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Shifting after the first bar can be helpful, but mainly if you have a specific strategy in mind. Keep in mind that the benefits aren't as large on the first shift anyways due to the longer animation.
Upgrading equipment isn't required to beat any fights, or even 5 star anything unless you're very underleveled. The stuff for upgrading you get just from exploring and battle should be enough to get you far, like getting tier 2 weapons for your favorites. Grinding is only really necessary if you're going for treasure hunter, or want maxed weapons.
The main thing that's easy to get wrong with paradigms is having too much defense. Ideally, you want to keep your defensive and offensive paradigms seperate, with an emphasis on the attacking side. A sentinel is useful for keeping active during tougher fights. For weaker encounters though, a strong offense is the only way to get a good ranking.
The only crystals that matter are abilities and other special nodes. Look ahead for the ones you want and go straight for them. Stats are distributed about evenly between the primary roles, so you'll have about the same stats no matter which role you focus on.
Gestalts are pretty powerful depending on the situation. They're not at the level of being able to destroy stronger enemies alone, but if you work them into a strategy, they can be very effective. Using a summon to clean up smaller enemies is a good strategy since it's very safe and fairly quick. Summons also have the just as important effect of blocking the enemy's attack and restoring your party to full.
2. You can finish the entire story mode without upgrading anything except your Crystarium. Even if you do wanna upgrade, I'd suggest waiting at least until chapter 9.
Upgrading will ease battles but also reduces your target time making it harder to 5-star some battles.
Plus read up some guides on how to upgrade items to maximize your components potential with minimum Gil spending. In short, use organic components that give low XP but increase the multiplier factor up-to 3x, then spend inorganic components to maximize the multiplier potential.
Note that the multiplier decreases each time you use an inorganic component, so the preferred and cost effective approach usually is 36 sturdy bones(Creature Comforts Shop) to get 3x multiplier and 'x' number of inorganic components in one go to max out an accessory/weapon. Again read up some guides since this will not always be straightforward for some weapons/accessories.
Upgrading anything beyond tier 2 will be very expensive and you will need to farm a LOT (emphasis on a lot!), so you should think about this only post-game or once you start Chapter 11. There are a few farming methods to use when under-leveled like at chapter 11. There are a few things that you should only attempt with fully maxed out Crystarium/Accessories/Weapons which can be only done post-game.
3. Until you reach chapter 11 your basic paradigms should be more than enough bar a few exceptions. Remember, if you are having difficulty in any fight, the problem lies in your paradigm deck and not the difficulty level. As one of the posters above said, try to maximize damage potential rather than defense. General Approach is COM/RAV/RAV to stagger, COM/COM/RAV until stagger ends. Note that some enemies/battles need different tactics like relying on synergists/saboteurs/sentinels, but this is needed only for some bosses and late-game (chapter 11 onwards)
4. Crystarium. Only focus on the three primary roles for each character when leveling up the crystarium for the full story mode. Eventually you will get access to all roles, but do not waste crystarium points in secondary roles as they will be very expensive. Only start filling up those roles once you have maxed out the primary roles or when you want to start farming in chapter 11 itself.
First start filling those roles that increase your damage output(COM/RAV) and then the medic roles. Also be aware that of the three primary roles, each character is very good at one role,and good at two other roles. For example: Lightning is very good at Ravager and pretty-good at commando, Sazh is a very good synergist and a decent ravager/commando. (Though things do change a bit as you progress).
5. Eidolon Summoning/Gestalts are optional. All fights in game(including bosses) can be completed without any summon at all. If you are finding difficulty and feel stuck in some battle, go ahead and use it but only when your party is in the red so as to maximize the benefits of the eidolon's summon. After the eidolon leaves, all party members will be revived, restored to full hp and all status ailments removed.
Some points to keep in mind:
1. Getting a low battle rating is fine. 5-starring will matter only if you are going for achievements and is needed for side quests you will get access to at chapter 11 and to get rare drops from enemies.
2. The entire game until chapter 11 is meant to prepare you for what comes next. Chapter 11 onwards environments open up a lot and you get access to side quests and some awesome (and nasty i might add) boss fights.
3. If you are going for the treasure hunter achievement, do not sell anything from your inventory ever!
4. If you need money, sell all the credit/incentive chips you acquire(not needed for treasure hunter achievement). You can start farming for money from Chapter 11 onwards as you meet enemies that drop sellable loot.
