some useful info to new players

[MMDE]

This is a post I made on another forum, but I thought I'd post it here as well!

 

Heya, thought I'd post it as some might find it useful and as of a request from a friend of mine...


This game differs from previous FF games in the way that enemies don't drop money. They do drop items though, but pretty much all of them is worth pretty much nothing. The enemies you want to grind drop a couple of the items you are meant to sell for items and with a pretty high drop rate, so it's likely you will get them. The problem is just doing it efficiently. There is this one spot in a chapter where it takes some few seconds to make these enemies respawn. Great, but these enemies aren't really that easy or fast to kill, so you gotta figure out a way to take them out very fast, which there are techniques to do. The game also differs from earlier games by the fact that you don't really control everyone you fight with, only one which you can select in a menu when outside battle. This makes it harder for you to make everyone do as you want and take out the enemies as quickly as possible, but fear not, by underleveling certain characters in some of their "jobs/classes" they are already not very good at, you can pretty much force them to do attacks you want. Then there are equipment to make it all faster too. If it's all done correctly, you can take out the enemies in some few seconds (like 10 or something if done perfectly) and then it's just to run back and forth to make the enemies respawn, beat them and repeat. 5 hours should be enough time to get all the money you need in the game. I can't honestly remember what the amount of money you should get is, but I think like 10 million is enough. I will have to find you a guide for this, for some reason it's not that commonly known so it's not that easy to find it.
GameFAQs: Final Fantasy XIII (PS3) Gil Farming Guide by lilJesta
The method is called: Chapter 13 Ci'eth
As they say there:
1,263,000 at 30 Second Battle Times
I was able to do it much faster than 30 second battle time, but I guess they might be including the running and start/end of battle stuff. I think I did it faster than that eventually. Anyways, that's it.

Personally, I didn't use the trophy guide for anything but checking for missable trophies. If you just make sure you don't miss any items on the way (there is possible to miss two equipment or something, elemental ones, can't remember the names, but somewhat hard to miss) then the rest is not missable. You will want to either scan your enemies or fight them enough to get complete data of them in your bestiary. You don't really need to get the info on every enemy, but it's wise to just get them all as you progress.

 

 

^ Best "CP"/exp for leveling method. I guess there could be more efficient, but that stuff was extremely easy and fast. I see they spend a lot of time in those battle in that video, but could be they are low leveled. It still is an easy battle to win with lots of CP to be won. I did the fight in exactly 6-7 seconds each time with the right setup.

You need to have had all equipment at some point. Much equipment can only be obtained by leveling up other equipment and synthesizing them. There basically are two types of items you want to use to upgrade equipment with. Organic and synthetic. Organic builds up "multipliers", but don't give much xp. Synthetic is efficient in terms of how much xp they are worth, but they reduce the multiplier. The trick is to build up the multiplier with the most cost-efficient organic materials to get the multiplier to the max, then use exactly enough cost-efficient synthetic materials in a single use, so all the exp from the synthetic materials gets multiplied with the multiplier before it gets reduced by you using synthetic materials to upgrade. If this makes no sense, and for the most cost-efficient materials, read here:
GameFAQs: Final Fantasy XIII (PS3) Upgrade Guide by Daetrinn


I know the site is a bit strange, but I used this site a lot (used to look a bit differently):
Weapons - Final Fantasy XIII - Guides
Accessories - Final Fantasy XIII - Guides
It has a lot of exact data for how much xp various stuff cost to upgrade and what is required to upgrade etc.


When it comes to 5-staring the various missions. Most of them are either several weak enemies or one strong. When it's several weak enemies it's usually just to use some strong area of effect attacks, and when it's one strong you can abuse Vanille's Death spell, just restart the fight if you don't get lucky early on. There are a couple of exceptions to this rule, but very few, but still check the wikia page to see if the enemy is immune to Vanille's Death Spell.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Shaolong_Gui
You don't really want to have to take down these several times for Dark Matter, but it might happen you have to do so. At least don't spend your gil before you know you can afford this. There are very few tricks to this, and I found that what improved me the most to beat them was some very strong equipment, which just happened to require Dark Matter.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/L...l_Fantasy_XIII)
You have to take down at least one of these for a trophy, but you also want to get whatever "trapz" you need from it. You can dismantle some weapons to trapz, so make sure you look into that before you start farming these guys for it. There are some nice strategies on that site. The main tricks are to summon an Eidolen it's front legs, this will make it temporarily disabled. You should build up a 999% chain with ravs etc and then somewhat force Hope to use Enfire, and have Vanille cast Death before quickly changing to SEN/SEN/SEN for maximum damage.

