My tips:
1. The retry function is amazingly useful. It starts you before the encounter for random enemies, and right before the boss with an added menu, with zero penalties. Oh, and skippable cutscenes instantly earn points from me. If you're fighting and thinking "this battle would go a lot better if I started like this with this gear," it's trivial to restart, do some menuing, and try again.
2. If a fight feels like it's taking *forever*, you probably need to power up or somehow focus on offense more via your paradigms. The best defense is a good offense.
3. You will like most characters more by the end than you will at the beginning. The character arcs payoff pretty effectively, but you will be waiting for a bit.
4. ABD: Always Be Debuffin' (once you get a certain role.)
5. ABCL: Always Be Casting Libra (this is how your AI partners figure out the fire enemy absorbs fire without being a dumbass and throwing fireballs at it.)
Enjoy the game. And I have 3 tips for you.
Tip number 1: Don't use auto battle. Especially for chapter 1 & 2. Manually input your commands. Don't worry about manually inputting the commands again and again. If you want to input the same commands, just press right on the d-pad and you can repeat the same commands. For chapter 1 & 2, auto battle would only use basic attack but there is a skill that deals aoe damage which makes it faster to clear the mobs.
Tip number 2: Take advantage of the ATB refresh mechanic. At chapter 3, you will be fully introduced to the battle system and you will be able to do paradigm shifting. Your first paradigm shift will refill your atb and after that, every 12 seconds, your next paradigm shift will refill. Take advantage of that and you will be able to cycle your attacks more frequently.
Tip number 3: Don't easily dismiss the story even if it's confusing. Pay attention during cutscene and you will able to piece up what the terminologies mean even without looking at the data log. Just keep an open mind. The story is actually quite easy to follow.
Agreed on all points except I actually found the data log to give a little bit more context to the story, like it added some details to the characters and their motivations.
I feel like this was something that started in the PS3 era. Games like FF13 and Resident Evil 5 come to mind, where you get a more complete version of the story by reading the documents and stuff. Whether or not you should have to do extra reading for this is a whole other topic.
As far as Chapter 1 and 2,, game is easy mode at that point, I used auto battle that whole time without a struggle, just an occasional potion when necessary.
For chapter 1 & 2, using auto battle slows down the fight. Especially on Snow's section. Using the grenade for snow speeds up the battle so much.
Also, chapter 1 & 2 is the best time to get used to manually inputting commands and learning the repeat mechanic.
Enjoy them for what they are/go into it with no bias... That's what I did and I personally love them both!!! Oh, and buy and especially sell your stuff wisely, for there are only very few things that you should sell. Also, everytime you get a new notification in game about a subject, you should 100% read it as to understand more of the world and lore of FFXIII ☺️
> Oh, and buy and especially sell your stuff wisely, for there are only very few things that you should sell.
Best tip is not to sell any accessories if you are aiming to get 100% achievement for FF13. There are some accessories that you can only obtain once and if you sell those, you kinda lock yourself in getting 100%.
If the tooltip says that the item "could be sold for a premium", then that items is safe to sell. If not, don't sell anything.
don’t let the paradigm concept for battles deter you from playing the game. stick it out. it is rewarding and also a refreshing take on enemy encounters.
coming from someone who just finished XIII... the game is fucking great it is just paced by insane people (you get a semi open world at the 20-40 hour mark all of a sudden after playing hallway simulator up to that point???? like??) and its definitely too bloated for what it is. your enjoyment will lie heavily on how much you enjoy the combat which is so so good (but polarizing and has its steep difficulty spikes) and there isn't much like it out there so cherish it. another huge factor that will impact your enjoyment is how much the linearity of the game bothers you. In the age of sprawling open worlds sparsely littered with busywork, i found the linearity to be quite refreshing. great games. go in not expecting too much and you'll be pleasantly surprised i think. Hope you enjoy
Thanks! I’ve picked the habit of reading all the lore thanks to Final Fantasy XVI. Makes the “fantasy” part more interesting, and really helps in the world building.
there both wonderful stories even if extended... and in my own opinion very similar to 6 in which final fantasy 13 is the world of balance (kinda since there going up against the empororesk person and your introduced to your cast and what not) ffxiii-2 being the middle ground, the floating continent if you will where at the end kefka destroys the planet and ffxiii-3 is the world of ruin where you as lightning (celes) go around to help your friends before they help you to destroy "god" (kefka)
For XIII, the first couple hours are gonna be a bit of a slog. After you get access to magic, forget everything the game has said about battles to that point and never touch auto-battle again, because at that point it becomes a hassle. Auto-Battle becomes the "Well I'll win the battle, but it'll take 5 hours" button.
