The Knight Aberrant is an optional boss that can be found lurking amidst the ruins of Damdara, a fearsome foe with challenging due to the quality treasure it guards - Erdrick’s Armour. Certainly the best armor in the game is worth going out of your way to obtain, but the Knight Aberrant is no joke, and you’d best come prepared lest you leave humbled. This page will provide some tips and strategies for besting the Knight Aberrant in Dragon Quest 1: HD-2D Remake!

Page Breakdown¶

Knight Aberrant Location¶

Southwest of the Faerie Village you’ll find a desert, along the northern edge of which are the ruins of Damdara - this is also north, northeast of the Citadel of the Monarch of Medals. These ruins are split into two halves, with the ruins of thick stone walls along the northwestern part of the map - you can see the dark outline of these walls easily enough on the map. In the middle of this walled-off section of the ruins are two buildings (the western one of which can be entered). Pass through some ruins southeast of these buildings, wade through a poison swamp, then turn north and you’ll be ambushed by the Knight Aberrant!

Knight Aberrant Preparations¶

You can fight the Knight Aberrant early in the game - after you get the Thief’s Key, provided you’re strong enough to get through the trash mobs in and around Damdara. If you’re having any trouble with these monsters, you’d best belay your ambitions to battle the Knight Aberrant, however, as this boss is much, much stronger than the monsters in the environs nearby! Before attempting to face the Knight Aberrant, we suggest coming prepared in the following ways:

• Level up! You’re going to want your level to be in the low-to-mid-30s before facing this foe!
• Consume any and all seeds you have! The stronger you are, the easier this fight will be.
• Wear the Spiked Armour! This will deflect physical damage back on the attacker!
• Equip a Rousing Ring! Being put to sleep by the Knight Aberrant can be a death sentence. This accessory makes such an outcome less likely.
• Find and use the Moreheal Scroll in Cantile so you have a healing spell capable of keeping up with the Knight Aberrant’s damage output.
• Get the Stardust from the [Weeping Isle] dungeon and turn it into Craft-Master at the Faerie Village to obtain the Star Sigil. With the Star Sigil you’ll recover a fair amount of MP when you defend, making it easier to out-last your foe!

All in all, the longer you wait the easier this fight will be, but the above suggestions are, in our opinion, a reasonable goal to make this fight more manageable. It sounds like a lot, but simply reaching the Weeping Isle and find the Stardust should take care of most of these goals - you’ll doubtlessly level up enough en route to Cantlin and from there to the Weeping Isle, and Moreheal Scroll can be found in Cantlin while the Spiked Armour can be obtained during your journey to the Weeping Isle. Waiting longer is an option, too, but honestly by the time you’re tasked with clearing the [Shrine of Rain] and challenging Armageddon at the Shrine of the Spirit, you’re fighting bosses just as difficult as the Knight Aberrant, so you might as well get Erdrick’s Armour from the latter to make the other, aforementioned fights easier.

Knight Aberrant Attacks and Strategies¶

The Knight Aberrant is mainly a physical attacker - it has no offensive spells to worry about, so you don’t need to carry elemental protections or worry about bouncing backs spells. In more good news, the Knight Aberrant is one of the few endgame bosses that doesn’t get two actions per turn and it’s reasonably slow - with 280~ Agility you should get to go first just about every turn.

Now for the bad news: the Knight Aberrant can deal 250~ damage with a single critical hit if you’re unlucky, and it will likely happen a few times during the fight - this boss has a ton of health, and it can raise is own defense, lower yours with Helm Splitter, and it can attempt to put you to sleep. No matter what your preparations, RNG can always end the fight in the Knight Aberrants favor - you’re just one bad sleep spell and critical hit away from being in trouble, so if at first you don’t succeed, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not strong enough or that your strategy is poor.

Before we get into our strategies for besting this foe, here are its attacks:

• Melee Attack: Deals moderate damage.
• Desperate Attack: Deals massive damage.
• Helm Splitter: Deals moderate damage, lowers hero’s defense.
• Buff: Raises Knight Aberrant’s defense.
• Bounce: Deflects enemy spells.
• Snooze: Attempts to put the hero to sleep.
• Cop Out: Reflects a single physical attack.

As mentioned earlier, the Knight Aberrant has no magical offense of its own, save for Snooze, which can inflict sleep on the hero. Wear a Rousing Ring to cause this to be less effective - it can still land, but is much less likely. If you do get put to sleep… well, hope for a quick recovery and/or for Knight Aberrant to waste turns with Cop Out, Buff and Bounce. Not much else you can do about this attack but hope RNG doesn’t come out against you.

You should also note that the Knight Aberrant has two ways to bounce attacks back onto you - it’ll regularly use Bounce to reflect magic, and this stays in place for a while, but it’s also well-telegraphed, so if you get hit by this it’s probably your fault. On the other hand, Knight Aberrant can “prepare to deflect enemy attacks”, which is functionally identical to your own “Cop Out” skill. Attempt a physical attack during this and it’ll be reflected back onto you, and worse still, Knight Aberrant can cast this quickly, making it the one move Knight Aberrant will use that will preempt your own turn. Again, not much you can do about this, just don’t land heavy attacks while your HP are low. On the plus side, Knight Aberrant can’t really follow up on this, so if you don’t kill yourself, you should be able to recover, and the deflection stance wears off after a single turn, whether it lands or not.

Our strategy for defeating Knight Aberrant is simple enough: make sure you heal if you’re under 250 HP and don’t fret over defense buffs and debuffs too much. If your HP aren’t quite as high as you’d like (under 300~) use Miracle Slash to touch up a bit, and if you fall under the 250~ HP range use Moreheal to recover. This fight is really all about being defensively responsible and taking what the Knight Aberrant gives you. Keep Dodgy Dance up as often as possible to avoid your foe’s physical attacks and when you’re safe, hit Knight Aberrant with Demon Demeaner, which deals bonus damage. If you run low on MP, defend until you’re good again, healing as necessary.

In such a drawn-out, melee heavy battle, Spike Armour can really shine, as it’ll deflect about half of the boss’s damage back onto it. This isn’t great single-round damage by any means, and the Knight Aberrant has way more HP than the hero does, but you can heal and it can’t, and the damage from Spiked Armour makes turns spent healing or defending to recover MP feel like less of a waste. Cumulatively over the course of this lengthy battle, the chip damage reflected by Spiked Armour really adds up and helps to shorten a lengthy battle.

You could try to get cute and boost your damage with Muster Strength, Wild Side or by souping-up skills, but setting up combos that take 2-3 rounds which can be derailed by the boss landing one good hit is just too inconsistent for our tastes, not to mention the trouble you could be in if it gets deflected! Slow and steady wins the race, and really this is a battle against RNG, where caution and reliability are rewarded.

Defeat Knight Aberrant and not only will you gain a whopping 20,000+ EXP (on Dragon Quest difficulty), but you’ll obtain the Ogre Shield, which is a nice stand-in until you can grab Erdrick’s Shield shortly. Most importantly, be sure to grab Erdrick’s Armor from a hidden spot near a tree behind where you fought the Knight Aberrant!