Question regarding adamantoise farming

[Optitron]

So I am at the point of farming adaman(tor)toise, still in chapter 11. After reading several guides on gamefaqs and everywhere else, I have a few questions:

1. Using Hecaton to disable the legs, should I let him stay and spam debuffs and death or should I dismiss him immediately? There are people on the net that say to dismiss him immediately, and people who say otherwise.
2. Is adamantoise's action of getting up after being disabled time based? If it is does the timer start when Hecaton disabled his legs, or when Hecaton leaves?
3. Does staggering adamantoise increase the likelihood of death landing?
4. Does having veil or vigilance on affects the success rate of death? Which is it, veil or vigilance? Some people say 1 thing, some ppl say the other.

Right now I'm farming the tortoise near the entrace to the valley where there is a save point. I have experimented killing him with high stagger chain but so far the results are inconclusive. I have to say, though I have killed several, it is really inconsistent. Sometimes I get to kill him with just 1 cast, sometimes it takes up to 5, sometimes I killed him when he was staggered, at other times the stagger gauge is barely a quarter filled.

There are times adamantoise had like 6 debuffs, was staggered, my paradigm was 3 SABs, fully buffed and I casted deaths 6 times and he still doesn't die.

[Odinsknight101]

I'll tell you what I know:

- Adding de-buffs does effect deaths percentage of being able to work. Still very low/
- Usually what I tend to do is Summon Hecatoncheir - Put on de-buffs - see If i can spam any death but if the timer for Hecatoncheir is almost away, I then gatsalt - use power move and finally just spam death and hope he dies.
- No staggering doesn't seem to do anything.
- I don't think Veil or vigilance matters.

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Originally posted by Optitron:

There are times adamantoise had like 6 debuffs, was staggered, my paradigm was 3 SABs, fully buffed and I casted deaths 6 times and he still doesn't die.

6 times is nothing. Base is 1%, with an extra 1% per debuff on it, from what I've been told, so yeah, it requires luck regardless.

[tiornys]

Let Hecatoncheir stay until it leaves on its own. Absolutely. The point is to maximize the number of chances you have to land Death.

Adamantoise stays down for 60 seconds. Time with a Summon on the field does NOT count towards this time, thus why you should let Hecatoncheir stay.

Stagger and/or chain building has no effect on Death success rate, unlike any other SAB skill.

Neither Veil nor Vigilance increases the success rate of Death.

Death has a base 1% success rate. This is increased by +1% per status ailment on the target. That percentage is then boosted by your SAB role level bonus. Nothing else matters.

To maximize your chances you want to a) inflict as many debuffs as possible, b) cast Death as many times as possible once you have those debuffs in place, and c) get as high of a SAB role bonus as possible.

Belladonna Wand (ideally upgraded to Malboro Wand) is the best weapon to use, not because it helps Death directly but because it will help you inflict Deprotect, Deshell, and Imperil faster. You want to have Vanille under Haste for the whole battle, and you want to use ATB refreshes to help her pack in as many actions as possible. Also, equip her with Boost synthesis accessories to get her ATB+10%. Fang should be in the party as a SAB to contribute extra SAB role level bonus and to inflict Curse, Slow, and Daze after Hecatoncheir leaves to further boost the odds. Any other character can contribute a bit by being a level 1 SAB in the party; I like Sazh or maybe Hope for Haste--equip them with First Strike and Auto-Haste so they Haste Vanille immediately.

Video of optimized Summon/Death stage 9 strategy against Adamantoise:

https://youtu.be/uHHQ6jftrP4

If you can pull off this strategy, you probably have or can readily get the resources needed to pull off Summon-based kills with Sazh lead. If you intend to farm for a while at this stage, I highly recommend using Sazh instead of Vanille until you get buff enough to pull off the no-Summon strategies.

https://youtu.be/34t_tVpfvSY

https://youtu.be/EOM7r6b9VYo

[Optitron]

Originally posted by tiornys:

Let Hecatoncheir stay until it leaves on its own. Absolutely. The point is to maximize the number of chances you have to land Death.