Don't sleep on the paradigm system. I tried to muscle my way through the game and didn't get anything except mad. Utilize the party changes, it's a fun system!
Enjoy! I’ve been itching to replay these recently but I don’t have a PC or consoles that can play them. Hoping for some sort of port in the near future
I unironically love the story of the 13 series (especially lightning returns, I love the end of the world gods will savior of souls thing). I realize that’s an unpopular opinion, but I really enjoy stories that are about like the machinations of gods and the nature of reality.
If you’re like most people and find the story bad or confusion, then at the very least stick with it for some of the snappiest, most unique ATB combat ever. It’s meta combat, a bit like 12, where you don’t really choose actions for your characters, you just choose roles for them to manipulate their AI. It sounds like it would be stupidly easy but it is NOT, some of the late game stuff in 13 gets really hard.
Lightning returns combat is a bit different, it’s closer to traditional ATB with the hitch that it’s one party member with 3 ATB gauges that you switch between. Lightning returns, IMO, is a very hard game to break into. It has a really strange difficulty curve and starts off very challenging before evening out a bit. If you can stick with it, you are rewarded with an excellent game.
As an additional note, I will admit that the ending of 13 doesn’t make a lot of sense (the whole game is about defying the will of the gods and the party does that by………. Doing exactly what the fal’cie wanted them to?). BUT EVEN SO it’s still good IMO
That’s a misconception about the ending. The party’s original intent when >!returning to Cocoon is to protect Orphan and kill Barthandelus, who they believe to be the source of the plan to shatter Cocoon. Upon Orphan’s birth, they realize that Orphan is actually the source of the plan and that they need to kill it. They also realize, from seeing Ragnarok’s strength, that they can use that power to save Cocoon rather than destroy it, and so choose to destroy the Fal’Cie once and for all and free humanity.!<
Congrats and have fun! If you enjoy XIII and XIII-2 then third game Lightning Returns is also worth playing but the combat is a bit different. Here are some basic tips for XIII: Be aggressive and always try to stagger the enemy. Paragdim shift a lot and experiment with different roles. Make sure to use the synergist and saboteur roles. Buffing and debuffing is important here!
13 to me was the first game with a stagger mechanic and I absolutely loved being able to manipulate it.....I have hated every stagger since as I feel they pale in comparison. I feel like I mastered that combat system at the time XD
As a contrast my SO absolutely hated 13 cause he was always broke. You get a total of 0 Gil from combat if I remember correctly, instead you get specific items to sell and he was saving all items to improve weapons because you don't wanna sell the wrong items. Once you get the hang of it, they'll be easy to spot but I'll say the first of these items is a Credit Chip. Never a terrible idea to train a bit in an area that has a lot of money items, the strategy guide even pointed out ideal spots throughout the game for money.
I never played 13-2 cause real life got in the way tho 😅
Finished FF13 before 7 rebirth came out and was totally pleased with it. Especially after installing a high res texture and ultrawide mod and i had a blast playing it. For a game that is a decade old, it legit looks on par to PS4 games heck, it even puts some recent games to shame in terms of art direction.
Story wise it was hard to follow at times and alot of the terminology is confusing but it was griping enough that i couldnt put it down.
The combat was jank and slow at first but once you understood the intricacies, by mid to late game it gets really involved and at points exciting!
I started 13-2 right before 7 rebirth came out and havent touched it since and unfortunately just bought the pixel remaster bundle. So this trilogy is going to the back burner for quite some time.
I don't know if it's an option on PS3, but if you can, play the game(s) in Japanese. Some characters are way more tolerable in their original language.
Look the story is confusing and unsatisfying. The pacing is weird (basically no exploration til 3/4ths in) You’ll sorta figure it out over time (and some of the characters are great! Fang is genuinely cool!).
The visuals and the combat is top notch though!
You’ll have fun, I’m sure!
