Chapter 11 Leveling?

[Goldenboko]

How leveled should I be to be able to stand a chance against these sudden new enemies? Behemoth Kings seem to wreck me, is this normal? Is there a good way to tell when to stop leveling because I can definitely tell it's necessary, but I can't tell how much so.

[Future Esthar]

Same here.I was able to stagger them but when they stand up they strenghten their physical and staggering resistance.

[Raistlin]

Behemoths will destroy you when you first get to chapter 11; that is not unusual at all.

And there's no "indication of when to stop leveling," unless you fill up your Crystarium and you still haven't left the Archylte Steppe. :p I'd recommend doing a few missions, exploring (to find all the chests in the Central Expanse). And then when you get tired of it, go on with the story.

[G13]

Dude, don't train in the Archylte Steppe. Follow the yellow blip (can't remember its right name) to the Mah'habara Subterra. Those enemies give more CP that the Archylte Steppe enemies.

[VeloZer0]

I did the first two or three marks, then got bored and just plowed straight through the chapter. You don't really need to grind to get through it at all, just fight everything you come across. Same as every other chapter :)

[NeoCracker]

I could almost beat those kings when I got there, and until then I hadn't power grinded at all. :p

Though I could only beat them when I got a pre-emtpive, or the three way fight with the Behemoth King and that other thing, I forgot what it was called.

[VeloZer0]

I managed to kill an encounter with two of them right at the start but it took one of every kind of sol.

And three hours to learn how.....
That was about the turning point when I decided to just move one with the story :D

[Rinoabella]

I preemptive striked the Behemoths and also the Behemoth fighting with the big wolf (forgot it's name :roll2). The battle is very easy once you stagger him from the beginning and keep him launched so that he doesn't transform into his standing up mode. When beating the Behemoth and wolf, kill the Behemoth first! You can get 6600CP for this battle alone.

[Karifean]

I went to the Taijin Tower and backtracked after activating the Teleport Statue there (Also almost completed the optional part in the first area after Archylte Steppe). Practically all characters have 2 Level 4 classes by now, but the King Behemoths still destroy me once they transform, and I'm unable to beat them before they do so.

The only one I can beat easily is the three-way-battle with the giant wolf, cause he has only half HP from the beginning and is instantly staggered, for it is a forced pre-emptive strike battle. And the giant wolf alone ain't no danger.

[Elpizo]

I maxed my characters main three roles out on the Steppe. It's very easy. At the savepoint before the Subterra, before where the Behemoth King and Wolf are fighting, there walks around a lone Behemoth King. That's the one you need. He is VERY easy to ambush, and you can down him under 20 seconds, gaining a good 4000 CP for a very easy battle. Then simply walk away only a little bit and he'll respawn, and then you can repeat it. Easy, and no danger at all. If, by accident, you don't engage the BK with a pre-emptive strike, simply retry the battle instead of trying to fight it, it's not worth it.

[VeloZer0]

Key to killing them before they transform (200,000 HP) is:

Method 1 (one I used)
- Start with whatever buffs you want, but make sure you never land ANY COM attacks on him. If the character you are controlling uses physical attacks, use magic to drive up the chain. You want to stagger doing as little damage as possible in the process.
- Once he is staggered switch to something that will ensure that your two AI characters will not do any damage to him. Use your AI character as a COM or RAV to slowly chip his HP close to 200,000 as the stagger wears down. (I used COM, but in retrospect RAV is better because it drives the chain bonus up higher for when you actually kill him). Also a good time to get bravery/faith on your characters.
- When the stagger bar gets to the first 'h' in 'Behemoth King' switch to COM/RAV/COM or COM/COM/COM. This is little enough time that your COMs will unload a Smite on the Behemoth which should hit for close to 99999 damage.

Method 2 (way better, less finicky, and much smarter method I figured out later):
When you stagger him switch to COM/x/COM. Have your player controlled COM focus not on attacking, but launching. Just attack every time the first ATB segment charges and you should throw him up before he has a chance to recover and start transforming.

[FFIX Choco Boy]

The place I found great to lvl in this chapter is located far to the left of where you first enter. There are yellow and blue imps here, and there's a group of 5 blue ones near the edge of the cliff. Get a party of Lightning as a Com, player controlled, then Hope as a syn, then Snow as a sen. Then, as soon as the battle starts, use blitz on the D enemy, because it's the most in the middle, and will give the highest chance of hitting all the enemies every time. If you've killed one of these imps before, then Hope should have given you enfrost or enwater already, so you should be hitting them all pretty hard, and with the sen provoking right away(I swear it's a 100% chance) they will have a debuff, so 2 blitzes will charge 2 atb gauges from the skill that causes you to regain atb from attacking things with debuffs, and just keep repeating. If underleveled, the fight is about 24 seconds each, but near the end it's about 12 each. 3700 CP each fight, too. To respawn it, go to the treasure chest by where the 1 yellow and 2 blue imps spawn. I did this for a while and got all 3 main cryses mastered with all chars.

[Cleric]

I've been having good luck in Mah'habara just running up and down the strip. The enemies on average are giving me between 3 and 4,000 CP and the battles are pretty unremarkable.

[thehairguy]

I ran back and forth from the beginning of Mah'habara to the juggernaut fight...but didn't fight him. The path is filled with Hoplite and those blue bombs...they are very easy to preemptive strike and Hope's Thundaga can almost kill a whole group of preemptive Hoplites! From running back and forth you can get around 30,000 CP and it doesn't take that long!! I got all of my characters to level 4 in the crystarium from it.

[Loony BoB]

Did eleven marks, walked through the rest of the game with little power-leveling done, well, anywhere. I found it pretty straight-forward from here on in. Worth doing some leveling against the easy-butt robots in Taejin's Tower, though. You get good CP there.

[Shattered Dreamer]

I'm glad too see other people have been having problems with the Behemoth Kings! The moment I got to the Archylte Steppe I fought one & its Heave attack bitch slapped me so I got a bit obsessive with character grinding since. I've managed to beat a couple of them by ambushing them so they get staggered instantly but apart from that they still beat me when they transform although I can put up a good fight! Has anyone managed to beat one of those gigantic enemies roaming the steppe yet?

As far as level grinding at this point (Chapter 11) I think it's a good idea! A couple of hours grind has taken the edge off the difficult just a tad!

Also the beginning of Mah'habara, the Juggernaut fight is that totally optional because even with my level grinding he gave me a serious ass kicking!

[FFIX Choco Boy]

Shattered, barfire helps immensely. And I've killed some adamantoises, adamantortoises, and adamancheilds. They're easy with the death spell and a little luck, and the adamancheilds are easy just plain. Kind of disappointed I never got the trophy for it, though.

[Shattered Dreamer]

Shattered, barfire helps immensely. And I've killed some adamantoises, adamantortoises, and adamancheilds. They're easy with the death spell and a little luck, and the adamancheilds are easy just plain. Kind of disappointed I never got the trophy for it, though.

Both my synergists have barfire but I've only just finally found a party that suits my playing style & customized paradigms specific to that. Having a synergist on my team just seems to make me lazy. Looks like I'm gonna have to find another way or grind some more :P

I don't have Death yet so I guess my Adamantoises/Adamantortoises/Adamancheilds murdering will have to wait or yet again grind some more :bigsmile: