Secondary Roles Challenge Table of Contents {1} Introduction {2} Using the Crystarium {3} Preparation for The Fifth Ark {4} The Fifth Ark {5} Getting the Hang of Things {6} Mission Time! {7} Ma'habara Subterra {8} Sulyya Springs {9} Taejin's Tower {10} Oerba {11) Back to Cocoon {12} Back to Pulse {13} The Final Battle {14} Contact Information/More to Come {15} Legal Informaton 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901 {1} Introduction Hello, and welcome to the first (and only) guide dedicated to a Secondary Roles Challenge. This is a rather unusual challenge in that it doesn't actually begin until you get to the Fifth Ark. This is, of course, in Chapter 10. Before that, the game plays like NCU. You will not be upgrading the Crystarium until you have access to the Secondary Roles, and at that point you will never use the Primary Roles again. Near the beginning of the Fifth Ark, you will have trouble with not having enough abilities, like not having all the elements on Fang or only Bravery/Faith on Lightning. You will also have the problem of not having more than one Ravager. That's fine. If you beat NCU, this challenge should present no problem. There is more good news if you didn't want to play NCU. There is no Chocobo farming, but instead most gil is gathered by killing Sacrifices. This has two benefits, one being that you amass CP at the same time, the other being that it is marginally less boring. If you hate farming, though, this probably isn't for you. {2} Using the Crystarium The biggest advantage you are going to have over an NCU game are the stat boosts. These obviously differ at each Crystarium level, but they are amazingly helpful. The final stats will be listed for each character by Crystarium level (7, 8, 9 and 10 in the post game) Lightning Level 7 *You shouldn't cap this before expanding. Hp: 1100 Strength: 144 Magic: 142 Level 8 Hp: 1275 Strength: 219 Magic: 180 Level 9 Hp: 2175 Strength: 237 Magic: 240 Level 10 Hp: 4375 Strength: 291 Magic: 285 Hope Level 7 *You shouldn't cap this before expanding. Hp: 1035 Strength: 124 Magic: 138 Level 8 Hp: 1185 Strength: 124 Magic: 178 Level 9 Hp: 1735 Strength: 164 Magic: 223 Level 10 Hp: 4135 Strength: 214 Magic: 273 Vanille Level 7 *You shouldn't cap this before expanding. Hp: 1335 Strength: 114 Magic: 141 Level 8 Hp: 1555 Strength: 113 Magic: 146 Level 9 Hp: 2285 Strength: 169 Magic: 206 Level 10 Hp: 4685 Strength: 159 Magic: 276 Sazh Level 7 *You shouldn't cap this before expanding. Hp: 1185 Strength: 118 Magic: 117 Level 8 Hp: 1360 Strength: 133 Magic: 132 Level 9 Hp: 2520 Strength: 171 Magic: 168 Level 10 Hp: 5020 Strength: 201 Magic: 210 Snow Level 7 *You shouldn't cap this before expanding. Hp: 1850 Strength: 158 Magic: 124 Level 8 Hp: 2230 Strength: 178 Magic: 137 Level 9 Hp: 3390 Strength: 208 Magic: 185 Level 10 Hp: 5400 Strength: 228 Magic: 242 Fang Level 7 *You shouldn't cap this before expanding. Hp: 1720 Strength: 166 Magic: 126 Level 8 Hp: 2115 Strength: 211 Magic: 161 Level 9 Hp: 2965 Strength: 261 Magic: 211 Level 10 Hp: 4165 Strength: 291 Magic: 241 {3} Preperation for The Fifth Ark ***Chapter 7*** We will be doing the farming for upgrades in the Estheim Residence in Chapter 7 because the enemies are easier and the drops are better. Your party is Lightning/Fang/Hope Paradigms: Rav/Com/Rav-Starting Com/Com/Rav Med/Com/Med Run through the house in circles, taking out the PSICOM Bombadier in the back and then the two gunners. You shouldn't even have to heal when you are strong enough. Your goal is to get 99 Phoenix Downs (from drops) 99 Potions 99 of every status curing item Tier One * Bladed Lance Tier One * Hawkeye Tier One * Edged Carbine Tier One * Belladonna Wand Tier One * Deneb Duellers Maxed Brawler's Wristband Maxed out Shaman's Mark # About 400K gil. This includes the money you get from selling all of the extra equipment you find. This will be used to buy things before the Barthandelus fight Maxed out Gold Bangle Upgrade the Gold Bangle to Mithril Bangle Maxed Titanium Bangle for Vanille Then upgrades before the fight with Raines Tier One * Pandoran Spear You will also need to get the two Doctor's Codes. ***Chapter 9*** You need to have about 100K CP before beating Barthandelus. That will buy you between 10 and 20 nodes. {4} The Fifth Ark Complete the one fight before you get the secondary roles. Now it's time to upgrade your Crystarium. Lightning Sentinel up through Elude (Berserkers and Raines) Saboteur as high as you can (Upping the stagger bar after you summon Odin) Hope Get Ruin, then go get Deprotega and Deshellga Vanile Everything into Commando (Ruin is the goal) Sazh It doesn't matter. We don't use him for a while. Snow Everything into Medic (Main medic due to Cura) Fang Everything into Ravager (I got up to Aero) Your main team is going to be Fang/Snow/Vanille Equip Fang with the Sorcerer's Mark, Snow with a bangle and Vanille with the highest Hp bangle you have (Mithril, preferably) Paradigms Rav/Med/Com Rav/Med/Com This is the beginning of the actual challenge. Just work your way through the Arc, fighting everything you can up to the berserkers. This will be the first really challenging fight. It is optional, though, so you could skip it if you don't feel you need the CP. ***Berserker and Centaurion Blade*** You won't need a sentinel for this one. So, your party becomes Hope/Fang/Snow Paradigms Sab/Rav/Med Com/Rav/Med