History ThatOneBoss / FireEmblem

** [[spoiler:Arvis]] is arguably even worse. He has an absolutely ludicrous attack power of ''70'', meaning that he will one-shot a lot of your units. His holy weapon grants him ''ridiculous'' defence boosts, and his defences were high to begin with. You'll need holy weapons if you want to give him anything worse than a scratch. Oh, said holy weapon also grants him high speed boosts, which makes his '''evasion''' skyrocket as well. To add insult to injury, he also has the Awareness skill, which cancels out any chance of a critical hit on your side. If you don't have units with legendary weapons, high resistance, enough strength to actually dent him, and a shitload of healers... godspeed, soldier.

** [[DiscOneFinalBoss Gangrel]]. He carries a Levin Sword giving him the ability to attack at range (and has a Magic stat to back it up) and he's very fast, so expect a lot of double hits. This is taken a step further on Lunatic; not only are his stats buffed, his Levin Sword gets forged to be stronger and more accurate, and he also gets the Acrobat skill, making him unhindered by forests and such.
** Validar's second form when you fight him in Chapter 23. His Magic stat is very high and he also has the very annoying Dragonskin skill, halving all damage done to him (on top of his already high defense stats) and also negating Counter and Lethality, so he can't be cheesed that way. He also has the Vengeance skill, so if he's not finished off quickly, he could do devastating damage to your party. In Lunatic he's practically an SNKBoss; he gets the maximum amount of HP, Rightful King so Vengeance can activate about two-thirds of the time when he fights, Renewal so he can regenerate HP, and ridiculously high stats.

*** [[spoiler:Dheginsea]] proves very statistically imposing, with 100 HP, a skill that combines Nihil with passive self-healing, all but Luck and Speed capped, and a base attack of '''75'''. In plain terms, he is a massive tank who will usually kill those he attacks in 2 hits. Just to even reach him, you must fight through a map full of DemonicSpiders ([[spoiler:Red and White Dragons]]) who themselves are capable of taking large chunks of health off at a time, and then hold them at bay while you fight the boss. To wear you down further, he periodically uses a wide-ranging area-of-effect attack that hits the Defense stat, and the damage ''increases'' the closer an ally is to him. To cap all this off, attacking him without Nihil or Parity equipped means you risk facing his [[LimitBreak mastery skill]] ([[spoiler:Ire]]) which is, well, a death sentence.
**** That in itself, though, is his weakness: by only attacking him with Nihil-users (and Marksmen who can snipe from 3 spaces back without retaliation) and staying healed, actually beating him boils down to doing the math and staying out of a position where you can get overwhelmed from the damage taken. He also [[spoiler:will not attack Ena and Kurthnaga at all, even if they attack him, though typically they struggle to do any meaningful damage to him]].

** On Merciless mode: Gomer in Chapter 2 and Hyman in Chapter 3. Both wield Hand Axes, have ridiculous Attack, and doubly ridiculous Fight Speed for the point you fight them at. There are few characters when you fight them who can even survive ONE round because of the ridiculous Attack Speed, and with their absurd HP, [[FinalDeath swarming is out of the question]]. Hyman is ThatOneBoss on EVERY difficulty level too, because his Attack Speed isn't even much lower on the ''lowest'' difficulty.

** [[spoiler:Katarina]] in Prologue 8. She uses Elfire in a game where ''anyone who isn't a mage has little to no Resistance''. As a result, her attacks do MASSIVE damage to all but maybe 2 people on your team. And since it isn't a Seize map, she can and WILL actively seek out your units. SquishyWizard though she is, it's a difficult fight if you aren't expecting it and it can be hard to get up to her without someone dying, anyway.
*** This fight can also slam the brakes on any Lunatic playthrough, due to her '''13 Magic''' on that level. Go back and look at the chapter number, and you'll see why that's such a big deal.
** Earlier on, there's either of the Prologue 4 bosses, Athena and Jeorge. Athena is faster than almost your entire army (except for My Unit and Caeda), so you'll be seeing many double hits from her. Meaning that whoever fights her will end up dead or severely wounded. Jeorge is a Sniper. A '''SNIPER.''' In the '''''PROLOGUE.''''' In other words, he's Athena, but stronger. Though he can't counterattack at close range, he's able to move around, making that a moot point unless he's surrounded on all sides.

** Any boss becomes That One whenever Cyas is on the field. He has a whopping 10 Leadership Stars, giving +30 Accuracy and Avoid to '''every enemy on the map'''. He himself can also pelt you with StandardStatusEffects like Sleep and Berserk from anywhere on the map, on top of making it harder to hit and avoid everything. Fortunately, he never stays for the entire duration of a chapter, and only appears in a few chapters.
** Reinhardt. Not only does he appear in a chapter with Cyas and his absurd Leadership boost (though he leaves eventually), he's got his own Leadership stars, he's on a horse, carries two different weapons that attack twice, and also has Big Shield so he has a 20% chance to make your attack a NoSell. On top of this, he also has Continue, so he can get to attack before you even if you initiate combat, and also has a whopping ''five movement stars'' so he's got a rather high chance to ''move and attack twice in one turn''.

