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[BadWolf]

Just to rant on the battle system a little...

Main thing is to understand and utilize the paradigm system properly. Have a whole bunch of paradigms with different combinations and for different situations. Have variation in jobs as well, that is the main thing. Do not sleep on Sentinels, huge help.

By the later half of the game I got a real comfortable set of paradigms and nothing was a problem until the

Spoiler

second last

boss fight. So with each retry (best addition to the series!) I kept adjusting my paradigms and doing better and better, eventually finding a killer combination that took him out no prob. Helped me take out the

Spoiler

final

boss in no time as well.

For leveling up I leveled up three jobs at once for each character, but no more beyond 3.

Lightning: Commander, Ravager, Medic
Hope: Ravager, Medic, Synergist
Fang: Sentinel, Sabatour, Commander

Difficulty-wise I think its the easiest FF, though easily one of the most fun.

The only thing I didn't like was the implementation of the summons which I found to be very useless, my characters did way more damage than Lightning's summon would do. Just saved up my TP for Renew and Libra.

 

[Clear]

Difficulty-wise I think its the easiest FF

LOL no way!

The battle system is annoyingly inflexible with a really harsh tipping point between easy win and instant death thanks to the leader dies=game over mechanic. I'm replaying chapter 9 atm, and I'm shocked at the number of times I've had to retry regular battles; frankly I find it more difficult than either of the Souls' games.

The net result of the various paradigms is also pretty counter-intuitive to the stated aims of the battle system; for example Tri-Disaster (3x RAV) is far more effective than you'd expect when compared to say Relentless Assault (2x RV 1xCOM) because of the way stagger maintenance works.

ATB Cancelling is an annnoyingly obtuse system, and I despise the fact that they need to add the aegisol/fortisol items as a crutch to give average players a decent chance at some of the tougher bosses.

I'm not saying its impossibly difficult, I have beaten every (extra) boss in the game on my previous playthrough, its just a slog, requiring lots of tweaking and micro-management ofd paradigms for far too long.

I'm actually thinking that the reason FFXIII-2 sales have been so far off par in Japan could be down to its predecessor's difficulty as much as anything else. It's pretty tough for a casual player.

 

[MoogleWizard]

OK, defeated Vanille's eidolon, and man was that some grade A garbage bullshit (just like all the other eidolon fights). I spent a few hours grinding before trying again, so I have a bunch of CP to spare. What roles should I spend them on for Lightning, Vanille and Fang? Generally I've used them as RAV/MED/COM respectively, so I might just use the points on those roles?

For the last third of the game, saboteurs and synergists are essential. Buffing and debuffing makes a huge difference and battles much faster. I would also suggest replacing Lightning with Hope, he's the best ravager/healer/synergist while Lightning is a jack of all trades, but doesn't excel anywhere, her medic skills in particular are the worst in the game.

Difficulty-wise I think its the easiest FF, though easily one of the most fun.

Um, what? I played every FF from IV to XIII-2 (except X-2 & XI) and XIII was the only one that had any kind of challenge to it, at least in later chapters. In every other game there was a way to completely break the battle system (junctions and Lionheart anyone?) and they had statistical difficulty - the key to killing enemies was having good stats so your difficulty was set before battle by the right equipment or grinding.

FFXIII is completely different, the battle system is designed in a way that stats mean very little, with the right strategy you can beat even the hardest optional fights without upgrading any gear or maxing out characters. Sure stats help, but they are in no where near as important as in the old games, it's all about strategy in XIII.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

For the last third of the game, Saboteurs and Synergists are essential. Buffing and debuffing makes a huge difference and battles much faster.

I've never really bothered spending much CP one those roles since they've been mostly useless so far in the game. I guess I should upgrade Fang as SAB and Vanille as SYN, or just use Hope as a SYN?

 

[MoogleWizard]

I've never really bothered spending much CP one those roles since they've been mostly useless so far in the game. I guess I should upgrade Fang as SAB and Vanille as SYN, or just use Hope as a SYN?

That was the reason you took so long with Vanille's eidolon then, IIRC debuffing was the fastest way to fill his gauge.
Fang & Vanille get the best synergist abilities in the game, but you need a lot of CP and IIRC all of them only get unlocked once you beat the game, so for the story I would keep maxing out the three main roles of the characters. Concentrate on COM/SEN for Fang, SAB/MED/RAV for Vanille and SYN/MED/RAV for Hope and you should be fine.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

That was the reason you took so long with Vanille's eidolon then, IIRC debuffing was the fastest way to fill his gauge.
Fang & Vanille get the best synergist abilities in the game, but you need a lot of CP and IIRC all of them only get unlocked once you beat the game, so for the story I would keep maxing out the three main roles of the characters. Concentrate on COM/SEN for Fang, SAB/MED/RAV for Vanille and SYN/MED/RAV for Hope and you should be fine.

Aight. What would you recommend for Lightning, should I just keep upgrading COM/RAV/MED for her?

 

[MoogleWizard]

Aight. What would you recommend for Lightning, should I just keep upgrading COM/RAV/MED for her?

Her medic skills are useless late game because she only gets the tier one spells, but the secondary roles need loads of CP, so you're probably better off focusing on her main roles. But like I said above I would replace her with Hope, late game battles will be a pain without a synergist (how can you bear the battle speed without haste?) and he's a much better character overall.

 

[Dark Schala]

Difficulty-wise I think its the easiest FF, though easily one of the most fun.

I don't think it's the easiest FF (FFIV vanilla is the easiest FF--and thus we got better balancing and augments in FFIV DS), but it's one of the easier ones for sure.

FF is in desperate need of difficulty options that are harder than Normal Mode, though. At least Tales has six difficulty modes. As a note, I did try NCU for Final Fantasy XIII when I started replaying the game via the English version, but it isn't fun at all. I never really liked artificially upping the difficulty like that in any game.