Com/Rav/Med Just beat him to death after inflicting whatever debuffs you can, helping Snow heal as nescessary. You will get 5 stars at the end without shrouds, and then you can get the treasure chest. But the Rigels aren't necessary. Heck, you could skip both battles if you don't want to try them. Go through the Ark, busting the enemies as you go. It shouldn't take you very long. Eventually, you will reach huge parties of enemies that are impossible to take out without summons. Ignore them, or Deceptisol your way by them. This also applies to the King Behemoths, though you could beat them. It takes about 15 minutes for 400 CP. Not a good deal. Eventually, you get to the end of the road where Cid Raines in waiting for you ***Cid Raines*** Odin is going to finish this guy off, so Lightning will be your leader and you will want Fang and Hope as backup. Start with both Fortisol and Aegisol Paradigms Sab/Rav/Com Sen/Rav/Com Sen/Rav/Com Put whatever debuffs you have onto Cid, then switch into Sentinel. You Provoke him, then just sit there and use potions to heal. Very simple. Eventually, Cid will grow wings and do an attack called Seraphic Ray, which you should try to Eidolon cancel. HE SHOULD NOT HAVE STAGGERED AT THIS POINT As a Sab, use the abilities tab and just keep spamming debuffs until the Gestalt bar is full. Then attack with Up+X until Zantetsuken is the only option or the stagger bar is almost gone. He should suffer instant death. Alright! Crystarium Level Up! Not that we've gotten this level maxed out, but just be happy that it's there. After this, ride down the elevator, and out to the tunnel like area. There will be a series of battles ahead. Out of the 5, you can fight 3. The Berserker is easily beatable as earlier, and the two Cryohedron fights are easy if you can Paradigm cancel. They're good for CP, which you will need. Oh, and grab the Feymark for Snow. It's going to be his main weapon, and you WILL use Snow for a lot of the last part of the game. You will take another elevator down, and the fight on it is rather difficult. You CAN do it, but it will consume about 10 phoenix downs and is only around 600 CP. So, use a Deceptisol and hide next to the console. Go into the next room, take on the Berserker if you want, and then move on to the next series of corridors. Kill the first pack, Deceptisol past the other two, and then move onto the next room with two Berserkers. Kill them if you want, and prepare for the Bahamut fight. ***Bahamut*** He hits hard and fast, so you need a Sentinel. Lightning will be playing this role. Obviously, you play the only medic, but Potions are faster and more effective. Put the Doctor's Code on Fang and the highest bangle available on Lightning. Put the next highest one on Vanille. Use a Fortisol and Aegisol before starting Paradigms Rav/Sen/Com Rav/Sen/Com Just paradigm cancel and have at him. It will only take about 3 minutes. Use potions after every Umbral Vice and try to stay on the ground as much as possible. Avoid Whirlwind by switching Paradigms often, and the same applies to Ignis/Inferno. Skip the cutscenes, and WE'RE ON GRAN PULSE! SUCCESS! {5} Getting the Hang of Things The fight with Alexander is a pain, so you NEED to get 21,000 CP. Hope having the Sentinel role will be essential. Also, give Fang Cure. This will help a little bit. I recommend using Fang/Vanille/Snow Rav/Com/Med Rav/Com/Med Simple enough. Most of these enemies are weak to Fire and/or Blizzard. It's just a matter of repeated casting. The Flans might be a bit much, but if you get one fast enough you can get the pair. Summoning is a viable option to take out the Dire Flan in the center of a field, next to a chest with the Partisan. You should grab it if you can. Once you have the CP, go and trigger the event. ***Alexander*** Alexander hits like a truck and hits often. At 800 damage a hit, you NEED a sentinel. Otherwise, you're going to die. Repeatedly. Use a Fortisol and Aegisol to start Hope/Lightning/Fang Com/Sen/Rav Com/Sen/Rav Sen/Sen/Med Com/Sen/Med Sab/Sen/Rav Sab/Sen/Rav Start in 1, blast off one attack round, then switch to 3. Chuck a potion, then switch to 4. Use another potion after you launch an attack chain, then switch back to 1. Do this as many times as necessary, and use 5 if Fang dies JUST before the Gestalt bar hits full. {6} Mission Time! Note: There are going to be a lot of requests for you to summon. You can regen the TP by fighting the Imps in the lower part of the Archylte Steppe. It takes about 45 minutes, though. ***Mission 1*** Party of Fang/Vanille/Snow Rav/Com/Med Rav/Com/Med Get a Preemptive strike, and just ATB cancel until you have him. He's weak to Thunder, so use that. ***Mission 2*** Party of Hope/Vanille/Snow Sab/Com/Med Com/Com/Med Com/Com/Med Get a Preemptive strike, and then summon. There are too many to fight normally. ***Mission 3*** Party of Lightning/Fang/Hope Sab/Rav/Com Sab/Rav/Com Get a preemptive strike, and use both shrouds. You can't beat him in one stagger, but the first one will take off over half of his HP. Put Deshell on, heal with potions, and beat him to death. Simple enough. ***Mission 4*** Party of Fang/Whoever/Whoever Med/???/??? Rav/???