Shinryu

Summary

For those who are tempted to open every treasure chest they see, the dragon comes for you. Shinryu is one of the game's two major superbosses, and definitely lives up to the title with a wide array of powerful attacks and spells. Dealing with Shinryu's massive offensive power may seem quite intimidating, but it turns out this monster might just have a key weakness or two that makes the fight much more straightforward. Don't breathe easy just yet, though.

Stats

Name	Shinryu
Level	97
Speed	87
HP	55500
MP	51000
Strength	175
Defense	60
Evasion	20
Magic	128
Magic Defense	60
Magic Evasion	95
Gil	0
Exp	0
Steal	Common: Dragon Fang Rare: Dragon's Whisker
Drops	Always: Dragon Seal Rare: Nothing

Status

Enemy Status

NAME	Shinryu
Elemental Immunity:	None
Elemental Absorb:	Holy
Elemental Weakness:	None
Status Vulnerability:	Darkness, Zombie, Float, Image, Mute, Berserk, Regen, Slow, Haste, Shell, Armor, Wall
Initial Status:	None
Cannot Evade:	None
Creature Type:	Dragon, Heavy
Command Vulnerability:	None
Special Properties:	Critical Attack

Shinryu

Attack Script

Condition: V00=01 {
    {Maelstrom, Attack, Roulette}
    {Ice Storm, Atomic Ray, Lightning}
    No Interrupt {
         {Maelstrom, Attack, Roulette}
         {Mighty Guard, Level 2 Old, Level 3 Flare}
         }
    No Interrupt {
         {Attack, Attack, Evil Eye}
         {Attack, Attack, Poison Breath}
         }
    }

Nothing

No Interrupt {
    Set V00=01
    Tidal Wave
    }

React: Magic: No-Damage Magic {
    Set V00=00
    Zombie Breath
    }

Condition: HP < 20000 & HP Damage {
    {No-Damage Magic, Nothing, Nothing}
    }

Strategies

The very first thing to note about Shinryu is that, unlike most bosses, it can be fled from. If an attempt goes badly, you can always retreat, rework your party setup, and come back later with better preparation.

The second thing is that Shinryu opens every attempt the same way: launching a monstrous Tidal Wave cast that inflicts 8000+ damage to your entire party. If you do not have a way of dealing with this, you lose, period. This pretty much comes down to one of two accessories equipped: Hermes Sandals (which allow you a narrow window to act before the Tidal Wave is cast) or Coral Ring (absorbs the water damage). You will almost always need one of these two on every party member to progress.

The third thing is that Shinryu absorbs holy damage. Have your Knights and Dragoons put Excalibur and Holy Lance away, and don't expect your White Mage to be a damage contributor. (Not that this is a major problem for White Mages or Dragoons, see below.)

The fourth thing is that Shinryu is a dragon (gasp), so weapons that deal extra damage to Dragon type enemies like the Dragon Lance, Apollo's Harp, and the Dragon Whisker are valuable for this fight. (The Dragon Whisker is also Shinryu's rare steal, so it's possible to steal it off and then immediately put it to work if you have Beastmaster or Freelancer.)

At this point, your strategy will likely be put into play, which comes down to four options for dealing with Shinryu's attack rotation. The last one involves navigating Shinryu's gauntlet of powerful attacks (thankfully there will be no more Tidal Wave casts after this). The other three, meanwhile...

Berserk

That's right, Shinryu is vulnerable to Berserk, so instead of having to deal with his regular script, you just have to answer to him spamming melee attacks. There are several ways to inflict berserk; most obviously, White Mages can just cast the spell of the same name, but if that's not an option, other staff-wielding jobs can use the Power Staff, rod-wielding jobs can prep the Wonder Wand ahead of time and use it, and Chemists can mix Bacchus's Cider (Holy Water + Turtle Shell). Finally, Beastmasters can catch a Mammon in the room where you fought Twintania and release it; it casts berserk on a random party member, and with reflect up, it will then bounce onto Shinryu.

Once he's berserked, he's a lot easier to deal with, but still not completely neutralized. His melee attacks hit like a truck, inflicting several thousand damage and usually one-shotting your party members. He's so strong that merely mitigating the damage with Protect and/ or high defense armor won't do any good, either. Now, there are a few ways to block or evade his blows completely, but even if none of them are available, you can still take him on as is, just be prepared to toss out Phoenix Downs like candy. With decent damage output and Hermes Sandals to help keep up with him (you can even unequip some armor to help speed yourself up a little more since it won't usually help here anyway), you can expect to use about 30-40 of them, but you can certainly bring more if you'd like an extra cushion.

As for other options, first of all there's the Image status, which evades one physical attack per stack. To get it, White Mage can cast Blink (yes, White Mage generally trivializes this fight), Ninja can employ its Image ability, Chemists can use Kiss of Blessing (Holy Water + Maiden's Kiss) though it will also inflict berserk on the target, and many other jobs can equip the Mirage Vest. The vest only grants one stack, but in GBA and prior versions, you can exploit a glitch to refresh it by switching out the wearer's weapon/ shield mid-battle, even just swapping from one hand to another.

