While wandering around the Archylte Steppe, you probably noticed a circle of Cie'th stones at the southern edge of Eastern Tors. Completing all seven of these missions will unleash the two toughest enemies in the game, making it possible to earn another trophy. For now, we're going to pick off the two easiest missions before finally moving on to some challenging ones.
Mission 56- A Toothy Grin[]
There are two green stones here, indicating that they are "C" class missions. When you accept a mission from this circle, you will see the fal'Cie Titan change the weather on the Steppe, making it foggy and cloudy. More on that later. For now, teleport to the Paddrean Archaeopolis and head down to the Ascendent Scarp. This battle is in the exact same place as mission 4, and it's the same enemy as mission 3.
The Ugallu is joined by 4 Munchkins, which obviously aren't any kind of threat. To get a 5 star rating here, start off with Devastation (SAB COM COM) until you get Deprotect on the mark, then go to Cerberus. Your teammates will take down the Munchkins quickly, then join you in pounding the Ugallu. Obviously you need to control Fang and spam Deprotect manually so you don't waste any time.
Mission 57- What's Yours is Brine[]
And I thought I was struggling to come up with titles. Teleport back to the Steppe and accept the other green stone's mission. Now warp to the Tsubaddran Highlands and head into Vallis Media to find the mark, in the same place where you fought mission 8.
There are 3 Sahagins and 2 Alraunes here, set Aggression as your default paradigm. Have your leader Blitz the middle Sahagin until they're all dead, then if the Alraunes didn't get caught in the blast Blitz them once or twice and you're finished.
Mission 61- I, Juggernaut[]
Once again, make your way back to the circle. We're about to take on our first class "A" battle. Don't worry, it will be pathetically easy. The stone is the fourth one clockwise around the circle from the green ones, and the mark is conveniently located just a few steps away from the Waystone in Oerba. If you didn't listen to me and complete mission 28 during the storyline, you will have to walk all the way from Taejin's Tower. If you didn't complete mission 20 either, then you can just skip ahead a page or two to mission 58.
Any time an enemy walks back and forth across an open area like this, you should preempt him easily. Start off with Ruthless to fully debuff him, then do a mid-air shift to Aggression. When his chain gauge gets above 500% or so, do another mid-air shift to Cerberus. He should not survive the initial stagger.
First Come the Pains[]
Don't head out of town just yet. Go into the house and talk to Bhakti again, you should get the Pulsian Pioneer rank and the rest of the loot. Also, do you remember that house with the garden up on the roof? Go there and accept mission 55, now you can teleport back to the Archylte Steppe and find a chocobo. Just south of the circle of Cie'th stones you will find a yellow circle indicating that you can jump up. There is a treasure sphere holding 7 Diabolic Tails, pick it up and then follow the path to Aggra's Pasture. Go to the left edge and follow the wall until you see another sphere, which has a Platinum Bangle. Don't mess with the Microchus here, they will call a big Ochu to help them out. There should be a dark red dot on your map right next to the bright red dot for the mark. Examine the slightly bigger sheep thing and Vanille will rip a chunk of its wool off! There are actually 4 different types of wool you can get in different areas of the Steppe, depending on the weather. I've gotten one on that little island in the pond after accepting one of the Circle missions. Don't ask me about the others, I have no idea, although my old save file does have at least one of each. As far as I know, there is absolutely no point to collecting all 4 types, they are just crappy organic components. I'm sure if there was anything more to it somebody would have figured it out by now. Anyway, on to the battle.
Mission 55- Can't We All Just Get Along?[]
You should have accumulated quite a few CP since we started with the sidequests, now is the time to use them. You should still only be using your three primary roles, and don't start on the final tier until you get all three jobs up to that point. Those last few nodes are crazy expensive, and you should have a little ways to go before you get to that point on one of your primary roles. (The other two were probably already maxed out for the last level). This is one of the toughest missions in the game, and I don't just mean at this level. This thing is a beast, and you will have to retry this a few times while you wait to get lucky. Trust me though, it's more than worth the time and effort.
Paradigm Deck- Vanille, Snow, and Hope
Attrition
Saboteur
Sentinel
Medic
Protection
Medic
Sentinel
Synergist
Diversity
Ravager
Commando
Medic
Mystic Tower
Ravager
Sentinel
Ravager
Entourage
Ravager
Sentinel
Medic
Relentless Assault
Ravager
Commando
Ravager
I gave Vanille an Adamant Bangle and Royal Armlet, Snow Royal and Imperial Armlets, and Hope Platinum and Diamond Bangles. Each character also got a Black Belt.
He's immune to preemptive strikes, so don't even think about it. You need an Aegisol to give yourself any chance here, you should have plenty since this is the first time I've recommended using one. The plan here is plain and simple- spam Death and see who drops first. Snow will take a beating from the 5 Picochus as well as the big guy, but Hope will keep him healed up easily. This seems easy enough until the Neochu has attacked you about 5 times. At this point he will use Screech to remove your buffs and deal about 10,000 HP damage to everyone. Obviously, you can't survive this, so you need to summon when you see it coming. After a couple of tries you will get a feel for the attack pattern and know when it's coming, so have Hecatoncheir selected and try to hit the button at the perfect time. Too early and Vanille will get hit, too late and the guys will get hit, but if you do it just right the attack will miss everyone and leave the guys buffed up when they come back. At this point, you can try one or two more Death castings, then you'll have to go Gestalt because Hecaton won't heal you. With the full party back, you may get one more Death in before Neochu uses Pollen to heal the Picochus and hammer you with status effects. If you're still in it at this point you can pretty much just hit retry. Ideally, you will hit with Death before Screech so you don't have to summon.
After you finally hit on that 1% chance, make sure you don't let the little bastards kill you. Stay in Attrition until you Dispel the Haste and Bravery from every one of them. If you still have your buffs you should be okay to go with Diversity, when they run out you need to go to Protection ASAP to get them back. The reason it took me so long to finish the battle is because I didn't have Protection in my deck, and so I couldn't get on the offensive until I took out a couple Picochus with only Vanille attacking. This made them nearly impossible to stagger, I guess I remembered them being weaker than they are. Putting the buffs back up will probably save you about 3 minutes compared to my time, but I'm damn sure not going to retry this again when I got 5 stars.
By the way, there is a treasure sphere in the corner here with 6 Gloomstalks in it.
Now Comes the Growing[]
She should have wished for a higher success rate on Death.
There is a perfectly good reason why I had you suffer through all of those retries hoping for a lucky hit. The reward for this mission is the Growth Egg, which doubles the CP gained from every battle. This will save you so much more time than you just spent here when you're trying to max out everyone's Crystarium later. If you had waited until you could fight this battle for real, you basically wouldn't have had any more need for this accessory because of the high level it would take. If you hate doing things the cheap way like this, don't worry- we'll fight another Neochu later, and you can always redo this mission any time you want anyway.
We've Earned a Break[]
That last battle can be frustrating, so let's get a fresh start on the next page.
