need help with final boss: spoiler

[CowboysFromHell]

I need help with the final boss. I can beat his first form but the second form is giving me a hard time. I die because he always uses that negative effect bs and my characters are unable to do anything while their hp is draining down fast. And he also has this annoying attack called "merciless judgement" which nearly kills me. What should I do to beat him?

[DragonHeart]

You need to debuff the second form if you aren't already. Don't bother buffing though, he'll just remove them. Then you pretty much just need to Stagger it and whack it as hard as you can for as long as you can. Having a dual or triple Med setup for rapid healing is recommended, as is any sort of debuff-resisting accessories you have, Poison and Daze protection in particular since those are most likely to get you killed. Merciless Judgment takes off a set amount of HP so just equipping a ton of the HP+ bangles won't help you that much, though Hope and probably Vanille will benefit from one or two if you have them on your battle team.

Keep your HP above 90% at all times so Merciless Judgment won't straight up kill you, have TP available for Renew and/or keep a healthy stock of Phoenix Downs.

~DragonHeart~

[Jonathanx221]

Taken from gamefaqs and a video to help you out at the bottom, it looks like. =] Good luck!

He starts the battle with his most dangerous attack, Merciless Judgment.
It knocks all your health down to critical levels. Immediately heal after
this attack otherwise he'll pick you all off a few seconds later. Also
keep in mind that whenever he uses this attack, his chain gauge will be
reset. Highly annoying when you're close to staggering him.

He'll also put out two un-targettable orbs. The white one will heal for a
few thousand every few seconds, while the dark one will attack you. The
main target himself will smack you around, target one person for high
damage, and when his health gets a little lower he can drain HP from all
3 members, debuff your characters, and he can inflict some particularly
nasty ailments. Another thing I STRONGLY advise is to be on the lookout
for poison. It's bad enough to be inflicted by it but if any party members
are still poisoned when he does his Merciless Judgment attack, the poison
will drain away any bit of health left before you can even get a chance to
heal.

Another attack to be aware of is one that actually works like a Death
spell. This is why I recommended putting on accessories like Cherub's
Crown's on all members to lower the chances of being insta-killed. Nothing
sucks worse than him having less than a quarter of health left then being
snuffed out because of a lucky death spell.

Start the battle out with massive healing then use your buffs and debuffs.
One of the best spells you can use on him is to inflict him with Poison.
It drains his health like no other. If you have can put that on him then
this battle actually gets a lot easier. You can also focus on staggering
him like usual, then once you stagger him go all out. You should be able
to chip off quite a bit of health off while he's staggered and debuffed.
Odds are good he'll use Merciless Judgment again so heal afterwards. Next
is a matter of surviving as you slowly try and build up the stagger bar
again. It'll be difficult but you gotta keep it up. Also try and keep him
debuffed as much as you can. Slow, Deprotect, Deshell, Poison, these are
all things you have to focus on. Also make sure you have Haste, Shell,
Protect, and w/e else you can comfortably put on. Try not to let too many
statuses pile up. The worst one he can do is a massive Stop effect on all
members. If that happens, hopefully you can survive until it wears off, or
use an esuna if a MED is available.

Hopefully you can stagger him again and finish him off before you get too
overwhelmed. Don't be too discouraged if things get very hairy. Like I
said this battle requires a bit of luck in that you don't get one-shotted
by Death, or hit with extremely debilitating statuses. If you see him get
close to being staggered, go all out offensive and do it before he resets
it or he starts using some really nasty stuff. Good luck!

YouTube - Final Fantasy XIII - FINAL BATTLE PART 2

[Andromeda]

Actually Merciless Judgment Dragonheart doesn't do a set amount of damage. It is like Ultimecia's ability, it just knocks you to near 1 HP. You can never actually die from Merciless Judgment, it will be the poison or other attacks that will end up killing you.

And you will want buffs on you if you want to get through the fight quickly enough to avoid getting Death from the boss.

I used Vanille, Fang and Sazh in my party. Vanille has Curaja and Curasa which will be about all the work you need. Now I played very aggressive against the guy because I had fought him so much that I knew what to deal with. The above stuff outlines a lot of the stuff already.

My setup for Paradigms was this
Medic, Ravager, Commando
Ravager, Synergist, Commando
Ravager, Ravager, Commando
Saboteur, Ravanger, Saboteur
Ravager, Commando, Commando
Medic, Synergist, Commando

For the fight I defaulted to Ravager, Synergist, Commando because Sazh will be allows a few seconds to get in buffs before the hit comes. You can do Medic Synergist, Commando if you're very paranoid. But once Merciless Judgment comes which to Medic, Synergist, Commando and keep it going until all HP is in the Green even if for a moment. Afterward, go back t Ravager, Synergist, Commando. Work on that Chain Meter for stagger while Sazh is finishing up doing a full buff and you want a full buff on all 3 characters.

