Whoa, Lair of the father is giving me serious trouble, help?

[seraph]

Action's gamefaqs walkthrough states that it is recommended to be around level 57 for this place, and I'm level SEVENTY.

I'm not even on hard mode either.

Should I just come back later? Or do it now?

I have a huge feeling that as soon as I get back to Earth, I'll have to do the giant of babil straight away. (I'll check and make an edit once I have).

From what I've heard, the enemies in the giant of babil aren't too tough, but I'm still concerned.

Help?

[Kraleck]

Buff and Debuff Management is huge for most of the scrub mobs. Cast Toad on the Dark Sages (but run away if there are 3 at once), Hold and Stop work on Bone Dragons (just don't use Fire-based attacks on them or you'll eat a nasty Flame counter), and Stop on Gold Dragons and Silver Dragons (do NOT attack the Gold Dragons physically). In general, Blink spells and Edge's Mirage are your friends, as is Haste (and, to a lesser extent, Slow) for the Behemoths and "Father". Absolutely RUN from Armored Fiends.

Behemoths are effectively minibosses and should be dealt solely with physical attacks by characters under Blink/Mirage. If you are stupid or suicidal enough to use Black Magic, they counter with Maelstrom (basically, Tornado to everyone), but Rydia's Summons are safe (Behemoth resists all except Earth, so using Titan is advised). Always exit the Lair to rest on the ship and Save after each Behemoth fight. It may be a ton of backtracking, but you don't want to fight them again now, do you?

For the "Father" himself, cast Slow on him at the start and Haste and Shell on everyone (prioritize Haste). If you stole Artemis Arrows from the Moonmaidens (highly recommended), have Rosa aid Edge and Cecil, who should attack relentlessly for the most part. Rydia should use strong summons (like Leviathan) to bypass Reflect. Fusoya uses Bless once everyone is buffed (keep him on standby afterwards). Once the countdown hits 1, ABSOLUTELY DEFEND WITH EVERYONE!!! The fight is mostly about dealing as much damage with Cecil, Edge, and Rydia (and Rosa, if you got the Artemis Arrows) before his Mega Flare wrecks your face. Shell and defending will mitigate most of the damage, but you are going to be hurting all the same.

[seraph]

Originally posted by Kraleck:

Buff and Debuff Management is huge for most of the scrub mobs. Cast Toad on the Dark Sages (but run away if there are 3 at once), Hold and Stop work on Bone Dragons (just don't use Fire-based attacks on them or you'll eat a nasty Flame counter), and Stop on Gold Dragons and Silver Dragons (do NOT attack the Gold Dragons physically). In general, Blink spells and Edge's Mirage are your friends, as is Haste (and, to a lesser extent, Slow) for the Behemoths and "Father". Absolutely RUN from Armored Fiends.

Behemoths are effectively minibosses and should be dealt solely with physical attacks by characters under Blink/Mirage. If you are stupid or suicidal enough to use Black Magic, they counter with Maelstrom (basically, Tornado to everyone), but Rydia's Summons are safe (Behemoth resists all except Earth, so using Titan is advised). Always exit the Lair to rest on the ship and Save after each Behemoth fight. It may be a ton of backtracking, but you don't want to fight them again now, do you?

For the "Father" himself, cast Slow on him at the start and Haste and Shell on everyone (prioritize Haste). If you stole Artemis Arrows from the Moonmaidens (highly recommended), have Rosa aid Edge and Cecil, who should attack relentlessly for the most part. Rydia should use strong summons (like Leviathan) to bypass Reflect. Fusoya uses Bless once everyone is buffed (keep him on standby afterwards). Once the countdown hits 1, ABSOLUTELY DEFEND WITH EVERYONE!!! The fight is mostly about dealing as much damage with Cecil, Edge, and Rydia (and Rosa, if you got the Artemis Arrows) before his Mega Flare wrecks your face. Shell and defending will mitigate most of the damage, but you are going to be hurting all the same.

Thanks this helped.

Also, would it be alright to use spells that don't seem to use a specific element like flare and (I don't actually have meteor yet) meteor against behemoths? Would Holy work?

EDIT: By the way, mega flare didn't even do that much damage. Kain was mid-jump so he took no damage, cecil took the most damage (1k) and he has 8k hp anyway since I gave him draw attacks and +50% Hp. (Yeah I actually decided to defeat the giant of babil before the lair)

Everyone else had 2-3k hp and since his only offensive move is mega flare, they had taken no damage by then and thus took around a third of their hp off. Still, this wouldn't have been a problem due to the fact that Rosa knows curaja and can pretty much heal everyone to max hp with a multicast (except cecil).

Anyway, thank you for the help, I greatly appreciate it.

[GalacticMatt]

Like he said, run from armor fiends. If you can't auto-battle through a mage fight, you don't have good enough equipment. I did it with diamond/genji gear on my first trip to the moon. My part ranged from 53-67. Draw attacks on cecil really helps with the behemoth fights. That way you can focus Rosa on healing him, and Fusoya on edge when he gets countered. When you get to bahamut, you should have everyone full hp/mp. Use elixir if you need to.

The fight if you are here on the first moon trip should go like this:

Cecil - Twincast
Rosa - Twincast
Edge - use Spider Silk
(bahamut counters with reflect), Rydia - Bluff
Fusoya - Meteor

Before any of the heavy hitters go off, Rydia and Edge will get another turn.

That fuma shuriken you looted a while back? Throw it. Easy 9999 damage.

Rydia will cast her bluffed Leviathan and hit for almost 7k with a good roll

Wincast will hit with Ultima for 9999 shortly before Fusoya's meteor does the same. Immediately start another Twincast between Cecil and rosa.

Fusoya is a tricky turn here. He doesent have enough mana for another meteor, and a reflected "-aga" spell will destroy your team. You have two options for him

1) If Bahamut has casted reflect again and hit a party member, bounce either Blizzaga or Thundaga off of that party member. It can't be reflected twice and will hit the boss.

2) If no one on your team is reflected, go ahead and cast shell on everyone just in case.

Rydia should cast leviathan again. The 4000 damage it will hit for should be plenty.

Edge can just sit around with his thumb up his ass at this point, but if you want to throw a weapon or shuriken you can.

Now the counter should be well into one, but if you menued well, the second Ultima Twincast will go off right before Bahamut scorches you all, and there you go. Destroyed before he could do anything meaningful.

If you are here after you get Kain back, you probably won't have Meteor unless you grind Rydia to 80.
Never fear though. A couple darkness jumps should be a fine replacement for meteor, and they fire more frequently. Rydia will also be doing alot more summon damage at this point due to intellet increase, so as long as you picked up Twincast, both versions of the fight should be over before Bahamut gets his first mega flare off.

The defense tactic the original responder posted is great, but if you're paying attention and getting your augments, you're already a team of OP boss shredders by this point.

Edit: I know I'm late to the party, but I'm in my playthrough now and I wanted to put my method out there.