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[StoppedInTracks]

5th Day, 6:00 AM and all the Main Quests (incl. Sazh) + 38 Sidequest + 42 Canvas Quests done. 8 Days left... what will I do with this time, heh. All EP chests opened as well.

Game is pretty easy now :/ can't wait to fight the superbosses or some of the Last Ones i.e. Chocobo Eater, Earth Eater, Zaltys etc. They will wreck me I suppose.

 

[BlazeBreak]

Yeah, Aeronite first appears.... Day 7, I think? Forgot if you need to have picked up the quest from the guy in the ruins in order for him to spawn. It's possible to set up one of your schemata to negate most of the damage he does, the tricky part is being able to do enough damage once you trigger the 4th stagger before he flies away.

Getting rid of some of the Last Ones now will make the Ultimate Lair (which I guess doesn't have to be spoilered now since you're gearing up for superbosses ) a lot easier. There are several canvas quests that ask for drops from a a few of the different big enemies like Chocobo Eater and Earth Eater, so there's that, too.

You can also set aside a EP one day to try and find the Rare Forge (even though he's an Outfitter lol) if you haven't stumbled upon him by chance. But most of his garbs are ones that you can unlock other places by doing the Roadworks quest. On Normal, he only has one or two "exclusive" garbs (plus the shades Lightning wears in the intro), one of which isn't there until I think Day 7+.

Sadly though, none of the reward garbs for any of the difficult tasks are all that great.

 

[LordK]

I'm surprisingly really really really enjoying this. I just really like the combat and there's something kind of addictive about the whole setup...

I mean, I clearly see the crappy production values and what not, but I'm just having a ton of fun with it. I really wish this got a proper budget now :/

 

[AwakenedCloud]

Staggering has 2 characteristics. You have attacks that stabilize the staggering and attacks that increase the staggering. After a big increase you need to stabilize it with something like attack or light slash or that increase will go away. You knew about this by seeing the attack's descriptions and their ranks from D-A on Stagger Power and Stagger Time, I think that's what they are called.
And yap guard is a big deal, you are supposed to guard everything and eventually perfect guard with precise timing. It's not very hard with a few hours of practice to get the timing down, by the end of the game guarding should be 2nd nature.

Awesome. I've been playing this game wrong the entire time. I assumed stagger time was the amount of time the enemy stayed staggered. I've done fine up until the final boss, but now I'm stuck. I just wanted a vid and the guy was doing ridiculously high amounts of damage to him. When staggered, I can do about 10,000 per hit with gale strike. Getting to the last part of the battle is a 10 minute endeavor at a minimum, and I've been spamming aerora the entire time with almost no luck in staggering him. I have the ultima weapon and shield. But I'm still doing relatively low damage. Any advice?

 

[WesternHeretic]

Awesome. I've been playing this game wrong the entire time. I assumed stagger time was the amount of time the enemy stayed staggered. I've done fine up until the final boss, but now I'm stuck. I just wanted a vid and the guy was doing ridiculously high amounts of damage to him. When staggered, I can do about 10,000 per hit with gale strike. Getting to the last part of the battle is a 10 minute endeavor at a minimum, and I've been spamming aerora the entire time with almost no luck in staggering him. I have the ultima weapon and shield. But I'm still doing relatively low damage. Any advice?

I have no clue why you're using gale strike when he's staggered. You should be either using something like Heavy Slash/Artemis Aarrow (1st play through)or Punt/Whirlwind kick (if 2nd etc play through).

 

[AwakenedCloud]

I have no clue why you're using gale strike when he's staggered. You should be either using something like Heavy Slash/Artemis Aarrow (1st play through)or Punt/Whirlwind kick (if 2nd etc play through).

Tried again with both of the abilities you suggested and still no dice. I fought the final form for at least 15 minutes and his meter never even went red.

My setup
Intruder: Ultima weapon, warrior Hunter mask, blitz 4,guard 3,heavy slash 4,Aerora 3
Equilibrium+: Gagnrad, Preta Hood, Deprotect 4, Mediguard 3, Attack 4, Aerora 2,
Splendid Admiral: Chaos Revenge, mage hunter mask, imperil 4, guard 3, thundara 3, Aerora 3

No matter how many times I hit him, he immediately goes back blue right afterwards. It's even worse when I try over clocking. It literally lasts like 3 seconds.


Edit:

And after 5 hours worth of attempts I finally got this scumbag, and with a 5 star rating nonetheless . I honestly don't even know what I did differently the final time. Actually, I felt like I played a lot worse. I just had to forgo blocking altogether and just attacked through damage.

I switched up my last schemata
Elwctronica: mage ultima weapon, mage Hunter, atb charge 3, imperil 4,thunder+, thundaga 4

Thundaga did crazy damage, I'd say around 30K per cast. Overall, I enjoyed the game but this last boss has soured me pretty badly. Now it's time to hit X and watch the ending.

