*SPOILERS KINDA* Valmar's Body Hard Mode

[Debrel]

This boss keeps wrecking me, should I just focus on the body and not the tentacles?

[PBSaffran]

Chances are, you will not be able to avoid the suck in attack (you can't keep canceling it, the boss is too fast) and the tentacles are very fast too. So what you can do is have a decoy character and make him/her move away near the boss (for example at one side of a tentacle) then have all other characters focus on the other Tentacle and kill it asap.
I used Tio as a decoy so she could try and use Lotus Flower on the tentacle far away from her and hit at least two parts.
I think they are weak to fire so try the Beast King thing from Mareg and large fire/explosion AOE with Millenia.

[Debrel]

The suck in move is indeed way too fast, I've also noticed that the tentacles can get stunned by electricity. The furthest I've gotten is killing one tentacle and then getting immediately sucked in, having the remaining tentacle wipe out my entire party with one last attack. I'll try your tactic

[kokohearts]

I'm getting so frustrated at the difficulty of this boss. I know it's hard mode, but every other boss and enemy before it wasn't troubling for me at all. The body and both its tentacles are so fast and deal so much damage. I've successfully killed one tentacle in my second try. Since then, over my 5 or so more tries, I've done little to nothing.
I wanna try PBSaffran's tactic as well. Putting abilities for evasion and defense up on Tio and going to hope for the best. In all my attempts thus far, she's always been the last one standing.

It's just so gosh darn frustrating.

[Debrel]

What I ended up doing was just using aoe magic and having mareg cancel out the attacks on the body. Ryuda also participated in cancelling tentacles in case I did end up getting sucked in. I think I was just fortunate when I won.

[5chneemensch]

Just buff yourself up with Runner. Runner gives +1 MOV to the entire party, which gives you bonus evasion, movement speed, and movement distance.

[kokohearts]

Just beat it. I used the elixir that revies and grants +5 stats on Ryudo. Millenia and Mareg died (the former in her rage mode), and I left them dead. Had Tio cancel and debuff the boss while Ryudo used magic and Sky Dragon Slash. Healed with Tio when needed, replenished Ryudo's sp to full and finished with two more Sky Dragon. Tio couldn't get touched with her speed and evasion, which helped greatly.

[Riptos]

It was certainly difficult but I enjoyed how hard it was.

I had a smile on my face the whole time as it was a boss where I was actually challenged instead of doing what I normally do. Normally I try and kill the bosses without taking any damage so this was an absolute blast. If only the rest of the Valmar pieces were as challenging.

[Debrel]

I'm enjoying the hard mode in general, it's the reason I even bought the game

[Detestable Geohound]

I haven't played hard mode (or most of this version until audio bugs are fixed) but usually when it comes to bosses, there really is one superior effective strategy: just faceroll the Valmar Piece. This is because the moment it goes down, the entire battle is finished.

So if you're capable of setting yourself up to do a lot of damage quickly (fastest characters being heavy hitters) you should be pretty much set as long as hit it with your most powerful moves over and over with the occasional pause to cancel moves here and there.

[Debrel]

the thing is that the enemies are so much faster in hard mode you are guaranteed to get sucked in at least once during the fight even if you dedicate all your attacks on the body. If both tentacles get to hit your party simultaneously then it's most likely game over for every party member except for maybe mareg who will soon follow.

[tiornys]

Originally posted by Debrel:

If both tentacles get to hit your party simultaneously then it's most likely game over for every party member except for maybe mareg who will soon follow.

This. I was able to take down the body on my first try (hard mode), but it was definitely more challenging than most fights. I only took one tentacle attack to the entire party. It happened relatively early in the fight and dealt massive damage, but luckily I was able to cancel the attack from the other tentacle. It was clear that I needed to make avoidance of that scenario my top priority.

The key pieces to my approach were a fair amount of Act manipulation, use of scatter stones to clear the party out after getting sucked in (only had to do this once, thankfully), getting Tio off to one side so she could Lotus Flower multiple parts, and constantly bombarding the enemies with IP damage from Earth/Explosion spells like Tremor and Boom!.

I think there might be an alternate approach involving Digging and/or Stram. If the tentacle damage can be nerfed down to reasonable levels, you should have time to heal after taking the hits.

[King]

Spellbinding Eye is the key to winning the battle. Use that to keep the body locked down, and then take out the tentacles. Make sure you have a lot of Baobab fruits to keep Millenia's SP up!

[tiornys]

I should mention that I've been deliberately avoiding the use of Spellbinding Eye. It is of course great in most boss battles.

[Jargous]

If you don't like using Spellbinding eye, keep your healers separated and cast cold and diggin' for the first few rounds and cancel when necessary. Once the core is at -4 act, it becomes a lot easier.

[Riptos]

Haha all the talk of Spellbinding Eye on this fight makes me sad lol.

I did it first time as well, had to resurrect a couple of members but other than that it wasn't too bad. Millenia's rage bar decided to erupt after the second tentacle strike as well which didn't help things lol. I had the Holy Egg on her too so she was essentially my main healer.

But I hope, genuinely hope New Valmar's core is just as difficult as that. Should make for some proper entertainment.