/??? Get a preemptive strike and summon. Bahamut will kill them all. If, by some miracle, one survives, you can get it with whatever you want. But do it fast before it summons a buddy. ***Mission 5*** Party of Fang/Hope/Vanille Rav/Sab/Com Rav/Com/Com Rav/Com/Com Use both a Deceptisol and Fortisol before starting. Your goal is to get Deshell to hit within 3 attack rounds. Then, ATB cancel between the other 2. He dies in the first stagger. ***Mission 6*** Party of Fang/Hope/Vanille Rav/Sab/Com Rav/Com/Com Rav/Com/Com Walk in, summon, kill the four midgets, wait until Deshell hits, then use 2 and 3 to kill him. Use potions to heal. It should take only about 5 minutes. ***Mission 7*** Party of Fang/Lightning/Hope Rav/Sab/Com Rav/Sab/Com Rav/Sen/Com Rav/Sen/Com Med/Sen/Sen Med/Sen/Com Use both shrouds before starting. They will be a big help. Wait until Lightning puts Deshell on him, then, switch to 3 and ATB cancel between it and 4. Summon when you get too low on health to recover. Take him down with a summon. ***Mission 8*** Party of Fang/Lightning/Hope Rav/Sab/Com Rav/Sab/Com Rav/Sen/Com Rav/Sen/Com Med/Sen/Sen Med/Sen/Com Start the battle and summon. This will take out the Flans and leave the actual mark down at half health. Use 1 and 2 to kill him, and 6 to heal. Piece of cake. ***Mission 9*** Party of Lightning/???/??? Sab/???/??? It's a really simple battle. Just spam debuffs, stagger him, Summon Odin, and eventually Zantetsuken him to death. Takes about 45 seconds. ***Mission 10*** Party of Lightning/???/??? Sab/???/??? Again, debuffs on, stagger, summon and kill. Easy. My battle time was 1 minute. ***Mission 11*** Party of Lightning/???/??? Sab/???/??? And, yet again, summon, debuff and then go gestalt. They will all die. Use the O attack to hit them all. ***Mission 12*** Party of Lightning/Fang/Hope Sab/Rav/Com Sab/Rav/Com Syn/Med/Com Sab/Med/Com Sen/Rav/Com Sen/Med/Sen YOU NEED ENTHUNDER. He's weak to every element, and it more that doubles your damage output. This is the hardest fight yet. He summons a fist every 90 seconds, and then hits you with it in 15. You need to kill it as soon as it's summoned or it will kill you even in Sen/Med/Sen with protect. You will need to Sen/Med/Sen all of his other attacks. Put Faith/Enthunder on as soon as you revive someone. Keep reinflicting debuffs on him to increase the stagger bar, and take him out. I finished at 5:11, right after the shrouds wore off. Those last 11 seconds he was staggered, though, so he didn't get a chance to hit me. ***Mission 13*** Party of Fang/Lightning/Hope Rav/Sen/Com Rav/Sen/Com Med/Sen/Com Med/Sen/Com Rav/Sab/Sen Med/Syn/Sen Start in 6, get Faith on Hope and Fang, and switch to 5. Get Deshell on one of the little ones, and then go 1/2 to kill it. Use 3/4 to heal. Debuff the next one and then kill it. Take out the big guy last. ***Mission 14*** Party of Fang/Snow/Hope Rav/Med/Com Rav/Sab/Com Rav/Sab/Com Rav/Med/Sen Summon as soon as the Sahagins charge Fang. Use Fire and Flamestrike on them to raise the Stagger Bar, and go into Gestalt when the Sahagins charge Fang again. Fly around and use -->+X to do optimum damage. Megaflare should kill both frogs and one of the Sahagins, leaving the other with around 12,000 Hp. You can take it out in the obvious manner. NOTE: We now have access to Chocobos. I'm out of gil at this point, and I don't have access to Raise. I had to Chocobo farm for a while to get money for Phoenix Downs. If you don't need to, then don't. NOTE 2: I don't feel like doing any more missions. Mission 17 is the waypoint near the entrance to the mines, so I'll do that one. Otherwise, I'm moving on with the story. It's just been a long time running around on Pulse. ***Mission 17*** Party of Lightning/Fang/Hope Sab/Rav/Com Sab/Rav/Com Syn/Rav/Com Sen/Med/Sen Sab/Med/Com Deceptisol Preemptive strike him. It helps a bit, but isn't a necessity. After every stagger, he does a huge attack that does about 1100 damage. In my game, it killed both Fang and Hope. I revived them and then staggered again, staggered him again, revived them and then revived. Eventually, he died. Faith helps the damage output. Crystarium Check Lightning Hp: 595 Strength: 72 Magic: 66 With Edged Carbine * Strength: 155 Magic: 236 ABILITIES Evade Provoke Elude Deprotect Deshell Imperil Bravery Faith Enthunder Fang Hp: 940 Strength: 122 Magic: 87 With Partisan * Strength: 153 Magic: 276 With Bladed Lance * Strength: 252 Magic: 172 ABILITIES Fire Blizzard Thunder Water Aero Flamestrike Froststrike Sparkstrike Aquastrike Veil Cure Hope Hp: 565 Strength: 64 Magic: 73 With Hawkeye * Strength: 91 Magic: 266 ABILITIES Faultsiphon Attack Blitz Ruin Evade Provoke Deprotega Deshellga Sazh Hp: 600 Strength: 51 Magic: 57 With Deneb Duellers Strength: 159 Magic: 306 ABILITIES Cure Esuna Vanille Hp: 605 Strength: 50 Magic: 67 With Pearlwing Staff * Strength: 77 Magic: 207 ABILITIES Jeopardize Faultsiphon Blindside Attack Ruin Snow Hp: 1130 Strength: 94 Magic: 70 With Feymark Level 5 (I only use Snow as a Medic) Strength: 94 Magic: 120 ABILITIES Pain Curse Protect Cure Cura Esuna {7} Mah'habara Subterra Party of Lightning/Fang/Hope Sab/Rav/Com Sab/Rav/Com Syn/Rav/Com Syn/Rav/Com Sen/Med/Com Sen/Med/Sen You should be strong enough to kill the packs of robots in your path, as well as the Cryohedrons. Go around the Boxed Phalanx, and WE HAVE SUPERCONDUCTORS! Excellent. The four bombs up ahead are difficult to take out, but the single robot is easy if you get a Preemptive Strike. Take out the Rust Puddings ahead, and move on to the main platform. Don't activate the mission, because we have no way to beat