Orphan

[Knightmage Bael]

It keeps using Merciless Judgement, followed immediately by Des Irae. The health I get left over, I cannot heal fast enough (gotta switch to MED/MED/SEN I know) before it lands des irae.

ugh.

[Deep]

When I first played FF13 on my Xbox, I had some trouble with Orphan. The large health and Merciless Judgement caught me completely off guard. I found myself using a strategy that is still good to this day: Don't attack him.

What I did was change my party to Vanille, Hope and Fang. I set up paradigms to mainly use Sab, Syn, Med and Sen roles. I also equipped Vanille with Cherub's Crown (Resist Death) and the Belladonna Wand (Improved Debuffing). I started the battle off with Sab/Med/Sen. Given that Orphan always begins the battle with Merciless Judgement, it allowed Hope to begin healing as soon as the move landed. It's mandatory to heal up, so Vanille could also use the Medic role. As soon as my health was increasing and reaching comfortable levels, I switched to a paradigm that has Vanille in the Saboteur role. From there, I spammed nothing but Poison. Orphan is not immune to it, and Poison works the exact same way for every enemy, making it a useful tool against some endgame enemies. As soon as it landed, I didn't do anything but heal and buff myself with Hope's Synegist abilities, whilst Fang absorbed the other moves Orphan did pull off in her Sentinel role. Whenever Posion ran out, I would then switch paradigms and apply it on Orphan again. Orphan never removes debuffs from itself; it only ever heals amounts that pales in comparison to Poison's effect. And when Orphan brings out the other moves that debuff your party, Hope's Veil and two Medics really come in handy for dealing with it. The only issue is to remain prepared for any time Orphan may use Merciless Judgement. It will require immediate healing afterwards. But, waiting enough time (about 6 minutes overall), Orphan slowly goes down thanks to nothing but Poison and your party never needs to lay a finger on it. As long as you remain buffed and healed up, the battle is no issue at all.

This method sounds cheap or lame, and in essence, it really is... but it works. Nowadays, I've beaten Orphan so many times and I've tried different strategies. It's gotten to a point where I don't really care anymore and bypass any of the monotony of risking dying and restarting over and over to instead use a method that I've used many times now and one that I know works without fail.

If you choose to use it, then see how it turns out. If not, then keep experimenting or going back to max out the Stage 9 Crystarium. Just make sure that whatever you do, face Orphan with your party member holding the Cherub's Crown. The last thing you want is a long battle going immediately to waste because Orphan's Progenitorial Wrath happened to kill your party leader.

Good luck.

[Knightmage Bael]

Progenitorial Wrath has been a doom on my many times even WITH Cherub's Crown. I pretty much had that equipped regardless, ever since I found out the Sacrifices enemies will spam "death" and status effects. I've died randomly a few times during ch 13 just because of Death landing a hit.

I went into this fight with full stage 9 crystarium to begin with. I managed to max everything out, and had about 850k crystarium points going into this fight (why it doesn't give any CP is beyond me). I maxed out 1 and a half rings of stage 10 crystarium after I finally won. Snow has 17,500 HP now its kinda insane.

My problem was that Merciless Judgement does a %base health it seems. It always kills about 80% of my health regardless of buffs. Orphan used those two moves in quick sucession. There was the blinding light of M. Judgement, and it was instantly followed up with Des Irae. There was no time for me to cast. Just attack-attack. Almost as if the attacks were stacked or cast rapid like you were just spamming Blizzara or something. He kept doing that in multiple iterations, and what health I had left over was killed by Des Irae.

I switched out and tried another party, Light, Fang, and Hope I believe. Med/Sab/Syn, Med/Sen/Med, Rav/Com/Rav, Rav/Sab/Syn, and I think one other. I only wound up using two or three paradigms though.

The thing is, is that haste here is VITAL. you NEED HASTE, which is why Hope is so important. Sure, Sazh can cast it too, but I always found for some reason he never prioritized it and hope always did. Plus Hope has much much better base magic stats, and Sazh has the poorest stats in the game. Even with Deneb Duellers (for pure stat bonus) and +Magic bangles he never gets anywhere close to other people. I find Sazh almost entirely useless by end game. He was not always so, as those chapters with Sazh and Vanille are really fun, because Sazh is basically the best synergist because of what he learns so early on, and Vanille is a great Saboteur. They pair well as ravagers. I never use Sazh for Commando because his attack stat is less than trash.

[Deep]

You're right about Merciless Judgement; it's essentially a gravity-based attack that will always reduce your party to critical values (though it can KO you if you're affected with Deprotect or Poison). It's vital that you switch to a defensive paradigm as soon as the move ends to be able to heal or set up a sentinel. I've never found that Orphan uses Dies Irae right afterwards. As an enemy goes, Orphan is a bit of a slow one, using moves every so often. The main problem is its Consummate Light or Darkness status. The Light isn't too bad to handle, but Darkness damages you and can remove buffs from your party. This is why both Veil and a Sentinel work, because that way your party leader and free member won't get targeted and lose their buffs as the Sentinel absorbs the damage. When it comes to the Synegist role, the AI will always prioritise Haste before other spells.

The main issue with Orphan is that it jumps back and forth with doing nothing and then suddenly using Merciless Judgement, followed by debuffing moves and possible KO. As such, if you fight Orphan "normally" by bashing your head against it and hoping to stagger it (Orphan will always use Merciless Judgement whenever it's just recovered from stagger, by the way), you're going to be switching between offensive and defensive paradigms a lot, because Orphan can really give you trouble with the likes of Chains of Torment and the Consummate of Darkness status. This is why I've always used the Poison trick, because it's safer, faster, and always worked for me.

On the topic of Synegists, Sazh falls off by the endgame and becomes more of a support character than a damage dealer. Earlier in the game, everybody's stats are nothing spectacular, but Sazh has the offensive Synegist abilities whilst Hope has the defensive. This made the synergy with Vanille much more effective, because Sazh could increase your damage output, whilst Vanille lowered the enemies' defenses. It all came together and allowed you to take out many enemies with ease despite the low stats. However, by the end, Hope gains access to these abilities (except for Vigilance, which is the only thing that gives Sazh an edge over Hope besides his HP) and Sazh's stats never improve much compared to other characters, making him fall off. Not only that, but his attacking animations are slower than other characters and are projectile based, meaning that a fast moving enemy can dodge them. In the endgame, Sazh fulfills more of a tanky support character whose main uses are better as a Synegist and Ravager. Cold Blood has its uses, and some of Sazh's weapons provide abilities that work well with a chain-building party.

[Knightmage Bael]

He does attack in quick succession sometimes, actually. Though its usually between two kinda basic attacks. He has one not-so-threatening laser attack, and one where his giant hand swipes across, and sometimes after using Consummate Darkness or Des Irae he'll follow up with a secondary basic physical or magic attack, but nothing you shouldn't be able to handle. Which was weird when he started instantly following up Judgement with Des Irae right after, as I said it was almost as if you were just casting two regular spells. They were cast together that quickly, and I think that killed me on two of the occasions. I felt like no matter how much you grind there's always a high chance of dying just because of his spells. A lot of them, even Des Irae will get less damaging as you grind, but Judgement and Progenitorial Wrath are always going to be really dangerous moves.

I'm used to rapidly switching paradigms at this point, I had to do that to beat Sazh's Eidolon, and ever since then I've just been doing that instead of trying to find a good all-around paradigm.

Also yeah, that's why I figure instead of using weapons with interesting abilities, he needs the raw stat boosting ones more.