Adamantoise stays down for 60 seconds. Time with a Summon on the field does NOT count towards this time, thus why you should let Hecatoncheir stay.

Stagger and/or chain building has no effect on Death success rate, unlike any other SAB skill.

Neither Veil nor Vigilance increases the success rate of Death.

Death has a base 1% success rate. This is increased by +1% per status ailment on the target. That percentage is then boosted by your SAB role level bonus. Nothing else matters.

To maximize your chances you want to a) inflict as many debuffs as possible, b) cast Death as many times as possible once you have those debuffs in place, and c) get as high of a SAB role bonus as possible.

Belladonna Wand (ideally upgraded to Malboro Wand) is the best weapon to use, not because it helps Death directly but because it will help you inflict Deprotect, Deshell, and Imperil faster. You want to have Vanille under Haste for the whole battle, and you want to use ATB refreshes to help her pack in as many actions as possible. Also, equip her with Boost synthesis accessories to get her ATB+10%. Fang should be in the party as a SAB to contribute extra SAB role level bonus and to inflict Curse, Slow, and Daze after Hecatoncheir leaves to further boost the odds. Any other character can contribute a bit by being a level 1 SAB in the party; I like Sazh or maybe Hope for Haste--equip them with First Strike and Auto-Haste so they Haste Vanille immediately.

Video of optimized Summon/Death stage 9 strategy against Adamantoise:

https://youtu.be/uHHQ6jftrP4

If you can pull off this strategy, you probably have or can readily get the resources needed to pull off Summon-based kills with Sazh lead. If you intend to farm for a while at this stage, I highly recommend using Sazh instead of Vanille until you get buff enough to pull off the no-Summon strategies.

https://youtu.be/34t_tVpfvSY

https://youtu.be/EOM7r6b9VYo

Hey Tiornys, thanks again for your reply. I appreciate your expertise on this matter.

I figured out by myself that it is better to let Hecaton stay, after testing for it once, since the toise stay longer on the ground. It was very silly to farm for an hour using the fast dispatch method, even though I did manage to kill a few. But I can see why people use it, to save time by killing adamantoise under a minute.

So right now after I summon Hecaton, I would imperil, deprotect and deshell the toise immediately and spam as many deaths as possible. Using the atb cancel I can usually get up to 15 casts per battle until he stands up. Sometimes I could manage to kill him while he was standing up at the last cast, and battle ends at 2:15 at the latest. My party consists of Van, Fang and Sazh (he gets curse, Hope doesn't).

My question is, as I understand, having as many SABs increase the likelihood of death. Does it suffice to have them in your party, or do I have to switch to triple SAB paradigm to maximise the chance? The thing is, since I'm spamming deaths as many times as I can, I had to switch between paradigms for atb refresh, and death is casted on SAB SAB SYN instead of SAB SAB SAB every other time. If it matters, then I guess I have to duplicate the paradigm.

And secondly, how many traps do I need? After farming for 3 hours, I am sitting on 2 traps and 24 plat ingots. I was thinking of triplicating the traps later, so I might not need as many traps, though having more is certainly nice. The only thing I hate about this method is that I have to replenish TP after every successful loot trop. Luckily the goblins give decent amount, though I have to fight them 4 times (with energy sash on everyone) to have enough.

And one last question, since you're here, do you think it's possible for me to 5 star mission 64 at this point? I have 5 starred all missions except 62 (which I will save for postgame) and 64. Do you have any advice? I'm thinking of running with maxed triple witch's bracelet on all chars to mitigate dmg, or double witch with a royal armlet, or perhaps double witch and a diamond bangle for char with low hp, and using shrouds. I have also been avoiding ATB upgrade and STR and MAG upgrade on the crystaerium to increase target time (yep, all my char is still at ATB level 4 except for Vanille and Hope), and the only ones I activate are the HP nodes (alongside any stats that can't be avoided), but I'm not sure if running mission 64 with incomplete crystaerium is wise.

