Chap. 11 CP Farming

[Connor]

I've been using the 'usual' CP farming spot in the Archlyte Steepe with the Behemoth King and the other monster.
Here's my setup:
Lightning/Vanille/Sazh

Starting paradigm: COM/RAV/RAV - start fighting as soon as you see Sazh's notification to fight. (with 5 atb gauges, 4 atb gauges attack earlier) Launch the Behemoth King and switch to COM/SAB/SYN when you're in the air to skip the animation.
Keep attacking until the Behemoth is dead, then wait until the other monster has Deprotect and switch to RAV/RAV/RAV to stagger the other monster. Switch to COM/RAV/COM to finish it off for a time around about 0:55.

Any suggestions or different strategies?
I've been doing this for 2 days and have gone from 1500 to 3500 HP.

[tiornys]

There are definitely strategies for killing Behemoth King and Megistotherian faster. They're a little trickier to pull off, but I believe it's worth it for the time savings. Here are some example vids:

http://youtu.be/9kS2ATHAB_c
http://youtu.be/pUoLfwJz3Q0

That said, you're probably close to being ready to switch gears; I'd recommend you stop farming this fight. If you want to continue farming, move on to Mah'habara and use the tunnel that splits off to the left just a few fights past the entrance. You can respawn all of the enemies in this tunnel at each end; at the dead end, initiate the fight with the Juggernaut and retry (don't kill the Juggernaut). At the open end, run a few steps left out of the tunnel--once you're off the metal the fights should have respawned. This tunnel gives about the same CP/hour as the BK/M fight, and gives way better value in component drops.

A good party for Mah'habara side tunnel farming is Sazh with Fang and Hope (or Vanille if she's learned Firaga and Hope hasn't). Give Hope your Blessed Talisman and ideally make a Morale Talisman for Fang (max a Hero's Amulet and use a Perovskite to transform it). Start in SYN/COM/RAV and cast some quick buffs (Enfire or Enthunder, Haste, Bravery if needed) with Sazh before shifting to COM/COM/RAV.

Alternately, now is a good time to start doing missions. This won't get you CP as fast as the BK/M fight or the Mah'habara side tunnel, but it'll get you better rewards, especially when you complete mission 14. It's also a lot more interesting than farming.

[talgaby]

I'd recommend farming the #24 mission: it gives 6000 CP and gil, and takes about 60 to 90 seconds per round. Gil will be a bigger issue than CP, and if you can keep up for a few hours, you'll max out your crystarium anyway.
But if you want to farm that spot, I used Fang/Sazh/Vanille in COM/COM/RAV. Since Fang targeted the behemoth last, she and Vanille automatically start attacking it. Vanille staggers it in the first round, and Fang usually launches it with the last hit, denying the transformation. By the time the behemoth is killed, Sazh has usually finished up the other one, joining in for the last hit. On Stage 8, it took about 30-40 seconds to kill them, on Stage 9 6-7.
Although I have tested, and farming the adamantortoise that is chained in a canyon next to a save point is a viable option on Stage 9 Easy mode, giving you 40 000 CP and 135 000 gil on average (roughly 9 platinum ingots per 10 kills).

[tiornys]

The issue I have with mission 24 farming is that you have to complete 90% of the chapter before you can farm it, and at that point you can get a massive gil windfall from a sidequest and push on to chapter 13 where the really good farming lies. Aside from that, it's a decent gil farming spot as far as non-Turtle/Sacrifice methods go.

[talgaby]

I have completed a very farm-heavy run to experiment a little. (By heavy I mean 127 hours long, about 100 hours of farming spread out to almost all chapters.)
#24 farming seems to be a quite good spot to max out Stage 8 and stock up on about 900 000 CP to instantly boost yourself after the chapter 11 boss fight– which will give you enough to start farming the adamantortoise on Easy, for a somewhat consistent 1 mil/hour farm.
It should be enough to get most accessories and the useful Tier 2 weapons to ⋆ level, which later gave me a high flexibility in hard to avoid monster fights in later chapters (which fights I started for the datalog only).
Of course this still can't beat Sacrifice farming on Easy, or the adamantortoise farming on Stage 10, where you can get nearly 2-3 million gils per hour, or even more. (I suck at the adamantortoise farming… never got it below 110 seconds.)

