4 trophies blocked by 'three person team vs monsters of legend'

[TheMightyImp2]

So, despite the fact you can get to this 'hard' only simulator fight really easily  (5 minutes from start of chapter 17 via chapter select, even on easy difficulty) this fight is required to get the following 4 trophies:

 

Master of mimicry (Marlboro skill)

That's the smell (Marlboro kill) 

Ultimate weapon (Can't fight joy and pain unless you complete this)

Master of fate (The platinum)

 

Guess where I'm stuck? Lol

Edited April 11, 2020 by TheMightyImp2

[Vanqishd]

You're stuck in this fight? What stage of it? I'll try help you with some tips if necessary. If this is too hard you will have a hard time with the Joy and Pain challenge...

 

Can you tell me your current setup? Did you do any chapter in Hard mode yet, or went straight to 17? 

[TheMightyImp2]

Thanks for the reply.

 

I really wanted a good set up suggestion.

Here's my history of the game so far.

 

All characters are level 50

I have every weapon

I have at least two of every materia at max level, lightning, fire, ice have 4 or more maxed.

My first playthrough was on Normal. 

My only story sticking points were the house, until I realised I had to hit opposite element when it shielded, and one of the chocobo search fights, as I was using magic instead of physical attacks on the flying enemy.

 

How I cleared the story with relative ease.

I had cloud equipped with 2 lightning materia, one was linked to hp absorb, the other had Elemental materia linked. Cloud also had magnify materia linked to fire. So groups that weren't resistant to fire were quickly dealt with.

 

Barret had synergy and lightning linked, so he cast at the same time as cloud. This meant anyhttweak to lightning was not a problem. He also had auto cure so my hp was never really an issue. He also had blizzard for emergencies.

 

The girls had wind, ice, and healing. 

 

As soon as I could, I gave the guys some kind of healing or revive materia too. 

 

The hard behemoth is the hardest part for me. I just don't seem to be stagger him fast enough.

 

Sorry for the long post, just answering the points you made (hopefully without any spoilers)

[Vanqishd]

41 minutes ago, TheMightyImp2 said:

Thanks for the reply.

 

I really wanted a good set up suggestion.

Here's my history of the game so far.

 

All characters are level 50

I have every weapon

I have at least two of every materia at max level, lightning, fire, ice have 4 or more maxed.

My first playthrough was on Normal. 

My only story sticking points were the house, until I realised I had to hit opposite element when it shielded, and one of the chocobo search fights, as I was using magic instead of physical attacks on the flying enemy.

 

How I cleared the story with relative ease.

I had cloud equipped with 2 lightning materia, one was linked to hp absorb, the other had Elemental materia linked. Cloud also had magnify materia linked to fire. So groups that weren't resistant to fire were quickly dealt with.

 

Barret had synergy and lightning linked, so he cast at the same time as cloud. This meant anyhttweak to lightning was not a problem. He also had auto cure so my hp was never really an issue. He also had blizzard for emergencies.

 

The girls had wind, ice, and healing. 

 

As soon as I could, I gave the guys some kind of healing or revive materia too. 

 

The hard behemoth is the hardest part for me. I just don't seem to be stagger him fast enough.

 

Sorry for the long post, just answering the points you made (hopefully without any spoilers)

For the Behemot you don't need to stagger him on the first Megaflare (you won't make it in time) but rather need to survive it. How?

 

1) Use Weapon Core 6 Ability "Reprisal". You will survive a deadly hit with 1 HP - then you have time enough to AoE Curaga.

2) Use Aerith's Level 2 Limit Break Planet's Protection

3) Have over 6,000 HP (just to be safe) and use Manawall (level 3 Barrier)

 

For the 2nd Megaflare (if there is any) you should be in time to stagger him or just kill him before he has time. On the PSNProfiles guide (I wrote it) I left an equipment recommendation, so you can go ahead and take a look at it (you don't really need magic for this fight). In general terms, however:

 

1) Elemental+Ice on Armor for Cloud+Tifa (you will be immune against Ice - Shiva will deal no damage to you)

2) Magnify+Healing on Aerith (AoE Healing)

3) Make sure you have 3 Revivals - one for each party member. Healing on every party member. Barrier on atleast 1 character maxed out (to use Manawall if necessary for Megaflare protection)

4) Have over 6,000 HP - the more the better.

 

If you need HP Up, MP Up, Magic Up or whatever sort of Orbs, you can buy them on most of Materia Vendors (Chadley doesn't have it IIRC, but the Vending Machine might?)

