party slots.

Merula: Boiling Lizard is a boss that punishes you for dragging the fight out. Every four turns you let the fight go on is a scale you need to use an ice stake on, plus a use of Scorching Fire you need to recover from. Thus, the obvious solution is to bring in the character that is best at ending fights early (subject to disable infliction randomness). If either she or someone else can land an ailment on the Boiling Lizard early, Merula will rip huge chunks out of its HP, drastically shortening the time the Boiling Lizard has to make things go wrong. Can be used in either row, but will be put in the front if an ailment is active.

Ace: If I'm going to be bringing along our most fragile frontliner, then I'd be a fool not to bring along our amazing tank. Ace will do what they always do: take hits while barely flinching, ensuring that everyone else in the party can safely do their jobs. Can be used in either row.

Kibagami: Kibagami is here, but he won't be dealing damage. He's on support duty. Roar makes Fire Wall and Fire Regen complete non-factors, and he's an extra warm body that I can devote to using ice stakes on scales. Will be put in the back row.

You understand my reasoning, I hope. Thus, your job is to pick whatever three party members you think will best augment these three. Or whichever ones will result in a comedy of errors I need to panickedly recover from. I can manage.

Shelly: None of the guaranteed party members are great fuel for Links, but if at least one of Harper, Xiaohu, or Marlin are taken along, Shelly will be just fine. Hell, she'll be more than fine, given that she'll be hitting the Boiling Lizard's whopping 150% vulnerability to ice damage. Needs to be in the front row.

Harper: I know how to deal with scales, so they won't be too much of a problem for Harper using Squall Volley. She can't hit the Boiling Lizard's ice weakness, but she can still deal a ton of multi-hit damage, and provides bind support. Head binds in particular will provide maximum value if Xiaohu is brought along. Will be put in the front row.

Eine: On the more defensive end of things, Eine is good for keeping everyone alive from any attack the Boiling Lizard throws at us, and can make Ace damn near invulnerable, even when taking repeated hits. Will be put in the back row.

Xiaohu: The best option for consistent damage against the Boiling Lizard, straight up. Xiaohu does not need to use Ice Rune here, this thing's already got a 150% vulnerability to ice damage. She can just use Blood Surge and start rapidly depleting its HP. Will be put in the back row.

Marlin: Marlin is most useful as fuel for Shelly, but can also help augment Merula's damage output by way of Trick Samba. Can be used in either row, though would prefer the front.

Ray: Merula is guaranteed to be taken along, so Ray already provides ailment infliction support. On top of that, she can also provide bind infliction support after ailments are taken care of; as with Harper, head binds are incredibly valuable, doubly so if Xiaohu is taken along. Will be put in the back row.

Naijou: Ice Slash will deal decent damage, given the Boiling Lizard's 150% vulnerability to ice. Naijou can't do much more besides use it, though. Will be put in the front row.

Waylon: Waylon is self-sufficient in this fight. While he provides no real support for Shelly's Links, and I would need to play around Trick Samba if Marlin gets brought along, a charged Freeze Drive will leave a very deep wound in the Boiling Lizard. Will be put in the front row.

Vote for three people to be in the party. Voting is open in both my Discord server and the Something Awful thread.

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