Once Sazh is done buffing, switch to healing on Vanille when you do need and just keep up the pressure on the enemy with the Chain Meter. If you are aggressive about the Chain Meter you should get him for he goes and used Merciless Judgment, which will reset the Chain Meter among other things. The only thing you really have to worry about from the boss between the first and second merciless judgments is the hand slapping for small damage and the random orb shooting you. You'll want to keep your HP high enough so that thing won't out right kill, it does about 2000 HP damage.

Either way if you get the Chain Meter before the second Merciless Judgment then switch to Saboteur, Ravager, Saboteur and have Fang and Vanille cast until it has deprotect and deshell at least. I've noticed in Stagger debuffs have a higher chance of success, having more Saboteur in your Paradigm also improves because they help each other. Once you have those two debuff switch out to Ravager, Ravager, Commando until the stagger is up around 800-900%. Then switch to Ravager, Commando, Commando. You can do it earlier, but more than like Fang isn't strong enough to get capped out until you start hitting the 900s.

Do note that the boss always uses Merciless Judgment once it recovers from Stagger so be prepared and switch back to Medic after the stagger is over or almost over.

Now the boss works in cycles. The first round is pretty easy because you're just dealing with the hand slap and random orb shooting. The second round the boss lands you in with a lot of status ailments. It is important that you have Mallets and Foul Liquids on hand for you at this point. They are cheap so just buy like 30 each. Mallets remove the magic off and Foul Liquid removes the sleep like effect. If anyone gets the magic off use a mallet, it is more important than the sleep.

The reason you fully buffed is because of the status ailments that the end will throw at you. The buffs you have can sometimes cancel or prevent the debuffs he will throw at you. They will sometimes just cancel each other out, which is far better than taking it. If you do take anyone make sure that you remove the deprotect and deshell at the very least. The best way to do this is just pull out your Synergist and Sazh will override them all with his new buffs. It will be a battle of buffs and debuffs and it is quite likely you won't get time to get the stagger meter up, but if you always keep a Ravager in play when you're not healing you should be able to get him back into Stagger. The important thing will be to go for Stagger as quickly as possible on this form so that it will change back to the first round, which it cycles to after the next Merciless Judgment. If you get poison remove it with an antidote from everyone immediately. If you have poison on you when a Merciless Judgment goes off you will die.

When the enemy's HP reaches a certain point it will automatically do a Merciless Judgment, usually this happens during your staggered effect. So if it happens during then you know you've made it past the worst part. Now always make sure your HP near to the green and keep up the same pressure. The status ailment attack will all stop. So all you have to worry about it AoE spells and Death. Keep things going and you should be able to kill him.

[Che]

I used a MED/MED/SEN setup to switch to when I saw Merciless Attack coming. Make sure to shift when you see the words come up on the screen, before he actually does it. You'll get your double curas from each medic off faster.

As far as the debuffs he puts on you, I switched to MED/MED/SEN for this as well for instant esunas. I only had 2 TP on this fight because I summoned on the first one. My characters all had ~5k ish HP even with HP rings on so it was hard for me to try and build more TP. Thankfully, I never had to use the TP in my winning fight.

If you use potions in this setup, it's like triple effect because MED's increase the healing effects of your party, and having two it's pretty ridic. I think potions were healing for 900 in this setup?

Rav/Rav/Rav is good for staggering quickly as well. Then switch to a COM/COM/RAV for insane damage.

Try to keep haste up as well, I didn't really worry about other buffs when he started to debuff me except I thought haste was important enough to use.

[FFTheBest]

I found this final boss pretty easy. When it says: "Consumnate Light/Dark", switch to Combat Clinic and heal up just before and after Merciless Judgement.

[Yang's bald head]

5 times in a row he has casted death on my main character! Give me a break. Having trouble debuffing him to. Using a party of Fang, Van and Light which has served me well so far.

[Ralz]

Hurray, others are sharing my agony as well!

I just got lucky one time, and he didn't use any debuffs. But let me tell you, about 99% of the previous runs were status-inflicted nightmares. Pain and Fog are bad, Poison is REALLY bad, Slow and Daze are all manageable evils, though. As long as someone can toss items... Makes me REALLY wish there was a Remedy in this game... Or Esunaga, but oh well...

