Final Fantasy 13 - Cleared Chapter 11 on the secondary role challenge. Pretty much every boss fight has been nightmarishly difficult and I die a lot otherwise. I've fought far more and gained far more CP than is normal, but a lot of that gets wasted on the secondary roles' high costs, so I'm still somewhat underlevelled, and certainly underskilled, though it does feel by now that I very much have a full, true party, just a weak one.
Lightning: Dodgetanks as sentinel, which remains neat. She also has SAB for Deprotect/Deshell/Imperil/Poison (this has been useful against only one enemy so far, the barrier-spamming Vetala who is much tougher than normal since I only have one Ravager), and SYN for the offensive buffs and the En- spells. Having Lightning tends to enable my highest damage potential since En- spells Commando double damage against a weakness, Imperil can make a weakness exist if one isn't there yet, and Deprotect/Deshell raise it by 89%.
Fang: Fang is near essential much of the time and obviously the MVP. She's the only Ravager (and fortunately is good at it), and her SYN setup is great, as Protecta/Shellra can provide great protection for only a short time, just as Bravera/Faithra do for offence. At the end of chapter 11 she even picked up Haste, being my only PC with that. Lots of great buffs, the difficulty is figuring out which ones to use due to their short duration. She also has MED but isn't very good at it and just has Cure.
Snow: He has declined in importance relatively since he no longer has a unique claim to Protect/Shell, but sometimes keeping one of those on a long time is worth it. He also has the defensive SAB spells (finally got Slow, yay), Pain/Fog are nice for certainly lower-durability randoms so I can ignore them while my Commando beats down other threats. He's a decent enough Medic due to fast casting times and Cura (MT, but often better than Cure). Still, losing any of Lightning/Fang/COM is a notable hit to my offence so he only comes out when Protect/Shell or his specific spells would be really useful, for the most part.
Hope: Commando. Nothing else really matters. He has SAB but honestly this has been useful in exactly one battle (but essential then).
Vanille: Commando. Her Magic isn't as high as Hope's but she has access to the Bar- spells if I need them, and sometimes those are really useful.
Sazh: Hasn't seen use in a while, but now that I have the final maingame crystarium he has access to Curasa, and will pick that up shortly. Besides that he has Lightning's SAB skills and some trashy SEN ability, so he'll probably be Curasa or bust... but that may well be essential in some later fights; we'll see.
Boss notes:
Hecatoncheir: Terrifying obviously, like the other post-C4 eidolons I had to use shrouds. I unlocked Vanille's SEN just for this fight and did a lot of time with SEN/RAV and spamming Potions off the Doctor's Code, did COM/RAV when I felt I could.
Dahaka: Used a party of Fang/Snow/Hope, controlled Snow. He has a powerful ITD attack which dispels and I need to keep my leader in top shape. He always uses it on whoever has the lowest HP so it very often kills someone. Aside from that he periodically uses massively powerful MT magic attacks, which also cause Imperil (ARGH). Shell is essential, and Esuna should also be used immediately (this is why I control Snow) since there's no item-healing for it, otherwise his spells will wreck. Lightning's less useful than the norm because Dahaka will shift his elemental defences making the only En-spells I have at this point (thunder and fire) a potential liability, so I'm forced into a slower fight due to no Deprotect/Deshell (Fang's Ravager is much more useful, and anyway she has Faithra). Periodically Dahaka will buff himself with Haste/Faith, dispelling these is ESSENTIAL so Hope switches to SAB every time I see that. Since he hits hard in general I need loads of healing, but fortunately I have two Medics and Doctor's Code potions. Finally later in the fight he starts using Diluvial Plague which inflicts loads of status everywhere, so I make sure to keep Veil up with Fang. Protect/Shell/Faithra/Esuna can heal off whatever relevant status sneaks through. He also starts using an Aeroga which has a base damage of ~2700 MT, which is nutty! Never mind if Deshell, Faith, or Imperil is active; I only have somewhere around 2500 HP so this illustrates how much keeping control of the buff situation matters.
Barthandelus: I have some hopes he will be easier, but no, he's terrifying too. His things is firing LASERS constantly, this laser damage seems low but it adds up. He'll also use MT Daze/Poison/Curse, which are more frustrating than they are game-changing but make it harder to keep control of the fight (Veil is essential again). After 3 minutes pass he'll mix in two nasty moves periodically, in alternation with each other (while still doing his normal moves otherwise): Thanatosian Laughter which is big MT non-typed damage and Apoptosis which heals all his debuffs and removes all my buffs, unless Lightning gets lucky and dodges since it is evadable at least! Anyway I settle on Lightning/Fang/Hope for this one, controlling Fang to get out Faithra and Veil. I experiment with Protect/Shell a bunch (including with Snow) but later in the fight Apoptosis makes maintaining those too much of a pain. Deshell is absolutely worth it, though; I actually really need the offence here (my most successful run with Snow was probably headed towards Doom before I finally screwed up and died). Anyway it's again mostly a matter of applying the right buffs/debuffs after Apoptosis, then trying to squeeze in damage while healing a bunch, with Lightning usually staying in Sentinel to attract the lasers (which mercifully are evadable; only the status spells are not).
I have also now beaten all the missions up to #28 (some of the tougher ones, like 27, I saved until after Bart), so I'm probably going to head to Cocoon now.