it. Just grab the treasure, and bypass the next Boxed Phalanx thing. Beat up the lame little Rust Pudding, and go down the tunnel. Grab the Saint's Armlet, equip Vanille with the highest Hp bangle you have, and run into the center of the open part. End the cutscene, start the battle and select retry. Now, you can set the Paradigms for Secondary Roles only. ***Hecatoncheir*** NOTE: I had to upgrade a Diamond Bangle to * level for Vanille to get through this fight. It made things much easier, but you could just level up to get the same Hp. Party of Vanille/Fang Com/Rav Com/Rav Com/Med Com/Med Use both shrouds before starting. When he is at 139.8% stagger,switch to 3. Use that to survive the attack chains, and use potions to supplement Fang's cures. Switch back to 1 and continue ATB cancelling for a while. From here on out, you'll need to just ATB cancel whenever you can for healing and for Chain Guage increasing. The amount you get per Looming Wrath will be random, but I finished with about 280% stagger, and about 350 on the doom timer. Re-equip the main party and head down the tunnel. Ignore the fighting Flans and mechanical thing, then engage the two bombs with the Centurion. Grab the Ice Charm and continue on. Run past the two battles in your path, and skip the Juggernaut. You can't beat him. Run past the next two battles, grab both chests for some spare components, and then beat up the Hoplites. Obviously, skip the next battle and watch the cut scene. Board Atomos and enjoy the awesome music. {8} Sulyya Springs It's hardly worth mentioning, but there is some stuff to do here. I love this area. It just looks so peaceful. Except for all the toads. Anyway, all of the toad packs can kill you, so don't fight any of them. I triggered the Bismark event so I could reach more of the treasure, and just because it looks so darn cool. You can't beat any of the mobs yet, but we'll come back at a later date. Just make sure the ledges go up, as you can't do that later. Grab the 4 chests that don't require fighting and then move on. Pick up all the chests along the way and eventually you'll be out of this area. {9} Taejin's Tower The first thing we're going to do is Mission 20. Kill the two wolves on the way to the mark, as they give good CP. ***Mission 20*** Pary of Hope/Lightning/Fang Com/Sab/Rav Com/Sab/Rav Sab/Syn/Rav Com/Sab/Rav Com/Sen/Rav Com/Sen/Med We're using Hope because of Deshellga and Deprotega. Start the battle by casting both, stagger everything and summon. Rain death on the Goblins with Alexander, and eventually the Gestalt will run out. For me, it killed both the Munchkin, the Munchkin Maestro and took off 3/4 of everything else's Hp. Use 5 and 6 to kill everything else off in safety. Grab the chest in the corner and head up the path. The two wolves are too much, so skip them and head into the tower. Take out the two single wolves, grab the chests, and go up the elevator. NOTE: My guide for Taejin's Tower is going to be very in-depth, as I'm going to unlock Mission 27 and explain what battles you can and can't beat. Also, I'm going to try and avoid using shrouds on the missions. If you have extras, feel free to use them and therefore skip the buffing step. Run forward, trigger the cutscene and go through the newly formed hole in the wall. Activate the statue and then run to the right, dodging the pack of robots. Take out the wolf in the tunnel, and then get ready to fight the first mission. ***Mission 21*** Snow should have both Fog and Pain by this time. Party of Snow/Hope/Fang Sab/Com/Rav Sab/Com/Rav Med/Sen/Med Med/Com/Rav Sab/Sen/Med Use a Deceptisol for a Preemptive Strike and inflict Fog/Pain. He can't attack, and sits there like the dessert he is named for as you hit him. It takes 3 staggers to kill him, though, so you may need to tank for a while as you reapply the debuffs between staggers. I had no deaths with this method. ***Mission 22*** Hey, look! Another mark vulnerable to Fog and Pain! And he won't summon when under its effects! So, we're going to cripple him. Party of Snow/Hope/Fang Sab/Com/Rav Sab/Com/Rav Med/Com/Med Syn/Sab/Syn Med/Com/Rav Med/Com/Rav Really, you'll only need to use the first two and the last 2, but if you want buffs you can get them this way. Put Fog and Pain on Ambling Bellows and then kill of the Cryptos. Spam daze if you have it, then proceed to watch Hope and Fang beat him to death. It takes about 4:45. Activate the statue in this room, and run to the next mark. ***Mission 23*** This one isn't vulnerable to Pain and Fog, so we have to kill it the normal way. Party of Snow/Hope/Fang Sab/Com/Rav Sab/Com/Rav Med/Com/Med Syn/Sab/Syn Med/Com/Rav Med/Com/Rav You only need to use only 1,2,5 and 6. And I hope you have a way to make Snow have over 2000 Hp. He does a lightning breath attack which took off 2000 of Fang's 2050 Hp. Fortunately, he'll only have to do one of these if you have daze. Get a Preemptive Strike to start, and then take off as much as his Hp as you can spamming Daze and ATB canceling. Then, use 5 and 6 to re-stagger him. It's not hard, jsut heal as needed and again use ATB cancels to speed up the process. Run out into the hallway, to the left, up the stairs and get to the statue. Go up the elevator, to the left, and up the elevator to the fifth floor. Activate Mission 24, and proceed across the next 5 feet to the mark. ***Mission 24*** His henchmen buff him, then he