A thread for the Legendary VR Missions

[MetalFearbringer]

I did rulers of the outer worlds & To Be a Hero then move on to complete Hard mode and have Cloud level weapon at 9 and finally proceeded to do bonds of friendship. I suggest you guys follow similar strategy it makes everything much easier

[SuperSaiyan3985]

On 4/17/2024 at 9:30 AM, Anasthesaint said:

Hello everyone, 

Can someone please tell me that the brutal challenges are more difficult than the legendary!!

I had the worst experience with outer worlds seph ..not only his Rng but my ps5 crashes often and only in this challenge (never before). 

It is too much with all mini games ,hard difficulty , brutal and legendary challenges. 

I want to be done so i can start steller blade day one ..

 

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Bonds of Friendship will make all the Brutal challenges (Ruler of the Outer Worlds included) look like a joke 😂 The only bad Brutal challenge IMO is The Seventh Seal because of that damn Gigaworm, but I beat the other four on my first try and Optinoob's Brumal Form strat makes the sixth one a cakewalk.

 

As for the Legendary challenges, I found the solo ones pretty manageable but again, Bonds of Friendship will make you want to pull your hair out. Once you beat that one, To Be Hero will be a breeze as it's basically the same as BOF only Sephiroth is a much stronger than Zack which makes it a lot easier. 

 

22 hours ago, BrilloHD said:

I'm getting to the point where I'm going to tackle Hard first so I can level Cloud's weapon to level 9. Bonds of Friendship is just so mentally exhausting. Rulers took 5 tries max, and not once did I ever doubt my ability to complete it. The consensus strategy is perfect on that one, so it feels like easy difficulty in comparison to the pure RNG of this. Maybe I'll try to get one more crack at Odin and see what happens before committing to Hard.

I've made it to Odin a handful of times across my now 4 days of trying (plus a one-day break), but now I'm pretty much at the point where Bahamut is the run killer. I've tried with Enemy Skill and I've tried with swapping it out for HP Up for survivability. I think my runs are slightly more consistent with HP Up, but not much. Bahamut felt way easier on Sunday, when I beat him five or six straight runs, but now he's harder for some reason. It's weird haha. Other than Alexander's tracking beam, which is only an issue if I go with the Enemy Skill, everything up until Bahamut is really easy. Just boring.

I'm just so frustrated

I struggled a lot with Bahamut until I realized how to prevent myself from getting damaged when he does Xenodrive mode. When he does Particle Charge for the third time, there's not gonna be enough time to pressure him with Aerora so I suggest using the Synergy Ability to cancel him out of it. If he powers up with Xeno, I noticed getting far away with Cloud or Zack will have him just focus on the other character.

 

13 hours ago, Xylobe said:

 

Using the "meta" builds, I found Rulers and the Zack challenge to be pretty close in difficulty. The Sephiroth challenge is quite a bit easier (I had more trouble with Brutal 5), and none of the solo challenges should take more than a couple of tries. If your PS5 is crashing, it may be overheating and could do with a cleaning.

 

 

From what I remember, blocking and using Counterfire effectively was the difference maker for me. It's also helpful to get Manawall up on Cloud as early as you can afford to. Good luck!

Yup! Blocking with Prime Mode and Counterfire will allow you to deal with most of Bahamut's attacks. The only problem is if he does into Xenodrive mode. 

[JimKillington]

Just to give hope to those feeling a little despondent reading this thread; I personally got Bonds of Friendship in less tries than To Be A Hero. Not a brag at all- I think I just took a lot more tries than a lot of people on here to get To be A Hero. But everyone will have their own journey to the end of this, and I think the mindset of "If you struggle with these ones, you'll never beat this one!" undermines the fact that every time you die and reset on RoOW or TbaH, you're building the same skillset you'll need for BoF. The more you fail at any of them, the better you'll get at all of them- tilt aside. To quote a great dog, "Sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something."

[Sisselyn]

Got the platinum. I also got bonds of friendship done in less tries than to be a hero, but I did to be a hero first for the manuscript, and most of the bosses are the same in both vr missions. so i got used to their movesets. I would say bonds of friendship is harder. less error to fuck up.  Odin was my wall in To be a Hero.  Bahamut ended my runs on bonds of friendship more often.

This was much harder than remake. Weiss was a tough fight for sure. But it was just one fight, just had to learn it. 10 rounds is brutal man. Only to lose at round 9 or 10 is demotivating.

If there's anything i wish for in part 3. is easy loadout swap. In the later chapters of hard mode. I had to swap so many materia and equipment between each character after each boss/section. was annoying as hell.

