Before I begin, I would like to say congratulations to Sarah Blow on her engagement! Happy happy joy joy~
Now let’s get down to business. I haven’t contributed to this blog in a long long time, life has kept me quite busy! However, I did find the time to complete Final Fantasy XIII a couple of weeks ago. I can tell you now it was not easy; there are many bosses leading up to the final Orphan encounter and even then it’s not what I had expected. My advice to you is make sure you are level 4 across all your characters in the Crystarium. If you don’t want to be spoiled with the ending then stop reading now!
Orphan’s Cradle
This is the final stage where the ultimate showdown begins. Don’t worry though, there are portals that take you back to Edenhall and Gran Pulse if you want to level up some more. It may look confusing here but it’s pretty linear. The main thing to note is that the mini bosses you encounter, such as Jabberwocky, will appear as normal creatures to kill as you progress further. You can actually grind Jabberwocky who sits on top of the lift before you fight Orphan, as he will give you 30,000 CP (Crystogen Points).
The Narthex Throne
Once you enter this area and the cinematic kicks in, there is no going back. This is it. Orphan is actually three bosses…
The team I used for all three were Lightning, Sazh, Vanille.
Boss 1 – Barthandelus. Yes you have to fight him again. There are no sections to destroy first, the only target is himself. The best way is to use Vanille in Sabateur mode to debuff him, which will help with the staggering later with your Ravagers. Then pummel away!
Boss 2 – Orphan (first form). This is by far the hardest boss out of the three, but in my opinion not as difficult as Proud Clad Part 2. The first 10 seconds is crucial, he will attack your entire team with Merciless Judgement to bring your health down to about 25% or less. Make sure you start with a healing paradigm such as Combat Clinic and heal like crazy. Orphan is susceptible to poison so be patient with Vanille to make it stick (Sazh will help with this when he casts Haste). Her debuffs will speed up the stagger process; you need to stagger Orphan at least 3 or 4 times to defeat him before he casts Doom on your party leader. And you definitely do not want Doom.
Here is my main paradigm deck:
Chaining paradigm – Thaumaturgy (RAV/RAV/MED)
Attack paradigm – Diversity (COM/RAV/MED)
Healing paradigm – Convalescence (MED/SYN/MED)
Buff/debuff paradigm – Evened Odds (MED/SYN/SAB
You may be able to use Tri-Disaster which is RAV/RAV/RAV to increase the chain gauge quicker, but I don’t recommend staying in this stance for very long. It is unlikely you will defeat him on the first try; pay attention to what he attacks with and when… pre-empting when to switch to a healing paradigm before the attacks begin will help a great deal. Another tip is if you have Army Of One for Lightning then use it when she is Ravager, great for staggering.
Boss 3 – Orphan (final form). The difficulty level drops dramatically, this is the last remnant of Orphan and will not pose much of a challenge. I recommend Tri-Disaster paradigm all the way to stagger and then pummel as per normal with something like Relentless Assault (COM/RAV/RAV). The Orphan final form can actually be defeated with the Death spell from Vanille if her magic is high enough; very cool but anti-climatic to be able to do this to a boss.
I made a video of my Boss 2 fight, which shows the last 4 minutes. It’s not great quality, I really need to invest in a video capture card. FFXIII is a strange beast, I personally enjoyed it but others may feel it can get boring rather quickly. But I am a FF fan so I might be slightly biased, either way I can at least say I have completed it. The one thing I would like to defeat is the big Cactuar, except his 10,000 Needles attack does 9999 damage. Best grind for those Crystogen points before even attempting that one!
About Motoko
First embraced the inner geek at the age of 10 with a Commodore 64 and programming in BASIC. Avid PC gamer, Gundam Gunpla builder, manga editor and anime enthusiast. Loves Mountain Dew and Ghost in the Shell. Twitter: @Motoko_K
Web | Twitter | More Posts (39)