Anyway, beyond the statuses, the first phase isn't all that bad. However, his hinder move (where he reduces you to almost no HP) can be really frustrating. And did I mention if you have Poison on when that happens, you're basically dead? Well, its true. o_O

It's always good to have a Medic on hand. In fact, a useful strategy is on Medic, and two attacking roles. Either Ravager and Commando, Commando and Commando, or Ravager and Ravager. You could also try Saboteur while you're healing, and you could try applying the four most important statuses: DeProtect, DeShell, Imperil, and Slow... but the thing just won't take them easily. But try to get Slow, at least.

You don't always have to use Medics, only when your HP is below half. Until then, you can go all out. Try to Stagger him, and attack quickly and relentlessly. Its usually after this first damaging phase, it starts bombarding you with statuses. And if you're either lucky, and never see them, or manage to survive through them, its the final stage. I believe he stops using statuses, and just attacks a lot more. I think he uses Death more, too. There's a shop just before the final battle, so stock on Death-resisting equipment. Forget the others, your main controlled character CANNOT be cheaped.

All I can really wish you is good luck. It really is luck-based whether he does the statuses or not. I never encountered Death either, that or it didn't work, and I managed to beat him down sure enough.

The second phase is cake, you hardly even have to try...

[Yang's bald head]

You never encountered Death?? It's the only way I have died! Going to give it another attempt very soon, having a bit of a break. Have to finish this by tonight. The ending better be worth it.

[Yang's bald head]

wow 2 mins in and death on my main...

*edit*

4 more attempts, 3 deaths due to the death attack on my main. I am actualy getting him to low hp nearly every attack, if I get a poison and slow on him then I am set. It's just the bloody death attack.

*edit MkII*

Finally beat it. I staggerd him once, the main damage done was poison. I am actualy sad the game is now over. What a bloody intence game, tired me out.

[Ralz]

You never encountered Death?? It's the only way I have died! Going to give it another attempt very soon, having a bit of a break. Have to finish this by tonight. The ending better be worth it.

For that one attempt, though. Every other time was either statuses or Death. I hate this phase! D8<

[Nhan-Fiction]

Can't you poison the second form?

Anyway, the main thing about the second boss for me was to heal up after every Merciless Judgment. Also, be sure to start healing your party to full as the second form is about to come out of Stagger, as it counterattacks with Merciless Judgment.

Also, the thing that was hard about this boss was the status ailments, so I had to swallow my pride to use Hope for his Veil spell to keep my party protected from the nasty AoE move that inflicts random ailments, or you could just equip items to protect against these.

Like every boss in the game, just keep your HP high after Merciless Judgment, unleash your fury until the boss staggers, get your hits in, heal up before its Stagger is almost up, heal up after the Merciless Judgment. Rinse and repeat.

[Kaiden]

use Hope for his Veil spell to keep my party protected from the nasty AoE move that inflicts random ailment

Makes this fight a joke!! I always used Hope on Boss fights since its easy to tell when big attacks are comming, never had trouble keeping him alive.

[GranFran]

Help here please! I've been trying to beat Orphan all morning to no avail.. I've been hit with the death spell 4 times (I do have the Cherub Crown on all 3 characters and it's maxed out).. Twice I simply couldn't switch over fast enough to Combat Clinic before he hit with Merciless Judgment.. In each try I've only been able to stagger him twice, but he always gets me before I can do it a third time.. If this is how hard he is to be in his first form, I can't imagine how difficult it will be in his second..

Anyway, someone said I should use poison on his, that it will really help, so the last time I tried this morning I went in to Even Odds and watched as Fang threw out Deprotect/Deshell and Imperil on him, but as I'm waiting for her to throw poison and some of the many other sab options, I see, to my surprise, she doesn't do it.. She simply starts re-using deprotect, deshell and Imperil again.. I'm watching carefully while I'm desperately feeling the clock tick down, but she never throws any of her other arsenal of goodies at him at all.. Is this suppose to happen? Has it happened to anyone else?

And, if there are any other suggestions on how to beat this monster, I'd apprecaite them.. Any help at all!

BTW, I'm using Lightning, Hope and Fang.. Hope has died on me several times but I was able to use Raise before Light bought the farm too..

[Ralz]

Help here please! I've been trying to beat Orphan all morning to no avail.. I've been hit with the death spell 4 times (I do have the Cherub Crown on all 3 characters and it's maxed out).. Twice I simply couldn't switch over fast enough to Combat Clinic before he hit with Merciless Judgment.. In each try I've only been able to stagger him twice, but he always gets me before I can do it a third time.. If this is how hard he is to be in his first form, I can't imagine how difficult it will be in his second..

