Location

First off, where to find Ozma. Ozma is found in the Chocobo Air Paradise, you need a gold chocobo to gain access to this place. The best way to get there is to save your game, fly to the centre of the world map with Choco and hope to see a black, circular shadow. This is the shadow caused by the Air Garden. Feed Choco a dead pepper and watch him fly. If you don't see the shadow, reset and try again until you do see it. Once you visit the place once, you can find its current location using the world map,there are 5 possible places.There are two landforms in the Air Garden.Go to the landform other than the one with Mene,find a large rock.Remember that once you press X for that “!”,you’ll be forced to fight with Ozma,even though you can rearrange your characters,equipments and abilities.

Recommended preperation for every character:

Have the characters equipped with the following abilities, Auto-Life, Auto-Regen, Auto-Haste, Antiboby and Clear-Minded. Any HP+ abilities should also be employe as Ozmas attacks are deadly. If you completed the friendly monsters side-quest, you can also equip the ability Bright Eyes. Put all characters in the back-row to minimise the damage of Curse, (note that Curse causes Mini,Poison, Confuse and Darkness). If you use Eiko in the party then be sure she has 99 Phoenix Pinions and the Phoenix summon learned.This will allow a 38% chance of resurrection if the whole party is Koed.Equip characters with shadow-absorbing equipment such as Pumice Piece,Ninja Gear or shadow-blocking equipment such as Egoist’s Armlet.Also,do not let any characters have any levels that are multiples of 4 and 5 as Ozma can use L4 Holy and L5 Death.

Zidane - Train Thievery until it can cause 9,999 damage. Each successful steal, irregardless of the item stolen and Zidanes level, increases the damage of Thievery based on the formula Damage = Speed of Zidane x Number of items stolen/2. Thievery can be learned with Angel Bless, bought in Treno early on in disc 3. This is the only attack he should be using. He can also help out by dishing out Phoenix Downs, Remedies and Elixers to other members. Trances will be immensely useful.

Garnet - If possible, take her as near to Trance as possible before the battle. Have 99 Garnets, also equip the ability Boost (if possible) and summon Bahamut. This will deal 9,999 damage to Ozma. With Garnet in Trance status, Bahamut will come for Garnets every turn. Also use her to cast Curaga on other members.

Vivi - If every characters has equipped shadow-absorbing armour and weapons, then use him to cast Doomsday on every turn. This may either heal or damage Ozma, but more importantly, it will heal your party. Double-Blk magic will be helpful, as Vivi can cast Double-Flare. Vivi should not use Meteor, as the damage factor is too random to guarantee sufficient damage will be done.

Steiner - Have Steiners Ragnarok and learn Shock. That is his only good attack. All other sword-techs are useless against Ozma. With Vivi, he can cast Flare-Sword. Have him throw necessary items as needed.

Freya - Kill lots of dragons and increase the damage of Dragons Crest to 9,999. This will be her only attack during battle. Have her throw necessary items as well.

Quina - Learn the following Blue Magic, White Wind, Magic Hammer, Frog Drop (only if the damage is more by 8,000), Angel Snack, Auto-Life. Quina's main job is to reduce Ozma's MP using Magic Hammer. Angel Snack should be used when the party is affected by Mini. White Wind will cure the whole party. If Frog Drop can cause good damage, use it for the whole battle.

Eiko - Let her learn the following White magics, Full-Life, Curaga, Esuna, and preferably Holy. Equip a Phoenix Pinion on her and learn the Phoenix summon. If possible, let her get to Trance and make full use of her Double-White magic. She will be the main healer, occassionally casting Holy.

Amarant - Have lots of Wind Edges, learn Aura and Chakra and let him Trance. Throw Wind Edges when attacking, and cast Aura and Chakra on everyone.

Points to take note of:

The most frequent moves of Ozma are Meteor, Curse, Doomsday and the occassional Death spell. If you are lucky Ozma will cast some white magic such as Mini, Berserk or Curaga. If the friendly monsters side-quest is not done, remedy the character with Berserk. Also, by using shadow absorbing equipment, Doomsday spells by Ozma will be your friends. The most likely way you will be ko'd is being hit by Meteor which does 9,999 damage to everyone, with Auto-Life kicking in, followed by an unblockable Curse. Ozma seldom uses L4 Holy and L5 Death if no characters levels are multiples of 4 and/or 5. Ozma is one, big, clever ball. Also, if you are confident enough, try to steal from Ozma the following: Elixer, Dark Matter, Pumice Piece and Robe of Lords. All these items are really good, provided you can win the battle. You will win a Pumice for this battle, which teaches Garnet the Ark summon.

Our best recommendation for winning the battle

Recommended party: Zidane, Steiner, Quina, Dagger

Give everyone armour or other equipment that can guard against or absorb Shadow attacks. Equip all characters with Antibody, Clear Headed and Bright Eyes. Also give each character Auto-Haste and Auto-Regen. If your characters haven't learnt these abilities yet, you should learn them before you attempt to fight Ozma.

You shouldn't really have a problem in this battle unless Ozma decides to use Meteor. Shell will reduce the damage caused by this attack by 50%, so get Quina to cast Mighty Guard often. However, with Auto-Haste equipped, this will run out fairly quickly. Meteor is his most devestating attack, on a bad day this may wipe out your entire party for 9999 HP damage each.

Every character should have at least 5000HP before going into this battle to be able to survive most of his attacks; and try not to have anyone with a level at a multiple of 5.

