Wendigo (Final Fantasy V)

The Wendigo, known as the Stoker in the PlayStation version, is a boss in Final Fantasy V. He guards one of the tablets needed for the Sealed Weapons. Before the battle, he says he expected fine warriors to take him on, only to be disappointed that it is "only a group of little girls!" ("just a bunch of sniveling toddlers" in the Pixel Remaster version). In the Finest Fantasy for Advance and the now discontinued 2013 Matrix Software versions, Wendigo is also fought in the Sealed Temple's Cloister of the Dead.
==Stats==
== Battle ==
When the battle begins, the party will see four Wendigos. At this point, all four can take damage and have status effects inflicted upon them. Each one can also have a Dark Matter stolen from them, for a total of four.
Once any or all of them take damage, or he reaches his seventh turn, Wendigo becomes a roulette boss. Only a single Wendigo becomes possible to damage and inflict statuses against, while the remaining copies will not be affected by any offensive action (including ailments and Steal). It is impossible to know which Wendigo is the right one to attack other than by trial and error. When the real Wendigo is struck successfully, he will switch with one of his copies, meaning the player has to start the process over again.
Each Wendigo, copy or not, takes turns to attack. They use physical attacks, the Blue Magic Mind Blast which is single target, deals damage and inflicts paralyze and sap; the White Magic Confuse, which may inflict confuse status on one target; and Hurricane, which may put one target's HP into single digits. Each Wendigo may often skip their turns, doing nothing roughly two-thirds of the time, but because there are four of them, they may attack rapidly all at once if the player is unlucky. Every seven turns, the Wendigo randomizes his location.
Attacking them all at once after the roulette starts causes all four to counter with Frost, which is a party-wide ice-elemental sap-inflicting attack that can be deadly without preparation. Wendigo himself is not ice-elemental, but absorbs water and is immune to earth. He is vulnerable to darkness, slow, and sleep.
=== Strategy ===
The safest strategy is to put every single one to sleep at the beginning of the battle without dealing damage, with the easiest method being a group cast of the Black Magic Sleep. Mind Blast, if desired, should be learned before sleep is inflicted. Sleep should be used until it is successful on all four Wendigos before any attacks are started. Once all of them are asleep, the player can rely solely on magic attacks to avoid waking them up. The player can completely avoid the guessing game of selecting the right target by using sleep, as any of the Wendigos will work, and they cannot use their Frost counterattack while asleep. While multi-target magic will work throughout the fight, the four Wendigos do not share HP and only one Wendigo needs to be defeated to end the fight. It will be quicker to rely on stronger single-target magic.
If the player wishes to avoid abusing sleep, or wants to use physical attackers, they can use the Time Magic Slowga and the Blue Magic Flash at the start of the fight to inflict slow and darkness to all Wendigos, lowering their damage output significantly. All four must be afflicted with the ailments before dealing any damage and before Wendigo gets to his seventh turn. If any of them take damage, or the fight is delayed long enough, the roulette guessing game starts, and it becomes impossible to inflict status effects against three of the targets. Group status infliction casts also trigger the Frost counterattack after the Wendigo hides for the first time.
After this, physical attackers should systematically attack each Wendigo one by one for the remainder of the fight. As this process can be quite lengthy, a White Mage should be ready to heal and keep the party's health up and free of status ailments, and they can attack any confused allies with the Healing Staff. The Time Magic Hastega can help speed the process up, and Regen can be used to offset the sap from Mind Blast. To block Wendigo's physical attacks, the Summon Golem's Earthen Wall is very useful.
A Geomancer's Gaia technique will usually cast Wind Slash, and will deal damage to the real Wendigo while avoiding any Frost counterattacks from the clones.
With proper equipment, the party can also choose to withstand the Frost counterattacks and attack all targets at once. Ice Shields (which can be stolen from the Numb Blades encountered in the Island Shrine) absorb ice damage, and Flame Rings negate ice damage. With a fully equipped party, the only thing the Frost counters will do is inflict the sap ailment. A strong multi-target attack option is the Samurai's Zeninage command, but this costs a lot of gil. Another multi-target option is to first Mix Dragon Power for all four Wendigos at the start, then follow up with repeated casts of the Blue Magic Level 3 Flare.
An easy battle that takes a lot of preparation is to equip someone with the Dance command, a maxed out Chicken Knife, and Time command with the Quick ability learned on that character. It is optional to use Hastega and Slowga. Though not required, the equipment that increases the appearance of Sword Dance will help if the Dancer is equipped with as many as possible (Lamia's Tiara, Rainbow Dress, and Red Slippers). With that character in the front row, Quick will delay Wendigo's turn and make him unable to switch with a copy when the right one is hit. Characters who guess which enemy is Wendigo with Sword Dance are in luck, as it practically guarantees 9999 damage even at mid 30s levels; Wendigo only has 20,000 HP.
== Other appearances ==
=== Final Fantasy Record Keeper ===
==Behind the scenes==
The enemy ability known as Resploder in the PS version and Chain Detonation in the GBA version, is named ゆうばく in Japanese. It may have been intended to be a special attack (as it appears in the attack lists for Ramuh, Catoblepas, Sekhmet, Sandworm, Exdeath's normal and tree forms, Archeoaevis, Gilgamesh, and Wendigo), but it is just a normal physical attack. Crystal Dragon has it as a Catch/Release ability, but when used as a Release it acts the same as a normal Attack. The ability was removed (at least from Crystal Dragon) in the iOS version.
== Gallery ==
Wendigo FFV Amano.jpg|Yoshitaka Amano artwork of the Wendigo.
Wendigo FFV Amano (Alternate).jpg|Alternate Amano artwork of the Wendigo.
FFV iOS Bestiary Wendigo.png|Wendigo (2013).
Wendigo TCG.png|Final Fantasy Trading Card Game card.
== Etymology ==
 The reference to Wendigos seems not to have been intended by the original developers, though: this boss's Japanese name, Sutōkā, can be variously parsed as "Stalker" (one who follows another with ill intent) or "Stoker" (i.e., Bram Stoker, the author of the vampire novel Dracula).
de:Wendigo (FFV)
it:Wendigo (Final Fantasy V)
Category:Bosses in Final Fantasy V