5. Try to get all treasure spheres until chapter 11 since there is no going back to any area from Chapters 1 - 10 once you reach Chapter 11.
6. Chapter 9 Boss will probably be the most difficult battle you will face until that point. My recommendation is to max out your crystarium before going against that boss to make things a bit easier.
7. Places where it helps if you have a maxed out crystarium before proceeding with the story:
Farm enemies just before you face the Chapter 9 Boss. (Location: Room before the final boss)
Farm enemies in Chapter 11 beginning before proceeding with the story. (Location: Mah'habara accessed at the North Exit of Chapter 11 region, story marker is here as well)
Farm enemies after beating Chapter 11 boss to max out your crystarium again before proceeding to chapter 12.
8. The maximum CP you can have collected at a time is 999999. If you already have that much accumulated, any other CP you acquire will not be added. Spend some so as to keep a buffer available.
9. Open World section begins at Chapter 11. Chapters 12 - 13 will be similar to Chapters 1 - 10 but you can always return back to Chapter 11, 12 and 13 regions after beating the story.
10. If you find Chapters 1 - 10 tedious and a bit dragging, persevere until you reach Chapter 11 as things get a lot more open and exciting from that point onwards.
Hope this helps.
For this reason, it can be useful to set up multiple copies of your most frequently used paradigms. This is especially helpful for groups that have limited good options, and when setting up specific paradigms for certain bosses.
Three other tips:
1) upgrade at least a couple of Black Belts early on, and some Rune Bracelets later. These will resist 20% physical or magical damage respectively, which means they're basically this game's version of armor. They're cheap to upgrade and useful for the entire game.
2) buffs and debuffs are very good, especially when you start stacking them together (e.g. Bravery is +40% damage, Deprotect is +89% damage, put both together and you get +164% damage because they multiply each other). Don't ignore them, and do try to work them into dynamic paradigms.
3) Ravagers build chain fast, but don't quite generate enough chain duration to sustain it without some help. Commandos and Saboteurs can generate a lot of chain duration in a hurry. When you're trying to stagger something, get in a few COM and/or SAB hits and then switch to all RAVs for a while--only bring COM or SAB back if you need to bolster the chain duration again.
For Crystarium you should spread out your point distribution but focus on each character's primary role first. Once you get to Stage 4 or 5 there will be one role for each that can lead to unlocking a second Accessory slot-go right for that one.
Don't bother with custom Paradigms, you really don't need them. Shifting is situational, mostly with bosses to inflict debuffs and heal as well as getting them to Stagger.
You can't really grind except around save points, where you can save then keep re-loading and saving again to re-spawn enemies. The trick to upgrading equipment is that certain items/sequences will unlock bonuses that can give you bonuses from 25 percent up to triple or more. But be careful, you can just as easily lose those bonuses! But if you don't do much or any upgrading, you'll be fine.
Only thing I'd add so far is, as you meet new foes and bosses, Libra them (or use Librascopes) and then check their stats (if using a gamepad, should be RB by default). Also when shopping don't bother buying much early on-you will get plenty of potions from battles but once you get to about Chapter 7 make sure you've got at least 10-15 Phoenix Down. Plus gil is hard to come by. Oh, and the obvious-if Lightning is in the party, keep her alive at all costs. If she's killed, even if she isn't the leader, it's over.
every enemy in the game is directly scaled to your stats so that they will always present the same level of challenge, take the same amount of time, and require the same amount of strategy, to defeat. use whatever attacks you want, as every attack deals the same damage. fight whatever you feel like because the enemies will be the exact same relative strength no matter what your weapon upgrades or abilities/stats are.
for the begining of the game, just spam attack. you literally never encounter a single enemy that has an elemental weakness with characters who can possibly have said element as an attack, until chapter 8, and even after that its rare that you encounter something with a weakness you have access to, that actually NEEDS you to exploit said weakness. dont waste your time libraing anything, just spam attack and be done with it. spend your points on whatever you feel like, you have VERY limited options (see : none) and will end up maxing out every tree by the end of every chapter regardless. sometimes literally at the start of the chapter. DO NOT EQUIP ANY ACCESSORIES EXCEPT HEALTH BOOSTS. everything else will boost the enemies attack AND health, while health boosting items only scale up enemy HP. equiping any other accesory just makes the game harder than it needs to be.
i personally suggest ignoring equipment completely aside from health boosts, and those only for the early game, and ignoring the bottom tier excuse for a skill tree entirely aside from the buffs for the synergist.
