Double post because it's simply that important.
So I was at the start of chapter 11 when I told myself "fuck it," took my own advice, fast forwarded to Chapter 17 and decided to go after the Top Secrets optional combat trial.
At the beginning,
Shiva was the most annoying fucking boss of them all. It took me 4 or 5 tries to finally come up with a load out and strategy to best deal with her. Her Whiteout attack is a fucking pain in the ass, however I gave a Mastered Cleansing materia to Barret so he could cast Resist on Cloud and Aerith so they wouldn't fall asleep. He was immune to sleep thanks to his accessory. With that, we just focused on damaging and winning. Then, I made it all the way up to Bahamut, got greedy with damage which pushed him into summoning Ifrit BEFORE he even fired off his first Mega Flare, and
subsequently died an ignominious death.
I didn't rage though. I knew exactly what I did wrong, and while annoyed I understood I fucked up and paced the battle all wrong.
So I tweaked my equipment strategy, remembered not to push Bahamut to half his life before he fired his Mega Flare, and then tried again.
Shiva was annoying but I made it through her after a slog.
Fat Chocobo is actually pretty easy, so long as you deal with the fucking toys the adorable asshole moogles summons
If you see a Tonberry,
STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND KILL IT IMMEDIATELY. Even if you're on the cusp of staggering the Fat Chocobo,
all focus needs to be on killing any Tonberry dolls summoned because... They have the same attacks and capabilities to instantly kill as their genuine kind. Anytime a Tonberry so much as set foot on the arena, Cloud immediately Braver'd it, or Barret fired off Maximum Fury. Each of those attacks are enough to one-shot them. Focusing on the other kind of toys are important too, but they're not nearly as deadly as Tonberry dolls. The Fat Chocobo itself is predictable and easy.
Leviathan honestly felt like a breather. Even though it's a long, drawn out fight due to it's ability to soar above the arena and come at you from all sides, it really wasn't as bothersome as the first 2. Slow and steady wins the fight. Keep up Manaward, heal up when appropriate, and when it starts to soar, use thunder magic and Barret's long-range attacks to hit it.
Honestly, I feel like the
true challenge of this run is Bahamut. Bahamut plays no fucking games in the Remake.
He's filled with hatred and rage. As I said earlier, you do not want to force Bahamut's hand and make him call his homeboy Ifrit before he fires Megaflare, because then Ifrit will proceed to pick off any of your party members in critical who were able to survive the Megaflare. Bahamut also inflicts slow and silence with his Flare Breath. So keep Aerith away from Bahamut whenever possible.
@Lex gave some
really pro advice on how to deal with Bahamut, and I have to give my thanks to him because it allowed me to not get wrecked a second time
You definitely want to focus on damage and not stagger. Cloud should just Infinity End and go for pure damage and Limit Break Bahamut as soon as possible. Just focus all damage on him. Ironically, that'll succeed in building his stagger more than trying to Focus Thrust or anything.
Just make like Ignis in FFXV and Overwhelm his ass. I actually killed Bahamut
first before taking out Ifrit, which is the opposite of what most strategies say to do. But that's because I had a specific trick that ended up saving my ass in the next fight too.
So the Pride and Joy Prototype, a prototype version of the Proud Clad of FFVII,
opens the fucking match with Pulse Cannon. Aerith should be on your team for this, and she should have a mastered First Strike materia equipped. As soon as the match starts, immediately hit X, give Aerith the command to Manawall, guard and save yourself from taking full damage from a move that could instantly put you in critical. I didn't even know it was gonna do that, but I saw the attack announcement and I guess Ultra Instinct kicked in and I acted.
A trick that really helped this fight was an unintentional preparation I made for the Bahamut fight. I gave Cloud
both my elemental materia. I gave Cloud's weapon elemental-thunder materia to take advantage of the PaJ's weakness to Lightning, but I
also had Cloud equipped with elemental-fire materia on his armor to absorb Ifrit's fire attacks, because I planned for Ifrit to be a challenge and wanted Cloud to make quick work of him while not have to worry about taking damage from him.
I had no fucking clue PaJ would fucking spam Knee-Fire at whoever got in it's face to attack it. So Cloud was fucking face-rolling that machine because Knee-fire was healing him, and he was dealing weakness damage to the fucking thing. The only time that I had issue was when it got pissed and grabbed Cloud and fired its laser into his face.
