FINAL FANTASY XIII Trap Farming 101

Youtube Video

So, what I have here is a short video (including various fail runs) of the method most players have probably followed to get their traps:

Different players will have their own ideas about what is useful and what isn't useful. My own reasons for what I do are listed below. I'm not saying it is perfect, but it works.

Explanations

I haven't gone to any effort in the video to show any setup or preparations, as I feel it will be easier to write it up.

First, some obvious questions.

Why Adamantoise? It's true that Long Gui has a better chance to drop a trap (trapezohedron). Unfortunately, what is also true is that Death does not work. Long Gui strategies are not covered here, so if you want to try your hand at farming them, be my guest... but I can't help you.

Why do I want a trap? Well if you want to get superpowered, and you've already maxxed out your crystariums and got the best accessories, then ultimate weapons are the only option you have left to you. And the only way to get an ultimate weapon is to upgrade a level 2 star weapon with a trap.

I'll start with the basics of what you 'might' need before you even set out for Leviathan Plaza on Eden:

Full, or at least 3 segments on the TP (yellow) bar. This is so you can summon Hecatoncheir, or as I like to say, Honk honk Hecatonk. Summoning vs Adamantoise is like magic as it turns his legs to jelly, incapacitating it straight away.

Set your difficulty to NORMAL. I can't stress how important this is. If you have it set to EASY, traps are almost non-existent. So don't forget this essential step!

Set your party lead as Vanille. Death is a special move, just like Army of One only exists for Lightning, so Death only exists for Vanille. Death is what this guide is all about, so the only way to use it is to manually select it in battle.

This is where my facts start to get iffy. I don't know if Death is actually classed as a debuff or not. I cover my bases here and just use the Belladonna Wand family of weapons for Vanille anyway. What you want is either its upgrade, the Malboro Wand, or its final form (all the final forms have the same name, but Nirvana from the Belladonna family will keep the crucial Improved Debuffing II trait). In the video, I use Nirvana (ID II) - powered up for a different reason. For this dot point however, the take home message is Improved Debuffing II.

Maximum SAB crystariums. Saboteurs are the ones that do the debuffing.

Also, not as important but useful for quick navigation and more Death casting:

Either set your cursor to memory, or take advantage of the 'repeat' function in the battle menu by holding right when you go to cast it a second time. I mixed it up in my video and did a bit of both as I have the cursor set to memory, but I also occasionally use repeat.

Battle speed setting you're comfortable with.

Memorising how to cancel Hecatonk as fast as possible. We only get him out to turn the turtle's legs into jelly, after that just make him bugger off. For me, I was using a ps4 controller, and it wasn't optimised, so my buttons were [Square] to summon him, [SHARE] to cancel summon animation, [Circle] to transform and Vanille jumps aboard, [SHARE] to cancel the animation, then [Triangle] to force the final attack (and subsequent exit from battle). I don't think the exit animation can be cancelled.

The only accessory you want for your companions is the Connoisseur Catalog, to slightly boost your chances at dropping a trap per battle. For Vanille, I went full magic boosts. Death's chance of success is apparently slightly affected by your magic stat. So there you go. I don't know if Faith also subsequently does the same thing, as it would also affect your magic.

Method

1. Start by running up to our boy walking around enjoying his freedom in the plaza. You can't get a pre-emptive strike so don't bother trying.

2. Vanille should be your party lead, I run with Team Girl Power for the fun of it, I find most of the guys are annoying, but Sazh is cool too. I run two main paradigms:

SAB / SYN / SYN, followed by

SAB / SAB / SAB.

Whip out Hecatonk then get rid of him asap. Turtle might stomp on you once if it got lucky, this shouldn't be a problem if you are levelled up.

InterludeAre you ready for a headache? I know I got one thinking about this so let's have a migraine party! Death succeeds a lot more often than just 1% of the time. I don't know... maybe it's 5%?...based on my recent stint of recordings. So it stands to reason it is getting buffed up chances from somewhere.

Continue this logic and eventually someone says it isn't a debuff, because if you factor in everything we THINK buffs it, the chance for Death to succeed ends up around 13-14%. This seems... too high, otherwise it would be almost guaranteed to land before the turtle stands back up. So it's fair to say it is getting partially buffed.

This is where I say... LEAVE NO STONE UNTURNED! Grab every opportunity to buff your Death spell! Vanille needs her daily dose of Death!

We have better odds of Death succeeding due to:

Vanille's debuff boosting weapon

Running a full team of SABs

Getting a full stack of debuffs on the sleepy turtle head

and running a high magic stat on Vanille

3. Lightning does the Hastega, I don't think any other buff is useful. Ignore the bit in my video waiting for Vigilance. Or maybe I was waiting for Faith? Not sure if the time lost on doing that would be worth it. You only have a limited time with the turtle eating dirt so you want to be casting Death asap.

While Lighty gives you Haste, you can dump a round of Imperil on the turtle. Why? Fang will often just cast bread and butter debuffs (which Lighty has as well), stopping her from even considering Daze and Curse. Her auto commands are stark raving lunacy anyway, but I find it helps.

Interlude Why is Fang stupid? Not only do Lighty and Fang both cast the same set of debuffs far too many overlapping times over, Lighty doesn't even have Daze or Curse. So she just stands there observing, having done her bit for the team, having set Haste on everyone. Fang's problem is what happens after the turtle has 4 buffs. The last command list usually looks something like Daze Curse Daze Curse Daze Curse.

But all debuffs are fine, I hear you say. They'll all stick eventually.

Well NO. They won't.

Daze WOULD be great, except it also UNSTICKS as soon as you do anything to the target. So what you find is you see it stick, then unstick, then stick, then unstick - so Fang sometimes wastes 2 full turns trying to get Daze to stick, when it is notoriously unsticky. Meanwhile you're eating your donuts and popcorn and nachos wondering where tf the little exploding icon is. (ie. Curse).

End result - you COULD be spending your whole battle spamming Death on a turtle with 6 debuffs, but more likely the first few you cast will be on a turtle with only 4. So it's up to you if you want to cast a round of debuffs or not. In the long run, probably not much difference either way.

4. So you have Haste, and maybe you have Faith. Switch to SAB SAB SAB and start spamming Death. Each hit removes Daze, but Fang will reapply it. If he gets up before he dies, try to cast what you can before it looks like you will die, then just pause and hit retry to send you to just before you started the battle. If he dies but you got nothing, reset and reload your save, if he dies and you got a platinum ingot... it's up to you. Just remember that if you decide to keep the ingot and save, you will have to farm up some TP so you can cast Hecatonk again.

Final Notes

The important thing is to find the button that makes the minimap go away. Default ps4 controller button is [SHARE]. I am [SHARING] this pro tip with [YOU].

If you are playing with a controller, wiggle the right analog stick to mess with the camera while you play, it will keep you sane. Not sure but the mouse may do the same thing.

True, the first paradigm shift has a lengthy animation in every battle. Also true, is that if you empty your first ATB bar completely and then paradigm shift, you will instantly get a full ATB bar.

Remember to make Fang facepalm, she deserves it for her dopey programming.

Happy hunting!

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3043038205

Trap Farming 101

Youtube Video

Explanations

Method

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