13C: The Cradle Will Fall Part III

13C: The Cradle Will Fall Part III

The Final Barthandelus Battle

After the fight you teleport out and are back in the old zone.  Run forward and warp out - you will get a brief CS and find yourself in the new area - use the save point ahead.  You may want to hit the shops and re-supply now.  At a minimum grab your shrouds from Eden Pharmaceuticals if you have any gaps...

This is the point of no return - you will be facing the Big Guy - Bart himself!

Run ahead and grab the Ethersol from the Sphere in the hall, and then continue forward to trigger the zone and a CS.  Once you come out on the other side use whatever shrouds you plan to - and then step forward and trigger the CS - you get a nice view and then Bart drops in!

Just beat the crap out of him - you have fought him before - you know what to expect, and this really is a simple fight so do not over-think it.  Stagger him and then pound the crap out of him, rinse and repeat until he is dead.

You will want to be wary of his special attacks - if you are damaged into the yellow the special attack can kill you - and it would suck to put in this much work only to die at the end of the fight, right?

As he dies you get a nice CS of him in throws of agony - a well deserved death if you ask me!  After he sinks below the surface of the water the real final boss mob appears from the water - the Orphan!

-- The Orphan Fight --

First I want to warn you that you can, if you try, make this a very difficult and frustrating fight for yourself.  I am in no way implying that anything I am about to say is true about YOU - but bear with me for a moment...

It is entirely possible that you have gotten through this entire game without really understanding how the buff and debeff system works.  You could easily have muscled your way through the entire adventure that I chronicle here, ignoring it when I said to buff or debuff, and using shrouds alone to add buffs to your party.  If that is the case, I am sorry for you, because this battle is really going to piss you off and cause you massive frustration.  Assuming you continue to use the brute force tactic that is.

It is also possible that you used buffs and debuffs as I instructed, but still do not understand how and why they do what they do - and why they are often key to 5-starring a battle.  If that is the case, well, no worries mate!  You don't have to understand them as long as you USE them!

I say the above because - and this is heartfelt - if you try to use the default decks (Solidarity, Relentless Assault, and Protection) to get through this fight you will not only fail, but you will fail over and over again.  You simply cannot do this battle in the usual stagger and pound fashion - and I will tell you why.

The Orphan has two nasty time-based special attacks, both of which will consistently bring your party to a fraction of HP away from death.  What that means is that you will be constantly healing - and if Solidarity is the only healing option you enter the battle with, you will not be healing well.  Even with Protection and using potions - EVEN if you have the accessory that doubles the effect of potions - you will still spend more time healing than you do fighting.  In short, that tactic will not work for this fight.  It will take a minimum of 35 minutes using the above approach - but do not worry, you will not last more than 22 minutes of that 35 minute estimate...

At 20 minutes or so the Orphan will cast Death - and you will die.  Pretty simple, eh?  If for whatever reason - luck for you, bad luck for him - you will still get hit with a countdown timer that will keep you from surpassing the 35 minute mark, and so you will die.  Have I made it clear here that the usual tactics will not work here?  Excellent!  Now let me tell you what WILL work!

-- Team Configuration --

First you need to change your team to Lightning, Hope, and Fang.  The reason that you want to do this is that those three have just the right combination of Level 4 jobs for this battle.

After you change the team, you need to edit your Paradigm Decks to include the following:

(1) Bully - that is Commando/Synergist/Saboteur
(2) Tri-Disaster - Ravager/Ravager/Raveger
(3) Combat Clinic - Medic/Medic/Sentinel

When the battle starts Orphan will use a special attack that will take your entire party to within a fraction of an inch of their life.  IMMEDIATELY change to Combat Clinic, use a potion, and heal.  As soon as your party is healed up, change to the Bully deck and keep cycling until you see that the Orphan now has 4 red symbols (debuffs) on it.  You do not need to know what they are, you just need to count until there are four.

Now change to Tri-disaster and Stagger him, then change to Relentless Assault and you will take him down to less than 50% HP.  By now some of the debuffs have worn off - change to Bully and re-apply them, then rinse and repeat the above pattern and you will very quickly kill him!

The stats for my battle are:

Target Time: 00:07:49
Initiative Bonus: x1.0
Battle Duration: 00:04:28
Points Per Second: 21
Score: 14,221
Rating: 5-Stars

As you can see the above tactic and setup really does make a major difference!

After you defeat the Orphan the first time - yes, I did say the first time - you will get a lengthy CS in which some more of the plot comes together, and then Vanille or Fang (depending on I do not know what) will be tortured until the one not being tortured agrees to become Ragnarök.  The CS progresses and you are finally thrust into battle again.

First of all - you did not see that coming did you?  I know I did not.  So was it an illusion or what?  I am thinking that is what it was...  I fully expected there to be a second knock-down drag-out fight with Orphan.  You know?  A dirty twice-as-hard as the first fight sort of battle?  A battle worthy of the phrase Battle Royale?

At least we got to see the true face of the Orphan - and kill it!

If you have any trouble with this fight simply use Bully to debuff it, Tri-Disaster to stagger, and then Relentless to kill it.  Voila!  Dead Orphan II!

Your reward for this fight is the expansion of your Crystarium to Stage 10 (the final stage) and a nice CS of the witch dying!  Lovely that!