At the very end before you get the    and if it seems like you are running out of money. Take a back-up of your save and sell off everything you don't need. You don't need to have all equipment at the same time, just have had it at some point, so yeah, dismantle and sell stuff. Use the gamercorner site mentioned earlier for precise data.

 

 

Some of my responses:

The chapter 13 grind is for money (gil) as money is hard to get in this game. It is not a good grind spot for exp (CP) that is used on leveling up, but there's plenty of places for that, and the video is one of those. The link to the gamefaqs page was for the money grind (gil).

 

 

If you see the link, it mentions you can go back there, but it will be nowhere as efficient as the enemies aren't placed the same way and you can't go a certain place to respawn them either. That is nowhere as fast. Get about 10 million gils, and you should be fine. If it turns out not to be enough, there is the trapz farming I mention at the bottom option left.

Dark Matter is expensive, but can be farmed from what I consider to be the hardest enemy to kill in the game, and it's somewhat rare drop. Trapz are pretty rare drop from another strong enemy, but the enemy got some cheap way to take it down, but the fight takes a while. Trapz are extremely expensive and doesn't really sell for anywhere the amount it costs to purchase, but still are the item that you get the most from selling. You also need to kill this enemy for a specific trophy. You don't want to purchase Trapz, so you will want to farm like 3-4 or something of it, but not more as it's extremely tiresome. Since it's a rare drop you won't get it after each fight either. Gets old very fast. Hence you want to grind gil in chapter 13.

• Grind gil (money) in chapter 13.
• Gring CP (exp) post-game (after last boss).
• You need some few trapz, and since they are way too damn expensive you rather want to win the few you absolutely need in battle. Remember some weapons will dismantle into it after fully upgrading them for the trophy of all equipment.
• Level up equipment efficiently. Start with organic materials to build up a multiplier and then use exactly enough synthetic materials to level it up to whatever you want to level it up to. See the link mentioned earlier for the most cost-efficient materials to purchase from stores.

• Materials can be purchased in stores and most enemies drop lots of 'em, but you may as well purchase whatever extra you need, especially powerful syntethic materials.
• Organic materials give little exp, but ups the multiplier.
• Synthetic materials give lots of exp, but downs the multiplier.
• You can get the full effect of a maxed out multiplier if you use all the synthetic materials at once.
• With other words, up the multiplier to max with organic (use one by one to get max effect, as you get exp from organic too and with higher multiplier you get more each time too), then use exactly enough of synthetic needed to level up (limited to just one type of item at the time, but you can use multiple of the same at the same time).

 

 

 

 

 

Dark Matters drops quite often, but the only problem is beating the monsters that drop 'em. You pretty much need equipment upgraded with Dark Matter to beat them, at least in my experience. I had a seriously hard time before upgrading some of the best equipment with Dark Matter. I'd rather farm most of the Dark Matters than the money for to purchase it. Trapz are no choice, you've got to farm for them to keep your sanity, they are too damn expensive.

 

 

 

 