Wow. Talk about misinformation piled upon misinformation.
A quick glance at game mechanics and enemy stat lines disproves these assertions. Are you even trying?
Uhh. Literally in chapter 1 you face Pantherons, which are weak to Fire, with Snow, who at that point has Hand Grenades, which are Fire elemental.
In chapter 3, the first chapter where you have the "real" combat system, the full list of enemies is as follows:
Light/Snow/Vanille
Ghast -- weak all elements (all three characters)
Ghoul -- weak all elements (all three characters)
Wight -- no weaknesses
PSICOM Warden -- no weaknesses
Breshan Bass -- weak Fire (no one) and Thunder (Lightning)
Bloodfang Bass -- weak Fire (no one) and Thunder (Lightning)
Pantheron -- weak Fire (no one) and Ice (Snow)
PSICOM Enforcer -- no weaknesses
Manasvin Warmech -- weak Thunder (Lightning) and Water (Lightning, Vanille)
Light/Vanille/Sazh
Breshan Bass -- weak Fire (Sazh) and Thunder (Lightning)
Bloodfang Bass -- Fire (Sazh) and Thunder (Lightning)
Pantheron -- weak Fire (Sazh) and Ice (no one)
Alpha Behemoth -- weak Fire (Sazh) and Water (Vanille, Lightning)
PSICOM Tracker -- no weaknesses
Watchdrone -- weak Thunder (Lightning) and Water (Vanille, Lightning)
PSICOM Ranger -- no weaknesses
Ciconia Velocycle -- no weaknesses
Crusader -- no weaknesses
PSICOM Executioner -- no weaknesses
Garuda Interceptor -- weak Wind (Sazh and Vanille)
So that's 12 enemies with exploitable elements and 8 enemies without. In chapter 3. Long before chapter 8. This trend continues throughout chapters 4-7 (and, you know, the whole game).
"NEED" is a whole different rant, but suffice it to say that you can beat 99% of almost all FF games using 1% of their respective combat systems, so the fact that you can beat FFXIII without using much strategy is just par for the course. It goes without saying that actually using strategy will a) speed up your battles and b) be more fun for most players.
Completely false. Enemies retain the same attack ratings and HP totals regardless of your party's stats. What can change if you increase your raw STR or MAG score is the time the game expects you to spend in the fight (as shown by the star rating system). Expert players rarely make use of the +HP accessories; we tend to prefer damage reduction, Auto-buff accessories, STR/MAG boosting (despite the impact to target time) and situational stuff like First Strike, status resistance, etc.
Skilled players use equipment extensively. And they also use all of the roles, especially Saboteur alongside Synergist.
If you disliked the game that's fine, but man are you just talking out of your nether region here.
I personally suggest you to actually play the game before giving out your "advice".
go download cheat engine. now grab a table for the game over at fearless. now pop your attack, defense, or health up by a large number, lets say 1000 for attack/defense, or 10k for health. now go fight an enemy and watch as they have directly scaled to your stats. did you boost attack? prepare to get 1 shotted. did you boost defense? prepare to be unable to deal more than single digit damage. health? every fight will now last 5-10 minutes.
literally in chapter 1 you face a bunch of dogs that are weak to fire, which you have access to. BUT LIKE I SAID never will it be something you need to do. you 5 star those battles and win every single one without ever healing, by just spamming attack. thus its an enemy with a weakness, but such a weak enemy that EVERYTHING is their weakness. just like i said. and the other 11 enemies AND even the bosses with weaknesses, fall into the exact same category: the elemental weaknesses wont make the fight go by any faster.
you must have never played a final fantasy before 7. there USED to be strategy required to win, both against bosses AND against uber enemies that were just plopped down in seemingly random spots. you cant beat ANY final fantasy after 8 by ignoring 99% of the mechanics as you claim. hell, you aint even getting to the end if you ignore half of them.
once again, go open up cheat engine and pop your stats up by a huge margin manually. "enemies dont scale" you say because the poorly edited wiki dosent tell you that they do. actually testing this for yourself will show otherwise. the same is true for equipment.
