FFXIII-2: Post Release Discussion

[niwaar]

is there a spot on the water area of steppes where blue choco's have a better pop chance because this is retarded. get like one pop every 30min+

nvm... bitch, and it pops next and drops the crystal lol

Finally... grats!

[Rokku]

I'm pretty sure they still get a (albeit small) bonus from using power/mana/vitality pieces on small nodes, so unless you're shooting for versatility/survivability, it's usually best to only feed it whatever is appropriate for its role:

CON: Power (There might be a fight or two where Ruin is your best offense, so a Magic-focused COM might be situationally useful.)
SEN: Vitality (Maybe some Power if you really want a counter-focused tank?)
RAV: Mana (Can alternate with Power if the monster in question uses mostly elemental strikes/blitzes.)
SYN: Mana*
SAB: Mana
MED: Mana

Other than that, you can just use your best judgment. Such as pushing a few Vitality (or slightly more Potent) pieces on one of your monsters to boost its HP if it keeps getting killed easily.

Potent usually results in better overall numbers on COM and RAV, but the others I'd agree on. Full power COMs are great though, provided they have armor breaker (aka Chichu), but I think it's all nitpicking when you get right down to it. Omega is a COM that works better with potent, mostly because he lacks it.

I think Lightning is one of the best examples of a Ravager that gets the most out of potent materials, for some reason it's only like a +70 shift in either direction going all power/all mana on her.

All in all though, a lot of the min/maxing in this game ends up being pointless, almost all of the fights in the game are woefully easy with a maxed Crystarium. Also, I vaguely remember something about potent being good for Medics, because of their max HP having something to do with something, but damned if I can actually remember all of a sudden.

[Jeryhn]

Regarding the use of monster materials.

The good argument for the use of Potent materials not only concerns the use of physical and magical attacks, but also the rate at which HP is gained at different periods of growth. In general, higher HP on a COM or RAV monster means that they spend more time attacking before you have to switch to a defensive paradigm to address their declining HP.

When proceeding through the monster Crystariums, growth is not constant. Many monsters, for instance, grow and get tons of stats at earlier levels in all areas, which tapers off at higher levels, when it may be more efficient to start specializing. Now, its important to remember that the bonus stats you get any particular level is dependent upon the base stats you get for filling in that node. A Mana material does you next to no good if that particluar level you're filling in doesn't give any Magic. None of this regards animation rates or ability availability for different monsters either.

For RAV, speed is everything, so in general Mana materials on monsters that spend more time casting spells as opposed to performing elemental strikes. Bomb monsters are good here, but their casting speed is inhibited by targets that are more mobile. Lightning is probably a better overall RAV and a good exception to this rule, being favored by Potent gains, because oftentimes her AI will perform her elemental blitzes in a -W paradigm because they do AoE damage but each blitz only consumes 2 ATB segments instead of 3 for -ga spells, -ga spells are prioritized for larger groups of monsters. Its important that she has both Strength and Magic overall. The HP here is just a bonus.

For COM, shit is situational. But if you're only concerned about Chichu, its insane attack rate lends itself to favoring Power materials. This leaves it fairly weak in terms of defense and magic, so it could be argued that Potent materials may be better for it in earlier levels where basic HP gains are higher, then leaning towards Power at the end of its growth table.

HP and magic tend to be good on MED monsters. Magic will directly improve healing power, but higher HP also increases the power of Curasa and Curaja.

HP on SEN monsters is self-explanatory.

I've never heard that Magic affects buffs or debuffs for SYN and SAB, and would definitely like some data. But generally, I only use either of these monsters for special situations anyway.

[Raldo]

Is there some way to get the shop lady to stock up on Potent stuff? She seems to have the tier 1, 2, and... 5? I'm mainly referring to potent essences, because farming them is boring as shit. I only did a single playthrough without a guide, so I'm sure I'm missing tons of stuff.

[Spira]

has anyone else encountered glitches in battle in the game?

I use Friendly Fire with Cloudburst on Tri-Disaster (controlling Serah),
and then when I switch to Cerberus-W, Serah is suddenly no longer able to attack. I have a feeling its gotta do with the paradigm tune clashing with the enspell or something.
its weird cos Relentless Assault (with Serah as RAV) is fine, as is most other things

[Maguspk]

has anyone else encountered glitches in battle in the game?