I think you get at least one or something in the game, but you can check one of the sites I linked to as it lists all the places you can get stuff and all details about all items etc. In any case, use them sparingly and wise and only for something you are sure you want to use it for. It is among the last things you will do, except for the part where you sell off your stuff to afford upgrading other stuff, so it's basically just to wait until then and see if you need it. I didn't need to do any such thing for any of the missions. Missions are just to abuse the Death glitch for the most part. As for the gameplay against bosses, and what I mean by QTE, is that when they are about to do an attack that does heavy damage to you, you just change to SEN/SEN/SEN for higher defense. This you will be doing each time. You will also want to do it for the strongest attack in the game. I believe if you enfire the enemy, then use the Death spell (when it can't instant kill) and quickly change to SEN/SEN/SEN you will do the most damage possible. So yeah, you will just be doing that over and over. There's no MP or anything to worry about. HP gets restored after each battle. If you die in a battle you respawn right before it. You will most likely have several set up of equipment and paradigms for various types of enemies, and just get used to change between them often when doing the missions. SO BORING, as the missions are mostly the same enemies you've fought throughout the game just now the time you finish them at counts, so you it's just not enough to beat them, but you got to do it fast, hence you want to use certain set up for certain enemies and you will be changing it often.

Strong enemies just use Death spell (respawn battle if it doesn't instant kill fast enough).
Area of damage groups of enemies. I think there was some big black ball attack or something that was great for groups of enemies.

 

 

In Archyle Steppe you can level up using this method:

 

^ This is easy because the strong enemies fight each other and they are both strong enemies that give lots of CP. 

Just make sure you don't level up anything that makes the chapter 13 grinding difficult, so read the chapter 13 grind guide and make sure you are prepared for that. 

At a low level, nah, but maybe, just maybe later. When you get stronger the fight takes like 3 seconds later in the game. Takes like 30 seconds per fight when you include the respawning of the enemy etc. In any case, this is much easier.

Make sure they die at around the same time, don't kill one long before the other. Make them fight each other most of the fight instead of you, leave the one you got the most trouble with for last. It should be easy if you do it correctly, as they should barely fight you at all if done correctly.

As far as the missions go, the requirement to 5 star is lower when you are weaker, so some can be easier on a lower level, but many of them are too hard to do now. I'd just wait until post-game with doing most of them.

 

 

 

 

Vanille is great for her Death spell, some few of her Saboteur and Medic spells, but yeah, her saboteur stuff is great for that grinding.

Hope is for the most part the strongest mage. He knows Ruinga and is very likely to use it as a COM seeing as he is knows few other spells in the Commando paradigm, which somehow makes him a good Commando as well. o.O But yeah, usually use him for staggering enemies (RAV) while doing major damage. He has some good saboteur spells as well, but RAV is where he is truly strong especially because of his Enfire etc. Can also be used for Medic, seeing as he knows Raise, Curasa, Curaja and Esuna. So yeah, I used this guy for RAV, as he is the best at RAV. I pretty much only used Vanille for some specific tactics against special enemies and her Death spell. I know Hope isn't a very likable character, but yeah, he was stronger than Vanille, so I picked him when that mattered and she wasn't as useful.

Fang is a must, hands down the best Commando because of her strength. She is also a pretty excellent SEN with Counter, Challenge, Dispelga, Vendetta and especially Reprieve. Sorry Snow, but she's knocks you out because she also is an excellent SAB. COM/SEN/SAB, great combination for her. SAB can easily be used instead of RAV when building staggering. She does know Raise, so her Reprieve spell can be useful if the rest of the team has been knocked out, if this is a part of your strategy, normally it's not a good strategy. So yeah, often when you want to stagger someone, she can start doing some COM attacks to make the stagger stable, then weaken the enemy with SAB spells until they are almost staggered and stable it with COM attacks again to keep the stagger stable and do massive damage while the enemy is weakened. 

Lightning is just overall a good character for various tasks. I know she starts out as a COM, but Fang is the better COM. She does know Ruinga like all good COMs. She can easily be used as a RAV, which is always very useful when staggering the enemy. She can also be used for healing with spells like Raise, Esuna, Curaja and Curasa. She know useful spells in all classes. So yeah, a very overall character that easily fit into most groups, but she is not best at anything, but usually she is among top 3 best at almost anything, making her almost always included in the party unless there's some special stategy.

Sazh Katzroy was probably the most likable character in the game, but pretty useless in most battles. Only useful thing with him was something I can't really remember what was, but it had to do with luck, so it was just annoying to rely on.


I found Ruinga to be very useful to take out almost any type of group of weak enemies (easy 5 star), especially if SAB'd first.