Thanks again for your advice.

[MJB]

Other characters need to be in the SAB role for the bonus to apply. However, the bonus is minimal (something like 0.1% per role level), so you're not missing out on much by not having them as SABs. Keeping a haste on Vanille is much more important, so switching one out to SYN to recast is worthwhile.

The number of traps you need is dependent on what you want to do. If you want a tier 3 weapon for each character, then you will need 6 of them (or to get the treasure hunter trophy). If you are just looking for your 3 primary characters, then you don't. You will use about 1,500,000 gil per weapon to max them out. So far, I'd say you've been pretty lucky on your traps. The last time I completed the game, I had maxed all my characters, got my CP to 999,999, achieved the treasure hunter trophy and farmed well over 100 'toises and only had 1 drop; not the best of luck.

As for mission 64, it is highly unlikely you will be able to successfully complete that without having your HP near max on the level 10 crystarium. It is an extremely difficult mission and his attacks as he gets down in HP get brutal. It's possible that other people have a strategy to kill him, but I wasn't able to do it until post-game. I was trying to get the gold watch before finishing the game to help 5* Orphan, as it turns out, it wasn't needed at all. But there's no reason not to give it a shot. "Retry" is always an option.

I'll mention this just in case your interested, I have a mod over at Nexusmods that will increase the benefit of catalogs (collector's increases common drops from +50% to +100%, connoisseur's increases rare drops from +10% to +50%). That won't suddenly give you tons of traps, but it will increase the chance when equipped from 5.5% to 7.5% per kill. After my last playthrough with only 1 trap drop, it was pretty frustrating so I thought I'd do something about it for next time.

[tiornys]

Originally posted by Optitron:

My question is, as I understand, having as many SABs increase the likelihood of death. Does it suffice to have them in your party, or do I have to switch to triple SAB paradigm to maximise the chance? The thing is, since I'm spamming deaths as many times as I can, I had to switch between paradigms for atb refresh, and death is casted on SAB SAB SYN instead of SAB SAB SAB every other time. If it matters, then I guess I have to duplicate the paradigm.

Yes, they need to be in the SAB role to contribute. Duplicate the paradigm.

And secondly, how many traps do I need? After farming for 3 hours, I am sitting on 2 traps and 24 plat ingots. I was thinking of triplicating the traps later, so I might not need as many traps, though having more is certainly nice. The only thing I hate about this method is that I have to replenish TP after every successful loot trop. Luckily the goblins give decent amount, though I have to fight them 4 times (with energy sash on everyone) to have enough.

How many traps you need depends on your eventual goals. Just want to beat the game and do the missions? You don't actually need any, and what you already have is enough to give you a good leg up. Want to get a platinum trophy? You eventually need at least 4 more so you can build an ultimate weapon for everyone. Note however that it's much easier to get Traps from Long Gui than from Adamantoise so it may be worth waiting to get more until then.

As far as TP replenishment, that's why I recommend working towards the no-Summon strategy. In the meantime, the best TP farm on the Archylte Steppe is probably the two 4x Gorgonospid groups roughly between the two stationary Adamanchelids near the Behemoth King area. You can see those groups being farmed in this vid:

https://youtu.be/sfSAx3V-dsE

And one last question, since you're here, do you think it's possible for me to 5 star mission 64 at this point? I have 5 starred all missions except 62 (which I will save for postgame) and 64. Do you have any advice? I'm thinking of running with maxed triple witch's bracelet on all chars to mitigate dmg, or double witch with a royal armlet, or perhaps double witch and a diamond bangle for char with low hp, and using shrouds. I have also been avoiding ATB upgrade and STR and MAG upgrade on the crystaerium to increase target time (yep, all my char is still at ATB level 4 except for Vanille and Hope), and the only ones I activate are the HP nodes (alongside any stats that can't be avoided), but I'm not sure if running mission 64 with incomplete crystaerium is wise.

Thanks again for your advice.

