Final Fantasy

[Kaney]

I don't think I've ever used Sentinel. Along with Synergist/Saboteur, I generally delete the paradigms as soon as I can. Haven't come across any need for them at all so far, but I may be in for a shock later >_>

[Clawson]

Oh yeah...you'll be in for a shock later. Sentinel plus Sazh's Haste make battles a lot easier later on.

[stokeriño]

Much as I generally can't stand CAD, I was linked to this and this is virtually the situation with me and Stokerina right now.

...Except I wasn't smart enough to set up an agreement, so I lose her and PS3 time and no boobs in return.

[Rich]

Gran Pulse is just....woah!

Seconded, woah!

So guys who are this far, whats the best way to go forward? A bit of grinding or getting on with the main quest?

[Benji]

I've been playing off and on grinding, my goal is to be able to beat the pair of King Behemoths near the northern part before moving on.

[Kaney]

I wish they would stop saying the word "hope" when you know, Hope is standing right there. It's just strange >_>

As a serious question, is there any point in using new weapons? Everything I've picked up from the start has been a lot worse standard that the ones I've upgraded, so far to chapter 7. I know when they are full they might be weaker than the new weapons at full, but is there a huge discrepancy or is there no real point to switching weapons? I just don't want to go from a 50str/30mag weapon down to a 10/7 just because it 'might' get better.

[Benji]

The whole upgrading thing apparently isn't worth it until late in the game when decent stuff can be dropped/bought, just up your first weapon and hold out I'd say.

[TKz]

The only reason to switch weapons is if you're finding someone to be constantly using one type of attack. Say for example, you never use Vanille as anything but a ravenger, but the weapon you have equipped specialises in strength based attacks. You'll be better off switching, because say for example your strength based weapon at Lvl. 8 does 28 Magic damage, your Magic based weapon will probably do that at like Lvl. 4.

Later on there's also stuff like additional abilities you can get for Weapons, like adding an ATB gauge, Auto-Haste etc.

I've also discovered a smart thing to use Eidolons for. Later on in the game you'll find that you have more trouble with the groups of like 6 enemies, made up of like one super strong one and 4 annoying ones. Whack out Odin and wipe them out. You'll usually end up getting back the TP pretty quickly. Basically, Eidolons are much better suited to wiping out annoying Encounters than they are against bosses. For bosses, Saboteur/Ravenger/Commando is your best friend, with occasional Medic/Synergist/Commando.

[Rich]

The only reason to switch weapons is if you're finding someone to be constantly using one type of attack. Say for example, you never use Vanille as anything but a ravenger, but the weapon you have equipped specialises in strength based attacks. You'll be better off switching, because say for example your strength based weapon at Lvl. 8 does 28 Magic damage, your Magic based weapon will probably do that at like Lvl. 4.

Later on there's also stuff like additional abilities you can get for Weapons, like adding an ATB gauge, Auto-Haste etc.

I've also discovered a smart thing to use Eidolons for. Later on in the game you'll find that you have more trouble with the groups of like 6 enemies, made up of like one super strong one and 4 annoying ones. Whack out Odin and wipe them out. You'll usually end up getting back the TP pretty quickly. Basically, Eidolons are much better suited to wiping out annoying Encounters than they are against bosses. For bosses, Saboteur/Ravenger/Commando is your best friend, with occasional Medic/Synergist/Commando.

Commando/Sentinel/Ravager says hello too... Delta Attack is wonderful

[TKz]

Sentinel is awful. The AI for it is almost as bad as Medic. I swear to god, if my Medic heals Fang one more time when Lightning is almost dead, I will punch Hope in the face. Somehow.

Sentinel should do the instant Focus thing, but it either doesn't, or doesn't do it in time for me. The whole reason I need it is to save Lightning so it's not game over, but it just doesn't work very well.

[probablyoliver]

Shit just got real. Major chapter 8 spoilers AHOY!