Anyway, someone said I should use poison on him, that it will really help, so the last time I tried this morning I went in to Even Odds and watched as Fang threw out Deprotect/Deshell and Imperil on him, but as I'm waiting for her to throw poison and some of the many other sab options, I see, to my surprise, she doesn't do it.. She simply starts re-using deprotect, deshell and Imperil again.. I'm watching carefully while I'm desperately feeling the clock tick down, but she never throws any of her other arsenal of goodies at him at all.. Is this suppose to happen? Has it happened to anyone else?

And, if there are any other suggestions on how to beat this monster, I'd apprecaite them.. Any help at all!

BTW, I'm using Lightning, Hope and Fang.. Hope has died on me several times but I was able to use Raise before Light bought the farm too..

If you get past this battle, you've basically won as the second form is a cake-walk. No seriously.

In general, status debuffs won't work out too well with this one. The only ones you really need are Slow, Deprotect, Deshell, and Imperil.

I assume you haven't even seen what he can do with status debuffs. I can tell you that Death is bad, but what he can do with debuffs can be even worse. Not to say its impossible to win. You want an assault-like strategy. Its the only way you'll win with Death just around the corner.

If that's the team you're using, and assuming its in the order of Lightning, Fang and Hope, go with one Diveristy (Rav, Com, Med), one Combat Clinic (Med, Sen, Med), one Tri-disaster (Rav, Rav, Rav), one Cerberus (Com, Com, Com), one Rapid Growth (Syn, Syn, Syn), and possibly one Infiltration (Sab, Sab, Sab.) This is what I used, but you can change some things around to suit your style better.

You have to apply things like Haste for yourself and Slow for Orphan, in a timely manner. His Merciless Judgment is annoying, but you can switch to Combat Clinic during the animation, and you can start healing. Your HP will be among the most important stats to watch in this fight. Death isn't the only thing that can kill you.

Once he has the four aformentioned debuffs, you can begin attacking. You can use Diversity to begin the combo with a chain by the Commando and Ravager. Once its begun, and your HP is sufficient, switch to Tri-disaster, and unload, basically. You want to not only stagger him, but get as close to 999% as you can. Use Army of One if you're maining Lightning for boosted Stagger percentage, and if you're using Fang, wait until the stagger meter is about to end, and use Highwing to deal huge damage.

Once its staggered, and its percentage is high, switch to Cerberus and you can deal crazy damage. Once it ends, prepare to reapply all the necessary statuses. If he's at half HP or so, this is usually where he'll start with the status ailments. Its not so bad if you use Combat Clinic often. But, really, the items you can buy beforehand work well, too. Most of your buffs will probably get taken out, so re-apply them. You do not want to get stuck with Slow.

Then, basically just repeat the same attacking method, and you should be able to win. When Orphan is staggered, it tends not to attack as much. And if you can't kill him by the second round, he must be close, so just keep surviving, and hoping Death misses, and you should be able to get him by the third time.

Having a completed Crystarium as best as you can is also a good idea. That, or a different set-up or team mates.

Of course, this is just a suggesstion. I've been through the hell of this boss, myself, but eventually, you just luck out, it seems. There will be times he'll always miss with Death, and he'll never use statuses. All in all, annoyingly difficult boss, but appropriate. Like I said before, take him down, and you've essentially won. Wait till you see how "difficult" the second part is. >_>

[Andromeda]

There is already a lot of advice in this thread. Anyone at this point is just going to be repeating themselves unless you have a very specific question. My advice and strategy on how to win is the fourth post from the top. It shouldn't be too hard to miss and it is pretty detailed and specific.

[GranFran]

If you get past this battle, you've basically won as the second form is a cake-walk. No seriously.

In general, status debuffs won't work out too well with this one. The only ones you really need are Slow, Deprotect, Deshell, and Imperil.

I assume you haven't even seen what he can do with status debuffs. I can tell you that Death is bad, but what he can do with debuffs can be even worse. Not to say its impossible to win. You want an assault-like strategy. Its the only way you'll win with Death just around the corner.

If that's the team you're using, and assuming its in the order of Lightning, Fang and Hope, go with one Diveristy (Rav, Com, Med), one Combat Clinic (Med, Sen, Med), one Tri-disaster (Rav, Rav, Rav), one Cerberus (Com, Com, Com), one Rapid Growth (Syn, Syn, Syn), and possibly one Infiltration (Sab, Sab, Sab.) This is what I used, but you can change some things around to suit your style better.

