Star Ocean: Til The End of Time By Master Epyon ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Version History 2. What is an SSCC? 3. How does this work in Star Ocean: Til The End of Time? 4. General Strategies 5. Character-Related Strategies 6. Thanks 7. Disclaimer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VERSION HISTORY ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Version 1.02 - All SSCC's completed. Hoping to get more Post-game sections for the next update. Version 0.99 - All SSCC's have been completed except for Sophia. Version 0.95 - Cliff SSCC updates posted, a bit of Fayt and Adray post-game is complete, and Trowa finished Maria post-game SSCC with no IC and on Full Active. Fixed a few spelling errors here and there. Version 0.9 - Fayt and Maria SSCC's complete, added a General Strategy, fixed up a few errors, and posted Mirage Post-Game. Version 0.8 - Level Caps changed again, Adray, Mirage, and Nel SSCC's complete. Only 4 SSCC's are left to finish (CaptainK will soon post his updates, we hope). Only Sophia, Maria, and Fayt SSCC's left (How...ironic). I'm in the middle of the Peppita one as we speak. Version 0.3 - Roger SSCC complete, Level caps updated yet again, location for "Anti-Freeze Amulet". We can only hope CJAYC accepts the FAQ this time around, seeing how the SSCC's are nearly 1/3 done. Version 0.2 - Albel SSCC complete, strategies for him posted, Level Caps changed. Version 0.1 - Completed SSCC guide, but not all SSCC's are actually complete, and no specific strategies have been posted thus far. It'll change in the next version. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT IS AN SSCC? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Solo Straight Character Challenge. And no, that "Straight" has nothing to do with sexual preference. Originally started by MunkiBleedsGreen in Final Fantasy Tactics as an SCC (Straight Character Challenge), it was then changed by Overrated and his fellows on Board 4694 (go see if you want) to an SSCC, which is what we're after for Star Ocean. It involved using ONLY Ramza, and ONLY allowing him the use of ONE job. It also implemented level caps to avoid overleveling. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW DOES THIS WORK IN STAR OCEAN: TIL THE END OF TIME? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Glad you asked (even if you actually didn't). I assume you've already beaten the game so that you know what all the places are. Of course, there's spoilers in this FAQ most likely. :p Not the best place for a beginner. Anyway. Play through the game using only 1 character. Level caps are implenented, which I will explain later if one is interested in this. IC is allowed, but not recommended for the main game. If in the case you want to do a Mirage SSCC, for all of Disc 1/half of disc 2 you'll have to use her carbon-copy, Cliff. Gutsy Bunny is optional as is Full Active, though for people like Mirage, Full Active may not be a good idea. NOTE: IC is not allowed during the Main Game, but if you find an item that is technically an IC item without using IC/Buying it, you can use the item. Also note that you aren't allowed to buy IC items from shops. Yes, I stated the same points twice, but it has to be said for people not to abuse IC. Current "Carbon Copies": Mirage SSCC: Cliff Sophia SSCC: Adray Adray SSCC: Sophia Albel SSCC: Fayt If you have a "Carbon Copy" in your party, you MUST use him/her unless you have the actual SSCC character, which in that case means you MUST use that person. If neither the "Carbon Copy" nor the SSCC character is in the party, you must still use only one character, however, it can any character you want to use. And yes, this means during the Sophia/Adray SSCC that you're going to have to fight The Proclaimer at level 1. Good luck. Of course, this also means in the Battle Simulator that you have to use Sophia if doing a Sophia/Adray SSCC, Fayt if doing a Fayt/Albel SSCC, or Peppita if doing a Peppita SSCC. It's rather obvious, but it's easily overlooked since the Battle Simulator is so easy. Level Caps for Galaxy Mode: Before Peterny: Level 9 Cap Peterny-Before Entering Bequerel Mines: Level 14 cap Bequerel Mines-Before Entering Kaddaan: Level 21 cap Kaddaan-Before Urssa Lava Caves: Level 26 cap Urssa Lava Caves-Crosell: Level 29 cap Biwig: Level 31 cap Moonbase-Before entering the Time Gate: Level 33 cap Time Gate-before 2nd visit to Shrine of Kaddaan: Level 43 cap 2nd visit to Shrine of Kaddan-Before defeating Stone Golem: Level 50 cap Firewall-Before reaching Floor 10 of Spiral Tower: Level 65 cap Luther: Level 70 cap. Maze of Tribulations: Level 110 cap Sphere 211 Floors 101-169: Level 180 cap Sphere 211 Floors 170-209: Level 200 cap Sphere 211 Floors 210+-Freya: No cap. Urssa Lava Cave Temple: Level 110 cap (Before Gabriel) or Level 200 cap after Gabriel. SUGGESTION: These caps are very tight, and enforce the least amount of non-forced battles possible. Try to not purposely level up, but we're always changing these caps to accompany to your needs. Also, during some cases, characters are forced into your party for certain fights. If this happens, put them on manual and turn off any and all tactical skills they have. Forced Battles: -Incapacitator Vaas Fights 2 and 3 (Pepitta joins. Or in a Pepitta SSCC player's case, Fayt/Sophia remains). There isn't even any AAA's at this point anyway, so it's not like it matters. -Norton (Cliff joins, or in Cliff/Mirage's SSCC, Fayt does). -Black Brigade Soldiers x3 (Nel Joins, or in Nel's SSCC, Cliff/Fayt joins) -Moonshadow Clan Thieves at Duggus Forest (Roger joins, or in Roger's SSCC, Cliff/Fayt/Nel joins). -Sophia during the Convictor fight (Sophia joins, or in the case of a Sophia SSCC, whoever you used for Proclaimer/Enforcer joins). And yes, you're allowed to recruit Optional Characters even if you're not using him or her for your SSCC. I figure that Health Berry in Roger's sidequest is pretty useful. :p Keep in mind that you cannot put items on dead characters that would benefit the whole party or the SSCC character. Until you get 7 characters, always swap out the characters who you don't use. After you get 7, just have 2 dead people in the party. The "4D no movement" trick shouldn't be abused, but there's really no way to stop it, since most people do it by accident. So it's allowed for now if you ever do a 4D SSCC. Fayt and ???: While you're allowed to get any ending you want to fight Fayt and ???, you should probably try for the Alone ending, since Luther is usually the toughest for most people. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GENERAL STRATEGIES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -Buy those Clone Generators as soon as possible. Remember that Fresh Sages aren't needed anyway. -Once you get the Ring of Disentegration, go get the Anti-Freeze Amulet in the Airyglyph Aquaducts. It helps. Also the Amulet of Freedom is in the Bequerel Mines, and you can get it WITHOUT the Ring! Awesome Vs. The Chimera! -Learn how to become good at soloing. When fighting 1 Vs. 1, it's best to usually try and get the enemy to use a minor attack. Run around while at 100% fury to increase their chances. Then when the enemy gets stunned, smack them and run. These hit and run techniques work very well for 1 on 1 fights. -Your formation should pretty much always be set to "Escape". Gives you time to get up your fury if you get ambused, and time for spellcasters to actually USE A SPELL WITHOUT DYING. -When fighting groups, No Guard is VERY helpful, since usually groups rely on stunlocking to kill you. Of course, early on this won't help. For group battles, deke them all into using an attack (Hopefully a Major one) and then smack them with a VERY QUICK ATTACK, followed by running. In these types of battles, the enemy is screwed when they get down to only 1 character. NEVER try to guard all the enemies attacks unless THEY ALL use a Minor Attack. Otherwise you'll get hurt, and with group battles, one hit is all it takes for you to lose due to stunlock. -It goes without saying, but keep up to date with armor and weapons. Cliff gets the roughest job here, since he gets to buy the Damask Gauntlet which is ridiculously overpriced. Well, if you're doing an IC game, you can make him the Gatling Gauntlets... -If doing a Sophia/Adray SSCC, buy the Magician's Staff at Moonbase. Please. -The security service in Arkives can each be OHKO'D by Fire Crystals, won from Dire Tarantulas in Kirlsa Caverns or the first type of Brass Dragon in the Bequerel Mines. -It's generally a good tactic to use CTRL + F to find something in this FAQ. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHARACTER-RELATED STRATEGIES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is where the guide is very incomplete, due to the fact that very few SSCC's for Star Ocean: Til The End of Time have been done yet, and that anyone who completed one hasn't posted updates. For now I'll post descriptions for the SSCC's, and my current work with my Albel SSCC. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FAYT (First completed by Marty81, post-game by CrOnOKiD) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I guess I'll update my Fayt SSCC in the master topic then. The first bit of this is copied and pasted from my other topic. The beginning stuff was really easy - I just used short weak attacks at opportune times. I don't remember if I completed all 3 of the battle simulator battles or not =/ Norton's henchmen - Short Weak Norton - Set Cliff to manual and disabled his AAA. He distracted Norton a bit but ended up surviving the fight with about 500 hp left. I'm embarassed that I used 2 blueberries here. Ah well, I'm still learning how to do this. I was level 3, so no Aerial yet. Inquisitor and henchmen - Short Weaks for the most part. I was still getting the hang of things at this point. I used a few more blueberries and ended up killing the inquisitor by dodging his strong attacks and hitting him in the back in the middle of them with weak attacks. Giant Crab - I leveled up to 6 in the cave. Aerial and blazing sword finished this guy off in no time. Earth Smasher - Aerial To quote Master Epyon, "Went and bought the Holy Sword and Masterwork Plate." (money raised by selling map completion bonuses) Continuing the quote: "Lots of Black Brigade Soldiers (0 resets): Could only inflict 0 damage to me. Shelby (0 resets): See above. About 5 trees in Duggus Forest (0 resets): Blazing Sword, whack whack, dead." - I used two strong aerials per tree instead. My way was probably worse. "Moonshadow Clan Thieves (0 resets): Whack whack burnination. Moonshadow Clan Chief (0 resets): Is it possible to lose this?" - he did 0 damage to me "Mudman (0 resets): Blazing Sword, whack whack whack, dead." Currently level 13. Legion Dragons - Stunned them with AAA, then followed that up with strong aerial. It was a good fight. I cast healing a few times to stay alive. Leveled to 14 here. Brass Dragons - MP killed with Aerial Cockatrice - MP killed with Blazing Sword. Leveled to 15 here, so now I have side kick. Demitrio's soldiers - MP killed with aerial. Very easy. Leveled up to 16 here, so now I have No Guard (and lightning blast) Demitrio - MP killed his dragon buddies, then air-juggled him with short strong (just on the inside of short range) and 2x short weak. Leveled up to 17 from this fight. Albel - MP Killed his cronies with Aerial, then 175%-sidekicked him down. It probably would have been better to MP kill his buddies with blazing sword and then do big sidekick chains on him, but oh well. Leveled to 18 from this fight. Vox - Sidekicked his ass into the ground. I just looped the following: cancel-chaining up to 250% (that's where my fury ran out), then running off to a corner and casting healing. I had a regeneration symbol equipped to regen my MP. Leveled up to 19 here. Flying Knight - I don't know if this one was optional or not, actually. I sidekicked him to death quickly. Leveled to 20 here, so now I have ice blade. Crystal Statues - MP killed with ice blade. Leveled to 21 - got Berserk. Crystal Cerebrus - Combination of side kicks and aerials took him down. It was annoying, but easy. By the way, there are mad pathing issues you can exploit in this fight if you need time to cast healing. Leveled up to 22 and got Increase HP Damage. Vendeeni Soldiers (~10 resets) - Finally a hard fight, but only because there's 4 of them, they shoot quickly, and they have a chance of one-hit-killing you. I eventually gave up on MP killing them. Equipped No Guard, Berserk, and Side Kicked the crap out of them. It only took 1 reset once I had the right setup. Leveled to 23. I have to say that I find it telling that I received my 5 hours in battle BT this battle, after having clocked some 40-odd hours between my previous save and this one. I found the Aquatic dungeons of Surferio and got OWNED by symbology in the first random fight inside, so I'll be skipping that area for now. Schweimer - I just spammed side kicks. He died about the same time his dragon buddies did. Blue Dragon Zombie - Side Kicked him and leveled up. Robin Wind - Annoying little bastard. Is there any way to avoid thunder flare? Anyway, I used a handful of blue and black berries here. Leveled twice and got shotgun blast. Now I'm in the Lava Fields. SIDE NOTE FROM EPY: Fayt can "Dodge" Thunder Flare if he does Long-O just as Thunder Flare is cast. Proclaimer - This was a joke. I side kicked the living crap out of her (it?), and even managed to collect the "defeat in under 1 minute" battle trophy. LOL. Security Service - Side kicked down. 4D Security Guards - Something about sidekicks and shotgun blast (I was just messing around with it) Azazer - More sidekicks and shotgun blast. Berial And Belzeber - Jammed out to the phat tunez and kicked some ass. This was actually a hard fight, especially since it was the first time I'd ever seen them. I should have had my targeting set to manual so that I didn't keep automatically targeting Belzeber when I wanted to smack Berial around. I used sidekick chains on each - it's annoying since it kept missing, too. I used 20 blueberries and a couple of physical enhancers here, but I know I could have done a lot better if I'd tried again. I also forgot that I had a clone generator equipped (and 19 more in reserve), so all in all it wasn't TOO bad. Proclaimer #2 (0 resets): Sidekick Enforcer (0 resets): Sidekick Convictor (0 resets): Let him OHKO Sophia, then sidekicks. He was very pansy. Leveled to 41, so now I get to see what Air Raid is. Anyway, update on Sidekick, er, Fayt: Lesser Eye (1 resets): He can petrify (hence the reset), and he can also freeze, apparently. I played defensively, dodging his strong beams, and when openings arose, I combo-sidekicked the crap out of him. Leveled to 43 here. These level caps are way too tight =/ Dark Armors - Sidekick, as expected. Crystal Knight - Claimed my 1000 battles trophy here, and basically used side kick. Again, there are pathing issues to exploit here if you want, but it's harder to do this time since he's quite fast. Dark Eye - Yawn. I don't know if he can petrify or not. Anyway, I did a combination of long strong attacks (when he was done with that silly circle attack thing) and sidekick combos. Chimera - Equipped amulet of freedom and clone generator. Broke 2 clone generators and used about 7 blueberries here. Main attack? You guessed it - sidekick. Stone Golem - Quite easy, especially since he's so slow - you can just run off to a corner and cast healing whenever you're hurt. Broke a clone generator once when his fire attack hit me twice for 6000 each (since my max hp is about 11999). I gained 3 levels from this fight, leveling me to 51, so TECHNICALLY I'm over the cap ("2nd visit to Shrine of Kaddan-Before entering Firewall: Level 50 cap"), but taking two steps forward put me into Firewall, so I'm not too worried about it. In fact, has anyone even shown that