Adamantoise (Final Fantasy XIII)

The Adamantoise is an enemy in Final Fantasy XIII.

The Adamantoise is a powerful enemy on the Archylte Steppe of Gran Pulse. During the first exploration of Gran Pulse, it is best to avoid them, as they will take the team out in one stomp. It is recommended to come back after completing the story to battle them, when the party's HP is around 15,000 and strength over 1,500. There is also one Adamantoise on the Leviathan Plaza in Edenhall. To respawn that one, the player can go past the gate and come back; the player mustn't go through the gate to avoid respawning the soldiers.

Adamantoise is immune against "Preemptive Strike", even with Deceptisol. Destroying the forelegs (Left Foreleg and Right Foreleg) will make the Adamantoise fall down. It is unable to attack in this state, but it will recover (stand up again) after roughly 1 minute along with regenerating both legs.

Spoils
Adamantoise's common drop with 25% chance is the Platinum Ingot, worth 150,000 Gil. The rare drop is the Trapezohedron, which costs 2,000,000 Gil at R&D Depot. Trapezohedron is required to upgrade Tier 2 weapons into their ultimate forms (Tier 3). You can equip the Collector's Catalog to get more Ingots and the Connoisseur Catalog which doubles the drop rate of Trapezohedrons. Against the widely spread misinterpretation, both can be equipped the same time (although it doesn't increase the drop rate of Trapezohedrons, but lets the player get more Platinum Ingots at the same time). Getting a 5 star rating multiplies the probability by 5. With this and the Connoisseur Catalog, you can increase the drop rate from 1% to 10%.

Killing an Adamantoise rewards the party with 40,000 CP with the possibility to double it for 80,000 with the Growth Egg, making Adamantoises one of the best monsters for obtaining CP.

The "Death" Trick
If Vanille has learned Death for her Saboteur role, it is possible to defeat the Adamantoise with it, but the chances of successfully landing instant death are low (1%).

You can increase the success rate of Death by:
 * having other Saboteurs in the current battle formation
 * inflicting the Adamantoise with as many debuffs as possible
 * casting as many buffs on Vanille as possible

Examples of good buffs for Vanille are Faith and Haste. Haste will allow her to cast Death at a faster pace, meaning more chances to kill the Adamantoise. Faith will boost her magic stat which will allow Death to deal more damage when it doesn't result in instant death.

This technique is helpful for characters with stats too low to fell the Adamantoise otherwise.

The best approach is to have Vanille, Fang and Hope, with Vanille as the leader, and to use the Espionage Paradigm (SAB/SAB/SYN) with Hope as the Synergist. The team should have at least 3 TP bars full and enter the battle. At the start of battle, Vanille should instantly summon Hecatoncheir to disable the Adamantoise's legs. The Eidolon can be dismissed by entering Gestalt Mode and pressing triangle/Y. Hope should be adding Haste, Bravery, Faith, Veil, while Fang casts Slow, Curse, Fog (etc.). Vanille must keep casting Death until the Adamantoise dies. Vanille can be equipped with Sprint Shoes and a Collector's Catalog as well as two Whistlewind Scarfs to add Haste and the Synthesized Ability ATB Rate + 15%.

Without Death
Adamantoises are best tackled without summons and Death when the characters have at least Tier 2 weapons and have mastered their assigned jobs at the Crystarium. Fang should be the party leader and the party start the battle with SYN/SYN/SYN, Fang casting Bravera and Faithra (manually) to the team, while the others cast things like Haste and Protect. After the buffs are in place, the party should switch to SAB/RAV/RAV or RAV/RAV/RAV and stagger one of the legs. As soon as the leg staggers the party should switch to COM/MED/MED and use Highwind on the staggered leg to kill it while the others heal and repeat the same to the other leg to make the Adamantoise fall. Once it has fallen, the party can switch to SYN/RAV/RAV and re-cast Bravera and Faithra if they are running out, then stagger the fallen Adamantoise with SAB/RAV/RAV. The party can keep with SAB/RAV/RAV a little longer after the enemy has been staggered to make sure it has Deprotect and to raise the stagger percentage, but after the percentage is somewhere around 800%, the party should switch to COM/COM/COM (etc) to deal some hardcore damage, and use Highwind as Adamantoise is trying to get up. If it doesn't die yet, the party should go back to SYN/SYN/SYN to re-buff and start again by killing the legs.

If the stomp is doing too much damage the party can switch to SEN/SEN/SEN as the Adamantoise is lifting its leg. Also, wearing Earth resistance accessories, such as Gaian Ring, helps.

Related enemies

 * Adamanchelid
 * Adamantortoise
 * Shaolong Gui
 * Long Gui