"skilled players" dont exist in this game. every single fight is a casual button mash dosent matter what you choose fest. wanna use all the different stuff? go for it. it dosent make the game any harder or easier learning new attacks, but every stat boost you get will make the game just a little bit harder.
i havent played the game? what do you call the 24 in game hours exactly than? also, "achievments" take no effort to "achieve". oh my congrats you did the thing that you had to do to progress, heres a trophy for participation. ill bet youre one of those people who thinks these things are a reason to buy a game.
I'd call that as 24 hours of rushing the game using CE. If you just did a normal run of the game until the end, even just once, you won't be this ignorant. The fact that you think the whole game is just button mashing shows it all.
Naw. As the saying goes, that's insulting to idiots.
In fact you can just look at WHEN his achievements were earned to see that he cheated them. Of course one could certainly assume he played on console, hell I have plenty of console playtime and I know a lot of people in this forum do as well....as I'm willing to give him a very teeny tiny benefit of the doubt there.
And hey, if the time stanmps were actually reasonably spead apart I might even be willing to give him the teeny tiny benefit that he just did a platinum speedrun, which can be done in 20 hours....if you really know the game well. 26 is plausible. Not very likely -- esperically for someone who is so hilariously factually wrong about almost everything --, but certainly within the realm of possibility.
I do it to help maintain the flow of your points and my rebuttals. But sure, I can just respond and expect you and others to put together the context.
I'm perfectly willing to believe that if you modify things by cheating that it winds up modifying enemies as well as your characters. I already know for a fact that granting "always full" ATB slots applies to enemies as well as allies, and has tripped up at least a few players at Barthandelus 2 because he goes into machine-gun mode with always full ATB.
The key here, is that you're using a cheat engine, not working within the normally programmed parameters of the game. If you raise your stats within the game, as intended, by gaining stats in the Crystarium, equipping more powerful weapons/accessories, and/or upgrading said weapons and accessories, the only thing affected is YOUR STATS (and possibly target times).
re: "need". You seriously want to argue that the FF series isn't exceedingly easy? Ooookay. We can do this.
I've played every FF game in the series except FF3, which I've never bothered to go back to once it finally became available stateside without imports and knowing Japanese. And granted, FF1, FF2, and Japanese FF4 were pretty tough (North American FF4 was a cakewalk), and I understand the same is true for FF3. FF5 shifts in the direction of the modern philosophy but still does push you to make good decisions re: jobs. But from FF6 on? Yah, no.
Don't get me wrong, I love these games. But difficult they are not, at least not for the main storylines. If you want a challenge, you have to go out of your way to get it, and you can see just how easy the games are by looking at how much of the game can be forbidden while still allowing challenge players to complete the game. FF7 no materia no limit breaks low level? Sure, no problem. FF8 no junctions? Easy. FF9 Attack and Item only? Absolutely. FFX no sphere grid no summon no limit breaks? Not even considered a "hard" challenge by the FFX community--gotta pile on an alphabet of restrictions to get to "hard". FFXII 122333 challenge (no leveling)? Is considered a jumping off point for challenge play. (I leave out FFXI and FFXIV because difficulty in a MMORPG is done completely different than in a single-player console RPG.)
And yes, in FFXIII you can do NCU (no Crystarium usage), solo character challenges, and a variety of other absurd challenges. Because the modern FF series caters to the casual gamers and stuffs its difficulty into optional superbosses.
So, you're right in saying that exploiting elemental weaknesses isn't "necessary" for defeating fights in FFXIII. You're wrong, however, in asserting that weakness exploitation can't speed up a fight. Because obviously doubling your damage output will speed up a fight. This is so trivial that I can't even offer up a side-by-side video comparison as proof, because no one who knows the game would bother making a video that didn't exploit elemental weaknesses. I can offer a speed kill on a boss who can be given an elemental weakness, and note that the kill involves creating and exploiting that weakness (note that this vid, by relying partly on significantly boosted stats, also goes a long way towards puncturing your claim about the game "auto-scaling"--that is, it doesn't scale anything when a cheat engine isn't being used):
Chapter 11 Boss Spoilers!
https://youtu.be/NspMUTve50s
And sure, superbosses exist. FFXIII has them too.
Skilled players absolutely exist for FFXIII. We've accomplished a variety of absurd challenges, from speedrunning the game in under 5 hours to beating the game NCU to 5-starring all missions at stage 8 Crystarium and more. That 40 second boss kill above? Is done by a skilled player.