Adamantoise (Final Fantasy XIII)

The Adamantoise is a powerful enemy on the Archylte Steppe of Gran Pulse in Final Fantasy XIII. 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 return 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 the one in Leviathan Plaza, the player can walk up to the sliding Fal'Cie door and return; going through will cause the soldiers and Humbaba to respawn alongside the Adamantoise.

Battle
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 one minute along with regenerating both legs. The legs are always disabled when an Eidolon is summoned and while the summon is out, the timer for when the Adamantoise to stand back up is paused. When fallen, the Adamantoise becomes susceptibility to debuffs; in its upright state it is only vulnerable to Slow.

It uses Earth attacks, Stomp and Quake, which are powerful and hit all ground-based targets. After the sixth Stomp, Adamantoise will always use Quake.

The Death Strategy
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%).

Death's success rate can be improved by:
 * Having Vanille at Level 5 in her Saboteur role.
 * Having other Saboteurs in the current battle formation, the higher level the better.
 * Inflicting the Adamantoise with as many debuffs as possible.

Because Death is not classified as a debuffing spell, its chances to inflict instant death cannot be boosted by equipping Vanille with Belladonna or Malboro Wands, nor can its success rate be improved with Faith or high chain bonus.

Faith and Haste are still good buffs for Vanille. Haste will allow her to cast Death at a faster pace, and 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.

A good 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 three TP bars full and enter the battle. At the start of battle, Vanille should instantly summon Hecatoncheir to disable the Adamantoise's legs.

Hecatoncheir will stop Adamantoise from getting up, so Vanille should use Auto-Battle until three debuffs are inflicted, then spam Death until Hecatoncheir leaves, or the Adamantoise dies. When Hecatoncheir leaves, Hope should be adding Haste, Bravery, Faith, and Veil, while Fang casts Slow, Curse and Fog.

If Hope has advanced in the Saboteur role at all, the player can shift to SAB/SAB/SAB to boost Vanille's chances at landing Death as soon as the party is buffed. 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 when the characters have at least Tier 2 weapons and have mastered their assigned jobs at the Crystarium. Each character should be equipped with a fully upgraded Gaian Ring, or Entite Ring, or Physical resistance accessories. Fang should be the party leader and the party start the battle with either: SYN/SYN/SYN, with Fang casting Bravera and Faithra (manually) to the team, while the others cast things like Haste and Protect; or SAB/SAB/SYN, if the party wishes to have access to debuffs (assuming they are using all of the below and MED/MED/MED for healing). After the buffs are in place, the party should switch to RAV/RAV/RAV and stagger one of the legs (debuffs are not necessary due to Highwind ignoring them during damage calculation). Initially, until both legs are taken out, the only buffs each character needs are Haste and Protect/Protectra.

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 topple (with appropriate Strength, Highwind will always kill a leg at 600% chain bonus). Once it has fallen, the party can re-cast Bravera and Faithra because they run out fast, then debuff and stagger the fallen Adamantoise. This can be achieved with SYN/SAB/SAB. One should manually cast Bravera/Haste on Fang, and Haste and either Faithra or Bravera on the other two characters. At least Deprotect, Deshell and Slow are useful. Slow is the only debuff that still remains if Adamantoise recovers its legs. The party should aim to stagger both legs by the sixth Stomp, as after this the creature will cast Quake which is very powerful.

After the chain bonus is somewhere around 800%, the party should switch to COM/COM/COM to deal damage, and use Highwind as Adamantoise is recovering from stagger. If it doesn't die yet, the party should go back to SYN/SYN/SYN to re-buff and start again by disabling the legs. When the Adamantoise is down to around 1.5 million HP, with the Genji Glove equipped on Fang and sufficient Strength, Bravera and stagger gauge exceeding 900%, Highwind should finish it off.

If the Stomp is doing too much damage the party can switch to SEN/SEN/SEN as the Adamantoise is lifting its leg.

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).

The party can equip the Collector's Catalog to increase the drop chance for Ingots and the Connoisseur Catalog to increase 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 gives the best chance of rare drops.

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.

Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade
Adamantoise appears in Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade.

Trivia

 * In a Live Trigger conversation in Final Fantasy XIII-2, Noel states that his favorite food is any type of meat, but Adamantoise if he can get it. Serah expresses astonishment that they can be eaten.
 * The Brain Blast quiz reveals that the outer shell of the New Cocoon Bhunivelze is made of Adamantoise shell.

Related Enemies

 * Left Foreleg
 * Right Foreleg
 * Adamanchelid
 * Adamantortoise
 * Shaolong Gui
 * Long Gui
 * Wurtzitoise

Final Fantasy XIII-2

 * Long Gui
 * Left Foreleg
 * Right Foreleg