** The biggest problem with Leygance (the Chapter 8 boss) is that he has rather high defense to begin with, but his Resistance is lacking. So one would think magic would be effective... but being on a Throne effectively ''doubles'' his Resistance, and also gives him a ridiculous '''+30%''' boost to Avoid. The Triangle Attack certainly makes things easier (as it has perfect accuracy), but he's capable of nearly, if not outright killing one of the people you need for it.
** The first few chapters in ''Sword of Seals'' are somewhat similar. While they don't have infinite reinforcements, it's not fun to take on a General with your low-level characters. However, in chapter 8x, the boss is a Hero, which means that he will laugh at your pathetic attempts to hit as he saunters left and right from whatever you throw at him. Now go try it on Hard Mode. Factor in the game's CPU-aligned Random Number Generator...
** Gel, the Swordmaster boss of Chapter 19b. Being a Swordmaster is bad enough in a game with low hit rates like this one, but he's also on a Gate (which, while not as bad as a Throne, is still +20% Avoid) and carries a Light Brand so you can't just bombard him from a distance. He's got high skill and speed, too, making it even harder to hit him.
** Murdock is basically Leygance on steroids. He has the maximum strength a General can have, maximum Con, effectively ''28'' defense from being on a Throne, and a Tomahawk to punish ranged and melee attackers. His only flaw is his speed, although that's a given for being a General. He's also over the HP cap your units can attain.

** Speaking of ''Blazing Sword'', the Boss Rush in the Final Chapter. Eight bosses, all with nearly maxed stats and the most powerful weapons in the game, released one by one, and they will all seek you out instead of staying put. But the worst are [[spoiler:Lloyd and Linus. Both would be difficult by themselves, but you have to fight them at the same time. Their speed is high, which means you'll likely only get one attack in at a time, and their defenses are high enough to take plenty of hits. Through all this, they're powerful enough to kill most party members in one or two attacks and they can easily double-team a single character and kill him. Finally, they have an 'A' Support, which means they will be even more statistically pumped on top of everything else.]]
** Zoldam on the Pirate Ship level (Chapter 17). All you have to do is survive 11 turns to win, but if you want to get an S Ranking in strategy, you have to actually beat him in seven turns. Easier said than done, as you're fighting a high-level Shaman with the [[GameBreaker overpowered]] Luna tome at his disposal, and you have to ZergRush him in order to even get past the army of reinforcements. As if fighting him normally weren't bad enough, try doing it in seven turns on Hector Hard Mode (for added pain, you'll have to do it with mostly broken weapons and no money, which is extremely likely to happen in a typical S-ranked HHM run). Even without the logistics problems, killing Zoldam is likely the most difficult challenge in the game. It may well be That One Chapter for the speedrunner.

** Caellach in Chapter 15. Appearing in a long and painful ThatOneLevel as it is, he has a ridiculous stat advantage over the overwhelming majority of your characters; he is able to one-shot half of them with his Tomahawk, forcing you to pick away at him with your best fighters in hopes of causing DeathOfAThousandCuts, while praying to the RandomNumberGod that he doesn't get a critical hit. And speaking of critical hits, he's equipped with an accessory that reduces your critical rate to a flat 0%, which is downright painful for fans of [[spoiler:Joshua]] since for that character ItsPersonal, yet this character relies heavily on critical hits to do damage.
** There's also Valter from the same chapter. His stats aren't absurdly high, but his speed is good enough to prevent doubling from many units. Thanks to his killer lance, he has a dangerously high chance of landing a critical hit, which will be more than enough to take out most of your units. To make matters worse, he also has the skill Pierce, which negates defense and is also enough to one-shot a good number of your units. And God have mercy on your soul if Valter activates Pierce WHEN he gets a critical hit; the resulting damage will instantly kill whatever unit is unfortunate enough to get hit. Oh, and he also totes a Fili shield, which negates the effectiveness of bows.
** And to pour salt on the wounds, you have to fight both Caellach AND Valter in [[ThatOneLevel ONE CHAPTER.]] You can, however, steal their stuff with Rennac (whom you picked up last chapter), or Colm (yet he may be a liability if you have not trained him much), but that's rather risky.

** The fight with the Black Knight is a full-on LuckBasedMission. Even if Ike has maxed Strength, Skill, and Defense, you still rely entirely on him activating [[SignatureMove Aether]] enough times to bypass the Black Knight's defense and self-healing. Leveling up Mist, the only healer you'll have access to in the fight, helps, but not that much. Oh, and you have five turns to win. (Fortunately, you're not forced to win to proceed, though you recruit a crappier unit if you don't win.)
** Ashnard's just as bad, if not worse. On Normal mode he's not too bad, though only [[BigFuckingSword Ragnell]], your dragon, and the laguz you've called for reinforcements can hurt him, despite the fact that there are a load of things that should be able to do the job (like a theoretical weakness to bows and wind magic -- it even flashes as if it'll be double damage, but it does nothing due to his "blessed armor"). He is merciless on Hard mode, where he actually moves and goes after your characters, ''and'' you won't get the laguz reinforcement as normal. And once you strike him down? He revives, with jacked-up stats to boot! Like the aforementioned Black Knight battle, it's pretty much all up to Ike's Aether skill.