Although for pure CP farming– if you don't care about the treasure hunter or want more than 3 weapons on Tier 3– the behemoth farm is a very powerful one, probably the best spot in chapter 11. The only one that beat it to me was a long gui farm in post-game.

[tiornys]

Originally posted by talgaby:

Although for pure CP farming– if you don't care about the treasure hunter or want more than 3 weapons on Tier 3– the behemoth farm is a very powerful one, probably the best spot in chapter 11. The only one that beat it to me was a long gui farm in post-game.

The biggest advantage of the BK/M fight is that you can farm it efficiently at very low development levels. Once you've made serious inroads into the stage 8 Crystarium there are better options available.

Mah'habara side tunnel is competitive once you have access to Firaga. With a good eq setup (auto-buff accessories, Aurora Scarves, and upgraded weapons), the side tunnel has the advantage(?) of being near mindless, as Hope and Fang will destroy the enemies in seconds without any input from you. All you have to do is steer from battle to battle without falling asleep. I've used this method while watching movies, for example.

If you're really going hardcore during chapter 11, your best pure CP farming is the 6x Cryohedron fight in the optional area of Mah'habara. You need to be fairly strong in order to overpower the fight before it blows up in your face, but once you're that strong it edges out the BK/M fight.

Once we're talking beyond chapter 11, the repeatable Wladislaus fight in chapter 13 is by far the best CP farming in the game. It offers more than 150% of the CP/hour you can get from the next best method (Adamantoise farming) and more than 250% of the CP/hour offered by the 6x Cryohedron.

Of course, I'm not sure whether or how Easy mode changes things. Maybe you can profitably farm the Faultwarrens and Attacus. Or maybe not.

[Maechen]

I farmed this way to cap after the last boss on ps3. 3x commando(snow,fang,lightning) but Lightning needs Lionheart to stagger. Can do the fight in 6 seconds. Pretty good way to farm mindlessly.

PC easy mode the turtles is way better with growth egg. Not as mindless but you get into the groove quickly. Mainly because of the gil and cp at the same time. Worked great for me, 100%d the game pretty quick(69 or so hours with a full playthrough,killing last boss at the 30ish hour mark).

[talgaby]

Farming Attacus? Don't you have to plow through the whole stone table before any new attempt? Plus he is killed slowly even on Easy.

[tiornys]

Originally posted by talgaby:

Farming Attacus? Don't you have to plow through the whole stone table before any new attempt? Plus he is killed slowly even on Easy.

Just throwing out a crazy idea. Although the Faultwarrens themselves are a good enough CP farm to be better than BK/M with sufficient development (early-mid postgame-ish) and good strategies, so it's not entirely unreasonable for it to be worth adding Attacus to the loop. However, if he's still a slow kill on Easy it's probably not worth it; I think I estimated that you needed to kill him in under 4 minutes (and you'd still be nowhere close to Adamantoise CP levels).

[PanicButton]

One important thing on a side note. Make sure to spend that CP periodically. Only 999,999CP can be banked. Anything above that will be wasted. I found this out the hard way....

[talgaby]

Originally posted by tiornys:

Although the Faultwarrens themselves are a good enough CP farm to be better than BK/M with sufficient development (early-mid postgame-ish) and good strategies

Too much menuing, I think. Even if you stick to one party, an optimal CP grind would need to switch between quite a few battle setups. Plus Attacus in 4 minutes is… well, probably doable, but IMO this level of fiddling around is just not worth the possible +100k/hour or so hassle.
It's just easier to open the game in a window, and watch something else while doing the same farming method over and over.

[Connor]

Alright, I've maxed out Crystarium Stage 8 and I've got a few queries:
1. What mission level should I go to before advancing the story?
2. Should I upgrade my weapons, or buy better ones?
3. What party members are best for the majority of the story?
4. Should I put some spare CP into the secondary roles, or leave them for post-game?

