Yiazmat: How NOT to Approach

Everyone knows about this mark and how it takes two hours to kill him, but for those of us daring to attempt this bad boy of a tank, perhaps some advice would be helpful.

I've already dived into this fight without any plan of actually defeating Yiazmat. Instead, my entire goal was to see what he could do and how best to approach the situation. And due to this trial run, I can say that a headlong rush into the battle with only a handful of buffing spells and the only objective in you rmind is for every party member to attack is not the correct route.

My first try got me about halfway through his life bars in about an hour and 15 minute's runtime. My Gambit set was almost the same for each of my party members which consisted of Vaan, Basch and Ashe. The Gambit is as follows.

Ally: Any - Arise
Self: HP < 50% - Renew (betrays at 4-5 bars of health left, I hear)
Foe: Faith - Dispel
Ally: Any - Remedy (eventually changed due to lack of stock)
Self - Hastega (only for Vaan)
Self - Bravery
Self - Bubble
Self - Protect
Foe: Any - Expose
Foe: Any - Attack

Pretty basic for most of the bosses I've tackled with no plan of completely OWNING them, but like I said earlier, this was no more than a test run and only got me halfway in an hour and 15 minutes. I've heard that by 45, he should already be at that point, so this strategy is obviously not the correct route.

My characters equip setup are as follows.

Vaan: 87
Masamune
Golden Skullcap
Maximillian
Genji Gloves

Basch: 87
Ultima Blade
Golden Skullcap
Maximillian
Battle Harness

Ashe: 93
Zodiac Spear
Golden Skullcap
Maximillian
Power Armlet

I'm going to attempt this again once I get my reserve party up to standards for better options, but if anyone has advice to give, it would be greatly appreciated.

I don't remember my exact setup, but all characters were maxed out with the best weapons, and I had bubble on everyone, and had Basch with Haste and Berserk

I never got to Yiazmat...don't get me wrong I loved the game and going on hunts but after playing the game for 168 hours I just wanted to finish it ...King Behemot was my last hunt.

Frankly I'm tired of this hunt/mark system...do something new and creative for a side quest. We have had basically the same thing for FF12, and FF13, the hunts are ok, but feel more like a waste of time to me, I would rather do something fun like FF9, FF10, and FF7's side quests

X had the exact same side quest XII had. The only other thing that would be considered a side quest would be blitzball, which was way frustrating than it was fun.

I don't exactly know why I bother trying to fight Yiazmat, there really is no reason to fight him. Bragging rights just isn't worth the trouble. Completing everything is a goal worthy of achieving, however. I know that you can't get the Wyrmhero Blade without killing him, but at that point, there's no reason to have it. After you've killed the longest, toughest boss in the NA version, what else is there?

I was referring to blitzball, I thought it was fun, as for beating Tiazmat, just bragging rights, unless it was on a current gen system, then its (bloop) achievement unlocked

Really? I was glad to have it out of the way, it's the one part I dread every time I start a new game.

Defeating Yiazmat unlocks an achievement in FF 12 if I remember correctly it's... not the same thing as with 360 games but I liked getting them anyways, lol!!

You get a Yiazmat icon in the Sky Pirate Den. Earns you the title of Godslayer, I think. The only ones I don't have are Yiazmat, Dalan, Gabranth (tedious as hell to get, honestly), and Ba'gamnan.

I think I had pretty much all of the icons, but I spent over 150+ hrs in that game as well