Started Chapter 11 - how do I progress without grinding?

[†[BeaN]†]

Seems like going up against the Behemoth King is pretty much impossible. I throw 2 medics into the paradigm and that's about enough to keep me alive. too bad I do no damage. I managed to get Lightning a Star upgraded black belt but that's really about it. I haven't avoided any mobs and have even gone out of the way to fight a few hoping to find loot.

Do I really have to grind THAT much to progress? The crystarium requirements are getting pretty steep to upgrade and I imagine I need another 1k health across the board to be able to fight the behemoth king monster but as the other behemoths were regular beasties I imagine there are going to be others just as and much stronger.. Only have about 1500 gill because I've had to refill pheonix downs a few times (mainly when it made me use Hope)

Wuht?

[Scarlet Crusade]

Just do the Cie'th Stone Missions 1-15 before you progress any further.

It's not really 'grinding' and you'll get some nice rewards on the way.

[Ranidan]

You may have to grind just a little. There are two fights that are semi-easy at this point and give you very good CP. First, follow the left wall after entering the Archylte Steppe, towards the place where the red glowing wall stops you. That eventually leads to a chocobo area, but outside the path to that are 4 Leyaks or Renga, I forget which. The little dancing guys. That's an easy fight that if I remember correctly nets like 2,500 CP. After that head west to the exit to the next area, and there is a Behemoth King and a big dog (forget the name) fighting. They won't attack you until you kill one of them. Take out the behemoth king first (with the surprise attack), he's much more powerful. This fight will earn 6,600 CP. Don't worry about grinding everything out, the next few areas will be easier and will net you plenty of CP without grinding. Hope this helps.

[Improper Use]

Simply go into the tunnels and clear them out.

When you get out, you have 'grinded' your way to the the next stage of the game.
Basically, unless you want it hard for yourself, kill everything you encounter (except the open area in 11).

But doing the stone missions is definately a help.

[†[BeaN]†]

Thanks for the help! I actually couldn't finish the first stone mission because I can't figure out how to get accross the ravine that seems to cut me off from everything northward. I found a couple passageways that might lead out but they were blocked by behemoth kings =/

Do I need a certain item to use those yellow circle markers that used to be blue "jump" markers?

[Scarlet Crusade]

Originally posted by †BeaN†:

Do I need a certain item to use those yellow circle markers that used to be blue "jump" markers?

Yellow markers can only be jumped by Chocobos. You have to complete mission 14 to unlock Chocobos, and you have to complete missions 1-13 to unlock mission 14.

[SpawnCap]

Originally posted by Ranidan:

After that head west to the exit to the next area, and there is a Behemoth King and a big dog (forget the name) fighting. They won't attack you until you kill one of them. Take out the behemoth king first (with the surprise attack), he's much more powerful. This fight will earn 6,600 CP.

This is where I grinded, at top of hill is a save point just a little ways from these two. You automatically surprise them, one or two hits take out behemoth king and about one to take out the other (because they do most of the damage to each other), each combat took about 10 seconds. Then I'd run up hill, save, run back down hill and attack them again, did this over and over till I maxed my abilities.

[tiornys]

You don't have to grind and you don't have to do missions, although either can be helpful (especially missions, which I do recommend doing). The lower your development compared to the monsters, the better your setups and strategy have to become.

One way to add a lot of effective development is to level up some damage resistance accessories (Black Belts/Rune Bracelets) and some weapons with good stat growth. For example, if you take Lightning with 1433 HP, 318 Strength, and 318 Magic (her "expected" stats for the Archylte Steppe according to the official strategy guide) and you equip her with a maxed Black Belt, maxed Rune Bracelet, and maxed Blazefire Saber, you've given her an effective 1791 HP against almost all attacks (thanks to 20% damage reduction) and raised her Strength and Magic to 433.