it's possible for the Fayt SSCC to be level 50 or under after this fight? I haven't done any leveling since I leveled to 6 in the aqueducts, and I've fought about 3 non-forced battles since then. Meh. Anyway, I have dimension door now. It's pretty cool. Battle Copter - What the hell is up with this rap song? Sidekicked this guy down, but I busted a clone generator in doing so. Pseudo Blair - I'm embarrased that I broke a clone generator here too. Death howl kept catching me, even though it's a weak attack, and I kept missing with sidekick. Still, she's a weak boss, so she went down without too much trouble. EPY NOTE: Actually, it's set to Strong. :( Ruktogias - He does a lot of damage when he hits you, but all of his strong attacks are slow and easy to dodge. I just AAA'd him and chained sidekicks. Death Monster x2 - Sidekick! Sidekick! Is that all you got?! Sidekick! Chimera Hawk x3 - NO RESETS. Don't hate me. I didn't even know this fight was coming up when I got into it, so I blindly charged in and started spamming sidekicks. I was lucky in that I caught all 3 of them in most of the kicks, and ended up not technically stunlocking them, but making it so that they couldn't retaliate in the middle of the chain (or if they could, they chose not to). One of them got hit by every single kick and went down almost immediately after the first chain was over to another half-chain. About this time I realized that I was in the infamous Chimera Hawk fight, and I was already down to just two of them. Heat impact hurts, and Blizzard impact actually froze me once (broke a clone generator here), but I was able to eliminate one of the remaining guys, and then the last one was easy. (Note: I have a save right before these guys, and I'm going to go back and try it again to see if this was really just some freak-of-nature occurence) Setup for Luther: Short weak - Sidekick Short strong - Increase HP Damage Long weak - Didn't use it Long strong - Increase HP Damage First Aid Common Support Skills Best Armor/Weapon Regeneration Symbol Bunny Shoes Luther - Form 1 - Joke. AAA'd all of his weak attacks, sidekicked when he did his strong spear attack, and cut him apart with strong hits when he did Laser Beams. Luther - Form 2 (4 resets) : Switched the regen symbol for a clone generator here. Pattern 1: Sidekicked during his strong attack. AAA'd expansion force and countered with strong attacks. Did the usual thing with Laser Beams. Pattern 2: AAA'd Flaming Divide, and immediately short strong'd him. Fayt's short strong includes him stepping forward, and Luther would usually immediately use Flaming Divide AGAIN. Just stood still. The first part of the attack sailed over my head (while I regained fury), and the second part was AAA'd and countered with short strong again. Dodged Perfect Symmetry when applicable, and used Healing, Blueberries, and Blackberries for recovery. Pattern 3: Insanity Prelude killed me every time - the first two times because I didn't understand what the attack did yet and got caught on the branches that come out of the ground (the first time I saw it, I was like, WTF! Branches just come out from underneath your feet and kill you! That's lame). Kept my clone generator on, even though it wouldn't have helped if I'd gotten caught. Basically I dodged Insanity Prelude and Perfect Symmetry and just waited for him to use Flaming Divide or Laser Beams, and then I countered those in the usual way. Eventually he went down. It was quite a long fight. Hardest Battles: 1. Luther 2. Vendeeni Soldier x4 3. Lesser Eye Most used skills: -Healing -Aerial (early on) -Blazing sword (early on) -No Guard -Increase HP Damage (only against Luther) -First Aid -Common Support Symbols Final level: 62 Oh yeah, I used sidekick a bit too. Render (1 reset): I tried to take advantage of his weakness against fire, so I tried out shotgun blast and I paid the price. Slow moves like that are a no-no against Render's ice beam. So I just spammed sidekicks and didn't get touched once. :) Succubus (0 resets): Sidekick. Watch out for her attacks, she got me once and I nearly died. I was also confused once, but I lucked out. Pretty easy, but you have to be careful. Basilisk King (0 resets): Sidekick, watch out because he can petrify you. But he goes down extremely quickly so it shouldn't be a problem at all. Finally got 2 tri-emblems from santa's boots... it probably would have been faster for me to just get the 12 million fol to buy them... :\ Aqua Wisps (1 reset): wow... I think i overestimated them. With tri-emblems equipped, they dropped like flies. Now Fayt has a bunch of useful skills to use for the aqua wisp battles. You can get close to them and air raid them at short range, then cancel into a dimension door (175% or 200%) to finish them off. I used this until the 5th battle where I got paralyzed and died. :P The next time, I found an easier way to beat them, spam sidekicks. Yes, just jump into short range and start spamming those sidekicks and Fayt will dodge nearly everyone one of their attacks. Just watch out not to trigger their AAA. Pretty neat stuff. Earth Dragon (0 resets): Spammed those sidekicks, after going through aqua wisps, i certainly didn't expect to die here. Mighty Vox (0 resets): Reflecting Plate made me invulnerable to his fire breath attack. Anyway, i simply spammed sidekicks here as well. Sootie (0 resets): Arghh... this one was frustrating. Sidekicks missed quite a bit here so i used air raid. Although i couldn't get it to stop using sootie blast all the time >_< I got the Divine Avenger and Divine Blade BS now. It helps boost the attack quite a bit. :) Vile Chimera (0 resets): Sidekick and air raid, not as tough as it seems... just watch out for his triple attack. Tri-chimera (0 resets): Nothing much to worry about here. Watch out for his lunatic attack, although you can AAA it easily. Again sidekick and air raid. Gaurdian Haunt (0 resets): Spam sidekicks, they're quite strong but they shouldn't cause much of a problem. Shadow Savant (0 resets): Sidekicks and air raids, any of those will work well here. Fayt's level: 87 Gabriel Celesta (2 resets): A bit frustrating. Lightning feather is just crazy. I had to make sure my fury was always full to AAA it. Gabriel has three phases. In the first phase, he'll just use his weak attack where he thrusts his spear (easy to AAA), strong attack with his spear (easy to dodge), and another weak attack which drains guts (he rarely does this). In his first phase, cancel those 200% and 300% air raids to deplete his HP fast. When 1/3 of his HP is depleted, he will move onto his second phase. This is where i had my 2 resets. Now he'll start to use lightning feather... so forget cancelling air raids for a while. The trick here is to try to get him into a weak attack and then AAA it (Standard). Now when he's stunned, wait for his fury to build up then use a strong air raid to knock him out of stun and shatter his guard. Now when he gets up he will use a weak attack again (even if your fury is full), then use air raid again when his fury builds up. Sometimes he will use lightning feather instead of a weak attack but thats fine, you can AAA it as well. Now he moves onto the third phase. He will start using Dragons now, so move into the southeast corner and heal yourself up. After he's done, get him to use a weak attack again, and AAA it. Then wait for his fury to fill up before air raiding him. Not too long after, he should fall. It's not as long a battle as it seems. The MoT all in all, was quite easy. Fayt has a lot of nifty moves, which can allow him to dodge attacks or knock down the enemy. Anyway, i got out and stocked on healing items. Then i headed for Sphere... Norton Redux (0 resets): A bit annoying with shooting spree. I used air raid as my weak attack here to knock him down quickly and then i cancelled into dimension door for some big damage. It was quite easy, just don't get caught into any of his nasty attacks. I grabbed the berries and the huge folio on floor 114. So now I have Ethereal Blast. :) Enraged Crosell (0 resets): Very, very quick battle. I used air raid as my weak attack to knock him down first then i cancelled into a 200% ethereal blast and landed all the hits for insane damage. After only two ethereal blasts, he went down quickly. Fayt's level: 95 I won't beat the reigning champions just yet, although i might get to it soon. I don't really need the victory trophy that much. I think i'll just keep moving on in Sphere. Shadow Dragon (0 resets): Same as enraged crossell. Just knock him down with air raid and charge up ethereal blast as he's getting up. A few EB's will take him down easily. Vengeful Shelby (0 resets): He's a bit tougher because he has a lot of stunlock resistance, meaning you may have to eat a hit or two from him after pulling out an ethereal blast. Other than that, he's not that tough. He doesn't have any anti-air attacks to knock Fayt out of ethereal blast. Biwig (0 resets): Same as vengeful shelby but a lot easier. Just air raid him and pull out ethereal blast. He will never strike you in the air. Later he'll start pulling out elemental guns with illusion rifle, this is a good chance to use air raid on him. He'll keep doing the same move even after he has an elemental gun. >_> Green Majora (2 resets): First of all, you definitely don't want to pull out ethereal blast here since his ice beam and his spinning attacks will easily knock Fayt out of ethereal blast even when he's in the air. Just use the same strategy for Render, spam sidekicks on him. It will take quite a while, but he won't get a hit on you if you're careful. I won the first time using this strategy. Level 102 now. Archdemon (6 resets): Wow, he was even harder than I expected. Anyway, like a lot of bosses, there are three phases to this battle. This first one is pretty simple... just watch out for his strong attack. Don't get caught in it, I died a few times like this. Crimson sword and his weak attack are pretty easy to AAA otherwise. In his second phase, he'll now use Sword of Darkness. The trick to dodging Sword of Darkness is to sidestep behind Archdemon when he's using it. It hits a very large area in front of him... but if you stay behind him you will be safe. After sometime, he'll begin to use Flashing Sword. This can get annoying if your fury is low, but it's easy to dodge otherwise. AAA this when your fury is full and just keep attacking him (note that Fayt can go through Archdemon's strong attack with long major as well as Sword of Darkness I think). I used blade of fury to cancel into air raid because it cancels very quickly allowing me to disrupt Archdemon's attacks quicker and doing some nice damage as well. Also I highly recommend having standard AAA. The boss's AI has a pattern of always using weak attacks after you shatter their guard and knock them down when they are stunned. Belzeber & Azazer (2 resets): The annoying part of this battle is Azazer. Just get them to use a strong attack, dodge it and use a weak air raid on them to knock them down. If you want to take a risk, you can go ahead and cancel into an ethereal blast. This will eliminate Azazer immediately if you manage to land enough hits so you won't have to worry about Crystal Prison and his Sniping shot. Belzeber is a joke without Azazer. Just use a weak air raid and cancel into an ethereal blast. None of his attacks can knock you out while in air so you will easily land all hits from EB. Berial (0 resets): Use the same setup as Archdemon. Air raid is the key to winning this battle since he loves flying up in the air a lot. Get him to use weak attacks, and AAA it. Then cancel air raids to take him down. Soon he'll start using auto-aim and fire dance. You can sidestep to dodge fire dance or you can simply outrun it if you're far enough. If he uses auto-aim, AAA it to stun him. Wait for his fury to fill up then attack him with blade of fury -> air raid combo. When he gets up, let your fury build up and he will use a weak attack, and AAA it. This pattern has worked against nearly all bosses for me so far. Super Blair (6 resets): I had 5 resets at level 108... then I decided I needed to level up more. So then I came back at level 170 and had to reset only once before I beat her. :) Ok first of all, Fayt's HP has to be over atleast 30000, you have to be able to eat a death howl or eddy of light. Have 20 physical enhancers and blueberries. Here's the setup I used: Short O: Air raid Long O: Air raid - First Aid Equip a tri-emblem and bunny shoes. The first part is easy. Just watch out for southern cross. Lightning strike is a pain, but I got used to dodging it all the time with sidesteps (or you can use long major). Just pull out air raids on her, and as you can see, you won't be cancelling here so it will take quite some time. When she gets to about 1/3 or so of her HP down, she will start using eddy of light and death howl 90% of the time. This is where the bunny shoes come in. You HAVE to be able to outrun super blair so you can heal yourself with items. When you're at long range, trigger air raid and fayt will run up to her automatically and air raid her as quick as he can (FAM not recommended). This way Fayt will get a chance to interrupt her before blair can pull out her deadly moves. There is a little chance that blair will withstand an air raid, so you will be taking damage then. If she does hit you, run away as quick as you can and heal yourself up. Keep in mind, whenever you run to use an air raid from long range, make sure your HP is high enough (25000 or above). You can dodge both of her attacks with bunny shoes but it is quite difficult... Eddy of Light: Avoiding this is very difficult, I gave up on sidesteps so I just decided to outrun it. Try to run up to her so that when you just get to short range you can get away quickly because she will startup eddy of light just when you get to short range. When this happens, run quickly to the side and you will be able to avoid it completely. If this moves manages to hit you after air raid, sidestep so you can dodge the second hit. Death Howl: This doesn't have a very large range but don't underestimate it. It's damage is what you have to worry about. This is why you need to keep you HP high when you run in to pull out air raids. Just hang in there and she will die... then again, it's not like this battle will be short... it'll take about 100 air raids or so before you defeat her. :) Reigning champions (0 resets): Level 184, i used a combo of air raid and ethereal blasts and Solon went down quickly. Watch out when using ethereal blast though, since his sword wave can knock you out of it. I also had a reflecting plate on so Dirna didn't use explosion or firebolt (lucky me). Avoiding laser beams is easy so just use ethereal blast to finish her off. She doesn't really have any anti-air attacks to knock Fayt out of the air so it's pretty easy... yeah. Lenneth (4 resets): Level 225, used up HP berries and MP berries and reached max HP with around 14k MP. I highly recommend doing this because you'll have to eat Lenneth's attacks since you'll be using air raid here again. Equip two tri-emblems, you don't need bunny shoes here. Ok, so in Lenneth's first phase she will use her weak slashing attack which drains fury and a strong attack that will hit you around 20 times. Be very careful of her strong attack, although with max HP you should be able to barely survive it. Just don't take too much risks, I only got caught in it twice I believe. AAA her weak attacks, you can avoid it if you want but it is much better to AAA it especially in the next phase. She has one more weak attack that is much stronger than her slashing attack. She won't use it that much but AAA it. Oh, and keep AAA on standard. Ok, so basically you'll be using the same setup you used against Super Blair. Whenever Lenneth starts casting magic, quickly knock her out with air raid. If it fails to do so, sidestep to dodge