[flthy-anml]

Man, I had the opposite experience as most of you - I finished To Be A Hero twice (twice because I ragequit the game while trying Bonds without remembering to save and losing my weapon level 9 and another bit of my sanity) in fewer tries than Bonds by far. It sucks not having Haste or anything on Sephiroth, sure, but I managed Odin by just switching who I'm controlling whenever he switched aggro and managed to burn him down with Seph LBs and Cloud spamming -ga spells. 

 

One thing I learned saved my runs was that I was just getting greedy: sometimes I'd spend too much time trying to build ATB and messing up my window to block, which would then spiral out of control while I panic and eventually get Zantetsuken'd straight back to Titan. I'm not sure if anyone else is struggling with that but it's best to prioritise blocking (preferably in Prime Mode) blockable Odin attacks over trying to over-extend.

 

The same thing applies to Zack but I had a *way* harder time because I couldn't rely on the invulnerability that Limit Breaks gave Seph. I ended up relying hard on Zack being a buff battery by trying to build up synergy and then making sure Manawall, Haste and Faith were always up, then chipping away with Cloud whenever it was safe. I know I'm not relly offering anything that others aren't but I'm far from a good player and I got through it mainly by reassessing my greed and shifting my focus to being more defensive during Odin, so maybe that'll help others in my position? Idk.

[abhinandhan22]

Jesus christ, honestly everything till bonds of friendship felt like somewhat of a fair challenge with @Optinooby's spectacular guides but man i can't get past odin at the very end. I either die before he does spatial distortion or he does spatial distortion but soesnt follow up with temporal displacement but instead does zantetsuken and i get insta killed. Been trying to practice him in the combat simulator but i never am able to kill him before i get zantetsuken. Am i doing something wrong or is it pure rng when it comes to that move?

Edited April 21 by abhinandhan22

[abhinandhan22]

22 hours ago, abhinandhan22 said:

Jesus christ, honestly everything till bonds of friendship felt like somewhat of a fair challenge with @Optinooby's spectacular guides but man i can't get past odin at the very end. I either die before he does spatial distortion or he does spatial distortion but soesnt follow up with temporal displacement but instead does zantetsuken and i get insta killed. Been trying to practice him in the combat simulator but i never am able to kill him before i get zantetsuken. Am i doing something wrong or is it pure rng when it comes to that move?

Just beat bonds of friendship finally jesus christ. Idk if its placebo / i just got better over my attempts but i read a comment that odin was easier on the game unpatched. I reinstalled the game unpatched and after 5 attempts i beat Odin. He didnt do zantetsuken at all and he always followed up with temporal displacement after spatial distortion like optinoob's video. Anyways only to be a hero left. I pray that its easier than this like what people have said

Edited April 22 by abhinandhan22

[damcrac5]

On 4/18/2024 at 9:15 AM, MetalFearbringer said:

I did rulers of the outer worlds & To Be a Hero then move on to complete Hard mode and have Cloud level weapon at 9 and finally proceeded to do bonds of friendship. I suggest you guys follow similar strategy it makes everything much easier

How much of a difference does weapon level 9 make?  I just started my hard mode run because I'll need it anyways, but how much stats increase would be good to know, too.

[totakos1]

3 hours ago, damcrac5 said:

How much of a difference does weapon level 9 make?  I just started my hard mode run because I'll need it anyways, but how much stats increase would be good to know, too.

It’s mentioned when go to your weapon upgrades or something bottom right says next level top right is current level! Example Cloud was like plus 24 attack, 17 magic and like 5% atb change from lvl 8 to lvl 9!

[damcrac5]

1 hour ago, totakos1 said:

It’s mentioned when go to your weapon upgrades or something bottom right says next level top right is current level! Example Cloud was like plus 24 attack, 17 magic and like 5% atb change from lvl 8 to lvl 9!

Appreciate the tip. I'll definitely check it out next time I boot it up. Sounds like a pretty solid increase. Too bad Zack is just listed as weapons level 1 and doesn't match cloud. Or maybe he does?

[CaptHowdy_84]

22 hours ago, abhinandhan22 said:

Just beat bonds of friendship finally jesus christ. Idk if its placebo / i just got better over my attempts but i read a comment that odin was easier on the game unpatched. I reinstalled the game unpatched and after 5 attempts i beat Odin. He didnt do zantetsuken at all and he always followed up with temporal displacement after spatial distortion like optinoob's video. Anyways only to be a hero left. I pray that its easier than this like what people have said

Can someone else confirm the teory of the unpatched version? 

[BlackTorito]

48 minutes ago, CaptHowdy_84 said:

Can someone else confirm the teory of the unpatched version? 