Okay, I no longer 'hate' Vanille, purely because she's made me care for Sazh in a way that I've literally never cared for a FF character before. Not even Vivi. The whole Dajh thing was genuinely heartbreaking. I think this is the first time I've ever been genuinely emotionally attached to the entire storyline. I mean, in previous FF's you had moments where yeah, bad shit happened and that was sad (see: black mage army, Aries dying, something something something in VIII, etc.), but holy crap, the whole Sazh/Dajh/PSICOM/Vanille saga is just, yeah, I'm speechless about it all. Sazh pulling the gun on Vanille only to turn it on himself, the PSICOM lady with the specs (god damn I'm awful at remembering names) letting Sazh go off and kill Vanille, Dajh turning to fucking crystal after hugging his Dad, holy shit this is deep as all hell and it's amazing. As far as characterization goes, this is definitely the strongest FF yet. I mean, I still don't really care about Fang, but I'm intrigued to learn more and the Hope story seems kinda dead in the pan now that he's BFF's with Snow, but I'm sure we're going to get more from his Dad later on and Lightning isn't the most interesting character, but she's being carried along by the whole Snow/Serah thing so I've no trouble with that, but there's still reason to care about everyone. There's no Fran's or Penelo's or Kimahri's or Lulu's or Freya's or Amarants or Cait Sith's or anyone from Final Fantasy VIII in sight, which is an absolute first for FF. Seriously, this doesn't read very well, because god damn, it's hard to put into words how jaw-droppingly amazing chapter 8 is. Wow.

In more non-spoiler news, I'm really not digging the Robots in Disguise Eidolons (or the fact it's apparently pronounced I-Doh-Lons, I'm certainly not digging that >_>), because there's literally no reason why Shiva has to turn into a motorbike (?). Odin into a horse makes enough sense to be ignorable, but the Ifrit thingy into a fucking sports car!? Fuck off Square, don't patronize me, I'm not six years old, dammit. The battle system is fast becoming one of my favourites, because there's actual strategy involved (I maintain the only other FF to involve some kind of in-battle strategy is XII, the rest are just MASH ATTACK), Synergist/Saboteur is a badass combination, and genuinely useful for some of the bosses. The differences between Commando/Ravager are enough to give some kind of full-on strategy to the attack roles and Sentinel/Medic makes for a badass defense line for the tougher non-boss battles.

I won't say this is my favourite FF game (I will say XII is, and you'll all hate me for it >_>), but if the game holds up when I get to the free-roaming bits, then yeah, it's definitely up there with the better ones.

Basically, this game is wonderful. In every sense of the word.

[Kaney]

Fuck the chapter seven boss.

The big fuckoff skytank thing. With over 400k fucking hp. Okay, so Librascope helped me figure out what the different parts are, and that they have less health than the big fucker, but even still. I have Fang as Commando, Lightning as Ravager and Hope as Medic. Except he doesn't fucking heal. So we die, and I continue at the game over screen. Only it puts me back in the fucking lobby with the fucking strike teams and all the items I had before from fighting them are gone! So I need to fight through them again and get to the boss, only after fighting three teams of soldiers I forget to add things like Sentinel/Saboteur etc to my paradigms, so I'm stuck the same as before only I have Hope going Ravager and Lightning on Medic duties. But because of her four bar ATB, she can't heal in time, and when I only use two bars and skip the others, she can't keep on top of the damage being dealt! Ended up with Fang and Hope both dead, I'd run out of phoenix downs and all I could do as Lightning was constantly heal herself, because if I switched back to Commando, she'd be almost insta-killed by the big fucking rockets. Grr.

Third time round, same deal, and I forget AGAIN to fix my paradigms. So I use Odin. He blasts away one of the turrets and does serious damage to the second one, so we scrape past those two and things get easier. I assume it might be easier taking out the hulls first since I think those are the ones firing the rockets that kill me, but eh. Whittled away after that easily enough, but it was a pain without being able to debuff or anything.

Still got five stars, and beat the time by 4 minutes. 'cos I rule.

[probablyoliver]

In reply to Kaney

I found that quite easy, just painfully long and needlessly dull. Every time you defeated one of the turrets it took off like 90,000 HP of the skytank itself. When that was over it was just mashing attack with Ravager/Ravager/Commando.

