How to Beat Tiamat
Introduction
Tiamat is the last of the Four Fiends in Final Fantasy 1 Pixel Remaster, the Fiend of Wind sitting at the top of the Flying Fortress. Beat the Kraken at the Sunken Shrine and the chapter routes you to the Flying Fortress; Tiamat is the closer at the end of the long bridge on 5F (the same bridge where the optional Warmech superboss roams).
Where Kraken folded to Thundaga, Tiamat has no exploitable weakness and resists almost every offensive school in the book. The fight runs on physical damage, NulAll mitigation, and managing four different elemental breath attacks. Her Fight pattern hits 4 times per turn at 53 Attack each, lower per-turn than Kraken’s eight 50-Attack swings, but she compensates with a varied breath rotation that chips your whole party each round it triggers.
A few numbers worth flagging. No elemental weakness plus resists Fire, Ice, Lightning, Poison, Stone, Time, and Mind means Flare and Holy are your only meaningful spell damage; everything elemental is wasted. Magic Evasion 200 is tied for the highest in the game (with Blue Dragon and Warmech), and combined with the resists makes offensive magic largely dead weight. Magic Defense 0 is irrelevant when nothing connects in the first place. Defense 80 matches Warmech’s record among non-final bosses, so Saber and Haste are mandatory to make swings count. 4 hits per turn at 53 Attack is her physical threat: high enough to chunk a single member but lower per-turn than Kraken or Marilith. Status immunities: only Stone, so Sleep is a long-shot rescue play if your party stalls; with 200 Mag Evasion it usually whiffs, but a connection effectively skips her turn. No drops. Total rewards: 5,496 EXP and 6,000 Gil, the highest of any of the Four Fiends.
Strategy
Quick Tips
- NulAll covers 3 of 4 breaths
NulAll halves Blaze, Icestorm, and Thunderbolt damage. Cast it turn one and reapply mid-fight.
- Scourge slips through NulAll
Her Poison breath isn't covered by NulAll. Just heal through that one when it lands.
- Flare or Holy for damage
Both bypass her elemental resist sheet. Your Black Wizard casts Flare; your White Wizard casts Holy between heals.
- Haste plus Saber for melee
Defense 80 matches Warmech. A Hasted, Saber-buffed Knight is what closes the kill on her 2,400 HP.
- Sleep is a long-shot rescue
Only Stone is on her status immunity list. Magic Evasion 200 whiffs the cast often, but a connecting Sleep skips a turn.
To beat Tiamat in FF1, the fight runs on three pillars: NulAll on turn one to flatten three of her four breaths, Haste plus Saber on your Knight so physicals chunk through 80 Defense, and Flare from your Black Wizard every turn for non-elemental damage that bypasses her resist sheet. With 2,400 HP, no weakness, and Magic Evasion 200, the fight runs longer than Kraken’s but you have all the tools you need by this point in the game.
The breath rotation is what makes the early rounds feel chaotic. Tiamat cycles through Blaze, Icestorm, Thunderbolt, and Scourge at 14% each per turn. NulAll halves the first three. Scourge (her poison breath) is the odd one out: it isn’t covered by NulAll, so plan to heal through it when it lands rather than mitigate it. The good news is that even at full damage, a single Scourge cast won’t drop a healthy party member; just keep HP topped up so a Scourge plus a follow-up Fight turn can’t wipe the same character.
Offensive magic is mostly wasted outside Flare and Holy. Tiamat resists every other element, and Magic Evasion 200 evades most casts that would otherwise connect. Your White Wizard’s MP is best spent rotating between NulAll, Curaja, and Holy for chip damage when no one needs healing. Your Black Wizard goes Haste turn one (on your Knight or Master), then Flare every turn after; nothing else in their kit beats Flare’s combination of non-elemental and high base damage. Saber via the Giant Glove on your Knight, plus Haste, makes physicals genuinely matter; without those buffs, Defense 80 turns swings into chip damage.
Move Set
Tiamat has a 5-slot rotation, with the four elemental breaths splitting equally:
| Action | Effect | Chance |
|---|---|---|
| Fight | Four 53-Attack hits in one turn | 42.9% |
| Blaze | Party-wide fire breath | 14.3% |
| Icestorm | Party-wide ice breath | 14.3% |
| Thunderbolt | Party-wide lightning breath | 14.3% |
| Scourge | Party-wide poison damage | 14.3% |
Roughly 43% of her turns are the 4-hit physical (focused on whichever member sits in slot 1 due to FF1’s targeting weight), and the remaining 57% is breath chip on the whole party. NulAll covers Blaze, Icestorm, and Thunderbolt: three slots out of five, or roughly 43% mitigation across her rotation. Scourge bypasses it. The breath spread looks scary on paper but each individual element is just 14% per turn, so most rounds will only see one breath cast at most.
Battle Plan
- Black Wizard: Haste on your Knight turn one, then Flare every turn from there. Skip elemental spells.
- White Wizard: NulAll turn one, Curaja whenever anyone drops below half HP, Holy in any spare turn. Reapply NulAll every 3-4 rounds.
- Knight: Equip the Aegis Shield, use the Giant Glove (Saber) turn one, and attack every round. Excalibur if you’ve forged it.
- Master / Ninja: Attack every turn after Haste. Healing Helm as an item-cast Heal if your White Wizard falls behind.
After the Battle
Tiamat falls and the Wind Crystal’s light is restored, the last of the four crystals you’ve now relit. A story trophy unlocks the moment she goes down, and a portal warps your party out of the Flying Fortress.
Heal up, restock at a town, and save before pushing on. The chapter walkthrough picks up the route from here.