Anybody have a raid guide?

[ICountFrom0]

I suspect that only one raid can be won on "disc 1", the assassin that gives you the funny slayer analog. The others seem quite unlikely. The giant robot in specific seems to do maxint damage.

After "the change" there's a number of other raids, and then once again a third set in post game.

I'm hoping for a guide that gives the minimum expected levels to handle the fights, and maybe a few tips?

[AH-1 Cobra]

There's so many ways you can break the game, that it would be pointless giving a minimum level suggestion. For a player who just doesn't utilize item creation at all, and just buys shop gear, there isn't a realistic level you could hit on disk 1 that would allow you to beat the robot.

You can cheese the robot with megabombs and/or bloody armor. The robot drops a sword for Dias, the Hachimentai, which is giga OP if you get it on disk 1.

There's others you can fight on disk 1, I forget how many you can actually reach, but there's a bird you can fight on El that drops a battle suit. You need to ride a bunny to reach it.

Battle suit is a BiS armor on disk 1, you won't find a comparably good armor until post game, it's worth killing the bird. It's possible to pick pocket a couple of them from Ernest in PAs on disk 1. Claude can pick pocket one near the end of disk 1, if you chose him as your main character, because it's from an NPC in a unique story segment.

[ICountFrom0]

I was able to hit the bird a few times, but when it hits for your max HP, it's kind of hard to do damage enough.

Though I GUESS I could bloody armor cheese, and the megabombs are not a horrific idea... I suspect it's not "intended behavior" though I will say the game does seem to want to be broken.

[AH-1 Cobra]

Several options for boosting defenses outside of obviously using the highest defense armor and accessories you can:

*- Food buffs that increase defense% for X # of fights.
*- "Guard" and "Angel Feather" stack, you can also use these through assault with Rena and Celine.
- Orchestra's "Piano 2" is a massive all-stats increase, including defenses. I believe you're short of the instruments required for this on disk 1, but it's certainly an option for later.
*- Formations that boost defenses like upper guard.
- Equipment factors, although this probably isn't a viable option on disk 1 unless you happened to get really lucky and craft some good pieces with def +20%.

Hypothetically, if you had a battle suit or 2, like maybe you pick pocketed one from Ernest, and you set the difficulty to "earth" or "galaxy" and you stacked most or all of the above defensive buffs (at least everything with the * beside it), it's very possible that you'd take 0 damage from the bird's attacks. You'd still want some elemental damage reduction to mitigate its spell damage (I forget which elements it uses), but you could also gear to absorb or negate its elements.

Claude has the highest defenses, so he's a good candidate to boost max defenses on and apply the guard buff to, and if you can get claude taking 0 damage or getting healed by a bosses attacks, then chipping it down is only a matter of time.