does 1200 damage. Yeah. Not fun. So, we're going to summon. Party of Fang/Hope/Snow Rav/Com/Sab Rav/Com/Sab Med/Com/Med Rav/Sab/Syn Rav/Com/Med Summon using 1, kill the main mark off, and then use 1 and 2 to finish off his henchmen. You can redo this mission for cash if you want. Go to the objective elevator, and head up after killing the flying things for some more CP. You're going to need it. Get Mission 25 to activate, and then go to the Vetala. ***Mission 25*** Poison is good. Cheap, but good. Party of Lightning/Hope/Fang Sab/Com/Rav Sab/Com/Rav Sen/Com/Med Sen/Com/Rav Syn/Com/Med Sen/Sen/Med Put poison on him, switch to 6 and wait it out. It's that easy. Summon when Fang can't keep up with the damage output. He'll go down in about 4:30. I hate the next mission. Activate the stone, go to the mark, and get 3 TP along the way. ***Mission 26*** I REALLY hate this bat. And he has 4 henchmen. Grr. Party of Fang/Hope/Snow Rav/Com/Med Rav/Com/Med Med/Sen/Med Med/Com/Med Med/Com/Syn Med/Com/Syn Start in 1, summon, and kill all of the henchmen. It'll take the main boss down to 50K Hp. Switch to 5, get shell up on everyone and then go back to 1. Use 3 to block Aeroga and 4 to heal afterwards. Use 1 and 2 to kill him. It's still pretty hard, and a bit luck based. He can decide to just beat you to death and there's nothing you can do about it. Go to the lower floor, activate the statue and the elevator is working! Thank goodness. Go to the sixth floor, run to the next elevator, and go to the Apex. ***Dahaka*** YOU NEED ENWATER FOR THIS FIGHT. DON'T EVEN BOTHER TRYING WITHOUT IT. This guy cheats. He cheats SO MUCH it's not even funny. You need to upgrade some weapons for this fight to even stand a chance. Give Hope a *ed Eagletalon, and Fang a Rhomphala with as many UCRs as you can. I only put in one and it worked. You can acquire this gil pretty easily by getting the 20 treasures for the Ribbon in Chocobo Farming. Still, I got really lucky on my victory. After the shrouds wear off, you can (and will) be killed by Fulminous Firestorm, Aeroga and Foul Utterance. I only saw Bonechilling Breaker once in my half a dozen fights, and it didn't kill me. But I guess it could, theoretically. The response to these attacks? Use Sentinels and hope you survive. I got lucky and survived with under 50 HP after each of these. You can dodge Foul Utterance if you're lucky, but the others will always hit. I had a battle time of 10:03. Pary of Lightning/Hope/Fang Sab/Com/Rav Sab/Com/Rav Sen/Sen/Med Syn/Com/Rav Syn/Com/Rav Sab/Com/Med Start with Aegisol and Fortisol. And have enough TP for a summon. Use a Librascope, and then spam Imperil until it sticks. Switch to 4 and put Enwater on Hope and Fang. Switch back to 1 and ATB cancel between it and 2. He'll stagger, and you'll keep hitting him. If he gets off a Fulminous Firestorm, just heal with potions and stay in 1. He'll get up when the stagger is almost over, and begin pummeling you with tier 1 spell. You should use potions and let Fang attack. Eventually the stagger will end, and the hard part of the battle will begin. He's going to use Diluvial Plague soon. You need to Eidolon Cancel it. That way, you'll keep Haste and you can get the stagger bar to full before you go into Gestalt mode. You're not going to kill him with Zantetsuken, but you should do as much damage as possible. Every little bit helps, right? Now comes the luck based part. Yeah it seems kind of stupid, but this guide is written without excessive chocobo farming or CP farming. That means you have low Hp. Lightning had 1940 with a *ed Diamond Bangle in my game, and was barely surviving the major attacks. Switch to 3 any time you seen the camera zoom in on his head and the text box appear. Hope you dodge Foul Utterance, as it does 1800+ damage and inflicts debuffs. Hope that Diluvial Plague kills Hope and Fang, and doesn't put Slow on you. Hope that after Diluvial Plague, he's close to a stagger, as in a minute he's going to use Fulminous Firestorm. And with or without the debuffs, that's lethal about 99% of the time. Heal with potions and attack with 1/2. Use 4/5 to give Faith to both Hope and Fang, and if the screen isn't green then add a working En- spell. Keep inflicting Debuffs, and he'll go down. My battle time was 10:03. Activate the statue on top of the tower, go down the elevator is activates, and active the statue on floor 7. This makes the entire tower accessible from the central elevator. Very useful for backtracking and necessary for a mission we can't beat yet. Mission 27 is now unlocked, as is the ability to quickly repeat Mission 24 for cash, but you aren't strong enough to do either. Just wait. Ride the chute thing down to the snowy slope, brawl through the Taxims and Vampires, and you have reached... {10} Oerba I love the music here... First, active the Mission 28 Cieth Stone. Then go up and see Bhakti. This opens a sidequest, and you're going to do it for some components. Fight the Vetala in the house using the same strategy as earlier, and then use Alexander to kill the big party in the center of the map. Kill the two guys by the treasure sphere, and the one along the way to the next Vetala. He should drop the third part. Take out the second Vetala in the house with the bats, and then go up the stairs to the last treasure. There's no guard on this one. Keep going, use a Deceptisol to kill the 2x Seeker and 2x flying