...I don't like CSB, so I didn't really think it was very fun until late-postgame.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

Her medic skills are useless late game because she only gets the tier one spells, but the secondary roles need loads of CP, so you're probably better off focusing on her main roles. But like I said above I would replace her with Hope, late game battles will be a pain without a synergist (how can you bear the battle speed without haste?) and he's a much better character overall.

Thanks. So COM/RAV for Lightning, COM/SAB/RAV for Fang, MED/SAB for Vanille and SYN/SAB/MED for Hope then? I'm kinda hesitant to use Hope though, since he, like Fang and Vanille, has a tendency to keel over and die as soon as an enemy looks at him, while Lightning is a fairly resilient character who can take a bit of a beating before dying.

Edit: Duh, just noticed you had already mentioned your recommended roles for the characters. I'll start working on it tomorrow.

 

[BadWolf]

This is so odd for me to hear, I avoided all talk of the game (to avoid spoilers) so went into the game knowing nothing, I only hit forums/topics after finishing it and thought the first thing ppl would mention is how easy it was. I'm usually really bad at RPGs too (just chugging along without much strategy).

I found the battle system in XIII to be extremely flexible and well thought out, it was all about setting the paradigms. I had all the allowable spots for paradigms filled and was using pretty much all 6 (or was it 7?) that were allowed at all times, constantly switching. The further I went the easier it got, was pretty much cruising until I had to rethink my paradigms for

Spoiler

Orphan, the second last boss

.

Aegisol/fortisol? What were those? The stuff that made it more difficult for enemies to see you so you can come behind them? Didn't bother with those, kept saving them up and just ended up not using them. The only items I used were Potion and Phoenix Down.

 

[Dark Schala]

Thanks. So COM/RAV for Lightning, COM/SAB/RAV for Fang, MED/SAB for Vanille and SYN/SAB/MED for Hope then? I'm kinda hesitant to use Hope though, since he, like Fang and Vanille, has a tendency to keel over and die as soon as an enemy looks at him, while Lightning is a fairly resilient character who can take a bit of a beating before dying.

Edit: Duh, just noticed you had already mentioned your recommended roles for the characters. I'll start working on it tomorrow.

If I could use a Hope/Fang/Vanille party when the game lets me choose my party, so can you. Equip him with some stuff that increases his P.Res and/or M.Res and give him a few HP+ accessories.

Seriously. Hope was my party leader for the rest of the maingame. I kicked Lightning out of the party the first chance I got. I didn't even start using her liberally until I started taking down Guis with her, Fang and Sazh. I ended up kicking Hope out during missions in favour of Sazh or Snow, actually... Sazh moreso for his RIC thing.

Um. Add RAV for Vanille because she's really good at that.

For Hope, just stick to his base roles: RAV/MED/SYN. You don't really need the extra roles for him just yet.

For Fang... well...Com/Sab/Sen. I'd recommend starting on her Rav to get her a few -strike moves, or her Syn to get her a few -ra buffs. She's actually one of the most well-rounded characters in the game, imo. I even really like her as a Med.

 

[Clear]

Maybe its just chapter 10. But to be honest it was only the knowledge that the game gets a lot better after this hump that's kept me playing tonight.

Its all very impressive looking, and I really can't complain about the numerous save points, but that section really dragged on for far too long.

 

[BadWolf]

Its all very impressive looking, and I really can't complain about the numerous save points, but that section really dragged on for far too long.

The game is beautiful, especially the character models, very CG quality imo. THe backgrounds as well, I often just stood there turning the camera around and taking in the goodness, usually don't bother with taking pictures in games but really wanted a snapshot feature for this one

Spoiler

Vanille and Fang's home town was so nice, and the parts back on Cocoon in the next chapter after were just holy shit, my jaw hit the floor

.

On a side note, made the mistake of starting Assassins Creed 2 today after XIII and damn it looks butt ugly in comparison lol (those character models, faces and animation, colors, yuck).

 

[Bladenic]

For the main game, I'd say that the best characters to use are
Lightning > Fang > Hope > Vanille > Sazh > Snow

By the time everyone is maxed, etc. I'd say:

Fang (the best character, undoubtedly) > Lightning > Vanille > Hope > Sazh > Snow

Snow just plain sucks, poor guy. Sazh sucks at first glance but has situational uses. Hope isn't great because his secondary roles suck. Vanille is great as a SYN. Lightning, despite faltering, still rocks due to her diversity. Fang is just the best character, bar none.

 

[itzknickknac]

LOL no way!

The battle system is annoyingly inflexible with a really harsh tipping point between easy win and instant death thanks to the leader dies=game over mechanic. I'm replaying chapter 9 atm, and I'm shocked at the number of times I've had to retry regular battles; frankly I find it more difficult than either of the Souls' games.

The net result of the various paradigms is also pretty counter-intuitive to the stated aims of the battle system; for example Tri-Disaster (3x RAV) is far more effective than you'd expect when compared to say Relentless Assault (2x RV 1xCOM) because of the way stagger maintenance works.

ATB Cancelling is an annnoyingly obtuse system, and I despise the fact that they need to add the aegisol/fortisol items as a crutch to give average players a decent chance at some of the tougher bosses.

I'm not saying its impossibly difficult, I have beaten every (extra) boss in the game on my previous playthrough, its just a slog, requiring lots of tweaking and micro-management ofd paradigms for far too long.

I'm actually thinking that the reason FFXIII-2 sales have been so far off par in Japan could be down to its predecessor's difficulty as much as anything else. It's pretty tough for a casual player.

From my experience, while I agree that some of the regular battles are easy, most of the (tougher) battles come from strategy. If you have the right paradigm sets and use them at the correct moment, then the battle is yours. Eidolons can be easy when you know when to use what paradigm when in battle; all Eidolons have a certain attack pattern. I will admit though, all the Barthandelus fights are plain annoying, however, he DOES have an attack pattern as well.. except his battles take forever to finish.

Aight. What would you recommend for Lightning, should I just keep upgrading COM/RAV/MED for her?

