Re: FFXIII - Chapter 9 boss fight help please
04/15/10 9:27 am | #4
I would say first off, whatever characters you decide to use, maximize your paradigms for offense and defense. What I mean by this is try to avoid using a paradigm where theres like 1 damager, 1 healer and 1 person buffing or debuffing.
Instead, set it up so you have an all out attack paradigm and an all out defensive/healing paradigm.
Examples of all out attack are RAV/RAV/RAV or COM/RAV/RAV
Examples of defensive would be like MED/SYN/MED or MED/SAB/MED
What you DON'T want is something like COM/RAV/MED or RAV/MED/SEN
The reason for this is that you want to get healed/buffed as fast as possible, and then quickly return to all out attacking--the quicker you stack the damage on, the less time you are sitting in front of this guy getting crap thrown at you, and the less Thanatosian Smiles you have to endure.
If you use a paradigm that is part offense, part defense and part healing, then that means you aren't doing anything very well or very fast.
I would recommend you avoid using SENtinel role in this fight since most of Bart's stuff hits everyone anyway.
Also remember that Ravagers are the best at building stagger chains, and Commandos are for maintaining it. What this means is that, until the enemy is staggered at 800% or more, you want to have as many Ravagers hitting him as possible.
Learn to use the B and Y buttons to push commands through or cancel them to time the attacks between your party members so it creates a continuous barrage of damage rather than a big burst where all 3 members unload their ATB bar and then several seconds of nothing happening.
When you learn to manage the flow of your attacks, you will be able to get an enemy all the way to stagger without needing a Commando at all. This maximizes your offensive potential and shortens the length of fights. Save Commandos for when the enemy is already at a high stagger %, this is when they do their best work.
Apparently it takes the boss awhile to charge the Destrudo ability, and if you do a significant amount of damage during this time it will make him "moan" and lower the damage you take, only hitting 1 or 2 party members instead of all of them. So when you see him start charging, hit him hard!
If you can muster them, I also recommend creating 3x paradigms. Examples of this are COM/COM/COM, RAV/RAV/RAV, MED/MED/MED, etc. I don't remember what all was available in Ch 9, but you may not be able to do these fully, that's ok. These just simplify things and let you build stagger, deal damage or heal up very quickly with minimal time spent shifting.
Don't abandon your offensive paradigm and shift to healing the second you take damage. Instead, maintain your attack for as long as possible. Hope and Vanille are both good medics and pretty fast, so you can count on a nice health boon right after you switch paradigms.
If you have 1 or more party members that are Synergists, create a __/SYN/SYN paradigm and make it active before the battle begins. Sazh can get Haste way before anyone else, so he makes a great SYN for this fight and most of the game, really. Once I had a SYN with Haste I kept them in the party for the rest of the game until others got it.
If you also have a Saboteur, those make a great addition to 2 Synergists for the opening moments of boss fights.
Lastly, make sure to use Libra or a librascope at the very beginning of the battle, and, if you can, use a shroud item before the fight. Keep in mind that you can stack Aegisol and Fortisol.
Hopefully someone with the Strategy Guide can give you more specific advice for this particular fight. Setsuna or iKhaotic will probably have some help for you later today.
+edit+ Oh, and don't summon your Eidolon until 1 or more people are dead and you're about to lose the fight.
