General challenge discussion (formerly NCU United 1-6)

I'm not sure where your development is, but on my low stat run, I'm pretty sure I used the initial stagger to kill one of the Cryptos and to quickly stick Slow, Imperil, Deprotect, and Deshell on Ambling Bellows. Then I staggered him again (tanking with Fang) and finished him off. Fang/Vanille/Sazh, but even with Sazh I couldn't kill Bellows in one stagger. I had Fang on lead so I could control who I was targeting at the start of the fight. I'm almost certain I didn't know Pain; if you do, that should make the fight a cakewalk.

I think this was my setup:
Com/Rav/Syn
Sab/Sab/Syn
Com/Rav/Rav
Sen/Rav/Rav
Sen/Med/Com
Com/Med/Rav

t~

What are your equips? Have you tried Black Belt-* on Fang?

t~

Edit: weapon upgrades might help too. If you still have the Entite Ring, sell it for 60k gil.

fphjr01 posted...

That said, even on single segment, you should be aiming to get sazh protect and cold blood in Ch 12. Cold blood makes both proudclads much, much faster to take out -- although for the second one you really should plan to be able to survive a retaliatory strike if you are aiming to finish in one go -- i.e. a black belt would probably be a great idea.

Last Resort also works nicely, but it's easier to get Blitz, Protect and Cold Blood for Sazh than Haste, Curaja, and Last Resort for Hope.

Against PC2, is it better to plan on surviving a Retaliatory Strike, or to just avoid it altogether by only staggering him on the ground? I'd plan on the latter, personally. Retaliatory Strike is too variable for my tastes that late in the game.

Also, the groups of robots in taejins tower are faster than the Bking / Mego fight and give similar experience. You need to preempt them for fast times though, which may not work in a no-retry game. The first group of 3 near M21 stone is all you need CP-wise.

With a little practice, you can kill these guys quite rapidly without a preempt by using a couple of AoE COM skills to stabilize their chain, and then hitting them with AoE RAV skills to stagger en masse. AoE SAB skills might work also; I don't remember their status resistances offhand.

t~

I did quite a bit of testing against Oneiric Maelstrom (and Muon Blaster). Between my data and the (not quite accurate) information in the Game Mechanics Guide, I was able to figure out how Oneiric Maelstrom works.

OM's damage is a bit hard to predict because 18 of its 19 hits have 98% variance and shuffle in a limited area. The 19th hit has a large enough area that I've never seen it miss someone, but I've also never tried to get out of its range.

Each of the first 18 hits has an average damage of 158 (range 6-310). In my testing, I either had the entire team standing together, so each takes 6 hits, or my Sentinel was off on his own, in which case I'd either have the two non-Sentinels taking 9 hits each, or the Sentinel taking all 18.

The 19th hit deals ~2200 damage with much less variance (2111-2320). These damage instances can all be reduced by physical damage reduction, including Protect, and of course the presence of a Sentinel.

By equipping the team with General's Belts-*, having Protect up, and shifting to a L3/4 Sentinel during the attack animation, your non-Sentinels will take 44.7% of the possible damage. On average, in cases where your leader is taking 9 shuffle hits, that's a total of 1600-1700 damage. In the exceedingly rare circumstance where all 9 shuffle hits deal max damage from their 98% variance, the damage is less than 2300.

With Black Belt-*, the damage increases slightly, to an average of 1735 and a max of 2435. So General's Belts are likely not necessary (they're just what I used for testing).

As long as you don't leave your leader isolated (and thus exposed to the possibility of taking all 18 shuffle hits), I'm pretty sure that's readily survivable, even at speedrun HP totals. Since your plan is to lead with Sazh and to have Hope or Vanille on healing, exposing Sazh shouldn't be an issue. Just make sure to keep your team above 2000 HP. If you're HP are dangerously low, you have Renew or Summon as much more effective options than they are against Retaliatory Strike.

PC2 can be staggered during ground phase with a full time Medic using Med/Com/Com, Med/Rav/Rav, and Med/Med/Sen when your team is Hope/Light/Snow; I'd imagine something similar would work for Sazh/Vanille/Snow.

You do, of course, need the defensive Accessories for this to work. But that shouldn't be an issue.

t~