I didn't actually set out to write a no level grinding guide, because I didn't think I would be able to do these three battles without it. But since I made it all the way here, I had to try it, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. With no grinding, I had two roles completely maxed out for everyone, and was working on the final tier of the third primary job.
Final Missions[]
Archylte Steppe[]
We'll get the worst one out of the way first, no matter what your level you will need luck to beat this thing. Go to the northern end of the Steppe to find a "B" Class stone near the entrance to Mah'habara, behind some Gorgonopsids. That ranking is a sick joke, this is the hardest mission in the game. Go back to the place where you met the first Cactuar, it's all grown up.
Mission 54- The Bigger They Are...[]
Paradigm Deck- Sazh, Lightning, and Vanille
Diversity
Commando
Ravager
Medic
Tireless Charge
Commando
Commando
Medic
Give Lightning the Lionheart/ Speed Sash combo, while Sazh gets Rigels/ Speed Sash so they both have a chance for Instant Chain but only Sazh has Stagger Lock. Give Vanille a White Cape or two and the others should wear all your Pain Dampeners to help your odds.
Start with Diversity and hope you stagger him, if it happens go to Tireless Charge and he will drop very quickly thanks to relatively low HP. The thing that really screws you over is that the constant barrage of 10,000 Needles also inflicts Pain and Fog, and your stupid Medic will use Esuna instead of making sure everyone is healed to 10K+ HP. Of course, anyone who gets hit with both statuses is completely worthless until one wears off, and if Vanille has Fog you're done. It will take a few retries until you can get him staggered before anyone dies off, when he does stagger use Renew if you need to, you don't want to have to restart and wait for instant chain to hit again.
Mission 62- Indomitable Will[]
You may want to hold off on this if you haven’t done any grinding yet. After this mission there will be no more Adamantortoises, but it’s not that big a deal because there is a more efficient method which I will discuss on a later page. Go back to the Circle and take the final mission from it, you will need a chocobo to reach the marks. Before you get on one, set up your party.
Paradigm Deck- Fang, Snow, and Vanille
Relentless Assault
Commando
Ravager
Ravager
Diversity
Commando
Ravager
Medic
Aggression
Commando
Commando
Ravager
Tireless Charge
Commando
Commando
Medic
Smart Bomb
Saboteur
Ravager
Ravager
Attrition
Saboteur
Sentinel
Medic
For equipment, you only have to worry about Magic, so Witch's Bracelet/ Rune Bracelet/ Imperial Armlet all around, as many as you have.
Attrition should be your default paradigm, use it to inflict Slow on both enemies as soon as the battle starts if you want to have any chance here. Seriously, it makes a huge difference, giving you time to go to Smart Bomb to stagger one. When you see one ready Multicast, get back into Attrition for the Sentinel's damage reduction just in case the other one attacks at the same time. Both of them hitting at the same time can really ruin your day if you're in any other paradigm. When the first one finally staggers, hit Deprotect ASAP and use Relentless Assault/ Diversity on him. Hopefully you finish him off, otherwise you'll have to repeat the stagger process on him like I did, which really drags this battle out. I didn't get Deprotect on him until the stagger was almost half over, so you shouldn't have the same problem unless you get really unlucky. With one out of the way, this becomes a very easy battle. You should be alright with just Smart Bomb/ Diversity to stagger the remaining one, then Aggression/ Tireless Charge for the kill.
The next time the Archylte Steppe is reloaded, Adamanchelids and Adamantortoises will be replaced by Shaolong Gui and Long Gui, respectively.
Oerba[]
Only one more left, and it's not going to be easy. Full disclosure- I killed a Long Gui before this battle, so with a Growth Egg equipped that gave me an extra 200,000 CP and got me very close to maxing out my third primary roles. That's only 3 Crystarium nodes at this point, so I doubt that it made much of a difference here. Teleport to Oerba and go all the way to the end of the bridge where you fought Barthandelus at the end of Chapter 11. This is very important- you need about 21,000 CP to get the first Sentinel ability for Sazh and Vanille, and on the way to the mission stone and back you should accumulate more than enough with Growth Egg. If you don't get them that first ability, you can't put them in the Sentinel role and you won't be able to survive the next battle. After you accept the mission, teleport literally as far away from the mission stone as you can- the Paddrean Archaeopolis.
