Hello
I am struggling beating the Barthandelous boss?
I have reached the level caps on each of my characters paradigm roles yet I still cannot beat it. I tried to follow this guide but for starters my shrouds run out after I kill all of the heads.
Final Fantasy XIII: Chapter Nine Boss Fight - Barthandelus (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPsb-J74L2Q)

I also have like 50000 gil to spend, is there any weapon upgrades I should spned this on? I have spent a little and that seems to make a bit of a difference.

Let me guess. It's the first battle against Robopope on the Palamecia right you're stuck on right? Don't worry, you're not alone in your frustration. That battle is probably one of the hardest of the entire game, and caused me no end of grief for ages.

Firstly, ignore the guide - much of what it states is erroneous. The real clincher though is the battle punishes you for taking too long - if you spend more than something like ten minutes fighting him, he throws up that Doom attack on your party leader to wipe you out. So really, speed is crucial to the battle.

Firstly, choose your party wisely, because Paradigms make the difference (I went with Lightning, Fang and Hope which is what I've seen most people recommend.) Then set up a number of Paradigms that can heal quickly, debuff and nuke the enemy (namely, Hero's Charge, Diversity, Combat Clinc, Bully and Relentless Assault).

Finally, just before reaching the Bridge, use Shrouds to buff yourself (yes, they wear off halfway through the battle, but it still helps in getting rid of Bart's side armour and pauldrons quickly, allowing you to concentrate on the big nasty himself.

Once the battle starts, concentrate on taking out each body part one at a time (Relentless Assault is good for this), until all parts are destroyed and his 'head' assumes the attack. In which case, it's a matter of keeping your health up, debuffing him, and just doing as much damage as you can with each attack. In particular, when you see the 'Destrudo' message appear, here's where the trick to beating him lies. While he's charging up Destrudo, as long as your HP is full, quickly switch to Relentless Assault or Hero's Charge and SMASH the bastard.

He takes a good ten to twenty seconds to finally attack, giving you valuable time to do massive damage to him (especially if you can get him Staggered - difficult, but not impossible). I found I could pull off two to three rounds of Relentless Assault or Hero's Charge on him, before quickly switching to Solidarity just as he executes Destrudo to whether the attack, then quickly switching to Combat Clinic to recover HP quickly, in order to stop the party being picked off by another attack. This is basically the key to defeating him. Keep the heat on him, keep your health up, and eventually he'll fall (with your party battered, bruised, but triumphant).

Don't forget you could also do a fair amount of damage by summoning an Eidolon, but that should only be used in an emergency.

The good news is that you've already done most of the hard work. Grinding your stats up to maximum is a big help, and with the proper strategy, this battle is nowhere near as hard as people make out.

It's just the acid test, that sees if you actually understand how to play the game, or were just mashing X.

So it's a classic 'Wake up Call' boss fight. Even when you beat him, I reccomend reloading and beating him again and again and again, until you really get the hang of it.

It'll stand you in good stead for the later battles - this game frequently does not take kindly to people who don't know how to play it properly, later on!)


General Tips:
For starters, you would be well advised to use Lightning, Hope and Fang. I know everyone uses them, but there's a reason for that. Without two Healers, you just can't heal fast enough, and you absolutely must have access to Buffs and Debuffs during the harder boss fights.

The next point is that even though it doesn't look or feel like it makes much difference, upgrading your equipment (particularly your weapons) is something you MUST keep up. Don't worry about using materials - they are easy to come by, and you'll never use anything but the best materials later on anyway.

So get thee to a save point and level, level, level the weapons for Lightning and Fang (your choice, but I consider their starting weapons to be perfectly acceptable).


As for the fight itself:
The most important thing to keep in mind during this fight, is that you have to maintain your Buffs and Debuffs. It's hard to tell the dfiference when you're actually fighting, but they do make a HUGE difference.

Debuffs can sometimes be hard to put on bosses, but I found that if you try when they are staggered, it tends to be a lot more likely to work. The only one you really need on is Deprotect, though.

The second factor is that hitting foes when they are Staggered does massive damage. Obvious maybe, but you really need to take maximum advantage of the times when he is Staggered to pile on damage.

Basically, stagger him, debuff him to put Deprotect on him if necessary, make sure you have at least Haste and Bravery on your guys, then let him have it. Only pause to heal when you absolutely, absolutely must.

You don't really need to mess around with Delta Attacks or any kind of cautious offence. You're maxed out, so after you buff up, you can just go for Relentless Assault on each part of him, dropping into the Combat Clinic whenever necessary.

Healing is easy as pie with Combat Clinic Paradigm (2 Medics and Fang as Sentinel). You should be able to almost instantly recover full health and get right back to damage dealing. This is by far the best way to handle Thanatosian Laughter.

Always keep in mind the need to stay fully Buffed and keep him adequately debuffed. Just keep battering him with Relentless Assault and Combat Clinic, and you'll get him.

I beat this just yesterday, upgrading weapons helps A LOT! I didn't use a shroud but if it helps, I used lightning, hope and sazh. Commando, ravager , commando in first paradigm but the one that helped me a lot was lightning medic, hope synergist and sazh synergist, boosting stats & having haste from sazh helps a lot. then switch back 2 attack mode and destroy! good luck!