 

Let me know if it helps, good luck!

[TheMightyImp2]

Brilliant. Just needed to see it from a new angle. Never ever considered magnify+Healing (unbelievable, right?) and I only put element on a weapon.

 

Thanks again, i'll give it a go later today.

[Vanqishd]

1 hour ago, TheMightyImp2 said:

Brilliant. Just needed to see it from a new angle. Never ever considered magnify+Healing (unbelievable, right?) and I only put element on a weapon.

 

Thanks again, i'll give it a go later today.

 

Yeah well, it's not explicitly written how they work... so unless you give it a try yourself you won't know unless someone tells you ?

[ckleckner78]

tell you this they made hard mode harder then they needed to why remove the use of items that's whats making it harder for me im dieing on a lot of trash/quest mobs and couldn't even beat chapter 1 boss on hard 

[sealightbreeze]

I can’t beat the third battle. Any tips please? Thank you 

Edited April 28, 2020 by sealightbreeze

[sealightbreeze]

They made this way more harder than it needed to be. It’s actually taking the fun out of the game. Did anybody beat the last simulator battles? From cloud versus three soldiers on down? I can’t beat them. 

[TripleKing333]

For the final simulation challenge, the first suggestions is to have fire + elemental on your main attackers armours (I used Cloud and Tifa with Aerith healing). 
 

This means when Bahamut summons Ifrit,  you can completely ignore him as his attacks will do nothing if you levelled Elemental up to level 2 or heal you on level 3.  This also works on the Pride an Joy Prototype because one of his main counter attacks is fire based.

 

Secondly, have Headbands accessories on your two main attackers
 

Another suggestion is to have Max level barrier materia on everybody.  Have each team member cast Manaward on themselves when Bahamut counts to 1 and it should last you past Megaflare.

 

Beyond that,  if you need somebody to really cast a spell without being interrupted, switch control to somebody else then cast it using command list while the battle is slowed.

 

Keep up healing, revives and manage enemy agro and you should be good.

[TheMightyImp2]

13 hours ago, sealightbreeze said:

They made this way more harder than it needed to be. It’s actually taking the fun out of the game. Did anybody beat the last simulator battles? From cloud versus three soldiers on down? I can’t beat them. 

I agree. It's not as much fun now. I'm staying on 77% for a bit, platinum'ing trials of mana, then ffviii remaster, then i'll come back and finish this off

[undefinedmike]

16 hours ago, sealightbreeze said:

I can’t beat the third battle. Any tips please? Thank you 

I think that's the behemoth type 0? Bioga is your best friend. He's going to be aggressive as hell. I ran it with Barret(for tankiness) Tifa(true strike = killerrrr) and cloud for a good all round. Magic was equipped, but it's highly recommended to not use ANY except bioga and after you use it make sure you're on the move because he throws out that counter magic. You don't have to be perfect with the counterstance or Cloud's other counter, but if definitely helps. Try to weaken bother upper and lower body at the same time.
-Cloud's counters, counterstance and braver worked well for me.
-Tifa with her double unbridled strengths, star shower with literally anything after
-Barret with his triangle move, basic attacks and point blank(i mainly used Barret to stay far away and changed to him when I needed a breather since this enemy moves around a lot.)
It's also good to note that when the Behemoth enrages you just proceed to focus on defense and evading. You can definitely try to attack and counter but he hits hard and he's fast. Letting the bioga do it's work during this time is preferred. I managed to get a few counters in during the rage period, but he usually hits me twice so i was taking more damage than anything. Tifa is super fast so I just used her to kite the boss. She was able to outrun most of his attacks.
The moment he breaks out of rage start going at him again. I usually get each body part into the lows before i break both. He gets super annoying if you only break one, so aim for breaking both roughly around the same time. Recast bioga(or whatever you have) if it every runs out. Assuming you rinse and repeat that enough to his the last phase just make sure you're full health and blocking when he does comet. I sucked at this fight early on too. But after the 3 and 4th time(i had to keep redoing it because i didn't learn the enemy skill from malboro) I got really good at it and so will you.

[undefinedmike]

On 4/12/2020 at 5:24 AM, TheMightyImp2 said:

Thanks for the reply.

 

I really wanted a good set up suggestion.

Here's my history of the game so far.

 

All characters are level 50

I have every weapon

I have at least two of every materia at max level, lightning, fire, ice have 4 or more maxed.

