Final Fantasy 13 - Beat Chapter 12! Game clock now a little past 70 hours (for reference: my file where I beat 100% of the missions, i.e. did the full aftergame outside the Super Turtles, was only 64), HP generally hovering in the high 3000's. Lots of bosses to talk about!
Behemoth King: Lightning/Fang/Hope. I've beaten these before in three-way fights and pre-emptives, but the forced one in Cocoon offers no such opportunities and is a right bastard. The strategy is to NOT buff offence during the first stage, but I do use SAB to give him an elemental weakness, which in turn is to get the AI to have Lightning cast Enfire on Hope. I also try to use RAV as much as possible to get his chain gauge up prior to the transformation when he heals himself to full HP and all status. But I also balance that with staying healed and getting everyone in Protectra/Shellra. Once he transforms, switch to OFFENCE OFFENCE OFFENCE, hope to land Imperil/Deshell fast, Faithra on Hope, etc, and hope to blitz the hell out of him since I can't stand against him forever whatever healing/Sentinel use/buffing I can pull off.
Proudclad 1: After he recovers from Stagger he will use a brutal counterattack which you can certainly tank on a normal file but for my party it was a bit much. So the second time I fight him I take care to kill him with my first stagger, which just means not raising his chain too fast. Not much to say about the fight otherwise, Protect keeps his offence under control easily enough.
Adamanchelid: argggghhhhh nooooo save me from the wee turtle. The first few times I just get wrecked, no amount of quick buffing or sentinel use lets me survive the first few turns; he just does too much MT damage too fast with his repeated stomping for 1000 followed by an 1800-damage Quake. Turtles shouldn't be fast! Thus I resolve to exploit his vulnerabilities to slow and daze to remedy this. The basic strategy is to use Snow (for those)/Fang/Hope. Fang uses Protectra to try to just SURVIVE while Snow fires those off. Once Daze lands (and Hope is dead, since he always dies during this phase), switch to a double MED paradigm, heal up a bunch, buff a bunch, then revive Hope and begin the assault with buffs and Slow already in place. Snow continues to mainly use SAB to try to keep landing Daze, and reapply Slow whenever that wears out.
There is also no shortage of brutal randoms, especially in the second half of the chapter.
-Proto Behemoths are another behemoth type and hence jerks. Same basic strategy to kill them ASAP after they transform applies, though they also buff themselves with Brave... well worth dispelling! The second time Hope's SAB is useful. -Juggernauts and Tyrants, two of the strongest mechanical enemies from Pulse, return; both deal brutal damage and require Vanille's Barfire to stand against for long. Juggernauts also have crazy durability and half damage at base, so using Sazh/Lightning for Deshell is very valuable (Lightning also provides En- spells for more offence, while Sazh in the later stages of the chapter has Curasa); debuffing them is extremely useful in general because they use Steam Clean to heal status which takes up a LOT of their time.
-Humbabas... well, in case I wasn't sick of Behemoths yet, this is the most badass one yet. Way too much durability to blitz, but they have an Aeroga that does almost 3000 damage! I do eventually manage to beat one with a lot of Protectra/Shellra/Daze/Slow action but there's one fight against two which is just crazy. No thanks.
-Venusaur Vernal Harvester is Aster Protoflorian on steroids; he barrier shifts VERY often which is a problem given my strategy to try to keep up with him with Bar- spells, and hits like a truck; he has a magical seed missile and an AoE spin attack which both easily hit upwards of 2500 damage, hard to buff effectively to stop both especially with how fast he acts. He has no status immunities but I'm unable to get the good ones to land in time since you really need both Pain AND Fog. I probably could have beaten him but I don't, except for when he's in multiway fights where spoiler alert I kill him first.
And then one last boss...
Proudclad 2: He alternates constantly between an offence-oriented ground form which spams big AoE physical damage (a bit over 1000 at base) at high speed with a weaker sky form (which is harder to stagger/launch, neither of which is too relevant for me). Every time he switches his chain gauge resets, and with one RAV who is also on buffing duty staggering him is a huge pain (though prevents him from switching form if you do it, so in the first stage of the fight I do occasionally try). Not too bad, but at around half HP he heals to full and sets Deprotect/Deshell/Haste/Brave/Vigilance on himself. This makes his offence on the ground fast and brutal and to make matters worse, once per form shift on the ground he'll mix in Oneiric Maelstrom, which can do upwards of 4000 base. Be buffed or die. He's immune to SAB and has no elemental or type affinities so no need for shenanigans.
My strategy is to use Fang/Sazh/Vanille (Hope would have worked just as well, Vanille just happened to be in the party after Juggernaut fights). Sazh stays in MED literally 100% of the time though in hindsight I should have unlocked SEN for him, while Vanille largely stays in COM except to switch to SEN for when Oneiric Maelstrom is used. Fang handles buff management duty, keeping everyone in Haste, Protectra (absolutely crucial, I don't think I could have won this with just Protect), and Faithra in Vanille's case. I don't use many potions here; double MED works when I need more healing and anyway I need Fang to have as much physical res as possible to ensure she survives. In fact, I synth a Champion's Belt (Phys -30% when max, requires a 220k gil Adamantite) for her to make that more possible. (Sazh gets phys-25%, Vanille gets MAG+250.) Fight takes 20 minutes due to only rarely having a second PC on offence (Ravager Fang of course), but (a) less than 23 so I don't have to face Doom, and (b) since Rosch is just some dude he's actually a rare major boss who DOESN'T cast Doom.
And that takes us to the final dungeon! I'm sure it will be easy.
Shantae: Half-Genie Hero - Started this up. This definitely has less of a Metroidvania feel and more of a Mega Man feel with the way stages are designed; I'm not sure what I think about that so far. Giga Mermaid was pretty tough, especially for an earlygame Shantae boss.