Dunno about the tactics you all used on this. I believe that having a triple ravager combo is really helpful in any situation, just for the staggering purpose. Too bad not much of the weapons are great difference in power. Fast Stagger is a great attribute, stagger lock is my second favorite attribute in that sense.

Barthandelus seems much more complicated to beat on gran pulse though. ( if you went like me and didn't take time doing the crystals) leveling up on that huge plain was boring. For that you must get the robot parts ( which are all in the oerba village, and one of the monsters carries a part, so don't omit killing him to get it) after that u get filthy rich, and you can max out all the STR + MAG + items which really helps.

For optimum balance, i believe the triple ravager combo needs one of the characters, hope ( for example) to have 3 mag 150+ items ( or better if there are? as i don't remember the exact stats of the +???) lightning to be in the middle with 2str and 1 magic item or reverse. and fang to be the powerhouse hitter ( as you will find out, snows stats are much girlier than fangs)

(by items i mean accessories and no idea on the amount u can carry at that point )

Don't waste time getting him in sabotage minuses, just grind ur synergy with hope, as sabotage only really helps near the end of the game, when u encounter juggernauts and other huge beasts ( other than the eidolon battles of course)

Also stagger up with ravager will do moredamage on barthedalous till about 600% percent after which you should switch to commando and get the maximum out of the final hits. ( he has a very fast stagger control, mot*r f*****kendalous)

Don't kid yourself - Saboteur makes a huge difference. Bosses die so much faster with the right debuffs on - Bart is no exception.

Plus, you need to get the hang of doing it as soon as possible, work out your paradigm decks to accomodate Sabs, because you'll really need it later on. The game gets much harder from Chapter 10 onwards - you can't really bluff your way through from then on, you actually need to know how to play the game well.

I think you need a bit of everything. Shrouds before the battle help, and make things quicker, but if you're good enough you can put the buffs on yourself. Usually, with the items on, I killed two-three of those heads before those buffs ran out, and the last one shouldn't be too much more trouble.

De-buffing is helpful too, but I think when I battled him I only used De-Protect and De-Shell, and I think Slow, if it's not immune to it. I'm not sure if any other debuffs are important, but I think those are the major ones you want.

I had a little trouble with this guy, because I recently played through the game for the first time. I think I only barely scraped through, though I was very, very under-leveled.

The team I had was Lightning, Fang and Hope, respectfully, and the Paradigms were:
Relentless Assault (COM, RAV, RAV)- for staggering
Aggression (COM, COM, RAV)- deal damage when staggered
Combat Clinic (MED, SEN, MED)- main healing mode
Solidarity (COM, SEN, MED)- minor healing mode
Perseverance (MED, SAB, MED)- healing mode if debuffs needed
Evened Odds (MED, SAB, SYN)- for buffs (can change the medic and saboteur to more aggressive styles if healing is not needed)

As I said, I barely scraped through this battle, and only defeated it shortly after he cast Doom on me (Doom is cast if the battle time goes to 20 minutes, I think).

The main mistake I made was when he used Destrudo. I got all scared and went defensive mode for twenty seconds before he used the move. So I decided to go aggressive when he charges up that move, and that's what made me win. So when he's charging his Destrudo, heal quickly if needed, then try get the stagger bar up. Because his stagger bar goes down when he starts charging Destrudo (I think). And so most of the time I didn't stagger it quick enough before his bar reset, and eventually I'd lose.

With a little buffs, debuffs, quick healing, staggering and capitalizing on staggers, you should beat it fairly quickly. Don't be scared when he's charging up Destrudo, just heal to near full health and it should be fine.

A lot of people overlook saboteur when it is essential to beating bosses easily. A good way to to squeeze them in is to use Ravager, Ravager, Saboteur since a Saboteur builds break fairly fast (not as fast as Ravager) while slowing down the break bar's depletion speed (similar to having an commando + 2 ravagers). Another way to do it is to have a Saboteur, Ravager, and Enhancer (I'm probably getting all my names wrong since I played both versions), but I find this method limited by the enhancer - once the enhancer finishes buffing, he has nothing else to do. Combat Clinic (Medic Sentinel Medic) is best for heavy healing and you'll probably want a Commando/Medic/Ravager combo for light healing. Don't forget to switch to Combat Clinic DURING the animation for a big attack so that the sentinel's damage reduction bonus is applied and the medic tops off the party. Later in the game, a sentinel sentinel sentinel group is useful for reducing damage from certain attacks. I'd also recommend a commando commando medic combo for boss battles. Once you stagger the boss, Lightning and Fang can go to town on him.

Upgrade weapons as necessary and equip accessories for speed boosts if needed.

One of the easiest answers when you get to Pulse. Break your Tetriadic Crown and go for broke with Sprint Shoes <3

But nontheless, try to atleast maintain keeping the stagger gauge alive by having commando keep pace of the stagger. Just make sure to have a full health characters right before you stagger, then go all in with rav/rav/com <3. Simple steps on taking the offensive.

For defensive. It doesn't hurt to get all the buffs and debuff him and then just heal. If you have your buffs, it'll atleast guarentee that you'll survive his gay thanatos smile with sentinal.

The 1st fight is the hardest because of the Destrudo attack. 2nd and 3rd, if you are nicely powered up, is piece of cake but beware of Thanatosian Smile, which damage increases highly!