My first playthrough was on Normal. 

My only story sticking points were the house, until I realised I had to hit opposite element when it shielded, and one of the chocobo search fights, as I was using magic instead of physical attacks on the flying enemy.

 

How I cleared the story with relative ease.

I had cloud equipped with 2 lightning materia, one was linked to hp absorb, the other had Elemental materia linked. Cloud also had magnify materia linked to fire. So groups that weren't resistant to fire were quickly dealt with.

 

Barret had synergy and lightning linked, so he cast at the same time as cloud. This meant anyhttweak to lightning was not a problem. He also had auto cure so my hp was never really an issue. He also had blizzard for emergencies.

 

The girls had wind, ice, and healing. 

 

As soon as I could, I gave the guys some kind of healing or revive materia too. 

 

The hard behemoth is the hardest part for me. I just don't seem to be stagger him fast enough.

 

Sorry for the long post, just answering the points you made (hopefully without any spoilers)

You're definitely running a magic heavy set-up, which is totally fine! It's good to see something different from my own set up. By this point in the game You should have about 9 materia slots per character(my Cloud had 10) I run a pretty interchangeable materia set up.
Everyone runs 1 of each:
HP plus
MP plus
Revive(you could get away with just 2 characters having one, but I like the insurance.)
Heal
Prayer or chakra(not really too essential for this fight, but it was just there for hard mode purposes)
1 magic attack materia a piece(Cloud usually always ran lightning, Barret always ran fire and Tifa always ran ice, my Aerith was the sorceress so she ran 2 magics at all times)
Cloud was running AP up materia the entire hardmode and an elemental attached to lightning.
***Aerith ran magnify with heal almost religiously, with Tifa taking up the plate when Aerith was not in battle(pair it with the healing carcanet accessory for mad heals)
Barrier and time materias where you see fit, but I don't use them often even though I have them(just a me thing)
Poison is pretty useful overall, so someone typically had one if the enemy was weak to it. (great for the behemoth fight)
Elementals are good to have, but not absolutely necessary.
For this particular VR battle with marlboro it's pretty useful to bring a cleanse materia along for obvious purposes. Preferably level 2 because esuna is enough.
Don't forget that enemy skill!(Malboro was very gimmicky for me, I had to redo the entire thing several times because I just wasn't learning the move. Finally learned it after stepping a bit farther back when he was doing the move.)

If you want my exact set up:
Cloud: Twin Stinger: Elemental=Lightning, Healing=Revive, AP up, HP UP
Chain bangle: Time=Barrier, Prayer, MP UP
Champion belt

Barret: EKG: Elemental=fire, Healing=Revive, Steadfast block, HP UP
Cog bangle: Barrier=Chakra, MP plus
Champion belt

Tifa: Purple pain: First strike(swap with magnify when Aerith is not in party)=Healing, Ice=Revive, barrier, HP plus
Supreme bracer: Poison, Chakra, MP Plus
Champion belt/healing carcanet(depends if she has magnify)

Aerith: Silver staff: Magnify=Healing, Revive=Ice, Magic plus, HP plus
Rune armlet: Fire, Prayer, MP plus
Healing Carcanet

I changed up everyone's magic according to who I was fighting and switched elemental to armor as needed(I.E. lightning for Reno, Ice for Shiva etc.)
-side note I hardly ever run wind because the delay just blows, pun intended, and most enemies that are weak to it are extremely mobile so it just sucks to use (IMO)

I spent the entire hard mode dreading not this fight, but pride and joy VR. Finished the malboro stuff at the tail end of my normal, so you can definitely do this.
 

[RoastedPeanut]

Magnify combined with barrier worked wonders during the final VR mission. Using it just before some ultimate attacks was a life saver. I was prepared to use it during the 4th fight but was able to take it down before it had a chance to fire off its ultimate

[sealightbreeze]

I still can’t beat the stupid thing. The very final one. The shiva etc battle. 

Edited May 3, 2020 by sealightbreeze

[Creamium]

On 5/3/2020 at 9:06 PM, sealightbreeze said:

I still can’t beat the stupid thing. The very final one. The shiva etc battle. 

