Dragon Zombie's a far more interesting affair than Oliphant. He has what are effectively two passive gimmicks, the first being Dark Breath. Dark Breath and Combustion are both excellent arguments for bringing a Shaman with a max level Prayer: Blaze along, since Fire Breath plus Combustion equals 250% INT-based fire damage, which almost every character is going to have serious trouble surviving. Unfortunately, Combustion is also how you get Dragon Zombie's conditional drop. Good luck with that, by the way, because Combustion will deal about as much damage to Dragon Zombie as it does to you--i.e. very little in the context of Dragon Zombie's max HP.

Dark Heal is his other primary gimmick, and there's basically no way for you to stop it short of inflicting a debilitating disable on Dragon Zombie or binding its head. I mean, I guess you could bust out, like, a level 1 Poison Smoke at the start of the battle, but that wouldn't help much when Curse Rain comes out, because curse overrides poison on the ailment hierarchy. I should note that Dragon Zombie inflicting curse on itself is far worse than it inflicting poison on itself, because the heal resulting from curse backlash is going to be far, far more than the healing from poison.

Dragon Quake gives me bad flashbacks to Wyrm/Great Dragon, because it's the same skill. Stun sucks horrendously to get tagged with since it just straight-up denies you turns. At least it has a slow speed modifier, unlike previous games. Good luck if you have characters with skilsl that have lower than 80% speed modifiers, though.

Stamp Feet's liable to kill its primary target if they're not a) heavily armored (Dragoons and maybe Masuraos, basically), or b) under the effects of Line Guard.

Chew's basically instant death without Line Guard, even if you're heavily armored, so that's fun. Extra fun is that if you survive it, th at character then gets to deal with binds.

Ice Crash's damage isn't much to write home about, but getting your defense reduced is very bad, especially if you're barely surviving attacks as-is.

Oh yeah, also, we will have Soleil as a guest for this fight. Yeah, yeah, spoilers, but having a sixth party member is a pretty serious stealth buff for five-person Unions, so I needed to mention it.


With all that in mind, party members!

Alexis: Alexis doesn't do shit against Fire Breath, Combustion, or Ice Crash. On the other hand, he can eat the primary damage of Stamp Feet, can make Chew completely whiff, and has a fairly high chance of nullifying Dragon Quake. I'd give him a very slight edge over Sasha, personally.

Iseria: Iseria: good damage, but needs characters that can enable it in the first place. Same deal as always, honestly. Her damage is very, very high at this time, though, given that she has a fully-forged ANswerer.

Sasha:

• General: Line Guard goes a long way in keeping characters from dying to Dragon Zombie's physical attacks. I guess I can also spam Material Guard while Dark Breath is up.
• Adamantine Dragoon: Soul Guard's an alternate way of dealing with the heavier attacks like Chew and Combustion. Doesn't really save the back row, though.
• Gunpowder Dragoon: Pillboxes unfortunately don't hit for terribly much against Dragon Zombie's physical resistances, and he's neutral to sleep.

Cecil:

• General: Head binds are king for Dragon Zombie due to the fact that they stop it from using either Poison Rain or Curse Rain. Oh yeah I guess they also stop Dark Breath, Fire Breath, and Combustion (by extension) too.
• Combo Boxer: If things go wrong, Dragon Zombie already takes care of the ailment part of Lead Blow for us! ...In all seriousness, inflicting ailments on our own is a bit of a pain, and getting all three bind types without assistance from Kaelin, Lanzon, or (honestly preferably) Magda is kinda annoying.
• Devastating Fistfighter: I still don't know how the hell you use this spec effectively and I don't think any of you do either.

Raven:

• Death-Bringing Reaper: Black Blade's damn near impossible to get stacks with due to Poison Rain and Curse Rain, and Scythe of Cruel Poison is right out. I guess Dragon Zombie inflicting ailments on itself is an easy setup for Great Scythe of Cold Ash? If it has curse on, though, I have bigger problems than worrying about setup for that.
• Death-Warding Reaper: Debuff Dragon Zombie's attack, defense, and accuracy, and then whack it with Scythe of Transience. Same rotation as normal. Unfortunately does nothing for the problem of stopping either of the Rains, but oh well.

Kaelin:

• General: Chain Blast is a pretty nice way of just giving me some peace of mind that Dragon Zombie won't do anything dangerous for 3 to 5 turns. Remember that Kaelin's not the only one with access to it, though!
• Master of the Six Ways: The six-element spec...doesn't actually offer much in this fight, to be honest with you. Arm binds stop the rains, yeah, but we have Chain Blast for that anyway, debuffing Dragon Zombie's elemental attack only does so much, and stunning it's right out of the question. That does leave Alter, but petrification's a mixed bag if we have even just one physical damage dealer.
• Ruler of Fire, Ice, and Lightning: You want a taste of this spec? Now's your best time to get it. It costs way more TP to keep going than the six-element spec, but is far more consistent as far as damage goes, and does boost Kaelin's INT a bit.

Lanzon:

• General: Chain Blast! It's easy to forget that Lanzon and Magda have access to it, since only Kaelin's used it so far, but yes, they have it too.
• Spirit-Summoning Necromancer: Open Grave has its uses if we're bringing Alexis along. Other than that, there's also Ghost Dance, I suppose.
• Spirit-Destroying Necromancer: Spirit-Destroying has the same rotation of skills that it always does. Unfortunately, The Gates of Hell will run up against Dragon Zombie's resistance to physical damage, but what can you do about that? Answer: not much.

Gram:

• Falcon-Accompanied Hound: Head binds are always appreciated for Dragon Zombie, although there is the issue of Dragon Zombie resisting purely physical damage.
• Dog-Leading Hound: Arm binds do stop the Rains, but again, pure physical damage resistance.

Jana: Both of Jana's specs here accomplish the same goal, but do note that she will get immediately pasted by basically everything if she goes spec 1.

Mio:

• Heaven's Wrath Shaman: The only really special thing this spec has to offer for us in this fight, to be honest, is Oracle: Three Runs.
• Heaven's Love Shaman: Couldn't hurt to have some extra max HP by means of Prayer: Longetivity. Passive healing'll go along great with that, too.

Dosen: Buffing up max HP is never a bad thing, especially when we're dealing with as nasty a customer as Dragon Zombie.

Magda: Magda...is a really bad option for this fight, haha. Her ailments'll get overridden by Curse Rain, and Smoke Bomb's dangerous when Dark Breath's in play.

Same rules as Oliphant: four votes per person, one vote max per party member. I'm not gonna make it an official caveat that you vote for Alexis or Sasha, either.