[Chapter 10] - Fifth Ark

[Kitmitsu]

Please contribute below.

[Agent Dunham]

Fifth Ark: Filled with strong, bitchslapping robots with a fondness for targeting Lightning, forced party leader. I can only suggest avoidance. They're really the only problems, everything else is pretty simple. One part, you'll see for giant machines that look a bit like enemies. Two of them are, and as the scene ends, they'll come to life. Personally, didn't fight them. It's easy to run by them if you choose not to, but don't expect to pick up the treasure.

[Kissell]

Fifth Ark: Filled with strong, bitchslapping robots with a fondness for targeting Lightning, forced party leader. I can only suggest avoidance. They're really the only problems, everything else is pretty simple. One part, you'll see for giant machines that look a bit like enemies. Two of them are, and as the scene ends, they'll come to life. Personally, didn't fight them. It's easy to run by them if you choose not to, but don't expect to pick up the treasure.

I didn't find the robots to be much of a problem... I'm using Snow, Lightning, and Sazzu, as attacker, blaster, and enhancer... Sazzu has lots of useful enhancements like haste, so you can hit the breaks pretty early and once you get the breaks its all over. Great place to grind out some CP, but I'm pretty tired of doing that before the brunhilde battle, so I'm just going to move on and advance the story and beat the game and check it off my list for 2009.

[Kissell]

BTW: Lightning is no longer a forced party leader on this chapter... you can switch her off if you like. You had no choice but to use her as the leader to fight the fallacy boss before arriving at the ark... but now you can change the party leader.

[Kissell]

Bahamut just kicked my butt.... time to take a cigarette break and think about what I could have done better... basically, it forced my party to change, Fang is the leader now, and I have lightning and hope, and the optima levels aren't adjustable, it throws you straight into the battle with the presets of the new members... then I cast Libra and then I died about 10 seconds later... that was evidentally the wrong move this time.

[Rei-]

Just die and retry, then you can set your optimas. There's only 2 optimas you need, ATK/BLA/DEF and HEA/HEA/DEF, stay in HEA/HEA/DEF most of the time and swap to the other for some damage whenever you feel its safe to, then swap back immediately.

[Kissell]

Yeah, after I restarted I changed characters to what they would be then set the optimas... actually, I used a very different strategy... I started as Fang, Lightning, and Vanilla, and I had them on Jammer, Healer, and Healer roles... I had Fang do some jamming against Bahamut, like slow is a really good one... and I noticed that the drive meter went up considerably when casting slow on him, so I just left them in those roles... Fang cast jams, and the other two just healed the party, and it was done in no time... easiest Summons battle so far... I got five stars.

[des]

^what he said. JAM/HLR/HLR and this battle is a joke!

[Agent Dunham]

King of Dragons Bahamut taken down so easily? Oh, Square Enix, what did you do. :aldo:

OH GOD FUCKING CID. How did others do it, all my plans seem to be taking for fucking ever or just flat out not working.

[shadowrep]

King of Dragons Bahamut taken down so easily? Oh, Square Enix, what did you do. :aldo:

OH GOD FUCKING CID. How did others do it, all my plans seem to be taking for fucking ever or just flat out not working.

Same here @_@

EDIT: I actually beat him, after this post LOL! I had sazh, Light and fang
Enhancer/ Heal / Defend
For a start so Haste etc. can be casted easily after that I had sazh, Light and fang
Blaster/ Blaster/ Heal
Until Break happened then Had 3 attackers and boom dead!

[realartist90]

UGHHH... Cid always does me in with that move where he throws me into the air, hitting me consecutively (after sprouting wings)...:(

Any suggestions? :(...please

[shadowrep]

UGHHH... Cid always does me in with that move where he throws me into the air, hitting me consecutively (after sprouting wings)...:(

Any suggestions? :(...please

Change Quickly into a healer optima set? That will work for sure!

[realartist90]

Thank you Shadowrep!

Happy holidays :)

[Chrystolis]

King of Dragons Bahamut taken down so easily? Oh, Square Enix, what did you do. :aldo:

OH GOD FUCKING CID. How did others do it, all my plans seem to be taking for fucking ever or just flat out not working.

Just did the fight a couple hours ago. I used Lightning, Hope, and Vanille. Optima setup was roughly like this:

Lightning | Hope | Vanille
1) ATK | BLA | BLA
2) BLA | BLA | BLA
3) ATK | BLA | HLR
4) ATK | HLR | HLR
5) ATK | ENH | HLR
6) ATK | ENH | JAM

I swap between #1 and #2 for when my health is stable and I want to maximize break gauge boosting. If I'm taking light damage, I swap to #3 as needed. I typically made sure I always had protect and shell on everyone.