 

[WesternHeretic]

Tried again with both of the abilities you suggested and still no dice. I fought the final form for at least 15 minutes and his meter never even went red.

My setup
Intruder: Ultima weapon, warrior Hunter mask, blitz 4,guard 3,heavy slash 4,Aerora 3
Equilibrium+: Gagnrad, Preta Hood, Deprotect 4, Mediguard 3, Attack 4, Aerora 2,
Splendid Admiral: Chaos Revenge, mage hunter mask, imperil 4, guard 3, thundara 3, Aerora 3

No matter how many times I hit him, he immediately goes back blue right afterwards. It's even worse when I try over clocking. It literally lasts like 3 seconds.

That's your problem. I said use it when they are staggered, not to stagger them. Gagnrad doesn't make any sense on Equilibrium+ either

Use Thundra, Aerora (Or Fire/Bilzzard if you really want basically any tier 2, if you're playing on hard throw in ruin as well to keep the stagger meter stable, if you're playing on normal/easy just forget what I just said....) to stagger him, then once he's stagger just unleash heavy slash until he's dead.

I think you're making it way harder than it should be.

FYI in terms of speed Thunder>Aero>Fire>Blizzard in terms of cast speed and same goes for their higher tier version of -Ra and -Ga.


I don't know what you have weapons/garb wise but a very simple (I find it rather boring but hey you just want to beat him right?) is

Offensive garb - Heavy Slash, Any -ra spell.
Defensive garb (this is the one you equip preta hood to) - 2nd tier -ra spell.
Whatever garb that please your eyes - 2nd tier -ra spell.

 

[AwakenedCloud]

That's your problem. I said use it when they are staggered, not to stagger them. Gagnrad doesn't make any sense on Equilibrium+ either

Use Thundra, Aerora (Or Fire/Bilzzard if you really want basically any tier 2, if you're playing on hard throw in ruin as well to keep the stagger meter stable, if you're playing on normal/easy just forget what I just said....) to stagger him, then once he's stagger just unleash heavy slash until he's dead.

I think you're making it way harder than it should be.

FYI in terms of speed Thunder>Aero>Fire>Blizzard in terms of cast speed and same goes for their higher tier version of -Ra and -Ga.

Also Preta Hood makes no sense on Equilibirum+ you're better off moving it to Splendid Admiral.

I edited my post above a second ago. I ditched the gangrad for the chaos revenge, for the quick stagger, but I don't understand why preta hood wouldn't match with equilibrium+. Preta hood +ultima shield guarantee low damage while equilibrium+ gives the other schematas a chance to recharge. Regardless, out of the entire 13 saga, nothing gave me nearly as much trouble as this guy did. I could've beat an indie game in the time I wasted trying to beat him.

 

[BlazeBreak]

The final form did seem to have a ton of stagger resistance; I found myself using Overclocks to chain his stagger higher at the later stages as opposed to prioritizing doing more damage once I did stagger him.

You also have to "maintain" the stagger, remember, so if you were only throwing tier 1 or 2 spells at him it's entirely possible that the stagger chain was simply expiring during a delay. So a couple physical attacks or a Ruin or something here and there might have also helped.

The suggestion for Preta Hood elsewhere is generally on the basis that Equilibrium is better served as a damage-dealing or casting schemata and you'd want the nerfs associated with the Preta Hood on one focused more on tanking. Splendid Admiral was suggested since I think it's generally considered one of the better choices for a tank/debuff sort of role in the first playthrough. Your setup was just a bit nontraditional. Equilibrium+ probably works just fine in a Sentinel/Saboteur jack of all trades role, but probably isn't optimal.

 

[WesternHeretic]

I edited my post above a second ago. I ditched the gangrad for the chaos revenge, for the quick stagger, but I don't understand why preta hood wouldn't match with equilibrium+. Preta hood +ultima shield guarantee low damage while equilibrium+ gives the other schematas a chance to recharge. Regardless, out of the entire 13 saga, nothing gave me nearly as much trouble as this guy did. I could've beat an indie game in the time I wasted trying to beat him.

I read your other garb wrong. But what people usually do is add Preta Hood with (insert name of garb that adds magic/Physical Resistance).

It's the cheese build that a lot of people do. They do the 100% magic or 100% physical resistance for w/e enemy they are playing against. The downside to that is one of your 3 garbs = a pure tank that only good for tanking and building stagger meter.

Yea also when you're trying to stagger don't do finales.

For example

(Grab 1) - Aerora, Aeora -> (switch to grab 2) .> Thundera, Thundera (Garb 3 or 1) > etc....

Do this and you can stagger much faster. Do it fast enough and you take 0 damage for all bosses in the game including the two super bosses.... which isn't that hard by your 2nd play through even on hard. And if you have as much spare time as I did... and reach a 4th/5th play through (don't ask) you can kill them in like a minute or two if quick cast/cancel.