** The FinalBoss is a doozy. Unlike any other Fire Emblem final boss, you have to destroy the eight barriers surrounding it. Each barrier has 90 HP, high evade, can only be damaged by certain weapons, and will send half of any damage it takes back to you unless you use the Nihil skill (there are only four of these) or the Parity skill (there are only two of these, and they have the side effect of neutralizing your support bonuses). In addition, it recovers 40 HP each turn, and the constant reinforcements will heal it even further. Repeat this eight times. Meanwhile, the boss itself cycles between an area attack that targets Defense, a 1-3 square range single attack that targets Res, another area attack that targets Res, another single attack that targets Def, and yet another area attack that silences everyone. All three area attacks hit ''everyone'' and can kill most weakened units very easily. The boss has 35 Def, so only the strongest physical units can deal decent damage, and to make matters worse, ''50'' Res, meaning your mages are dealing single-digit damage. And you have to defeat it in nine turns, if you don't, [[FinishingMove it inflicts Stun on everyone]], leaving your party powerless for several turns and able to be picked off by their mooks. Finally, if the boss isn't defeated by a certain overpowered mercenary leader, it will only get back up, recovering all 120 of its HP. The way that it just overwhelms you is completely unlike any other boss in Fire Emblem history... at least, in the US releases.
** This game also gives us [[spoiler:Dheginsea]]. He has the highest attack in the series at 75. With 100 HP, and 50 Defense, plus healing a large amount of HP every turn AND negating class-mastery skills. The only things that do any considerable damage to him are the Wyrmslayer or Rexbolt. The latter can only be used by one unit (Ilyana), who is a notoriously hard unit to raise in this game and he's pretty much guaranteed to splatter into a fine pulp if you try it. The next boss is much easier, since you can make him teleport into the middle of your strongest units unarmed. [[spoiler:Dheginsea]] is also surrounded on all sides by a '''metric crapton''' of the hardest hitting, most resistant {{Mooks}} in the game, and reinforcements come in ''every turn'' for something like a dozen turns before they mercifully stop. He also has an area of effect physical attack that does more damage the closer you are to him, which can easily kill units with low defense if you get too close. His stats, as said before, are '''ridiculous.''' And lastly, to top it all off: [[LimitBreak His mastery skill,]] '''[[spoiler:Ire.]]''' If that thing activates, [[OneHitKill you're DONE.]] Triple damage based from his ''crazy'' strength stat + weapon might? We're talking about something that only ''one'' unit you can get (who has, as maximum stats you will likely ''never ever see'', '''46 defense and 90 HP''') could possibly survive, and if he does, he does it with ''3 HP.'' And you get said unit ''after'' this chapter. Basically: If you don't have Nihil on them? '''Keep them really far away from the boss.''' It says many things about this guy when many people think he's harder than the already complicated FinalBoss. And the funny things is, ''this is acknowledged in-universe.''
*** [[spoiler:Dheginsea]]'s got a glaring weakness, however: he WILL NEITHER ATTACK NOR COUNTERATTACK against [[spoiler:Kurthnaga and Ena]]. Even then, you need to supply them with additional offensive support, since the "recovering large amounts of HP per turn" means ''large'' amounts of HP. Think 30, when the two mentioned units are dealing 5 damage total thus negating the whole weakness thing.

** If the RandomNumberGod decides that Bauker ought to dodge every attack you throw at him, ([[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikQuh1jrHOY as seen here]]), he can become ThatOneBoss.

*** [[spoiler:Dheginsea]]'s got a glaring weakness, however: he WILL NEITHER ATTACK NOR COUNTERATTACK against [[spoiler:Kurthnaga and Ena]]. Even then, you need to supply them with additional offensive support, since the "recovering large amounts of HP per turn" means ''large'' amounts of HP. Think 30, when the two mentioned units are dealing 5 damage total thus negating the whole weakness thing.

* ''[[FireEmblemAkaneia Shadow drangon]]''

** When it comes to ridiculous ''Fire Emblem'' bosses, Ishtar might as well take the cake. Not merely content with being ThatOneBoss, she insists on being a RecurringBoss as well! Not only are her stats absurdly high in each appearance, but she always wields the Mjolnir tome, which has an insane 30 might, +20 skill, and +10 speed. Combined with her maxed out magic and speed stats, Ishtar is able to 1-shot most of your characters with perfect accuracy at 1-2 range. Unlike other bosses sporting legendary weapons, Ishtar has free range of movement every time she appears. Her first appearance is in chapter 8, before most of your units are even promoted; good luck landing a critical hit with Faval's Ichival, or you'll be losing some characters. For her second appearance in chapter 10, she's backed up by [[spoiler: Julius (who's nearly impossible to kill at this stage of the game)]], and she won't leave until one of your units is dead. She returns one last time on the final chapter, flanked by three other difficult bosses at the same time. Better hope you have the Forseti tome ready by then!
** [[spoiler: Arvis]] is arguably even worse. He has an absolutely ludicrous attack power of ''70'', meaning that he will one-shot a lot of your units. His holy weapon grants him ''ridiculous'' defence boosts, and his defences were high to begin with. You'll need holy weapons if you want to give him anything worse than a scratch. Oh, said holy weapon also grants him high speed boosts, which makes his '''evasion''' skyrocket as well. To add insult to injury, He also has the Awareness skill, which cancels out any chance of a critical hit on your side. If you don't have units with legendary weapons, high resistance, enough strength to actually dent him, and a shitload of healers... godspeed, soldier.

** The FinalBoss [[spoiler: Julius]] also count. He has Meteor, and like all weapons in FE 4, it's unlimited use for enemies-- and he's all to happy to spam it when you're fighting Ishtar or the [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Dark Warlords]]. He'll also Charge you with it-- so "Reduces SPD to 0" means nothing-- he can possibly keep pounding a unit with it 'till that unit is dead. And if you dared to let his twin sister die (or killed her): His main weapon, a [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One Tome]], HALVES you combat stats before anything even occurs-- then he's got a good deal of Attack power, regenerates 20 HP every turn... and when he's below 40 HP? Vantage/Wrath kicks in-- he goes first and criticals any non awareness Unit, severely limiting your attack options. (Of course, if you do have the said sister, he's an AnticlimaxBoss, cause she gets an [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus 20 Tome]] that nullifies his weapon's ability, and has enough RES to make his attacks do about 5 Damage... She regenerates 10 HP every turn.)

** The first few chapters in ''Sword of Seals'' are somewhat similar. While they don't have infinite reinforcements, it's not fun to take on a General with your low-level characters. However, in chapter 8x, The boss is a Hero, which mean that he will laughing at your pathetic attempts to hit as he saunters left and right from whatever you throw at him. Now go try it on Hard Mode. Factor in the game's CPU-aligned Random Number Generator...

** Lloyd's version of "Four-Fanged Offense" in Hector mode. Not only does he move, his stats likely outclass any of your units and he has huge avoid. What's more, this is a ''Fog'' mission and if you are not aware that he is in a different spot from Eliwood mode, and that he moves this time, you're prolly going to lose someone. To top it all off, he has a Light Brand, which is a Sword that deals magic damage and can do [[SwordBeam ranged attacks]]. "General attacking me? I'll just blast it with magic! Is that a mage coming to counter me? I will just get up close and butcher it!".
** Speaking of ''Blazing Sword'', the Boss Rush in the Final Chapter. Eight bosses, all with nearly maxed stats and the most powerful weapons in the game, released one by one, and they will all seek you out instead of staying put. But the worst are [[spoiler: Lloyd and Linus. Both would be difficult by themselves, but you have to fight them at the same time. Their speed is high, which means you'll likely only get one attack in at a time, and their defenses are high enough to take plenty of hits. Through all this, they're powerful enough to kill most party members in one or two attacks and they can easily double-team a single character and kill him. Finally, they have an 'A' Support, which means they will be even more statistically pumped on top of everything else.]]

** Zoldam on the Pirate Ship level (Chapter 17). All you have to do is survive 11 turns to win, but if you want to get an S Ranking in strategy, you have to actually beat him in seven turns. Easier said than done, as you're fighting a high-level Shaman with the [[GameBreaker overpowered]] Luna tome at his disposal, and you have to zergrush him in order to even get past the army of reinforcements. As if fighting him normally weren't bad enough, try doing it in seven turns on Hector Hard Mode (for added pain, you'll have to do it with mostly broken weapons and no money, which is extremely likely to happen in a typical S-ranked HHM run). Even without the logistics problems, killing Zoldam is likely the most difficult challenge in the game. It may well be That One Chapter for the speedrunner.

** There's also Valter from the same chapter. His stats aren't absurdly high, but his speed is good enough to prevent doubling from many units. Thanks to his killer lance, he has a dangerously high chance of landing a critical hit, which will be more than enough to take out most of your units. To make matters worse, he also has the skill pierce, which negates defense and is also enough to one-shot a good number of your units. And god have mercy on your soul if Valter activates pierce WHEN he gets a critical hit; the resulting damage will instantly kill whatever unit is unfortunate enough to get hit. Oh, and he also totes a Fili shield, which negates the effectiveness of bows.
** And to pour salt on the wounds, you have to fight both Caellach AND Valter in [[ThatOneLevel ONE CHAPTER.]] You can, however, steal their stuff with with Rennac (whom you picked up last chapter), or Colm (yet he may be a liability if you have not trained him much), but that's rather risky.

** Ashnard's just as bad, if not worse. On Normal mode he's not too bad, though only [[BigFuckingSword Ragnell]], your dragon, and the laguz you've called for reinforcement can hurt him, despite the fact that there are a load of things that should be able to do the job (like a theoretical weakness to bows and wind magic--it even flashes as if it'll be double damage, but it does nothing due to his "blessed armor"). He is merciless on Hard mode, where he actually moves and goes after your characters, ''and'' you won't get the laguz reinforcement as normal. And once you strike him down? He revives, with jacked-up stats to boot! Like the aforementioned Black Knight battle, it's pretty much all up to Ike's Aether skill.