When he goes into winged form and shields himself (the charging before his big aoe blast), just make sure everyone's full health, then swap to a gauge boosting optima and go nuts. As soon as he leaps into the air to do that move, I swap to #4. This gets me back on my feet in a matter of seconds after the damage hits.

You'll notice that he'll hit himself with 4 buffs after this, and will clear all your buffs. Swapping to #6 for a bit when possible will allow Vanille to cancel out his buffs with her JAM debuffs, and Hope will get your own buffs back in order. Other than that, whenever he was winged and NOT shielding himself, I typically had someone healing...that chain combo he does to one character is MEAN. Other than recovering from the big aoe blast, and that combo, he's pretty uneventful though D:

You could mix in a summon for some extra damage, though I didn't end up bothering :x

[Agent Dunham]

I can do nothing but heartily recommend Chrystolis' strategy. It required getting over my bias, but I did. There was not a second using that method that I felt worried about facing a game over screen.

You fucking pro. <3

[otaku]

Bahamut really was kind of a joke. I needed a second attempt because the Optimas given at start were not perfect. All I needed was:

JAM/HEA/HEA (default)
DEF/HEA/HEA

You don't even need to hit him, his drive gauge fills up pretty quick by itself. Just DEF/HEA/HEA didn't work out for me though, but with a mix of both these optimas he was finished very fast, 5 stars.

Chapter 11 now. :)

[x4ryuusei]

BOSS: Cid Raines

I surprisingly one-shotted Cid. The team I used was Snow / Lightning / Vanille (why is everyone surprised I use Snow!?).

OPTIMA SET (In the order of Snow / Lightning / Vanille)


#1) BLASTER / ATTACKER / JAMMER
#2) ATTACKER / ATTACKER / BLASTER
#3) ATTACKER / ATTACKER / HEALER
#4) BLASTER / BLASTER / BLASTER
#5) ENHANCER / HEALER / JAMMER
#6) DEFENDER / HEALER / HEALER

To be honest, the battle was surprisingly straightforward. Start with one round of Optima #1 & then switch to #4. Attempt to break him. Eventually he'll cover himself with his wings, keep pounding until he starts to do his AoE attack (he'll fly up). I don't know how the party took almost no damage from this (probably only 300 tops?) but switching to Optima #6 made it a cinch (especially since I'm maining Snow, I definitely won't die).

Now for the amazingly cool looking air combo he does on you, all I did was switch to #6 for that again. Once he's in break, do one round of Optima #1 to increase the Break State % & debuff him. Switch to Optima #2 or #3 depending on the situation and you'll definitely have him.

Eventually when he was kind of close to 1/4 HP, I got him into a Break State, summoned Shiva, and won it from there.

--------

BOSS: Bahamut

This fight was a joke... they didn't even make you attempt how to figure out how to beat him lol. Even with the default set of Optimas you get it's simple. I believe it's JAMMER / ATTACKER / HEALER that they get you stuck with? Just spam Slow, the end.

Honestly you don't even need two HEALERs. I got a 5-star with the imperfect Optimas.

--------

A question I'd like to ask is how developed were your guys characters at this point? Every time people watch my stream they say I'm underdeveloped (which makes me feel sad, but good at the same time). Supposedly Japanese players had around 5k HP when they hit Cid (double u tee eff?). I don't know how the hell they do this besides a lot of grinding but I only had 1.8k HP.

Something feels terribly wrong.

[Agent Dunham]

5000? D: What are those wacky nips doing? I'm on Pulse and I have between 2300-2600 on my main three.

(why is everyone surprised I use Snow!?).


Because his fanbase is less than miniscule.

[des]

Honestly you don't even need two HEALERs. I got a 5-star with the imperfect Optimas.

--------

A question I'd like to ask is how developed were your guys characters at this point? Every time people watch my stream they say I'm underdeveloped (which makes me feel sad, but good at the same time). Supposedly Japanese players had around 5k HP when they hit Cid (double u tee eff?). I don't know how the hell they do this besides a lot of grinding but I only had 1.8k HP.

Something feels terribly wrong.

You always get 5 stars for summon battles, as long as you win!

As for HP, you cant have 5k by normal means at that point, I guess the only way to even come near 5k would be all slots with HP+ accs and those being upgraded very high, but even then 5k hardly reachable.

[x4ryuusei]

Well you gotta remember Role Advancement is available :P. Maybe they're just that... insane. But yeah, I agree, it seems almost impossible to reach that high before Cid. But then again, Japanese. *Sighs*

[otaku]

A question I'd like to ask is how developed were your guys characters at this point? Every time people watch my stream they say I'm underdeveloped (which makes me feel sad, but good at the same time). Supposedly Japanese players had around 5k HP when they hit Cid (double u tee eff?). I don't know how the hell they do this besides a lot of grinding but I only had 1.8k HP.

I also had below 2k in chapter 10, I think it's pretty normal. I still beat Sid in the first attempt, though it took me a while and I think I only got 2-3 stars.

