SPOILERS! The Cloud of Darkness...ahh

So i thought i had a really strong party... i had Luneth-Dragoon, Arc-Sage, Refia-Summoner,and Ingus-Ninja...all level 53

i've gone through eureka and gotten all the good weapons and bought 35 shruikens...and i have all the magic and what not

so i usually am able to kill the random encounter enimies so easily... as in all i have to do is have luneth and ingus attack each one and then refia summons sumthing and they usually all die...rarely does arc even have to finish them off

but then i went into the world of darkness and i was able to defeat all the 4 dark crystal gaurdians easily...and i to the cloud of darkness

the whole fight was spent as Arc using Arise and everyone else using elixers on him to keep his MP up...i only threw 3 shrukens jumped once and summoned bahamut 3 times...

i was so mad cause i hadent saved in over 3 hours because there is no way to leave the world of darkness and i had been fighting a lot of random encounters to make my team level up...

any tips?

I recommend turning Arc into a Devout. Not only will he be ten times more adorable, he'll have many more MP charges devoted to White Magic. Since Refia is your offensive spellcaster, you should have a good healer.

Have Arc heal every turn. With either Curaga, or Curaja when everyone gets down. Have Luneth Jump, of course. Have Ingus throw Shuriken. This party doesn't need Haste or Bacchus' Wine. Have Refia use her most powerful summons, but have her use items when necessary. If someone dies, try using a Phoenix Down on them, but don't stop the healing. They might get healed by spam healing when they get revived, if you absolutely can't spare a turn for Arise. Remember, the first priority is getting everyone healed every turn.

Also, make sure to get four Ribbons to protect against Bad Breath.

see my problem was that i was spamming curaga and curaja and the moment 1 person died was when it all feel apart =/

and i had all 4 ppl with ribbons it was like bad breath was a break from his visious onslaught lol

Yes, it's very annoying that you can't save the game after entering the final dungeon, so if you lose, you'll need to play through the Sylx Tower and the Dark World all over again. I haven't fought the Dark Cloud on DS, but here's a few strategies that worked on NES.

Try to have two healers for that battle, both casting Cure4/Curaja every turn if you can. If you're using the Sage class, have your Sages cast Haste on your physical fighters when you have time for that (e.g. on the first turn), and have your physical fighters attack. Hasted Shurikens especially hurt the Dark Cloud. If you have weapons that let your physical fighters attack from the back row, move everyone to the back row to reduce the damage done by Dark Cloud's physical attacks.

When I fought the Cloud of Darkness my party was Ninja (back row), Black Belt (front row), Devout (back row), and Summoner (back row). My first turn I had my Ninja throw a shuriken, my Black Belt boost, my Devout hasted herself and my Summoner casted Bahamut. From then on you kind of have to take it on a turn-to-turn basis. My party was level 58-59ish and my Black Belt had the highest job level of 61. They all had ribbons equipped as well. My Devout had 14 casts of curaja available to her so every turn I casted one of those on the entire party and depending on the situation, I would have my Ninja shuriken and my Summoner cast Bahamut again and my Black Belt would use a phoenix down to resurrect my Ninja if the particle beam took him out in conjunction with the other physical attacks he took. A few times I thought it was over but I pulled through in the end with everyone alive. Just make sure you can cast a curaja every turn or have two Devouts so one can cast curaja and one can arise the dead.

There's a good thing with Bards: They have a harp or so that always goes first when the turn starts, ALWAYS, and that harp can heal quite good, I heard. So if you need a godly support character, take a bard. Healing before the enemy even gets a turn is ownage. And they also have a song that takes 15% of the enemy's current HP, so your bard will be hitting for 9999 against the Cloud for quite a few turns. Or it's something among those lines. Bards also have a song that hastes the whole party, I believe...

And for the rest, what the others said: A good healer and stuff.
But bards are rummored to be godly in this DS remake. I haven't tried it (I don't have the game, darn), but the sources seem reliable.

