The first of the bonus Nemeses from the sequel, Bravely Second; Turtle Dove isn’t simple at all. Before charging straight into battle, ensure everybody has immunity to Sleep and bring along a Salve-maker so you can double everyone’s HP with a Giant’s Draft.

Turtle Dove’s attacks include Rake, a powerful physical attack on one character, Seraph Blast, a strong magical attack on one, and Sweet Dreams, which deals damage to one and inflicts Sleep. The dove easily deals 9999 damage with its attacks, so the extra HP will go a long ways to keeping your characters alive.

Four In Love¶

Things get difficult when Turtle Dove uses Fall In Love to cause a brand new status ailment: Love. When a character is in Love, a thought bubble will appear above their head, indicating a party member they currently fawn over.

Characters in Love do not follow commands and instead copy the actions performed by the character they fancy; you can use this to your advantage, but be warned that BP, HP and MP is still consumed. Additionally, characters in Love will receive damage if the character they’re in love with takes a hit.

After a few turns, Turtle Dove will use Heartbreak to instantly cure everyone of Love, but those in Love will take big damage; talk about a lesson in Love and Heartbreak… Being a new ailment, you cannot cure or prevent Love yourself and, annoyingly, multiple characters can fall in Love too.

You’ll just have to suck it up and do your best to work around Love. Have backup healers or healing items in case your primary healer is struck by Cupid’s arrow. When somebody falls in Love, keep healing them so they don’t die of Heartbreak later.

Halfway There…¶

Near the half HP mark, Turtle Dove will get aggressive and begin to Brave three times in one turn. Don’t expect an opening though, as its first move after Braving is Little Gift, which ups its BP by 3, returning it to 0 BP for the beginning of the next turn… No fair! Its other three moves will be Rake, Seraph Blast and/or Sweet Dreams.

At this stage, the Templar’s Rampart and/or the Ninja’s Utsusemi can help you reduce damage (but not from Seraph Blast). Meanwhile, the Vampire’s Rise From Dead and the Time Mage’s Reraise (combined with the Black Mage‘s Group-Cast All) are handy if anybody does snuff it, which can happen often when you’ve got characters in Love.

That’s not all though as Turtle Dove will use Triangular to make two characters fall in Love with the same character. This time, if the character they’re in love with performs an action, they will attack their love rival. The bad news doesn’t stop there as Turtle Dove can use Triangular again or Fall In Love and you can have a whole party in Love if unlucky…

Easy Strategies¶

If you’re struggling, a party of three Freelancers or Knights all with Dual Shields (Knight) and Mimic (Freelancer) can wreck the Turtle Dove fairly easily. What you need to do is begin with the Knight’s Super Charge and then Mimic on the rest of your characters for 9999 damage each.

With your improved defense, you’ll take little to no damage from Rake and Sweet Dreams and when Triangular is in effect, your love rivals will do 1 damage to each other thanks to their low Physical Attack. Meanwhile your fourth character–the healer–can mop up damage from Seraph Blast and Heartbreak.

For zero effort, the High Jump strategy works wonders, allowing you to avoid all of Turtle Dove’s attacks.

Level 20 Version¶

Turtle Dove(-) has much lower Strength, meaning its attacks don’t hurt as hard; it also won’t use Seraph Blast, so you don’t need to watch your Magic Defense. If you could beat the Land Turtle at Mount Fragmentum, you should be okay for this battle.

Plus Version¶

Turtle Dove(+) fights pretty much the same as before, but it now has 9999 Physical Defense and Magic Defense and 127 Speed, with Slow and Steady to boost it up to 190 after it Defaults.

Along with the unpreventable Love condition, which it loves to inflict (pun not intended), this beefed up bird is a real nightmare to face head-on.

Obviously the sky-high defenses will be your first point of concern, but that can be solved with Defence-piercing moves like the Monk‘s Pressure Point, Vampire’s Fireball, Attack items or Pierce Magic Defense (Black Mage).

No, the real issue is Turtle Dove’s insane Speed and Love getting in the way of everything. Even with Giant’s Drafts, Rise from the Dead (Vampire) and Re-Raise (Time Magic), the outcome of the battle will largely be up to luck.

Thankfully there is an easy method to win and that’s by using a modified version of the High Jump strategy–the regular version won’t work because of Turtle Dove’s maximum Physical Defense.

Firstly, everybody should have the Valkyrie’s job command, Steady MP Recover (Conjurer) and equip Fox Tails or Falcon Knives in both hands. One character should be a Performer with Speed 30% Up, Speed 10% Up, a Red Cap, Kenpo Gi and Hermes Shoes for optimum Speed.

Your three attackers should be Dark Knights with Speed 20% Up and equipment to get them up to at least 132 Agility, but nothing too high (136 should be OK). You can mess around with the Red Cap, Kenpo Gi and Hermes Sandals to get the right Agility.

One of your attackers should have Hasten World, while the other two have HP 20% Up. If you can afford the Star Corslet (HP +100), equip that as well to boost your maximum HP over 10,000.

Next, find a way to drop everyone’s HP to 1. We like to head to the Underflow, along the way to the Temple of Fire, to stroll around the scorching lava. Yowch! No pain… no gain…

If you haven’t figured it out by now, what you should do on Turn 1 is have your Performer use Love Rush and High Jump, while your attackers use Minus Strike and High Jump. Then turn on Auto-Battle and find something to do for approximately 7 minutes.

Minus Strike will do in the region of 9999 damage, even when Turtle Dove Defaults and while High Jump will do 0 damage, it’ll keep your characters in the air to escape all of Turtle Dove’s attacks–most importantly, Love.