I don't want to hear a "be better." shitty answer. I will wish to my local gypsy for you to die for saying something like that. I have been able to get through EVERY difficult fight in the game so far, not the prettiest, but a war of attrition kind of thing, slowly whittling down a boss. Until this one. Start with the whittling, and then? Oh, no magic for everyone, so I will pitter peck at you until you die. There's no stopping this. I could use that dispelga, but you know what? There's only five of those, and this happens at around the 6000000 hit point mark, so I'm pretty sure it's going to happen more than 5 times. So, I hear people saying, "have this item, have that item, use this item" except I don't HAVE those items. You know why? Because I've never needed them for any other fight. Through the whole game. You ever want to go boating? Or take a plane ride somewhere? Well, just have a plane. Have a boat. Are you an idiot noob for not having a plane and a boat?

I could just load an earlier save (though, because I used all 99 save slots on my way through the game, and just started saving over the same one, my last save is like 10 hours ago.) I could also go back to before Orphan, wander back, mush through battle after battle, gaining items, selling them, buying items, buying components, upgrading weapons, but for how long? Another 5 hours of grinding for this shit? If this game had some kind of ramp up to this thing, fine. I would have put more effort in getting things sooner.

At this point on this boss? I've tried three times, and know for a fact I'm not going to win this fight. This is the first time, in my 25 years of gaming that I've ever gotten to the end of a game and given up. Fuck this boss. And fuck anybody who says it's easy. It's not easy. You just worked really really hard, harder than I'm willing to, to win.

This isn't a request for strategy. Just a venting rant. Troll away.

Weird, I certainly remember it being easy. Maybe I had over-leveled a bit, or maybe there was some trick that you're missing... Don't remember. Anyway, look up a faq and have at it.

@TooWalrus said:

Weird, I certainly remember it being easy. Maybe I had over-leveled a bit, or maybe there was some trick that you're missing... Don't remember. Anyway, look up a faq and have at it.

Same. it may be a level thing or the paradigm set up of their party.

Playing better would probably help.

I uh, don't remember that fight at all. Well I remember killing it... But not what it did or how. I definitely didn't farm any specific items or grind for it. I'm pretty damn sure there are way harder bosses earlier in the game.

Mind if I ask what party you were using, with what weapons/level etc? Just wanna check if we had a large gap in stats. I didn't really grind in that game, but you might be underleveled.

Pretty sure it was one of the bosses you could just cheese with poison + Sen/Sen/Sen if you want. That said I never really had a ton of trouble with it either. I believe I had a accessory for debuff protection on though, so I could just toss esuna out on everyone and go about my business as normal. It's just a pretty long fight is all.

Stop sucking. It's not hard.

Lololol. I killed that fucker in under 3 mins. 5 starred that bitch like a boss. Remember status ailments and haste are your friends.

Saboteur and Synergist classes are key. Sen/Sab/Med combo proved to be incredibly useful in a lot of the later bosses.

I had a little trouble with that boss when I played it over a year ago (mostly due to its instant-death ability which is by far my biggest problem with the boss - sort of breaking the entire mechanics of the game up to that point).

I know you don't really want strategies but here is what I did which didn't require levelling specific equipment: I do sort of remember how I beat it - with Lightning, Hope and Snow. Snow being a sentinal on all paradimes except one (Where he was a commando to do serious dammage when Orphan is staggered). I had hope be used for Medic and Ravager (and a bit on synergist although it wasn't that huge of a lifesaver). And then Lightning for commando, Ravager, medic and Sabatour to poison him (if you haven't leveled Lightning up with sabatour simply replace Hope with Vanille for that). I changed to med-med-sen every time it did the animation of about to use the big laser attack. I would pretty frequently use potions (Even if they don't have a huge amount of damage) while attacking to make sure I don't get my entire party easily sniped by the sweeping attack.

Item-wise I just put my death-resistant stuff on Lightning (as I played her as my main character) and whatever the item is called which improved potions, I put magic increase on hope and then I put HP stuff on Snow. I think it took me three tries but I did do it - the poison helps a lot although I focused more on staggering over it.

Overall I found the final boss to be more luck based than strategy based anyway. All you need to do is find a group/set-up that allows you to consistently be able to increase the stagger gauge while at the same time healing then you are probably onto a winning strategy - the real problem with this boss over that is the random chance it targets the main party member with Death and ends the battle instantly. So you could just randomly die because of the Death ability.

My advice - chill out, don't take it so seriously (maybe get a friend around and have a laugh trying to finish it) and just figure something out so the normal attacks don't kill you and try it a couple times before the instant death thing kills you.

If the problem you have is with the second phase of the boss (The one that dooms you) then remember you can pause and click retry to be able to move party members and quipment over just for the second boss and make it so you are ready to really push the stagger gauge not being cautious (don't really need a sentinal with this one as the aded defense isn't as necassary as the speed of increasing the stagger gauge) and just have one paradime where all your party members are healing each other (as well as maybe potions from the main party member).

So just take a break from it for a while and then maybe come back when you don't put so much pressure/stress on finishing it. I don't think you really should need to go back really far to get specific items as honestly they don't help that much in this fight because of the Death ability. If you are totally sure you cannot do it you might want to max out the current crystarium of your party though - that definitely will help.

I was having the exact same problem, and it had nothing to do with levelling or skill. He just has a ton of HP and Vanille is a key in this fight. Keep her casting poison on it, and then get a sentinel to absorb damage and raise defence for the whole party. I had a very competent party when I beat him. I used Fang as the sentinel, Vanille as the saboteur and Lightning as the commando. Just keep casting poison and try to hang in there.

Like everyone else, I recommend switching up your paradigms. Poison is huge with this boss. If you do it right, you'll actually have no problem getting the achievement, which I earned unintentionally.

Wow, I'm kinda shocked someone had trouble with this. That last boss was so piss easy. You definitely wanna start off with buffs and debuffs, then go balls out on him.

Wait a second are you talking about the giant sword version of orphan, or the actual pure Orphan?

IIRC You fight Barthandelus for the last time, Orphans first form (The sword) then his second form (the baby)