[ebenonce]

I cannot no matter what I change destroy Cid Raines, I don't "die", but I get auto-deathed, I hate that about gthis game, it kinda ruins things in my opinion.

[Final Twilight]

Some of the things in this boss with Cid sort of piss me off. I don't know how you can honestly take some 300 damage to your characters because mine take a shit load of damage while having your guard boosted. Then he takes all of your enhancements away...ugh!

[RyougaSaotome]

Cid honestly didn't give me any trouble at all. I just made sure to shift to heal/defense/heal everytime he was was preparing a big attack. Made it very fast to recover.

Also, my party had below 2K when I fought him.

[LoveToResearch]

Hey Guys!

I am having trouble trying to defeat Cid. He is a (nearly) impossible boss to beat. Once I had him at his 1/4 health bar and he started to cast death spell upon me (I mean the count down timer). Then he kept casting supportive spells upon himself and that is where my "impossible" thoughts entered. I had Lightning/Vanille/Sazh or Lightning/Vanille/Fang.

Those are the formula(s) that I used frequently:

ATK/JMR/ENH
ATK/BLA/BLA
ATK/HLR/BLA
HLR/HLR/ATK or HLR/HLR/BLA

So, is the defender not necessary role for this battle, right?

[Chrystolis]

Hey Guys!

I am having trouble trying to defeat Cid. He is a (nearly) impossible boss to beat. Once I had him at his 1/4 health bar and he started to cast death spell upon me (I mean the count down timer). Then he kept casting supportive spells upon himself and that is where my "impossible" thoughts entered. I had Lightning/Vanille/Sazh or Lightning/Vanille/Fang.

Those are the formula(s) that I used frequently:

ATK/JMR/ENH
ATK/BLA/BLA
ATK/HLR/BLA
HLR/HLR/ATK or HLR/HLR/BLA

So, is the defender not necessary role for this battle, right?

*shrug* I didn't use Defender for it. It depends on how your characters are developed and your playstyle I'd figure.

[dobby]

Ever since Sazh had the magic of Haste, I've been abusing that bad boy on all bosses or long fights coming up. Him having the atk/mag up was a total boon too.

I had a team of Lightning, Fang, and Sazh (With Sazh as the leader for ease of buffing). I started as Bla/atk/enh -- While Sazh popped haste and atk/mag up, the others were starting to build the break gauge.

When HP was low, I popped a Hlr/Def/Hlr optima (I popped a bit of CP on Sazh to learn Cure). Cid got to about half or so HP once break went through. But before that, he grew those wings and started the emo defend/debuffer combo. Once debuff came along, I changed to a Bla/Atk/Enh, just to add a quick haste, then continued with the break (Keep in mind, healing as needed). It got a little hectic at one point, and I settled for casting a Curaga (2 TP) just so I can get the break quicker.

Once break came in, I did a quick Phys buff on Lightning and Fang, Quick Haste on Sazh, and then timed attacks to make sure Cid stays in the air. The break gauge ended with about 12000 or so HP on Cid, so it was gravy after that.

I didn't really care about Cid having his own buffs, I was more interested in breaking him than debuffing him (though, his first case of buffs happened when it was at about 75% filled on the break gauge)

Took 4 minutes? i think it was four minutes, I got five stars though. The folks had less than 2k HP, so they weren't buff-buff. Weirdly... I didnt get that death thing casted on me

[Yuna00]

Death Sentence only appears when you take too long to beat a boss (don't know about common enemies).

I used Lightning/Vanille/Fang, everyone below 2000 HP, and it was pretty easy.

I mainly debuffed him all the way, HEAL/JAM/JAM, then attack with ATK/BLA/DEF.
I didn't get 5 starts, but he was never a problem.

[Phenie]

A question I'd like to ask is how developed were your guys characters at this point? Every time people watch my stream they say I'm underdeveloped (which makes me feel sad, but good at the same time). Supposedly Japanese players had around 5k HP when they hit Cid (double u tee eff?). I don't know how the hell they do this besides a lot of grinding but I only had 1.8k HP.

Something feels terribly wrong.

My highest HP at Cid was Fang with about 1600, I also had Lightning at around 1400 and Hope at about 1100.... if you are underdeveloped what am I? :/

Some Cid tips:



Cid is weak against slow, it slows him more than normal; use it lots - it also cancels his haste.
Cid changes optimas just like the party, if you watch what he does, its easy to stay alive.
When he starts guarding I would switch to Attacker/Enhancer/Jammer - this allows you to slow him, buff yourself and keep the chain on him.
As he opens his wings he very usually does a powerful attack as he switches; you should go defender/anything/healer - this will take most of the blow away.
An Odin at the end just as he reaches about 270% chain works very well, its enough to just break him before drive mode. Delay the drive mode as much as possible if he is guarding!