Both missions 62 and 64 can definitely be defeated with 5 stars at stage 9 Crystarium. I recommend filling out the Crystariums and not worrying so much about the 5th ATB segment and the added stats--the advantages should roughly cancel out the reduced fight time and those two missions give a relatively long time in any case. Stacking Witch's Bracelets is actually the advice I'd give for mission 62--that, and learning how to keep a Raktavija interrupted during stagger so that it can't Dispelga you. For mission 64 I recommend having some combination of +HP and General's Belts/Witch's Bracelets. Definitely have the Tortoise paradigm available, and you probably want Snow as a SEN in most paradigms (have him help heal or buff when Vercingetorix shells up, and maybe include Cerberus, maybe). Each cycle you want to inflict Poison as fast as possible. Early in the fight you should also try to inflict some other debuffs, maybe chain a bit, and get in as much damage as you can. Once Wicked Whirl becomes a thing, you'll need to play more defensively. Once you get Vercy low enough, you can close out the fight by abusing Poison + Hecatoncheir's Chain Gun.

[Optitron]

So I tried today fighting mission 64 to test if I could do it, with my current underleveled stats. I stacked witch's bracelets on everyone and a hp bangle. It became clear after he casted wicked whirl that you need at least 10k hp even with the Tortoise paradigm switch right as he cast it. The only char who survived was the one with 10k+ hp. I tested with Van, Sazh and Fang.

I could only manage to bring him to 9 mil hp before being decimated. I checked on wiki that wicked whirl is physical, so I was wondering if stacking general's belt is better than stacking witch's bracelet. Wind shear is magical, and doesn't seem to do much dmg, and he rarely attacks physically. Putresence dmg isn't that bad, it's the dispel that's annoying.

And is it wind elemental? Does having gale ring helps? Wiki wasn't clear on this. Also I'm trying to be cheap here. I could upgrade the acc to higher levels using adamantine, but that's just bourguois.

Having 2 Sabs really help since I don't have to dispel his buff myself, I only have to poison him. I think I'll run Van Fang Snow next, since Fang has haste. It's just that Sazh has more HP then her., though her SYN abilities are more useful than Sazh since she can cast Protectra and Shellra (though Sazh has better heals), which saves me time. I need to upgrade some weapons too I think, especially Snow's Paladin.

Let's see if this works. If it doesn't guess I have to invest in adamantines, which hurts.

[tiornys]

Honestly I don't remember if Wicked Whirl is physical or magical because it largely doesn't matter. It ignores type defense (%reductions to physical or magic damage), meaning that the only way to reduce its damage is via Sentinel-based damage reduction. You can survive with less than 10k HP if you have Snow as your Sentinel, make sure he knows Fringeward (it's on his first level of Sentinel and easy to accidentally skip learning it), and have him equipped with Solaris (t2 version of Umbra) for Improved Ward II. Ideally, also get your character into Steelguard/Mediguard/Elude stance before Wicked Whirl hits to improve your personal SEN damage reduction.

Nothing is wind elemental, so Gale Ring won't help.

[Optitron]

Ok, so for this battle it's better to equip Umbra than Paladin? Why? Paladin gives more dmg reduction for Snow.

[Optitron]

Nevermind. I just beat him under 13 min. Target time was 25:22. First two rounds was easy. Once his hp dips to 5 mil he just went crazy. It was torture, had to retry many times. Also had to spend
a lot for my Sazh and Snow for upgrades, but it was worth it.

Should I do mission 62 now? Then all the tortoise will be replaced right? So no more convenient plat ingot farming?

[tiornys]

Umbra over Paladin because Snow is tough enough without Improved Guard but your other characters can really use the help from Improved Ward. You probably figured that out already, but I'll get it down explicitly for the sake of possible future readers.

Mission 62 should be relatively easy at this point if you stack on the the Witch's Bracelets. If you've already done the other 6 missions in the circle on the Archylte Steppe, then mission 62 will trigger the Gui transformation. At that point you still have the western wandering Adamantoise, the Adamantoise in chapter 12, and the Adamantortoise from mission 63 as options for farming Platinum Ingots.