IMPOSSIBLE! "The Arsenal Boss" on HARD

[You]

OMG this game..

For anyone who had platinumed this game, how did you do the Arsenal Boss on hard? Seven times I have tried and failed. This boss sucks in every possible way, I did not even die once during Bahamut and even using the accessory on Barret to get his ATB charged up I am still struggling.

 

- It takes 10-15 minutes each time to wittle down its health to 25%, this part is easy but takes ages.

- The auto aiming of both Barret and Aerith is basically bullshit, 98% of the time they just auto aim at the non weak sections, making wittling down health even harder

- The boss has no weakness to spells, lighting works at first, but then it doesn't

- Bahamut does one 9999 attack, once, this boss near the end does it EVERY 30 seconds and ALL of them are unavoidable. You take 9999 damage EVEN USING Wall and defence spells

- Each time you retry the game DOES NOT remember your materia swapping etc, you have to do it EVERYTIME, also you CANNOT Save your game OR go into the options to change the settings for auto aim to manual aim.

- The final 50-25% I am saving Barrets Limit break and both characters ATB, which means it is painfully slow getting down to 25% (or less) all the time he is already using his bullshit 9999 attack on one character or the other after he is less than 50%, also when one character dies, sometimes while casting Revive 2 the boss turns around and shocks me so not only my Revive gets cancelled but I am staggered, if I am lucky I get to cast Revive2 before suffering another 9999 damage. But twice now I have failed to Revive 2 and I just have to watch my other character die from 9999 damage, and this is simply because I am trying to save all my ATB and Limit breaks for the final part and prolonging this part.

 

So how do you do it? It doesn't seem to be possible to kill the boss in time before he does his 1 kill insta shot 9999 damage near the end where you are both trapped. I have the highest attack weapons, I store Barret's Limit Break, and use both ATB 2 for both characters, I even survived once and somehow  Aerith stood behind a pillar revived Barret and he used his Limit Break again AND STILL the boss had quite a lot of health left, and of course next time I died. Even casting Manawall and the boss still does 9999 health, man this boss is WAY harder than Bahamut..WHat in the hell were Square thinking making the THIS boss tougher than Jenova and Rufus...

 

So I really need help. What was everyone's EXACT Materia, equipment setting etc.

 

Oh, and a BIG THANKS to Red13, for walking around like an idiot and doing about 30 damage to the boss every 20 seconds, he really helps out...

Edited April 28, 2020 by enaysoft

[Alos88]

Dunno how useful this will be to you, but I recently discovered if you cast Stop on a staggered enemy the stagger bar stops too for the duration, it's pretty OP. Might help you at least burn through its HP faster.

[Mr_Marty84]

I had no trouble at all with this boss. In the final part of the fight where he crashes against the wall and attacks with a wall of fire on both sides. First time you have to hide behind some piece of cover to avoid his 1 hit ko attack. After that you got 30-45 seconds to kill him before he uses it again I used Barrets Limitbreak Catastrophe and I used Aeriths Ray of Judgment at the same time. This was enought to kill the boss.
My materia/equipment setup was the same as powerpyx mentions in his guide.

And do you have Reprieve on your weapons? 

 

 

[SigmaCloud]

When it's charging it's main weapon or homing laser, use thunder magic on that specific part(it will say weak spot). If you do enough damage, it will cancel the attack and Red will automatically stagger one of the smaller bots during the first phase. After that, keep using the same strategy to stagger it.

Edited April 28, 2020 by SigmaCloud

[Demortuus]

Dunno, i was drunk most of the time on hard mode, but I first tried every boss. Maybe grind some AP?
I played Chapter 1-17 straight on hard mode and only hit a wall on the Bahamut+Ifrit fight in VR. I then grinded AP for 3 hours to max everything but I didn't have the mindset to try this shit VR fight again and then went on to clear the rest of the game. Was a breeze tbh - and I was drunk - after that defeated Pride&Joy first try.

 

Why was I drunk? I hate replaying games which offer no new content, story-wise.