lightning strike or just run out of range if she uses stone rain. Make sure you don't get caught in stone rain and be right beside Lenneth! Lenneth will recover quick and pummel you with whatever she likes while you are stunlocked in the stone rain. If she uses her strong attack, just run out of range and just wait for her to come to you again. AAA her weak attack and use air raid on her when her fury bar is full. This will shatter her guard and she will most likely use a weak attack again. Keep this pattern up and you'll be air raiding her most of the time. Keep in mind, if you fail to knock her down with air raid, she can easily start up her strong tornado attack and catch you in it. If this happens, you will survive if your HP is not low. Run away quickly and use your healing items. You probably don't have to worry that much about it though since she will be getting disrupted out most of the time. During her second phase, after about 2/3 of her HP is down, she will begin using NV. Ok, now it gets a lot slower since you will have to be careful when to pull out air raid. Run to a corner and wait for her to approach you... if she starts up NV, quickly run to the opposite corner (you won't need bunny shoes for this) to avoid it. If you somehow screw up or she catches you with NV off guard, you'd probably have to equip bunny shoes and run fast as hell to avoid it. If she decides to use her strong attack, simply avoid it by running out of range. The only time you will be using air raid on her is when you AAA her weak attack or when she starts casting spells. If you air raid her and fail to knock her down before she uses NV, try to run as fast as you can to the opposite corner but you will probably be get hit a few times. If your HP is high enough, you can survive some hits from NV but don't rely on it. I got hit by NV twice and survived both times. And since Fayt is so fast, you'll be able to dodge most of her attacks easily. Just don't take any risks by using air raid at a wrong time or you might end up dying. The key to winning here is to keep your HP at top notch. I didn't let it fall below 60k whenever I had the chance. So just use up those blueberries or physical enhancers or whatever. Just be patient for the rest of the battle and attack her carefully and you will win eventually. Ethereal Queen (0 resets): Level 225... Not that hard, I can actually cancel combo on her unlike the last two bosses. I used blade of fury to cancel into air raid. It was still quite a long battle but simple. Try to keep your fury up to AAA all her attacks. Her strong attack is extremely slow, so just pull of BoF and air raid to knock her out of it. You might want to keep an amulet of freedom equipped just in case. She has one strong attack where she swings her spear which she rarely uses... just watch out for it but it's not that dangerous. Soon she'll start using more attacks which you can AAA as well. Recover your fury as she's getting up after knocked down from air raid, and don't get caught in Binding Field. To avoid Celestial Star, I used trowa's tip to run to the top and move around while dodging the explosions. Fayt & Luther (1 reset): Level 226... I was careless the first time around and didn't heal myself and ended getting killed by air raid (how ironic). Anyhoo, I went for Luther first so he doesn't distract me while I take out Fayt. I used a simple combo of sidekicks and air raids. If one of them begins casting Laser Beams, dodge it and pull out a sidekick and air raid combo to take them out. It's a bit annoying since your attacks can be interrupted by parrying enemy attacks (thanks to my agility). Oh and try not to get smacked by ethereal blast, it's probably the most damaging move they have... though it's nothing compared to what I have already been through (i.e. Eddy of Light, NV). Freya (unbeaten): I tried many times, but failed... FAM would solve this problem though which I don't have(yeah, i'm not a BT fan). I guess Ethereal Blast could work in FAM but the most hits you can get from the last part of the move is around 4 hits, and freya has a big chance of not getting knocked down from it. Fayt also has a slow recovery time from the move which will give freya time to catch up to him and pull out a move. Without FAM, so far Divine Blade has worked the best for me. I used Increase HP Damage to go along with it on short weak. What I do is start up divine blade then run towards freya and wait for her to use a weak attack or symbology. When she uses a weak attack, I used AAA and then a long major attack on her, and if she flies up, I follow it up with a short O, then short X. One round of this does about 150,000 damage in total. If she starts using symbology, I use long major again to dodge lightning strike and stone rain. I can dodge her strong attack easily by running around her in circles, she will usually miss (trying to run away from it is risky). Now if she uses Ether Strike, I simply equip bunny shoes and run out of range as fast as I can... or if it's too late, I get into long range and use a long major attack to avoid it. This strategy works well until: - Freya spams ether strike - Fayt get paralyzed - Fayt get confused - She uses her weak attack while i'm recovering from my long major attack and then pulls out an ether strike. - I somehow get caught in stone rain when near her, and she pulls out her strong attack/ether strike while i'm being stunlocked. Anyone without FAM playing a no IC game with Fayt solo is welcome to try, but I didn't really see a way around it. If anyone manages to pull a win, i'll be glad to hear about what strategy you used. =) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CLIFF: (First completed by Captain K/Dark Lord Seifer, post game by Marty81) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All the way to Norton: Not a single battle with Fayt. I even made his friends run away. Norton: Set Fayt to Manual and inflicted stab...err punchity death with Cliff. Fayt got to level up twice though. Levelled to 3. Inquisitor and homies: Quite tough actually. I almost got stunlocked to death. I was level 4 and Sphere of Might sucks. You'd do better using far X attacks. One thing to get used to with Cliff: Early on he has about enough MP for 2 shots of Healing. Therefore, I'd suggest investing SP on his MP stat. It'll save you a ton of trouble later *cough*Azazer*hack* Aqueducts: Levelled to 5. Cliff actually has a harder time early on, which is why getting Masterwork Plate should be a priority. His damage output is excellent without the Damask Gauntlet anyway. Giant Crab: Followed CronoKid's advice. AAA, then O attack. Bought the Masterwork Plate after this. Kirlsa Caverns and Earth Smasher: Levelled to 7. The brute offshoot couldn't even hurt me. Punched him to next Tuesday. Got the bunnies from Bequerel, Aire Hills, Granah Hills, and the Multi-Flask from Arias. All that sold for 38K Fol so I went to buy the Damask Gauntlet. Shelby and the black brigade: Punch/No damage to Cliff. Levelled to 8. Duggus and the trees (1 reset): First gameover due to the Homing AAA from the trees. AAA, then 2 Hammers of Might should do it. Levelled to 12. Mudman: AAA, then Hammer of Might. He does heal a lot so the battle could last a while. Levelled to 13. Legion Dragons: Cake...Hammer of Might up to 200% showed them who's boss. Cockatrice (1 reset): Got stoned here (not that kind of stoned). Anyway, Hammer of Might cancels should do the trick. You may have Electric Fists at this point (I didn't...got it after the fight) so that can work too. Demetrio: Hammer of Might cancels. Albel: Killed his cronies using minor attack -> Hammer of Might -> Electric Fists -> Hammer of Might then beat down on Albel using a combination of the above combo and normal attacks. My level after that fiasco was 18. Vox: See Demetrio. Levelled up to 20 in the Sealed Cavern. Flying Knight: With Berserk on, this fight was over so fast it wasn't funny. Same ol' Hammer of Might. Crystal Statues: Wow, a step up in difficulty. Hammer of Might doesn't work on these guys for some reason so cancel bonused Charge should see you through. Levelled to 21. Crystal Cerberus: Easy fight. Spammed Charge till he was gone. Levelled to 22. Vendeeni Soldiers (2 resets): The trick here is to use strong Hammer of Might. Cancel bonus doesn't help because you might get shot or AAA'ed which means you'll either get stunlocked to death or petrified. Don't even try this battle without No Guard. Schweimer: Hammer of Might cancels. Next... Blue Dragon Zombie (1 reset): The "reset" was because I forgot to unequip Hammer of Might. I didn't have Aerial Assault (You can and barely get by without breaking the cap as long as you're early in level 25) so Charge cancels saved the day. You might want to put in a Regeneration Symbol to nullify the MP damage. Levelled to 25 and got Aerial Assault. Robin Wind (1 reset): Equip the Wind Charm and a Clone Generator. Based on his attack, you can either AAA him (minor attack, Rising Stream), evade (major attack), or soak it up (Thunder Flare). For the former 2, hit him with a strong Aerial Assault and repeat. For the latter, just soak it up and use a Blueberry when your HP gets low. Crosell: I actually had a tough time here, using a lot of healing items till I realized all his attacks (except his major one) can be AAAed. Thus, best way to go about it is to AAA then strong Aerial Assault. From what I noticed, he'll keep using Doom Raid when you AAA him so you can repeat this till he dies. I actually ended up levelling to 30 after the battle (18K EXP is a lot), but since Urssa is done then it's legal. Finally got Fists of Fury. Biwig: Actually troublesome when you've only got 1 person. Aerial Assault should pronounce you victor though. Proclaimer: Aerial Assault canceled into Fists of Fury makes short work out of her. Careful, cause she can teleport and her strong attack damages MP and juggles (not good for Cliff at all). Security Soldiers: No Guard is important! Use all the Fire Crystals you have (I had 1. You can get up to 3 BTs here...Defeat in 1 hit, exact damage, and both) and pummel 'em with any attack. Set Cliff up with the following Battle Skills and accessories: Short O: Hammer of Might Long O: Fiery Tackle Support: No Guard and First Aid Accessories: Clone Generator (replace when broken)/Bunny Shoes (replace with Anti-Freezing Amulet for Azazer) 4D soldiers (2 resets): Be prepared to break a lot of Clone Generators here (I broke 2 total in both fights). No Guard and First Aid are invaluable in this battle. The trick here is to use fast skills (Kudos Deus Mortem for telling me about Fiery Tackle, it fits the bill). Aerial Assault and Hammer of Might are out of the question. Azazer (1 reset): Equip the Anti-Freezing Amulet to prevent Crystal Prison from freezing you. This battle is not easy thanks to Cliff's low MP (hopefully you took my advice earlier and bumped up his MP... even at level 5 I had some trouble). Avoid his attacks and use Hammer of Might when you see an opening. He'll drop quickly enough. Belzeber and Berial (9 resets): Hardest battle so far, if not the hardest overall. Berial does ludicrous amounts of damage and Belzy just loves to petrify you in the direst moments. No Guard is useless because of the sheer damage, while First Aid is your savior. If you went through the trouble of maxing it, it'll make the fight infinitely easier. Best thing to do is wait for an opening and use Strong Aerial Assault. Don't bother Chaining because they love to AAA you (Belzy's got Regeneration while Berial's got a painful Homing). While Belzy's petrification spells instant death, Berial's juggling makes him far deadlier, so try to focus on him. The good thing is his most powerful attacks, Auto Aim and Fire Dance, are weak attacks so use that 2-way AAA. You'll most likely be too far for Standard to work and 2-way has a great chance of stunning both of them. Once Berial's gone, Belzy's a joke. Just make sure to avoid his attacks otherwise you might get petrified (As I have been 6 out of those 10 times) and all that work goes to waste. Levelled to 36. Convictor and friends (1 reset): Fists of Fury. Got petrified once by the Convictor. Hey, what're you laughing at? You probably cheated and got yourself an Anti-Stone Amulet. Aquios: Bought Crest Gauntlets (Face it, it's the best weapon in the game) and made another save for a Mirage SSCC. Lesser Eye (8 resets): Man, this bastard was tough. His major attack is fast and petrifies. He also kept healing himself with his circles. Aerial Assault cancels help, but with 230K HP this battle can drag on. Dark Armors: A LOT easier. However, better safe than sorry. Use a strong Aerial Assault then run back and heal (you'll most likely be gangbanged). Repeat till one of them dies, then go ahead and cancel Aerial Assault. Levelled to 43 after this. HP and MP are now maxed. It's kinda ironic how Cliff says "I'm a one man wrecking crew". Crystal Knight: AAA, then Aerial Assault. Easy. Dark Eye (2 resets): Not as tough as his "inferior" due to the fact that he rarely uses his major attack and it rarely petrifies. Equip an Amulet of Freedom. He loves to use circles, especially Misery Circle so that's your chance to Aerial Assault him. Yeah, you have to shed blood (Or a lot of Enhancers) to win this battle. Chimera: Well, his tail's not as annoying as Master Epyon says. In fact, it kept triggering First Aid for me which minimized my healing (Told you that skill was useful). His major attack's deadly, doing 6K damage. Canceled Aerial Assault is the way to go. When he started flying, it was all over for him (AAA Pyroblast). Stone Golem (5 resets): Setup: Short X: Aerial Assault Short O: Fists of Fury Support: First Aid/Common Support Symbols Accessories: Bunny Shoes/Clone Generator Phase 1: Getting hit by Flaming Blow means bye-bye. Thanks to FB's ability to juggle, no amount of Clone Generators an save you. You can AAA Flaming Blow though. AAA, then Aerial Assault canceled into FoF (to stunlock) gets you through this. Phase 2: Flaming Kick hits for 6K, 8K on critical. Cliff can barely escape with the Bunny Shoes. Once he's recovering, hit him with FoF. Repeat. Phase 3: Now he starts spamming his minor attack. AAA, then Aerial Assault (Don't cancel into FoF) Battlecopter (1 reset): Setup: Short X: Aerial Assault (Only for the rare cancel) Short O: Uppercut Support: First Aid/Common Support Symbols Accessories: Bunny Shoes/Clone Generator First Aid is of tremendous help here. The Battlecopter's attacks stunlock and are multihit, so First Aid keeps you safe (Saved me a lot even at level 3...at level 10 I don't think I'd be using Healing as much as I did). Bunny Shoes helps you fall back and heal when the going gets tough. Uppercut was very useful in juggling. I put in Aerial Assault because I sometimes got lucky and canceled (Although you'll most likely eat a Homing AAA). This battle lasted long. Pseudo Blair: A moderate battle. First Aid kept me safe. Uppercut kept juggling her. Be sure to AAA Eddy of Light and watch out...she tends to spam Death Howl a lot. Acrobat Locus, Cliff's "ultimate" skill, is just a gimmick that does squat. Don't be tempted to use it like I did. Because I'm an idiot and I accidentally reloaded/forgot to save whenI killed her, I had to fight her 3 times! Ruktogias (1 reset): Dark Eruption owned me. Cancelled Aerial Assaults is the way to go. Be careful of Explosion. Death Monsters: Joke fight. Cancelled Aerial Assaults made short work of them. Chimera Hawks (7 resets): The only reason I took so long is because I kept trying to convince myself that Acrobat Locus is useful. It is, to some extent, but it ends up damaging all of them to the point that you eat three Heat Impacts in a row. So I took CronoKid's advice and spammed Hammer of Might. Luther (2 resets): Setup: Short X: Aerial Assault Short O: Uppercut Support: First Aid/Common Support Symbols Accessories: Clone Generator/Bunny