Unless you’re playing on Draconian Quest difficulty, Dragon Quest 2: HD-2D Remake probably isn’t going to be a nail-biting experience… at first. Eventually, however, the game will demand more of the average player, including an understanding of how buffs, debuffs and souped up skills work, and you’ll start benefiting greatly by assigning roles to characters in combat instead of just randomly blasting foes with your most powerful spells. For us, this fight was against the Lunagriff, but the 
King of Dirkandor was no slouch either, and it was against him that our evolving strategies were applied to grim results. This page will provide you with strategies for defeating the King of Dirkandor (and other late-game bosses) in Dragon Quest 2: HD-2D Remake, earning the trophy/achievement Twice Tested, Twice Bested in the process!
Page Breakdown¶
| Quick Search |
|---|
| King of Dirkandor Preparations |
| King of Dirkandor Attacks |
| King of Dirkandor Boss Strategies |
Spending some time grinding out Gold Bracers at the Rimuldar Tombala Stall will pay off in every major fight going forward, as it makes stacking Buff effects easier.
You also want to ensure characters have learned certain skills from scrolls - Matilda learning Egg On being a good example.
King of Dirkandor Preparations¶
There are many ways to build your party in Dragon Quest 2: HD-2D Remake, and if you’re willing to spend the time grinding for levels and seeds you can make quite a few characters your physical attacker. At the time when you fight the King of Dirkandor, however, which happens after clearing the [Tower of the Moon], you’ll be somewhat limited by your progression in your ability to obtain seeds, levels and perhaps more importantly, scrolls.
That said, we can still do a few things. First, you want to teach Matilda the following skills via scrolls: 
Buff, 
Egg On, 
Kabuff and 
Sap. Her primary role in boss battles will be as a buffer/debuff, while Gawain will be our damage dealer - Matilda will mostly spend her time using Egg On to vastly increase Gawain’s attacks, using Buff, Kabuff or Sap on non-offensive turns when the situation demands. For everything work, you’ll also want Gawain to be high enough level to use 
Forbearance (Lv28) and optionally 
Cutting Edge (Lv41), Caradoc should have Full Heal (Lv28), Peronel should have 
Multiheal (Lv32) and Matilda… well, as long as she has the aforementioned scrolls she’ll be fine.
Optionally (but helpfully) you can gamble at the Tombola Stall in Rimuldar for 
Gold Bracers. These unassuming items will, when worn as accessories “strengthen the effect of any defensive spells or abilities used on the wearer”, and for our purposes this means it increases the effectiveness of buffs like Buff and Kabuff by one stage. The Buff effect can stack, increasing their effectiveness, with Buff giving two stages of damage mitigation and Kabuff giving one to the entire party. With a Gold Bracer on, this causes Buff to give three stages of damage mitigation to a character and Kabuff two stages to the entire party. This is insanely helpful, especially when dealing with physically-focused enemies like the King of Dirkandor, as there are six stages of damage mitigation to the Buff effect and at stage one it only reduces damage to 75%, but by stage six the physical damage taken is reduces to a mere 25%. With the whole party wearing Gold Bracers, two Kabuffs give the entire party will only take 40% physical damage… and the Gold Bracers can be removed and re-equipped in combat as needed!
Otherwise just make sure you have your strongest weapons and armor equipped, then when you’re ready, challenge the King of Dirkandor!
The King of Dirkandor is a pretty straight-forward physical attacker - he’s got few tricks, save for the ability to debuff with Attack Attacker,
and the odd multi-hit or party-wide attack, which can be painful if you have Gawain using Forbearance.
King of Dirkandor Attacks¶
Before we go into what you need to do, let’s discuss what your enemy can do:
- Standard Attack: Deals about 80~ damage to a single character. Can critically hit for 130~ damage.
Knuckle Sandwich: Same as the skill - deals 90~ damage to a single character.
Multifists: Same as the skill - deals 80-100~ damage to random party members four times.
Stone’s Throw: Same as the skill - deals 100~ damage to each party member.- Attack Attacker: Same as the skill - deals 60~ damage to a single target, reducing that target’s attack in the process.
- Muster Strength: Same as the skill - Doubles the damage of the King of Dirkandor’s next attack.
- Chant of Champions: Same as the skill - This is a Souped-Up version of Muster Strength (usuable by Matilda in your own party) that buffs the caster’s attack, defence and critical hit chance. Nasty, but the King of Dirkandor may be only able to use this when his health is low.
As you can see, there’s a lot of familiar attacks you yourself have access to, and pretty much everything the King of Dirkandor does is physical damage. Buff/Kabuff will be very useful for reducing incoming damage, and if you’ve got some Gold Brancers handy, you should equip them, as this doubles the efficiency of the Buff/Kabuff spells. Gawain using Forbearance to shield the rest of the party while they buff is a good idea, too, but keep in mind that this can be risky unless you can stack Buff on him quickly, as the King of Dirkandor can get 2-3 attacks per turn, and if he decides to go for party-wide attacks (like Stone’s Throw or Multifists) multiple times and/or gets a random critical hit, it may be too much for Gawain to survive.
(1 of 5) Your core strategy is simple enough - Buff Gawain with Buff, Oomph and Egg On,
King of Dirkandor Boss Strategies¶
In an ideal world, every character has one Gold Bracer (save scum them at the Rimuldar Tombola Stall) and have Gawain use Forbearance, Caradoc casts Kabuff, Matilda hits Gawain with Egg On and Peronel casts 
Oomph on Gawain. Once buffed, Gawain can use Cutting Edge (or its souped-up version, if he’s benefiting from Buff or two stacks of Kabuff), which should deal 1,000-1,500 damage to the King of Dirkandor.
On subsequent turns, have Caradoc heal as necessary (Full Heal if Gawain has been tanking or 
Omniheal if the party is hurt) or stack Kabuff again if the party isn’t that beat up, Matilda can cast Sap to reduce the King of Dirkandor’s defence, and Peronel can spot heal with Multiheal, reapply Oomph as needed, throw her own Sap at the King of Dirkandor, or, if you want to diversify your damage, cast Wild Side and start pelting the King of Dirkandor with Big Bangas (souped-up 
Kaboom). Wild Side also allows Peronel to doublecast Multiheal or Sap, making it a good option all-around when she doesn’t have to immediately heal or cast Oomps on Gawain. Gawain, for his part, should use Cutting Edge any time he’s buffed with Egg On and Oomph, assuming the party doesn’t need him to tank with Forbearance. It should only take him several big swings with Cutting Edge to bring down the King of Dirkandor!
It’s a good idea to get into practice with this strategy, as it’s effective (sometimes with boss-specific modifications and additions due to late-game items) against most upcoming bosses. For proving your might to the King of Dirkandor you’ll unlock the Twice Tested, Twice Bested achievement/trophy, and better yet, you’ll be able to proceed with the game!
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