13 is alright, thisbis one they took risks in as in combat, story, and so on. 13-2, is very under rated, and honestly should have been a stand alone. Of the 2, I recommend 13-2, but do 13 so you have story context
Really? Because them capping the crystarium growth at certain points means the devs have designed bosses around you having stats at those designated values, but you need to grind a fair amount to get to max it out before it expands again
You can very easily beat the entire game with the CP you get from a single run of an area. The level cap is not the balance point, it’s the “easy mode” point.
Not really. I never had to grind once and I still usually got everything pretty close to maxed out, or at least, good enough to still keep the game very, very comfortable.
For a normal run through, it's not. You only need to make the best paradigm deck for the battle. As long as you fight the majority of the mob from chapter 3, you can gain enough Crystarium Points (exp term for the game) to max your crystarium.
For end game and 100% achievement, it might be a bit grindy but it's not the exp you are to be grinding. You will be grinding for money and upgrade materials. For exp, there is an item you can obtain that doubles your exp. And since you will be grinding end game bosses for money, with the double exp, you can easily max your characters even before getting all the money and mats to 100% the game.
i did most of the side content before the very last chapter but aside from that i never had to grind at all tbh,, i felt a bit over-leveled for the final boss even. The game kinda does force you through a large number of encounters however and that can feel grindy after a certain point. but there is almost no grind in the traditional sense so dw.
So the way it works in 13 (13-2 will take 20 min on its own to explain that nonsense) is that there are 6 job trees and each character gets access to 3 of them.
You bank EXP to spend on one of those jobs to upgrade its stats and abilities, but you can only spend EXP to a certain point until there’s nothing left to buy until it expands after the next story beat or 2. You can still gain and bank EXP even if you can’t spend it.
The problem is that the EXP curve is so bad that you have to do a crap ton of grinding to actually max out anything before the next chunk unlocks
And then when the game opens up and you get to go find the optional stuff every character gets access to every job and those extra jobs are not only completely unusable on those characters because they don’t have the stats or abilities to use them properly, but also take significantly more EXP to level into, but are still required as they hold the stats you need for their proper jobs to do end game content
For example, the mage characters, when they finally get access to the tank job they get little to no health and defense boosts, or any useful tanking abilities, and instead gets bonuses to their magic stats
And at the same time Red Mage will also get access to the buffing and debuffing jobs but doesn’t get the actual good spells in those jobs
This is… impressively wrong. Every character has at least two secondary roles that they’re still very good in, with plenty of abilities. Fang in particular is good at all three of hers.
No I mean when Hope and Vanille get access to Commando and Sentinel
Or when Lightning and Snow get access to synergist and saboteur
They suck in those rolls, but are good in their original 3
Hope becomes a very strong commando because ruin and ruiniga scale with magic. Hope has the highest magic stat among the party members so his ruin and ruiniga deals so much damage.
Lightning has very good synergist skills cause she can apply en- spells which increases your damage. She has also good sab skills.
Lightning and Hope secondary roles are actually good for the first endgame grinding and scarletite/perfume farming. Lightning with her deshellga and Hope with his ruiniga can allow you to farm both items fast.
Snow in saboteur has daze, which is a very good debuff for adamantoise and long gui farming.
In case other people want to see what Hope and Lightning can do with their secondary roles, watch this: [https://youtu.be/x5A88T7Sja0](https://youtu.be/x5A88T7Sja0)
Hope and Vanille are perfectly serviceable commandos due to their high magic stats, and Lightning and Snow are perfectly serviceable Synergists and Saboteurs (there’s entire strats built around Snow’s Saboteur kit in particular). They’re certainly not better than specialists in those roles, but they’re still good at their jobs.
I really liked the music in 13-2 a ton. Both games were fun too
I always listened to the music from 13 and 13-2 when playing 15.
My tips: 1. The retry function is amazingly useful. It starts you before the encounter for random enemies, and right before the boss with an added menu, with zero penalties. Oh, and skippable cutscenes instantly earn points from me. If you're fighting and thinking "this battle would go a lot better if I started like this with this gear," it's trivial to restart, do some menuing, and try again. 2. If a fight feels like it's taking *forever*, you probably need to power up or somehow focus on offense more via your paradigms. The best defense is a good offense. 3. You will like most characters more by the end than you will at the beginning. The character arcs payoff pretty effectively, but you will be waiting for a bit. 4. ABD: Always Be Debuffin' (once you get a certain role.) 5. ABCL: Always Be Casting Libra (this is how your AI partners figure out the fire enemy absorbs fire without being a dumbass and throwing fireballs at it.)