things party, and take out the Vetala guarding the Taming Pole. It might be useful later. Go back and fix Bhakti up. Sell the junk he gives you, and then use it for some upgrades. We're going to make (if you haven't already) 3x Diamond Bangle * Eagletalon * Edged Carbine * Rhomphala * This should be enough gil. If not, sell some accessories. You won't need most of them, but save one of the Collector's and Connoisseurs' Catalogs. We're going to go drop hunting for Perfumes later. Now, it's time for a stats check before Barthandelus 2. Lightning/Hope/Fang (one accessory each, a *ed Diamond Bangle) Paradigms Sab/Com/Rav Sab/Com/Med Sen/Com/Med Sen/Com/Med Sen/Sen/Med Syn/Com/Med Lightning (Sab/Syn/Sen) Razor Carbine 1990 Hp 321 Strength 582 Magic Abilities Evade Counter Provoke Elude Deprotect Deshell Imperil Poison Deprotega Bravery Faith Enfire Enwater Enthunder Hope (Com/Sen/Sab) Eagletalon 228 Strength 619 Magic Faultsiphon Lifesiphon Ravage Scourge Attack Blitz Ruin Evade Provoke Entrench (grrr) Elude Jinx Deprotega Deshellga Cursega Dispel Fang (Rav/Syn/Med) Rhomphala 2500 Hp 296 Strength 598 Magic Fire Fira Blizzard Blizzara Thunder Thundara Water Watera Aero Flamestrike Froststrike Sparkstrike Aquastrike Bravera Faithra Protectra Veil Cure Esuna If you're missing a bunch of this, or your Hp is too low, you might not be able to get past this battle. ***Barthandelus 2*** Party of Lightning/Hope/Fang Sab/Com/Rav Sab/Com/Rav Sen/Sen/Med Syn/Com/Syn Sab/Com/Med Sab/Com/Med Use a Fortisol/Aegisol to start, and have 5 Tp. It's a standard stagger and kill fight. He cheats, though. He cheats all the time. Apotosis is a cheap trick that removes all your buffs, and the debuffs on him, AND ends his stagger, but doesn't remove the debuffs on you. The first one you summon cancel, and the rest you use Elude to try and dodge. I got lucky and he never hit Lightning with it, but that's purely coincidence. After you are hit with Apotosis, go ahead and switch to 4 to at least put up Faith/Protect/Haste/Shell. This will keep you alive for much longer. During the first phase (before the summon canceled Apoptosis) you can use 1 and 2 to raise the stagger bar, then 5 and 6 right before he staggers to heal up. Obviously, use 1 and 2 during the stagger, and just keep healing with potions. He'll probably cheat and end his stagger early with Apoptosis, but you summon through it and have Odin help you take off another HUGE chunk of his Hp. Then, just use 5 and 6 to cause as much damage as you can, using 3 to survive Destrudo. If you lose Hope, then chuck a Phoenix Down while in 5 or 6, have Fang heal him, then use 4 to buff him again. If he staggers, you can get away with using 1 and 2 because he'll flinch and not attack when you hit him. This is risky, though. Eventually, he'll cast Doom. Summon Odin again and Zantetsuken him to death. Blah blah blah, another cutscene and YAY! The Crystarium expanded! Guess you know what that means. Go back to Taejin's Tower and start training again. You really only need to get through two of the roles, but you can do all three if you would like. The extra Hp and little bit of Magic will help immensely against the next boss, who we will be killing very slowly. You can summon through Mission 24 at the beginning, but it's not very fast and it takes a while to get the Tp back. If you need the cash or want it, more power to you then. But I didn't bother until I got to where I could kill him without a summon. This was about when I maxed the second role. Ruinga is a huge help against the large packs of enemies, so Hope is better than Vanille (again). Sazh, Vanille and Snow are really just sitting around for now, so level them up however. Fang should get Raise ASAP, and then she can do whatever. Lightning should do her Sab role, then Syn then Sen. Hope should get Ruinga and then whatever. Just make sure you don't put points into the wrong roles, or you have to reset. And that can be annoying if you haven't saved in over an hour. Just words of wisdom. Upgrade wise, the cash you get is used to make Vanille a Tier 2 weapon, and a Sorcerer's Mark for Fang as she doesn't need a Diamond Bangle to survive. If you want to get the Sorcerer's Mark up to the next level, you can. But I would save it for Adamantium. So, get those and we'll farm some more later. Kind of a shame that we have to almost max the CP now to survive, but it's safest this way. Theoretically, you can beat the first boss back on Pulse with less Hp, but this is the best way. Seriously. Just do it, and remember that NCU is way longer and way more boring. {11} Back to Cocoon Just start brawling your way through the next few screens. You might as well grab the Lionheart and gil as you're going. All of these fights are pretty easy; just use a sentinel for the large parties of enemies. The first challenging fight will be the Behemoth King. ***Behemoth King*** Party of Lightning/Hope/Fang Sab/Com/Rav Sab/Com/Rav Sen/Com/Med Sen/Com/Med Use a Fortisol and Aegisol to start This battle requires a bit of luck. He heals after hitting half health, but you won't need to until then. Try to put Deshell on him after the switch if at all possible. Use your own judgement to heal. It's not hard at all compared to some of the later battles. Fight the pack of two Orobons, Deceptisol your way past the next two packs of enemies, grab the treasure chest, and then kill the