Minerva on Hard mode

[Hyala]

I am about to fight Minerva on Hard mode for my achievement. I started the game out on hard mode, and it's been a lot of fun. 99% mission completion, she's the last one, full genji armor. Going to gil toss her to death. This will take close to 77 million SP due to SP master and about 140 million gil. She has 77 million HP on hard mode. Wish me luck...

[LoveLessAeris]

costly punch is easier

[Hyala]

Originally posted by LoveLessAeris:

costly punch is easier

How so? mathematically, you would have to hit her over 800 times to kill her, I don't think 80 million SP would be enough to effectively do 99.999 until you finish her?

[raditzaceme2]

I find this set up easier for her, as it doesnt require grinding forever and a day and can replace some items with stuff non genji.

Armor:
Ziedrich (+100 to str/vit/spr)
Genji Shield (auto wall) [protect ring can be used if you dont want to deal with the magic pot wheel of rng for octoslash]
Genji Helm (no ap cost) [Laurel Crawn can be a replacement if you dont feel like dropping a mil for a helm]
Genji Armor (hp limit break, regen/endure is nice bonus) [Adaman bangle before chapter 9/10]

Materia:
Assault twister+ (deals decent damage and can quickly remove/reduce the limit gauge from judgement arrow to a survivable point)
Costly punch (break through anti material and possibly invincible(?) due to being a non elem/non physical attack)
Aerial Drain (for HP recovery)
SP turbo x3 (for as much damage as possible)
Stats for materia to max out HP (x2 999%), atk, vit, and spr.

Buster stance-> aerial drain will deal close to max damage and has same i frames as high jump but has bonus of healing practically to full. Buster stance-> assault twister+ for her limit to drop the % down to 25 or 0. Hell, even costly punch could probably be replaced with goblin punch or another SP Turbo for damage output. Also, Buster Stance is a lot more powerful than i had originally thought, as a non critical Assault Twister+ in buster stance dealt more damage than a few swings into assault twister+ when i used genji glove (so insta-crits) instead of Genji helm, and all of her attacks have damage reduced by a lot (36k down to like 3-6k). My proficiency was at 48% when i tried this set up.

[Hyala]

Originally posted by raditzaceme2:

I find this set up easier for her, as it doesnt require grinding forever and a day and can replace some items with stuff non genji.

Armor:
Ziedrich (+100 to str/vit/spr)
Genji Shield (auto wall) [protect ring can be used if you dont want to deal with the magic pot wheel of rng for octoslash]
Genji Helm (no ap cost) [Laurel Crawn can be a replacement if you dont feel like dropping a mil for a helm]
Genji Armor (hp limit break, regen/endure is nice bonus) [Adaman bangle before chapter 9/10]

Materia:
Assault twister+ (deals decent damage and can quickly remove/reduce the limit gauge from judgement arrow to a survivable point)
Costly punch (break through anti material and possibly invincible(?) due to being a non elem/non physical attack)
Aerial Drain (for HP recovery)
SP turbo x3 (for as much damage as possible)
Stats for materia to max out HP (x2 999%), atk, vit, and spr.

Buster stance-> aerial drain will deal close to max damage and has same i frames as high jump but has bonus of healing practically to full. Buster stance-> assault twister+ for her limit to drop the % down to 25 or 0. Hell, even costly punch could probably be replaced with goblin punch or another SP Turbo for damage output. Also, Buster Stance is a lot more powerful than i had originally thought, as a non critical Assault Twister+ in buster stance dealt more damage than a few swings into assault twister+ when i used genji glove (so insta-crits) instead of Genji helm, and all of her attacks have damage reduced by a lot (36k down to like 3-6k). My proficiency was at 48% when i tried this set up.

How much SP did you consume during the fight? That's my only real concern at this point the SP consumption of SP boosting materia and the length it takes to get through 77 million HP.

[raditzaceme2]

Honestly, if you have a mil of SP, you shouldn't run out as you can still land on chars for some sp regen. SP Turbo is only for attack and materia, so it doesnt reduce the damage she deals (which is what normally drains SP to 0 after a few hits when using SP Master). Each use was about 100 or 200ish SP I think. The only problem with the set up is it does require Buster Stance to a point it breaks damage limit (iirc is not much, either 5% or something small like that). Give me a sec and ill confirm the amount.

[Hyala]

Originally posted by raditzaceme2:

Honestly, if you have a mil of SP, you shouldn't run out as you can still land on chars for some sp regen. SP Turbo is only for attack and materia, so it doesnt reduce the damage she deals (which is what normally drains SP to 0 after a few hits when using SP Master). Each use was about 100 or 200ish SP I think. The only problem with the set up is it does require Buster Stance to a point it breaks damage limit (iirc is not much, either 5% or something small like that). Give me a sec and ill confirm the amount.