 

 

 

The one he took out probably wasn't the biggest of them, as there are lots of them. I'm quite confident the two largest are immune to death.

Against the largest turtle... 
You will want to use the Death spell then too, but in another way. I can't remember how to take them out anymore, but since you want to use the Death spell, you will start out with Vanille as the character you want to control. I remember there beign something with poison, but can't remember if you could use poison after summonging Vanille's aeon. If you can't then you must use poison on the turtle before summoning her aeon. This should break the turtle's front legs or something. Now you can wait as long as you possibly can doing attacks that takes a long time and look at the poison do it's work. Once you no longer can keep the enemy poisoned and the aeon running, you are back to your party. You could also have tried to build up the chain with the aeon up. In any case, when the part is back up, you must build up the chain and weaken it with "Enfire" and some other SAB stuff that it isn't immune to and build the chain to almost 999 (999 very often takes too long time, and the amount of damage doesn't differ much and you will grow it larger as you do attack later on). This is when you want to focus on damage. You want to use the Death spell with Vanille, and when it is being cast you want to change to SEN/SEN/SEN, as this makes the Death spell do actual damage, and a lot of damage too. Usually this makes it do max damage, like 99 999. This is your main way of doing damage along with everyone else doing their best. You should have killed it before it gets back on it's legs and kill you.

 

 

 

List of Permanently Missable Items - The Final Fantasy Wiki has more Final Fantasy information than Cid could research

"Spark Rings can be found in Chapters 3 and 4, but can be missed due to the storyline advancing once the player defeats Odin, as trying to backtrack initiates the end of Chapter 4.
One Doctor's Code can be missed in the Sunleth Waterscape in Chapter 6.

One Elixir can be missed from not backtracking after the second preliminary boss fight of Orphan's Cradle in Chapter 13.

The upgraded versions of many accessories are permanently missable if the player sells the base versions. For example, there are a limited number of Clay Rings in the game; if the player sells them all, the Siltstone Ring and Gaian Ring can never be obtained."

 

 

 

 

I had no issues getting any of the equipment, but I just said what I remembered having heard was missable, and then I just looked it up and found that.

I will do some research on how to obtain them now. You can easily figure out this stuff through one of the sites I linked in the opening post:
Accessories - Final Fantasy XIII - Guides

Spark Ring is the basic version of the Lighting rings. You can't purchase Spark Ring, but you can find it 4 places in the game (chapter 3, 4, 4, 9).

You can dismantle to a Spark Ring, but only through Raijin Ring and Lightning Charm. Lightning Charm can be gotten one place in the game and you can mess it up by upgrading it to a Twenty-sided Die. Raijin Ring is the final upgrade of the Spark Ring, but before it becomes Raijin Ring, it is Fulmen Ring, and Fulmen Ring can actually be obtained from an enemy called Enlil, a boss in chapter 6, whom always drop it.

I've now proven that information on the wiki page completely wrong, and you are correct! 

It is still possible to mess this stuff up though. Personally I made a huge checklist and found a way to obtain every single item the cheapest way through that site. Then I knew what to do with various stuff like sell it or dismantle etc. I highly recommend you keep a separate save before attempting this in case you mess up.

 

 

Edited April 2, 2016 by MMDE

[Dragon-Archon]

 

This is a post I made on another forum, but I thought I'd post it here as well!

 

Why didn't you just post it in the guide comments?

[Dark Layla]

behemoth vs wolf = 6000cp (13200 with growth egg)in 24 seconds



Flowering Cactuar (on titan trials) = 32,000cp (75.000 with growth egg) in under 1 minute.

The only problem is they running away many times if you dont kill them quickly eheh

[MMDE]

Why didn't you just post it in the guide comments?

 

Isn't it a bit too much? =o

I've done this for many other games too.

 

 

behemoth vs wolf = 6000cp (13200 with growth egg)in 24 seconds

Flowering Cactuar (on titan trials) = 32,000cp (75.000 with growth egg) in under 1 minute.

The only problem is they running away many times if you dont kill them quickly eheh

 

Pretty sure I responded to this in one of the quotes, because this was suggested the first time I said it too.  Totally legit response IMO, a bit up to the player, not all that big difference.