I recommend tihs party Sagex2,Magus,Knight. Use one of the sage to spam curage on all. The other one using haste on the Knight first, then spam protect. Magus spam flare. After the second Saga finish spamming protect, if you see the Magus' mp for flare at 1, use an elixer. Continue, then you should win. I tried him at level 57 with my party of Sage,Magus,Knight,(SPOILER)Onion Knight. He was pretty easy.

it's cuz ur only level 53... way under-leveled, be level 58+

Not WAY under just need about 5 more

you have to be about 58+ lvl? no wonder i died...i was only at lvl 49 :p but is my party good? Devout, Ninja, Dragoon, and Knight.

I would say the knight can stay.

that's a very good party, except I would switch the knight in for a magus.

true... the knight is only useful because it defends the low health party members. But i had my doubts with black magic since meteor doesn't seem to do much >.< is flare better?

Flare does 7k with my magus(58). Meteor does 3k with Magus. The knight is not only useful because of the ablitiy to defend, but it can also weild (SPOILER)Excalibur and Ragnorak.. I equipped my knight with (SPOILER)Ultima Weapon and Ragnorak

yes, flare is much better than meteor unless it's against mutiple enemies.

i changed my dragoon to a sage so i can do double healing when needed. But level 58...gosh, where do i begin? that's just way above my current level. :eep: i need a good training spot...

Try Bahamut's cave or ???. I leveled at ??? for goodies. ??? is a slow place to train, but quite fun sometimes.

bahamuts cave is the best place to train, it gives the best exp, but it isn't quit so fun...

yeah, went to bahamut's cave and got around 5000 exp per fight and those monsters are surprisingly easy. Now i'm at level 57 :D gotta buy a few more shruikens and then i'm off to the crystal tower (again)

You shuold be able to kill him. Because I killed him at level 57 too.

yeh, me 2

cool, that means i can totally pwn him right now since i'm at level 62:D lol, guess i went overboard on training but it's to prevent the same thing happening again when i get killed in the world of darkness without having any chance to save.

yeh, I killed him in about 2-3 min with all chars full health (I had just curaja'd) at level 57, so you outta be able to kill him pretty easily.

well, guess it's time to go through the tower and those scenes again :eep: ... oh yeah, where's ??? located?

just east of the floating continent, you'll see a big black spot, go under water and enter the seaweed.

But you have to mail up 8 mail to the King of that city..That part where Garuda dude killed his father.

lol, nevermind then XD i can barely find an access point to connect to nintendo WFC.

i just finished the last four bosses before the Final Boss. *nervous*

EDIT: i beat him! okay, that was a pretty lame boss, easier than the 4 bosses before it oddly o.O or maybe i'm overleveled?

yeah, pretty much

How much/many did he particle beam you?

Just out of curiosity, does Bahamut's Cave being the best place to train apply to the NES version too? I'm about lvl 50 and got smashed into the ground like a giant squishing a cockroach when I went against that Cloud.

Bahamut's Cave is a good place for leveling up also in the NES version, but I prefer the Forbidden Land of Eureka and the Sylx Tower. Bahamut's Cave is very far from them anyway. As for Dark Cloud, you're supposed to lose the first battle against her, so you shouldn't feel like you're underleveled if you can't beat her when you first fight her. :)

Cool, guess I'll be spending some time running around Slyx then. :)

And I kinda guessed about the first battle since when I did lose, it wasn't a game over, but I then got bashed in the Dark World. :D

I level grinded for a few hours in Bahamut's place to get to 65...and by the time I got through the final areas and to Dark Cloud I was at 68...made it a lot easier.

I know some people like a good strategic challenge to a final battle, but when it takes 2+ hours to get through the final areas with no save, you really just want to be able to beat the damn thing without worrying about getting crushed.

Take the hours it needs to grind....pop in a movie and grind through the whole thing, it'll make your end game experience MUCH smoother.