End of Chapter 11 boss - help!

I also need help,... but for the spoiler?second encounter at Oerba
I get him done to about a third of his health but then he casts doom on me ! cheap move !! Does he always do this ? is there a way to avoid it ? or a way to cure it ? cause seriously he'd be dead by now if he wouldn't keep doing the cheap moves.
I'm Using Light Hope and Vanille (Light as my leader) I might go try it again with Hope as my leader and Fang and Light fighting along with, see if he still casts doom on light or if he always casts on the leader (at least then I'll have (SPOILER)Alexander to summon if he casts doom again maybe that'll help....

I've split this post from Zaskull's thread because it could spoil things for other people who haven't got that far. When I was doing this battle I never had Doom cast on me so I can't really offer too much help aside from a rather futile "I guess you have to kill him faster". If I recall correctly, it never hurts in this battle to do some serious SAB work on him. It allows you to charge up the stagger much, much faster, and then once you have it maxed out you need to hit him hard with all three characters provided they're in the green. You can probably do it even if your allies (not your lead though!) are in the high yellows, too, especially if you have a phoenix down or two handy just in case. Definitely SAB him, though. You can deprotect, deshell, etc. him.

Make sure you have a MED/MED/*** handy (I used MED/MED/SYN to keep haste etc. up while I was healing) as you'll need to make sure that even if one person gets dazed at any point, you can quickly esuna them out of it.

For this battle, I used Lightning (lead), Sazh and Vanille. I flicked between...

COM/SAB/SYN - I used this at the start to buff/debuff while getting a few hits here and there in.
RAV/RAV/RAV - For pushing up the stagger (RAV/RAV/COM also works)
COM/RAV/COM - For when I was attacking all-out once I had a stagger on the enemy.
MED/MED/SYN - For when health went below half for more than one person, or alternatively when someone was dazed.
COM/MED/COM - For when only one person is low on health and the others are fine and I have a stagger.
RAV/MED/RAV - For when only one person is low on health and the others are fine and I need a stagger.

PS. 'sup G :aimsun:

Yeah, they punish you for having a slow and steady style in this game. I didn't anticipate a scene with bart. so I had snow, hope, and lightning in here. If it wasn't for doom, he didn't have the slightest chance of getting me. Alex. will interrupt doom, but doesn't cure it. It'll be where it left off after the summon is done. Yeah, no point in having hope in on this one. Get vanille in there instead to sab him. I'm definitely doing that for my second effort. Probably gonna keep snow and light 'cause I really overpowered their weapons. It's kind of a waste to over-buff since he's always debuffing and gimping you. I don't think hope's of much help this fight

The hardest boss so far!!!

I don't think you can remove the DOOM status unfortunately :/

Check and make sure that you don't have any STAGGER LOCK weapons equipped, as I just realised I did and it took FOREVER to get him to stagger! Then I just blasted him with: Lightning/Fang/Hope and used a combination of Relentless Assault, Delta Attack, Mystic Tower, Combat Clinic. As soon as he casts DOOM on ya, you kinda have to go hard with Relentless Assault and try and beat him down as fast as you can!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rinoabella

Check and make sure that you don't have any STAGGER LOCK weapons equipped, as I just realised I did and it took FOREVER to get him to stagger!

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Stagger lock does not prevent boosting stagger; it only prevents that character from inflicting the actual stagger effect once the bar is filled. It could be unwise to use it on a primarily-Ravager character, and I would not recommend more than one per party, but I love Fang's Taming Pole (has stagger lock).

Yeah I didn't realise why I was having trouble staggering Barthandelos, my walkthrough suggested it was easy :cry: I can see how STAGGER LOCK can come in handy though.