I use Friendly Fire with Cloudburst on Tri-Disaster (controlling Serah),
and then when I switch to Cerberus-W, Serah is suddenly no longer able to attack. I have a feeling its gotta do with the paradigm tune clashing with the enspell or something.
its weird cos Relentless Assault (with Serah as RAV) is fine, as is most other things

Yeah there was a bug during my fight with Ochu where I heard the selection sound but my HUG was stuck on the 'Attack Abilities Items, etc.' menu. It caused me to lose the fight multiple times before I was able to get lucky and not encounter it. Needless to say I didn't grind it out for the weapons.

[fren.]

Regarding Cloudburst: I can kill one, but the other two/three just self-destruct before I can finish them off. I assume I'd have to kill all of them in order to capture it? Also, is there a monster infusion guide somewhere? I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing with these things. I have a Flanitor as my main healer (but the thing only levels with engines and those are annoying to farm).

e: VVV I'll try that out. Farmed them for about 40 minutes and killed over 70+ and got shit to show for it.

[Gokulo]

You need to look whether the monsters disappears with a white light and leaves a crystal behind. There's really no need to kill all 3, if you kill 1 and it disappears normally (fading to black instead of white) then just restart the fight.

[Jaxzer]

has anyone else encountered glitches in battle in the game?

My fight with Yomi ended abruptly@50%, not sure if working as intended but I was like, "oh cool."

[miokomioko]

Yeah, I mentioned a glitch earlier that made an Undying (the one with the black smoke) stop attacking for the most part when Doom for-some-reason failed to kill Serah. Then, the camera kept slowly panning away from the battlefield for the rest of the fight, sloppily clipping through all the surrounding mountains/terrain, only briefly zooming in to Serah as I spammed Ruin for the next 15 minutes to win. Was odd.

Also, I was encountering a similar bug where I was using a bomb-type pet vs the boss of Vile Peaks and when I would switch from Tri-Disaster to Cerberus, no one would attack, I had to keep it on Aggression as to not completely waste the stagger. It wasn't Cloudburst so maybe it's a glitch with bomb-type monsters when switching to Commando roles from them...

[Jaxzer]

FFS I cannot get this idea circuit quest to start. I enter the room in Augusta tower and it just says "scanning operating system." I have paradox agent type A as well, halp!

Edit: I have the quest but it won't let me trade the paradox agent type A, just keeps saying "scanning operating system." This is driving me nutty.

[Jaxzer]

So I just got to the the clock puzzles and immediately went to google. Whoever wrote this program is a genius and a lifesaver: http://clockpuzzle.pl/

[Nevex]

I already run out of clock puzzles to solve but I didn't find them particularly hard, even the one with 13 numbers.

[Colenzo]

those things were easy as dog dick, i did them all first try >_>

[Burningthought]

I think I was getting burned out whenever I was trying to get through them. I had a few issues on one of the clock puzzles, and I got so stuck on one of the platform ones I had to look up a video for it. After watching the video I knew there was no way in hell I would've figured it out unless I looked it up lol.

Anyway, looks like the other card game that is being released is kinda like texas hold'em. I want to see how much content in hours we're gonna get for $5. I hope it isn't some quick 1 hour area.

[Jaxzer]

Finished Raspatil fight. So true that you've got to land imperil/deprotect/deshell for each stagger, takes at least a million off each time. Only monster I've bothered leveling was Lightning, fuck the rest.

[vadre]

those things were easy as dog dick, i did them all first try >_>

How? Honestly my mind threatens to give up on me just thinking about trying to plan all 13 stages ahead in the time limit.. I pretty much resorted to using that program for fear of destroying my TV.

Maybe that kind of thing is easy for some people, but I do think there's a pretty drastic difference in difficulty between the clocks and just about everything else in the game.

[Tyrath]

So I just got to the the clock puzzles and immediately went to google. Whoever wrote this program is a genius and a lifesaver: http://clockpuzzle.pl/

I've only run into them once, but this should be helpful later!

[Nevex]

Simple trial and error will get you through the fixed puzzles, while the random ones usually don't go past 9 numbers.
I suppose that the difficult part about them is that they're unlike any puzzles I've seen before in a videogame so it takes a while to get accustomed to the right criteria to solve them.
Besides, I don't think that there is just one way to solve them.

[Spira]

most of them dont have 1 way to solve them.. unless there are numbers in the clock face which dont have other numbers that will point to it. in those cases you must start with that number otherwise you won't be able to clear.

Also, if such a situation happens, there'll only be 1 such number because there cant be 2 numbers that cant be reached by other numbers in the same puzzle.