Shoes or Amulet of Freedom 1st form: Easy. Wait for Laser Beams, then Aerial Assault cancelled into Uppercut. Repeat till he dies. 2nd form: Depending on the attack, here's what you do: Normal attacks: Just evade. Laser Beams: Unlike his first form, he uses this rarely. Aerial Assault cancelled into Uppercut does nice damage. Perfect Symmetry: Run as far away as possible. Heal while you're waiting for it to finish then run up to him and wait for a chance to AAA him when h uses Flaming Divide or Expansion Force. Expansion Force: AAA, then Uppercut Flaming Divide: AAA, then Uppercut. He tends to spam this a lot. Insanity Prelude: Hide between 2 pillars and put on the Amulet of Freedom. Heal up and pray you don't get hit. When it's done, equip Bunny Shoes and do Aerial Assault cancelled into Uppercut. One more tip: Make sure you have a LOT of healing items. This battle will drag on. Closing notes: Level when beating Luther: 65 As soon as you get to Gemity, go to Vanguard and get the Bunny Shoes. Please. Make sure you get the Amulets of Freedom and Anti-Freezing before you enter Spiral Tower. Although I didn't do it for the sake of finishing quickly, level First Aid as soon as you can. It'll make battles like Belzy and Berial and Chimera Hawks much easier. No Guard is good too, but not as much as First Aid. It also costs a lot of CP. Acrobat Locus is a "gimmick" skill. Never use it. On the other hand, Uppercut is invaluable. It's Cliff's answer to Mirage/Maria's Crescent Locus and Triple Kick. Recommended way to spend SP: MP to 5, HP to 10, MP to 10, Defense, Attack. Most used skills: Hammer of Might, Aerial Assault, Uppercut. Honorable mention: Fiery Tackle Toughest battles: 1. Berial and Belzy 2. Chimera Hawks 3. Lesser Eye Honorable Mention: Stone Golem Thanks: Cronokid (used a lot of your strategies) Deus Mortem (Letting me know Fiery Tackle's actually useful) POST GAME Unless otherwise noted, assume FAM was on. I beat up the Biochimera atop Spiral tower until I got 5 million fol. I ended at lv 87. First stop - Urrsa I leveled First Aid to 4 along the way by (ab)using the porcupines in Traum. Gained 400 proficiency in about half an hour as I was preparing dinner. For reference, I had 428 defense, Berserk on, and their strong attacks did 1-2 damage a pop. Inside Urrsa, I picked up the Raven Gauntlets, bumping my attack up to about 2400. Nel and Zorto (0 resets), lv 87 - I even got paralyzed (by Lightning Chain?) and didn't die. Setup: Shorts - Charge LWeak - Hammer of Might First Aid and Common Support Symbols (CSS) Berserk on Quite easy. I didn't get caught by Divine Wrath though, so I might have been lucky. I took out Nel first, mainly while she was casting Laser Beams or after stunning (via standard AAA) her. Roger and Mech (3 resets), lv 88. Setup: Short Weak - Sphere of Might Short Strong - Aerial Assault Support - No Guard and First Aid Berserk off and Standard AAA for the most part Bunny Shoes on In retrospect, I should have done the usual Charge/Charge thing with my close-range battle skills. Anyway, this battle is difficult. You've got Roger flying around everywhere, and his mech moves quickly and has that lovely Strong missile attack that comes out fast, does about 20 hits, and juggles. Since I had around 19000 max HP, I could no-guard the mech's attacks. Basically my strategy was to AAA-stun Roger, then go over and quickly do a lunge-punch->Sphere->Aerial Assault combo on the mech, no matter what attack it had coming at me. I often suffered a lot of damage in doing this, so I'd retreat, use a physical enhancer, and repeat the process. Eventually the mech went down to HP damage, and then I got to discover the wonderful fact that none of Cliff's regular moves can hit Roger. They all go right over his head. Sphere of Might, as you might have guessed, also misses him. Anyway, I had to rely on nothing but Aerial Assaults to win. I didn't even bother trying to combo with it; Roger was too fast and too likely to kick my ass for doing so. Be on the lookout for his short weak regular attack,by the way, since he can link them together for a total of over 10k damage (and this is on Galaxy, with berserk OFF). Every now and then I'd turn Berserk on when I could get in a good hit. The battle took quite a while, and I used 20 physical enhancers and 11 blueberries, but no clone generators. Roger eventually succumbed to HP damage. Note: You might think that you could turn Berserk on in order to do more damage with the Wide-Area Homing AAA, but that actually doesn't work. Went back to Traum and maxxed First Aid on those amazing porcupines as I took a shower and typed this up. Maze of Tribulations time. Render (0 resets) - lv 89 Actually pretty easy. I wore a clone generator and an anti-freezing amulet. I killed him first with FAM on, and then I tried it without FAM because I know this is where the last Cliff SSCC got stuck. I'll post the non-FAM version. Setup: All 4 slots - Hammer of Might First Aid, Common Support Standard AAA Berserk On A Strong Hammer of Might against the Render while he's stunned does something ridiculous like almost 60k damage. Does Hammer of Might count as Fire-elemental or something? I noticed it also did a huge amount of damage against those convictors in Kirlsa hills, and they're weak against Fire. Well, it's either that or Hammer of Might is just way too good. Anyway, the Render only has 350k hit points and you can AAA Ice Beam (which is what you should do). Only attack when he's stunned, so that Ice Beam doesn't catch you. He might immediately Ice Beam when you break his guard, but that's the only thing you need to worry about. (Note added later: Cliff's Hammer of Might is indeed Fire. Mirage's is Fire as well.) Succubus (0 resets) - lv 90 Easy no matter how you look at it. I AAA'd any of her varied weak attacks, then Charged her down. Basilisk King (0 resets) - lv 91 I hear he can stone you, so watch out for that. Anyway, he took all of about 5 seconds to kill with Charge. Got Santa's Boots. OK - 9 sets of Aqua wisps (3 resets due to stupidity) - lv 91-93 Setup: Long attacks - Hammer of Might Support - No Guard, First Aid Amulet of Freedom and Tri-Emblem A non-FAM Cliff will probably not have much fun here, but I just used long-range Hammer chains to kill them. No Guard was quite helpful for Hammering through their plasma cannons. Died once to paralysis (then I put on the amulet) and twice to trying to fight them without FAM on. I also learned that, once you kill all 9 sets, you must also kill the Earth Dragon down below before leaving or else you have to do it all over again (I tried to leave and save beforehand). Fortunately he's easy. Speaking of which, Earth dragon (0 resets) - lv 93 Short-range - Charge First aid and Common Support Symbols Not much worth reporting here. I AAA'd a thing or two and kept Charging him. He died quickly. Springer (crab thing on lv 5) (0 resets) - lv 94 I would have preferred a more worthy opponent. Killed with a single Charge chain. Alei (Ruktogias-like thing on lv 5 that's attacking Puffy) (0 resets) - lv 94 Easy to charge through. Mighty Vox (lv 6 room before the switch) (0 resets) - lv 95 I accidentally still had Charge equipped, which did me no good. On the other hand, I also had a Reflecting Plate, so this battle was still really easy. Sootie (lv 7 right before elevator down) (0 resets) - lv 98 This battle always makes me laugh. The intro scene and the music are awesome. Anyway, I AAA'd Sootie Blast, did a few Charge Chains, and he self-destructed. I played pretty sloppy overall, actually, and still didn't come close to losing. Floor 8 mini-bosses: Guardian Haunts in the NW room (3) - I just long-range Hammered them Vile Chimera in the NE room - His tail is now a strong attack for some reason, which SUCKS. He also takes a lot of punishment. Be careful here. I used a few Enhancers to stay healthy. Accessories were Bunny Shoes and Amulet of Freedom. Tri-Chimera in the SW room - Also takes a lot of punishment, but is a lot easier. He's a lot like the Biochimera in the Spiral tower. Shadow Savants in the SE room - Charge Gabriel (2 resets) - lv 99 Are you ready to play flawlessly for an hour straight? Setup: Short skills - Charge Long Weak - Hammer of Might Support - First aid and Common Support Bunny Shoes and Amulet of Freedom Berserk off. I wailed on him until he started using lightning feather, and then I pretty much only used Wide Area Homing to kill him =(. Lightning Feather is extremely dangerous, since if it catches you at even 99% fury, it can stun you, then break your guard as you reach 100%, and kill you with the repeated hits. This is what caused one of my resets. When he got into Dragons mode (I hid in the SE corner), if he was relatively near, I'd switch on Berserk and, right when he said "Dragons!" I'd do a weak attack -> 175% Hammer (FAM on) for about 10k damage, then immediately switch off Berserk again. However, if you do this, be on your toes since he'll be coming at you in the corner afterwards, and your fury will only be at 85% or so. Took some time to get up to first place in the Ranking Battles in Gemity. Haven't fought the Reigning Champs yet. Norton Redux (0 resets) - lv 108 Charged him down. Avoid Shooting Spree because it's set to strong here and it hurts. I beat him with triple XP on. Enraged Crossel (0 resets) - lv 111 I waited for him to do one of his little paw swipes, AAA'd it, and then Charged him down. He didn't take many chains to go down. I never got caught in his strong attack (I generally avoided it with Bunny Shoes, and he never started it when I was pummeling him) and never even saw Doom raid, so I can't tell you much about those. I beat him with triple XP on. By the way, I've been doing some random battles along the way. Might as well. Shadow Dragon (0 resets) - lv 127 He's a lot like the Crystal Dragon (of the Dragoon Knights), so if you're familiar with him he won't be a problem. Except this guy's Doom Howl is set to Weak, which makes him even more of a joke. I wore Reflecting plate to guard against his fire attacks (the one he executes on the ground is Strong, and the one he executes while flying is Weak), but they're easy to handle without it. On a side note, I'm becoming quite impressed by Cliff's damage output. With about 4500 atk (Raven Gaunts + 2 Tri-Emblems) and Berserk on, his 300% Weak charges are doing about 40k apiece, and his Strong ones are doing about 60k. Even without any -fury gear, he can do two 300% strong charges per full chain. Add to that the fact that, with FAM on, his charges come out FAST (pretty much as fast as you can push the buttons), and you've got one mean damage machine. Vengeful Shelby (0 resets) - lv 135 He's weak against fire. HAHAH. I used 175% weak (thanks to FAM) Hammers of Might to 99999 him after stunning him with Standard AAA. I accidentally got caught in his Giant Swing once, where the last hit did 12000 (!) damage to me, but I survived on Fury and went on to beat him without getting touched again. Frenzied Biwig (0 resets) - lv 141 Charge'd. He's not even really dangerous. Picked up Max Shockwave on floor 150. Green Majora (7 resets) - lv 145 Now here's a good fight. Setup: Long Weak - Hammer of Might (the only attack I used, since he's weak to fire) Support - Whatever you want. I had first aid and critical hit HP. Bunny Shoes and Tri-Emblem. Once I figured out how to handle this guy, I didn't even get hit. You see, the computer doesn't have Fully Active Mode, meaning that whenever an enemy has chosen an attack to execute, it'll move towards you until it gets into range for it. 95% of the time that an enemy is moving, it's already chosen an attack. So, here's what you do. This guy's Ice Beam is the main killer here, since it's set to Strong, and it fires from long range. All of his other attacks don't start up until he's close to you. So, keep him at long range. If he busts out ice beam, move to dodge it. If he starts moving towards you, let him get close AAA it if it's a weak attack, and dodge it if it's strong (knowing it's almost certainly not ice beam). If it's blizzard lasso, you can dodge it and smack him with a Hammer while he's doing it. Also Hammer him after stunning him. He'll go down fairly easily then. Arch Demon (6 resets) - lv 171 Tried a variety of stuff, but it really came down to learning how to dodge (though not necessarily perfectly) Sword of Darkness. From Cronokid: "The trick to dodging Sword of Darkness is to sidestep behind Archdemon when he's using it." I ended up killing him with Max Shockwave chains. My setup was: Long weak - Sphere of Might Long strong - Max shockwave Support - First aid and Common Support Symbols By the way, chaining into Max Shockwave from Sphere of Might sucks, and I suggest you don't do it. For some reason (before I really understood Max Shockwave) I thought it'd be a good idea. See my note below (under Super Blair) about Max Shockwave. Angry Azazer and Raging Belzeber (3 resets) - lv 186 Max Shockwave is simply too slow to pull out here. Instead I went with my usual setup: Long weak - Hammer Short battle skills - Charge First aid and Common Support Your immediate priority is to take out Azazer, because he only has about 200,000 hp, and he does WAY too much damage. To make things easier on you, he's weak to fire, and when you get him down to about half hp, he starts using Crystal Prison and sniping, which are easier to dodge/guard. Once he's gone, just charge Belze down. It takes a little while but it's not too hard. Make sure you pummel the crap out of him as he's using Steal Life/Spirit. Figured I might as well take on the Champs here. Reigning Champions (2 resets) - lv 186 Long weak - Hammer Long strong - Max Shockwave Common Support and Crit Hit HP Solon is weak to fire AND he doesn't guard against Hammer of Might, so have fun killing him with that in about 5 seconds. Dirna absorbs fire, though, so use Max Shockwave on her. Make sure you dodge Arcane Stars, as it's a 1hit-KO and the cause of both of my resets. OK, back to Sphere. Furious Berial (0 resets) - lv 187 Same setup as Reigning champs. He has a ton of stuff you can AAA, so use it to stun him and then set up a nice Max Shockwave for him to run into. It juggles him well, which is an added plus, oftentimes giving you 8-10 hits. Oh, and his Auto-Aim juggles and hurts like hell, so make sure you keep your fury up (ie, don't chain more than 1 Max Shockwave) when he starts using it. Also, in case anyone was still wondering, Reflecting Plate does NOT protect against his Fire Dance. In recognition of the level caps, I went over to Urssa to take on... Fayt and Luther (0 resets) - lv 187 Bunny Shoes are important. I used Charge combos to take out Fayt (he's easy to hit in the back whenever he's doing something that's not Ethereal Blast - just dodge it, run around him, and let him have it), and then more Charge combos to take out Luther. I also used 13 enhancers here. I probably should have used Max Shockwave, as I spent a lot of time running around waiting for them to not use something like Perfect Symmetry or Ethereal Blast. Oh, and I never saw Insanity Prelude. If Luther uses it in this battle, for future reference, where are the safe spots? OK, back to Sphere again. Super Blair (1 reset) - lv 200 Both long-range skills: Max Shockwave First aid and Crit hit HP Berserk on Bunny Shoes and Victory Trophy (for the MP regen!) Ok. Ugh. I don't recommend trying this without FAM. She's easy for the first half, so just keep hitting her. For the second half, try to run around and dodge Eddy of Light and Death Howl. If you get hit, run around and wait for your MP to regen. With his laughable MP, Cliff is the most afraid of an MP death here. For reference, I had 4290 MP. Death Howl is fairly easy to dodge as long as you keep on the move, since it has a smaller radius. Eddy of Light *is* completely dodgable, but you need to get lucky. I found it was best to run around and dupe her into using