Final Fantasy X: Dark Ixion

Dark Ixion is one of the superbosses in Final Fantasy X. He is one of the Dark Aeons, and is one of the only bosses you have to fight multiple times.

Location

Dark Ixion can be found in the Northern section of the Thunder Plains after the party gets the airship. You must talk to a Summoner disguised as a Yevon soldier to begin the fight. Once you defeat him, he will appear again after a lightning strike, and you can begin the second fight.

Prep

You will want your party to have high Defense and Magic Defense to survive Dark Ixion’s attacks. You will want to have high Strength, Agility and Luck as well, to make sure you’re doing high damage and that every attack lands. In addition, you will want ‘Auto-Haste’ on your armor and ‘Auto-Protect’ along with ‘Auto-Phoenix’ if you are not breaking your HP limit. Dark Ixion’s physical attack is the only superboss attack you can potentially evade. However, you will need a combined total of 290 Evasion and Luck to accomplish this.

Something to keep in mind if you start the fight and feel you’re unprepared: you can flee from both battles against Dark Ixion.

Strategy

First Battle

Dark Ixion has two separate fights, and there are slight differences between them. In the first battle, he will counter every attack with his physical attack, which will inflict Sleep, Armor Break, and Mental Break. His Thundaja spell is considered a non-elemental magic attack, and Delays the target. His Overdrive in the first phase is Aerospark, which will attack a single target and Dispel them. During this fight, his Overdrive gauge will increase by 5% when using Thundaja, and 10% when attacked.

After beating the first fight, you can heal and save before starting the second.

Second Battle

During this battle, Dark Ixion will no longer counter your attacks. His physical attack will now inflict Confuse instead of Sleep, on top of still inflicting Armor Break and Mental Break. Aerospark replaces Thundaja as part of his regular attacks as well. His Overdrive during this fight is Thor’s Hammer. While it is weak compared to the Overdrives of the other Dark Aeons (dealing around 17,000 damage to the party), it will inflict Full Break on the party. This time, his Overdrive gauge increases by 10% when attacking, and 10% when being attacked.

Keep Protect up to mitigate the damage in both fights, and have Remedies ready if your party members can survive his physical attacks. Dispel can be used to get rid of Dark Ixion’s Break effects, but this would not be practical during the first fight. In both battles he has 1,200,000 HP, so you can bring him down quickly by using Quick Hit with Celestial Weapons equipped and high-damaging Overdrives.

Rewards

For both battles, when you defeat Dark Ixion you will earn 20,000 AP (30,000 on Overkill), but no gil.