HELP! Boss Barthandelus

[Lady_Alma]

So I've even got the walkthrough for this game, mind you its not helping to much. Stayed up all last night trying to beat this one boss, pain in the butt he is.

Anyway I've just got all my six characters and can switch battle teams! (yay!), but following the instructions of the book I kept my team as:
Fang, Lightning and Hope.
Now I've nearly copmleted all the possible crystarium abilites and such for each character. Lets say there is a max of 10 HP,MP or other things in the crystarium not completed.

Beating the armour is easy! Do that in a few minutes the problem is the main tank, I can survive his nasty attack Destrudo or whatever it is. Now I thought being smart I could just not stagger him and he would never do that attack on me, HA I was wrong after a while he just does it.

So I've managed to survive these nasty attacks then he puts DOOM on me, and i'm stuffed.....lol I've tried for a good few hours and wondering if anyone has got any good techniques they used to beat him?
Cheers

[Rocky]

Chapter 9, right?

If you're going with the Lightning/Fang/Hope combo, use these paradigms.

Relentless Assault - Rav/Com/Rav
Combat Clinic - Med/Sen/Med
Hero's Charge - Med/Com/Syn
Evened Odds - Med/Sab/Syn
Bully - Com/Sab/Syn
Aggression - Com/Com/Rav

I doubt you have a problem with the first part of the battle, just always start off with Hero's Charge until Hope gets the buffs on for everyone, then switch it over to relentless assault. Also while you're doing this, use a librascope right at the beginning so you can have your characters auto hit the weaknesses. Once the barrier is down, use bully to debuff Barthandelus. Once you hit him with debuffs, switch it up to Relentless Assault and hit him hard/fast. If you are able to stagger him, it can sometimes cancel out his destrudo if he's charging for it, so keep that in mind. Once you stagger him, get the %age up a bit with RA, then switch to Aggression to do BIG damage and knock that health bar down a bit. It will probably take 2-3 staggers but that's the easiest way to take him down.

If you get hit bad with any attacks, switch to combat clinic asap and try to heal it out. IMPORTANT TIP: If any characters get KOed, don't even switch to CC, just use a summon (granted that you have enough TP). If you can, this will auto fully heal and bring everyone back to life, plus it will let you chip away at Barthandelus. Don't worry about doom though, you should have plenty of time to kill him regardless of the doom. Just keep playing aggressive and you will be able to win. Good luck!

[Alpha]

Actually it was the doom that got me when I faced this boss. Once he hits you with it, stop being cautious. Go all out, because you're going to die if you don't, so you have nothing to lose.

Otherwise, Rocky's strategy is what I did, although I think I had a Sen-Syn-??? combo in there to keep buffs going, but they may have contributed to the slow pace I was taking the battle.

[Lady_Alma]

Hye thanks, I'll jump on later tonight and see if your suggestions help. Thank you

[Rocky]

Hye thanks, I'll jump on later tonight and see if your suggestions help. Thank you

Not a problem, keep us posted and let me know if I was any help. After you breeze through the fight, if you have any other suggestions feel free to post them here as well to help out others too

[Zargabaath]

If you are able to stagger him, it can sometimes cancel out his destrudo if he's charging for it, so keep that in mind.

Actually Rocky when he's charging for Destrudo if you get his Chain Gauge up high enough - like 3/4 - he will "stagger/flinch" which releases the energy that he's been gathering for Destrudo. He'll restart charging, which the player can continue getting that Chain Gauge up for a stagger, but after like 10-15 seconds he will cast a very weakened Destrudo.

[Alisbet]

So, you are having trouble with the Barthandelus. I managed to beat the first battle by using Lighting, Vanille and Sazh with Vanille being Medic the most of the time. I hope that this strategy would be of some help to you.

[MAUTADINE]

Barthandelus is pretty simple.

1- Use a librascope
2-Buff/debuff constantly
3- if you wanna be safe do med/rav/com and switch to rav/rav/com when he's charging destrudo. And use com/com/com when you staggered.


I personnally prefer doing rav/rav/com all the time until i staggered him. And when my hp is getting low i switch to med/med/sab

I used light/sazh/fang.....Dont forget to debuff him all the time, its the key to win this fight.