Amphisbaena. Remember when they were dangerous? Yeah. Time for a little revenge. Anyway, skip the next few battles, use a Deceptisol to fight the Proto-Behemoth, and grab the treasure chest. Then, it's time to prep for Proudclad. ***Proudclad*** Party of Vanille/Hope/Fang Com/Com/Med Com/Com/Med Syn/Com/Syn Syn/Com/Syn Sen/Com/Med Use a Fortisol and Aegisol to start, and obviously you need to equip Vanille with a Diamond Bangle. Use the first two for the first 5 minutes, then when the shrouds wear off use 3 and 4 to reapply Haste/Protectra/Shellra. It's not a hard fight, but it takes over 11 minutes to complete. And, we have another long battle to fight now. It's an Admanchelid. ***Admanchelid*** Party of Lightning/Hope/Fang Sab/Com/Rav Sab/Com/Rav Use a Fortisol and Aegisol to start. Start beating him up, then when you need to heal summon. Raise the chain gauge some more, then use Gestalt mode to finish him off. Zantetsuken works great for this. Just start running through the next few stages. Grab whatever chests you can, and recharge your TP as well as you can against the parties fighting each other. Eventually, you'll find a battle you have to fight. And it's much harder than any of those so far. However, it's still not unbeatable. ***Vernal Harvester vs. Tyrant*** Party of Vanille/Hope/Fang Com/Com/Rav Com/Com/Rav Damage them both at the same time, but finish the Tyrant first. The Vernal Harvester should have about 20,000 Hp left when you get to him, and he'll go down without a fight. Run through the next level until you reach the Admantoise. Don't get either of the treasures so that we can get both later. Grab the treasure chest in the next hallway, then begin the next sequence of dodging enemies. Kill the parties of Sacrifices with Painga and Fogga, and then you'll be at the boss fight. Unfortunately, we have another stretch of grinding ahead of us. Equip Fang with the Collector's Catalog that we saved before, and begin. You need 3 starred adamant bangles, 3 *ed Weirdling Glyphs, and set of *ed Canopus AMPs, which is going to take aa long time, so make yourself comfortable. Fight the two parties of one sacrifice next to the boss, then start the battle with him and retry to make them come back. Use Snow/Hope/Fang to kill them, and everything will go smoothly. ***Proudclad 2*** Party of Snow/Fang/Hope Snow is equipped with a *ed Soul Blazer and a *ed Adamant Bangle Fang is equipped with a *ed Rhomphala and a *ed Weirding Glyph Hope is equipped with a *ed Eagletalon and a *ed Adamant Bangle Sab/Rav/Com Sab/Rav/Com Syn/Med/Com Syn/Rav/Com Med/Rav/Com Med/Med/Sen Use a Fortisol and Aegisol to start This fight is 45 minutes long, so settle in for a while. He heals himself at half Hp, gets more dangerous, and takes more damage. This \means in the first phase, you can just go crazy and kill him as fast as possible. Stagger away, and just wail on him. Heal if you need to, obviously, and he'll enter phase 2 before 5 minutes have passed. Now it gets even more intense. You will have noticed he has two forms, an air form and a ground form. In the ground form, you need to stay in 6 at all times. This is because of Oneric Maelstrom. This attack does 2,000 damage without Protect, and he will just keep hitting with Muon Blaster after it. You do not want to die to that, and Fang will help heal as well as she can. If someone dies, wait until the air phase to revive them. Until Fang dies, use Cura to heal, but if she does then just Curasa yourself. Hope dying doesn't matter, but if you die it's game over. In the air form, use 3/4 depending on how much health you have to apply Haste/Protect/Faith to everyone. Then just stay n 5 and let Hope and Fang kill him. This fight will take a while, but is BY FAR the hardest fight in the game. When you finally see that the battle is over, pat yourself on the back. You've earned it. The next area is The Terresacts. You don't need any more Gil, and you should be at max CP already. This means we're going to skip the Sacrifices in this area, and move on. You can go back to Pulse now if you want, and start working on missions. I would wait, though, until the last level of the Crystarium unlocks. It just makes things so much easier. There are 4 or 5 more battles we NEED to do, and you should skip every optional fight. You don't really want any of the treasure around here, anyway, so run to the objective and just keep moving. ***Bandersnatch and Marmaduke*** Party of Snow/Fang/Hope Sab/Med/Com Sab/Med/Com Syn/Med/Com Syn/Med/Com Sab/Rav/Sab Med/Med/Sen Use a Fortisol and Aegisol to start This is a 20-minute fight. Start in 5, hit the small one a few times, switch to 1 and then ATB cancel between that and 2. When he staggers, summon. Use Shiva to kill it off, then work on the larger one. Use 4 and 5 to put up Haste/Protect/Shell/Vigilance/Faith on everyone when they wear off. It takes time, but you shouldn't lose. ***Immortal*** Party of Fang/Vanille/Hope Rav/Com/Com Rav/Com/Com Rav/Com/Sab Use a Fortisol, Aegisol, and Deceptisol to start Start in 3, use a Librascope as Hope inflicts Deshell, Stagger him, and then use 1/2 to kill it. If you are having trouble, give Vanille and/or Hope a Weirding Glyph. Have fun with this one, because this is easy and short. ***Wladisiaus*** Party of Snow/Fang/Lightning Sab/Rav/Sen Sab/Rav/Sen Med/Med/Sen Med/Med/Sen Use a Fortisol and Aegisol to start You'll finish this battle before