The Tiamat Sacrament/YMMV


 * Anticlimax Boss: Ry'jin, oh so very much, mostly due to the fact that you have a million spells by that point, some of which are utter Game Breakers. If you one-shot his random flunky every turn (which is very, very easy at that point), he will actually never attack you at all due to resurrecting the flunky taking top priority.
 * Cliché Storm: Has a few original twists, though.
 * Complete Monster: Ry'jin will kick puppies while they're down, torture them to get the information he needs out of them, then kill them while laughing maniacally.
 * In particular, he.
 * Suffice to say that it is quite satisfying to see Az'uar claw him to death, simplistically animated as it is.
 * Game Breaker: Xandra + Chant = win game. If you manage to hit an elemental weakness, her direct damage spells can deal upwards of 1000 damage to the final boss.
 * Az'uar's full-party buff spells are quite potent as well, though particularly Gilded Wing, which doubles the Agility of all your characters. Nothing can really harm you when you have six turns to an enemy's one.
 * A timely use of Lung Crusher can mean the difference between having to suffer That One Attack or making the boss waste a turn.
 * See that Scrappy Mechanic mentioned below? You don't have to deal with any of that if you complete Az'uar's arena fights and get the Lung Shield. It prevents Az'uar from losing his breath from anything, including Lung Crusher. Of course, by that point, runes are pretty much useless, but it's still nice.
 * Scrappy Mechanic: If Az'uar takes damage while inhaling, his mighty Breath Weapon gets turned into a sputtering cough, and any runes you used are lost in vain. Note that for half the game, you only have two party members. Az'uar does get a slight (5%) chance to resist this with each dragon sage he visits, but it really can't be relied on. Fortunately, Xandra can use a spell that protects from this, but still.
 * And even Catch Breath won't protect you from Lung Crusher.