Storyline summary regarding Cid:
Cid is a l'Cie. He feels his whole life he has been led around by the fal'Cie and finally feels that he wants to stand up and do something of his own will. He knows that the old man fal'Cie guy wants Cocoon destroyed and hence decides he will stop you, finally ending the fact that he was always a puppet to the fal'Cie. If Orphan is destroyed it will destroy Sanctum which will bring back the god that created humans and the fal'Cie, what this will cause is unknown - it could be a savior or a destroyer. The reason he helped you in the start was all part of the orders of the fal'Cie, which of course shows us that this was part of their plan all along.

[finalmattasy]

anybody have any news on that room to the left of the dancing dudes fighting the behemoth? One of those giant red horse robots shows up in that room and when you beat him there's a quick scene showing two doors opening... I'm wondering where those two doors are and if there's a secret item/boss somewhere involving this.

[kkaho]

damn those dancing birds were the real pain for me in this chapter. they kept jamming me (im not sure what but my atb bar is frozen) and i catn attack nor heal and keep dying. btw anyone happen to know how i can change my party members?

[Zeta_Stryker]

Is this also the stage where you face these "police slimes" where if one of your members were to attack one, the other would come in and cure their teammate?

[Limality]

So I've been trying to beat Cid for like 1.5 hours now using the suggested Optimas in this thread, and believe me, I only got as far as half of his life and wasn't even near breaking him...so there I was trying to think of some good way with combinations of JMR, HLR, ENH etc etc but none worked. None of the setups broke Cid early enough, he always turned into his winged form, which is a royal pain in the a$$...so finally I got fed up and did following:

Light/Snow/Hope:


ATK/BLA/BLA
BLA/BLA/BLA
HLA/DEF/HLA

How to play:



Start with a couple of rounds of Optima 1.
Switch to Optima 2 and get that Break Gauge up and Rising.
If you get hit, Switch to Optima 3.
After healing switch back to either Optima 1 or 2. Personally, I stayed with Optima 2 and switched to Optima 1 as soon as I broke him, juggling Cid in the air with Light and having the other two increase break gauge further.
You should be able to beat him very fast, and get 5 stars for a rating ^_^

This setup really worked like a charm and I had the guy done in 3 min. 1 sec.. Light and Hope had about 1100+ HP, Snow had 1900. All Roles at level three (didn't do any of the role advancement). I never grinded up to now, I just battled everything, in each and every chapter XD so I guess I'm a bit under-levled?

If anybody uses this setup, tell me how it worked for you. :)

Is this also the stage where you face these "police slimes" where if one of your members were to attack one, the other would come in and cure their teammate?

Yes, there are some of those around. But you also encounter those ambulance slimes in earlier chapters.

[Limality]

^what he said. JAM/HLR/HLR and this battle is a joke!

that SOB Bahamut killed me the first five times with that set up XD

[only1skingle]

i know i'm gonna get laughed at for asking, but how/where do u go to change you're party members???

[Zeta_Stryker]

Menu screen. Highlight a character of your choice, then press ‹ or ›.

During gameplay. You'll see something like; "Battle Member Change".

[only1skingle]

this will make me look even more stupid, but how do you highlight?

[Zeta_Stryker]

For thos getting frustrated, simply change your strategy. Do some weapon reformation etc... Knock down some enemies, get som stat upgrades.

[Limality]

this will make me look even more stupid, but how do you highlight?

Press triangle to get to the menu, then enter the first menu item (that's the menu where you can change your optimas and also party members), now once you're in that menu, select the last menu item and you can switch your party members around. :D

[Vicxlee]

Wtfffffffffffffffff Bahumat just owns me everytime in about one hit.

...okay finally got him down was popping phoenix downs like jellybeans keeping my healers up to keep me up....

[hikari no ōji]

Hello everybody, I'm new here and I was trying to figure out how to beat Cid Raines. I seen the setup which was described earlier by using Snow, Lightning, and Vanille; but I couldn't get Cid's hp under half. It just stayed there like I wasn't hitting him with anything, 9 different attempts with 9 different setups and nothing worked. Does anybody have any other strategy that I could use. Help would be greatly appreciated.

[takumi1983]

Hello everybody, I'm new here and I was trying to figure out how to beat Cid Raines. I seen the setup which was described earlier by using Snow, Lightning, and Vanille; but I couldn't get Cid's hp under half. It just stayed there like I wasn't hitting him with anything, 9 different attempts with 9 different setups and nothing worked. Does anybody have any other strategy that I could use. Help would be greatly appreciated.


are ur main roles maxed? i personally would advice u to use lightning, fang and hope
because they have the most p.attack and m.attack at tis point of time.

optima used will be BLA/ATT/BLA, BLA/JAM/ENH, HLR/DEF/HLR, BLA/ATT/HLR

weapon upgrading helps too

[hikari no ōji]

are ur main roles maxed? i personally would advice u to use lightning, fang and hope
because they have the most p.attack and m.attack at tis point of time.

optima used will be BLA/ATT/BLA, BLA/JAM/ENH, HLR/DEF/HLR, BLA/ATT/HLR

weapon upgrading helps too

Yes all my main roles are maxed out. I haven't used those 3 together yet. I'll try those and see what happens. Thanks.