the shrouds wear off, so don't worry about having a Synergist in your party. Just use 1/2 to deal damage, and 3/4 to heal your Sentinal. It's another easy fight. ***Tiamat Eliminator*** Party of Snow/Fang/Hope Sab/Rav/Com Sab/Rav/Com Sab/Med/Sab Sab/Med/Com Use a Fortisol and Aegisol to start He starts out in the air, but after you stagger him he switches. Do so using 1 and 2, using 3 to heal. When he gets on the ground, use 3 to inflict Slow/Deshell/Deprotect/Poison and finally Daze. Then just sit there. Poison will kill him, he won't get a chance to attack, and you can go make a sandwich or something. {13} The Final Battle Enter the portal, and you will be teleported to Orphan's Cradle. We're at the last three battles of the game, and it's time to set up the party. Make sure you have 5 TP, equip Fang with a Weirding Glyph and Sazh/Hope with an Adamant Bangle. *** Barthandelus 3*** Party of Sazh/Fang/Hope Med/Rav/Com Med/Rav/Com Med/Med/Com Sab/Med/Sab Med/Syn/Com Sen/Med/Sen Use a Fortisol and Aegisol to start. This is the hardest, closest fight so far. You MUST be aggressive, or else Doom will get you. He has 3 main attacks, Thatsodonian Laughter (which will never kill you, it does percentage based damage), Ultima (which does damage randomly, and must be tanked with 6 to avoid death) and his laser attack, which hits for about 500 damage. The first thing you need to do is chuck a Librascope, and go through putting up Deshell/Imperil/Deprotect/Slow. Slow is the one you want, but the AI won't cast it until Deprotect/Deshell stick. Give Hope a hand with that as needed throughout the fight. Cura is amazing here, because it will keep you alive far better than the auto-heal command. When tanking Ultima, do not use an attack and wait for the blast of lasers (4 of them at once) to hit Hope, who will have Provoked him. This helps with survival. After the first 5 minutes when the shrouds wear off, Fang needs to keep Haste, Protectra and Shellra up as much as possible. Haste is the most important, but right before the stagger it is good to put the other two up in order to make healing easier. When you see Thatsodonian Laughter, switch into 3. This will make recovery faster. Eventually, you will see the doom timer. Don't panic, he should be around 300,000 Hp at this time. Just raise the stagger for a while, summon around the 600 mark, and have Brynhildr kill him. Gestalt when the bar is full, and let it rip. And thus ends a 25 minute, extremely tough fight. The next fight is EASY, but you need to switch your party around. Start the battle, and immediately retry. Set up Lightning, Sazh and Snow all with Adamant Bangles. ***Orphan*** Party of Lightning/Sazh/Snow Sab/Med/Sab Sab/Med/Sab Syn/Med/Syn Syn/Med/Syn Sen/Med/Med Sen/Sen/Med Orphan is laughably easy. Poison him, then put up buffs. Let the AI heal you, and use Sen/Med/Med while just waiting. Or, go ahead and put up more debuffs. Just remember you need to reapply Poison 2-4 times throughout the battle. His most dangerous attack, I'm not joking here, is inflicting poison. If you took my advice and bought 99 Antidotes about 15 hours of ago, this is completely harmless. The only reason you could possibly die is a cheap instant death move you should only see once or twice. Orphan's second form is cheap. You can only really kill him if you get lucky in about 4 different areas. You need to hit Slow almost immediately after every stagger, you need him to NOT target your leader with Kaleidoscopic Ray, you need him to roll low on it if he DOES target your leader, and you need debuffs other than Deshellga to NOT stick so the AI keeps using them. I'm sorry to say this, but there IS no simple trick to it. Luck plays such a huge factor here that you will literally spend DAYS attempting to beat him. This is THE ONLY STRATEGY I COULD FIND that works, and it only does once in a blue moon. Here's how to do it for real. ***Orphan 2*** Party of Snow/Fang/Hope Sab/Rav/Sab Sab/Rav/Sab Med/Rav/Com Med/Rav/Com Syn/Rav/Sab Med/Med/Com Equip Fang, Snow and Hope with Weirdling glyphs. Start in 5, put up haste on you and Fang, chuck a Librascope, then put it on Hope. Switch between 1 and 2, using 6 to heal. IF he staggers use 3 and 4 to deal damage, but it won't happen often. And then just do it again. And AGAIN. It takes 3 staggers to kill this guy, and this is a HUGE pain. Good luck. And once he FINALLY goes down, enjoy the ending. These battles were tough, but get ready for an entirely new level of difficulty, when we tackle the missions yet to come. {14} Contact Information/More to come If there is anything glaringly wrong with the guide, please put up a topic on the message board with "ATTN: Ephemeral_Being" as the title. I'll see it, and credit you for the information. You could also just PM me. I'll get the missions up sooner rather than later. I just wanted to release this once I got done with the main bosses so that other people could try it. I hope everyone who has reached this point has enjoyed themselves. {15} Legal Information This guide was written by me, Ephemeral_Being (Nathaniel McConnell), with help from everyone at the NCU/NEU topic. Thanks to everyone. The original idea came from pj609, so thanks to him as well. This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. All trademarks contained in this document are owned by their trademark holders. Copyright 2011 Nathaniel McConnell