[Mog]

Try using Lustrous Shield to block the attacks, then at the end, you could save the Summon for that last moment where you have to deal enough damage before it deals high damage to you as shown here:

 

 

[S-A-U-S-I]

I am talking out of what I remember so I might be wrong, but isn't the boss still weak to thunder on it's final phase? The best way to inflict a lot o damage is to use Ray of Judgment with Aerith and Maximum Fury with Barret, you can do a lot of damage before you have to hide behind the pillar for the first shot, and it should be dead before the second. Something that really helps is to have Haste cast on your characters since it will let you fire a few more shots of your abilities. And regarding the auto-aim issue: it really sucks. I used to my advantage the stopped time whenever I selected a spell/ability to lock the objective on whatever I wanted to attack, and tried to have my characters on opposite ends of the enemy, because one of the drones always uses the boss for cover and is harder to kill

[Misshandlad]

In addition to all the tips already posted, I personally found Aerith more useful to control in this fight.

I had her as a high Magic character and I believe the magic stat affects her weapon damage. Atleast I found that she did alot more damage

than Barret with normal attacks as long as you target the middle of the body (not the wheels).

 

Also once you stagger the boss you can usually cripple the wheels real easy to make its mobility worse.

[TripleKing333]

I ignore the wheels the whole fight. When it charges the main gun or the laser hit it with thundaga to really boost the stagger.  
 

I used ATB Block materia on both characters,  block the machine gun fire for easy ATB.

 

I used the Circlet Aerith and the Limit accessory of Barret.  I also tried to use Pray on both characters to preserve as much MP as possible.

 

For the final part,  hide behind the cover to start with and keep slamming it with Thundaga on Aerith.  I forgot about this completely but you could use the double cast ward too,  for extra damage.  Have Barret slam it with maximum fury but make sure he has lightning + elemental on his weapon for extra damage.

Edited April 28, 2020 by TripleKing333

[Amphiprion11513]

My materia set up was the exact set up from the PowerPyx video above and followed the strategy mostly. I also didn't save my limit breaks(mostly) until I got close enough to the second massive shot and used the break plus Ray of Judgement as stated above. You also have to be aware of which defense is currently cast on the boss once you down the three adds. If you're attempting to hit the boss with lightening attacks and he has that defense currently active it wont do much. What applies to this as well is when he puts up a physical defense barrier your limit breaks will do jackshit which is why I mostly used limit breaks when ever I could. If I remember correctly if you hit with lightening while the physical barrier is up it will force him to switch, and vice versa, don't hold me to that though it may have just seemed that way for me.

[Hartgroove]

Also you can equip Gotterdammerung to one of them, if you have it, Aerith for safety or Barret for more dps.

Previously you had a fight with Cloud, then cutscene and this fight, so during the cutscene, if you hold square if i remember correctly, it will open menu just before the fight and will allow you to change equipment.

[Tripple_Barnett]

4 hours ago, enaysoft said:

OMG this game..

For anyone who had platinumed this game, how did you do the Arsenal Boss on hard? Seven times I have tried and failed. This boss sucks in every possible way, I did not even die once during Bahamut and even using the accessory on Barret to get his ATB charged up I am still struggling.

 

- It takes 10-15 minutes each time to wittle down its health to 25%, this part is easy but takes ages.

- The auto aiming of both Barret and Aerith is basically bullshit, 98% of the time they just auto aim at the non weak sections, making wittling down health even harder

- The boss has no weakness to spells, lighting works at first, but then it doesn't

- Bahamut does one 9999 attack, once, this boss near the end does it EVERY 30 seconds and ALL of them are unavoidable. You take 9999 damage EVEN USING Wall and defence spells

- Each time you retry the game DOES NOT remember your materia swapping etc, you have to do it EVERYTIME, also you CANNOT Save your game OR go into the options to change the settings for auto aim to manual aim.

- The final 50-25% I am saving Barrets Limit break and both characters ATB, which means it is painfully slow getting down to 25% (or less) all the time he is already using his bullshit 9999 attack on one character or the other after he is less than 50%, also when one character dies, sometimes while casting Revive 2 the boss turns around and shocks me so not only my Revive gets cancelled but I am staggered, if I am lucky I get to cast Revive2 before suffering another 9999 damage. But twice now I have failed to Revive 2 and I just have to watch my other character die from 9999 damage, and this is simply because I am trying to save all my ATB and Limit breaks for the final part and prolonging this part.