Mission 64- The Doomherald[]
The regular enemies here have been replaced with a bunch of Vetalas, which really sucks because they're hard to avoid and take time to kill. Make sure you have full TP before you start the final battle, because you're probably going to need them.
Paradigm Deck- Vanille, Sazh, and Fang
Espionage
Saboteur
Synergist
Saboteur
Hero's Charge
Medic
Synergist
Commando
Tireless Charge
Medic
Commando
Commando
Evened Odds
Medic
Synergist
Saboteur
Premeditation
Saboteur
Synergist
Sentinel
Tortoise
Sentinel
Sentinel
Sentinel
Fill out all of your accessory slots with your best physical and magical damage reducers, keep them balanced because you're gonna face both kinds of attacks here.
Your default paradigm should be Espionage, and you need to manually spam Poison until it sticks, this is going to be your main damage dealer during the fight. At the beginning things won't be so bad, so get Deprotect up as well while letting Sazh buff the team up. Go to Hero's Charge so Fang can start attacking while Sazh finishes up with Synergy, then if you have time you can go to Tireless Charge to deal a little bit of damage before he goes into Impenetrable Aura. At this point he will remove all debuffs, clear out his chain gauge, get a couple of buffs, and heal himself for about 8% of the difference between his max and current HP. When he enters this state, get into Hero's Charge to heal fully, then get into Espionage and queue up some Poisons so you can unload them as soon as that shield disappears. When you get him below about 90% HP, he will sprout another set of wings and his attacks will become more powerful, and he will also start using Putrescence to take off some of your buffs. When he uses this stay in Hero's Charge so Sazh can reapply whatever you lost, the extra damage he could deal as a Commando isn't all that important thanks to Poison. You basically won't ever use anything other than Hero's Charge, Espionage, and Tortoise from this point on. He will periodically use Impenetrable Aura, make sure you always use the same strategy of Espionage to Poison him while Fang Dispels and Debuffs him before going on to Hero's Charge. At around 60% HP, he will get a third pair of wings and Impenetrable Aura will give him a third buff, so use Dispel + three Poisons for the first round afterward, Fang will Dispel the
other two statuses for you as always. At this point he will also start to use Wicked Whirl to do massive damage to the entire party, this is why you needed Tortoise. The whole time you are in Hero's Charge you should be spamming Curaja to keep the party in the green as much as possible, because even in Tortoise Wicked Whirl will take off about half of everyone's HP. It also knocks you all down, so don't get back into Hero's Charge until you stand up- no sense in losing your damage reduction if you can't do anything yet. At about 30% HP, Vercingetorix will grow his fourth and final pair of wings, you'll know because he will get 4 buffs from Impenetrable Aura. You'll obviously want to use two Dispels before casting Poison, he will be hammering you hard enough without Brave and Faith. This final stage of the battle is brutal, but there is a trick you can use to bypass it if you need to. Summon Hecatoncheir and build the Gestalt gauge as high as possible, making sure you have Poison on the mark before you go into Gestalt Mode. Poison will continue to do damage the entire time, and you can use Hecaton's one point move to really milk your Gestalt time, let the needle fall all the way to the right before you use it to gain a couple of seconds in between each attack. Depending on how many charges you had, you can bleed off up to 5 million HP while being completely immune to attacks, I would wait until you get down to about 3 million just to be safe since it's tough to build up your Gestalt gauge before you're forced to change because of low health.
Obviously this is the low level strategy, with a maxed out Crystarium I use Lightning as the party leader since she has access to Poison, keep Fang since she gets good buffs, and stick with Vanille for healing. The only real difference is you'll be able to spend more time attacking and your Commandos will hit harder, saving you some time. You'll also have access to paradigms with triple SYN or SAB, so you can get burst buff/ debuff when you change paradigms. Of course, the few minutes of battle time you can save doesn't come close to the level grinding time you will spend to prepare.
L'Cie Paragon[]
The strategies I gave got me a 5 star ranking for every mission, doing this will earn you the L'Cie Paragon trophy. You should have also gotten a few trophies for completing every rank A, B, C, and D mark. I told you that I already killed a Long Gui after finishing mission 62, I'll tell you how on the next page.
