***Threads on Game Help***

[Che]

Chances are, if you are having trouble with a boss, it's not your crystarium levels, it's your strategy.

Try switching things up. If the boss or monster you are trying to beat hits hard, there's two things you can do about it.

• Heal through it.
• Tank it.

While you could do either route, you want to choose the one that will help you get those 5 stars. You should set up a paradigm that will eat some damage. The more SENs you have, the less damage your party takes. For hard hitting attacks that take away a ton of HP from your party, especially for multiple party members, you might want to consider a SEN/SEN/SEN setup, or as close to that as possible. I know I didn't have that many SENs before I beat the game, as I overlooked their importance.

The idea of a SEN is not to tank the entire fight. It's something to switch to in order to soak up damage, and then immediately switch to something else.

So in our scenario when an enemy is going to hit you with a hard attack, this should be your battle plan:

1. Switch to SEN/SEN/SEN or a variation to soak damage.
2. Switch to MED/MED/??? to heal up if necessary. (SYN or SAB is good here to refresh buffs or debuff the monster while healing)
3. Switch to RAV/RAV/RAV to attempt a stagger on the enemy.
4. Once the enemy is staggered, switch to COM/COM/COM if you have that many, or COM/COM/RAV, or any variation. COMs do the most damage to a staggered target. Remember to keep your weapons upgraded for maximum effect.

You have to try out strategies. Try every single role. Use libra to attempt finding weaknesses, or a librascope to save TP and do the same thing. This will make your characters buff and debuff the correct spells, and cast the correct spells the enemy is weak to, and add en-spells for added damage on enemies with elemental weaknesses.

Make sure to switch paradigms often. If you switch on the last animation of the last ATB segment of a turn, you will instantly switch and your ATB gauge will be instantly full.

Also: Buffs and debuffs are very important in this game. Do not overlook them when trying to defeat an enemy, especially a boss. Haste is almost crucial for every fight in the game. Just buffing haste at the start of a random battle can make it go faster. (Unless you are so geared and fighting such a low level mob that you kill them in one ATB turn.)

Sometimes buffs and debuffs are the key to winning fights.