How I played XIII...

[Demon]

Normally it seems unnecessary to talk about how you played Final Fantasy. But I thought I would tell my story because it's a bit unusual.

Okay, so of course, I didn't use a strategy guide. Then for some reason, I never once used roles other than Commander, Ravager and Medic... and a little bit of Sentinel. I was too lazy to figure out playing Saboteur or Psynergist, perhaps it cost me.

So I reached the final boss after playing for 50 hours. I was too weak to win against him, so I leveled up for an immense amount of time. After 15 hours of leveling up, I had characters that were fairly well maxed out. But my characters were still too weak. Then I realized something... I hadn't realized you could transform the weapons and accessories, which can make an astronomical difference! I was selling all my transformation parts to get gil instead of using them in a useful way.

So I had a rough finish of the game with over 60 hours playtime, and hadn't touched the Focus side-quest much.

 

[TheMixedHerb]

You can go without upgrading your weapons i'd most definitley assume. I agree though, upgrading does do a lot more than some levelling, power/warrior wristbands can have more STR for you than an entire level in half the time. I don't normally bother upgrading weapons till later, but the boosts you can get from accessories are quite worth it.

Weapons don't make much of a difference till Tier 2 I find, Tier 3's at * level are just godly.

 

[NEBILIM]

go for exclusives. like Dragoon Lance for Fang, Axis Blade for Light, and Healer's Wand for Vanille

 

[DarkShadow]

I'd just say use the synergist role to greatly improve your attacking..........

Sure,improveing your weapon is really good thing to do but because of the gil I'd say just use a synergist (Sazh or Hope)...........Just use a Faith on the medic and ravager and bravery on the commando...........It's like when you use bravery/faith their strength/magic reaches the next level on the crystarium!

and if you are really struggling to kill the enemy switch to sabotuar and use deshell and deprotect (this could take long to do but if it's a hard fight I strongly reccomend it).

 

[undead4lyfe]

so when i was able to use 3 people at all times i used lightning snow and hope snow was an amazing sentinel decent ravager and not so good commando but i had lightning as a beast commando good ravage and alright medic (i mean anyone can be a good medic really) but hope as a boss ravager bad commando and sweet medic it only took me maybe one or 2 tries to defeat orphan but the hardest boss for me would have to be the 2nd barthandalus he was a bitch when he casted doom all the damn time...

i always had lightning as my party leader because she just appealed to me as the best and most awesome of the six... i wish i had leveled fang up more because she would have been awesome (especially with bahamut and whatnot) but it was really annoying that she couldnt ravage which is probably why i didnt use her becasue im nothing withouit tri disaster and sazh would have been an awesome sentinel because at some point he could end up with more hp than snow even though snow can max out at 30,000 and sazh at 27,000 and vanille... she wasa just ehhhh the whole time never really cared for her much at all i mean she was cool because he summon was awesome with tonberries and her "limit" with neochus i did very much enjoy final fantasy 13 being the first of them that i have beaten

oh and status ailments and enhancements help out alot more than you think if you take the time out to use them it will cut alot of time of battling...trust me

Mod edit: Please do not double post.

 

[Be Unique]

Still getting confused myself with all the upgrading, i've managed to get the gladius up to the helter skelter which is now star, but can't seem to proceed any further with transformations

 

[Jarefied]

Is there certain items, which upgrade better for certain weapons

AKA the leather vs robotic parts!?

 

[MasterVivi]

if there is one class you want to forget about its sentinel.. Not synergist and sabetour.. And there is nothing to learn really.. Just have the even odds program on in the beginning of each battle towards the end of the game till you see deshell and deprotect on the enemy and haste on you... Trust me it makes a huge difference..