Hardest. Boss Battle. EVER.

[HDMIPlayer]

I JUST CANT WIN.

The Dahaka is like the unpassable threshold in games that tests your ability to strategize, and I'm obsiviously failing, because I must've spent an accumulated 3 hours trying to beat this thing AND I LOSE EACH TIME.

I need advice. Paradigms, when to shift, who has which class, what are they equipping, EVERYTHING.

And thanks to those who [will] help me out.

EDIT: Thank you guys SO much for your help. I Finally did it!

I changed up your advice a lilttle.... Used SYN / SAB / SYN instead of RAV / MED / RAV, but hey! I WON.

[Aporia]

grind a little(grind for 15/20 minutes and it helps alot), I grinded at the behemoth and giant wolf guy back in the big area. but that boss took me forever to beat

[WiiUSay]

If you still didn't beat this boss yet, there is a nice grind spot in Taejin's tower on the 5th tier. You battle 5 Pulsework Gladiators next to some stairs and a good amount of CP per battle and you can easily make them respawn by going up the stairs, waiting for a bit, and going back down.

I beat Dahaka using Hope, Vanille and Sazh, with Hope as the party leader.
I gave Hope some HP boosting accessories and some magic boosting accessories and gave Vanille and Sazh whatever I felt they needed.

I used these Paradigms
Hope/Vanille/Sazh
SYN/SAB/SYN Superiority
MED/SAB/SYN Evened Odds
RAV/RAV/RAV Tri-disaster
RAV/RAV/COM Relentless Assault
MED/MED/SYN Convalescence
RAV/MED/COM Diversity

You should set Superiority as your starting Paradigm and help Sazh buff the party. When you buffed the team as much as you can and Sazh is still working on buffing the party, switch to Evened Odds. Be sure to cast Barfire on the party, it could save your life when Dahaka casts Fulminous Firestorm. After Vanille finishes debuffing the boss, switch to Tri-disaster and get the chain bar to about 200% before switching to Relentless Assault. If you manage to stagger Dahaka, he will become stunned for the duration of the stagger. After Dahaka uses Fulminous Firestorm, switch to Convalescence to heal up, then switch to Superiority to give the party Barfrost because Dahaka will cast Bone-chilling Breaker after a while. However, if you can stagger Dahaka fast enough, you do not need to cast Barfrost because Dahaka will use Fulminous Firestorm again instead of Bone-chilling Breaker. When Dahaka is around 50% HP, it will begin to cast Diluvial Plague, which gives the team status ailments. As long as you can keep your party healthy and keep staggering Dahaka, you should be able to get through the boss without too much trouble.

I hope this helps you beat the boss and move on in the game.

[tiornys]

1: I guarantee your characters are capable of winning the fight without any grinding.
2: the above strategy is reasonable as long as you have enough HP; to guard against Aeroga right after Diluvial Plague dispels your buffs, you want to have ~2500-3000 HP. There's a good chance you don't have that many HP, in which case you should consider controlling Sazh instead of Hope, and using a slightly different paradigm deck:

Sazh/Vanille/Hope
SYN/MED/SYN - Recuperation
COM/MED/MED - Discretion
RAV/SAB/RAV - Smart Bomb
RAV/MED/RAV - Thaumaturgy
RAV/RAV/RAV - Tri-disaster
COM/RAV/RAV - Relentless Assault (or COM/RAV/COM if you have the 6000 CP to teach Ruin to Hope)

If you STR-spec Sazh, make sure to inflict Deprotect, and use his Blitz, he can output massive amounts of damage during stagger.

3: The best plan is to kill Dahaka before he uses Diluvial Plague. The easiest way to manage that is to get setup with buffs and debuffs, and stagger Dahaka right after he uses Fulminous Firestorm for the first time. Do as much damage as you can during stagger, stagger him again before he gets through his move sequence, and kill him in the second stagger. This is doable at very low stats:

https://youtu.be/u5V53b5X__Q

[Rise Kujikawa]

I remember this fight on my first playthrough, I had to grind for a while.......

[76561198017204319]

That was a tough fight if first time thru. I used Light/Fang/Van but it took me awhile the first time I got him. After you get used to what he does you can get him easier.