 

[Ermac]

Is there anywhere I can download saves for this game? I want to do a playthrogh will all the costumes but don't feel like unlocking them.

 

[StoppedInTracks]

This game has such shitty achievements when compared with FF13 come on Square. Where are such achievements:

- beat the game without using Chronostasis
- extinct every enemy type before day X (say Day 5)
- 5 Star all 5 Starable battles
- gather 1 million Gil
- obtain every droppable weapon like Death Herald, Scythe of the Faithful etc.

etc.

They really dropped the ball here.

I am on Day 7 and currently trying to extinct every enemy (except the big 2 EP ones). 10 types already dead

 

[WesternHeretic]

This game has such shitty achievements when compared with FF13 come on Square. Where are such achievements:

- beat the game without using Chronostasis
- extinct every enemy type before day X (say Day 5)
- 5 Star all 5 Starable battles
- gather 1 million Gil
- obtain every droppable weapon like Death Herald, Scythe of the Faithful etc.

etc.

They really dropped the ball here.

I am on Day 7 and currently trying to extinct every enemy (except the big 2 EP ones). 10 types already dead

Sometimes you don't want to extinct them early though. The skills they drop are dependent on the days. Certain skill it be best to get the lowest ATB cost. While other you want to get the rare ability which has a minimum ATB you can't go under.

 

[Ganon Dragmire]

This game has such shitty achievements when compared with FF13 come on Square. Where are such achievements:

- beat the game without using Chronostasis
- extinct every enemy type before day X (say Day 5)
- 5 Star all 5 Starable battles
- gather 1 million Gil
- obtain every droppable weapon like Death Herald, Scythe of the Faithful etc.

etc.

They really dropped the ball here.

I am on Day 7 and currently trying to extinct every enemy (except the big 2 EP ones). 10 types already dead

Yeah. They could of at least done "beat the game on Hard". (Which i did)

 

[Liferebooted]

I actually loved this game, I'm going to try to play it, I just finished my first play through even though I've had it since launch. Too much shit going on to play through it fast. Anyways, my only 2 problems with it are: Fucking horrible quest tracking, wtf were they thinking? And the clock, yes I know its almost impossible to run out of time and yet just having a clock made me feel like I was being rushed even though I wasn't. I just hate timers in general in game and irl.

 

[StoppedInTracks]

Sometimes you don't want to extinct them early though. The skills they drop are dependent on the days. Certain skill it be best to get the lowest ATB cost. While other you want to get the rare ability which has a minimum ATB you can't go under.

I know that. I don't really care about Aerora LVL5 or 156th Platinum Malistone at the moment.

Day 7, 00:20.

55 Side Quests and 79 Notice Board Quests done.

All possible monsters extinct including Earth Eaters, Chocobo Eaters, Hoplites, Skat'anes, all that trash from the Wildlands etc.

What do I do in the next 6 days, lol? Luca's Tears and Ranuph's Journal I guess.
It's crazy how during the first day the game was impossibly hard with the time limit constantly on my mind blocking my actions and enjoyement from the game. Now it is smooth sailing. Gonna try to beat Aeronite... somehow. Don't want to use a FAQ for that, though.

 

[BlazeBreak]

This game has such shitty achievements when compared with FF13 come on Square. Where are such achievements:

- beat the game without using Chronostasis
- extinct every enemy type before day X (say Day 5)
- 5 Star all 5 Starable battles
- gather 1 million Gil
- obtain every droppable weapon like Death Herald, Scythe of the Faithful etc.

etc.

They really dropped the ball here.

I am on Day 7 and currently trying to extinct every enemy (except the big 2 EP ones). 10 types already dead

The achievements were "too easy", yeah. Especially on the heels of some of XIII and XIII-2's ridiculously grindy ones. I'm not saying that I needed a repeat of XIII's "have every single item, including upgraded weapons" achievement that added 15 hours to my save file (probably never gonna change the Fang gamerpic on my XBL account lol) or XIII-2's slot machine annoyances - but LR was definitely ripe with a bunch of creative opportunities. The weapon/shield upgrade ones were the only that played on New Game+; everything else could be easily enough accomplished on a single playthrough.

But I guess just the right achievement balance keeps alluding Squeenix. I thought FF7 Steam's achievements were "too vanilla". Most of it was just using everyone's first limit break, getting their last, reaching level 99, beating the superbosses, etc. There were ones for getting a gold chocobo, the two best summons, 99,999,999 gil, and mastering all materia, but the game's loaded with sidequests and there's all sorts of neat stuff to do that's then only recognized in cases because you need to do it to get certain summons/materia/etc. --- Then FF8 Steam addresses that by adding achievements for some of the major sidequests and the card game etc, but then doesn't have much to offer besides just getting all the GFs and also completely overdoes it with beating the game without leveling up, reaching max level, and the insane kill count one.