Thank the Butterfinger gods for that Superstar Belt I got as DLC since it kept Cloud alive and he was subsequently healed by the Knee-Fire attacks that came afterwards
Cloud proceeded to summon Bahamut, limit break, and a fun time was had by all. The thing is tough but not nearly as challenging as Bahamut and Ifrit.
And now I have the Gotterdammerung to play with for the last 8 chapters of the game
I want to say that the Remake was able to create the most challenging, strategic, and enjoyable optional boss fight gauntlet I have played in a long time. This really felt like the attempts of trying to defeat Ruby and Emerald Weapon back in the OG. The need for strategy, power, and careful timing (with a teeny bit of luck) was a wonderful call back to the challenging superbosses of before. This was fucking awesome.
Cloud had a close to maxed out Hard Edge. This weapon gives the strongest power along with powering up a lot of his moves like his Limit Breaks, his attack commands, his limb crushing attacks, and everything else. It also extends the duration of positive buffs. I've loved this sword all through my playthrough and it's never disappointed. His armor was the Cog Bangle, and accessory was the Superstar Belt. On the weapon was 2/3 starred Elemental -> Mastered Lightning, Mastered Cure materia, Mastered Steadfast Block, Mastered Chakra, and a 3-star HP Up materia. On the armor was Mastered Elemental -> Mastered Fire, and a 1 star Revive materia.
Aerith was equipped with a near maxed Arcane Scepter. I chose this weapon because it gave her the most MP, gave her the ability Reprieve, and was overall a strong stat option. Her armor was the Chain Bangle. Materia for her weapon was Magnify-> Barrier, mastered Auto-cure-> mastered Cure, mastered First Strike, and mastered Steadfast Block. On her armor was a 2-star Warding materia -> mastered Binding materia, 4-star HP Up, and Mastered Revive materia. Aerith's accessory was the Enchanted Ring. I absconded from Revival Earrings because
they're a single-use resource accessory in a 5 battle gauntlet where shit could go wrong anytime. Ideally, I would love to have them for Bahamut, but seeing as how all sorts of shit could go wrong on the way and they could be broken early, you could in essence have no accessory up to the 4th and 5th gauntlet. Instead, I focused on giving Aerith an accessory that maximized the length of her buffs.
Manawall is incredibly important in these battles. The Arcane Sceptor also extends positive buffs by 10%. Combined with the Enchanted Ring, Aerith didn't have to recast Manawall as often.
Barret is where I got creative
I used the Big Bertha weapon because it allowed Barret to have the best attack while also giving him a ton of HP, defensive options and essentially allowed him to play as a tank. He could weather a lot of damage. It Reprieve is once again an important skill to have, along with critical HP regen, defense up on block, and a plethora of other abilities that essentially focus on him staying alive. On his weapon, I gave him mastered Cure, mastered Prayer, mastered Steadfast Block, a 3-star HP up, mastered Cleansing, and.. Enemy Skill. Enemy Skill was only used for the Shiva fight.
Bad Breath puts in work. Shiva is actually susceptible to
Poison and
Silence. Poison helps counter her self-healing she does with her AoE ice attacks, and the Silence keeps her from fucking spamming Blizzaga. Barret was also equipped with a Cog Bangle, and it was slotted with a 2-star Warding materia -> Time materia, and a 1 star Revive materia. Haste is a great buff to have for tough fights and everyone has to have the means of reviving teammates, its vital. His accessory was the Headband because I was fucking tired of my team being put to sleep by Whiteout
This was by no means a full, end-game, maxxed out team. It was sorta the minimal necessary to get to the optional boss and be able to hang with it. A lot of how I won came to just careful, patient playing, staying observant of the enemy, knowing when to guard, and keeping buffs up. Manawall, Steadfast Block, and proper healing will carry you a long way. So will Reprieve.
I hope anyone else daring to try Hard Mode will find this info helpful. It's tough as balls but fucking worth it. The developers really made some magic with these optional fights. I'm excited for what's to come, because they know what's up.
) until they come out, but I think I sould just summon it when phase 3 starts. I keep dying before it uses its big attack.