EDIT: I'm about to call it quits, Cid is such a dirty player. He went into the winged state on me after 2 rounds and completely took all 1240hp that Lightning had on her.

[leect91]

i tried this method and i beat Cid Raines without him going the winged stage.:D
Lightning/Sazh/Hope
1.MED / ENH / ENH
2.ATK / BLK / MED
3.MED/ ENH /MED
4.BLK /BLK/ BLK
5.ATK/BLK/BLK

First use 1. to buff all your party members.change to 2. when cid is in offenc mode. when cid is in def or heal mode use 4. and try to break him asap den change to 5. and launch him in the air, keep him in the air long as long as possible. even if ur gauge is not full exacute it so that cid will stay in the air.....

hope it helps...
sry for my bad english:D...

[hikari no ōji]

Ah damn trying to fight Cid right now. I'm about to grind and get some more CP points so I can develop my people a little bit more.

[Tricky_Shot]

I see everyone using like 5 optima roles. I beat Cid Raines in 1:15 using two optmas. ATT/ENH/HEA - ATT/BLA/BLA. Very very easy boss fight.

[Ariana]

I found Cid ridiculously easy, but I had done a bit of grinding earlier on in the chapter, with that group of 10 noctiswhatevers (the slugs) guarding that treasure chest. 640 cp per fight, and if you pre-emptive strike them, 2 blitz's by Lightning is all it takes to demolish them. A couple thousand CP later, and all three main roles for each character were maxed.

Anyways, I used Lightning, Hope, and Fang as my party, with Rav/Rav/Com, Com/Rav/Com, Med/Med/Sen, Com/Med/Sen and Med/Sab/Syn. First, open up with the Med/Sab/Syn paradigm, and make sure you inflict as many possible status ailments on Cid, and then switch out immediately into the Rav/Rav/Com paradigm to whale away at his stagger meter. Once you get down to 50% health, switch to Med/Med/Sen and heal up and switch back right away once healed. Once you stagger him, switch to Com/Rav/Com to deal some heavy damage.

Once he hits his second phase (wings), then you need to be a bit more careful. Use the same strategy as you've been using so far, but as soon as he's guarding and healing himself, pull out the Med/Syn/Sab paradigm to buff your characters, and debuff him. Switch back to Rav/Rav/Com (or Com/Med/Sen if you're worried) and keep building his stagger meter. Stagger him a few times, and he should be dead.

Easy, no?:hoemai:

[hikari no ōji]

Thing is, I've gotten him down to like 10,000 hp and it's like he couldn't get damaged anymore or his stagger meter wouldn't rise. Crap aggravates me.

[moogleboi]

So I just got to this chapter and literally rolled my eyes at the talk of "training grounds" or whatever. If the last 10 chapters weren't already chronic enough with battling.

I'm just wondering, is it possible to skip a good chunk of this chapter and grind on Gran Pulse instead?


It's annoying how Square unnecessarily made this game time-consuming, it's a waste of electricity too...

[Frostbitten]

My chosen party for this chapter was Light, Sazh and Hope. I just felled Raines with relative ease, buffing up with MED/SYN/SYN and CMD/SYN/MED, then when fully healed switchin over to RAV/RAV/RAV, keeping a close eye on the break meter and interrupting the normal ATB guage if I could keep the bar filling up. I got 5 stars and it was over in about 5 minutes.

About the grinding, it's possible to avoid a lot of the battles as stated ealier in this sticky, but a lot of the baddies are protecting decent upgrade items and other accessories so it's up to you really. My crystarium opened up to stage 8 after defeating Cid, to give you an idea of my party strength.

[Eklypce]

Unfortunately, I attempted to beat Cid with Lighting/Fang/Hope and failed 6 times in a row. I had to give up and figure out another strategy.

Optima:
RAV/CMD/RAV
MED/MED/MED
MED/SAB/SYN (Initial setup)
CMD/CMD/RAV (After your stagger gauge goes over 300%)
(When my HP was low I quickly shifted to med/med/med and got full health within seconds)

But every time I get close something goes wrong. Once he staggers I go for cmd/cmd/rav and tare him apart and ALMOST got him but he killed me instantly.

I cannot figure this out!! AH!