I recently just beat this game on my 2nd playthrough and from my experience, I'd focus primarily on RAV and COM, and if you have extra CP, then MED too. The only thing you really need (early on) is Cure. Lightning is most flexible and balanced between RAV and COM.

My team was and has always been Fang, Light, Hope
Fang as main COM/SENT
Light as man RAV, backup COM, and secondary MED
Hope as main MED/SYN and secondary RAV

My main (and general) paradigm set was
COM COM RAV
COM RAV RAV -> (startup paradigm)
COM RAV MED
*RAV RAV RAV
SAB (MED or COM) SYN
SENT MED MED

*- During main story, I never leveled up other classes except the main starters.
So, I used SENT COM RAV
Rather than RAV RAV RAV

 

[KorrZ]

Maybe its just chapter 10. But to be honest it was only the knowledge that the game gets a lot better after this hump that's kept me playing tonight.

Its all very impressive looking, and I really can't complain about the numerous save points, but that section really dragged on for far too long.

I hear ya, I just finished Chapter 10 today, it was my least favourite chapter by far. Felt like it went on for far too long and it was kinda visually bland looking. Just a big browish underground area with kind of annoying enemies and not that many story moments, at least compared to the rest of the game. Most of the other chapters are broken up with cutscenes a lot more, this chapter was way too just non stop fighting.

As soon as I broke out into Gran Pulse though and did a few side missions, it all seemed worth it . It's so amazing, I just know I'm going to be lost here for a long long time...

 

[Dark Schala]

I recently just beat this game on my 2nd playthrough and from my experience, I'd focus primarily on RAV and COM, and if you have extra CP, then MED too. The only thing you really need (early on) is Cure. Lightning is most flexible and balanced between RAV and COM.

My team was and has always been Fang, Light, Hope
Fang as main COM/SENT
Light as man RAV, backup COM, and secondary MED
Hope as main MED/SYN and secondary RAV

My main (and general) paradigm set was
COM COM RAV
COM RAV RAV -> (startup paradigm)
COM RAV MED
*RAV RAV RAV
SAB (MED or COM) SYN
SENT MED MED

*- During main story, I never leveled up other classes except the main starters.
So, I used SENT COM RAV
Rather than RAV RAV RAV

Quoting myself~

I love talking about party sets.

Let's talk about party sets. This was my party for Chapter 11. It was dope.

Hope/Vanille/Fang:
Rav/Sab/Sen
Rav/Rav/Sen
Syn/Rav/Com
Rav/Sab/Com
Syn/Med/Sab
Med/Med/Sen

Extra for fodder: Rav/Rav/Com (I replaced Syn/Med/Sab with this Optimum when Pulse turned into my playground rather than battleground).

My Chapter 12/13 Optima set was:
Hope/Vanille/Fang
Rav/Sab/Com
Syn/Rav/Com
Rav/Rav/Sen
Rav/Rav/Com
Syn/Med/Sab
Med/Med/Sen

Er, you can imagine my surprise when Chapter 12 opened up where

Spoiler

I had to use Lightning and her Eidolon to boot. Outside of that one tutorial battle where it taught you to use it, I never used it before. And I took Lightning out of my party after you were able to use all the party members, so I ended up controlling not one, but two people I barely used at that point (Snow? What is this moron doing here?).

.

My turtle parties are in this post.

I hear ya, I just finished Chapter 10 today, it was my least favourite chapter by far.

Chapter 10 is the make-or-break chapter in the game because it's so damned bland and boring. In my experience, people push on through it, but they dislike it; or they just put the game down because the chapter isn't very good. I think a lot of players miss out on what its intent is: to figure out which characters are good at certain jobs, to test out Jammer, Enhancer, and Defender more adequately in combat.

 

[KorrZ]

Chapter 10 is the make-or-break chapter in the game because it's so damned bland and boring. In my experience, people push on through it, but they dislike it; or they just put the game down because the chapter isn't very good. I think a lot of players miss out on what its intent is: to figure out which characters are good at certain jobs, to test out Jammer, Enhancer, and Defender more adequately in combat.

I actually never thought of it that way. It made me switch up my strategy from the standard COM/RAV/RAV -> MED/MED/MED - > COM/RAV/RAV a lot more then usual that's for sure. I'm pretty sure my team is going to be Light/Hope/Vanille for the forseeable future.

One question though, when does Hope get Haste? It seems to be far and away the single best buff in the game but I'm at tier 8 of the Crystarium and Hope still hasn't learned it... I don't really want to use Sazh just for his haste because I've spent so much upgrading Hope already.

 

[Dark Schala]

I actually never thought of it that way. It made me switch up my strategy from the standard COM/RAV/RAV -> MED/MED/MED - > COM/RAV/RAV a lot more then usual that's for sure. I'm pretty sure my team is going to be Light/Hope/Vanille for the forseeable future.

One question though, when does Hope get Haste? It seems to be far and away the single best buff in the game but I'm at tier 8 of the Crystarium and Hope still hasn't learned it... I don't really want to use Sazh just for his haste because I've spent so much upgrading Hope already.

Hope gets Haste when you unlock Crystarium Stage 9... at the end of Chapter 11, lol.

And I think the game does a rather poor job of letting the player realize that they can play around with the roles a lot more in Chapter 10 and use ones that they don't use often (but this is subtle and I slowly realized this when I played the Japanese version and found that I couldn't brute force enemies in most cases).

 

[KorrZ]

Hope gets Haste when you unlock Crystarium Stage 9... at the end of Chapter 11, lol.

Shit. Well I guess I won't be using Haste for quite some time then. I intend to do every side mission I can do in Chapter 11.

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

I actually never thought of it that way. It made me switch up my strategy from the standard COM/RAV/RAV -> MED/MED/MED - > COM/RAV/RAV a lot more then usual that's for sure. I'm pretty sure my team is going to be Light/Hope/Vanille for the forseeable future.

One question though, when does Hope get Haste? It seems to be far and away the single best buff in the game but I'm at tier 8 of the Crystarium and Hope still hasn't learned it... I don't really want to use Sazh just for his haste because I've spent so much upgrading Hope already.

