Metaphor: ReFantazio – How to beat Zorba

The best strategy to defeat Zorba in Metaphor: ReFantazio

Zorba / Atlus

The Grand Cathedral is the first main dungeon in Metaphor: ReFantazio, and when you’ve finally fought through all of the trials it puts in your way, you’ll have to face off with one of Louis’ faithful servants, Zorba. This half Mustari, half Clemar necromancer will put up quite a fight too, constantly summoning zombies to fight at his side, making the fight much trickier for you.

We’ll explain the best strategy to beat Zorba and his minions, so you can get past this first main boss. Zorba isn't the only boss in the game to pull a few tricks either, we have a guide on the Heismay boss fight in Metaphor that will be useful a little later on.

How to defeat Zorba

Metaphor: ReFantazio / Atlus

Almost every turn, Zorba will use one of his two Turn Icons to summon another zombie to fight by his side. The problem with this is that, for every one he summons, he gets another Turn Icon, letting him pummel you for longer without you being able to respond.

To make things worse, Zorba doesn’t have weaknesses that you can exploit, with him blocking Fire, Ice, Electric, and Wind while being neutral to everything else, though that isn’t true of his summoned minions, who are weak to Light.

With that in mind, we recommend you use the following party setup:

• Protagonist – Healer
• Strohl – Warrior
• Hulkenberg – Knight

Healer on the protagonist is essential for two reasons. One, the party-wide healing will stop Zorba from overwhelming you, and two, the Healer has strong Light attacks that you can use to exploit the weaknesses of the zombies and stay in the fight for longer.

Warrior is another useful skill as, when Zorba is alone, you can use Slicer to deal a large amount of single-target damage, and once he summons minions, you can use Round Slash to hit all of them at once.

Knight has two functions in this fight. You can use Knight’s Proclamation to draw damage toward Hulkenberg if the rest of the team is in trouble, but also we recommend using the Knight’s Synthesis attack, Jump Thrust. Not only will this deal heavy damage to Zorba, it will also lower his defense for three turns, giving you a chance to wear him down quickly.

If you focus on these things, then you’ll almost certainly win, but it’s a war of attrition. You need to focus on Zorba’s minions whenever he summons them otherwise they’ll quickly outnumber and overwhelm you. Use target-all attacks whenever you can to chip away at Zorba while still dealing with his minions, and when the field is clear use the opportunity to pour as much damage into Zorba as you can.