I don't think it matters, what you have to do is keep hitting Odin with spells, ATB abilities and debuffs, and you can even pressure him when it sounds the Gjallahorn, you just need to throw a quick spell once it sounds it. The best strategy is to block attacks in Prime Mode with Cloud, the only one you can't block aside from the unblockables is the Spear Throw I think.

[Anasthesaint]

Hi everyone, 

Just got my plat and all because of optinnob..

It is a suffering..i spent days thinking , planning and trying outer worlds, bonds of friendship and be a hero ..now it is done. Too hard i would say .never again.took me 210 hours...

Followed optinoob build .

For to be a hero (for those, who still trying) i changed enemy skills  materia with Atb boost and started every fight with prime and faith exept boss 6 (used seph spam attacks then limit)bahamuth and odin i suggest learn their behaviour in vr missions..

Bahamuth first phase counter fire ,second blocking. Not difficult when one learn that.

Odin pressure him by blocking in prime then spam wind 3 ,let seph cast manawall then revive if needed use R2 mode spam to see what his doing and plan ur moves. Eventually used seph as backup the whole way.

They are a torture, hope you all lot of luck .

 

[CaptHowdy_84]

16 hours ago, BlackTorito said:

I don't think it matters, what you have to do is keep hitting Odin with spells, ATB abilities and debuffs, and you can even pressure him when it sounds the Gjallahorn, you just need to throw a quick spell once it sounds it. The best strategy is to block attacks in Prime Mode with Cloud, the only one you can't block aside from the unblockables is the Spear Throw I think.

Agree. Just completed BoF with few tries, but I spent a lot of time on TBAH in the past days, so most of the rounds were a breeze. Zack is not that bad as a support, so the challenge was definitely not as bas as expected. Last round keep manawall up, block and abuse aeroga and to be safe use Phoenix and cast reraise when available. Optinoob for president!! 

[nudoetcrudo]

On 4/19/2024 at 2:23 AM, Sisselyn said:

If there's anything i wish for in part 3. is easy loadout swap. In the later chapters of hard mode. I had to swap so many materia and equipment between each character after each boss/section. was annoying as hell.

Honestly it's crazy that the game doesn't already have this feature. Or allowing access to the main menu from the VR menu. 

 

 

On 4/22/2024 at 12:15 AM, abhinandhan22 said:

Just beat bonds of friendship finally jesus christ. Idk if its placebo / i just got better over my attempts but i read a comment that odin was easier on the game unpatched. I reinstalled the game unpatched and after 5 attempts i beat Odin. He didnt do zantetsuken at all and he always followed up with temporal displacement after spatial distortion like optinoob's video. Anyways only to be a hero left. I pray that its easier than this like what people have said

Optinoob's guide is great but some fights can be done in a much better way.

For example, Damage Parts Up is pretty useless because Cloud cripples wings/arms in one-hit anyway. It may be useful for Titan but it's unnecessary because some parries/counterfire + Aeroga are enough anyway to destroy his shield. I replaced it with Improved Punisher, it allows to kill enemies in fewer hits.

Also, Casting Aeroga on Hueyacoatl triggers Supercharged and that makes the fight x10 harder. If you cast Stop before, wind attacks won't trigger it.

And a few other things in other fights. 

I made speedrun videos with what I think is the most optimized build/strategy. The videos descriptions explain all the commands I am using for every fight. 

Bonds of Friendship
To Be a Hero

If you want a safer build just replace ATB Assist and Skill Master (or Strength Up and ATB Stagger) with Lightning + HP Absorb.
Cast Manawall in rounds where missing a parry is dangerous (at my first attempts I was always using it for Bahamut and Odin).
Also, no need to rush like in my videos. You can take it easy and stay in "parry stance" in Prime Mode to parry all physical attacks. If a boss attacks with roars, beams, stomps, magic, use counterfire (it's pretty OP).

Edited April 30 by nudoetcrudo

[residentgamer5]

I'm considering to start my hard mode playthrough before continuing with the challenges, it seems like the best approach. Which materias should I prioritize leveling up during my hard playthrough? Just so the brutal and legendary challenges feel more... You know, doable?

[NathanW18]

5 hours ago, nudoetcrudo said:

Honestly it's crazy that the game doesn't already have this feature. Or allowing access to the main menu from the VR menu. 

It was probably my biggest issue with the game. During hard mode, I was spending more time swapping materia around than actually fighting the bosses. The game desperately needs an actual loadout system. Allow us to save materia, armour, and accessory loadouts for each character. A loadout swap would be nice as well. Having to back out of the VR menu because you forgot to equip one materia is very annoying as well.

 

I refuse to believe that the QA testers that played through hard mode didn't bring it to the devs attention. It seems like a strange oversight, but I'm sure they will include it for the 3rd game.