All party members get CP from battles whether they participate or not. It doesn't cost you anything and dont be afraid to level jobs you dont use as you will still benefit from the stat boost (except jobs outside the main 30for each character ). Level up Sazh because Hope doesn't get Haste until the post game.

 

[Cels]

i got my plat in 60 hr and never looked back. probably not buying ff13-2 until clearance prices

 

[BadWolf]

Hope gets Haste when you unlock Crystarium Stage 9... at the end of Chapter 11, lol.

Other characters could get it earlier? I thought it was a really high level spell when I saw it there jumping for joy.

Gotta say though, this spell really made the visuals and engine sing during battles. When all the high level attacks and spells were happening at once in quick succession it was such a sight to behold. Also found it pretty awesome how the spells would have lingering effects after they were done (like the floor would still have ice, or there would be water left behind). Beautiful stuff.

How did you guys like the game's soundtrack? Personally thought it was really solid and fit the world and style of the game extremely well. The only downside being that there was no standout theme like FFX's piano piece.

 

[KorrZ]

All party members get CP from battles whether they participate or not. It doesn't cost you anything and dont be afraid to level jobs you dont use as you will still benefit from the stat boost (except jobs outside the main 30for each character ). Level up Sazh because Hope doesn't get Haste until the post game.

I know they all get CP, but I'm talking about the actual weapons. I'm already at level 20 I believe for his Hawkeye and I've spent a bunch on his accessories as well.

 

[BadWolf]

I know they all get CP, but I'm talking about the actual weapons. I'm already at level 20 I believe for his Hawkeye and I've spent a bunch on his accessories as well.

I don't think leveling weapons is very important in this game, mine were at level 4 or 5 for most of the game, kept thinking I would get new/better one's and didn't want to waste items. It was only at the end of the last chapter that I blew a lot of my goods on leveling whatever I was using.

 

[Dark Schala]

Other characters could get it earlier? I thought it was a really high level spell when I saw it there jumping for joy.

How did you guys like the game's soundtrack? Personally thought it was really solid and fit the world and style of the game extremely well. The only downside being that there was no standout them like FFX's piano piece.

Sazh can get it at Crystarium Stage 5, which is in Chapter 8, I think.

Fang gets it in Stage 8 of her Crystarium, but obviously it'll take a ton of CP investment since it's a secondary role for her. Same goes for Snow (Stage 9) and Lightning (Stage 10--not unlocked until after you beat the game). Vanille is the only character who can't learn Haste.

I absolutely loved the soundtrack due to genre variation and because I love Masashi Hamauzu. My favourite SotYs of 2010 were Sonic Colours and Nier, but FFXIII's OST was up there.

I know they all get CP, but I'm talking about the actual weapons. I'm already at level 20 I believe for his Hawkeye and I've spent a bunch on his accessories as well.

I didn't even start levelling up my equipment until after I had beaten and 5-starred all the missions in late-postgame. It isn't very important to level up your weapons at all, but rather equip the ones that are more suited to the battles you're going into (ex: enhanced debilitation, enhanced buffing, etc).

The game is perfectly doable with Tier-1 weapons. In fact, it's even better if you do it that way because levelling up your stats, equipping stat enhancers, and levelling up your weapons will decrease your target time.

 

[theDeeDubs]

For the main game, I'd say that the best characters to use are
Lightning > Fang > Hope > Vanille > Sazh > Snow

By the time everyone is maxed, etc. I'd say:

Fang (the best character, undoubtedly) > Lightning > Vanille > Hope > Sazh > Snow

Snow just plain sucks, poor guy. Sazh sucks at first glance but has situational uses. Hope isn't great because his secondary roles suck. Vanille is great as a SYN. Lightning, despite faltering, still rocks due to her diversity. Fang is just the best character, bar none.

I've recently restarted playing this again and have been doing a lot of research on party builds. Originally Snow was considered one of the worst party members unless you needed a Sentinel, but from what I've read from the hardcore theorycrafters is Snow is one of the best party members for post game for his Ruin/Daze spamming. Apparently he's amazing because he has a fast casting animation. The latest consensus I've read is that Fang/Light/Snow is the post game party build.

 

[KorrZ]

I don't think leveling weapons is very important in this game, mine were at level 4 or 5 for most of the game, kept thinking I would get new/better one's and didn't want to waste items. It was only at the end of the last chapter that I blew a lot of my goods on leveling whatever I was using.

I didn't even start levelling up my equipment until after I had beaten and 5-starred all the missions in late-postgame. It isn't very important to level up your weapons at all, but rather equip the ones that are more suited to the battles you're going into (ex: enhanced debilitation, enhanced buffing, etc).

The game is perfectly doable with Tier-1 weapons. In fact, it's even better if you do it that way because levelling up your stats, equipping stat enhancers, and levelling up your weapons will decrease your target time.

Oh... Well I guess I shouldn't have wasted so much leveling up my gear I suppose :\. So something I don't understand, post-game? Does it just drop you back into the world to do all the Gran Pulse side mission stuff? Should I bother doing them now right away at chapter 11?

 

[BadWolf]

Sazh can get it at Crystarium Stage 5, which is in Chapter 8, I think.

Fang gets it in Stage 8 of her Crystarium, but obviously it'll take a ton of CP investment since it's a secondary role for her. Same goes for Snow (Stage 9) and Lightning (Stage 10--not unlocked until after you beat the game). Vanille is the only character who can't learn Haste.

Ah, thanks for going in depth.

Its a really great spell in pretty much every FF and I really like how they had their priorities straight with the AI in XIII, like Hope would always prioritize casting Haste over other spells. Would have done the exact same thing if I had access to the system via Gambits. Overall found the AI to be very reliable in all situations, be it attacking, defending, healing, buffing or debuffing.

I absolutely loved the soundtrack due to genre variation and because I love Masashi Hamauzu. My favourite SotYs of 2010 were Sonic Colours and Nier, but FFXIII's OST was up there.

