You will come across many bosses in Metaphor: ReFantazio, some of which will be optional, since they are in dungeons that are required to finish the main story. One of those bosses will be in the Belega Corridor, a dungeon that unlocks as part of A Bullish Embargo side quest in Grand Trad. At the end of the dungeon, you will face the fearsome Grotesque Guptauros, a boss that might prove to be quite challenging in the early stages of the game.

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You’ll face the Guptauros at the end of the Belega Corridor.

All of Guptauros’ Attacks¶

The Guptauros is fairly strong and has a mechanic where it gains extra actions, if you are using an Archetype like the Mage or Healer. Other than that, it’s a pretty straightforward fight.

• Slam Shatter: Definitely a dangerous move, as the Guptauros will hit all of your characters for heavy damage. Unfortunately, it’s a regular move and you can’t really prepare for it.

• Heavy Rush: The Guptauros will attack a single character for heavy damage. It does about the same as Slam Shatter.

• Powerful Pulveriser: Another single-target attack that deals heavy damage. It seems to do a little more than Heavy Rush.

• Charge: The boss will gather strength for its next attack. The turn it uses this one is pretty much a free turn, though.

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(1 of 5) Slam Shatter hits your entire party, so you definitely don’t want to see this move.

• Frenzy: An attack that only happens the turn after it uses Charge. This attack hits your entire party and can hit multiple times. It is best to defend on the turn this happens, to avoid taking fatal damage.

• Reckless Charge: This seems to be a buff or something, but it’s unclear what it does. It’s possible it makes the boss stronger in some aspect, as it used this right after Charge and it dropped the buff from that.

Grotesque Guptauros’ Boss Strategy¶

The Guptauros is a tough boss, since it is level 22 and is quite strong, so your characters will take some big damage. The side quest associated with this dungeon doesn’t have a deadline, so it’s always possible to come back later and do it, once you’ve sufficiently leveled up into the high 10s/early 20s. If you wish to tackle it prior to clearing the Grand Cathedral dungeon, then you will probably want to level up some. You can do this in either the Belega Corridor or the Grand Cathedral itself. A good ideal level is around 14 or 15, as that should give you enough wiggle room to survive its attacks.

Another good idea is to have someone switch to the Healer Archetype and get it to Rank 3, which will net that character the Medi spell. This is a party-wide healing spell that should be doing north of 110 or so HP each time you use it, depending on your stats and equipped weapon. Note that you don’t want that character as the Healer class in the battle itself, as the Guptauros will go berserk and be even more powerful, if you have a Mage or Healer present. Thus, you should restrict yourself to a Seeker, Knight, and Warrior for this battle, with the person that learned Medi having it in their inherited spells slot.

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(1 of 3) The Guptauros is weak to Pierce, so having a Knight is a good idea.

In fact, the Knight will make this battle a lot easier, as one of its Synthesis skills is Jump Thrust. This is a Pierce-type skill that lowers defence for three turns, so you’ll get those two actions back (boss is weak to Pierce) and be able to deal more damage to it. It is also weak to ice, so having Blizz on the other characters will help a lot. The Guptauros doesn’t seem to have any other resistances, so you are free to use any other damage types here. At lower levels, it could possibly down a character if it attacks them twice (two actions per turn), which is possible with its Slam Shatter ability that hits the entire party.

When it uses Charge, which it typically does on its third turn, it will usually follow up with Frenzy on the subsequent turn. It might be a good idea to defend before that happens, as Frenzy hits multiple times per character and can easily down them, if they aren’t at full health. It may take more than one try to fell this beast, but it’s well worth it in the end.

It will drop a Falchion as a reward, plus you can return to Brigitta in Grand Trad to finish up the associated side quest. Note that this will also unlock the Merchant Archetype, as well as the ability to purchase from the igniter shop there.