it into a corner, and as soon as she starts it up, start running parallel to the wall away from the corner. Throughout this whole process, you shouldn't stop running at all. You have to be fast and fluid about it or else you're going to get nailed. If you do get caught in Eddy of Light, you can sidestep inside it to avoid the last set of 2 hits (usually only one of them hits anyway, but still). Anyway, once she's recovering from her attack, set up a Max Shockwave for her to run into. If it juggles (it often, but not always, does), cancel into another one. That's basically it. Note on Max Shockwave - you can cancel from Max Shockwave while it's still in the air, and if you do so, the burst *still in the air* takes on the Weak or Strong-hitting properties (specifically, guard-breaking and Weak/Strong-based damage multiplication) of the attack you're cancelling into. For example, if you're sending out a Weak Max Shockwave at an enemy and you see his fury is maxxed, quickly cancel into a strong attack (it doesn't have to be another Max Shockwave). Your burst in the air will break his guard and get a damage boost! Understanding this is very helpful for the Super Blair fight, since you want to avoid getting AAA'd at all costs. Note on Hammer of Might - you can do the same cancel-trick with it, too, but you have to be fast and, due to the speed of the attack, you can only affect the second hit. I tried Lenneth once at level 200, and decided to go level to 255. I'm sure Cliff could do it at 200, but it would take an awfully long time. So, I leveled to 255 and used my berries. I'm at 99999 HP and 13174 MP. I only used Max Shockwave while leveling, so it's up to a respectable lv 7 proficiency. Lenneth (3 resets) - lv 255 Both long attacks - Max Shockwave First aid and Common Support (there's plenty of time to cast Healing) Berserk on Bunny Shoes and Tri-Emblem So here's the deal with Lenneth - Max Shockwave juggles, but not reliably If you try to chain it carelessly, chances are that she's eventually going to run right through it and give you a nice fat Strong attack right in your face. Her Strong attack does a huge amount of damage and causes confusion. Avoid it at all costs. Basically, for the first half, run around and get her to use a strong attack. Dodge it by running out of its range, and set up a 175% Max Shockwave for her. *Only if* it juggles should you chain into another one. As you get used to this battle (and the rhythm of Max Shockwave), you should get a good feeling for when it's safe to set up/chain Max Shockwave and when it's not. When she goes into Nibelung Valesti mode, you should wait for her in a corner. As she starts to use it, immediately run to the other corner, pause for half a second, and set up a 175% Max Shockwave. She was never able to hit me with this move, but I understand it hurts. With this strategy I took her down in about 23 minutes. I tried Ethereal Queen once (in Charge-mode, no less) and she's a joke. I ended up carelessly killing myself on her Star Guard, though. I'll go back and whomp her down soon. Ethereal Queen (1 reset - see above) - lv 255 2 Tri-Emblems and Berserk on for maximum damage output. Max Shockwave chains from long range. EQ juggles easily, so go for 300% chains. The only thing Cliff worries about here is getting caught in Binding Field (which you can AAA), THEN getting caught in either her strong attack (because it can cause paralysis) or Celestial Star. In fact, I got caught in binding field, then got paralyzed by her strong attack, and while paralyzed, got caught in Celestial Star, all with Berserk on, and I *still* didn't die because her damage output is so pathetic. Battle took about 25 minutes. Freya (1 reset) - lv 255 Bunny Shoes and Tri-Emblem, Berserk on. I wanted to see how much damage Ether Strike would do with my setup. About 20,000 per hit, it turns out. Anyway, use Max Shockwave chains from long range (I found it was safe to set a 175% one up once you're about half the diagonal distance of the field away from her) and you won't even see any attacks other than symbology. Took me 50 boring minutes. Went and bought 20 Pomello Juices to round things up. Cheers! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MARIA (First completed by Trowabarton, post-game completed by Trowa Barton) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Norton - 0 resets. Fayt lv. 5, let cliff die and then used aerial cancels Inquisitor: 0 resets, Nel lv. 3, Ran back and forth using firebolt to take out the two soldiers. Used a normal AAA and then shockwave cancel to take out the big guy - Got a regeneration symbol from the skeletons Crab - 0 resets, Nel lv. 4, Used firebolt at first and then ran behind him and did shockwave cancels - Bought Superior Chain Mail Earth Smasher - 0 resets, Nel lv. 5, Demolished with double fol bonus Shelby - 0 resets, Nel lv. 7, Used bomb special to help take out the soldiers and then used her major attack to take out shelby - Bought Osprey dagger Mudman - 0 resets, Nel lv. 11, Shadow wave'D Dragon Brigade - 0 resets, Nel lv. 14, Used Major attack till they went into master combo mode then AAA'd and cancel comboed them Cockatrice - 1 reset, Nel lv. 16, Got stoned the first time, Ice daggered it at long range Soldiers - 0 reset, Nel lv. 18, Used shadow wave to keep them off their feet Dragon Brigade 2 - 0 resets, Nel lv. 18, Freeze killed the 2 partners with ice daggers and then killed the main guy with a combination of aerial, shadow wave and ice daggers Albel - 0 reset, Nel lv. 19, Took out the soldiers with shadow wave and then used an obstacle to hit him with shadow wave while he tried in vain to hit me with air slash/charge Vox - 0 reset, Nel lv. 20, Same as the other dragons... - Enter Maria...give her that superior chain mail and go buy the flaming gun(or whatever) from the retail rabbit in peterny BUT MAKE SURE YOU KEEP THE MICROBLASTER!!!!(that way you don't have to reset if you accidently take the flame gun into a boss fight because I think you can only switch weapons and can't de-equip during battle, of course out of battle you may de-equip so she doesn't have any). Crystal statues/Cerebrus- 0 resets, Maria lv 20, 21, make sure you have the microblaster equiped because they nullify fire damage. AAA their minor thrust attack or move away from their major attack and then use Aiming Device(AD) chains. Watch out for their tri-beam attack(AAA or move out of the way). If you have it cast power up when you have time. - Equip the better gun Vendeeni - 2 resets, Maria lv 23, First time I got stoned and the second time I had turned on berserk and then got stunlocked to death. Whoops. Use AD at long range here and cast power up. Critical hit MP helps as well. Thanks to the shape of the arena you'll have to move right past them inorder to not get pinned in a corner and keep them at long range. You better be using sidestep and it better be set to just the control pad(and not L2 + control pad...). They are slow so you'll have plenty of time to heal and cast support spells. Be patient and just keep picking at them with AD to MP kill them. Schweimer - 0 reset, Maria lv. 24, Kill these guys anyway you feel like. Blue Dragon Zombie - Equip the microblaster again but for the last time thankfully. Cancel AD at long distance to yawn right by this slow guy. - Equip the pulse gun - Make sure you grab the wind charm in the ruins and equip it for the next fight and turn off berserk. Robin Wind - 0 resets, Maria lv. 25, In the first phase AAA his bow attack then use canceled AD comboes. When he starts doing Aerial Slash just keep running away from him until he does it (as long as you running away from him you won't get hit) and then use AD from a distance. When he starts doing Rising Stream be careful and AAA it and of course follow up with an AD combo. Crossel - 0 resets, Maria lv. 28, he's huge and he's slow, perfect for either Scatter Beam(SB) or AD. I went with SB. Cast Power up when you have time. Basicall all you do in this fight is side step around the outside and stop to fire off a few SB/ADs when you have some space. Doom Raid has a large range but it can be AAAed or you can just keep side-stepping right on outside it's range before it starts to hit. Biwig - 0 resets, Maria lv. 31, Hop around and pick them off with AD. - Buy items but don't worry about buying any equipment. Proclaimer - 0 resets, Mara lv. 31, Just don't let yourself be caught by speed hack(teleport behind move) -> Major attack. Use SB cancels to own her. Cast healing/power up when she does divine wave. - Go to the bar and pick up the items. Equip the ablative shield. Then take the SW exit, go west once(I believe), and look around in this area to find a laser weapon to equip. Security Service - 0 resets, Maria lv. 32, Make sure you have First aid and then keep running around the outside in a circle. I was able to avoid being hit for the most part that way. Anyway be patient and wait for a good opening to launch an attack and then take off running again. Make sure you put some space between yourself and the enemies before trying to use a healing item. - Pick up the bunny shoes on Vanguard III then go to Elicoor and buy the gravity laser and battle chain mail from the retail rabbit/supreme shop. Also grab the anti-freeze amulet from the aqueducts if you haven't. 4d Security Guards - 0 resets, Maria lv 33, Just like the Security service...first aid and run around in a cirlce waiting for a good moment to pick at one with AD Azazer - 0 resets, Maria lv 34, Equip a Regeneration Symbol and Bunny Shoes for now. First run around attacking after avoiding his major attack. When you get his health down he'll begin using crystal prison and will also use sniping much more often. So change it up to concentrating on AAAing crystal prison and sniping and attacking afterwards and don't worry about attacking after his major attack. I used AD but be aware that it doesn't pop him up that often. Consider casting power up after AAAing. Berial and Belzeber - 1 reset, Maria lv. 35, First time I tried to take out Berial first but that ended up being a very dangerous proposition due to auto-aim + belzeber major attack = broken guard and massive damage. So I recommend taking out belzeber(the whip guy) first. Use AD to MP kill them. Basically the same thing as the last few "bosses", run around and get them to whiff their attacks and then jab at them with AD from a distance. Eventually Belzeber will go into drain mode but if you are lucky he'll stick to life drain. Either way stick to it until he's dead. Berial is easy after that. At first let him whiff his major attack and then attack. Once he starts doing Auto-Aim switch up just like with Azazer. Concentrate on AAAing Auto-Aim and attack afterwards. At this point cast power-up after AAAing to speed things up. Proclaimer - 0 resets, Maria lv. 37, Same as the last one but this one goes down very fast Enforcer - 0 resets, Maria lv. 38, Use a AAA stun strategy, you don't want to be caught by his radial spike attack(minor attack). Cast power up to speed up the process. Convictor - 0 resets, Maria lv. 39, I set AAA to ring wave and let him kill himself if he wanted to try throwing whirlwinds at me. When he does his major attack just move out of it's extremely small area and give him a few SBs in his nuts. Ended up killing him by AAA. Lesser Eye - 0 resets, Maria lv. 42, Turn on Berserk and use SB cancels here. Make sure you make it a priority to AAA his laser attack if he does it instead of one of his radial moves because it can cause status effects. Otherwise cast powerup and have fun beating on him while he's doing one of his long winded radial attacks. Dark Armors - 0 resets, Maria lv. 45, Turn off berserk but still use SB cancels here. Fire at them from a distance and just sidestep back as they approach. When you've gone back as far as you can heal up and then step-step/run as best you can past them. Hammer Quake is a Minor attack so it can be AAAed(it's also earth elemental but that's meaningless in a non-IC game). Crystal Statue - Same as all the others Dark Eye - 0 resets, Maria lv. 47, Same as the other eye - At some point between now and before you go to spiral tower you'll probably want to restock your items. Chimera - 1 reset, Maria lv. 48, Sorta forgot about this guy and ran into him without expecting it, whoops. He did 3 pyroblasts in a row and caught me in the midst of an attack. And here I thought it would be safe after he did it twice in a row. My bad. Well anyway, berserk off, bunny shoes, amulet of freedom, and I used SB for this fight. Basically he are going to be running from this guy for most of the fight. In the beginning I suggest only attacking after his major attack(also the only time I suggest canceling a couple times). He starts with 3 different kind of attacks. The first is a simple frontal minor attack. The second is a lunging Major attack that hits twice for good damage. The third is his tail which doesn't cause that much damage but it can cause paralysis. Also sometimes he'll try to run in front of you and cut you off to try to hit you with his tail. The tail is a minor attack so you can AAA it. Attack after either AAAing him or after avoiding his major attack. During the second part of the fight he'll begin using Triple attack which is a quick lunging attack that cause hit 3 times. It's a minor attack so you can AAA it. You can also avoid it by continously running away from him. Now you have 2 choices, either you can try AAAing this attack or you can stick to attacking after his major attack. During his third phase he'll begin to fly and use Pyroblast. It's a relief when he does this because it's a minor attack and as far as I know he doesn't have a major attack when he's flying. AAA this and attack. Golom - 0 resets, Maria lv. 50, He's big and he's extremely slow. Yes Maria owns this guy. Just don't let him catch you with one of his major attacks. Battlecopter - 2 resets, Maria lv. 52, Unless you are extremely confident don't try and fight him with long range attacks. He's got his own and they are faster than yours and very strong. Equip some short range attacks. I suggest Crescent locus(CL) though Gravity Bullet may work well too. Now all you need to do is stand right underneath him and as soon as he attacks move behind him and do CL cancels. AAA any bombs he may try to drop on you. Blair - 0 resets, Maria lv. 54, I suggest you use crescent locus again though you can use anything here. Death howl is the only move you should be worried about(try to side-step away). AAA Eddy of Light. Ruktogias - 1 reset, Maria lv. 58, Underestimated Explosions range my first time... Basically don't do that and don't let yourself get caught in chain smash(minor attack) or any of his other combos. You can basically take him out easily with either close range or long range skills but I suggest long range due to use dark eruption use near the end. Death Monsters - 0 resets, lv. 60, Nothing too hard, just becareful because they have speed and they can cause a lot of damage. I used Crescent Locus -> Triple kick. Chimera Hawks - 1 reset, lv. 62, Berserk off, bunny shoes and clone generator on. Try to AAA them all at the start, unleash an SB combo, AAA them again and then run to left part of the map near the bottom right. Their is an impassable part that extends up a bit between the south part and left part and the Hawks will use their dive attacks right into it. So cancel at them from your safety. Eventually they will fly around so do your best side-stepping performance and get to the opposite side so you are in the same situation and repeat. At first the target doesn't matter but later you should always target the one in heat impact mode. If you are going to be hit by blizzard impact put on the anti-freeze amulet. I went with SB just to try and end the fight as fast as possible though it's extremely dangerous since you'll be hitting all of them and putting them into