 

[Falk]

overdoes it with beating the game without leveling up, reaching max level, and the insane kill count one.

Beating the game without leveling is fine. If anything it shows that Square Enix does know the mechanics of their own game and are in a sense acknowledging how broken some of the systems in FF8 are and rewarding folks who have that same understanding of the game.

10,000 kills on the other hand is so hilariously far out of orbit it's like in its own dimension of ludicrous.

Also I find it a tad amusing how you said reaching level 99 is vanilla in one sentence then how reaching max level is 'completely overdoing it' in another. :V

 

[Exentryk]

While this may not be for everyone, I did enjoy trying to beat bosses in the lowest times possible and going for high scores. It may provide the game some longevity and might help you learn the finer details of the battle system.

 

[StoppedInTracks]

While this may not be for everyone, I did enjoy trying to beat bosses in the lowest times possible and going for high scores. It may provide the game some longevity and might help you learn the finer details of the battle system.

Which is completely broken in The Ark where you just spam Overclock and Ethers for that 5 Star rating...

 

[WesternHeretic]

Which is completely broken in The Ark where you just spam Overclock and Ethers for that 5 Star rating...

Lol... spamming ethers and overclock destroys your score.

Score is base off time (compared to your stats) subtracted by items used, damage taken, EP used etc..

 

[Exentryk]

Which is completely broken in The Ark where you just spam Overclock and Ethers for that 5 Star rating...

Using overclock and items actually lowers your score. Perhaps try fightning Zaltys in the ark and work on your score there. Let me know your fastest time, and the strat

 

[BlazeBreak]

Beating the game without leveling is fine. If anything it shows that Square Enix does know the mechanics of their own game and are in a sense acknowledging how broken some of the systems in FF8 are and rewarding folks who have that same understanding of the game.

10,000 kills on the other hand is so hilariously far out of orbit it's like in its own dimension of ludicrous.

Also I find it a tad amusing how you said reaching level 99 is vanilla in one sentence then how reaching max level is 'completely overdoing it' in another. :V

I meant the level/kill achievements as a whole, not individually. I agree about the no-leveling achievement, which would be entirely fine without achievements for kills and max level. I know I spoke about NG+ achievements for LR, and I'm generally fine with achievements requiring multiple playthroughs for shorter games. The problem with FF8 Steam's min/max achievement is that it's a 40 hour game requiring you to play twice (or just abuse shenanigans with going back to save file from before the end of the game purposely to grind from lv5 to 99).

 

[Falk]

A 40 hour game with recently implemented 5x speed, mind you. (Yeah it was unrelated but I get the impression they really were completely in tune with the fact that most people buying this on Steam are doing so out of nostalgia playthroughs, etc)

Actually I personally find multiple playthroughs with wildly differing playstyles (max vs no levelling) fine.

KH1.5's different difficulty trophies on the other hand. Dear lord D:

 

[BlazeBreak]

I'll give you that. Encouraging different playstyles is one of the better things achievements can do. Enhanced replayability is always nice, but the perspective is important - it's much better off for something like Lightning Returns and 10-15 hour action games, etc. When you're looking at a 40 hour game (and a 15 year old one, at that), it's probably better to be looking at ways at diversifying what you're doing within a single playthrough via achievements than trying to diversify across multiple ones.

And to be honest, in FFVIII's case, the min-max achievement pair doesn't really diversify what I imagine is the most efficient way to play through most of the game - not really picking up levels until most of the way through Disc Three when you can get Jumbo Cactuar (and have picked up the individual level-up boost junctions on each of the other GFs).

My "vanilla" comment about the FFVII achievements was a bit blanket in that they're basically all very straightforward "get everything and max out". I'd actually speak in favor of the final limit break achievements, since in order to get each you have to learn the limit as opposed to just collecting the manual; meaning you need to use all of the different characters. But good vs bad grind is also of course very subjective, since I'd understand if some people just view those as "now they need to farm kills and limit meter with all these other characters".

As far as Lightning Returns goes, it's unfortunate that there's no good way within how the game's built to have put a relevant achievement in there, but I would have liked to have somehow encouraged the use of different garbs. I was a bit let down that with all the different garbs available that, even on my first playthrough, I only really used a small handful of garbs. I progressed through using roughly just 4 commando garbs, 2 sab/sen garbs, and 4 or 5 rav garbs. There were simply garbs that were more ideal and equated to handicapping yourself if you didn't use them. Even within that framework, I liked that I was at least switching my rav between Woodland Walker and Electronica depending on where I was, but just wish there was more of that, as even that element disappeared after a few days in-game when you started getting a lot of abilities.

 

[Falk]

Out of curiousity what are your thoughts on the FFX HD trophy set?