[Gréed]

iv had alot of the same problems as alot of the other people posting, so iv decided to go back and grind slimes a little.... and listen to what that one guy had to say because honestly hes right... premptive strike and like 1-2 hours later ul have like 10k plus CP if ur lucky. im not really a fan of grinding in Jrpg's but in this situation i would rather kill him and move on then spend 3 days on him like i did with baelther or watever his name was ( boss b4 him)

[Taleren]

I just decided to look at the walkthrough up through where I am in the game, and I got to this chapter.

I'm surprised to see how many people say they are having problems with Cid. I tried him one time with a party of Lightning, Hope, and Fang. All three were capped in their initial 3 classes, but they had next to nothing beyond that. None of the 3 had over 1900 HP (Fang 1900, Lightning 1400, and Hope right around 1200).

With this group, I defeated Cid on the first try and got 5 stars.

Lightning is my group leader right now, just out of habit, and I haven't spent that much time trying out other characters as leader. The order I have them currently is Lightning, Hope, Fang.

I started the battle with my standard set up of RAV/RAV/COM, but I rapidly switched to HLR/SYN/SAB until everyone was buffed up with Cid debuffed with what Fang had available at this point.

When Cid went defensive, I went RAV/RAV/COM, and when Cid switched to offensive, I went RAV/HLR/COM. When Cid's chain meter filled, I switched to COM/RAV/COM when defensive and RAV/HLR/COM when offensive.

When he grew wings, I went back to HLR/SYN/SAB immediately and repeated what I did to start the battle. Once I was buffed up again, I plowed him down with no problem with RAV/RAV/COM and swapping to RAV/HLR/COM if he started damaging my team.

He dropped quickly without me ever having to revive/phoenix down/etc. to even a single character. Keep in mind, I only had one person near 2k hp and the other two were below 1500, and this fight was easy. With my low HP and everything, the battle only took a few minutes tops (definitely less than 10 based upon the time I started and the time I saved it to head to work. That included the cut scenes and everything. Like I said, I beat him the first time I tried him).

I haven't tried Bahamut yet, but I am sure I will tonight.

[Gréed]

so i spent another 3 hours on this dude.... finally got him to like 10k, then he goes and casts DOOM on me wtf...... i get him down to 2k and he starts swapping between defensive and healing mode. and my timer runs out before i can make up wat he heals iv tried many diff tactics som1 tell me if i have to go back and grind i was rocking

light - 1350 hp
snow- 1660 hp
hope- 1100 hp

and the standard optimas that every1 suggested all of my characters main roles are maxed as well as some other roles at lvl 3 as well. please help me out not sure why im struggling so much with this when honestly i thought the boss prior to him was easier.

[Soulfrit]

Hey guys.
First time playing a FF game (I know lol, but my mate had it and it reminded me of Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2 so now I'm addicted to this one).
Got pass Cid last night with a way different combo lol.

Lightning/Fang/Hope as party members with lightning and fang having like 1200-1300 HP and hope at just under 1100.

Used mainly RAV/COM/RAV on him and switched to COM/SENT/HEA when he hit me a bit till he got staggered.
^
The key to that is right as you stagger him he should be about to open his wings and fly up to do his AOE, practice to get quick at summoning odin as you miss the move and you all come back with full HP of course

Kept him juggled and when his stagger got down to about 25% of the bar I summoned Odin and got the stagger up to 900% and right as it's about to go use your final move and you should be able to K.O him without having to go around a 2nd time to stagger him

[Eklypce]

Finally beat Cid!!!!
What I used

Lighting/Fang/Hope

Most useful optimas:
Med/Med/Med
Rav/cmd/Rav
cmd/cmd/rav

got his stagger up to 300 and then beat him to a bloody pulp. Difficult process but i got him that way before he transformed.

Bahamut was easy. Like they said at the beginning Fang/ Lightning/ Vanille
med/med/sab and he was done. Simple, no?!

[Snowfaerie]

Yay... Bahamut keeps wiping the floor with my team. ^^ MED/MED/SAB team can never keep itself healed and MED/MED/SEN isn't fast enough. I wonder why some people win the fight with no trouble at all and some have to try 4+ times? Is it just that most of you are more experienced? :3
And please don't eat me, by the way... being new isn't my fault.

[takumi1983]

Yay... Bahamut keeps wiping the floor with my team. ^^ MED/MED/SAB team can never keep itself healed and MED/MED/SEN isn't fast enough. I wonder why some people win the fight with no trouble at all and some have to try 4+ times? Is it just that most of you are more experienced? :3
And please don't eat me, by the way... being new isn't my fault.


fang/lightning/vanille

SEN/RAV/MED
SAB/RAV/MED

ur roles lvl and weapons?

[Vinerstone]

I'm at Gran Pulse right now. In my party I like to use all the girls Lightning, Fang, and Vanille. I'm so addicted that I've somewhat neglected my boyfriend. lol.