phases where they use some very dangerous attacks. You may want to go with AD so you work one at a time. Luther: 3 resets, 2 for trying to heal too close to laser beams >_< and 1 for getting caught in perfect symmetry. I suggest SB, First Aid, and common support symbols as your skills and bunny shoes + amulet of freedom as your acc. and Berserk off(unless you are confident of course). Also I suggest Wide Area Homing as the AAA due to it's longer reach and the fact that he likes to attack right after coming un-stunned. Basically you are going to spend most of the fight side-stepping around avoiding his spear attacks while taking potshots(make use of her special where she can cancel out of a side-step fire an attack). When he does laser beams take the opportunity to heal and possibly cast support spells. If you need either run up and do some SB cancels into his nuts(assuming you had laser beams activate away from luther). It's a blessing whenver he casts this. Use the first Luther fight as an opportunity to get used to avoiding his spear attacks because his second form uses the same ones only they have more reach and he has twice the power. At the start of the second fight you'll have to avoid a lot of spear attacks while taking shots when you can. AAA extension force if he trys it. When his health gets down he'll begin using Flaming divide all the time. AAA this attack. Also after AAA either EF or FD make sure you do a minor attack - > SB cancel. Even if he starts another FD you should be at the right distance where you won't get hit by the first part and AAA the second part. At some point he'll begin using perfect symmetry and you should get yourself far enough away that you won't get hit. When he starts doing Insanity Prelude you should have no trouble finishing. Just make sure you get yourself to the NW/NE where there are flaps that extend out where you will be completely safe from IP. Take the time to cast healing and/or support spells. Ok here we go No-IC postgame solo with maria on Galaxy and with fully active mode. - First of all before you leave spiral tower you may want to stick around and fight the biochimeara(sp?) with double fol for 100,000 a pop. Try to do it without triple exp to keep your level down. You'll need 5,000,000 for santa's boots or else 6,000,000+ for a single Tri-emblem... MoT: - Make sure to grab the Shadow Phase Gun near the start Render - 2 resets, lv. 80, Simliar to the battlecopter you don't want to fight him with long range attacks because he'll own you with his own. Basically stand still to keep your guard up and only move after AAAing or to side-step away from his major attack. After AAAing or after his major attack subsides run up and do a Crescent Locus -> Triple Kick combo. Succubus - 0 resets, lv. 81, Turn on Berserk and do Aiming Device combos from long distance. - Make sure to grab the enigmatic scroll(and use it on Maria) by jumping down at 3-4 and don't forget to turn on the elevator before running back up to the first floor. Basilisk king - 0 resets, lv. ??, forgot to write anything down about him. Just don't let yourself get stoned... Now go pay a visit to santa and buy the santa's boots(or straight out buy the tri-emblems if you somehow can) and saddle up your turbo controller and get 2 tri-emblems by staying at the inn. Now your setup should be something like this: Long Minor: Aiming Device Long Major: Energy Burst Support: Critical Hit MP Support: Common Support Symbols(or whatever) Shadow Phase Gun Mystic Chain Tri-emblem Tri-emblem Aqua Whips - 0 resets, lv. 85, Immediately target the middle one and do AD -> EB. If your lucky they'll all move towards you and so you'll hit them all with EB and you will kill them before they can get to you. EB can sometimes hit-stun them for a second so that helps. Even if things don't go to smooth(such as they wonder off in different directions or one of them hits you with thier beam attack) you still have a large amount of leeway since they only cause about 500 damage on Galaxy. Either way I only got hit about 5 times. Earth Dragon - 0 resets, lv. 85, EB ended up paralyzing him... - The 2 level 5 mini-"bosses" aren't really worth mentioning. Just EB them into oblivion Mighty Vox - 0 resets, lv. 86, Just watch out for fire breath's reach and you'll be fine. I used AD -> EB. Sootie - 0 resets, lv. 87, Make him whiff his sootie attacks and then do AD->EB, just respect it and you'll be fine - You may want to save now especially if you have a lot of trouble fighting chimeras. On the 8th floor take the NE door to fight the chimera Vile Chimera - 0 resets, lv. 88, Be careful, equip bunny shoes, and turn off berserk. Use the same strategy as last time but this time use AD->EB. Remember to get your fury up after each attack. - Now take the SW door Tri-Chimera - 0 resets, lv. 89, 2 Tri-emblems, berserk on. His major attack has a long range but you should be able to attack from outside of it. All his attacks other than that major attack can be AAAed. You should make it a priority to AAA lunatic breath and watch out for explosion. - Now take the NW door Guardian Hauntx3 - 0 reset, lv. 89, Really easy...AD->EB - Now make it a priority to SAVE. AFterwards come back down and go to the SE door. Shadow Savantx3 - 0 reset, lv. 89, AD->EB - Now when you try to leave you'll automatically fight gabriel so make sure you prepare. Here's the setup: Crescent Locus(CL) Stun(not needed) Triple Kick(TK) (nothing) First Aid Common Support Symbols Berserk off AAA = Wide Area Homing, if you need to heal set it to Standard temporarily Shadow Phase Gun Mystic Chain Amulet of Freedom Tri-emblem Gabriel - 3 resets, lv. 90, In the beginning he'll just use 2 attacks (he actually has 2 more spear attacks but I never saw them when fighting alone with maria...). 1 is a Minor Thrust attack which hits about 3 times, AAA or sidestep up/down to avoid. His other is a Major attack where he swings his staff twice, Sidestep away from it. What you want to do at the begginning is use a CL->TK combo after AAAing or after making him whiff. About 4 such combos will send him into his second phase... In this phase he begins to use the brutal Lightning Feather(LF). Now concetrate on keeping your fury maxed and AAA LF. Only attack after he does his Major attack IF his fury is really low and you have full health. The reason is that he likes to use LF right after his major attack and sometimes CL and TK doesn't succeed in juggling. Also when using CL Gaby will sometimes fall down after the first two hits so try not to use TK when that happens otherwise he can catch you with low fury... Also try and keep yourself near the SE corner because eventually you'll cause enough damage to send him into his third phase... In this one he'll begin using dragons and you'll only be safe from it in the SE or W. I suggest the SE because you'll have more room to manuever afterwards. So when he does it get yourself on over to the safe spot and if you'll have plenty of time you may want to take a potshot at him before he goes invincible. You can use the time to cast healing or a support spells. If he's near you when it subsides and he has low fury give him CL->TK combo otherwise concentrate on AAAing LF. Just be patient and don't let him catch you in LF with low fury and you'll be fine. All 3 of my losses were because I tried to side-step back into a wall and he broke my guard with his major attack and then went right into LF. - In Sphere 211 make sure you grab a dragon leather, the Health+/Magi+ berries, and Maria's radiation bots folio. If you want you can collect the other stat boosting items and I personally suggest the str+/def+ because it couldn't hurt. Norton Redux - 0 resets, lv. 97, Do him like Biwig. Enraged Crossell - 0 resets, lv. 105, Just like the first time you fought him Shadow Dragon - 0 resets, lv. 111, AD->EB. Watch out for Howl of Doom and his breath attacks Vengeful Shelby - 0 resets, lv. 115, Side step away from his melee attacks and take shots at him(usually minor attack -> AD). When he does ice breath back step and do AD->EB releasing it when he closes in or does another ice breath. Biwig, 0 resets, lv. 116, Side-step around and do AD->EB when you have some distance, release when he nears Green Mojara - 4 resets, lv. 136, Here's the setup I used: Crescent Locus Aiming Device Crescent Locus Aiming Device First Aid Common Support Symbols Berserk ON AAA = Standard Shadow Phase Gun Dragon Leather Bunny Shoes Tri-emblem Mojara's Minor attacks: One arm Slam Arm of Ice Quick Spin Freezing Breath(I THINK, I never tried to AAA it <_<) Mojara's Major attacks: Double Spin Ice Beam(note: varies in duration) Blizzard Lasso Mojara's Symbology: Ice Needles Ok right off the bat you should know that Ice beam is a MAJOR attack this time so don't attempt to AAA it like I did(second loss)... Now as soon as the fight starts take off running up/down(not towards/away) JIC he opens up with Ice beam(first loss). Now at first what you are going to do is get him to whiff an attack or AAA one of his minor attacks and then do CL cancels(be careful if you try to attack after ice beam). When he does Blizzard Lasso sidestep away and do AD cancels. Healing can be tricky thanks to Ice beam. Best to do it after AAAing, during blizzard lasso, or after putting a lot of distance inbetween. Oh and he can freeze with most of his attacks if you didn't know... Arch Demon - 1 reset, lv. 137, Setup: Scatter Beam Aiming Device (nothing) Energy Burst Common Suppot Symbols Shadow Phase Gun Dragon Leather Regeneration Symbol Tri-emblem Berserk ON AAA: Phase 1 - Standard, Phase 2 - Wide Area Homing Sword of Darkness avoiding - Stand about 5 charachter widths infront of him and when it begins sidestep diagonally back towards him and to the side. If you get to close to him or too far out then you'll get hit but Maria has plenty of MP. You can then set yourself to hit him when he recovers, phase 1 = 200% EB, phase 2 = 175% SB. Oh and make sure you sidestep far enough away from his fire major attack(that's how I went down my first go). Phase 1 - For the first phase try doing this, set AAA to standard and AAA his minor attacks or avoid his major. Then do AD->EB holding for about 9-13 hits. Release and recover fury while he approaches and he should do Crimson Sword which you should be ready to AAA. Repeat till phase 2. Phase 2 - Instead of Crimson Sword he'll begin using flashing sword which is a teleport behind minor attack. He loves to counter with it so it's time to change up the strategy. Set AAA to Wide Area Homing and concentrate on AAAing it because he'll do it very often. If you do the 175% SB after sword of darkness like I said then you'll be able to recover fury in time to AAA flashing sword if he does it right after he recovers fully. Take shots at him after avoiding his flame major attack. Eventually he'll go down. Azazer & Belzeber - 0 resets, lv. 139, AD->EB, Common support, Critical Hit MP. AAA = Standard. I believe Berserk was on. Try and MP kill Azazer to begin. Make them whiff and then do a brief AD->EB. When he nears death he'll start using Sniping & Crystal Prison but if you side-step well enough that shouldn't be a problem. Do your best to finish him off quickly. Once he's gone belzeber should be no problem. You can AAA his minor whip attack, his major one is easy to dodge. When he starts going drain crazy equip a regen symbol and EB him into the ground. - Make sure to grab the intricate scroll on floor 187 and use it on Maria to learn Radiation bots. Berial - 1 reset, lv. 140 Setup: Short Minor - Crescent Locus Short Major - Triple Kick First Aid Common Support Symbols Berserk off, Bunny Shoes & Tri-emblem First part is easy. AAA his minor attack(s) with wide area homing. When he does his major attack simply run underneath and behind him and catch him with a CL->TK combo as he comes down. Once enough damage is caused he'll begin using Auto-aim and Fire dance all the time. AAAing Auto-aim with WAH will be your main source of damage now. To avoid Fire Dance side-step up/down as soon as he lunges, too early and he'll adjust his route. If you need to heal you have to go by what he does: If he does Fire dance then simply use and item and suck it up. If he does his major attack run underneath and use an item(or wait for him to use auto-aim if you are trying to conserve items). If he does auto-aim then set your AAA to either Regeneration or Standard(cast healing). Reigning Champions - 0 resets, lv. 141 Here's the setup I used Short Minor - Scatter Beam Long Minor - Aiming Device Long Major - Energy Burst Common Support Symbols Berserk on 2 Tri-emblems(at first) Ok go after solon first. AAA his minor attacks or avoid them and then give him a SB in the back. Remember that Explosion has a huge radius... Once Solon is gone you can concentrate on dirna and the real battle. Use either 175% or 200% EB on her after AAAing or avoiding or charge major attack. Eventually she'll begin using Radial stars, Arcane stars, and firebolt. Equip a regeneration symbol at this point. Be careful with firebolt as each hit causes almost 3000 damage. Try and conserve items by casting healing. Do a lot of sidestepping to avoid arcane stars and don't be too quick to counter attack because she will sometimes do it 3 times in a row. Radial stars only affects the area around her so take advantage of that. Sometimes you can bind her with the no movement trick when you catch her in a combo. WOW, I greatly over-estimated Super Blair. Guess I should have actually tried her before *****ing about her, whoops <_< You do not need to be level 255 for her. I'd recommend lv. 200. - Go max Radiation bots profiency. It took me about half an hour. Super Blair - 0 resets, lv. 255, Setup: Long Minor: Magnetic Field Long Major: Radiation bots First Aid Common Support Symbols Berserk off Victory Trophy Tri-Emblem Hey for once no AAA abuse! The first part isn't too hard, just watch out for Southern Cross(just side-step out of the range). I was able to avoid lightning stike quite a few times be side-stepping as well. Anyway do a 175% radiation bots and then hit away. Once she gets about half way she'll stop using spells and move on to the next part... Here she'll begin using Eddy of Light and Death Howl. Both of them are major attacks. To avoid Eddy of Light simply back-step once to avoid the first part and side-step anyway to avoid the second(you'll hear a chime(?) right before she attacks to cue you in on when to side-step). Side-step as best you can away from Death Howl. ****ING FINALLY!!! Ok first of all some notes I need to have at the start of the maria SSCC for those who plan on taking on lenneth without IC: - Make sure you get the Health and magi berries from Roger's sidequest on Disc one. Also try not to use any of your perfect or magical berries because you'll find yourself in much more dire need for them against the final optional bosses. Lenneth - 27(?) resets, lv. 255. Ok here is the setup I recommend: Short Minor: Stun(not needed, didn't even use it when I beat her) Long Minor: Aiming Device Long Major: Energy Burst(the higher the lv. the better) Support: Critical Hit MP(should be lv. 10) Support: First Aid(should be lv. 10) 2 Tri-emblems and berserk on to start AAA - Standard About using Stun: Her "step attack", where you press the minor attack button while she sidesteps causing her to go right into her gun attack, counts as a short range attack even at long distance so you can use this attack to try to stun her. Do not rely on stun working however or even maria hitting her. It is simply something you can try if she is too close to use AD or EB but some distance away and you have high fury(if you don't you are better off recovering your fury). If you manage to stun her then take the opportunity to cast power up and then get yourself set to deal with her attack. When I beat her I tried this a few times and I missed about 75% of the time and stun didn't activate the