[TKz]

Chapter 7 Spoilers:

Havok Skytank was an awesome boss. Challenging yet fun I found. I can't remember exactly what I did, but I'm fairly certain I made sure to use Synergist/Sabouter/Medic for the first bit, wore him down some with that and then swapped to combos of Ravenger/Ravenger/Commando & Medic/Medic/Commando. I know I took out the turrets first though, as once you finished off those it made life a lot easier.

Spoilers involving Chapter 9:

The re-union between Vanille & Fang made me happy.

The amount of Vikings on this level did not though. And it'll be far too soon if I ever, ever see a Psicom Hunteress again. Or a deckdrone. Or a Vespid Solider. Pretty much any of the enemies on this level.

[Clawson]

Fuck the chapter seven boss.

The big fuckoff skytank thing. With over 400k fucking hp. Okay, so Librascope helped me figure out what the different parts are, and that they have less health than the big fucker, but even still. I have Fang as Commando, Lightning as Ravager and Hope as Medic. Except he doesn't fucking heal. So we die, and I continue at the game over screen. Only it puts me back in the fucking lobby with the fucking strike teams and all the items I had before from fighting them are gone! So I need to fight through them again and get to the boss, only after fighting three teams of soldiers I forget to add things like Sentinel/Saboteur etc to my paradigms, so I'm stuck the same as before only I have Hope going Ravager and Lightning on Medic duties. But because of her four bar ATB, she can't heal in time, and when I only use two bars and skip the others, she can't keep on top of the damage being dealt! Ended up with Fang and Hope both dead, I'd run out of phoenix downs and all I could do as Lightning was constantly heal herself, because if I switched back to Commando, she'd be almost insta-killed by the big fucking rockets. Grr.

Third time round, same deal, and I forget AGAIN to fix my paradigms. So I use Odin. He blasts away one of the turrets and does serious damage to the second one, so we scrape past those two and things get easier. I assume it might be easier taking out the hulls first since I think those are the ones firing the rockets that kill me, but eh. Whittled away after that easily enough, but it was a pain without being able to debuff or anything.

Still got five stars, and beat the time by 4 minutes. 'cos I rule.

Use your damn shrouds to get haste and protect.

And Behemoth Kings can ba-low me.

[TKz]

What the fuck is the fucking point of the Chapter 10 boss. How the fuck am I supposed to beat him if he casts Doom on me before I even get a fucking chance to get him to half his fucking HP.

Not to mention the whole battle took me about a fucking half an hour. Fuck doing this again.

[LUKIE]

Stepping back to the changing weapons thing. I fund that if a certain weapon has a better "special ability" then it is worth upgrading the new weapon slowly. I think they also max out higher, and upgrade faster. For instance, I just added a new weapon to lightning, which builds her gauge everytime she attacks someone. I upgraded it to level 3 and it's pretty much close to what her previous level 7 weapon was.

[TKz]

Right, now that all the rage at losing about half an hour/an hour of my life to losing a boss battle is gone, I've done something I found to be quite clever. Realising that Lightning/Hope spent the majority of the battle using magic, I've started using more Magic oriented weapons and have upgraded them so much that Lightning is now averaging a 300 Magic stat, Hope has 289 and Fang, who is pretty much always a commando, has a strength of 275. Lightning now has 1300 HP, Hope 1245 and Fang, 1290. And to top it off, I've changed up so that the Bully paradigm is now the Entourage paradigm (Basically just changing a Commando for a Ravenger), as it just makes sense to thrash away with a Ravenger that'll do higher damage than using a Commando who'll do less damage and raise the Stagger bar slower. (Not that Stagger really matters in this battle.)

Seriously, I urge all of you. When you reach Chapter 8 & 9, DO NOT SKIP BATTLES and MAKE SURE TO UPGRADE MAGIC WEAPONS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. The total whore of a boss battle will mostly be spent with Ravengers and you're going to want to be a good level when it comes to Magic stats.

For anyone that has beat the Chapter 9 end boss:

I've heard that there's only a chance he'll inflict Doom on you and that it doesn't even actually happen to some people, is this true? Was I just extremely unlucky?

[Clawson]

What boss are you talking about?

[TKz]

This cunt.