** This game also gives us [[spoiler: Dheginsea]]. He has the highest attack in the series at 75. With 100 HP, and 50 Defense, plus healing a large amount of HP every turn AND negating class-mastery skills. The only things that do any considerable damage to him are the Wyrmslayer or Rexbolt. The latter can only be used by one unit (Ilyana), who is a notoriously hard unit to raise in this game and he's pretty much guaranteed to splatter into a fine pulp if you try it. The next boss is much easier, since you can make him teleport into the middle of your strongest units unarmed. [[spoiler: Dheginsea]] is also surrounded on all sides by a '''metric crapton''' of the hardest hitting, most resistant {{Mooks}} in the game, and reinforcements come in ''every turn'' for something like a dozen turns before they mercifully stop. He also has an area of effect physical attack that does more damage the closer you are to him, which can easily kill units with low defense if you get too close. His stats, as said before, are '''ridiculous.''' And lastly, to top it all off: [[LimitBreak His mastery skill,]] '''[[spoiler: Ire.]]''' If that thing activates, [[OneHitKill you're DONE.]] Triple damage based from his ''crazy'' strength stat + weapon might? We're talking about something that only ''one'' unit you can get (who has, as maximum stats you will likely ''never ever see'', '''46 defense and 90 HP''') could possibly survive, and if he does, he does it with ''3 HP.'' And you get said unit ''after'' this chapter. Basically: If you don't have Nihil on them? '''Keep them really far away from the boss.''' It says many things about this guy when many people think he's harder than the already complicated FinalBoss. And the funny things is, ''this is acknowledged in-universe.''
*** [[spoiler: Dheginsea]]'s got a glaring weakness, however: he WILL NEITHER ATTACK NOR COUNTERATTACK against [[spoiler: Kurthnaga and Ena]]. Even then, you need to supply them with additional offensive support, since the "recovering large amounts of HP per turn" means ''large'' amounts of HP. Think 30, when the two mentioned units are dealing 5 damage total thus negating the whole weakness thing.

*** The biggest problem with Leygance (the Chapter 8 boss) is that he has rather high defense to begin with, but his Resistance is lacking. So one would think magic would be effective... but being on a Throne effectively ''doubles'' his Resistance, and also gives him a ridiculous '''+30%''' boost to Avoid. The Triangle Attack certainly makes things easier (as it has perfect accuracy), but he's capable of nearly, if not outright killing one of the people you need for it.
** In general, ''Seals'' is extraordinarily cruel about weapon accuracy, which is a large part of the frustration. Some axes have a base hit of 50% or ''worse''. The throne that nearly every boss sits on also provides the aforementioned Avoid boost of 30%.

** The first few chapters in ''Sword of Seals'' are somewhat similar. While they don't have infinite reinforcements, it's not fun to take on a General with your low-level bunch 8 chapters into the game, and right after that is a Hero, laughing at your pathetic attempts to hit as he saunters left and right from whatever you throw at him. Now go try it on Hard Mode. Factor in the game's CPU-aligned Random Number Generator...

** Murdock's not exactly easy, either, but [[ThatOneLevel that level]] is frustrating more for the large waves of reinforcements every turn than the boss.

** The battle with Zephiel is very hard. Murdock's not exactly easy, either, but [[ThatOneLevel that level]] is frustrating more for the large waves of reinforcements every turn than the boss.

** '''Zephiel'''. Murdock's not exactly easy, either, but [[ThatOneLevel that level]] is frustrating more for the large waves of reinforcements every turn than the boss.

** [[spoiler: Arvis]] is arguably even worse. He has an absolutely ludicrous attack power of ''70'', meaning that he will one-shot a lot of your units. To add insult to injury, his holy weapon grants him ''ridiculous'' defence boosts, and his defences were high to begin with. You'll need holy weapons if you want to give him anything worse than a scratch. Oh, said holy weapon also grants him high speed boosts, which makes his '''evasion''' skyrocket as well. To add insult: He also has the Awareness skill, which cancels out any chance of a critical hit on your side. If you don't have units with legendary weapons, high resistance, enough strength to actually dent him, and a shitload of healers... godspeed, soldier.

** The Black Knight is a full-on LuckBasedMission. Even if Ike has maxed Strength, Skill, and Defense, you still rely entirely on him activating [[SignatureMove Aether]] enough times to bypass the Black Knight's defense and self-healing. Leveling up Mist, the only healer you'll have access to in the fight, helps, but not that much. Oh, and you have five turns to win. (Fortunately, you're not forced to win to proceed, though you recruit a crappier unit if you don't win.)

