Early Neochu (Mission 55, Growth Egg) Farming

[Connor]

I've been going at this for about 2 hours now. I've maxed 1 role in each character with Stage 9 Crystarium. With the attrition paradigm (SAB/MED/SEN, VANILLE/LIGHTNING/SNOW), and using Death, it never connects.
I've got 2 maxed out black belts on Snow, one on Vanille, and some magic boosters for Lightning.
And all weapons are maxed out. (Debuffing II for Vanille's).
I keep dying at screech before Death works.
Any suggestions?

[Roly]

Guess you gotta just keep at it. Debuffing II doesn't actually improve the chance of Death insta-killing. I believe a high chain bonus and stagger improve Deaths chances.

[talgaby]

Try to put on 2-3 debuffs on it in the first round to boost the 1% chance to 2-3%. Or more, if you can. The only thing that improves the connect chances is the number of debuffs active on the target.
It's pure, unfiltered, straight-up, undiluted RNG at its finest. It may connect on the third try or on the three hundred thousandth try. On my first playthrough I spent 70 minutes on it, on the second only 20.
Also pop an Aegisol for increased longevity, so only Screech wipes you. This may give you 5-7 Death chances instead of 2-3.

[Roly]

I was wrong in saying that stagger improves chances. talgaby is right, only casting while debuffs are present will improve Deaths instant kill. If you have them, Fortisols would be quite useful for this fight.

[talgaby]

The Haste part of it, yes. The faith and brave parts do nothing in this one, since you won't do any actual damage, only to the picochus if you killed the neochu. You can use Sprint Shoes instead, it's unlikely an attempt will last longer than 60 seconds. And you are guaranteed to get at least one sprint shoes, since the tetradic crown in chapter 10 is a guaranteed drop.

[tiornys]

The only debuff that Neochu is weak to is Imperil. Do inflict Imperil; it's worth the time. With shrouds and optimized Imperil inflict-->Death spam, you have about a 21% chance per fight of successful Death. Without shrouds, you don't get as many Deaths off and your odds drop to ~14%.

Also, make sure you have a plan for dealing with the Picochus once Death does hit. This vid is a good example, although I'd recommend tossing a Librascope early in the battle as that helps Snow defend better:

http://youtu.be/i427oa-hNkA

[SenMithrarin85]

This is how I do it.

Have Fang as leader equipped with Taming pole (upgraded to the base level tier 2 form) and stick whatever strength boosting accessories you have (as high level as you can) and one other accessory to grant the random instant chain ability.

Have Snow as sentinel and beefed up with damage limiting accesories (maxed royal armlet and general's belt and some earth defence)

Have Hope as a medic throughout the fight. and start fully buffed with fortisol and aegisol.

You basically want fang to pound away at the thing as often as possible whilst snow tanks the picochus and hope keeps him alive. at the chrystarium cap for chapter 11, you'll likely need to take out the picochus with fang's blitz before setting your sights on the neochu.

Once random instant chain works, go on the offensive with a relentless assault/divesity paradigm and get the thing in the air. pound away with fang (and hope/snow if possible) and hope you kill it before it recovers.

Random instant chain is not easy to trigger, but I found it more likely to work than death with the neochu.

[Lichenberg (Deaf)]

Keep at it. It took me almost 2 hours to get it. My set up is Vanille/Hope/Lightning. Sab/Med/Sen, Sab/Rav/Sen, Rav/Rav/Sen and lastly, Com/Com/Com for killing Picochu last.

Reason for this set up is that Lightning is very strong SEN with her Evade and Elude ability with Hope as her pocket healer. It really work well and help reduce the damage much further than Snow able to soak up. Two reason why I hold Picochu for last, it eat up target time if I takes too long to kill them all before going all out on Neochu and This prevent Neochu asking for more Picochu allow me to death for more time. If I fail to kill Neochu before screech, I usually restart the battle.

Yes I still can get the item no matter what the stars but I want to do it once than attempting to get 5 stars for the second time later.

[Connor]

Yup, just got it 2 hours ago.
I used the same setup as above, but used Imperil before Death. Made it much easier.
Then I switched between MED/MED/COM and COM/RAV/COM to take out the piochus.
Moral of the story: cast Imperil before death. :)
Thanks everyone.

[Improper Use]

Yeah I got it in chapter 11 with Death, I made sure Imperil was on the target first, then cast death. It did not take too long to work.

[scoota33]

Easiest way is vanille snow lightning. Sprint shoes really help on vanille for the 1st bit. Start in sab sen med get imperil on him spam death .. if it connects all good. snow is taking the damage and light is healing so nothing is stopping vanille from spamming death at neochu. if he screeches then retry .. now the picochus just sit in med sen com and slowly but surely light will wipe them out whilst snow takes the damage and vanille heals snow. As you start to kill them off you can do some quick switches to rav sen com to help pick them off but switch back when snow is at half HP