 

So how do you do it? It doesn't seem to be possible to kill the boss in time before he does his 1 kill insta shot 9999 damage near the end where you are both trapped. I have the highest attack weapons, I store Barret's Limit Break, and use both ATB 2 for both characters, I even survived once and somehow  Aerith stood behind a pillar revived Barret and he used his Limit Break again AND STILL the boss had quite a lot of health left, and of course next time I died. Even casting Manawall and the boss still does 9999 health, man this boss is WAY harder than Bahamut..WHat in the hell were Square thinking making the THIS boss tougher than Jenova and Rufus...

 

So I really need help. What was everyone's EXACT Materia, equipment setting etc.

 

Oh, and a BIG THANKS to Red13, for walking around like an idiot and doing about 30 damage to the boss every 20 seconds, he really helps out...

It's a long battle and one of my least favorites. But after fighting Rufus and his dog 10+ times due to only having 2 MP. I was probably more determined to finish Chapter 17. I just kept my distance, used Prayer when needed and beat him. It's just such a long battle. 

[Dry_Plumbus]

So, I agree with you that this fight sucked. I honestly wasn't even prepared for it because I forgot you have to play two bosses back to back, never even got to swap materia for it, just lucked out that Barret had lightning equipped already!

 

Aerith was kitted out 100% for group healing, not for single target healing + offense. So basically the only tools I had was barrets lightning spell (thank god) and aeriths basic attack lol. What I did was hide behind pillars for 80% of the fight, only peaking out to use barrets 2 ATB shooting ability (i forget the name) on the turrets that are causing the barrier on the boss. Then swapping to Aerith and making sure everyone stayed healed.

 

It took WAAAAAAAAAY longer than it was supposed to, probably 8-10 mins just to get the shield down. Oh I forgot to mention Aeirth had like 0 mana, so I had to keep using drain soul.

 

Anyways once the shield went down it was full on scary times. Multiple deaths for each character as I tried to keep barret and aerith on opposite sides of the room so when he charged that only 1 would die, and hopefully I could hide behind pillar or roll out of the way.

 

Once he uses a gun/weapon on you with a charging animation, THEN I used barrets lightning and aeriths ray of judgement attack on the weak spot. If you just try to auto attack the weak spot, like you said, the game totally screws up your targeting and you'll never hit it.

 

Once it's staggered, max thunder ability, hope you get a limit charged up for the later phase, and honestly save it cause once he puts you in the flaming tunnel of death you have almost no room for error.

 

Honestly if you prepare for this fight and give them both lightning materia, it probably goes down much much much faster.

[undefinedmike]

Definitely the struggle fight of the entire chapter. As long as you're getting to that final phase where he can instakill you that's an accomplishment in itself. I spent 2 rounds against it trying to use elemental to absorb fire and lightning, neither of which worked so I scrapped that Idea. For the last portion where he's about to instakill you Barret's limit worked fine for me on hard, but you can also try setting up an arcane ward and spamming out thundaga/ara. I never had to because Barret's limit was enough, but I mean..Imagine Aeris quad casting thundaga, pretty sure that would work out well. If you're hurting for MP just remember your trusty soul drain during staggered times with Aeris and you'll be fine.

