Final Fantasy XIII

[Yuri-G]

yeah I plan on getting the watch as soon as I finish Titan's Trials. and I've five-starred all of them except the one I'm missing (and Attacus) because fuck if I'm going through these same missions another ten times.

and congrats, turtles are fun but ridiculously hard to kill at lower levels unless you summon and kill them on the first stagger.

[Katlan]

I just need TH and to 5 star all missions, but taking a break for others games before I go start that grind fest of fun lol

[Yuri-G]

Attacus is a whore. not difficult (using Light as evasion tank), but how the fuck do you 5-star him. I even watched a video that showed a five-star strategy and it was the same exact shit I was doing, right down to the buffs and debuffs we were using. and my Fang's weapon is a max Kain's Lance via Taming Pole.

I'm not really worried, I'll just come back and beat him with the Gold Watch. but man, I only had to heal once or twice, I kept the pressure on the entire time, I have max crystarium and two max weapons along with a level 36 Nue, and I still only got three stars.

maybe I'll do him again with Fang/Snow/Light, since Hope was kind of pointless in this fight. hopefully the extra COM damage will put me over the five-star edge. but whatever, the Gold Watch fixes the problem anyway.

for reference, I was using Fang/Hope/Light, buffing only with Haste and Bravera (started with Faithra on Hope but he kept using attacks over Ruin, so I was like w/e), mostly staying in COM/COM/SEN with occasional breaks for SYN/SYN/SEN to rebuff and SAB/SAB/SEN to debuff. I only had to heal twice, and it was quick.

actually I think I'll try it again tonight with COM/RAV/SEN instead... I wanted COM/COM/SEN for the role bonus but Hope's RAV does decent damage and will up the chain gauge enough to make up for the difference in Fang's lowered role bonus. and I'll remove Light's weapon for something weaker, she's not doing damage anyway.

[Tyrath]

I almost wonder if having the weapons maxed is what is maybe hurting you by lowering the target time. I was able to 5 star him fine my 2nd try without the gold watch, and my 2 ultimate weapons were both around lvl 50.

[Yuri-G]

hmm maybe that's it. I could try the same strategy but with crappy weapons on everyone except Fang. I had her equipped with three maxed Power Gloves, too lol.

[Plow]

Really. Really. Really. Simple.

SYN/SYN/SEN
SAB/SAB/SEN
RAV/RAV/SEN
MED/MED/SEN
COM/COM/SEN
COM/COM/COM

Start with shrouds so you don't have to buff. Fully debuff.

RAV/RAV/SEN to ~600.

From there just jump back and forth between com/com/com and com/com/sen in time for provoke to land before big attack.

If you get stuck with him hitting the wrong person just go SYN and spam protectra/shellra, his big hit is only going to one shot people if the deprotect/deshell are left on them.

[Necronus]

hmm maybe that's it. I could try the same strategy but with crappy weapons on everyone except Fang. I had her equipped with three maxed Power Gloves, too lol.

I took off my ultimates and power gloves (or magician marks on Hope) to lower their power. Time allowed jumped almost 10 minutes for me.

The time equation uses power and number of ATB segments as divisors. The ultimate weapons are hurting you more than the power gloves but both should be removed. Normally the extra power and segments directly correlates you to pwning the mob faster, but due to Attacus being more of a "raise the stagger %" fight than a "omgwtfbbq damage" fight, being weaker doesn't really slow down your fight as much as the uber weapons drop your time remaining. Speed equipment (stuff to raise the ATB rate vua synthesis) is more important than power. Use Aurora Scaft and Sprint Shoes instead.

In unrelated news, I almost blew my Attacus 5 star fight by accidentally staggering him and then having the stagger wear before I finished him. Losing your 900% damage SUCKS but I saved the 5 star in the end.

[Yuri-G]

I had no idea the ATB segments mattered. good to know. that alone should make it a lot easier.

[Plow]

To be quite honest once you get past trying to use mixed up paradigms (other than the obvious fights that require a sen) and get geared up, there's nothing that's challenging enough to need any real special tactics beyond figuring out the raw fastest way to kill stuff.