Meanwhile, Knight can employ critical health Cover + Guard, Summoners can use Golem, though they'll have to recast it frequently, and while it's not a guaranteed success, shields and gear that grants independent evade or block chances can also help. On that note, Elven Mantle is an option, but not generally preferable to Hermes Sandals with the possible exception of when you can reliably berserk before his initial Tidal Wave and have another means of hasting your party. The Mini status also doubles a character's evasion, so when you combine that with the Genji Shield in particular, a character can become nearly untouchable (not quite completely untouchable because evasion will cap at 99%). To get Mini on someone, White Mages and Red Mages can cast the spell, Blue Mages can cast Lilliputian Lyric, other rod-wielders can use the Wonder Wand again, and if all else fails, some enemies such as Fury in the Void Castle can cast it on you.

Furthermore, Shinryu is also vulnerable to blind. For this reason, it may be tempting to try to use Blue Mage's Flash spell on him, but in practice it's not worth it. Between Shinryu's high level and magic evasion, it has a less than 1% chance of landing in the best case scenario. There are some other methods that are feasible, though. Chemist can inflict it with the Dark Sigh mix (Eyedrop + Dragon Fang) unless you're playing the Defunct or Pixel Remaster specifically on console, where it also has to contend with evasion checks (PC Pixel Remaster is fine). A Beastmaster can inflict blind on Shinryu via Rainbow Wind, which can be cast by releasing a Galajelly, found in the same place as Mammon. The Dark Bow has a flat 66% chance to inflict it. Lastly, if you're doing an Extra Jobs run on either the GBA or Defunct versions and have a Cannoneer, their 'Dark' Combines, made with the Ash item and one of the ___shots, have a flat 75% chance to inflict blind. Do note, on Defunct, all of these will be countered with Zombie Breath even when Shinryu is berserked, so be careful.

Keep up the offense while maintaining whatever defensive measures you have, and Berserk Shinryu will go down.

Reflect Zombie

The local Necromancer enemies in the Interdimensional Rift like to use Zombie Powder to turn your characters into mindless undead. But if you have Bard as one of your jobs, you can take advantage of this to take down Shinryu.

You want a zombie character equipped with a Reflect Ring. (If you end up with multiple zombies, only one needs the Reflect Ring.) Any remaining characters must have the Bard's Hide ability set, and Hermes Sandals equipped. When the battle begins, all non-zombie characters should immediate Hide before the Tidal Wave hits and remain there.

And then you wait. The Reflect Ring will bounce Shinryu's Atomic Ray casts back at it, inflicting a small amount of damage each time. Nothing Shinryu can do can stop or undo the zombies, so it just becomes a matter of time for the reflected damage to add up. This is very slow due to Atomic Ray not being guaranteed and Shinryu highly likely to throw Mighty Guard on itself at some point, but after a couple of hours Shinryu should fall.

It is worth noting that on the defunct mobile/Steam version, the reflected Atomic Ray only does about a third of the damage it does on other versions, so be prepared to spend 5+ hours or more attempting this strategy on that version. If you lack the patience or time, choose another strategy or just move on.

Dragoon

While Dragoon are not normally the greatest job, they really shine when it comes to fighting Shinryu. Jump in conjunction with equipped Hermes Sandals allows your Dragoon to avoid basically all of Shinryu's attacks (including Tidal Wave), and with Dragon Lance inflicts heavy damage. Or if you want to be risky, you can use Coral Ring along with an equipped Ice Shield to nullify most of Shinryu's elemental damage, and pray for luck on which attacks Shinryu uses in between jumps.

As for the rest of your party...who cares? Okay, if you have another physical job, having them with Jump to inflict extra damage doesn't hurt. Additionally, this strategy becomes even more broken with Time Mage, as the Quick spell can allow you extra risk-free Jump attacks to burn through Shinryu's hit points even faster. Other jobs can chip in setup for the few turns they survive, but a lot of the time this is going to come down to a single Dragoon bouncing off of Shinryu's head over and over until it dies, while the rest of the party takes a floor nap.

Other

If none of the above strategies are possible, and you still want to try to kill Shinryu, you're in for a rough fight.

Shinryu's basic script after Tidal Wave follows a specific pattern. The first turn involves either a physical attack, Maelstrom, or the Blue Mage spell Roulette (inflicts instant death to a random target on the field, does nothing if it selects Shinryu as the target). The second turn is one of three elemental attacks (Atomic Ray, Frost Breath, or Lightning). Of the three, Lightning is the least dangerous, even if the Coral Rings double the damage it does (since it is percentage based). Combining an Ice Shield with your Coral Ring will result in the first two being nullified, so every shield user you have should go for this combo.

Then Shinryu takes a pair of double turns, where it acts twice per turn. The first of these double turns starts off identical to its first single turn, followed by one of three Blue Mage spells (Mighty Guard, Level 2 Old, or Level 3 Flare). You want to be a level that isn't affected by the latter two of those spells. The second double turn has a two-thirds chance of physical attacks each time, with a one third chance of Evil Eye for the first action and a chance of Poison Breath for the second action. Finally, Shinryu will skip a turn, then start over from the beginning. Finally, if hit with a non-damaging spell effect, Shinryu will counter with Zombie Breath.

In general, any of the strategies used to negate melee damage in the Berserk section work here too, and with enough hit points and level grinding, you can survive a melee strike from non-Berserked Shinryu with Protect and back row. Poison Breath is also dangerous, but on older versions an equipped Bone Mail lets you absorb it.

The fight is clearly designed for high level Freelancers with multiple mastered jobs, which is not an option for the fiesta, but with the right gear and preparation it's doable. However, you will still be counting on luck to avoid the dreaded Maelstrom + Lightning combo, which can wipe out your party, or bad combos of melee strikes, or avoiding getting Poison Breath at all. If you're determined and have the time to see it through, press on, and with luck and skill you can earn a win.