Tonberry the Ripper

[FlameIncLive]

how do i beat him? He one shots me EVERY TIME

[Hinnyuu]

There's a number of ways.

One is to just get real beefy - be high level, max out your Defense, use top-end Garment Grids and Dress Spheres. Something like Mascot, for example, with the right gear can tank the hits while you kill it.

Another is to stagger-lock, i.e. repeatedly hit it in very quick succession to trigger its little "stagger" animation so it can't actually attack. This requires a lot of agility and ideally haste status, too. Thief Dress Sphere can do this, but you could also use e.g. a Chocobo (high agi, can learn Auto-Haste).

All in all, though, this is one of the toughest enemies for a long time, and the toughest in its Cup for sure. If you're just trying to rush Cups early, it may be easier to simply retry and hope you don't get paired against it.

[FlameIncLive]

Originally posted by Hinnyuu:

There's a number of ways.

One is to just get real beefy - be high level, max out your Defense, use top-end Garment Grids and Dress Spheres. Something like Mascot, for example, with the right gear can tank the hits while you kill it.

Another is to stagger-lock, i.e. repeatedly hit it in very quick succession to trigger its little "stagger" animation so it can't actually attack. This requires a lot of agility and ideally haste status, too. Thief Dress Sphere can do this, but you could also use e.g. a Chocobo (high agi, can learn Auto-Haste).

All in all, though, this is one of the toughest enemies for a long time, and the toughest in its Cup for sure. If you're just trying to rush Cups early, it may be easier to simply retry and hope you don't get paired against it.

ive been getting paired with Tonby or the Duo that Flairs/Ultima me's for Quad9's

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by FlameIncLive:

ive been getting paired with Tonby or the Duo that Flairs/Ultima me's for Quad9's

Shady Duo is MUCH easier to defeat.

All you need is something that goes through Defense and deals lots of damage - Darkness from the Dark Knight is ideal for this. With high enough Strength you can kill them before they do anything.

If you're still in Chapter 1 while doing this (i.e. you don't have Dark Knight yet), consider getting a Tonberry in your party and teaching it Darkness via the Regal Crown accessory, which can be won as a prize in the Chocobo Cup. It has very steep STR growth and only takes a bit to level high enough so that its Darkness smashes the Shady Duo.

Sometimes you do get unlucky of course and get an unfortunate turn sequence, but that just happens on occasion. No big deal.

[judsdragon]

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/643146-final-fantasy-x-x-2-hd-remaster/68891395?page=1
this helped me immensely and the Tonberry/Gel team just sails thru the cups once u have a a few levels, i used Fireworks (teach with 10x L-Bomb) on both until i could get Darkness for my Gel, its similar to Darkness in that its damage is based off strength and it hits all enemies and also costs 18mp, i used the Gel to help level up a Chocobo to unlock and then use in the Chocobo cup, i am currently lvl 50 on Gel and 40 on Tonberry and by dropping down to 1 star they can kill Tonberry the Ripper every time, i must admit i was lucky to learn Total Limit Break in a fight with Shady Duo on my Gel so its sitting over 10k hp while my Tonberry is just over 4k

PS: if u manage to unlock Lady Tarantula (looks like Boris) then this is a much much easier enemy to farm for Turbo Ether (Vigor)

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by judsdragon:

i must admit i was lucky to learn Total Limit Break in a fight with Shady Duo on my Gel so its sitting over 10k hp while my Tonberry is just over 4k

That's not really luck, what abilities fiends can naturally learn is predetermined - all you need is to be high enough level, and then get hit by the right type of attack. And then you'll always learn it, guaranteed.

[judsdragon]

Originally posted by Hinnyuu:

Originally posted by judsdragon:

i must admit i was lucky to learn Total Limit Break in a fight with Shady Duo on my Gel so its sitting over 10k hp while my Tonberry is just over 4k

That's not really luck, what abilities fiends can naturally learn is predetermined - all you need is to be high enough level, and then get hit by the right type of attack. And then you'll always learn it, guaranteed.

ahh cheers im still not sure what abilities that each creature can learn or if there are only certain ones for each, iv tried searching but no luck or im not using the right keywords

[Hinnyuu]

Originally posted by judsdragon:

ahh cheers im still not sure what abilities that each creature can learn or if there are only certain ones for each, iv tried searching but no luck or im not using the right keywords

There was a Google sheet that had all the fiends and their abilities, what level they need and what type of attack - perhaps you can find it with a little searching, I seem to have misplaced the bookmark. It's been around for many years so it may take a bit of digging but it was quite useful to look these things up.

[judsdragon]

cheers again o7