[Spoilers] What in the name of...

[Æsahættr]

Ugh, this is so embarrassing. But I am really, REALLY frustrated at the moment. I swear, I haven't been this aggravated since going up against Lezard Valeth in Valkyrie Profile 2...random difficulty spikes in easy games are extremely annoying.

Anyways, I've finally got to the end of the game...and Orphan's first form completely decimated me. Well, that is a slight exaggeration - I managed to get him down to around 2 million health, holding my own fairly well, and he used that stupidly fucktarded instant death attack on me. I went through this twice before I lost all patience with it.

I don't really need a strategy to beat him - I was doing pretty well just swapping between Combat Clinic and Relentless Assault as the situation required - but I would like to know what sort of stats and equipment anyone who beat him had at the time. It seemed to take an insanely long time to whittle his HP down even without the regular healing breaks, so I'm wondering if I'm a little underpowered. I've almost filled the three primary roles for my party, I'm just missing a couple of spheres, but I wouldn't have thought it would make THAT much of a difference. The guide says he should fall within 8 minutes, but it took me at least double that time to whittle his HP down to what I did, and that bothers me immensely...

I'm using Lightning, Fang and Vanille, the former two having around 7000 HP, the last having around 5000. Lightning has a little over 1000 ATK and MAG, and now has three Cherub's Crowns equipped, all of them maxxed out, so she has an 84% resistance to Death (and if that isn't enough and he STILL gets me with that attack, I swear I will throw the game out). Fang has about 1800 ATK, and Vanille a little over 1000 MAG. I haven't bothered upgrading their weapons at all - I don't have many components with decent EXP to speak of.

I don't really want to go insane and max out every roll in the Crystarium for the three of them, but if that is what it is going to take to put that overgrown bastard in its place, I will. I was also debating using Hope - I've got about 700,000 CP in reserve for him, Snow and Sazh, so I could probably bring them up to speed with the other three instantly, and the guide practically deifies him. However, I've found Vanille more than adequate thus far.

Anyways, yeah, if people could share their stats/equipment and whatnot they had when they beat the game, I'd greatly appreciate it~

[Daenerys]

My advice to you is to use Lightning, Fang and Hope. I tried with the team you're using several times with no luck, then I swapped Vanille for Hope and won first time. I'll just advise you how I won this awful battle xD

Have Hope boost everyone in his Synergist role, while Lightning stays as a Medic and Fang's a Saboteur, repeat this as necessary throughout the battle.

Once everyone's got six buffs on, switch to relentless assault, or diversity. Once he's staggered, I switched to two commandos and a medic. Fang and Lightning really took his HP down quickly when he was staggered.

Once he uses his powerful attack, switch to two medics and a sentinel, probably have to reapply buffs and debuff the boss. Once you're all healed, switch back to relentless assault or diversity.

And then repeat

As for Cherub Crowns, I never found Death a problem at all O_O I didn't have any equipped. I had a Diamond Bangle equipped, and upgraded it a lot, so Lightning had around 8000 HP

[Æsahættr]

Ahahaha...victory! On my fifth try. Took your advice and gave Hope a major upgrade, then swapped my Paradigms around a bit - I was using ones with Fang as a Sentinel in them, but I kinda realized in the fourth match that it didn't matter at all, he still random attacked the others with his irritating tentacles. Hope drove up his chain gauge extremely quickly with Army of One backup...

I managed to beat the second form on my first try, so no worries there. I laughed at his death cry. Ehehehe.

Thanks for the advice! ^^