(Yeah this is going way off topic, but this isn't the fastest moving thread anyway, not like anyone's going to miss some discussion or another)

 

[Mitochondrion]

What is the deal with Hope and Lightning? I have been reading around and I have some impressions that there is some kind of love interest between the two? I saw some obscure fan art. Is it true? I thought she will never be with anyone. I remember reading somewhere that Director Toriyama said that if Lightning were to be with someone, he has to surpass the qualities of regular human.

 

[PowderedToast]

What is the deal with Hope and Lightning? I have been reading around and I have some impressions that there is some kind of love interest between the two? I saw some obscure fan art. Is it true? I thought she will never be with anyone. I remember reading somewhere that Director Toriyama said that if Lightning were to be with someone, he has to surpass the qualities of regular human.

there is no romance angle between them, haha. lightning is considered more of a motherly figure to hope after the events of XIII, and that's the official canon going off toriyama's comments in the lightning returns strategy guide.

the age gap is way too big. that said, there is a bizarre exchange in LR where lightning teases hope about having a thing for vanille. someone at s-e must've been surfing deviant art during development...

 

[StoppedInTracks]

Lol... spamming ethers and overclock destroys your score.

Score is base off time (compared to your stats) subtracted by items used, damage taken, EP used etc..

Oh, I did not know that, really.

I have 5 Stars in lots of boss battles - Noel, Caius, Last Ones including Zaltys - (NORMAL mode) where I spammed Overclocks.

 

[Zafir]

there is no romance angle between them, haha. lightning is considered more of a motherly figure to hope after the events of XIII, and that's the official canon going off toriyama's comments in the lightning returns strategy guide.

the age gap is way too big. that said, there is a bizarre exchange in LR where lightning teases hope about having a thing for vanille. someone at s-e must've been surfing deviant art during development...

Well, even in XIII they teased the Hope and Vanille thing. Though it was a missable scene, some people may have never seen it.

 

[BlazeBreak]

Out of curiousity what are your thoughts on the FFX HD trophy set?

(Yeah this is going way off topic, but this isn't the fastest moving thread anyway, not like anyone's going to miss some discussion or another)

Those are kinda middle of the road to me - in a "sorta bland, but not too much more you can do with them" way. It's important to remember that FFX's structure is much more like XIII's, which means less opportunities for variety. Basically all the sidequests/etc the game has to offer are covered by the Celestial Weapon and extra Aeon achievements, so I can't really repeat my FFVII opinion that I wish they had something for some of the minor sidequests like VIII did with Abel Lake. I guess there's "buy all the theater spheres", though that's just a gil sink.

There's some awareness with the 200 lightning dodges. And then the Chocobo stuff... though if I recall the 0 race time was for Tidus's Celestial? The trophies seem like they touch on more or less everything. I imagine completing the sphere grid is no more of a grind than mastering all materia.

 

[Falk]

My Steam profile shows getting Vincent -> mastering all materia in the space of 30 hours (and obviously I slept/worked too). Max gil also sounds like it might be insane but it was ~4 hours between max level and maxing out Gil, so it wasn't really that much of a grind.

As far as JRPGs go FFX HD's plat was also pretty mild to be honest. Granted, I wussed out and just one-shot all the optional bosses since I'd already done it legit back in the day and I wasn't going to sit through farming Luck/Fortune spheres now that I put food on the table and stuff, but it really didn't take long at all.

The worst in the series at this point of time are, like previously mentioned, 10,000 kills on FF8 Steam, and mastering lv99 on all jobs on all characters on FF3 (Mobile/Steam)

Finishing off every item in FF13 pales in comparison. Heck, I'll go out on a limb and say even Disgaea plats pale in comparison.

 

[StoppedInTracks]

5 Starring Omega Skeleton took some tries, heh. I also had to change my equipment for the first time since like 30 hours (swapped Thorn of Haste for Thorn of Bravery, Enfire for Enaero).

5 Starring Omega Desert Sahangin was also kind of tricky - required a couple of Perfect Guards and I am not very good at those.

I love the battle system in FF13 Trilogy. 2nd best in the series right behind FF12 Gambits.

 

[BlazeBreak]

5 Starring Omega Skeleton took some tries, heh. I also had to change my equipment for the first time since like 30 hours (swapped Thorn of Haste for Thorn of Bravery, Enfire for Enaero).

I found Omega Skeleton to be one of the tougher omegas period. He was one of the handful that I fought fairly early on in my first playthrough, and the only one I had to wait a couple days before being able to beat.

My Steam profile shows getting Vincent -> mastering all materia in the space of 30 hours (and obviously I slept/worked too). Max gil also sounds like it might be insane but it was ~4 hours between max level and maxing out Gil, so it wasn't really that much of a grind.

As far as JRPGs go FFX HD's plat was also pretty mild to be honest. Granted, I wussed out and just one-shot all the optional bosses since I'd already done it legit back in the day and I wasn't going to sit through farming Luck/Fortune spheres now that I put food on the table and stuff, but it really didn't take long at all.

The worst in the series at this point of time are, like previously mentioned, 10,000 kills on FF8 Steam, and mastering lv99 on all jobs on all characters on FF3 (Mobile/Steam)

Finishing off every item in FF13 pales in comparison. Heck, I'll go out on a limb and say even Disgaea plats pale in comparison.

Just as long as you actually get all the materia over a playthrough, maxing it isn't much of a grind at all thanks to Magic Pots and the W-Item trick. Which is also a really efficient way of reaching max gil - I think I went back the day after maxing my materia and mastered 2-3 stacks of All materia to sell.

As far as the investment goes, FF13 probably wasn't as bad as I remember. I know I shelved the game for a couple weeks before coming back to do a lot of the extra stuff and get the 100%. The grinding probably just didn't seem as multi-purpose, since first I had to grind to max the crystarium and farm Adamantoise for ultimate weapons etc, and then hard to farm Long Gui and the baby turtles etc for gil since upgrading every single weapon to stage two was the biggest sink in terms of getting every item. But part of it was also probably since 13's battle system made it seem like a chore. There was an entire process to farming both Adamantoise and Long Gui including specific paradigm setups, summons, switching paradigms at precise moments etc etc. It was a fun challenge the first time or two you beat those enemies, but became annoying when you had to repeat it ad infinitum because there was no better way of grinding whatever you needed.

 

[StoppedInTracks]

OMG I just bought the Morgenstern (+1200 STR). It destroys everything in my path. I have in total 3700 STR on my COM and nothing stands a chance.

 

[WesternHeretic]

OMG I just bought the Morgenstern (+1200 STR). It destroys everything in my path. I have in total 3700 STR on my COM and nothing stands a chance.

Lol. Are you playing on normal? I don't remember that being any strong. I'm pretty sure it's not even the strongest if its type.

I've got to the point where I have 5000 STR on pretty 1/4 of the weapons because I have that much stats.

Heaven's Cloud was my go to sword to get 5000 before I had enough raw stats to get other weapons there.

 

[Exentryk]

Carmen's Dance and similar are the most broken weapons in the game tho

 

[StoppedInTracks]

Lol. Are you playing on normal? I don't remember that being any strong. I'm pretty sure it's not even the strongest if its type.

I've got to the point where I have 5000 STR on pretty 1/4 of the weapons because I have that much stats.

Heaven's Cloud was my go to sword to get 5000 before I had enough raw stats to get other weapons there.

First playthrough, Normal, 10th Day.

 

[BlazeBreak]

Hrm, I think Morgenstern's basically the strongest weapon there is STR-wise in a first, normal playthrough. There's a long sword or two (at least Masamune) with a larger STR boost, but -15 ATB, which I definitely don't think is worth it.

Keep in mind if you do a New Game Plus, that each class of weapon maxes out the same. So once you upgrade them, the final stats of the Morgenstern will actually be the same as the Scramasax - the only different is that the Scramasax will require more components to upgrade fully.

Outside of your commando garb, raw stats don't always make the best weapon choice, either. Chaos's Revenge is indispensable because of its Quick Stagger at 75% gauge. And then some people live by the set of rapiers with bonus debuff damage/duration.

 

[StoppedInTracks]

Keep in mind if you do a New Game Plus, that each class of weapon maxes out the same. So once you upgrade them, the final stats of the Morgenstern will actually be the same as the Scramasax - the only different is that the Scramasax will require more components to upgrade fully.

I don't quite understand this - can you explain?

Outside of your commando garb, raw stats don't always make the best weapon choice, either. Chaos's Revenge is indispensable because of its Quick Stagger at 75% gauge. And then some people live by the set of rapiers with bonus debuff damage/duration.

Yeah I know this, thanks. Thundaga LVL4 + Caius Blade = staggering almost always after the stagger wave turns red. My 3700 STR COM Dress is used mainly for 5 Starring Last Ones. I don't have anything to battle in the world except Aeronite and Anubys/ Neomekton because every single thing is extinct

 

[BlazeBreak]

If you're unaware, you can upgrade weapons and shields in New Game Plus. But there's a limit to how much you can - everything has a max value.

The max upgrade value for a "better" weapon won't be any higher. Basically, that weapon is just further along the upgrade chain when you buy it. I mentioned Scramasax (the sword that Dark Muse starts with) because it's the same type of weapon (Heavy Sword) as the Morgenstern. Even though Morgenstern's +1200 STR and Scramasax is +170, in NG+ both max out at +3200 STR.

So while the Morgenstern was definitely a good purchase for you now, just remember that dropping a lot of money on weapons may not be the best idea in NG+ Though if you're swimming in money come then, by all means, go ahead I couldn't resist from grabbing Immortal Order (a Hard Mode only gold variant of the Crimson Blitz family of swords). And you may be tempted by numbers alone when you start a NG+ since only bosses and last ones drop the best upgrade materials needed to improve weapons/shields past a certain point.