Yeah the style was definitely very refreshing and distinct.

I've recently restarted playing this again and have been doing a lot of research on party builds. Originally Snow was considered one of the worst party members unless you needed a Sentinel, but from what I've read from the hardcore theorycrafters is Snow is one of the best party members for post game for his Ruin/Daze spamming. Apparently he's amazing because he has a fast casting animation. The latest consensus I've read is that Fang/Light/Snow is the post game party build.

Interesting, thanks. I was really tempted to use him but liked Fang a lot as a character and decided on her as my main Sentinel.

Oh... Well I guess I shouldn't have wasted so much leveling up my gear I suppose :\. So something I don't understand, post-game? Does it just drop you back into the world to do all the Gran Pulse side mission stuff? Should I bother doing them now right away at chapter 11?

After you finish the game you get to save and that save loads up at the very last save before the last boss fight. From there you can go back.

 

[Dark Schala]

Ah, thanks for going in depth.

Its a really great spell in pretty much every FF and I really like how they had their priorities straight with the AI in XIII, like Hope would always prioritize casting Haste over other spells. Would have done the exact same thing if I had access to the system via Gambits. Overall found the AI to be very reliable in all situations, be it attacking, defending, healing, buffing or debuffing.

XIII-2's AI I found was a little better because the animation speeds are faster and the Optima Change animation was nonexistent. I just don't like some of the needless animations like a character being knocked down, standing up, turning around really slowly, recovering, and then casting/attacking. It slows down the battle and gets on my nerves, lol. That's because I like doing everything quickly.

What I like about Final Fantasy XIII, though, was that it finally put more emphasis on tanking, buffing, and debuffing.

I've recently restarted playing this again and have been doing a lot of research on party builds. Originally Snow was considered one of the worst party members unless you needed a Sentinel, but from what I've read from the hardcore theorycrafters is Snow is one of the best party members for post game for his Ruin/Daze spamming. Apparently he's amazing because he has a fast casting animation. The latest consensus I've read is that Fang/Light/Snow is the post game party build.

I actually like using Sazh because his casting speed is slow to synch with the girls' quick attack animation speeds.

This is what happens here:
Snow - Initial cast: 1 s -- subsequent cast: 0.4 s
Sazh - Initial cast: 1.5 s -- subsequent cast: 0.65s

Why is a slow speed a good thing? We're talking about taking Shaolong Guis down as opposed to regular Long Guis. Shaolong Guis can be Dazed, so time your attacks with Sazh's slow casting speed so that you finish faster than he can cast Daze. It works incredibly well and the Gui doesn't lay a single finger on you. Snow is good whenever you want to cast Ruin repeatedly, though, like during Attacus's battle.

So essentially, my late-postgame farming party is Light/Fang/Sazh. My "getting used to it" party was Fang/Vanille/Snow.

My Adamantoise party ended up being Fang/Vanille/Light. My "getting used to it" party was Fang/Vanille/Snow.

Snow, I just use as bait, or when I'm practicing building adequate builds and strats for 5-starring missions or taking Guis head-on. His Sovereign Fist has a fast animation speed and works like Highwind, but I just didn't use him as a party leader often.

I'll quote myself here:

Yeah. Two of them until I got Lightning's Ultima Weapon and started using her for Army of One.

Shaolong Gui Party 1:

Fang/Vanille/Snow

*Syn/Sab/Syn (buffing/debuffing)
Sen/Sen/Sen (essential for the first round of Quake. Switch to it when he stomps or casts Ultima)
Rav/Rav/Rav (Beefing up Break Gauge to kill leg)
Com/Rav/Sab (continue casting Daze; drive up Break Gauge)
Com/Rav/Sab (this is set up twice for ATB cancelling)
Med/Med/Med (precaution; if it's dazed, switch to this immediately to get health back up)

Equip:
Fang: Pandoran Spear/Calamity Spear, Gaian Ring, Genji Glove, Power Glove, Power Glove
Vanille: Malboro Wand, Gaian Ring, Weirding Glyph, Magus's Bracelet, Collector Catalogue
Snow: Paladin/Winged Saint, Gaian Ring, Gold Watch, Sorcerer's Mark, Connoisseur's Catalogue

Another thing to keep in mind is that I started fighting these things while trying to transition between Tier-1 and Tier-2 weapons, so... fights were harder than normal.

After getting used to fighting the Guis and recognizing their patterns, and also after getting Lightning's Ultima Weapon, I decided to change things up.

Shaolong Gui Party 2:

Lightning/Fang/Sazh

*Syn/Sab/Syn (Lightning to cast an En-spell on herself (any En- spell, I didn't care since you're getting Imperil on it) and Fang; this has a purpose if you get Imperil on it)
Sen/Sen/Sen (turtle against the turtle)
Rav/Rav/Rav (Beefing up Break Gauge)
Com/Com/Sab (continue casting Daze; drive up Break Gauge)
Com/Com/Sab (ATB cancel)
Med/Med/Med (heal when monster is dazed -- didn't attach a SEN to this because the SEN will provoke it, bringing it out of Daze, and causing me problems)

Equip:
Light: Ultima Weapon, Genji Glove, Power Glove, Power Glove, Gaian Ring
Fang: Calamity Spear, Genji Glove, Power Glove, Gaian Ring, Gold Watch
Sazh: Fomalhaut Elites, Gaian Ring, Collector's Catalogue, Connoisseur's Catalogue, General's Belt

Way easier with this setup because Sazh's casting speed is slow, slow, slow, omg... it's way helpful.