rest of the time it hit, so yeah. Oh and it's helpful if power up is level 10. I mean it might as well be. Lenneth's attacks: Frontal Minor: She swings spear behind and to one of the sides so you can sometimes be caught by it. Notice all those blue spears coming up from the ground? Every single one of them can cause a hit(and I think they keep hitting while they exist)...yeah. It doesn't cause that much damage(I figure it only has a x1 damage modifier) unless you are caught in all the spikes but each hit usually greatly damages fury and may cause confusion which is annoying. AAA or sidestep away. Radial Minor: She rarely does this but it's hard to avoid if she does it making it quite dangerous. Hopefully if you get caught in it you'll have high fury and be able to AAA it. Radial Major attack: She swings her staff in an X pattern to the front then twirls her staff around. Every movement causes orange spears to come up from the ground. Easy to avoid by sidestepping. Don't screw up and get caught in it because it will most likely be game over. Oh and this move can also cause confusion. This is what you will hope she does because it will give you an open shot at her. Nibelung Valesti: I figure this one needs no introduction so I will get right on to it except to note that it can cause stun. Basically when she goes into to NV mode(which is at half health btw...) you'll want her to only cast it at one of the corners(I prefered the top/bottom because it was easier for me to set myself to sidestep up/down). Basically you'll wait at the corner for her to come to you setting yourself so you you have your back to her(and you have room move to one side or the other)then as she gets close sidestep twice to right/left and then backstep to the opposite side. It is possible to completely evade it but it requires you to get an excellent jump on her. Anyway it takes some work to get it right. You will usually get hit between 3-5 times for about 10,000 with berserk off (15-16,000 with berserk on). So what you should do is stop sidestepping before it hits and toggle off berserk and use an item if you need to. It's dangerous (do not be greedy with your sidestepping) but right before you get hit is when you are going to do your healing. If you try to heal after getting hit then you'll just waste chance of causing damage. Of course you don't always need to heal before getting it. I usually only did if I had less then 50,000 hp. When your MP gets low(less than 10,000) equip the victory trophy. Stone Rain: Large area but easy to sidestep away from. You can even sidestep even if you get hit by it. Lightning strike: If you can time your sidestep right so it hits you in mid jump then you can evade. I just sidestep and hope for the best. ah, ok here's drill... First Half: Ok here she'll use everything except NV. You should have no trouble avoiding her attacks as long as you don't face the wrong way or try and sidestep into a wall. If you get hit just hope you don't get confused. Cast power up and have at her with 175%/200% EB releasing when she starts running towards you. Once you get her down to half health she'll move into NV phase. You may want to heal up and perhaps give yourself a fresh power up before you get her there because it couldn't hurt. If you have 2 tri-emblems and you've been doing 200% EBs you'll probably want to start being wary and perhaps try to get yourself in a good position after you've down about 130 hits...usually 1 or 2 more 175/200% EBs will be all it will take to send her into NV phase so if you can make them count (but don't put yourself in a bad position in the process). Second half: Ok here we go. NV time. The first one will probably catch you off guard. Sidestep as far away as you can before it hits, turn off berserk, put on a clone generator if you need to, and use an item if you need. Afterwards move yourself to the corner of your choice. Now begins the tricky part, hopefully you understood what I was talking about with avoiding NV earlier(if you didn't I'm sorry, I did my best) so I won't talk about that. Rather about the decision making inbetween. Now first of all if you have low fury simply charge it and if you have extremly low health(like less than 14000) then you may want to use an item but I usually played it to the bone and only healed before getting hit with NV. The reason is because lenneth is quick and will usually cover the distance in the time it takes you to recover from using an item so it will become extremly hard to have room to attack without setting yourself for disaster. By using an item before getting hit by NV you'll not only survive it but you'll have an opportunity afterwards to get an a shot at her. Now depending on her distance you can do one of these things: Very far away: First of all Turn on berserk and equip a second Tri-emblem if you switched it with the victory trophy(unless you still have low mp)... Try to catch her with a 175%(or maybe even a 200%) EB. Sometimes if you are lucky AD will pop her up allowing you to get more hits in. Release before she gets close(give yourself enough time to set yourself to avoid NV). You'll generally get 6-8 hits because of her movement speed. Some ways away: Hit her with either a 175% AD, a 100% AD(if you are lucky you'll get that pop-up), or a quick 100% EB. Of course don't be greedy so you can set yourself up to avoid NV. Getting near: You can try fire a step-shot to stun her. If you stun her then cast power-up(which is the only time you should now). If it doesn't work then immediately set yourself up to avoid NV. Close: Dear god just set yourself up to avoid NV Now when she comes into attack range you should proceed like she is going to use NV since you can avoid her other attacks the same way. Now once you see what attack she is using you can make your decision of how to continue: She has low fury so you does nothing: Try using a step shot to stun her. Otherwise she'll usually eventually recover most of her fury and then do NV. Frontal minor attack: Simple side step to ther other end and repeat. Major attack: Turn on beserk and equip a second tri-emblem and give her a 175% EB till she finishes. Side-step to the other end and repeat. NV: Just keep on side-stepping and before the shockwave is gonna hit turn off berserk, equip the victory trophy if you need some MP regen, and use an item. Remember that you can't do anything while you are doing a side-step so if you have low health don't be greedy and try to do too many side-steps because usually you'll simple get hit by it as soon as you land and end up dying. Be patient and don't take chances and you'll survive long enough to see her go down(which is simply glorious). - Equip that spanking new Valkyrie Garb. Ethereal Queen - 2 resets, lv. 255 Short Minor: Stun Long Minor: Aiming Device Long Major: Radiation Bots Common Support Symbols First Aid Victory Trophy Tri-emblem HOLY CRAP...what a joke battle. All her attacks except for her obvious major attack and celestial star are minor attacks and none of them hit that much nor do they have high attack modifiers. I believe her major attack can paralyze but it's easy to sidestep out of it's range. I like radiation bots since it's easy to use it and keep your fury up so that helps in guarding Binding Field. Now Celestial star is the only thing you need to worry about and the only reason for that is because it stones(hence the 2 resets). To avoid it be at the top and slightly to the left. There will be an explosion to your right. Wait a second and then run/side-step over where it went off. There will then be an explosion where you were standing. Wait a second and then run back over there and then cancel up radiation bots since you'll be safe from the rest. There are other places where you can do this. Now all I have left is Fayt + luther and Freya. I'll try to do Fayt+Luther first. I'm just not looking forward to fighting Freya. It might turn into the endless side-step because maria can't outrun/sidestep thunder sword or ether strike so without stun bombs the only reliable alternative is to never let her close enough to attack. I don't know, I guess I'll find out. Fayt + Luther - 3 resets(from when I tried them at lv. 143), lv. 255 Ok I really have no good strats for them since I was really out of there league at lv. 255. Hell I was parrying them... All I can do is recommend you take them on at lv. 200 or less and evade Air raid and Ethereal blast(with interference from luther) as best you can till you can finish off Fayt. EPY NOTES: >_> Well he did finish it over the cap, but meh. He could do it at level 200 pretty easy too. Freya - 1 reset, lv. 255 Short Minor: Stun Long Minor: Aiming Device Long Major: Radiation Bots Common Support Symbols First Aid Berserk on Victory Trophy & Tri-emblem Your final battle in your no IC post game and it's a marathon... Ok nothing fancy here...no AAAing...no toggling berserk...no equip changing. Basically Freya has two attacks that Maria can't really do anything about: Thunder Sword & Ether Strike. You might be able withstand them(ES will usually take a clone generator) but really it just makes things so much harder and longer to deal with them. The solution? The endless sidestep. Basically you are just gonna keep sidestepping away from her and never let her in close range where she would unleash one of her attacks. You sidestep faster than her so you can always distance yourself from her. So just keep sidestepping away from her along the outside. When you get some distance do step-attack->AD->RB(if you dodge a spell then you can do AD->RB->AD->RB). Then do step-attacks as you sidestep away from her. You usually get off 3 per go. It'll take awhile so just get into a good easy rythm. As long as you don't get greedy or screw up sidestepping you'll be fine. My first loss I just got down sidestepping east and I was trying to sidestep north but for some reason it kept facing me north after I faced maria south... Freya caught up and unleashed ES which took me down. The second time I accidently sidestepped toward her and she did ES(the only attack, besides symbology, she did the whole battle) but this time I equiped a clone generator and survived. And that's it. Congratulations on completing this damn challenge. BTW, I do not believe Lenneth(and possibly Freya, I'm not sure if her step-attack would work the same. It should) can be beaten with Maria without fully active mode. ...Unless a perfect method for avoid NV with Maria is worked out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ADRAY: (First completed by Red777777, Post-game by Red777777) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vox (0 resets) Annoyingly long because you're going to be using ice needles with crappy int. Oh well. Flying Knight (0 resets) Easy boss, but you will feel sadness swell up within you when you realize it is possible to die. Crystal Statue (1 reset) Welcome to Arial, your best friend for the rest of the game pretty much. Wait for him to do his strong attack, avoid it, and Arial his bastard ass. Take note that you can cast healing/whatever during that fork attack. The death was due to being hit by said strong attack. Crystal Cerebus (1 reset) Same as above, but longer. I think I made the same screwup on him as well. Vendeeni Soldier (2 resets) Remember that patience you mastered on Vox? Say hello to it again. Run to the bottom corners back and forth, casting ice daggers when you can. Don't even think of trying Arial here. Schweimer (0 resets) Get your revenge for having to be patient with Vox here by Arialing everything in sight. Blue Dragon Zombie (0 resets) Joke fight. Arial. Robin Wind (1 reset) AAA him, arial. Second half of the fight is easy. Crossel (5 resets) STAB STAB STAB DIE. You won't be arialing here because 1. Crossel's strong attack is faster than you. 2. He can chain them, and if he does you will surely die. I didn't think about it but you might backstep faster than his strong attack runs. I ice needled him, and yeah it takes a while. Biwig (3 resets) Cliff died twice (he was level 19, no new equipment) so I used a level 20 Maria and aiming deviced/scatter beamed. Now you can welcome Sophia, and feel murderous rage whenever she says "I'm scared!" Proclaimer (2 resets) Killed her at level one- yes, I honestly think this is the easiet way to level up. I used clone gens, but you really don't need them if you are careful. Make use of her long O. It'll take about 130 hits. I got her up to level 28 after this fight I believe. Security Service x6 and 4D Security Guard x4 (0 resets) They died horrible deaths, I think I had thunderflare at this point...not sure. Azazer (around 8? resets) Bah, I died a few times so I got the anti freezing amulet. TF fails horribly, so use Efreet. Won the first time I was using it. Berial and Belzeber (I lost count) The first huge roadblock of the SCC. Make sure you have the bunny shoes from Vanguard III. Berial and Belzeber was easily the hardest fight yet. I resetted at least 10 times...had to try some stuff before I got something that worked. Sadly, it ended up that I went crawling back to Efreet..and won the first time I used it. What a great spell. Since I wager people will have difficulty with this fight (in a mage SCC), I might as well explain how I did it while it's fresh in my mind. Level 33 Short X:Efreet Long X:Thunder Flare (I never really used it though) Short O:Efreet Long O:Nothing First Aid (Level 1) I highly suggest you max out HP in the skill menu to 10. Magician's Rod Runic Cloak Bunny Shoes Scholar's Bracelet I tried Thunder Flaring, but there were just too many things that would go wrong. Belze has a small chance of turning you to stone, and he will be hitting you; sometimes thunderflare will fail to knock Berial out of the air, and your ass will take the brunt of his strong attack. I also suspect towards the end thunderflare would work like garbage, due to the "race" at the end and the fact Belzeber is resistant to wind. Why Efreet? Even on O it is fast as hell, and after the initial cast the summon continues to attack despite you being hit or not. I highly suggest that you go after Berial first. Be warned though, towards the end of his life span he will continually spam auto aim. This can be AAA'd, yes, but Belze won't stay far away from you- breaking your guard during one of the 3 salvos can be fatal. Fire dance is really nothing to worry about, since it will most likely do minimal damage. Fire Dance will inevitably hit you; it can be sidestepped, but during the ensuing mayhem you're not likely to do so in time. Towards the end of Belze's life span he will spam Drain Life and Drain Spirit, which is incredibly annoying. It's risky, but try to keep your hp around 4,000. It's likely that you have consumed almost all your store bought healing items at this point, thus it is crucial he regains as little hp from you as possible (Drain Life drains 10%.) He is also not likely to use his short strong anymore, thus you should fervently be chaining Efreet together so he doesn't regain near what you damage him for. The end really is an intense race; kill him before you run out of healing items. General Tips: -At the beginning try to get Berial to either jump back or rise into the air- then get behind him. None of his shots of his regular weak or strong attack will hit you this way and you can go right into Efreet. -Belzeber is fairly easy to evade if you plan it. Just run towards him and fake him out- he'll probably launch into his short strong. It's a good idea to Fake out Belzeber right before you try to get Berial to attack you. -Towards the end of the fight when Berial is dead, you may want to unequip the bunny shoes and put on an extra scholar's bracelet for an added boost in attack power. There is no escape from drain life, don't even bother. If you run out of MP items or find yourself having to heal it too much you may want to equip a Regeneration Symbol instead of the Bunny Shoes. Proclaimer/Enforcer/Convictor (around 4 rests) Maria was of course on a low level, and I'm not the best person to use her >.