Final Fantasy XIII [PS3, X360]

[patsu]

Yeah, usually I try to the surprise them "pre-emptively" either with the stealth potion or quick maneuver.

But since I'm on Gran Pulse, I thought I should man up and face them head-on. The bosses have to be tougher than these behemoth kings right ?

Is there a way to tackle them face-to-face ? What level do I need to be ?

 

[ShadowRunner]

Yeah, usually I try to the surprise them "pre-emptively" either with the stealth potion or quick maneuver.

But since I'm on Gran Pulse, I thought I should man up and face them head-on. The bosses have to be tougher than these behemoth kings right ?

Is there a way to tackle them face-to-face ? What level do I need to be ?

You will be fighting them as a regular enemy later on next chapter, you are not supposed to be able to beat them head on at this point though. They give you so much CP because you are not supposed to be able to beat them easily or quikly head on. Using the way i posted though you can wipe the floor with them in under a minute for quik Manning Up

They seem to be designed for this quik leveling mind, its clearly a tactic they wanted people to figure out and use to progress to the next stage.

 

[patsu]

That felt like cheating.

Ok then, I shall start my first side quest. Haven't touched the

Spoiler

s'th stone

yet.

 

[ShadowRunner]

That felt like cheating.

Ok then, I shall start my first side quest. Haven't touched the

Spoiler

s'th stone

yet.

Did you manage to beat one?

They are clearly designed to be beat this way if you ask me, from the way they offer you a preemptive strike to the way they become an unbeatable if you dont finish them in one stagger.

This is the thing i love about FFXIII every enemy has a way to take it out swiftly with a five star rating but u may also have take the long slog or avoid if you havent figured out thier 'puzzle'

 

[patsu]

I beat all the Behemoths before this one using the stealth approach you suggested. As you mentioned, it's faster and I got tired of the endless fights.

Now that I'm in the wild, I thought I should go back to the toe-to-toe mode, but no dice. I agree with you the FFXIII combat designer probably backdoor'ed the Behemoths with pre-emptive strikes. Within a hit or two, you could stagger it. If you use Saboteur immediately after stagger, you can hit 25,000+ damages, and eliminate the threat quickly (15 seconds or so).

 

[scooby_dooby]

Funny when I look at your guys' setups, I'm wondering am I the only one using 3 ravagers at a time to quickly boost up the stagger bar?

My favourite sequence is one attack as Com-Rav-Rav, then 2 rounds as Rav-Rav-Rav, then switch back to a Com-x-x to recoup while keeping the stagger bar up.

 

[patsu]

Which Chapter or where in Cocoon/Pulse are you at now ?

 

[Rolf N]

Did you manage to beat one?

They are clearly designed to be beat this way if you ask me, from the way they offer you a preemptive strike to the way they become an unbeatable if you dont finish them in one stagger.

This is the thing i love about FFXIII every enemy has a way to take it out swiftly with a five star rating but u may also have take the long slog or avoid if you havent figured out thier 'puzzle'

There's a certain level of stats you have to have to pull this off though. When you can't do enough damage even with COM/RAV/COM to defeat an already staggered enemy, it really isn't a matter of approach anymore. The numbers just don't add up. Stats do matter in this game.

Of course the right setup gives you an edge, but that's only a few "levels" worth. The bottom line is, when you get there, barring excessive grinding in earlier chapters, you can't damage this thing fast enough to defeat it, and neither can you heal/absorb enough damage per turn to survive its last stand, where it starts spamming its "Sunder" move.

But lo and behold, a couple 100k points later, you're over the hump, and they fall easily, even if you mess up a little.

 

[Xalion]

You can still take the Behemoth kings straight up if you need too. I rarely kill them in a single stagger.

What I do when I know I wont be able to sneak up on one is this:

Spoiler

I generally run with Sahz, Fang, and Light for these. I start out alternating Syn/Sen/Com and Syn/Sen/Med until I am fully buffed. Don't worry about the stagger gage - not important right now anyway. Once I am fully buffed, then I alternate Rav/Sen/Rav (more on this in a second) and Rav/Sen/Med until I've filled the stagger bar.

The trick here is to not actually stagger the king until he transforms into his super form. This happens at around 50% life. You want to stagger him as soon after he transforms as you can though. As soon as I stagger him, I go Rav/Com/Rav. At this point, Fang will generally knock him back away from Light and Raz. Once he is sufficiently away, I go back to Rav/Sen/Rav and Rav/Sen/Med - alternating until he is dead.

This is why I mentioned I have a problem with Vanille earlier. Light will stay put as long as you don't make her a Com - meaning she will stay out of the range of the Behemoth Kings one-shot hit. That is why I go Rav/Sen/Rav instead of Rav/Sen/Com. Vanille will not stay back. She will creep up until she is right next to Fang and get herself killed every time. Sahz is best to go with because he will slowly back away from the fight. If you keep him as the leader, then you can use a pheonix down if you really want to and something goes badly with light. I tend to take the philosophy heal early and often when fighting these guys though.

This is a long fight when you do it this way. But for me it was the only way I could do them at first as I leveled Sahz as a Syn first and Light as a Med. So I didn't have the firepower necissary to drop them in one stagger. The same setup can be used for just about anything. Not really good for grinding as the fights take a long time, but it will kill just about anything.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Which Chapter or where in Cocoon/Pulse are you at now ?

Chap 10, so I still haven't reached the really hard guys.

 

[ShadowRunner]

I never grinded at all the whole way up to that point, i just killed everything i came across. The trick for me was using the SAB to cast deshell, that was key. Also you should be using strength enhancing accessories.

Stats do matter i agree but with the way the game is set up i cant see how much room there is to be underpowered at that point without skipping enemies. Though saying that not getting 5 stars gives slightly less CP so stretched across the whole game i could see that having an effect.