Oh, no worries then, I currently have 80 million SP. 9-5-3. the mover monsters they give amazing SP and are easily killed instantly with costly punch.

[raditzaceme2]

Just checked: Aerial Drain with 3 Master SP Turbos was dealing max damage for 234 SP with the set up.

Originally posted by Hyala:

Oh, no worries then, I currently have 80 million SP. 9-5-3. the mover monsters they give amazing SP and are easily killed instantly with costly punch.

Are those the ones you can steal energy/flare/ultima? If so, that is probably a good farm for SP quickly then.

[kyoott]

Originally posted by raditzaceme2:

Honestly, if you have a mil of SP, you shouldn't run out as you can still land on chars for some sp regen. SP Turbo is only for attack and materia, so it doesnt reduce the damage she deals (which is what normally drains SP to 0 after a few hits when using SP Master). Each use was about 100 or 200ish SP I think. The only problem with the set up is it does require Buster Stance to a point it breaks damage limit (iirc is not much, either 5% or something small like that). Give me a sec and ill confirm the amount.

i think the set up is what makes the stance even more broken vs minerva because you get to tank for free and then slap back twister+x2 for freeeeee. i did similar setup run with 2 turbos tho cuz i was too lazy to setup the 3rd and thought minerva was going to send me back to the lobby , but nope did it on the first try testing the setup around 30min+. on 70% prof minerva wasn't hitting above 5k, twister+ always hit 3x99,999, and 2 shot the arrow cast like np. costly seems like a pain to use, idk why ppl recommend that.. like bro just get the buster sword.

[Aria]

Honestly, I just changed to Normal difficulty for the fight. I wasn't going to cast Costly Punch for one and a half hour straight just because they decided to massively boost her HP.

[raditzaceme2]

Originally posted by kyoott:

costly seems like a pain to use, idk why ppl recommend that.. like bro just get the buster sword.

Costly punch pierces both Null Magic and Null Physical. It also deals damage based off max hp, so after hp break and 40k or 50k hp, its guaranteed to deal max damage even against massive defense walls like the thing in 6-4-6 i think (i remember it being the final contact from P, the rare accessory finder missions). I just tested both goblin punch, aerial drain, and costly punch against it. costly was dealing max damage, and aerial drain somehow was dealing more damage than goblin punch (even though goblin was listed as higher base attack).

[Hyala]

Originally posted by Snowflake:

Honestly, I just changed to Normal difficulty for the fight. I wasn't going to cast Costly Punch for one and a half hour straight just because they decided to massively boost her HP.

this will negate the complete the game on hard mode trophy if I switch to normal mid hard mode run?

[Hyala]

Originally posted by raditzaceme2:

Just checked: Aerial Drain with 3 Master SP Turbos was dealing max damage for 234 SP with the set up.

Originally posted by Hyala:

Oh, no worries then, I currently have 80 million SP. 9-5-3. the mover monsters they give amazing SP and are easily killed instantly with costly punch.

Are those the ones you can steal energy/flare/ultima? If so, that is probably a good farm for SP quickly then.

They are the 3 orange dots that hop around. high defense and they will flee, but 1 costly punch and they die. The trick is, kill the mobs they are with first, using high jump or what not, then costly punch them and it doubles the AP per kill. 1 encounter = 100,000 SP about 10 mil an hour.

[Requin des bois]

Originally posted by Hyala:

Originally posted by Snowflake:

Honestly, I just changed to Normal difficulty for the fight. I wasn't going to cast Costly Punch for one and a half hour straight just because they decided to massively boost her HP.

this will negate the complete the game on hard mode trophy if I switch to normal mid hard mode run?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2901565025

You can do the whole game on easy, as long as you beat the final boss on hard.

[Aria]

Originally posted by Hyala:

Originally posted by Snowflake:

Honestly, I just changed to Normal difficulty for the fight. I wasn't going to cast Costly Punch for one and a half hour straight just because they decided to massively boost her HP.

this will negate the complete the game on hard mode trophy if I switch to normal mid hard mode run?

I can't 100% confirm it since I haven't done it myself yet, but from what I read (and from what someone confirmed above), as long as you swap from Normal to Hard at the end of the game, you'll get the achievement.

This apparently means that yes, you can play through the entire game on Normal, and at the very end swap to Hard, and get the achievement. It's dumb, but that's how it works it seems.