As for the Long Guis, I went with... (lol, just trust me on this one because it works)

Light/Vanille/Fang

*Syn/Syn/Syn (quick buff before it does its first stomp or Quake to move onto Tri-Sen)
Sen/Sen/Sen (turn into a turtle to fight the turtle)
Rav/Rav/Rav (drive up Break Gauge quick to get those legs down)
Sab/Sab/Sab (debuff quick to get those legs down)
Com/Sab/Com (hit that thing hard and debuff it) LOL, I ran to my PS3 since that didn't seem right. If someone's SAB, they'd stop debuffing after they finish doing all they could. The correct Optima is Com/Rav/Com. Makes more sense.
Com/Med/Med (healing quickly while maintaining break gauge)

Equip:
Fang: Calamity Spear/Kain's Lance, Gaian Ring, Genji Glove, Kaiser Knuckles, Kaiser Knuckles
Vanille: Malboro Wand/Nirvana, Gaian Ring, Weirding Glyph, Weirding Glyph, General's Belt
Light: Ultima Weapon/Omega Weapon, Genji Glove, Kaiser Knuckles, Gaian Ring, General's Belt

I guess by my weapon selections, you can see that I value buffing/debuffing the most.

As for the first time I downed a Long Gui, I kinda cheesed it and used Smokes and Elixirs since I didn't put the effort into learning a lot about the intricacies of the battle system at the time. I can't remember what I used for that one at all. I think it honestly might have been a Hope/Vanille/Fang party for some reason.

...I don't really want to go back to the game to confirm anything, though. I got the plat. I played the game in two languages. I don't want to have anything to do with FFXIII in a long time.

 

[chickdigger802]

woo with ps3 in my room, I can finally get to this

2 hrs in, not much 'gameplay' besides hitting x and up. But man, the visuals... I feel like I'm watching money raining. This snow/serah cutscene is horribly directed though. Japan.

 

[Dark Schala]

woo with ps3 in my room, I can finally get to this

2 hrs in, not much 'gameplay' besides hitting x and up. But man, the visuals... I feel like I'm watching money raining. This snow/serah cutscene is horribly directed though. Japan.

Anything involving Snow is horrible. Except for that one scene in Chapter 7. No wait, there are two scenes involving Snow that are good in Chapter 7, except one of them gets ruined.

Some advice: don't use Auto-Battle. Auto-Battle is inefficient, boring, and the AI picks dumbass commands for no reason.

Oh look, you're an Enhancer, and you want to cast a buff. Hit Auto-Battle and it makes you cast one buff even though your ATB bar consists of 5-6 bars and you have Haste on already due to equipping something with Auto-Haste. I can cast 2-3 buffs on one person since I'm planning to do that regardless so cast more than one in the same round. Bothersome.

Or you're an Attacker, press Auto-battle and it'll make you do Attack-Ruin-Attack-Ruin-Attack, even though you've used a librascope already and some characters' casting speeds+recovery are stupid-long and the auto-attack chooses to use both in order to determine its weakness/whether it has a weakness or not. Ruin is more of a magical attack, and Attack is, well, Attack. It needs to experiment with both. But it continues to use both when there is no clear winner between the two, which is rather irksome and inefficient to me if certain characters' regular attack speeds are much faster than their cast speeds. Stupid.

Or you're a Blaster; if an enemy has no elemental weakness, Auto-Battle would generally select Fire as the default spell. This is not the best spell to use to increase the Break Bar at all. It takes time for the initial cast to be made, and it takes time for the spell to hit the enemy. The best spell to use in almost every situation is Thunder because it's fast and it isn't going to take a lot of time to meet the target depending on distance.

Sometimes Auto-Battle, for some utterly stupid reason would select a "Fire, Flamestrike, Fire, Flamestrike" pattern in the ATB bar... which makes zero sense to me in terms of efficiency if you want to break the enemy and if you have a COM or SAB in your party to decelerate the Break bar's decreasing percentage. The animations for the character to cast, then hit, then cast, then hit will take a longer time than necessary. It's better to go for one or the other instead.

Auto-Battle = the bane of my existence. I know it was implemented to make the system look more like Advent Children or for accessibility for newcomers, but I really didn't like it at all.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

Thanks for the role recommendations, but now I'm just confused :lol

I'll try using Fang as leader, with Hope and Vanille as backups. I think I'll go for SAB/COM for Fang, MED/SYN/RAV for Hope and MED/SYN for Vanille (maybe throw her a bone as RAV too) and see how it works out.

Oh, as for difficulty, XIII hasn't been too bad, but I do think it's been a tad harder than XII was, at least (but XII got pretty easy once you got the Bubble spell, and went straight into cruise control when you got Bubble belts).

Anything involving Snow is horrible. Except for that one scene in Chapter 7. No wait, there are two scenes involving Snow that are good in Chapter 7, except one of them gets ruined.

He's an awful character, both in cutscenes and in combat. Absolutely terrible. I just leave him to rot and never use him unless I have to.

 

[Clear]

Disregarding difficulty, the battle-system is generally improved all round in XIII-2 I've noticed. The AI seems smarter, roles seem better defined, and the camera is far less prone to flying around randomly. Most of all though it feels faster and more "punchy".

 

[Clear]

XII had the great thing that the first time you meet party members, they join at the level of your party leader + variance. So if you spend a few hours training at the start, particularly farming dinosaurs, you're on easy street for the vast majority of the game.

The first time I played XII I didn't do this and got quite badly stuck at one point, and suffered for quite a few hours as I was really "under the cosh" for quite a few areas. This sucked at the time but in retrospect was a great learning experience because on my second playthrough I pretty much cruised through all but the toughest of fights.

And being honest, one of the things I've always liked about FF games is that they've always allowed you to pretty much "break" the challenge if you know exactly what you're doing. XIII really is the exception to this due to the way the crystarium only expands once a certain point in the story has been reached.


Sorry about double post. No idea how that happened!

 

[ZenaxPure]

Auto-Battle = the bane of my existence. I know it was implemented to make the system look more like Advent Children or for accessibility for newcomers, but I really didn't like it at all.

And here I thought I was alone in the world with auto-battle hate, it's slightly better in 13-2 but in 13 it's hands down the worst thing ever and never picks any good ability. I remember seeing some of the advent children demo videos and it didn't appear to have an auto-battle feature then, I wish they would have kept it that way.