Most of the missions I thought were going to be painful to 5* I ended up clearing by 30-40% at least, and other than the stupid cactus the only ones that weren't easy to just burn straight up were the ones where you basically have to just use a deceptisol or get a pre-empt some other way.


It all comes down to spending absolutely as little time as possible in paradigms where you're not either all out building chain or all out dpsing, which means using as many ravs at once or coms at once as possible should pretty much always be your goal.


And if someone's doing decent damage with their magic as a rav, they'll do better as a com spamming ruin, often regardless of weakness due to the bonus they add to the other com.

[Fhloston]

So I ended up doing the dismantle method to obtain my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th trap...then of course after that 3 more dropped lol.......so now I have all I need, plus an extra. Right now I'm just farming more turtles for ingots and CP so I can max out my crystariums (everyone has four roles @lv.5 and another @lv.3/4) and rape missions.

Figured I was strong enough to kill turtles w/o death, and watched that vid of Sazh killing them at lower levels. Been doing that basically and owning them. It's a hell of a lot faster than spamming death IMO and more consistent if you're aiming for CP.

[Katlan]

by the time ur done farming ignots u will have well more then 6 traps (if you didnt do the dismantle idea). And frankly, if your having issues getting traps, you can upgrade everything else, then just save > dismantle genji gloves > get achievement > go back to previous save

[Yuri-G]

To be quite honest once you get past trying to use mixed up paradigms (other than the obvious fights that require a sen) and get geared up, there's nothing that's challenging enough to need any real special tactics beyond figuring out the raw fastest way to kill stuff.

Most of the missions I thought were going to be painful to 5* I ended up clearing by 30-40% at least, and other than the stupid cactus the only ones that weren't easy to just burn straight up were the ones where you basically have to just use a deceptisol or get a pre-empt some other way.


It all comes down to spending absolutely as little time as possible in paradigms where you're not either all out building chain or all out dpsing, which means using as many ravs at once or coms at once as possible should pretty much always be your goal.


And if someone's doing decent damage with their magic as a rav, they'll do better as a com spamming ruin, often regardless of weakness due to the bonus they add to the other com.

yeah the only mobs I've had problems 5-starring (not beating, just 5-starring) were Attacus and Mission 64 so far. Mission 64 was a really fun fight though, jamming on that paradigm switch to Tortoise every time he does that stupid move, constantly taking breaks to heal and rebuff while he sits in his shell.

I think I could actually get five stars on that one pretty easily with a few strategic adjustments, but hey, I was fighting him the first time. my two biggest mistakes were letting him stay in his shell too long (took a while to realize you could knock him out of his shell and didn't just have to sit there and wait) and trying too hard to stagger him (since he dumps his chain gauge every time he retreats into his shell, I'm thinking it would be faster to get it up a bit and then switch to Cerberus and at least get a little bit of damage in before you have to start over). it's nice if you can manage to stagger him and pull off a few attacks or even a Highwind, but the timing is pretty tight, and basically impossible once he starts spamming his ultimate move.

fun fight though. definitely made me appreciate all the work I did leveling my characters, unlike Attacus, who is a wimp as long as you have Lightning in evasion Sentinel.

edit: I might have been debuffing too much too, but I usually just went for Imperil/Deshell/Slow, to stagger him faster. so I can't imagine that was the problem. I might adjust my debuffing strategy too.

at least I got my gold watch, though. trying desperately to get a platinum before SSFIV comes out... fuuuuuuck why do I have to go to a wedding this weekend lol

[Yuri-G]

as long as I'm posting in this thread, does anyone else think the way they got rid of Jihl was just the biggest pile of bullshit? I get why the primarch kills her, but I think it's a stupid reason and whatever point it was supposed to get across (how ruthless he is, his complete disregard for human life, whatever) could have been done a lot better.

I remember watching that scene and just thinking "wait... you are fucking joking, right? she can't just be dead like that, with no warning, no buildup, no explanation. just dead." but no, she was gone.

I dunno, I liked the story a lot but that was easily my least favorite part of the whole narrative.

[Raen Ryong]

Oddly, the thing which bothered me the most about it was that it was just a crappy Ruin spell which did it in a really offhanded way. I can understand the pilots and that dying to a simple Ruin, fair enough - but presumably she was considerably more dangerous. I agree that they could've made her death far more dramatic rather than just looking for an excuse to get rid of her.