If you haven't equipped Auto-Life before this battle, get Quina to cast it on all characters. With the abilities mentioned above equipped, Curse should only cause Mini; and this can be healed if Dagger casts Mini on the entire party, or Quina uses Angel Snack (but be warned, this will use up 4 Remedies.)

If you use any characters special moves, e.g. Steiners Shock, Ozma will counterattack by Berserking that character, so they will only be able to attack physically. Throughout this battle, Zidane and Steiner should be attacking physically. You can steal some good items, but it may be better just to fight the battle quickly. He drops a Pumice and a Dark Matter after battle anyway.

Doomsday will not be a problem; in fact, it may help you. If everyone is protected against Shadow magic you won't take damage and you may even absorb the attack; and Ozma himself isn't protected from Shadow attacks, so he will take about 5000HP damage by using this move.

Flare Stars damage is based on your characters current levels. It does 50x the current level in damage. So, for example, if you are level 1 it will do 50HP damage, if you are level 2 it will cause 100HP damage, etc.

Even with Auto-Haste equipped, you will probably only get 2-3 of your characters to attack in between his moves. However, the animation for most of his attacks will take a long time, so you don't really need to heal your characters much; the Auto-Regen should be sufficient.

Your party makes up your strategy for the battle. You can use all attackers and still win ( I did) or you can have a combined team of attackers and magic users. How you set up your party is important so keep that in mind.

I strongly recommend a team of Eiko, Quina, Freya and Steiner. These 4 can play the strongest offense + defense. Freya and Steiner can BOTH dish out 9999 per turn. Quina has Auto-Life, Mighty Guard, White Wind and Angel's Snack which really comes in handy. Eiko has the ability to cast Curaga, Haste (which I strongly recommend) and Full-Life. You'll need these as Necron can take 4 continuous turns in a row.

If Stenier is at low levels, use Amarant instead. He can also deal 9999 by throwing objects. Remember, this is the final battle, nothing is important so whip out anything, including the orihalcon or even the Ultima-weapon. You won't need these as this is the last fight you're going to make in the game.

ONLY use Zidane if Amarant and Steiner are at really low levels. His attacks are much weaker than their's and he's only going to be cannon fodder. If Freya can't deal 9999 with Dragon's Crest than use a different party member that can deal out as much damage as possible in one attack. Don't take Quina out of the party unless s/he is missing a lot of Blue Magic. Eiko is recommended as the healer instead of Garnet as Garnet can't cast Haste or Full-Life. If you're going to use Vivi make sure you give everyone armor that protects against Shadow, then in battle have him ONLY cast Doomsday. The spell will harm Necron but heal you for a lot, which is quite nice if Eiko is at really low levels or dies in the middle of the battle.

Now about equipping abilities. Don't bother with any Killer Types. Necron doesn't have a type so equipping one of those is a waste of magic stones. Second, I don't recommend using Auto-Regen OR Auto Potion in the case that Zombie is casted on your guys from Grand Cross. Chemist is suggested though as you can heal more when you're not zombied (which is needed). If you do have Auto-Regen or Auto-Potion on, chances are you're gonna die if Zombie is placed on to your character. If you don't want to take the risk of dieing, then don't equip Auto-Regen or Auto-potion. You can use Full-Life and then an Elixir to heal the injuries. Also, make sure that abilities like Level Up and Ability Up are taken off. This is the last battle, you won't get anything except the ending after it. Instead equip the following:

Auto-Haste-faster actions

Auto-Life-Instant pick me up from death

Everything that can protect you from status attacks. This includes, Body Temp., Insomniac, Antibody, Jelly, Bright Eyes and so on. Also use some common sense. If you're going to use Vivi or Eiko, chances are, you won't physically attack so don't bother with Bright Eyes. Equip your magic users with Half MP to reduce the cost of a spell. This might be really handy in a close fight.

As for the battle plan, have Zidane only attack if he's in your team. Stealing won't do you much help. Don't bother with his skills. They aren't that much of a help. His physical attack deals a lot more anyway.

If Garnet is in the party, have her cast defensive spells to reduce Necron's attacks and to heal the party. If she has a free turn summon Bahamutt. It'll deal more damage than ark. Espacially if you have a lot of Garnet stones.

Vivi should concentrate on casting Doomsday if you chose him. This spell would deal big damage to the boss but it'll recover you quite nicely. If you aren't protected against Shadow then have him cast Flare instead. Don't bother with the Reflect X2 tactic, you'll end up killing yourself over.

Steiner should just attack like Zidane. His normal attacks deal a lot. If his HP is low, then use Minus Strike, it will deal a good deal of damage to the guy and it can't be reduced. Use Climhazzard and Shock if he knows it. Both if these will deal around 9999 which helps make life easier.

Freya should repeatedly use Dragon's crest. It should deal 9999 if you fought against a lot of Dragons. Have her attack if she runs out of MP or if Dragon's Crest is only dealing around 3000.

Quina and Eiko play strict roles of healers. Don't let them die. Have Eiko use Full-Life on the dead or Phoenix if the pressure gets really tough. Otherwise, have her sit there and do nothing. If you waste her turn on something stupid, I got 10 dollars saying you'll die really quickly. Quina should just cast Auto-Life if anyone dies and Mighty Guard to keep the party in defensive mode. If he uses blue shockwave on Quina, Limit Glove. It'll deal 9999 instantly.

Amarant should throw any items and gil that you have left. They won't be much help anymore so just unload everything and let him have it. If Quina dies or isn't there, have him cast Aura to use Auto-Life

Also, don't be afraid to have an attacker do the healing. This is the last battle so use all your items. Elixirs become the essence here. Don't be afraid to use them now.