One is like bringing a magic character to a boss that resists magic attacks. They will do no damage, and will be made a fool of! Unless... they deal elemental damage the boss is weak against, or is capable of either being enchanted to do boss weak damage, like Lulu enchanting the party to do fire damage, or enchanting themselves so all their damage is of an element (and being enchanted with the same element you do naturally with an attack gives it a 20% Damage bonus, so that's nice!
Alternatively, if the boss is neutral to the element, and your character both can deal the element with all attacks and can make the boss weak, not only will they do weakness damage, it will
Override the Damage Type to do Weakness Damage instead!
Like for example, Yuri is a light focused character, but he has both ranged and magic attacks, and the boss you send him after resists magic. That blows, until you realize the boss
doesn't resist light element damage. Once Yuri gets to use his EX+, he can inflict Light Element Resist Down, and Enchant his entire moveset with Light Element. Now, all his attacks will do weakness level Light Element Damage to the boss, and even the magic will do weakness damage, because the
Elemental Weakness takes priority over the
Damage Type.
Remember though, that some characters don't do the same element with all attacks, and can even focus on two different elements. Enchant will not work on elements that are not Non-Elemental or the element they are for, so you can't bring Lulu and Yuri to a light resist boss and expect Lulu to make Yuri deal weakness Damage, it won't work.
Also, notice I mention Light Resistance had to not be a factor? Resist Down works on a tiered basis. If an enemy resists something, it will make them neutral to it. If they are neutral to it, it will make them weak. If they are already weak, then it will go no lower.
Also, if they Absorb it, they will take no damage, and no damage will go to resist. Basically, most characters that make an enemy weak to their element, need to be able to do that to stay competitive with their damage. So don't even bring them to fights with enemies that resist their element, because they will not do well during them.
The last portion, after all is said and done, is the most important, and technically the first one.
What does the boss do, and what characters do I have that counteracts their moveset or strategy?
Take for example, a classic hard CHAOS boss, since CHAOS is where this will be the most important, since even COSMOS bosses can sorta be muscled on with strong enough characters, or just don't have as harsh mechanics.
In the story mode chapter in Act. 2, where it spotlights Kuja as a main focus, you face off against one of the most important fights in FFIX: Soulcage. Here's his DissidiaDB page:
https://dissidiadb.com/bestiary/standard/678
This guy sucks in this one, since he can routinely inflict awful status effects on your team, which can potentially push off your non-Framed buffs as well since you can only have Six effects at a time, and he both can inflict Fire Resist Down, making his Firaga deal a ton of Brave damage to a party member, but can also set themselves
On Fire, raising their stats semi-permanently for the fight.
And if that's not bad enough, they have a very powerful recast ability, an attack for bosses that charges up visibly over their healthbar like an EX, that will make them unleash a devastating attack once filled. When he's on fire, it does fire damage, on the whole party, and then a split Hp Attack. That will most likely
Kill your ENTIRE Party in one shot.
This guy sounds like a nightmare, right? That's because there is a lot of mechanics to consider, and the right characters can go a long way.
For example, don't bring any fire characters. He doesn't resist fire, but he will become more dangerous if he is hit with a fire attack. What can make him less dangerous, however, is being hit with an
Blizzard Attack. So, Onion Knight, Papalymo (if you limit his Fire attacks or use them carefully), Palom, these are characters who have Ice Element attacks as a focus, and can not only deal consistent damage to the boss, but neuter his ability to ruin the party, and keep his stats manageable!
Now, the debuffs are also a problem, since he inflicts so dang many that you have trouble processing them all. There are two solutions to this, you can deal with the Debuffs directly with effects like Debuff Resistance through characters like Ignis, Lenna, or Aphmau. They can directly remove the danger of the Debuffs by preventing them from sticking altogether. A less ideal but similarly effective solution is a character that dispels the Debuffs, like Yuna and to an extent Yuffie, who can remove them, and can sometimes throw them back into the bosses' face, in the case of Yuffie!
The other method is a silver lining in the fact that these are all inflicted by attacks, not just ailment effects. Since, for example, most of these are magical based, if you used a character that could prevent that magic, like Agrias's EX inflicting Silence, making him skip a turn if you know he's gonna hit with something like his Recast Ability, or Celes' Runic, making him focus the single target attacks to her and negating them on her specifically, you can stop the attack from hitting, thereby stopping the Debuffs from hitting as well!
Edge is super good at this, Because he stops the whole party from being hit with any attack for a few turns by using his EX, and can regularily attract and dodge single hit attacks too, regardless of damage type.
So, have you noticed a trend in my response? There isn't usually anything you can do to mitigate particularly brutal boss effects and issues without having the right character to do so, but it's often less the character, and more the character
Type.
If a boss buffs their stats with visible buffs all the time, you wanna bring a character who can Dispel enemy buffs. If a boss resists all Debuffs, you wanna bring characters that either don't rely on their Debuffs to be effective, or can secretly sneak them in through party aura effects, like Sephiroth and his aura speed down.
Having only Elemental characters built up will make it hard to do the fight where the enemy resists all elements. Having only melee characters built up will make the fight where the boss counters all melee attacks more difficult, etcetera.
Any weaknesses in your line up will take time to mend because this is still a Gatcha game, and thus different characters will be in the spotlight at different times. There will be a time where it will be much easier to pick and choose from the past to make up a good party, and even now you can complete a permentant five-layer event that gives you a free EX, but having a plan and knowing what you do and don't have are important to making it to a point where you don't just beat content, you
Decimate Content!