Besides damage reduction (or +HP) accessories, some other strategies for surviving at low development include the use of defensive buffs (Protect), defensive debilitations (Slow), and/or deploying a Sentinel. Strategies for dealing damage quickly with low stats include stacking buffs and debuffs (like Bravery + Deprotect), casting En-spells on your COMs to let them exploit elemental weaknesses (possibly created using Imperil), and extra chain boosting. If an enemy staggers at 200%--and therefore goes to 300% chain at stagger--you're dealing triple damage. Spend a round or two raising the chain from 300% to 500% and you're now dealing quintuple damage. If you had Deprotect and Bravery in this scenario, you'd be dealing 1323% damage. Add in an Enspell on a weakness and you're dealing 2646% damage.

A good general team for taking on chapter 11 at lower development is Sazh/Vanille/Fang, with a paradigm deck looking something like this:
Sazh/Vanille/Fang
SYN/SAB/SEN
RAV/RAV/SEN
COM/RAV/SEN
COM/MED/SEN
COM/RAV/COM
RAV/MED/SAB (or RAV/SAB/SAB or SYN/SAB/SAB once you're stronger)

Fang can tank damage as a SEN while Sazh and Vanille set up buffs and debuffs and possibly stagger, and then go on offense once you're set up for massive damage output.
Alternately, Fang's debilitations can trivialize numerous encounters by shutting down enemies with Pain and Fog, or allow you to control dangerous enemies by making them vulnerable to attack disruption through Curse (especially combined with Sazh's Vigilance). You should be open to swapping out team members for bosses or tough fights. Teams like Sazh/Vanille/Hope, Fang/Vanille/Hope, and Lightning/Hope/Snow can be great in certain scenarios.

These vids demonstrate some of these strategies in action:
http://youtu.be/9Pte11f6u8s

http://youtu.be/DQCdmZ5ACDI

[Purplefairy22]

ignore the behemoth kings and megalotron(something like that, the big wolf things) and toises and fight pretty much everything else on you way you shouldn't have any issues completeing the game. i didn't.

its only if you want all the achievements is grinding neccessary, but again there is absolutely no point till after you finished the main quest.

[Scarlet Crusade]

Originally posted by Purplefairy22:

its only if you want all the achievements is grinding neccessary, but again there is absolutely no point till after you finished the main quest.

No point... aside from the fun and the challenge of the postgame.

[†[BeaN]†]

Wow, tiornys thanks for the detailed reply :D

I will fight on! By the sound of SpawnCap's reply I am not doing NEARLY enough damage. Even if he starts out low from doing battle that Behemoth King isn't going down in 10 seconds @__@ ESP after he stands up - gg

Will continue to battle and find my way to finish the missions - if they're interesting and don't take too much time. I don't know if I'm a big fan of this game...I just feel like I have to finish it.

[Purplefairy22]

you've come this far, might as well go the distance, or are you chicken?

[†[BeaN]†]

(wishes he had a chocobo emoticon)

I'll probably finish it. The sense of accomplishment alone is quite aluring. I do appreciate the story and character development but I definitely don't feel like I can relate to any of them except maybe Snow the Bro...but his Bro aura makes me facepalm

[SpawnCap]

Originally posted by †BeaN†:

Wow, tiornys thanks for the detailed reply :D

I will fight on! By the sound of SpawnCap's reply I am not doing NEARLY enough damage. Even if he starts out low from doing battle that Behemoth King isn't going down in 10 seconds @__@ ESP after he stands up - gg :sadelf:

Will continue to battle and find my way to finish the missions - if they're interesting and don't take too much time. I don't know if I'm a big fan of this game...I just feel like I have to finish it.

Well each time I've played the game I grinded all the time, so I might have been pretty powerful on my attacks when I got there, but It was still a fight for my party when I was taking on any one of those enemies by themselves and when they weren't hurt and distracted. Been awhile since last I played and it was on ps3 for a lot of hours, never beat the game but got to last boss, but ps3 version was also harder, had no difficulty level. Only played around with game a little bit on pc to see what, if any, difference there was.

[Scarlet Crusade]

Originally posted by †BeaN†:

Snow the Bro...but his Bro aura makes me facepalm :woodlehappy:

http://41.media.tumblr.com/68a262e86f6da7913e7df654317021fd/tumblr_nj32y9qk4G1r8uo3io1_540.png