> Just don't get cocky and you'll win. I think I had Sophia kill the Convictor with her long O. Took a while. Lesser Eye (6 resets or so) I got petrified quite a bit till I found out running away from the strong attack in the opposite direction assures it will never hit you after a long O. Takes a while. Dark Armor (0 resets) Kicked their ass, not sure if I used thunder flare or just long O'd them. Crystal Knight (1 reset) He got me once, but I long O'd him after I think. Dark Eye (2 resets) Got petrified twice due to annoying battle field...run from corner to corner, when he starts using Misery Circle it gets easier. Y hello thar Adray. At this point I leveled him up to 40 cause he was on 31, and the Chimera is a whore. Chimera (lost count) 2nd roadblock. He is a total asshat. You're going to be using Arial- I tried using SC and Titan fist but they just didn't work out. When he starts using Triple Attack try to get it so he chases you- stand by his side and he will turn, making you AAA his tail. Dangerous, but pretty much your only option. Stone Golem (2 resets) I tried experimenting with SC. It killed me. I long O'd him afterwards. Hurrah for powerup. Battle Copter (8 resets or so) Annoying...very annoying. Tried a variety of things, crawled back to Arial. You can heal when he flies backwards and drops bombs. Good luck. Pseudo Blair (6 resets EWW) "You actually DIED?" Yes, yes I did, and it is because Death Howl is a cruel, cruel move. You'll be feeling the limitations of Arial here. Make sure to AAA Eddy of Light...this battle takes some luck, because she's fast and Death Howl>Eddy hurts. Ruktogias (2 resets) Southern Cross him. Dodge, and SC. Death Monsters (0 resets) Arial roxxed em. Chimera Hawks (lost count) Last major roadblock. Sob. Have your bunny shoes and anti freezing amulet. Make use of the Jut in the middle of the stage- lead them to the upper right corner, SC'ing when you can. Now when they are in the corner, run around the just, cast heal if you need to. If you didn't need to heal you have two options: A.1 hawk will be next to you, and 2 will be on the other side. Chain SC. B. All hawks will be too far away to SC, so manually cast it. Enjoy. Luther (quite a few resets) Accept it before you begin the fight- you will be using Arial, again. His first form is easy- don't waste your healing items, cast it. His second is the pain. You're basically home free if you can get him to use IP over and over- Arial him when he uses Laser Beams of course, and you'll also be forced to after AAA'ing Flaming Divide. Have a clone gen on because he will kick the **** out of you after you attack him. When he starts using IP you have no choice but to wait for LB. Cast powerup and protection during IP if you want- heal as well. Remember to switch rapid invoc with clone gens. It may take well over an hour, but he will die. Oh yeah, I beat Luther at level 58. First, let me say that at the beginning of the MoT I decided to IC. I couldn't beat Render without it, I had tried 5-10 times and didn't see a way around his ice beam etc. for Adray. Thus, you will want to make the Increase MP book and the Convert damage book, as well as the Combat Exp book for leveling. Also for leveling get 5 rings of erudation on a laser wep. Get Em! Twin Beasts will net you 100+ K exp with triple exp, 5 rings of erudation, and combat training. I recommend using your primary weapon and then swapping it for the laser weapon when they are almost dead, you still get the bonus this way. I leveled up to 105. My weapon, which I designed for int for a few reasons, has these factors on it: Weapon:Biter Int + 1000 Int + 1000 Int + 1000 +30% INT increase +30% INT increase +30% INT increase 6% MP Recovery +20% Max MP increase With this setup, my int should be pretty solid at level 255. I have wondered if I should have put the bunny shoes on this weapon, but I'm confident in my decision due to the fact I will surely put one of my bunny shoes on my physical weapon (because I'll want a tri-emblem as an accessory) and because I've desperately needed this last shred of MP so far. Note that the int weapon for Adray includes a margin of preference, such as int versus MP, etc. My current plan is to use the Sphere 211 weapon as my physical attack weapon- I don't plan on loading it with more BoP's than necessary to max attack. -Reigning Champions (6 resets?) I won the first time I tried this on level 105- I was under 90 all the other times. I recommend Southern Cross on both short weak and short strong. Dima has a disturbing amount of HP, and getting close enough to use Aerial would be suicide in a few cases. With that weapon, Convert Damage: Preserve HP, and increase MP 40% (skill), I had 5494 MP or so. It should be enough to take all 4 arcane stars, which is your primary concern. I had the bunny shoes and a blazing pendant on so I wasn't massacred by explosion and firebolt. Feel free to chain SC or just hit and run with it till Solon dies. At this point it is best to either AAA Dirna or to stay just out of range of her strong attack, and use strong Southern Cross when she comes into short range from it. Eventually, she starts up arcane stars. Don't mess with this, a couple of criticals from it and you're dead. However, if she starts to do arcane stars again without moving manually do SC from the symbology window. Also, when she does radial stars move so you're just out of range and manually do SC. That's pretty much it. Be patient and she will eventually die. I should also say that while SC will normally interrupt her it will not always do so, so don't count on it. Take advantage of laser beams of course, but avoid getting cocky- getting in one extra attack won't make up for the half hour you've already been fighting her. -Gabriel (3 resets) I should state again that I won this battle the first time I tried it on level 106. The other two times I was below 90. Assuming you have around 5500 MP, you should be able to survive one Lightning Feather. I equipped the Victory Trophy for the 1/2 cast time and the additional MP regen. I also left the bunny shoes on because I wasn't that great at side stepping Gabe's strong attack and was afraid Dragons would catch me with my pants down. Upon beating him however, I think you'd be fine to switch the bunny shoes with an amulet of freedom as soon as he starts using dragons. Turn cure condition on. I got paralyzed 3 times but didn't die because of it (or get close really) due to the 12% MP regen. Ironically, the hardest part is when he just starts using lightning feather because he likes to whip out his strong attack, which breaks you guard, and then do Lightning Feather. Just avoid his strong attack and maintain a distance that is just outside of his reach, I found this provoked him into using his weak attack which you'll be AAAing. If Lightning Feather does catch you with really low fury, you should survive due to your MP amount and regen. Just scramble to heal afterwards. Whenever you do AAA his weak attack or lightning feather, use a strong SC. When he starts using dragons the fight becomes really simple. Run into the south east corner and stay there. He won't use his strong attack too often now. Whenever he does dragons, wait for him to finish his speech and manually cast SC. This should hit him before he gets a chance to attack you. The fight will end a lot faster than you think it will. Once he starts using dragons it's clear sailing ahead, unless you get really unlucky somehow. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MIRAGE: (First completed by CrOnOKiD) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Norton's Henchmen (0 resets): made them all ran by lowering their HP. Norton (0 resets): left Fayt to die after disabling his AAA, and then beat up Norton with Cliff's short O. Inquisitor (10 resets???): Good Lord, this was probably the battle where I was stuck the most. Beating these guys with solo Fayt or solo Nel is about 10 times easier since Cliff doesn't really have any battle skills or symbology at this point. Basically my strategy was drawing them towards me, then getting around them and using short X (the one where he rushes in and punches) an all three of them. Required a bit of luck though. Giant Crab (0 resets): AAA, short O, very simple. Earth Smasher (0 resets): I had the Masterwork Plate at this point. Same strategy as last time worked for this boss, AAA and short O. Shelby (0 resets): got rid of the guards first, then just used short O on Shelby. Mudman (2 resets): I died here because Cliff didn't have any BS that could do a lot mp damage, and the bastard kept healing himself. >_< Then I just spammed Hammer of Might over and over and he didn't even have a chance to heal. Legion Dragon (0 resets): AAA, then Hammer of Might or short O, took a while though. Cockatrice (0 resets): AAA, Hammer of Might Demetrio (0 resets): This was a long fight, I wasted a lot healing items on this one. I just used Hammer of Might and short O for this one. Albel (0 resets): Took out Albel's buddies with Hammer of Might, then just used short O on Albel. Vox (0 resets:) Short O and Hammer of Might. Flying Knight (0 resets): Just kept cancelling Electric Fists and he was killed before I knew it. Crystal Statue (0 resets): AAA, then short O and Electric Fists. Crystal Cerberus (1 resets): Electric Fists wasn't working too well here, so I just kept cancelling Charge for major HP damage. Vendeeni Soldiers (4 resets): Got stoned all the time... not to mention frustrated. :P Then I spammed Hammer of Might over and over till they died. :) Schweimer (0 resets): same strategy as Vox. Blue Dragon Zombie (0 resets): Aerial Assault. Battle finished very very quickly. Robin Wind (5 resets): I was killed by Thunder Flare and Aerial Slash at first. He was too fast and I couldn't hit Aerial Assault in time. Then I just punched him till he fell with Increase MP damage BS on short X. Crossell (1 reset): He just has a lot of HP. I used Aerial Assault over and over with Berserk on. I was very careful of his strong stomping attack. Biwig (1 reset): nothing too hard, Hammer of Might chained into Aerial Assault made it very easy. Proclaimer (0 reset): my first battle with FoF, didn't even get touched, this one's probably the easiest battle so far. Security Service x6 (1 reset): Aerial Assault set to long finished the battle quickly. 4D Security Guard x4 (5 resets): very annoying battle. I was juggled to death many times before i could pull of a move, but the first time i tried with Berserk off, i won this battle rather easily with Aerial Assault at long strong. Azazer (0 reset): I didn't like the setup i had, but i needed it for the last battle. The battle was still easy, but took quite a long time, Aerial Assault at long O brought me a safe and easy win. Belzeber & Berial (8 resets???): One of the toughest battles yet. Berial was the main threat. I finally mp-killed him with cancelled Aerial Assaults. Belzeber was a joke without Berial. Proclaimer, Enforcer, Convictor (1 reset): FoF on all of them. Enforcer petrified me I think the first time. Convictor was easy. Got control of Mirage. Lesser Eye (0 resets): I bought the Crest Gauntlet and Battle Chain Mail from Ruddle & Rumina. Cancelled Aerial Assaults did huge amounts of damage. Dark Armor (1 reset): Was careless on my first try. I just cancelled Aerial Assaults again. Crystal Knight (0 resets): AAA and Aerial Assault. Dark Eye (0 resets): same as Lesser Eye, but I almost got killed when he paralyzed me near the end of the battle. >_> Chimera (1 reset): I had Crescent Locus in this battle. Great to keep Chimera occupied. Died the first time because of paralyze. Stone Golem (0 resets): Strong, got hit by a few Flame Kicks, but survived. Crescent Locus worked great again. Battle Copter (1 resets): I got killed the first time around because of his stunlocking strong attack. >_< I had Triple Kick for this battle. I cancelled CL into TK and won a quick battle. Pseudo Blair (0 resets): Death of Howl was a big threat, and i just AAA'ed Eddy of Light. Then I just kicked her around with CL and TK. Ruktogias (1 reset): Chain Smash killed me the first time. Then I just cancelled CL into CL interrupting almost every one of his attacks. Death Monster (0 resets): CL into TK, easy battle. Chimera Hawk (6 resets): This battle was kinda easy actually, until they kept spamming Heat Impact over and over >_<. Each one did over 10000 damage in total. After a few tries, I went back to my Hamer of Might spamming strategy and killed them before they could even use Heat Impact. Luther's 1st Form (0 resets): Easy battle, AAA... then CL into TK. Luther's 2nd Form (2 resets): First time, I was killed by Insanity Prelude, and the second time he paralyzed me. :P Next time, I had an Amulet of Freedom equipped and was very careful of Insanity Prelude. Laser Beam was his weak point... very easy to dodge. CL into TK worked almost two times faster than Aerial Assault. Defeated Luther in Universe at level 62. Toughest Battles: Inquisitor, Belzeber & Berial, Chimera Hawks. Most used BS: Hammer of Might, Aerial Assault, Crescent Locus, Triple Kick Render: Tough one, Ice Beam is so fast and strong it kills you in you in just 3 hits without letting you regain your fury. Took me a while, but Avenger Charge worked beautifully here. Succubus: hit and run! and Triple Kick! Basilisk King: pathetically easy, i was careful of not being petrified. -started IC- Earth Dragon: ran behind him and used CL and TK. Alei: more TK! Mighty Vox: AAA and TK Sootie: Crescent Locus, blew up in the middle of battle :\ Trichimera: annoyingly long... the tail bothered me again, and his strong rushing in attack wasn't helping either... I just used CL and TK to finally take him down. Vile Chimera: unlike Trichimera, he was pretty easy stuff. He wasn't anywhere as fast and was easy to get him caught into my attacks. Gabriel Celesta (1 reset): I used CL and TK the whole battle. Dragons was easy to dodge, I just ran to the lower-right corner and AAA'ed Lightning Feather... wasn't too difficult (especially with IC). Into Sphere: Norton Redux: a bit annoying, I had berserk on in this battle so his attacks were really strong but easy to dodge. Shooting Spree is now a strong attack, I just got away from him as soon as he used this move. Took him down with the usual TK setup. Enraged Crosell: he's big... nothing else. TK'ed the heck out of him. Shadow Dragon: used CL and TK with Berserk off, and was pretty much safe from his attacks. Vengeful Shelby: berserk off and Avenger Charge! it did around 15000-20000 a hit! it made the battle easy. Frenzied Biwig: his attacks were even weaker than Shelby's, CL and TK works extremely well here (where hasn't it?) Green Majora: uh oh he's back... and he's green! but too bad he had to eat more Avenger Charges till he died :P Archdemon: ouch... very tough... hardest battle so far in Sphere... TK didn't work too well here (that answers my question to where didn't it work)... I had to use Aerial Assault and switch Berserk on and off during the battle. Took quite a long time, but I was able to defeat him. Got Blazing Cannon Belzeber & Azazer: this battle was a big pain because of Azazer's insane strength. I took Azazer out quickly with Hammer of Might. Then I just used Blazing Cannon on Belzeber for insane amounts of damage. Berial: Blazing Cannon. Piece of cake. Urssa Lava Cave Temple Interval! Fayt & Luther: At around level 195, I had over 4500 defense... so I guess they didn't have that much attack since none of their attacks could even scratch me. Back to Sphere! Super Blair: very hard. her insane movement speed just made it that much harder (nearly as fast as Mirage)... Blazing Cannon works really well here but fails to continue to do so once she starts using Howl of Death and Eddy of Light. Those moves