What worked for me is an agressive magic strategy. Works for all the fights but I'll explain the Bahamut one since it's the hardest. Use Cloud and Aerith as offensive casters, with Barret for support. For Cloud I used the Mythril sword for magic attack, but you can use Twin Stinger too if you want Reprieve. Have First Strike on Cloud and use it to give Aerith haste. Then cast Arcane Ward asap. Get on that twister mat with both Cloud and Aerith and cast firaga. Each spell will hit twice, so you do a 4x Firaga combo which will do some serious damage. You can use Barret to cast Pray (no mp spent) and cast manawall + magnify (the reason you want to save that mp). You can run around with Barret as bait for Bahamut while Cloud and Aerith do their casting. Make sure you have a manawall + heal once Bahamut is down to '1' on his Megaflare counter. With enough health you can tank Megaflare if you have Manawall up.

 

High level mp and hp ups are of course essential for everyone you're using. Aerith was at 7900 for me and both Cloud and Barret 8-9k ish.You can put magic ups on Aerith so she does even more damage. One or two characters need lightning for Levi as well. What's also really useful is to put a fire + max. elemental on your armor, which will make ifrit heal you instead of doing damage! I only had one for Cloud, if you have 2 it's even better. That way, you can ignore Ifrit and continue wailing on Bahamut.

 

I used to think magnify+cure wasn't worth sacrificing but with Bahamut it's a lifesaver. Just use pray and individual cures/chakra for mid battle healing.

[RoastedPeanut]

49 minutes ago, Creamium said:

What worked for me is an agressive magic strategy. Works for all the fights but I'll explain the Bahamut one since it's the hardest. Use Cloud and Aerith as offensive casters, with Barret for support. For Cloud I used the Mythril sword for magic attack, but you can use Twin Stinger too if you want Reprieve. Have First Strike on Cloud and use it to give Aerith haste. Then cast Arcane Ward asap. Get on that twister mat with both Cloud and Aerith and cast firaga. Each spell will hit twice, so you do a 4x Firaga combo which will do some serious damage. You can use Barret to cast Pray (no mp spent) and cast manawall + magnify (the reason you want to save that mp). You can run around with Barret as bait for Bahamut while Cloud and Aerith do their casting. Make sure you have a manawall + heal once Bahamut is down to '1' on his Megaflare counter. With enough health you can tank Megaflare if you have Manawall up.

 

High level mp and hp ups are of course essential for everyone you're using. Aerith was at 7900 for me and both Cloud and Barret 8-9k ish.You can put magic ups on Aerith so she does even more damage. One or two characters need lightning for Levi as well. What's also really useful is to put a fire + max. elemental on your armor, which will make ifrit heal you instead of doing damage! I only had one for Cloud, if you have 2 it's even better. That way, you can ignore Ifrit and continue wailing on Bahamut.

 

I used to think magnify+cure wasn't worth sacrificing but with Bahamut it's a lifesaver. Just use pray and individual cures/chakra for mid battle healing.

You're absolutely right about the aggressive magic strategy. Basically for the entire game I adopted the same strategy, both on my initial playthrough and then on hard, but I found mixing it up and adopting the hard hitting magic approach worked a treat for the final VR mission. 

[Snake2410]

 

This is the strategy I used for the Top Secret 7*.  You only need the maxed out materia, armor, and the 3 fury rings this video shows and the first manuscripts that unlock level 6 for each character used (which you'll get before even being able to attempt this challenge, since you have to complete everything else in the VR and Corneo's arena). 

 

For all characters weapon upgrades I focused first on unlocking all 6 materia slots, don't worry about getting the additional linked slots after the first set of slots.

 

From there for Aerith and Cloud I focused on all of the Magic based upgrades that didn't require the high or low hp/mp state, then put remaining points into anything Magic based that would help.

 

For Tiffa after focusing on unlocking all 6 materia slots, then unlock any attack and speed upgrades.  Then use remaining points on anything that increases both crit damage/rate and the rear attack damage.  Avoid anything that has a high or low hp parameter because while they'll help, the ones that help at all times help more. 

 

The fury rings can be farmed in ch 14 prett fast by going straight to the Gathering Intel objective and opening the chest under the Don's stairs leading up to it.

 

You may still get hit during these battles, I did a few times, but this video works wonders for tackling this challenge before doing any hard mode chapters.

 

Leviathan can be somewhat tricky, but Bahamut is the hardest part due to the timing for stun locking him and pressuring him at half health.  Took me several hours, purely because of the Bahamut fight, but it definitely works and is much faster than playing defensive if you can get the Bahamut strat to work more efficiently than me. 