 

How long does it take to do each run? Not just the fight? How high level do you need to be?

 

And what I suggested in the video takes like 15 secs per run (that's including running), that's 4 times 12-13k per min, like 50k per minute. Yes, it's less than 75k, but it's very fast, safe and can be done on low level. Whatever you feel better with though, CP grind is pretty short. It can also be done just when you get to the Steppes.

Edited March 28, 2016 by MMDE

[Dark Layla]

Isn't it a bit too much? =o

I've done this for many other games too.

 

 

 

Pretty sure I responded to this in one of the quotes, because this was suggested the first time I said it too.  Totally legit response IMO, a bit up to the player, not all that big difference.

 

How long does it take to do each run? Not just the fight? How high level do you need to be?

 

And what I suggested in the video takes like 15 secs per run (that's including running), that's 4 times 12-13k per min, like 50k per minute. Yes, it's less than 75k, but it's very fast, safe and can be done on low level. Whatever you feel better with though, CP grind is pretty short. It can also be done just when you get to the Steppes.

 

up to a certain point of the game I used the method "behemoth vs wolf" after i got the characters with more than 14,000 HP i used the method "flowering Cactuars" and thanks to this I have almost the characters at max

 

 

 

[damon8r351]

Why not consolidate all this scattered crap into a gameplay guide for this website, because not everyone comes to the forum or even bothers to look to the right of the trophy list at a vaguely titled Recent Post. Because the Treasure Hunter trophy deserves a more detailed, and less scattered, guide than what's currently available.

Edited March 28, 2016 by damon8r351

[MMDE]

up to a certain point of the game I used the method "behemoth vs wolf" after i got the characters with more than 14,000 HP i used the method "flowering Cactuars" and thanks to this I have almost the characters at max

 

Nice! Whatever works for you.

 

I know I did the method described earlier as soon as I could after the gil grind at chapter 13. Max out stats, and every time you could level up further I did that. The biggest grind was post-game really, but I don't think it took more than 2 hours or so (can't remember). When you have good enough stats and equipment and setup etc, it's basically less than 4 seconds fights, after that you run up a little hill to make it respawn, then run back to fight it again. Very easy and doesn't require much from you.

 

The trapz grind post-game is absolutely terrible, so tiresome and requiring. Kinda the main point of this thread that you can grind gil faster and easier at a specific point in the game, so new players don't miss it. That along with links to exact weapon upgrade stats, which is super useful and real time savers when upgrading equipment to get everything at the very end before platinum.

Why not consolidate all this scattered crap into a gameplay guide for this website, because not everyone comes to the forum or even bothers to look to the right of the trophy list at a vaguely titled Recent Post. Because the Treasure Hunter trophy deserves a more detailed, and less scattered, guide than what's currently available.

 

That'd be useful, but it's so much work and it might differ a bit depending on items you got near the end. People find this stuff when they google or check the trophies for the game etc on PSNP or look for some other info. ;p

Edited March 28, 2016 by MMDE

[damon8r351]

That'd be useful, but it's so much work and it might differ a bit depending on items you got near the end. People find this stuff when they google or check the trophies for the game etc on PSNP or look for some other info. ;p

 

Yeah, because making it easy to find and all in one place would make too much sense. Never mind, I'll do it my damn self.

[Dark Layla]

Nice! Whatever works for you.

 

I know I did the method described earlier as soon as I could after the gil grind at chapter 13. Max out stats, and every time you could level up further I did that. The biggest grind was post-game really, but I don't think it took more than 2 hours or so (can't remember). When you have good enough stats and equipment and setup etc, it's basically less than 4 seconds fights, after that you run up a little hill to make it respawn, then run back to fight it again. Very easy and doesn't require much from you.

 

The trapz grind post-game is absolutely terrible, so tiresome and requiring. Kinda the main point of this thread that you can grind gil faster and easier at a specific point in the game, so new players don't miss it. That along with links to exact weapon upgrade stats, which is super useful and real time savers when upgrading equipment to get everything at the very end before platinum.

