Cid Raines (boss)

Cid Raines is a boss in Final Fantasy XIII. He is notably the only l'Cie fought in the game.

Strategy
One effective group to use during this fight is Lightning (leader), Fang, and Vanille. Have the Paradigms: Relentess Assault (RAV/COM/RAV), Combat Clinic (MED/SEN/MED), Devastation (COM/COM/SAB), Delta Attack (RAV/COM/SEN), Solidarity (COM/SEN/MED), and Dirty Fighting (COM/SEN/SAB).

First off, set Dirty Fighting as your active Paradigm. As soon as the fight starts, use auto-battle immediately. Raines should attack you or Fang after this lands. If he attacks Fang, have her receive a few more poundings of this while you attack Raines. Should he attack Lightning or Fang's life bar go down near red level, either you switch to Solidarity or Combat Clinic or use several potions. Continue attacking him while keeping everyone healed and he should switch to his Defensive role. After he switches, heal everyone immediately and switch to Delta Attack or Devastation. Keep attacking him while he is in this state.

After quite a beating, Raines would switch to either Healing or back to Offensive. Should he switch to Healing, switch to Relentless Assault and attack him until he switches to Offensive. Should he switch to Offensive immediately, switch your Paradigm to Solidarity and continue attacking him because he will probably be targeting Fang most of the time. Continue this until he is staggered.

Should he be nearing or already staggered, summon Odin. After summoning, have Lightning stay on Ravager and attack him while raising your Gestalt bar. Once it is filled, make sure Raines' stagger bar is still high so you can devastate him in Gestalt mode. Once in Gestalt mode, spam Stormblade and Razor Gale. After this use Zantetsuken immediately because Raines' stagger bar should already be running low. If done correctly, he should already be dead by now.

If he isn't and you still have a single TP point left, use Quake as soon as your teammates come back. Rinse and repeat until he dies.

Juggle Strategy
A good way to defeat Cid is to take advantage of the launch abilities of commandos. The idea behind this strategy is to quickly get Cid into stagger mode and then pummel him with launched commando attacks. It's good to include Sazh as a ravager for his synergist buffs and only attack when your party is fully buffed.

Try using Lightning, Snow, and Sazh. You can put Fang in for Lightning or Snow; the important thing is you have two commandos with the launch ability. Sazh arguably provides the best synergist buffs for this fight. Set up these paradigms:

Med/Sen/Syn *Active Paradigm Rav/Rav/Rav Com/Com/Rav Med/Sen/Rav Med/Rav/Rav

Open with Med/Sen/Syn as above. Once all your buffs are active, switch out to Com/Com/Rav to build up some commando damage on Cid. After three or four rounds of attacks in this manner, switch to triple ravager and fill Cid's stagger bar. If one party member takes too much damage substitute Med/Rav/Rav or another medic paradigm, and switch in synergist if any of your buffs expire. Once Cid is staggered, switch to Com/Com/Rav and finish Cid off.

Ideally, you'll get him to staggered before he metamorphoses to his second form. Once you have him in the staggered condition, the two commandos and one ravager combo can easily burn him down even from a full hit point bar before he recovers. By keeping him launched, your two commandos further prevent him from guarding or launching a counter attack.

One thing to remember, you can't launch Cid while he's guarding, so be sure to finish filling the stagger bar immediately after Cid stops guarding, giving you the opening to both stagger and launch your foe. Cid's guard periods can't be avoided, but use this chance to fill his stagger bar without dealing extraneous damage. (Remember, it's a lot easier if you kill him before he metamorphoses!) If you're in danger of staggering Cid while he's guarding, switch to the Med/Sen/Syn paradigm to avoid dealing extra stagger damage.