Final Fantasy Tactics The Ivalice Chronicles: How to beat Cuchulainn

Final Fantasy Tactics The Ivalice Chronicles’ Cuchulainn the Impure is one of the many bosses that ultimately wind up betraying humanity to the forces of evil, similar to the challenging Belias the Gigas fight. None of the Lucavi fights are truly easy, but there are some things you can do to mitigate the power he has to wipe your party out. What makes this fight really frustrating is that it comes right after a pretty intense fight.

Simply getting into Lionel Castle for this fight requires Ramza to best Gafgarion one more time, and his party to wipe out a very strong team of Summoners, Knights, and Archers in very close combat. But if you’ve overcome that, and are ready for Cuchulainn the Impure in Final Fantasy Tactics The Ivalice Chronicles, here’s what you need to know.

---

Tips to defeat Cuchulainn the Impure in Final Fantasy Tactics The Ivalice Chronicles

After overcoming Gafgarion once more in Final Fantasy Tactics The Ivalice Chronicles, Ramza, Agrias, Mustadio, and the rest of the team come upon Cuchulainn the Impure. Known as Queklain, he has access to some powerful spells, and several dangerous status ailments.

As you can see, I forgot my Jade Armlets on a few characters (Image via Square Enix)

The most dangerous ones are Sleep and Doom that come from his overwhelmingly powerful Nightmare spell. It affects two squares and has a long range and in addition to damage, can hit you with the above status ailments. With that in mind, make sure your party members are equipped with Jade Armlets to ward both effects off. You can buy them in Lesalia for 10,000 a piece.

Thankfully, this boss doesn’t have a lot of Health, because his spells get out of control very fast. There are plenty of ways to build a party for this fight, but I recommend at least one character who is a Chemist, or has access to Throw Item/Item, because in addition to Sleep and Doom, to stop players from being Petrified.

He likely still has access to Blind/Poison/Oil/Toad/Silence/Undead/KO status ailments, as well from his Bio spells, but the fight didn’t last long enough to find out. As far as party makeup goes, I recommend something similar to this:

• Ramza (Monk/Squire, Two Swords, Counter, Movement +1/Movement +3)
• Chemist/White Mage
• Ninja/Monk, Bare-Handed (Concentrate/Counter)
• Mustadio if you’ve leveled him (for Immobilize)
• Black Mage/White Mage (with Holy)
• Agrias can do well here if you can get her into range.

Hopefully, you won't be on the receiving end of Bioga (Image via Square Enix)

You definitely want to rush Cuchulainn in Final Fantasy Tactics The Ivalice Chronicles. He’s at least going to get one spell off, and it’s likely going to be Nightmare. My strategy is to make sure my melee characters have movement/speed, and rush him down, surround him, and use the power of barehanded attacks to destroy his HP completely.

Get your spellcasters as far out of range as is safe, and use the Black Mage to cast Holy. A Chemist/White Mage is there to help heal and remove status ailments, should they come up, but your Monks can too, with Purification. Sadly, it won’t remove Doom though, so wear the Jade Armlets.

With strong Monk/Squires or Ninja/Monks, you can take down this boss in one or two rounds, tops. I brought a Dancer with me, but that's just my general strategy. I don’t especially recommend it, for this fight, but I knew my party was going to steamroll Cuchulainn. I did however, use it to cast Slow Dance, to slow the boss down just a little bit.

Rush him down and never stop ever (Image via Square Enix)

He has around 400 health in Final Fantasy Tactics The Ivalice Chronicles, so with Ramza hitting for 75-100 per bare-handed strike, he’ll go down in no time. I ran two Squire/Monks, and one Ninja/Squire, and just surrounded him in front of the altar for the bulk of the damage.

The worst part of this fight is if he manages to cast one of the Bio spells. Each one can inflict multiple status ailments at once. He’s not especially fast, at least, so you should have no trouble rushing him down. If you aren’t running Monks, Dragoons are another safe choice, since they spend much of their time off camera for Jump.

Success will grant you the Scorpio Stone, and will wrap up the events of Chapter 2 for Final Fantasy Tactics The Ivalice Chronicles. There are still many more powerful foes awaiting, but this is just a glimpse into what horrors await among the Lucavi.

---

Final Fantasy Tactics The Ivalice Chronicles launches on September 30, 2025, and is truly a masterpiece. You can learn more about the revived genre-defining tactical RPG in our in-depth review.