Thanks.

[talgaby]

1. As far as you can. All missions can be completed in Stage 8, as I learnt recently, but usually only 51, 54, 62 and 64 are the ones you really need to leave to post-game. The two hard missions you are advised to do on Stage 9 (before ending the chapter) are 55 and 63 (for the Growth egg and genji glove, respectively). If you feel up to a challenge, you can try 51 too for a second Genji glove.
Oh, and don't complete 62 unless you are absolutely sure you don't want more money.
2. The best weapons are found ingame, not at the Gilgamesh store. But you should know that upgrading your used weapon leads to decreased 5-star target times. That affects two achievements. On the other hand getting Tier 2 weapons should be a top priority right from the start of the game. The advanced helping abilities are insanely powerful.
3. Depends on taste. Most people swear on Fang-Lightning-Hope, I found chapter 10-12 to be easiest with Fang-Sazh-Vanille (most of the time starting with a SAB-SYN-SAB– Fang can essentially render 3/4th of the mobs harmless with Pain and Fog in two rounds), chapter 13 with the three girls, post game with Fang-Lightning-Snow.
4. If you want to go into the really advanced strategies, then you have to. Early oretoise farming needs RAV×3, and Fang is almost essential, so she has to be a decent RAV. Lightning is the best SEN, despite it being a secondary role. And Snow is a helluva MED (I can't recall who said that, but thanks) and SYN, while Hope is surprisingly probably the second best COM after Fang.
But secondary roles take up a ton of CP. Stage 9 isn't that problematic, only a few hundred thousand, which can be gathered in a few hours, but Stage 10 needs a few millions.

[tiornys]

Originally posted by talgaby:

Originally posted by tiornys:

Although the Faultwarrens themselves are a good enough CP farm to be better than BK/M with sufficient development (early-mid postgame-ish) and good strategies

Too much menuing, I think. Even if you stick to one party, an optimal CP grind would need to switch between quite a few battle setups.

You know, when I make a claim like this, I'm not speaking in theoretical terms. I've actually physically done and timed these loops, including any necessary menuing time. Before trying to farm them I'd already done quite a bit of work on optimizing real-time strategies (i.e. menu time, running time, battle time, etc.) for running the Faultwarrens as part of routing a platinum speedrun for FFXIII.

Plus Attacus in 4 minutes is… well, probably doable, but IMO this level of fiddling around is just not worth the possible +100k/hour or so hassle.
It's just easier to open the game in a window, and watch something else while doing the same farming method over and over.

Agreed on both counts. The Faultwarrens is an interesting alternative if you want to be engaged with the game though.

[3phemeral]

I just got to Chapter 13 and teleported back to Gran Pulse and I'm starting to farm CP but after reading the suggestions, I'm wondering if I may be assuming this strategy isn't as quick as what's been mentioned:

In Taejin's Tower, on the 2nd Tier, there are Pulsworker Gladiators that yield 8K CP, and all you need to do is travel upstairs, fight the single mob there (which yield 3.8K themselves), and then head down to the newly spawned Gladiators. The Gladiators are a cinch if you have two competent Ravagers casting Waterga/Firega/Thundaga, which will usually put all of them in Stagger within the second turn, with the third turn killing them in a single hit. Gladiators are also rather easy to preemptively strike. My team consists of Fang, Vanille, and Hope with Hope inflicting the most damage.

I was just curious about the method because it seems 6K per fight is a be a good goal for farming CP, although the fight for the Behemoth King w/ the other beast takes me a bit longer than the Galdiators for some reason.

I agree the Mah'habara side tunnel is also a pretty good spot to farm with (if I remember correctly), a 5.2k, 3k, and a 2.1k mob that spawn as you go back and forth (where the Juggernaught resides).

I have to retry that BK+ M combo again after watching that video.

[3phemeral]

Just tried the BK+M combo and it's vastly quicker. Although, trying to find a way to make the Taejin Tower run more speed efficient is tempting, running zig zag stairsputs an inconvenient hinderance on timing. Using an Aggression Paradigm is great for Staggering both BK + M simultaeously.