I ran my standard interchangeable materia line up except both Aerith and Barret had lightning, healing, revive, HP and MP plus on both with chakra on Barret and Prayer on Aerith and of course Magnify. Healing Carcanet is preferred on Aerith and running healing wind. Barret ran the special VR accessory(it speeds things up, but honestly just made me more reckless. Totally doable without it.) My Barret runs EKG and Aerith runs silver staff. I save my Catastrophe limit for that last portion, but if you can muster 2 limits in that one fight you should definitely abuse it early on. The first few times i battled this guy his shields were the most annoying, but then i realized that hitting each generator with thundara would cause Red XIII to instantly stagger the one, so after about 2 extended failures on hard mode that made the first part a lot quicker. I was also very passive when he was using his cannon and just hid, after starting to take advantage of the weak point with Aerith's thundara it made it easier for me to stagger his dumbass. Barret was already ready with 2 full ATB to fire during the pressured period. Once that cannon started charging, I swapped to Aerith and let loose a thundara which was usually enough to cancel the attack. He would occasionally need to be hit a 2nd time because he'd charge up immediately after but another thundara put that to rest. Barret's focus shot pushed that stagger bar up and during that period of the bosses immobility i'd just have Aerith do basic attacks and soul drain to steadily keep her MP up. While all this is going on I tried to keep Aerith and Barret away from each other, also used the pillars to block the boss and make obstacles. Homing lasers were always ate up by Barret. I never got hit by his rush attack unguarded, Aerith did a few times but that's because I wasn't controlling her. Destroying the wheels takes a bit, but I didn't even get to kill all of them before the end. The fire trap is annoying and I never got caught in it on normal, but I just could not escape it on hard. I always switched to the other character to try and draw aggro since he likes to do a lot of damage to the trapped one. Once you inevitably hit that instakill phase just focus on getting your ATB stacked for Aerith and hopefully you have a limit for Barrett. Catastrophe and a double ATB focus shot for good measure with an arcane ward placed(preferably during the first blocked later) for Aerith to cast her enhanced thundara/aga's. Good luck, definitely the most annoying chapter, 18 wasn't a joke either, but let's take this one step at a time, Hahah

Edited April 29, 2020 by undefinedmike

[TSouL_22]

Here's a guide for The Arsenal without using any MP.   The fight isn't bad once you understand the mechanics and how to avoid majority of the damage.

 

 

[ShadeSplit]

Both times I lost to this boss was during the final phase, as I just couldn't do enough damage to end it. The second time I even saved a Catastrophe, yet it still wasn't enough. I don't know how they were doing all that damage with Maximum Fury and normal attacks.

[lesk8vaincra]

aerith's triangle attack is really powerfull for non moving ennemies (or slow moving ennemies). Take advantage of it

[Nitemares-----]

How I did it really quick was target its hand cannon / laser with magic to Stagger it and deplete its energy quickly, it is its weakness, also always manually control Barret. 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Nitemares-----

[BlackTorito]

I was holding until I beated him, I did on first try. It’s easy as hell, this game is not meant to be force played, you need to carefully read the weaknesses.

 

I beated him even with a low MP Aerith (probably the hardest is to keep her MP through the chapter) absorving MP every here and there, you just need to Thunder the weakspots (back and main cannon). Then Catastrophe him when staggered or full Thundaga if you overflow on MP.

I never ever touched the wheels.

 

In the end, when he is charging the final attack, Limits won’t do. You need to use Thunder.

Edited April 29, 2020 by BlackTorito

[You]

Many thanks for all the support and help guys, I watched through the videos people posted, my setup was almost identical to those. I have Reprieve on Aerith.

It is weird because I would always get lots of criticals throughout the fight but then just when I needed high damage my attacks would all turn to resist low damage.

 

I failed another two times but then I beat the battle with a flukely timed summon stiming, what I first did was equip and use Refocus on both characters so they both had 3 ATB each, then waited till boss was at about 27% health or so and then I summoned Fat Chocobo and then immediately used Barret's limit break to go into the final phase. I needed the Fat Chocobo summon in order to give Aerith a few more hp, it's bullshit but it was always Fat Chocobo and never Bahamut, even though Barret did all the staggering and/ or got hit himself, it was only Fat Chocobo that came up.

 

Anyway, when the boss went into his final phase I was able to use as many ATB turns as I could and then hid behind the pillar, shooting into the pillar to build up more ATB. After the pillar got destroyed I cast ATB field on Barret, and then I just went crazy attacking alternating with both characters, I was just about to fail again but then Fat Chocobo summon ended and killed him with a whopping 9999 damage, I guess because I equipped Aerith with all the luckups and magic ups damage was magnified, oh and I had 10% magic up accessory equipped.