Also on the note of flexible party options I think they did a good job handling it post-game. You could do pretty much every fight in the game with any party combination. I myself did every single achievement with Lightning/Snow/Hope and never ran into any situation where I felt like I had to bring in a different character because I couldn't win with my setup. It just took using smart paradigm choices + not using auto battle.

 

[ULTROS!]

I decided to replay XIII after reading the entire story background of FFXIII(warning, XIII and XIII-2 spoilers): http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=35090622&postcount=835

The story isn't bad after reading it, in fact I kinda liked it. The game doesn't explain the story really well and it ends up being a convoluted mess, which turns off people easily.

I am now able to appreciate XIII a lot more now after reading it.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

I decided to replay XIII after reading the entire story background of FFXIII(warning, XIII and XIII-2 spoilers): http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=35090622&postcount=835

The story isn't bad after reading it, in fact I kinda liked it. The game doesn't explain the story really well and it ends up being a convoluted mess, which turns off people easily.

I am now able to appreciate XIII a lot more now after reading it.

That and the awful eidolon fights are probably my biggest complaints about the game. I'm at chapter 11 now, so I should be nearing the end of the game, yet I had no idea what the Hell fal'Cie, l'Cie and Cie'th were until I looked it up on the FF wiki, because the game does such a piss-poor job of explaining what's going on, as it just shoves all information into the datalog (and frankly, few are gonna bother reading through all that text).

 

[BadWolf]

I decided to replay XIII after reading the entire story background of FFXIII(warning, XIII and XIII-2 spoilers): http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=35090622&postcount=835

The story isn't bad after reading it, in fact I kinda liked it. The game doesn't explain the story really well and it ends up being a convoluted mess, which turns off people easily.

I am now able to appreciate XIII a lot more now after reading it.

Thanks for that. Anyone know if word about the localization being lackluster is true? I heard that's the reason some stuff doesn't come across clearly.

Overall I just really liked the story and ideas they had going, as well as all the characters. The world in particular I really enjoyed. Can't stop thinking about the game since yesterday actually, might just turn out to be my fave FF.

That and the awful eidolon fights are probably my biggest complaints about the game. I'm at chapter 11 now, so I should be nearing the end of the game, yet I had no idea what the Hell fal'Cie, l'Cie and Cie'th were until I looked it up on the FF wiki, because the game does such a piss-poor job of explaining what's going on, as it just shoves all information into the datalog (and frankly, few are gonna bother reading through all that text).

Aww c'mon, it wasn't that bad. Wasn't much to read either, its not like there was a humongous database to go through like in Xenosaga 3.

With eidolons you just hit Libra and look at their tendencies and then you just do that over and over. So lots of healing and attacking in the Vanille fight and it was over in a couple of retries.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

Aww c'mon, it wasn't that bad. Wasn't much to read either, its not like there was a humongous database to go through like in Xenosaga 3.

With eidolons you just hit Libra and look at their tendencies and then you just do that over and over. So lots of healing and attacking in the Vanille fight and it was over in a couple of retries.

It was far too much to read for me to bother Anyway, are there anymore eidolon fights after Vanille's? I know I've had fights for Vanille (duh), Hope, Snow, Lightning and Fang, but I can't remember if I've had one for Sazh?

Also, any tips for those Boxed Phalanx enemies for when I'm going back out of the cave? I stumbled upon the way to Oerba yesterday, so I guess I have to go back there.

 

[ULTROS!]

Vanille's the last.

 

[BadWolf]

Also, any tips for those Boxed Phalanx enemies for when I'm going back out of the cave? I stumbled upon the way to Oerba yesterday, so I guess I have to go back there.

For me the paradigm COM/RAV/SEN owned them with Light/Hope/Fang for attacking.

Took out the big guy first and then the little ones. I tried taking out the little one's first but the big guy (?) kept making more. So focus on the big guy, once he's down then the little ones get stat boosts but its no big deal, they go down fast regardless.

 

[MoogleWizard]

Thanks. So COM/RAV for Lightning, COM/SAB/RAV for Fang, MED/SAB for Vanille and SYN/SAB/MED for Hope then? I'm kinda hesitant to use Hope though, since he, like Fang and Vanille, has a tendency to keel over and die as soon as an enemy looks at him, while Lightning is a fairly resilient character who can take a bit of a beating before dying.

Edit: Duh, just noticed you had already mentioned your recommended roles for the characters. I'll start working on it tomorrow.

Your characters shouldn't die quickly, use Fang to lure enemies from Hope/Vanille when they're taking too much damage, even if she isn't the leader the AI will always use provoke first if an enemy attacks another party member. Once enemies target your sentinel use Mediguard or any of the other guard abilities which allow them to take massive amounts of damage. SEN can make your battles a lot easier, using it also gives defense bonuses for the whole party ( if you use SEN/SEN/SEN all characters get a primary bonus for using the role plus a secondary bonus from the two other sentinels meaning you only take a fraction of the damage you normally would).
All roles have their purpose, the game is designed so you have to use them all for the best results, just experiment and see what paradigms suit your style best.

Thanks for the role recommendations, but now I'm just confused :lol

I'll try using Fang as leader, with Hope and Vanille as backups. I think I'll go for SAB/COM for Fang, MED/SYN/RAV for Hope and MED/SYN for Vanille (maybe throw her a bone as RAV too) and see how it works out.

Don't neglect Vanille's RAV abilities, you need COM/RAV/RAV to fill the stagger gauge (RAV/RAV/RAV is even better, but only possible with suboptimal character combinations when using only main roles). If you just want to beat the game, I also wouldn't recommend upgrading her SYN role unless you want to do many hours of grinding (secondary roles = huge amounts of CP), upgrade her SAB instead, she's a better saboteur than Fang since she gets Poison and Dispel.

I decided to replay XIII after reading the entire story background of FFXIII(warning, XIII and XIII-2 spoilers): http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=35090622&postcount=835

The story isn't bad after reading it, in fact I kinda liked it. The game doesn't explain the story really well and it ends up being a convoluted mess, which turns off people easily.