 

[WesternHeretic]

Each weapon has an upgrade limit.

For example Weapon "X" has 1500 STR, and -15 ATB on default.

You can upgrade it to 2500 STR or -0 ATB. However you can't have both on the same weapon.

You can do half and get like 2000 STR, and -10 ATB or you can do 2500 STR, and -15 ATB or you can keep the STR at default and get 1500 STR, 0 ATB.

but once you have raw stats STR doesn't matter... cause you cap out at 5000.

 

[Kuja9001]

there is no romance angle between them, haha. lightning is considered more of a motherly figure to hope after the events of XIII, and that's the official canon going off toriyama's comments in the lightning returns strategy guide.

the age gap is way too big. that said, there is a bizarre exchange in LR where lightning teases hope about having a thing for vanille. someone at s-e must've been surfing deviant art during development...

XIII's Ultimania says that Hope/Vanille is a possibility.

 

[StoppedInTracks]

Thanks BlazeBreak and WesternHeretic.

I've beaten the game today, wooo (Normal mode). Managed to kill Bhunivelze on my second try w/o any special preparations meaning I used the same setup of Dresses, Weapons, Bracers, Abilities etc. as in the last 20 hours of game. I did not use Preta Hood/ The Other One for nullifying any kind of damage either. I didn't want to bother changing my setup at all... I got used to my 3 Dresses (Velvet Bouncer, Cybersomething and a beautiful Red One) and the Pumpkin Head

Oh and I rushed through the Cathedral before - didn't do the Mog's quest as well. The difficulty spike in the last dungeon is pretty intense, lol.

On the first try I barely managed to get to his 4th and final form - I used almost all the Ethers and my only Elixir on the 3 forms before. Of course I could not stagger him (Thundara 2, Aerora 4) for the life of me and so he killed me pretty easily.

On the second try I managed to kill the first two forms just by spamming Heavy Slashes - no Staggering, no Overclocks etc. just one X-Potion. The 3rd form is where I first used Overclock and 1 Ether. When the final battle started I spammed Overclock + Ethers just to Stagger that hard-ass motherfucker. It worked and I was on my last Ether!

And man... it was totally worth for that kick-ass CGI ending, wow. It was incredible. Terrific! I love Bhunivelze's design and that one scene on the planet below when you can see his gigantic...corpse? shell? and Caius/ Yuel in front of it - whoa. I wish to had that picture as a Full HD wallpaper. Great final boss for the whole Trilogy and a very, very impressive ending. I was totally not disappointed unlike with the FF13-2 ending, heh.

I still need to kill Aeronite and Ehrzegkiel (sp?). The second one - without any kind of preparations - I managed to get down to 1M HP (out of 7M) before he insta-killed me with some spell for 32 000 damage (!!!). Had I two Ethers more I would've kill that son of a bitch - and I dumped away one Ether before because of lack of space, damn it. Still - the Ultimate Lair Boss - is 10x times easier than Aeronite.

Now to start the NG+ in Hard or Easy mode? Decisions...

 

[Falk]

Oh and I rushed through the Cathedral before - didn't do the Mog's quest as well. The difficulty spike in the last dungeon is pretty intense, lol.

Holy shit, you went through Bhunivelze on Normal without the repaired sword and godmode armor?

 

[StoppedInTracks]

Holy shit, you went through Bhunivelze on Normal without the repaired sword and godmode armor?

Yeah, I can post my stats/ equipment if you like. I had 58 hours on the clock on Day 10 - I wanted to finish the game ASAP and start NG+. I skipped the Treasure Spheres in the Cathedral as well - maybe they had some awesome stuff in there.

Found the aforementioned pic on the net:

And another one:

Bhunivelze has amazing design overall.

Loved this moment as well:

Hope Estheim (even if fake one) - for the first time in 3 games and 300 hours - was a real bad-ass here, hehe.

 

[WesternHeretic]

Thanks BlazeBreak and WesternHeretic.

I've beaten the game today, wooo (Normal mode). Managed to kill Bhunivelze on my second try w/o any special preparations meaning I used the same setup of Dresses, Weapons, Bracers, Abilities etc. as in the last 20 hours of game. I did not use Preta Hood/ The Other One for nullifying any kind of damage either. I didn't want to bother changing my setup at all... I got used to my 3 Dresses (Velvet Bouncer, Cybersomething and a beautiful Red One) and the Pumpkin Head

Oh and I rushed through the Cathedral before - didn't do the Mog's quest as well. The difficulty spike in the last dungeon is pretty intense, lol.

On the first try I barely managed to get to his 4th and final form - I used almost all the Ethers and my only Elixir on the 3 forms before. Of course I could not stagger him (Thundara 2, Aerora 4) for the life of me and so he killed me pretty easily.