[absolclaw]

With Cid, and maxed Paradigms at that point, I used Lightning/Vanille/Snow. (this was second attempt)

Can't remember set up, but Vanille would debuff, Snow tank and Lightning damage. I'd change to combat clinic if I knew something bad was coming. Then, if I had a chance, I'd use Mystic Tower/Tri-Disaster to up his Stagger Bar and destroy him. Darn, should have put this down somewhere ...

I think the main thing to do is find out how he coordinates his attacks compared to yours. Then take advantage of it.

[Gréed]

k so i finally beat cid.. once i got the hang of it it was pretty easy..
i had snow/light/vanille
used mainly

attk/attk/med
blast/blast/blast
def/med/med
attk/med/debuff

staggered him the first time right before meta morph and got him down to under 30% then swapped bak and forth between attk/attk/med and combat clinic for saphiric ray. twords the end once i staggered again and he was gaurded i got him to about 8000hp and used shiva just to make sure i didnt lose.

[Gréed]

k so i finally beat cid.. once i got the hang of it it was pretty easy..
i had snow/light/vanille
used mainly

attk/attk/med
blast/blast/blast
def/med/med
attk/med/debuff

staggered him the first time right before meta morph and got him down to under 30% then swapped bak and forth between attk/attk/med and combat clinic for saphiric ray. twords the end once i staggered again and he was gaurded i got him to about 8000hp and used shiva just to make sure i didnt lose.

[Snowfaerie]

fang/lightning/vanille

SEN/RAV/MED
SAB/RAV/MED

ur roles lvl and weapons?

RAV? Hmm...

And I can't give you the roles lvl and weapon infoes yet... I haven't been able to play at all for since I posted that message. :P All the exams of the things I've studied during the last 12 years are held during this 2-week period and I am rather busy stressing about it.

[PrincessDani]

OK, so I just watched my bf take down Cid, it took him like 4 tries, but in the end he beat him with Lightning/Vanille/Hope using Com/Med/Syn at the beginning till fully buffed, then switched off to Rav/Sab/Med until he was poisoned, etc, then switched between those two and Com/Med/Med till he was down to a 5th of his health, then summoned Odin. :D

[AndyZX]

I beat Cid very slowly! Using mostly Vanille as a med, Fang as a Sent and Light as a com. When he went into Guard I used Vanille and Fang as Sabs and then went back to the Com/Med/Sent setup. It took 13 minutes but I beat him.

[sternrulez]

I searched for a previous post on this, and didn't find anything, so I'm hoping I don't get banned for a dupe, but here goes:

At the spot in Chapter 10 where you get the 4 Circuitrons that respawn...I've been using a system that nets me about 38,400 CP/hr...though after reading other posts regarding Chapter 11 farming, that number is rather low. Anyway, I also chose to farm here because of the Bomb Shell drops from them, which I consider an acceptable substitute for the supercharger that won't be in the shop until Chapter 11. I'm rambling, so I'll continue...

Going into this farm, I've already upgraded Lightning's Blazefire Saber, Fang's Pandoran, and Hope's weapon is now the Caladrius (as I had the component to increase past the star for this).

When running back and forth to cycle, you only need to run out onto the bridge as far as the first arrow on the floor that points to the left, then circle around and run back in. As I stated before, I've been able to pull in about 38,400 CP/hr doing this, but more importantly I've been harvesting mega amounts of Bomb Shells that I use to upgrade weapons with. The pluses to doing this now are that you won't need to buy any non-organic parts from the store, and selling the Bomb Ashes that you get vastly contribute to the purchases of the Sturdy Bones (the buying price for them is 80gil, while the selling price for the Bomb Ash is 90gil, so you actually MAKE 10gil on every Ash you sell).

I realize that there are far better areas to farm, but I just thought I'd throw this out here just in case someone wants to get an early start. Hope some of you find it helpful! :)

Oh, I forgot..I've also modified the Agressive Assault Paradigm to Aggression (Commando, Commando, Ravager) to take advantage of Lightning's Ravage attack. Therefore, I'm getting 4 second P-Strike kills and 5-10 second normal kills on these guys

[Falsate]

Moved.

Personally, I'd wait until Chapter 11 to grind since a majority of the creatures in Chapter 10 are avoidable.

[kuchi]

You can get 10 times that amount in the next chapter. Overall I felt 10 was a boring chapter, but then again I knew that the game would really open up a lot. Just avoid as much as possible and get to chapter 11.

[sternrulez]

OK, I'll take your advice and move on, then... :)

[robertjurg]

Sort of realizing how weak I am here... my strongest person, Lightning, only has 1.3k health.. I'm stuck on the eidolon for fang simply because i die within 3 seconds

[Falsate]

Try using Libra and understanding its vulnerabilities.