[Yuri-G]

yeah, that's the other thing that bothered me - the primarch literally just like, waves his hand and shoots out a little bolt of magic and bam! she's dead. at least use something like the moves Orphan was pulling on Fang, now that shit looked painful.

[Nevex]

I refuse to believe she's dead. She's too hot to be dead. She has to come back in FFXIII-2 if they ever make it.

Jihl was really awesome in Episode Zero novels, it sucks how little screentime she got in the actual game.

[ArchDizzle]

I refuse to believe she's dead. She's too hot to be dead. She has to come back in FFXIII-2 if they ever make it.

Jihl was really awesome in Episode Zero novels, it sucks how little screentime she got in the actual game.

^ This, I waited the whole game for her to show back up like Rosch did, was disappoint. 8(

[Plow]

yeah the only mobs I've had problems 5-starring (not beating, just 5-starring) were Attacus and Mission 64 so far. Mission 64 was a really fun fight though, jamming on that paradigm switch to Tortoise every time he does that stupid move, constantly taking breaks to heal and rebuff while he sits in his shell.

I think I could actually get five stars on that one pretty easily with a few strategic adjustments, but hey, I was fighting him the first time. my two biggest mistakes were letting him stay in his shell too long (took a while to realize you could knock him out of his shell and didn't just have to sit there and wait) and trying too hard to stagger him (since he dumps his chain gauge every time he retreats into his shell, I'm thinking it would be faster to get it up a bit and then switch to Cerberus and at least get a little bit of damage in before you have to start over). it's nice if you can manage to stagger him and pull off a few attacks or even a Highwind, but the timing is pretty tight, and basically impossible once he starts spamming his ultimate move.

fun fight though. definitely made me appreciate all the work I did leveling my characters, unlike Attacus, who is a wimp as long as you have Lightning in evasion Sentinel.

edit: I might have been debuffing too much too, but I usually just went for Imperil/Deshell/Slow, to stagger him faster. so I can't imagine that was the problem. I might adjust my debuffing strategy too.

at least I got my gold watch, though. trying desperately to get a platinum before SSFIV comes out... fuuuuuuck why do I have to go to a wedding this weekend lol

I did a write-up of how I did 64 somewhere around here, I forgot to equip my watch for it and still beat the target time by like 6 mins out of 12.

[Yuri-G]

thanks, I'll take a look for that.

and yeah I thought Jihl would come back too. I was really surprised to find out she was just plain dead. she was a great antagonist, like an evil version of Beatrix or something (who I love).

[Plow]

Found it:

First off, don't forget to equip the gold watch you got the first time you killed him.

Secondly, ditch any drop + etc equips, and don't bother with instant chain, it won't proc. Just max out str on light or whoever your 2nd com is, str + genji for highwind on fang, and magic + gold watch on hope or vanille.

Use aegisol/fortisol (to save time, not because you really need them).

Deck:

SAB/SAB/SAB
RAV/RAV/RAV
SYN/SYN/SYN
MED/MED/MED
SEN/SEN/SEN
COM/COM/COM

Yes, that's right, you're going with 1 triple setup of each job.

Enter as triple sab, you'll be fully buffed so you can skip your triple syn phase for a while. Debuff asap.

Swap to triple rav, try to get it staggered.

The instant it's staggered, go to triple com, let your other 2 get an attack round in, and highwind. It's going to do barrier within a few seconds of the stagger every time.

As soon as barrier goes up, jump into tri-med to heal up, and this is where you'll be using the triple syn when your buffs start wearing, too.

As soon as barrier drops again, be back in triple sab.

Rinse and repeat.

Whenever you see him start casting Whirl, jump into triple sen IMMEDIATELY.

Your goal is to *never* have to heal outside of jumping to triple med for a couple seconds each time he does barrier. If he's damage-able, you need to be dealing damage, period.

So yeah basically the main trick is get your debuffs up, then go triple rav, the moment it's staggered go triple com, let light and van get in a round, highwind, and it'll shield.

rinse and repeat