I think this is "curse"...please confirm:

Sometimes I'm battling a boss and I need to cure/cura/curaga, or whatever to gain back HP, but this stops working and I notice green numbers (HP absorb?) over the boss instead of healing my character. Every attempt I make to heal a specific character is useless. And even "remedy" has no effect! It seems the only way to regain HP is to use some kind of absorb magic (blue bullet, etc.) or wait until the character dies and revive. Sometimes the effect will wear off before the character is killed.

The definition I've found for "curse" is dressphere change disabled, but is it more than this? And if this IS another effect of "curse" then what cures it (because "remedy" doesn't work!)? I can't find any status ailment description in Shinra's glossary that makes this clear. Nothing like "enemy absorbs cure magic".

Am I missing something obvious?

Thanks

Well, this may be a wild shot, but I think it's possible that you might have equipped one or more of your characters with some kind of accessory that's causing this. Try checking all of your characters' accessories and seeing if it seems like one of them may have something that could cause this. If you're still not sure, then try deequipping them all and then doing a battle and see if this effect still shows up. Report back here with the results and we'll go from there depending on whether that was or wasn't the problem.


One other thing --- you're not by any chance casting reflect on any of your characters, are you? That's the one status I know of that would be most likely to cause that --- curative magic literally bounces off your characters like any other magic and benefits the enemy instead. The only thing is, when you have reflect set up, you can see it working --- a sort of barrier thing goes up and you can sort of see the spell bouncing back in the enemy's direction --- and you're not describing anything like that. So that's why I'm not sure if it's Reflect or not. Then again, you say it's happening only when you're battling bosses and I know that's a time when people generally put up a lot of protective spells to help in the battle, so...


Oh, and as far as I know, it shouldn't be "Curse" status --- you're quite right that that status effect only prevents you from spherechanging and not only that --- it's quite easily cured by a Phoenix Down.

It never occurred to me that reflect would cause cure magic to bounce off to a boss, but that's PROBABLY what's happening! I guess if I want to cure someone carrying reflect...they'll have to cure themselves...or maybe that bounces too...I'll experiment.

Heh. Reflect is a terrible double-edged sword, which is why a lot of FF players, including myself, just don't bother with it. It reflects almost all magic, curative and offensive and yes, even if the character casts it on themself, that'll bounce too. If you feel you must use it, then best to use items for curing. I believe the White Wind Blue Bullet would also work okay. But it almost seems to me like it's more trouble than it's worth. I'd recommend trying a strategy that doesn't involve the use of Reflect if you can.


If you find that this is still happening and you know you haven't set up Reflect, then report back, but otherwise, good luck!

I agree with agent reflect is more trouble than it is worth.

Also most bosses you find cast reflect on themselves then hit u that way. or they just use dispel which makes it a complete waste of time.

Good luck though and if not let us know.

Try learning some of the protects that come with the dressphere e.g darkprotect and stuff like that it can help

Or you can cast reflect on yourself and on the enemy on the same time, this way you can still use curative magic.

But like Jander and Agent said, Reflect isn't worth it

Or you can cast reflect on yourself and on the enemy on the same time, this way you can still use curative magic.
Yeah, I was thinking about that, but that's erratic too. Because I don't think you can guarantee that it will bounce back to the right character; I think it could bounce off to any of the three. I could be wrong on that though.

yeah i think it does reflect back on to a random person

Also, the boss may be immune to it (yes, there are bosses immune to reflect, take Trema and Paragon for example) If you need to use reflect, I suggest following Agent0042's advice and use items, or if you have the Alchemist dressphere equipped, use the Stash or Mix commands to make something healing (Potion+Potion=Hi-Potion)