FF13 - Decided to do a secondary roles run, which I'm playing as No Crystarium until those open up. Been doing this slowly over the last few weeks.
Chapter 3 I barely noticed the difference, which is obvious since you're only getting started on the crystarium. Manasvin Warmech is still a jerk who took a couple resets for me to remember the sentinel timing. Shiva was beaten first try. Garuda took 1 reset because by this point I was kinda feeling the lower HP and I got wrecked by his limit move.
In Chapter 4... bombs are nasty but that's not really too different from my normal memories. The Dreadnought poses some challenge as Wrecking Ball now really hurts, but eh, no big overall. After this I get equipment upgrading, and since I'm much better at that than I was first playthrough this mostly makes up for lower stats for a while. I defeat Odin with no issue, somewhat surprisingly.
Chapter 5 is in a pretty good sweet spot for challenge. Both Behemoth types are pretty fun fights. Aster Protoflorian is the hardest boss so far for sure; there's no OHKO here but he moves fast and can really wear me down if I don't stay on top of buffs, healing, and keeping the chain gauge going (since staggering him gives some welcome relief from his offence, if less than normal since I don't have Launch). I can't exploit his shifting elements with Bar- spells, but it still changes my strategy (Hope in RAV more for Fire/Blizzard when those are his weakness, Lightning when Thunder is the weakness).
Chapter 6 is in the same area, perhaps even slightly easier overall. Scalebeasts, despite their hype, are no problem (though they do take a while); they don't hit that hard so they're really more about skillful chain management and getting Deshell to stick, all of which still applies. Wyverns are another matter. They inflict Deprotect then do massive damage; you're supposed to use Esuna (learned in this chapter) to counter that, but no other solution exists. I have to go max out my one Tungsten Bangle to let Vanille just tank this, and make sure she's at full HP at all times if Deprotected... tough when there are other enemies around! Fun fights. The bosses, Enlil and Enki, and surprisingly easy.
Chapter 7 sees Snow and Fang join, and they have notably more HP than the other PCs, so that's a help! I get trapped into a fight with a Falco Velocycle with Lightning, that's a problem which requires a Summon to get out of (they'll use Gatling Gun for ridiculous overkill and I don't have the offence to defeat them first). Falco Velocycles with Snow are same as always, switch to Sentinel as soon as I see it coming, Provoke + STEELGUARD! I do periodically use Sentinel at other points with Fang/Snow to take pressure off their allies, it's convenient how those two have the most HP. Snow/Hope have a bunch of trouble fights especially against those flying soldiers and their missile barrages. Lightning/Fang don't have too much trouble, Slow is great. The Ushumgal Subjugator fought with Snow/Hope is very nasty to keep up with since he has so much AoE offence and I only have two people (one quite fragile), probably the hardest boss so far even? I'm worried about the second form but with three PCs it's not too bad, I can do things like COM/SEN/MED and more to the point Slow is great. Finally there is the Skytank, which is easy-peasy, if boring since c'mon, a boss with 999 stagger point and no status weaknesses? zzz
Chapter 8 is brief but hellish. After Sazh/Vanille took care of business in C6 I am not expecting this, most fights are brutal. Part of the problem is that Sazh is way worse to control than Vanille (controlling Vanille lets you do things like choose who you Deshell and use SAB spells on someone who has already been hit by one which is currently Vanille's best way to stabilise the chain gauge). Part of the problem is that the soldiers here have low HP but high offence and reward cutting them down with AoE... which I don't have. Oh well. Midlight Reaper is tough. He has an attack that does 700 damage, that be fatal. He only uses it with a lot of warning, but you basically have to stagger him to stop it (or pray it hits Vanille). Fortunately he's not too hard to stagger, but if you don't, GG. The other thing he can do is a different charged cannon, which is 3HKO (to my maxed bangles) AoE, and he'll use it three times in rather short succession, so I have to be ready to bust out lots of healing for that. Not too bad, but takes a while to get the rhythm of the fight down. Many potions are spammed here.
And finally, Brynhildr, the toughest boss of the challenge so far. Here's the thing: you beat Brynhildr primarily by building chain, and primarily by having the leader do it. Unfortunately, she absorbs fire... which is the only element base Sazh has. Absorbing an element quarters the chain boost, so Sazh is actually better off going for COM. After doing some digging I also realise, to my surprise, that this means Vanille actually contributes the most gestalt gauge increase in this fight. So sticking her in MED is a bad idea. Solution? Do all the healing with potions! Doctor's Code to make them worthwhile isn't an option (same with Reaper) because it makes Sazh too fragile, so I have to use them often, but of course I also need to get in lots of attacks with Sazh to build chain. (I manally input Attack/Ruin/Attack because there's a chain bonus for using non-consecutive moves and every bit counts here.) Lots of paradigm shifts between identical COM/RAV setups just for the ATB boost, lots of potions. If she focuses on Vanille that's actually kinda nice, I can Phoenix Down her to restore HP more effeciently. If she focuses exclusively on Sazh that can be pretty bad and I occasionally switch to COM/MED for some help but this isn't optimum. If she divides her focus that's great, potions are better. I try this battle probably around 15-20 times, and almost win on a couple occasions (I swear the gauge is a pixel shy of 100% both times) but eventually I decide "fuck it" and use a Fortisol for Auto-Protect/Shell/Vigilance which gives me an extra push. Might have tried to do it legit but it was late by this point and you can't save between Reaper and Brynhildr and I didn't want to redo the former (or leave the console on overnight).
Currently in Chapter 9! I'm sure Bart will be a barrel of fun. Looking forward to actually getting the secondary roles, am pretty glad not to be doing a No Crystarium run of the entire game even though it's actually been a lot of fun so far.