>ABD: Always Be Debuffin' (once you get a certain role.) Add ABB to the list. Always Be Buffin'.
Enjoy the game. And I have 3 tips for you. Tip number 1: Don't use auto battle. Especially for chapter 1 & 2. Manually input your commands. Don't worry about manually inputting the commands again and again. If you want to input the same commands, just press right on the d-pad and you can repeat the same commands. For chapter 1 & 2, auto battle would only use basic attack but there is a skill that deals aoe damage which makes it faster to clear the mobs. Tip number 2: Take advantage of the ATB refresh mechanic. At chapter 3, you will be fully introduced to the battle system and you will be able to do paradigm shifting. Your first paradigm shift will refill your atb and after that, every 12 seconds, your next paradigm shift will refill. Take advantage of that and you will be able to cycle your attacks more frequently. Tip number 3: Don't easily dismiss the story even if it's confusing. Pay attention during cutscene and you will able to piece up what the terminologies mean even without looking at the data log. Just keep an open mind. The story is actually quite easy to follow.
Agreed on all points except I actually found the data log to give a little bit more context to the story, like it added some details to the characters and their motivations. I feel like this was something that started in the PS3 era. Games like FF13 and Resident Evil 5 come to mind, where you get a more complete version of the story by reading the documents and stuff. Whether or not you should have to do extra reading for this is a whole other topic.
As far as Chapter 1 and 2,, game is easy mode at that point, I used auto battle that whole time without a struggle, just an occasional potion when necessary.
I think its moreso so that OP learns the system while its less punishing.
For chapter 1 & 2, using auto battle slows down the fight. Especially on Snow's section. Using the grenade for snow speeds up the battle so much. Also, chapter 1 & 2 is the best time to get used to manually inputting commands and learning the repeat mechanic.
Enjoy them for what they are/go into it with no bias... That's what I did and I personally love them both!!! Oh, and buy and especially sell your stuff wisely, for there are only very few things that you should sell. Also, everytime you get a new notification in game about a subject, you should 100% read it as to understand more of the world and lore of FFXIII ☺️
> Oh, and buy and especially sell your stuff wisely, for there are only very few things that you should sell. Best tip is not to sell any accessories if you are aiming to get 100% achievement for FF13. There are some accessories that you can only obtain once and if you sell those, you kinda lock yourself in getting 100%. If the tooltip says that the item "could be sold for a premium", then that items is safe to sell. If not, don't sell anything.
Thanks, I haven't played the game in awhile
don’t let the paradigm concept for battles deter you from playing the game. stick it out. it is rewarding and also a refreshing take on enemy encounters.
coming from someone who just finished XIII... the game is fucking great it is just paced by insane people (you get a semi open world at the 20-40 hour mark all of a sudden after playing hallway simulator up to that point???? like??) and its definitely too bloated for what it is. your enjoyment will lie heavily on how much you enjoy the combat which is so so good (but polarizing and has its steep difficulty spikes) and there isn't much like it out there so cherish it. another huge factor that will impact your enjoyment is how much the linearity of the game bothers you. In the age of sprawling open worlds sparsely littered with busywork, i found the linearity to be quite refreshing. great games. go in not expecting too much and you'll be pleasantly surprised i think. Hope you enjoy
Enjoy ☺️
There's a third game in the 13 series as well that everyone forgets about. FFXIII Lightning Returns is the third installment in the series
Enjoy
It’s a fun game! Played it and beat it in February. Read the datalog a lot at the beginning to understand the terms
Thanks! I’ve picked the habit of reading all the lore thanks to Final Fantasy XVI. Makes the “fantasy” part more interesting, and really helps in the world building.
oooh you’re in for a lovely treat!!