 

That'd be useful, but it's so much work and it might differ a bit depending on items you got near the end. People find this stuff when they google or check the trophies for the game etc on PSNP or look for some other info. ;p

You always have wladislaus to farm cp before you beat the game but yeah is a bit boring to farm a lot of things!

 

 

But i always heard that the most difficult way is the most coveted

Edited March 28, 2016 by Rose_Dark

[MMDE]

Yeah, because making it easy to find and all in one place would make too much sense. Never mind, I'll do it my damn self.

 

It's a lot of work, and I'm not sure what specifically you talk about.

 

I totally forgot that another main point with this thread was to remind people about power leveling weapons, that is why the links to accessories and weapons are so useful, it tells you exactly how far you gotta go when leveling equipment, so you don't waste anything and don't have to test (save, test it, load).

 

"Power leveling" equipment is basically boost up the multiplier to max using one type of item, then use enough of the other type (preferably as cheap vs as much as you get from it as possible) in one go, not one by one, but all at once, to get that multiplier effect on every use of that item. To not use too many items, you gotta know how many XP you need to get to whatever you need to, this is where those links come into the picture.

 

You also wanna plan ahead, know what items can be dismantled into which, so you don't make any extra unnecessary etc, and you can do as much re-use as possible. It's one big cluster fuck.

Edited March 28, 2016 by MMDE

[Dark Layla]

I almost forgot that battle between behemoth king and that wolf gives you 13.200 CP in less than a minute

On Ma'habara (asylum from light)  6 cyrohedrons gives you 14.280 in less than 30 seconds

I kill them in less than 7 seconds because my team is OP ( too much fights against those big guys )

Edited April 2, 2016 by Rose_Dark

[MMDE]

I almost forgot that battle between behemoth king and that wolf gives you 13.200 CP in less than a minute

On Ma'habara (asylum from light)  6 cyrohedrons gives you 14.280 in less than 30 seconds

I kill them in less than 7 seconds because my team is OP ( too much fights against those big guys )

 

But the Behemoth King and Wolf battle takes like 4-5 seconds if not less, depending on your level and setup etc. We're talking about two or more of these battles per minute, this is including the running back and forth to enter the battles.

Edited April 2, 2016 by MMDE

[Dark Layla]

But the Behemoth King and Wolf battle takes like 4-5 seconds if not less, depending on your level and setup etc. We're talking about two or more of these battles per minute, this is including the running back and forth to enter the battles.

Those 6 cyrohedrons battle takes 4-7 seconds (more and less) i dont wanna fight with you ,you said a lot of good things on here !! i just wanna show new people which the best cp farming method postgame based on my experience! IMO before the end of the game :

- Wladisaus (orphans cradle) 32.000

Postgame : 6 cyrohedrons (Ma'habara- asylum from light) 14.280

Flowering cactuar on titan trials (75.000) is a good try but people first need to beat 2-3 bosses (and they dont respawn) so that method isn't the best

Edited April 2, 2016 by Rose_Dark

[MMDE]

Those 6 cyrohedrons battle takes 4-7 seconds (more and less) i dont wanna fight with you ,you said a lot of good things on here !! i just wanna show new people which the best cp farming method postgame based on my experience! IMO before the end of the game :

- Wladisaus (orphans cradle) 32.000

Postgame : 6 cyrohedrons (Ma'habara- asylum from light) 14.280

Flowering cactuar on titan trials (75.000) is a good try but people first need to beat 2-3 bosses (and they dont respawn) so that method isn't the best

 

Nah, just discuss.

 

Quick respawn, ease of the battle and how requiring it is is very important, also how early in the game and how low level you can do it on is important. I think the Behemoth and wolf fight matches this well. I'd be surprised if there wasn't somehow a bit faster methods to do it, but this is so easy and effortless and can be done on such a low level etc. I just watched youtube videos while I did it. Bam, the time flew by and I had done it for hours. The less effort of me, the faster the time flies by then when doing something else.

 

Some think it's better when it's more requiring, because it's more involving, but when you do the same shit over and over, it's boring and just so much more effort and bothersome IMO.

Edited April 2, 2016 by MMDE