 

By the way, Barret's limit break in the final part of this boss, it just seems to be worthless and takes way too long for charge up for the damage it is worth. A 3ATB attack of and Maximum Fury and 2 ATB attack of Ray Of Judgment are way more powerful, plus after you finish Maximum Fury you can press Barret's triangle attack and then have another ATB waiting to do another Maximum Fury directly after.

 

So yeah, I got lucky, and Fat Chocobo sat on the robot boss and ended the stage and then I got my platinum a few moments ago.

 

The actual new final chapter to this game, I didn't die once...

 

Rather than be satisfied I am glad it is all over. They honestly need to rebalance parts of this game. I died about 3 times on a triple hammer boss when you are with Barret and Cloud, use your limit breaks or spells and the hammer robot jumps back in his hole. On my 4th attempt at those 3 robots I beat them easy, just bashed buttons and used Triple Slash.

 

And this robot boss and the awful auto aiming, having a boss that suddenly goes into a 9999 unblockable infinite attack spam is just stupid. Not even Bahamut, Pride and Joy or even Sephiroth have attacks that cheap.

 

Good luck to everyone else in this hard mode if you haven't done everything yet. I've had a lot of fun and also a lot of pain with this game.

[RoastedPeanut]

I was a little concerned coming up to the final phase seeing as I'd wasted both my reprieves, but i had Catastrophe ready and then a really nervous wait for 2 ATBs for both Cloud and Aerith, but Maximum Fury and Ray of Judgement finished it off 

[xh117]

This boss sucked, almost had him the first try but didn't have enough dps for that 1 shot attack he does. 2nd try finished him off with catastrophe and ray of judgement. I was using ifrit for the summon right away and catastrophe to deal with the drones as fast as possible, the fight went by rather quick the 2nd time basically playing like a cover shooter with Barret and having Aerith spam ray of judgement and prayer since her mp was low from the last boss. Haste is pretty useful in this fight to keep ATB bars full.

[Glacier_Silver]

Hardest boss in the game, at least for me I beat it on my 3rd try. 

 

tip 1 Save your summon for the last phase.

tip 2 use 2 different elements + Fire and lightning one on each character (In Phase one this helps)

tip 3 use the accessory from Pride and joy on Barret

tip 4 at the end use steelwall and Barrier on Barret

tip 5 go get more SP for Barret and Aerith Equip them with SIlver staff and Bid Bertha

tip 6 hit triangle when Barret reloads

tip 7 stand near debrey on the opposite sides of the room and switch chars when your targeted

tip 8 in the last phase stand away from each other and revive the dead ally before the next attack

tip 9 Maximum Fury, Overload (Barret's Triangle attack) Ray of Judgement, familiar are all good abilities to use

[Lance_87]

I've beaten it last night, but i don't remember to have used any summon, or the Barrier materia... anyway i used Prayer on both characters to keep the HPs at maximum... also used Lightning magic to stop the Pulse Cannon attacks and put the boss on Pressure. The most frustrating thing is that after a certain point that arm cannon required more than just one Maximum Fury/Ray of Judgement to be taken down... anyway i just used Catastrophe and a fully charged Maximum Fury and Ray of Judgement for the final part (after casting Haste), then a couple of physical attacks and BAM, it was gone. Had to retry like 2 times, but only because one of my characters died in one of the earlier phases. Barret had a fully upgraded Gatling Gun, i don't remember Aerith's weapon though, but it was probably one of those with 100+ magic attack (not Mythril Staff, i'm sure about that, i used that for Jenova... lmao it was one of the funniest and easiest battles of Hard mode), both were equipped with the Revival Earrings (i decided to use them after the last retry) just to be safe, but weren't required in my case.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Lance_87

[DrBloodmoney]

Aireth -

Barrier + Magnify

Ice + MP Absorb 

Prayer

 

Transference Module

 

 

Barret -

Element + Lightning

Prayer

Fire + Hp Absorb

Wind + Hp Absorb

 

 

Fill up the rest of the slots with Magic/HP/Luck/MP up as you need.

 

 

Job done ?