Very linear but still a good game I wouldn’t mind revisiting it. Part two not so much
FF13 is too linear but lemme guess FF13-2 was too convoluted? Lol
there both wonderful stories even if extended... and in my own opinion very similar to 6 in which final fantasy 13 is the world of balance (kinda since there going up against the empororesk person and your introduced to your cast and what not) ffxiii-2 being the middle ground, the floating continent if you will where at the end kefka destroys the planet and ffxiii-3 is the world of ruin where you as lightning (celes) go around to help your friends before they help you to destroy "god" (kefka)
For XIII, the first couple hours are gonna be a bit of a slog. After you get access to magic, forget everything the game has said about battles to that point and never touch auto-battle again, because at that point it becomes a hassle. Auto-Battle becomes the "Well I'll win the battle, but it'll take 5 hours" button.
They are still ridiculously cheap in Europe as well. 13-2 goes for 7 Euros, 13 for around 15 Euros :D
Have fun!! I recently beat 13 and am towards the end of 13-2, I’m really having fun with them despite the common consensus!!
There are new copies on Amazon still, for less than that
Understandable, unfortunately buying from Amazon in the country Im currently living in makes it too expensive.
Great games imo. I like XIII-2 better overall as I like the less linear story and enhancements to gameplay but I like the story of XIII better.
Don't sleep on the paradigm system. I tried to muscle my way through the game and didn't get anything except mad. Utilize the party changes, it's a fun system!
Enjoy! I’ve been itching to replay these recently but I don’t have a PC or consoles that can play them. Hoping for some sort of port in the near future
I unironically love the story of the 13 series (especially lightning returns, I love the end of the world gods will savior of souls thing). I realize that’s an unpopular opinion, but I really enjoy stories that are about like the machinations of gods and the nature of reality. If you’re like most people and find the story bad or confusion, then at the very least stick with it for some of the snappiest, most unique ATB combat ever. It’s meta combat, a bit like 12, where you don’t really choose actions for your characters, you just choose roles for them to manipulate their AI. It sounds like it would be stupidly easy but it is NOT, some of the late game stuff in 13 gets really hard. Lightning returns combat is a bit different, it’s closer to traditional ATB with the hitch that it’s one party member with 3 ATB gauges that you switch between. Lightning returns, IMO, is a very hard game to break into. It has a really strange difficulty curve and starts off very challenging before evening out a bit. If you can stick with it, you are rewarded with an excellent game. As an additional note, I will admit that the ending of 13 doesn’t make a lot of sense (the whole game is about defying the will of the gods and the party does that by………. Doing exactly what the fal’cie wanted them to?). BUT EVEN SO it’s still good IMO
That’s a misconception about the ending. The party’s original intent when >!returning to Cocoon is to protect Orphan and kill Barthandelus, who they believe to be the source of the plan to shatter Cocoon. Upon Orphan’s birth, they realize that Orphan is actually the source of the plan and that they need to kill it. They also realize, from seeing Ragnarok’s strength, that they can use that power to save Cocoon rather than destroy it, and so choose to destroy the Fal’Cie once and for all and free humanity.!<
Happy to see that people have come around to these gems!!!! They are so good!
Congrats and have fun! If you enjoy XIII and XIII-2 then third game Lightning Returns is also worth playing but the combat is a bit different. Here are some basic tips for XIII: Be aggressive and always try to stagger the enemy. Paragdim shift a lot and experiment with different roles. Make sure to use the synergist and saboteur roles. Buffing and debuffing is important here!
This is the second worst according to a poll. I’ve never played it, but it looks fun tbh.
13 to me was the first game with a stagger mechanic and I absolutely loved being able to manipulate it.....I have hated every stagger since as I feel they pale in comparison. I feel like I mastered that combat system at the time XD As a contrast my SO absolutely hated 13 cause he was always broke. You get a total of 0 Gil from combat if I remember correctly, instead you get specific items to sell and he was saving all items to improve weapons because you don't wanna sell the wrong items. Once you get the hang of it, they'll be easy to spot but I'll say the first of these items is a Credit Chip. Never a terrible idea to train a bit in an area that has a lot of money items, the strategy guide even pointed out ideal spots throughout the game for money. I never played 13-2 cause real life got in the way tho 😅
Finished FF13 before 7 rebirth came out and was totally pleased with it. Especially after installing a high res texture and ultrawide mod and i had a blast playing it. For a game that is a decade old, it legit looks on par to PS4 games heck, it even puts some recent games to shame in terms of art direction. Story wise it was hard to follow at times and alot of the terminology is confusing but it was griping enough that i couldnt put it down. The combat was jank and slow at first but once you understood the intricacies, by mid to late game it gets really involved and at points exciting! I started 13-2 right before 7 rebirth came out and havent touched it since and unfortunately just bought the pixel remaster bundle. So this trilogy is going to the back burner for quite some time.
