The Final Battle Begins
We're placed in what looks to be a bit more of a metaphorical than literal area, with the ground giving way into what looks like the expanses of space. It fits the vibe of a Final Fantasy final boss fight, but given that we were just in the depths of a dungeon, perhaps not this one?
Anyway, we have to beat up Garland's upgraded form - Chaos. That tracks at least, it is their shrine after all.
While I'm not going to auto-battle here, I think our strategy was fairly solid, so I'm going to start off by largely keeping it, but swapping out Clair's pre-emptive healing for some Protera, to try and give us a bit of cover. Otherwise, physicals and Flare will start doing the damage.
Damage output is pretty predictable - just over 100 for each of the physicals and 430-ish for Flare, consistent with some of the earlier fights, particularly Flare, which has been good for that amount throughout the Chaos Shrine.
Chaos hits us with a Blizzara for around 100 damage each, so in the next turn, Clair swaps in a Healaga, in anticipation of another potential area-of-effect spell.
It's a good thing that we do too, because this time he raises the stakes with a Flare, doing nearly 250 damage to all, and placing Kaili and Glitz in critical health. The last thing we need is to be keeping the death counter in check right now... Clair heals for roughly the same amount back, so we're at the status quo from the start of the round
For some reason, Rukus's damage jumps up to 476, perhaps the Excalibur becomes stronger the more damage we've taken? Not complaining, but I'll try and keep an eye on it as for round 3, we end up using the same actions.
Chaos opts for Blizzaga this time, and at the start of the round, which allows Clair to effectively fully heal the whole party with her Healaga. There may be something inverse with the damage output vs health, because after getting clobbered by Chaos physically at the start of the round, Kaili this time hits for 543 damage.
We're in a groove now though, steady damage and decent healing. This time Chaos hits Clair for over 400 damage physically, but her healing coming after means she's still on 517HP at the end of the round.
In terms of rounds with this strategy though, we're entering uncharted territory in terms of the amount of MP we have. I'm aware that Ethers only heal 1MP per level, so if we get close to empty I may need to switch Rukus and Kaili to start throwing Ethers at Clair and Glitz to keep our healing going, along with his super-consistent Flare damage.
I go one more round as Chaos uses Blaze on us, which is mopped up by Clair's Healaga. But after some disappointing physical damage, we're entering the eighth round of combat, meaning that Glitz only has 2 Level 8 spells left. Thinking about it, the other option is that we drop down to one of the -aga spells, so with that in mind, we try one more round of Attack/Attack/Healaga/Flare.
He's still standing after using Cyclone on us, which again, Healaga takes care of. This round though, we mix it up, with Attack/Attack/Healara/Blizzaga - both to see if we can save the last couple of Healagas for when we need them, and to see what Blizzaga does to Chaos.
Blizzaga's a bit underwhelming, only doing 150 damage, so next round I get Kaili to throw a Dry Ether over to Glitz. We only have 2, but they recover 5MP and if I'm not using them now, I suspect I never will. Rukus takes his beating like a champ, and I think we're on the tenth round, going back to Attack/Attack/Healara/Flare.
Then in what can only be described as gutting - Chaos casts Curaga on himself and recovers 9999HP.... What.