[Thristle]

So all you guys have been talking about are the paradigms and that stuff for beating Cid..... but no one's said what weapons and accessories they used??? I think that's the problem for me.. -_-

[Yuuhi]

So all you guys have been talking about are the paradigms and that stuff for beating Cid..... but no one's said what weapons and accessories they used??? I think that's the problem for me.. -_-

Because the most important part is really the Paradigms?

You can try putting on accessories that can lower damage.

[superaznninja]

i used snow vanille and light. just break him then switch to atk atk and bla. his health should be low enough for you to kill him using a summon next.

[Windel]

Uhm as always I use the Wristband that gives you strenght +50 on Light and those with magic +50 on hope that I use as a medic and a synergist.
I had also Fang. I didn't use a summon.

I beat Sid on the second try. The battle was 9 freaking minutes and I got no stars.
LIKE I CARE! It was such an annoying battle.
I enjoyed Barthandelus a lot more =)

[Xangsen]

Hey there, new to here, found this place trying to find out how to beat Cid.

Well after having a look through i bassicly just grinded up CP to max out 3 roles for Fang, Light, and Hope. So Hope was maxed in Med/Syn/Rav, Fang in Com/Sab/Sen and Light in Med/Rav/Com. So bassicly my chars had quite high stats.

Before going in I used two off the buff aerosol things. Found it to be faster than using Hope. If I made Hope buff then Fang would counterattack to much and force Cid into metamorph too early just before i could get staggers off.

Anyway, so 2 aerosol sets of buffs. Started with Rav/Rav/Com. Beat him up till stagger then simply switched to Com/Com/Rav and nuked him through stagger to death. Had to use a few potions at some points.

The fight took a total of
00:01:51


Although technicly he took hours as he forced me to grind CP for absolutly ages after the first 6 times he killed me :-( Grinding isn't such a bad idea at this point as you'll be able to clear the lower parts of the roles meaning you can use all the CP you'll get in the next chapter on the expanded Crystaliums.

Hope this helps.

[OverDoseD764]

ok i cant get the damn bahamut ive tried the sab/sent/med and rav/sent/med but always run out of time somtime sim really close others i get raped im guessing im just unlucky lol im keep trying and chekcking on here as well

[LevelUp]

ok i cant get the damn bahamut ive tried the sab/sent/med and rav/sent/med but always run out of time somtime sim really close others i get raped im guessing im just unlucky lol im keep trying and chekcking on here as well

Ya, that thing is gay lol. I had problems with him too. In the end, I just bought those Gold hp accessories and gave it to my party. Get Fang to constantly debuff him while the other two heal. If you are fine with the hp, have 2 sabs and 1 med.

[superaznninja]

Ya, that thing is gay lol. I had problems with him too. In the end, I just bought those Gold hp accessories and gave it to my party. Get Fang to constantly debuff him while the other two heal. If you are fine with the hp, have 2 sabs and 1 med.
Yeah i simply had a fang vanille and hope party. Fang and, Vanille as Saboteurs with Hope healing them. Except my characters were pretty badass at chapter 10 cause I actually trained like the game intended for you to.

[jaquar123]

I just decided to look at the walkthrough up through where I am in the game, and I got to this chapter.

I'm surprised to see how many people say they are having problems with Cid. I tried him one time with a party of Lightning, Hope, and Fang. All three were capped in their initial 3 classes, but they had next to nothing beyond that. None of the 3 had over 1900 HP (Fang 1900, Lightning 1400, and Hope right around 1200).

With this group, I defeated Cid on the first try and got 5 stars.

Lightning is my group leader right now, just out of habit, and I haven't spent that much time trying out other characters as leader. The order I have them currently is Lightning, Hope, Fang.

I started the battle with my standard set up of RAV/RAV/COM, but I rapidly switched to HLR/SYN/SAB until everyone was buffed up with Cid debuffed with what Fang had available at this point.

When Cid went defensive, I went RAV/RAV/COM, and when Cid switched to offensive, I went RAV/HLR/COM. When Cid's chain meter filled, I switched to COM/RAV/COM when defensive and RAV/HLR/COM when offensive.

When he grew wings, I went back to HLR/SYN/SAB immediately and repeated what I did to start the battle. Once I was buffed up again, I plowed him down with no problem with RAV/RAV/COM and swapping to RAV/HLR/COM if he started damaging my team.

He dropped quickly without me ever having to revive/phoenix down/etc. to even a single character. Keep in mind, I only had one person near 2k hp and the other two were below 1500, and this fight was easy. With my low HP and everything, the battle only took a few minutes tops (definitely less than 10 based upon the time I started and the time I saved it to head to work. That included the cut scenes and everything. Like I said, I beat him the first time I tried him).

I haven't tried Bahamut yet, but I am sure I will tonight.

Oh my god! THANK YOU! This is the setup that FINALLY worked!!! After having tried many other things this was the only one that worked for me! Having died at least 10 times I can't thank you enough! :D