* [[FireEmblemTellius ''Path of Radiance'']]

* [[FireEmblemTellius ''Radiant Dawn'']]

** The same game also gives us [[spoiler: Dheginsea]]. He has the highest attack in the series at 75. With 100 HP, and 50 Defense, plus healing a large amount of HP every turn AND negating class-mastery skills. The only things that do any considerable damage to him are the Wyrmslayer or Rexbolt. The latter can only be used by one unit (Ilyana), who is a notoriously hard unit to raise in this game and he's pretty much guaranteed to splatter into a fine pulp if you try it. The next boss is much easier, since you can make him teleport into the middle of your strongest units unarmed. [[spoiler: Dheginsea]] is also surrounded on all sides by a '''metric crapton''' of the hardest hitting, most resistant {{Mooks}} in the game, and reinforcements come in ''every turn'' for something like a dozen turns before they mercifully stop. He also has an area of effect physical attack that does more damage the closer you are to him, which can easily kill units with low defense if you get too close. His stats, as said before, are '''ridiculous.''' And lastly, to top it all off: [[LimitBreak His mastery skill,]] '''[[spoiler: Ire.]]''' If that thing activates, [[OneHitKill you're DONE.]] Triple damage based from his ''crazy'' strength stat + weapon might? We're talking about something that only ''one'' unit you can get (who has, as maximum stats you will likely ''never ever see'', '''46 defense and 90 HP''') could possibly survive, and if he does, he does it with ''3 HP.'' And you get said unit ''after'' this chapter. Basically: If you don't have Nihil on them? '''Keep them really far away from the boss.''' It says many things about this guy when many people think he's harder than the already complicated FinalBoss. And the funny things is, ''this is acknowledged in-universe.''

* In one of the later games of the series, ''Path of Radiance'', the Black Knight is a full-on LuckBasedMission. Even if Ike has maxed Strength, Skill, and Defense, you still rely entirely on him activating [[SignatureMove Aether]] enough times to bypass the Black Knight's defense and self-healing. Leveling up Mist, the only healer you'll have access to in the fight, helps, but not that much. Oh, and you have five turns to win. (Fortunately, you're not forced to win to proceed, though you recruit a crappier unit if you don't win.)

* The FinalBoss of ''Radiant Dawn'' is a doozy. Unlike any other Fire Emblem final boss, you have to destroy the eight barriers surrounding it. Each barrier has 90 HP, high evade, can only be damaged by certain weapons, and will send half of any damage it takes back to you unless you use the Nihil skill (there are only four of these) or the Parity skill (there are only two of these, and they have the side effect of neutralizing your support bonuses). In addition, it recovers 40 HP each turn, and the constant reinforcements will heal it even further. Repeat this eight times. Meanwhile, the boss itself cycles between an area attack that targets Defense, a 1-3 square range single attack that targets Res, another area attack that targets Res, another single attack that targets Def, and yet another area attack that silences everyone. All three area attacks hit ''everyone'' and can kill most weakened units very easily. The boss has 35 Def, so only the strongest physical units can deal decent damage, and to make matters worse, ''50'' Res, meaning your mages are dealing single-digit damage. And you have to defeat it in nine turns, if you don't, [[FinishingMove it inflicts Stun on everyone]], leaving your party powerless for several turns and able to be picked off by their mooks. Finally, if the boss isn't defeated by a certain overpowered mercenary leader, it will only get back up, recovering all 120 of its HP. The way that it just overwhelms you is completely unlike any other boss in Fire Emblem history... at least, in the US releases.

** [[spoiler: Dheginsea]]'s got a glaring weakness, however: he WILL NEITHER ATTACK NOR COUNTERATTACK against [[spoiler: Kurthnaga and Ena]]. Even then, you need to supply them with additional offensive support, since the "recovering large amounts of HP per turn" means ''large'' amounts of HP. Think 30, when the two mentioned units are dealing 5 damage total thus negating the whole weakness thing.
* From ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', we have Caellach. Appearing in a long and painful ThatOneLevel as it is, he has a ridiculous stat advantage over the overwhelming majority of your characters; he is able to one-shot half of them with his Tomahawk, forcing you to pick away at him with your best fighters in hopes of causing DeathOfAThousandCuts, while praying to the RandomNumberGod that he doesn't get a critical hit. And speaking of critical hits, he's equipped with an accessory that reduces your critical rate to a flat 0%, which is downright painful for fans of [[spoiler:Joshua]] since for that character ItsPersonal, yet this character relies heavily on critical hits to do damage.
** There's also Valter from the same chapter. His stats aren't absurdly high, but his speed is good enough to prevent doubling from many units. Thanks to his killer lance, he has a dangerously high chance of landing a critical hit, which will be more than enough to take out most of your units. To make matters worse, he also has the skill pierce, which negates defense and is also enough to one-shot a good number of your units. And god have mercy on your soul if Valter activates pierce WHEN he gets a critical hit; the resulting damage will instantly kill whatever unit is unfortunate enough to get hit. Oh, and he also totes a Fili shield, which negates the effectiveness of bows.
** And to pour salt on the wounds, you have to fight both Caellach AND Valter in [[ThatOneLevel ONE CHAPTER.]] You can, however, steal their stuff with with Rennac (whom you picked up last chapter), or Colm (yet he may be a liability if you have not trained him much), but that's rather risky.

* ''New Mystery of the Emblem''

* ''[[FireEmblemElibe Blazing Sword]]'', Lloyd's version of "Four-Fanged Offense" in Hector mode. Not only does he move, his stats likely outclass any of your units and he has huge avoid. What's more, this is a ''Fog'' mission and if you are not aware that he is in a different spot from Eliwood mode, and that he moves this time, you're prolly going to lose someone. To top it all off, he has a Light Brand, which is a Sword that deals magic damage and can do [[SwordBeam ranged attacks]]. "General attacking me? I'll just blast it with magic! Is that a mage coming to counter me? I will just get up close and butcher it!".
** Speaking of ''Blazing Sword'', the Boss Rush in the Final Chapter. Eight bosses, all with nearly maxed stats and the most powerful weapons in the game, released one by one, and they will all seek you out instead of staying put. But the worst are [[spoiler: Lloyd and Linus. Both would be difficult by themselves, but you have to fight them at the same time. Their speed is high, which means you'll likely only get one attack in at a time, and their defenses are high enough to take plenty of hits. Through all this, they're powerful enough to kill most party members in one or two attacks and they can easily double-team a single character and kill him. Finally, they have an 'A' Support, which means they will be even more statistically pumped on top of everything else.]]
** If the RandomNumberGod decides that Bauker ought to dodge every attack you throw at him, ([[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikQuh1jrHOY as seen here]]), he can become ThatOneBoss.
** Zoldam on the Pirate Ship level (Chapter 17). All you have to do is survive 11 turns to win, but if you want to get an S Ranking in strategy, you have to actually beat him in seven turns. Easier said than done, as you're fighting a high-level Shaman with the [[GameBreaker overpowered]] Luna tome at his disposal, and you have to zergrush him in order to even get past the army of reinforcements. As if fighting him normally weren't bad enough, try doing it in seven turns on Hector Hard Mode (for added pain, you'll have to do it with mostly broken weapons and no money, which is extremely likely to happen in a typical S-ranked HHM run). Even without the logistics problems, killing Zoldam is likely the most difficult challenge in the game. It may well be That One Chapter for the speedrunner.

* ''[[New Mystery of the Emblem]]''

* ''[[FireEmblemAkaneia New Mystery of the Emblem]]''

* Zephiel from ''Sword of Seals''. Murdock's not exactly easy, either, but [[ThatOneLevel that level]] is frustrating more for the large waves of reinforcements every turn than the boss.
** The first few chapters in ''Sword of Seals'' are somewhat similar. While they don't have infinite reinforcements, it's not fun to take on a General with your low-level bunch 8 chapters into the game, and right after that is a Hero, laughing at your pathetic attempts to hit as he saunters left and right from whatever you throw at him. Now go try it on Hard Mode. Factor in the game's CPU-aligned Random Number Generator...
*** The biggest problem with Leygance (the Chapter 8 boss) is that he has rather high defense to begin with, but his Resistance is lacking. So one would think magic would be effective... but being on a Throne effectively ''doubles'' his Resistance, and also gives him a ridiculous '''+30%''' boost to Avoid. The Triangle Attack certainly makes things easier (as it has perfect accuracy), but he's capable of nearly, if not outright killing one of the people you need for it.
** In general, ''Seals'' is extraordinarily cruel about weapon accuracy, which is a large part of the frustration. Some axes have a base hit of 50% or ''worse''. The throne that nearly every boss sits on also provides the aforementioned Avoid boost of 30%.

* When it comes to ridiculous ''Fire Emblem'' bosses, Ishtar might as well take the cake. Not merely content with being ThatOneBoss, she insists on being a RecurringBoss as well! Not only are her stats absurdly high in each appearance, but she always wields the Mjolnir tome, which has an insane 30 might, +20 skill, and +10 speed. Combined with her maxed out magic and speed stats, Ishtar is able to 1-shot most of your characters with perfect accuracy at 1-2 range. Unlike other bosses sporting legendary weapons, Ishtar has free range of movement every time she appears. Her first appearance is in chapter 8, before most of your units are even promoted; good luck landing a critical hit with Faval's Ichival, or you'll be losing some characters. For her second appearance in chapter 10, she's backed up by [[spoiler: Julius (who's nearly impossible to kill at this stage of the game)]], and she won't leave until one of your units is dead. She returns one last time on the final chapter, flanked by three other difficult bosses at the same time. Better hope you have the Forseti tome ready by then!

** Chapter 7 of ''Genealogy of the Holy War'' does one better: the boss guarding the first castle has ''unlimited'' uses for his long-ranged Fenrir spell, and it's strong enough to easily OHKO many characters at this point in the game. The castle's on top of a mountain, and with no flying units available, your only option is to scale the winding path up the mountain while letting him take several free shots at you. At least that boss only gets his Fenrir Spell after like 11 turns, giving plenty of time for Shanan and [[InfinityPlusOneSword his Balmung]], who starts very near from the castle, to hack him and his minions in small pieces. If you don't have the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Balmung]], though, you're most likely screwed.