I am now able to appreciate XIII a lot more now after reading it.

That's easily my biggest gripe with the game as well, it does such a bad job at explaining the world and the story. They invented all this mythology and history and throw it all away for the melodrama.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

Your characters shouldn't die quickly, use Fang to lure enemies from Hope/Vanille when they're taking too much damage, even if she isn't the leader the AI will always use provoke first if an enemy attacks another party member. Once enemies target your sentinel use Mediguard or any of the other guard abilities which allow them to take massive amounts of damage. SEN can make your battles a lot easier, using it also gives defense bonuses for the whole party ( if you use SEN/SEN/SEN all characters get a primary bonus for using the role plus a secondary bonus from the two other sentinels meaning you only take a fraction of the damage you normally would).
All roles have their purpose, the game is designed so you have to use them all for the best results, just experiment and see what paradigms suit your style best.

Don't neglect Vanille's RAV abilities, you need COM/RAV/RAV to fill the stagger gauge (RAV/RAV/RAV is even better, but only possible with suboptimal character combinations when using only main roles). If you just want to beat the game, I also wouldn't recommend upgrading her SYN role unless you want to do many hours of grinding (secondary roles = huge amounts of CP), upgrade her SAB instead, she's a better saboteur than Fang since she gets Poison and Dispel.

OK, so I should set Fang as leader and use her as SEN while Hope and Vanille are.. RAV I guess, since neither are COM? And Vanille as RAV/MED/SAB, and Hope as MED/RAV/?

 

[MoogleWizard]

OK, so I should set Fang as leader and use her as SEN while Hope and Vanille are.. RAV I guess, since neither are COM? And Vanille as RAV/MED/SAB, and Hope as MED/RAV/?

No, only use SEN when you need it, when fighting enemies that don't do much damage you don't need it. Use it when you need to draw aggro from party members that are getting attacked or to defend against special attacks (giant turtle stomp e.g.), or you could use it so the other two can buff/debuff/attack/heal without getting interrupted. There are many possibilities, try different paradigm combinations and see what works best for you and then you can stick with them for most battles.

Remember upgrading Hope's synergist abilities, that's the main reason he's in your party after all (haste, protect, shell, bravery, faith; you don't need all buffs for regular mobs of course, but they make all battles faster/easier).

 

[chickdigger802]

Wow. They really throw a lot of systems at you when you fall down onto the crystal lake.

One of the worst tutorials I've seen in a while. Don't throw me like a dozen different terms at me in 1 paragraph!

And I'm still pretty confused with the whole crystal grid system. Is it suppose to be somewhat similar to ffx grid? How do I know where my 'location' is positioned and which 'direction' I'm pointed to? Does it cost points to 'go back'?

I do like how all these systems are tied to story elements though. Few jrpgs do that imo.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

And I'm still pretty confused with the whole crystal grid system. Is it suppose to be somewhat similar to ffx grid? How do I know where my 'location' is positioned and which 'direction' I'm pointed to? Does it cost points to 'go back'?

I do like how all these systems are tied to story elements though. Few jrpgs do that imo.

It's been a long time since I played FF X (and I hated it to boot), but yeah, the crystarium is sorta similar to FF X. You'll see your location as that will be the crystarium orb thingie the view focuses on, and you can decide what direction to go by using the analogue stick. Doesn't cost any points to go back on the grid, unless you mean to remove the points you've spent working towards a skill/stat boost, as that isn't possible.

 

[chickdigger802]

Hmmm played another hr or so... wait what? Why did snow stay behind?? .

And is it just me... or do I feel like I have little clue what's going on during combat? I really do wish there were visible atb for the other 2 ppl... and the damn camera flipping around is pretty bad. Now I just have my eyes on the bottom of the screen the whole time... like an mmo >.>"

Will keep wacking away at it though. Don't know why I feel obligated to play this ;P

 

[KorrZ]

Hmmm played another hr or so... wait what? Why did snow stay behind?? .

And is it just me... or do I feel like I have little clue what's going on during combat? I really do wish there were visible atb for the other 2 ppl... and the damn camera flipping around is pretty bad. Now I just have my eyes on the bottom of the screen the whole time... like an mmo >.>"

Will keep wacking away at it though. Don't know why I feel obligated to play this ;P

Snow stays behind because he's....Snow. You just gotta relax with the combat and focus on what you need to do with your main character. You have zero control over the other characters except giving them a general role, so basically use your main character to augment when your other 2 characters are doing with their role. You've got a ways to go still before the combat demands anything more from you then just hitting things until they die and occasionally healing.

 

[Dark Schala]

Hmmm played another hr or so... wait what? Why did snow stay behind?? .

And is it just me... or do I feel like I have little clue what's going on during combat? I really do wish there were visible atb for the other 2 ppl... and the damn camera flipping around is pretty bad. Now I just have my eyes on the bottom of the screen the whole time... like an mmo >.>"

Will keep wacking away at it though. Don't know why I feel obligated to play this ;P

Didn't you buy this game on sale? lol, do you want to get it done so you can play FFXIII-2?

Snow stayed behind because he's a HERO. Or some nonsense about the power of love, I don't know. No one cares about him, nor do they like him. They think he's an idiot and they're right for doing so!

The camera is a bit of an annoyance in this game, that's for sure. If you feel like it's doing dumb crap during battle, swing it back around with the right stick. It trips me up in both XIII games, actually, because I want to watch enemies' attack patterns to be able to ATB cancel (switch to another Optima and have a gauge at max capacity instantly), or switch to the appropriate Optima when a monster's about to animate in a certain fashion... the camera is not my friend in that regard.

It isn't until later on that you'll learn to look at enemies' animations in order to know when and how to switch Optimae/Paradigms.

But for now, just concentrate on what your leader/controlled character is doing and let the AI for the other characters take care of the rest. Treat it like a Tales game/FFXII.