 

The biggest key is having ATB when he finishes the first number in his countdown so you can Arcane Ward spam spells with everyone to stun lock him into pressuring.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Snake2410

[AndresLionheart]

16 hours ago, Snake2410 said:

This is the strategy I used for the Top Secret 7*.  You only need the maxed out materia, armor, and the 3 fury rings this video shows and the first manuscripts that unlock level 6 for each character used (which you'll get before even being able to attempt this challenge, since you have to complete everything else in the VR and Corneo's arena). 

 

For all characters weapon upgrades I focused first on unlocking all 6 materia slots, don't worry about getting the additional linked slots after the first set of slots.

 

From there for Aerith and Cloud I focused on all of the Magic based upgrades that didn't require the high or low hp/mp state, then put remaining points into anything Magic based that would help.

 

For Tiffa after focusing on unlocking all 6 materia slots, then unlock any attack and speed upgrades.  Then use remaining points on anything that increases both crit damage/rate and the rear attack damage.  Avoid anything that has a high or low hp parameter because while they'll help, the ones that help at all times help more. 

 

The fury rings can be farmed in ch 14 prett fast by going straight to the Gathering Intel objective and opening the chest under the Don's stairs leading up to it.

 

You may still get hit during these battles, I did a few times, but this video works wonders for tackling this challenge before doing any hard mode chapters.

 

Leviathan can be somewhat tricky, but Bahamut is the hardest part due to the timing for stun locking him and pressuring him at half health.  Took me several hours, purely because of the Bahamut fight, but it definitely works and is much faster than playing defensive if you can get the Bahamut strat to work more efficiently than me. 

 

The biggest key is having ATB when he finishes the first number in his countdown so you can Arcane Ward spam spells with everyone to stun lock him into pressuring.

I dunno, seems more complicated than just playing normally tbh. What I did was play with mostly just my regular setup and burst Ifrit with Tifa's and Cloud's Limit Breaks. It definitely makes it much longer, but is way safer as well. With that strat everything can go to shit if you mess up a single time.

You can easily tank Megaflares with Manaward and fully heal everyone right after with a magnified Curaga (from Aerith with about 450 matk). The whole gauntlet ended up taking about 30 minutes, with most of that time probably spent on Leviathan's dumb fly phase. Getting this strategy right, on top of having to grind a lot of the materia used that I normally wouldn't use, would have taken more time.

 

Regardless of all that, it's a very creative way of doing it, and it looks sick af.

Edited May 12, 2020 by AndresLionheart

[Snake2410]

5 hours ago, AndresLionheart said:

I dunno, seems more complicated than just playing normally tbh. What I did was play with mostly just my regular setup and burst Ifrit with Tifa's and Cloud's Limit Breaks. It definitely makes it much longer, but is way safer as well. With that strat everything can go to shit if you mess up a single time.

You can easily tank Megaflares with Manaward and fully heal everyone right after with a magnified Curaga (from Aerith with about 450 matk). The whole gauntlet ended up taking about 30 minutes, with most of that time probably spent on Leviathan's dumb fly phase. Getting this strategy right, on top of having to grind a lot of the materia used that I normally wouldn't use, would have taken more time.

 

Regardless of all that, it's a very creative way of doing it, and it looks sick af.

For some reason I have all kinds of trouble with Mega Flare.  I was at 9k+ hp with all three characters and casted Manaward/wall(forget which one was the highest) on his one count.  He wiped me like 5 times on normal in the VR before I survived it with one character at 1hp and one other at around 400hp.  The 3rd died, so somewhere with my casting and healing I was messing up because they all were around at least 7k hp and barriered when he fired it off  

 

I was afraid of having to redo the fight a dozen times and it taking hours longer than it did the way I did it. I just don't have that kind of time now a days, with only having weekends mainly to game 

 

 

Figured I'd try it this way and in what was going to be my final attempt before I tried the safe route I managed to keep Bahamut stun locked and pressured like the video. 

 

The plowing through of the first three really appealed to me, and every attempt I felt like I was really close to getting Bahamut so I had a lot of fun with it. 

 

Plus I had all but a couple materia grinded to max before I ever even saw this strat, and those few took me maybe 3 runthroughs of the high flyer VR to max out, so it was worth trying for me.

Edited May 12, 2020 by Snake2410

[Glacier_Silver]

If you're having trouble with the 6 star VR then 7 star is going to be impossible. Cloud cut through this boss super quickly with fire + elem on weapon. If you've ever played a MMORPG as a tank, play it that way. Add in a little bit of moving to avoid the bad breath attack. You only need to get hit by it once on the character with the enemy Materia.