So you wanna Defeat the Iron giant without having to level up to 99? Great, I have a strategy here just for you. Just make sure you follow these steps and you will recieve your Metal Card, and can proudly declare yourself as Master Tin Can Opener! ^_^

This guide is very brief, but contains all the knowledge you need in order to beat this boss at the recommended level range. (75-80)

As for the equipment, if you don't know where to find the stuff, then there are many other guides out there for that. This guide's focus is only on how to beat Iron Giant.

I did not come up with this strategy (the party formation and what to do with each member). There are people who have done this before. But I am the writer of this guide, and I just wanna share this to you guys so you can tackle this boss without spending countless hours of grinding to level 99.

You do need to level four jobs to 99, but that's nothing compared to actually level up your characters to 99. Check job leveling guides for the fastest ways to level up your jobs.

Now onto the intresting stuff!

So there are a few steps you need to complete in order to prepare for this boss using this strategy.

• The party I used consists of a Ninja, Viking, Devout and a Bard.
  
  
• The first thing you need to do, is to grind job level 99 with those four jobs. It shouldn't take too long, a couple of hours if you're using the guard technique (see other guides for job leveling)
  
  
• You need to level up to around 75-80. I did this at level 77 myself. So I'm not sure if this strategy works if you're lower than 75.
  
  
• You will need at least 12 Shurikens, but get 15 to be safe. You can buy these in Eureka, and you can find up to 4 or 5 in the game through the various dungeons. They are expensive to buy (65.000 gil each) but you should have no problems with money if you've leveled up to 75.

Tip: You can level up in this dungeon against Red/Green/Yellow dragons and farm the Onion equipment at the same time (if you wanna deck out your Onion Knights later on). They are tough though, and you should be over level 55 before fighting them.

So let's view the party I used and the equipment.

Ingus: |Level: 77| |Job: Ninja| |Job level: 99|
Equipment: Muramasa, Genji Shield, Genji Helm, Fuma Garb, Genji Gloves

Refia: |Level: 77| |Job: Viking| |Job level: 99|
Equipment: Crystal Shield, Aegis Shield, Crystal Helm, Crystal Mail, Crystal Gloves

Luneth: |Level: 77| |Job: Devout| |Job level: 99|
Equipment: Elder Staff, Holy Wand, Ribbon, White Robe, Protect Ring
Magic: Curaja, Arise

Arc: |Level: 77| |Job: Bard| |Job level: 99|
Equipment: Madhura Harp/Apollo Harp(*), Ballad Crown, Bard Vest, Protect Ring

(*) You cannot have both harps equipped at the same time, but both are required for this fight, I will tell you more in the strategy part.

Alright, so if you follow these steps you should have no problems defeating Iron Giant unless you get very unlucky and he crits you three times in a row.

First things first: PUT EVERYONE IN THE BACK ROW!!! This is VERY important.

Ninja: Throw Shurikens every turn. This is your damage dealer. The Shurikens will do 9999 damage on your screen, but they actually do more than that. 9999 is the highest number shown, but there is no damage limit. Your Shurikens should do around 16000 damage each. This character can also sacrifice a round of damage to throw an Elixir on someone if needed. I never needed it.

Viking: All you do on your viking is to spam Provoke. This is your meat shield, and he/she will take all the hits, except for Meteor and Sweep which hits your whole party.

Devout: Curaja every turn on your whole party. Don't take any risks. You will have enough MP at level 77, probably at 75 too, to use Curaja every turn until Iron Giant dies. If somone dies (they really should not) use Arise.

Bard: Okay. This is the core job that makes this doable at this level. You should have the Madhura Harp and the Apollo Harp. If you sing with the Madhura Harp equipped, your whole party recieves Protect for two rounds. If you sing with the Apollo harp, the whole party recieves Shell for two rounds. So what you need to do on your Bard, is to start with the Madhura Harp. Sing to cast Protect on the party, and the next round you swap to the Apollo Harp and sing to Shell the whole party. You keep doing this to have Protect and Shell up on the entire party during the whole fight. So swap between the harps and sing every turn to keep both Shell and Protect up at all times.


Iron Giant has 199,999 HP, and has two phases. Phase one lasts until he has 25% HP left. He attacks 4 times per round. In phase one he will use a normal attack and Meteor. The normal attack will always hit the Viking, Meteor will hit the whole party. This is why you use Curaja on everyone every turn. In phase two he will stop using Meteor and instead use a skill called Sweep, that does more damage than Meteor to your party, but it shouldn't matter. You will be able to heal up anyway. Just keep using Curaja on everyone.

That's it! This is all you need to do to defeat this overgrown tin can. Leave a comment if you have any questions!