* When it comes to ridiculous ''Fire Emblem'' bosses, Ishtar of ''Genealogy of the Holy War'' might as well take the cake. Not merely content with being ThatOneBoss, she insists on being a RecurringBoss as well! Not only are her stats absurdly high in each appearance, but she always wields the Mjolnir tome, which has an insane 30 might, +20 skill, and +10 speed. Combined with her maxed out magic and speed stats, Ishtar is able to 1-shot most of your characters with perfect accuracy at 1-2 range. Unlike other bosses sporting legendary weapons, Ishtar has free range of movement every time she appears. Her first appearance is in chapter 8, before most of your units are even promoted; good luck landing a critical hit with Faval's Ichival, or you'll be losing some characters. For her second appearance in chapter 10, she's backed up by [[spoiler: Julius (who's nearly impossible to kill at this stage of the game)]], and she won't leave until one of your units is dead. She returns one last time on the final chapter, flanked by three other difficult bosses at the same time. Better hope you have the Forseti tome ready by then!
** [[spoiler: Arvis]] is arguably even worse. He has an absolutely ludicrous attack power of ''70'', meaning that he will one-shot a lot of your units. To add insult to injury, his holy weapon grants him ''ridiculous'' defence boosts, and his defences were high to begin with. You'll need holy weapons if you want to give him anything worse than a scratch. Oh, said holy weapon also grants him high speed boosts, which makes his '''evasion''' skyrocket as well. If you don't have units with legendary weapons, high resistance, enough strength to actually dent him, and a shitload of healers... godspeed, soldier.
** He also has the Awareness skill, which cancels out any chance of a critical hit on your side.
** Additionally, there is a certain Dragon Master wielding a certain [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One Lance]] that is guaranteed to make any player burst into tears. If the EliteMooks with Sleep Swords, Slim Lances, and hyper-accuracy due to the Dragon Master's ''5-star'' leadership aura didn't make you rage, the boss himself will. Awareness and good defenses makes him resistant, if not immune, to most tried-and-true killing strategies, and the sadistic combination of Pursuit, Continue, and insane speed means he'll either [[OneHitPointWonder double your units normally, or double consecutively before you can counter]]. The only units that will stand a chance against this boss without being [[LudicrousGibs ludicrously gibbed]] are either your legendary-wielding bow-user, or your [[GlassCannon legendary-wielding sage]]. Oh, and if you're unfortunate enough to reduce his HP below 10 without killing him? For one turn, he'll dodge everything, and during his phase he'll fly and stab an unfortunate unit in the face. GLARGH.
** The FinalBoss [[spoiler: Julius]] also count. He has Meteor, and like all weapons in FE 4, it's unlimited use for enemies-- and he's all to happy to spam it when you're fighting Ishtar or the [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Dark Warlords]]. He'll also Charge you with it-- so "Reduces SPD to 0" means nothing-- he can possibly keep pounding a unit with it 'till that unit is dead. And if you dared to let his twin sister die (or killed her): His main weapon, a [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One Tome]], HALVES you combat stats before anything even occurs-- then he's got a good deal of Attack power, regenerates 20 HP every turn... and when he's below 40 HP? Vantage/Wrath kicks in-- he goes first and criticals any non awareness Unit, severely limiting your attack options. (Of course, if you do have the said sister, he's an AnticlimaxBoss, cause she gets an [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus 20 Tome]] that nullifies his weapon's ability, and has enough RES to make his attacks do about 5 Damage... She regenerates 10 HP every turn.)

* [[FireEmblemAkaneia ''Shadow drangon'']]

* [[FireEmblemAkaneia ''New Mystery of the Emblem'']]

* ''Shadow Dragon'' has two examples on Merciless mode: Gomer (Chapter 2) and Hyman (Chapter 3). Both wield Hand Axes, have ridiculous Attack, and doubly ridiculous Fight Speed for the point you fight them at. There are few characters when you fight them who can even survive ONE round because of the ridiculous Attack Speed, and with their absurd HP, [[FinalDeath swarming is out of the question]]. Hyman is ThatOneBoss on EVERY difficulty level too, because his Attack Speed isn't even much lower on the ''lowest'' difficulty.

* [[spoiler:Katarina]] in Prologue 8 of ''New Mystery of the Emblem''. She uses Elfire in a game where ''anyone who isn't a mage has little to no Resistance''. As a result, her attacks do MASSIVE damage to all but maybe 2 people on your team. And since it isn't a Seize map, she can and WILL actively seek out your units. SquishyWizard though she is, it's a difficult fight if you aren't expecting it and it can be hard to get up to her without someone dying, anyway.
** This fight can also slam the brakes on any Lunatic playthrough, due to her '''13 Magic''' on that level. Go back and look at the chapter number, and you'll see why that's such a big deal.
** Earlier on, there's either of the Prologue 4 bosses, Athena and Jeorge. Athena is faster than almost your entire army (except for My Unit and Caeda), so you'll be seeing many double hits from her. Meaning that whoever fights her will end up dead or severely wounded. Jeorge is a Sniper. A '''SNIPER.''' In the '''''PROLOGUE.''''' In other words, he's Athena, but stronger. Though he can't counterattack at close range, he's able to move around, making that a moot point unless he's surrounded on all sides.