 

[ShadowRunner]

Funny when I look at your guys' setups, I'm wondering am I the only one using 3 ravagers at a time to quickly boost up the stagger bar?

My favourite sequence is one attack as Com-Rav-Rav, then 2 rounds as Rav-Rav-Rav, then switch back to a Com-x-x to recoup while keeping the stagger bar up.

For me its a matter of not wanting to waste a whole paradigm slot. For me COM-RAV-RAV is enough for chain boosting, i wouldnt want to use up the paradigm slot for a 33% boost in chain building for only two rounds when carrying on with COM-RAV-RAV for an extra round would have the same effect, for me COM-RAV-RAV has been enough to stagger most enemies in a couple rounds anyhow. Also it depends on characters, Fang is SAB/SEN/COM as her main roles.

 

[scooby_dooby]

For me its a matter of not wanting to waste a whole paradigm slot. For me COM-RAV-RAV is enough for chain boosting, i wouldnt want to use up the paradigm slot for a 33% boost in chain building for only two rounds when carrying on with COM-RAV-RAV for an extra round would have the same effect, for me COM-RAV-RAV has been enough to stagger most enemies in a couple rounds anyhow. Also it depends on characters, Fang is SAB/SEN/COM as her main roles.

What I've found is you only really need to hit them once with Commando, and you can go triple-ravager for a good 4-5 rounds in some cases.

Alot of times, I'll start off with a commando, and after he gets 2 hits, but before he can complete his turn, switch over to rav-rav-rav. This allows you to perform your second turn almost immediately. Alot of times this lets me stagger enemies in 2 turns instead of 3...

When fighting the greater bohemoths this is also pretty useful, using the three ravagers I can stagger him just around the same time he changes form and becomes much more powerful. If I don't do that, I have to deal with him changing form, and still having like 1/3 of the bar to go...

 

[Sigfried1977]

I beat all the Behemoths before this one using the stealth approach you suggested. As you mentioned, it's faster and I got tired of the endless fights.

Now that I'm in the wild, I thought I should go back to the toe-to-toe mode, but no dice. I agree with you the FFXIII combat designer probably backdoor'ed the Behemoths with pre-emptive strikes. Within a hit or two, you could stagger it. If you use Saboteur immediately after stagger, you can hit 25,000+ damages, and eliminate the threat quickly (15 seconds or so).

I'd just continue with the story path if I was you. There are some tough encounters in the mines, but nothing that would require grinding. Same with the encounters and the boss battle that comes after the mines. I think it's also the only way to activate the Pulse warp stones Plus, you get the final Eidolon (making Vanille more useful by adding another segment to her AT bar). Chances are that the final boss of Ch.11 is gonna own your ass, but once you reach him you should have built up a sufficient amount of cps to deal with some of the tougher enemies you met earlier on Pulse.

 

[patsu]

I want to say: Gran Pulse is what FFXIII should have been all along. It's great fun, like picnic'ing and trolling wild animals all the way.

A lot of great advices up there.

The trick for me was using the SAB to cast deshell, that was key

[size=-2]In some cases, it increased damages by 5 folds.[/size]

I'd just continue with the story path if I was you.

[size=-2]Yes ! You grind while the game continues to feed you story (at your own pace) and hand-picked monsters to level up[/size]

The trick here is to not actually stagger the king until he transforms into his super form. This happens at around 50% life.

Alot of times, I'll start off with a commando, and after he gets 2 hits, but before he can complete his turn, switch over to rav-rav-rav. This allows you to perform your second turn almost immediately.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Ya the game has been a bit of a frustrating experience, because I feel I'm playing the entire game just wanting to get to Grand Pulse..almost just going through the paces.

I thought it was near the halfway mark, according to some reviews, but that really doesn't seem to be the case. I'm already on Chap 10 and still have a whole other dungeon to crawl before I can FINALLY get to GP? Hopefully?

I kinda wish I hadn't heard all the hype about GP, probably would've let me enjoy the rest of the game a little more.

Regarding the story, it's definately redeemed itself. Though, there was a section around the middle that really began to drag...so bit of a love/hate thing going on, but overall I'm diggin it.

 

[nightshade]

I've heard that the number of chapters in FF13 are

Spoiler

13

& Grand Pulse doesn't starts off until 12. What I wanna know is the length of that chapter, if its just like previous chapters then it'll be a disappointment & a huge tease of what the game could've been. Should atleast have 10 hours to compensate for the linearity that the game throws for the earlier chapters.

 

[patsu]

Yeah, don't over-imagine Gran Pulse. It returns FFXIII back to the roots of exploration that's all. Kinda reminds me of FFVIII when I was hunting for Cactaur in some desert. I'll leave the details for you to discover. I was a little underwhelmed after the cutscene myself, but as I play more, the game begins to pick up.

nightshade, there are a tons of side missions in Gran Pulse. As you complete the quests, the story leads you further. The play area is huge too. According to Square-Enix, the length in Gran Pulse is similar to the entire length in Cocoon.

Can someone tell me about the

Spoiler

Cactuar

Doll ? I picked up 2, fought it 4 times. And then it kinda disappeared. What happened ? Do I need to do something extra ?

 

[ShadowRunner]

Pulse is what you make of it. Following the main storyline you are in the wide open area for a grand total of 10 mins unless you choose to go and do some sidemssions/hunts, if you choose not to an carry on the storyline you pass straight through and never have to go back. Once you do carry on with the storyline it turns straight back into the linear path like the rest of the game.

 

[patsu]

Gah... good thing I stopped for the monsters. There are also trigger points for cutscenes sprinkled in Gran Pulse though. They are shown on the map. Have encountered 2-3. Are there more later on ?