 

4 hours ago, residentgamer5 said:

I'm considering to start my hard mode playthrough before continuing with the challenges, it seems like the best approach. Which materias should I prioritize leveling up during my hard playthrough? Just so the brutal and legendary challenges feel more... You know, doable?

All of the blue materia should be a priority. They take the longest to level and are mostly the best materia in the game. Fire and Ice, Lightning and Wind, Poison and Petrify, and Petrify materia. I think these four also have relatively high AP requirements. Magic Up and Strength Up as well.

 

Anything else you may use is much faster to level.

Edited April 25 by NathanW18

[Anasthesaint]

9 hours ago, residentgamer5 said:

I'm considering to start my hard mode playthrough before continuing with the challenges, it seems like the best approach. Which materias should I prioritize leveling up during my hard playthrough? Just so the brutal and legendary challenges feel more... You know, doable?

Sorry to bring it up ,,but you need almast everyone of them . I did the cat mission Ap farm . It worked and made life easier. 

[Jdeadevil]

Currently watching Solestro's tutorial for To Be a Hero, which I'm doing before Bonds of Friendship, and after dying twenty times using Optinoob's build, I'm going to try this method for a bit and then switch back, lol. At this point I just want this game done with, it's exhausting and I'm bored, but my punishment for not doing it would be a massive gap in my list of 100%.

 

 

Edited April 27 by Jdeadevil

[MetalFearbringer]

On 4/22/2024 at 11:59 PM, damcrac5 said:

How much of a difference does weapon level 9 make?  I just started my hard mode run because I'll need it anyways, but how much stats increase would be good to know, too.

I think on the rune blade give something like 27+ Magic attack which is great combining it with all the other magic increase stats you will do much more damage.

[damcrac5]

14 hours ago, MetalFearbringer said:

I think on the rune blade give something like 27+ Magic attack which is great combining it with all the other magic increase stats you will do much more damage.

It's 31 magic and 10 attack.  Pretty decent. 

 

I managed to get Bonds of Friendship done tonight on my 2nd attempt post hard mode. Which is a bit counterintuitive as I'd be lvl 9 if I did sephiroth's mission first. Should be free sailing from here.

[BrilloHD]

On 4/17/2024 at 11:20 PM, BrilloHD said:

I'm getting to the point where I'm going to tackle Hard first so I can level Cloud's weapon to level 9. Bonds of Friendship is just so mentally exhausting. Rulers took 5 tries max, and not once did I ever doubt my ability to complete it. The consensus strategy is perfect on that one, so it feels like easy difficulty in comparison to the pure RNG of this. Maybe I'll try to get one more crack at Odin and see what happens before committing to Hard.

I've made it to Odin a handful of times across my now 4 days of trying (plus a one-day break), but now I'm pretty much at the point where Bahamut is the run killer. I've tried with Enemy Skill and I've tried with swapping it out for HP Up for survivability. I think my runs are slightly more consistent with HP Up, but not much. Bahamut felt way easier on Sunday, when I beat him five or six straight runs, but now he's harder for some reason. It's weird haha. Other than Alexander's tracking beam, which is only an issue if I go with the Enemy Skill, everything up until Bahamut is really easy. Just boring.

I'm just so frustrated

To update: I finally got it done. I did go through Hard mode, which wasn't bad. The Sephiroth challenge I beat my first try (well, first try after getting past Titan as I tried to get used to Sephiroth's mechanics). Some rounds were still a struggle and I did activate my Reraises when fighting Odin, but glad it didn't take long to complete.

Bonds of Friendship took three tries with a Lv9 Cloud. First attempt, I barely lost to Odin. I thought I was in the clear to cast one final Aeorga to win, but he hit me in time. That really sucked haha. He also took way too long to cast Temporal Imprisonment, so I regret not just Limit Breaking it instead of running around with Zack. Second attempt I lost to Bahamut, which was derailed from the start since Zack didn't get a full ATB at the start. I can't stress enough how important it is to let Bahamut grab Cloud. That free time with Zack is so vital for Haste, Manawall, and/or Curing. Third attempt went mostly smooth. Still barely won, but it's done. Overall, the other thing that helped is that there is a grace period for Spacial Distortion, before the wall solidifies. Numerous guides say "stick to the right side of the map to avoid it," but even then it felt inconsistent. So I went into the middle and made sure I was on the non-damaging side.

I really regret not just doing Hard difficulty first. Could've saved myself so much stress and time, and probably would've platinumed this weeks ago. So that's my advice. Don't even bother trying it until Cloud's weapon level is 9. It's not worth doing it beforehand. You will 100% thank yourself later.

I did get that 87/88 bug, but as the other thread suggested, I restarted ch13, and that worked perfectly.