Chapter 11 boss strats?

[MassConnect]

TL;DR What is the most efficient way to kill Barthandelus ASAP?

I played this on PS3 at release, and I remember it being frustrating, but I find it odd how the official strategy guide seems substantially misinformed in its recommendation. In summary: they say do two rounds of delta attack, then shift to mystic tower to quickly stagger, and repeat that for several staggers while shifting to combat clinic for heals. They have the nerve of saying that the doom counter will appear when the boss only has 400-500k HP, and the nerve to suggest using TP for renew instead of combat clinic because it becomes a "race" to beat the doom counter.

I've never had any success with that strat, even with maxed out crystarium for this point in the game and good gear. With a constant sentinel contributing nothing, I barely do any damage, which results in the doom counter appearing simply because of the amount of time that has elapsed (the boss still has something like 3/4 of his health). By that point, relentless assault has no chance of making up for lost time, and the doom counter will run out if I don't happen to get killed before then (compounded by the fact that renew is NOT a worthwhile heal, and eats up the TP needed to combat daze, pain, and fog from halting my best actions).

So what do I find is the only thing that works? Just use relentless assault straight out of the gate, for the whole fight, always switching to combat clinic for heals and saving all TP for dispelga. Surprise, surprise, I end up doing a LOT more damage with Fang as a commando instead of a sentinel, and I'll have the boss health at least halfway down before the doom counter hits, leaving me PLENTY of time to keep doing the same thing without sweating the time limit at all.

What bothers me, though, is that this is still time-consuming, and rather boring, and it would have to be EVEN MORESO for anyone that didn't grind and show up to the fight with the deck stacked in their favor. This boss battle seems completely out of the league of everything else that led up to it (the sudden exponentiation in the amount of enemy HP, and it seems to be the only instance where they go out of the way to penalize players for playing it safe).

And if that wasn't all bad enough, the target time once you finally survive seems outrageously impossible. Does anyone know a more efficient way of getting this hassle over with ASAP?

[tiornys]

In general: get buffs (full buffs early, just a couple after Apoptosis), stagger and inflict Deprotect, Deshell, and Imperil (this means Vanille should be in the party unless you've done a fair amount of secondary SAB development for Light or Sazh). Use the first 2-2.5 rounds of stagger to keep building up chain, then switch over to heavy COM presence for damage. Anything that reduces the amount of negative statuses you're facing from Bart helps. This includes Slow, Veil, Vigilance (to directly counter Curse), Daze-resisting accessories, and curative items.

Two specific tricks to speed things up:
1) you can preserve your buffs through the first Apoptosis by using Summon when you know it's immanent and going Gestalt during its animation. At any reasonable development level, you can use this to kill Barthandelus before its second Apoptosis, and never deal with losing all of your buffs.

2) Sazh's Blitz is highly effective in the fight, dealing roughly twice as much damage as two Attacks would deal. Give strong consideration to leading with him and spiking his Strength.

The power of Deprotect and Deshell should be obvious. Imperil negates Barthandelus's halve-element property on all elements, which (among other things) doubles your chaining speed with elemental abilities--i.e. RAV abilities. This makes it much easier to build the chain rapidly to high levels during stagger.

Vids:
http://youtu.be/E7Pb40TN2EY
http://youtu.be/qE2t9wfGRL4

and just for fun:
http://youtu.be/Z5kH1ID9qEI
http://youtu.be/HAgfstIU83w

[POSEIDON]

change it to easy :D

[Void Cat]

Git gud.

[☂Aqua☂]

First of all have a good sabouter and synergist,have a 2 medic paradigm for healing,relentless assault and Tri-Disaster.
Start with Commando/Sabouter/Synergist wait till Barthandelus is with deshell,deprotect and slow,now switch to your medic paradigm and heal your party,after that switch to tri-disaster for stagger after that switch to relentless assault and beat the crap out of him,repeat those steps until you kill him.

[talgaby]

If you have a SAB it stabilises the gauge as a COM does, so a RAV/SAB/SYN not only buffs and debuffs, but increases the chain at the same time.

[WickedRequiem]

I used Light/Sazh/Vanille
Started off with Com/Syn/Sab
Switched off to Com/Syn/Rav after Bart was sufficiently debuffed
Went off to Rav/Rav/Rav --> Com/Com/Rav after everyone was nicely buffed

Mix in Med/Syn/Med as needed, repeat the above steps when buffs/debuffs wear off, and that should be enough.

I did have to use a summon when I accidentally allowed two of the party members to get knocked out towards the end. Bart only had a tiny health left, and I thought I could damage it fast enough. Couldn't, apparently.