On the second try I managed to kill the first two forms just by spamming Heavy Slashes - no Staggering, no Overclocks etc. just one X-Potion. The 3rd form is where I first used Overclock and 1 Ether. When the final battle started I spammed Overclock + Ethers just to Stagger that hard-ass motherfucker. It worked and I was on my last Ether!

And man... it was totally worth for that kick-ass CGI ending, wow. It was incredible. Terrific! I love Bhunivelze's design and that one scene on the planet below when you can see his gigantic...corpse? shell? and Caius/ Yuel in front of it - whoa. I wish to had that picture as a Full HD wallpaper. Great final boss for the whole Trilogy and a very, very impressive ending. I was totally not disappointed unlike with the FF13-2 ending, heh.

I still need to kill Aeronite and Ehrzegkiel (sp?). The second one - without any kind of preparations - I managed to get down to 1M HP (out of 7M) before he insta-killed me with some spell for 32 000 damage (!!!). Had I two Ethers more I would've kill that son of a bitch - and I dumped away one Ether before because of lack of space, damn it. Still - the Ultimate Lair Boss - is 10x times easier than Aeronite.

Now to start the NG+ in Hard or Easy mode? Decisions...

I would go with hard. The only thing easy provide is it easier to farm lvl 1 spells. And the only reason you would want level 1 spells rather than lvl 5 is that if you upgrade the lvl 1 from 1 to 5 the atb cost is lower than if you just find a lvl 5 from monsters.


But once again that only for people who are looking for max efficiency, and is really unnecessary.

As far as the two super boss, I don't think you can fight aeronite straight up without preta hood unless you're on like the 10th play through. The reason I say that is because you just can't perfect guard everything, you also don't have heroic guard yet either and probably haven't maximize your skills with the rare passive abilities. Unless you have like 10 elixirs... but that would just be a waste.

As for the ultimate lair boss yea there plenty of different set ups to beat him. I won't post them unless you want so you can try and figure out what's best for you.


As far as treasure go items have 3 forms. So I wouldn't skip them because you would need to open the sphere 3 times to get it fully upgraded, meaning a minimum of 3 play through.

 

[Falk]

Yeah, I can post my stats/ equipment if you like.

Nah, but the power differential is insane. The amount of bonus strength you get can't really be compared between it and your best weapon - it's more of it vs your second best weapon since your (old) best would go into a secondary garb.

I guess now a few months out it doesn't matter as much as people in general have a better grasp of some of the finer game mechanics,

 

[StoppedInTracks]

Nah, but the power differential is insane. The amount of bonus strength you get can't really be compared between it and your best weapon - it's more of it vs your second best weapon since your (old) best would go into a secondary garb.

I guess now a few months out it doesn't matter as much as people in general have a better grasp of some of the finer game mechanics,

I also forgot to equip Caius' Blade for quick stagger, heh. That's why it was so damn hard to stagger Bhuni.

As far as treasure go items have 3 forms. So I wouldn't skip them because you would need to open the sphere 3 times to get it fully upgraded, meaning a minimum of 3 play through.

Well it is too late now. No way in hell I am trying Bhunivelze again - I got quite lucky last time. I want to play the game 3 times anyway - Hard Mode now, Easy Mode later on for total annihilation.

 

[StoppedInTracks]

I guess now a few months out it doesn't matter as much as people in general have a better grasp of some of the finer game mechanics,

Err... what? I went totally dark into this and I started playing it 3 weeks ago - what does it have to do with anything?

Anyway my specs that I used in the final Bhunivelze battle w/o the Ultimate Weapon (first playthrough, normal mode):

1st COM/2nd RAV - everything related to STR boost. Morgenstern and a shitty Shield that gives me +Strength cause I never block with this one (the Steelguard is there only for the +110 Strength). Aerora for Staggering.

SEN/1st RAV: - worst thing is the plain white Thundara LVL2 that I have. I cannot believe I had found 100 Firas, 100 Blizzaras, 100 Aeroras and only one fucking Thundara 2 in the whole game. This is also my SEN setup as I have 107% Physical Resistance when Guarding.

SAB/2nd COM: - the default schema. Pretty old one but I could not find a decent replacement even though it only has Deprotect/ Deshell LVL2. The LVL3 versions did not seem any better to me and they cost more ATB to cast. Deprotect, Deshell, Imperil then switch to RAV. Heavy Slash for changing back and forth between my COM to, well, Heavy Slash enemies to death.

Recovery Items:

(only 1 Hi-Potion left after the battle)

Bonus pic of what you can do with same setup. I was hitting him for 120k damage with each Heavy Slash while Staggered, Deprotect, Imperil, Deshell etc. I was praying that I do not run out of Ethers and I didn't!

Ereshkigal and Bhunivelze are totally manageable. That fucking Aeronite, though. I cannot even stagger him ONCE. Fuck.