You have to apply things like Haste for yourself and Slow for Orphan, in a timely manner. His Merciless Judgment is annoying, but you can switch to Combat Clinic during the animation, and you can start healing. Your HP will be among the most important stats to watch in this fight. Death isn't the only thing that can kill you.

Once he has the four aformentioned debuffs, you can begin attacking. You can use Diversity to begin the combo with a chain by the Commando and Ravager. Once its begun, and your HP is sufficient, switch to Tri-disaster, and unload, basically. You want to not only stagger him, but get as close to 999% as you can. Use Army of One if you're maining Lightning for boosted Stagger percentage, and if you're using Fang, wait until the stagger meter is about to end, and use Highwing to deal huge damage.

Once its staggered, and its percentage is high, switch to Cerberus and you can deal crazy damage. Once it ends, prepare to reapply all the necessary statuses. If he's at half HP or so, this is usually where he'll start with the status ailments. Its not so bad if you use Combat Clinic often. But, really, the items you can buy beforehand work well, too. Most of your buffs will probably get taken out, so re-apply them. You do not want to get stuck with Slow.

Then, basically just repeat the same attacking method, and you should be able to win. When Orphan is staggered, it tends not to attack as much. And if you can't kill him by the second round, he must be close, so just keep surviving, and hoping Death misses, and you should be able to get him by the third time.

Having a completed Crystarium as best as you can is also a good idea. That, or a different set-up or team mates.

Of course, this is just a suggesstion. I've been through the hell of this boss, myself, but eventually, you just luck out, it seems. There will be times he'll always miss with Death, and he'll never use statuses. All in all, annoyingly difficult boss, but appropriate. Like I said before, take him down, and you've essentially won. Wait till you see how "difficult" the second part is. >_>

Thanks hon, I think your right and I haven't been aggressive enough.. It seems as soon as I do start using relentless assault he starts blasting me with that Wrath hit and knocking one character, usually Hope, to 1/2 HP and then I have to switch over to Combat Clinic, then by the time I get thru with that, he's hitting me with something else that knocks the whole group down, like Dies Erie (or however it's spelled) so it's back to healing and buffing.. I just never seem able to get out of heal mode to do any real damage.. I wish he were slower (even when I get Fang to cast Slow he's still very fast)..

All six of my characters are at the top of their tiers.. I did a lot of grinding on Pulse to make sure of that.. However, I have not tried Army of One with Lightning nor the Highwind with Fang.. Lightning is my leader.. Don't you need Fang to use as Sentinel with Orphan? I find Fang using Sentinel as a leader is unwieldy and awkward..

I haven't even heard of most of the Paradigms so am going to try them.. I went back to my saved game before I went in and found Orphan, so I'll set them up and get used to them..

Thanks again, hon..

There is already a lot of advice in this thread. Anyone at this point is just going to be repeating themselves unless you have a very specific question. My advice and strategy on how to win is the fourth post from the top. It shouldn't be too hard to miss and it is pretty detailed and specific.

I read the advice, ALL of it.. It didn't help me any.. I still died.. I'll try Ralz's tips on using more aggressive paradigms and see it they help.. You have to realize you are young and have quick dexterity, something I don't have any longer, so I tend to need a little more help.. Be patient and quit nagging about people asking for more help.. Thanks

[Unknown Entity]

5 times in a row he has casted death on my main character! Give me a break. Having trouble debuffing him to. Using a party of Fang, Van and Light which has served me well so far.

He does that. There's never a time you enter the battle with the second form and he doesn't cast Death.

I used Lightening, Hope and Fang, and set the starting Paradigm as RAV/SYN/SAB respectively. The second Hope had given everyone Haste, I switched to RAV/RAV/COM to stagger him. Of course, Orphan then removes Haste from two of the characters, so I switched back to get Haste again. He didn't seem to take it off after that.

The second he was staggered, I used Lightening's "Army of One" ability to get the stagger percentage up as high as it would go. Only used it once - again, and I wouldn't have enough stagger time to kill him in. After using Army of One, I switched to COM/RAV/COM, and just went for it.

I five-starred the final, FINAL battle on my second attempt. It helps when you've finished the Crystarium for all of them though.

[Cloud1793]

It isn't too hard to beat Orphan really. I hadn't maxed out the crystarium or upgraded any weapons, or even equipped any accessories! All you have to do is poison him straight away with Vanille and then focus on healing. As soon as the poison wears off keep casting it until it sticks again. The battle will be over in a matter of minutes! Summon if absolutely neccessary to stay alive but the only real worry is merciless judgement and his instant death attack, and with the poison technique he will go down before he gets many chances to use them.