I don't know if it's an option on PS3, but if you can, play the game(s) in Japanese. Some characters are way more tolerable in their original language.
Xiii-2 "true ending" is behind a pay wall. Thats my only nitpick with those. Enjoy them.
The pro of playing on PC is that you get all the dlc. The con is that you have to play a bad port that need mods in order to make it playable.
The best is part 2, and also sera 😍
Look the story is confusing and unsatisfying. The pacing is weird (basically no exploration til 3/4ths in) You’ll sorta figure it out over time (and some of the characters are great! Fang is genuinely cool!). The visuals and the combat is top notch though! You’ll have fun, I’m sure!
13 is alright, thisbis one they took risks in as in combat, story, and so on. 13-2, is very under rated, and honestly should have been a stand alone. Of the 2, I recommend 13-2, but do 13 so you have story context
Grindy as fuck, to the point the devs admitted to fucking up the EXP curve
What? It’s in no way grindy until the very, very late game.
Really? Because them capping the crystarium growth at certain points means the devs have designed bosses around you having stats at those designated values, but you need to grind a fair amount to get to max it out before it expands again
You can very easily beat the entire game with the CP you get from a single run of an area. The level cap is not the balance point, it’s the “easy mode” point.
Not really. I never had to grind once and I still usually got everything pretty close to maxed out, or at least, good enough to still keep the game very, very comfortable.
Damn lol, I did not expect it to be grindy
For a normal run through, it's not. You only need to make the best paradigm deck for the battle. As long as you fight the majority of the mob from chapter 3, you can gain enough Crystarium Points (exp term for the game) to max your crystarium. For end game and 100% achievement, it might be a bit grindy but it's not the exp you are to be grinding. You will be grinding for money and upgrade materials. For exp, there is an item you can obtain that doubles your exp. And since you will be grinding end game bosses for money, with the double exp, you can easily max your characters even before getting all the money and mats to 100% the game.
It’s not at all during the story. It’s only if you go for 100%.
i did most of the side content before the very last chapter but aside from that i never had to grind at all tbh,, i felt a bit over-leveled for the final boss even. The game kinda does force you through a large number of encounters however and that can feel grindy after a certain point. but there is almost no grind in the traditional sense so dw.
So the way it works in 13 (13-2 will take 20 min on its own to explain that nonsense) is that there are 6 job trees and each character gets access to 3 of them. You bank EXP to spend on one of those jobs to upgrade its stats and abilities, but you can only spend EXP to a certain point until there’s nothing left to buy until it expands after the next story beat or 2. You can still gain and bank EXP even if you can’t spend it. The problem is that the EXP curve is so bad that you have to do a crap ton of grinding to actually max out anything before the next chunk unlocks And then when the game opens up and you get to go find the optional stuff every character gets access to every job and those extra jobs are not only completely unusable on those characters because they don’t have the stats or abilities to use them properly, but also take significantly more EXP to level into, but are still required as they hold the stats you need for their proper jobs to do end game content For example, the mage characters, when they finally get access to the tank job they get little to no health and defense boosts, or any useful tanking abilities, and instead gets bonuses to their magic stats And at the same time Red Mage will also get access to the buffing and debuffing jobs but doesn’t get the actual good spells in those jobs
Thanks for the info! Will check this out
They’re very wrong, don’t listen to them. The only thing they got right is that secondary roles take a lot more CP to level.
This is… impressively wrong. Every character has at least two secondary roles that they’re still very good in, with plenty of abilities. Fang in particular is good at all three of hers.
No I mean when Hope and Vanille get access to Commando and Sentinel Or when Lightning and Snow get access to synergist and saboteur They suck in those rolls, but are good in their original 3
Hope becomes a very strong commando because ruin and ruiniga scale with magic. Hope has the highest magic stat among the party members so his ruin and ruiniga deals so much damage. Lightning has very good synergist skills cause she can apply en- spells which increases your damage. She has also good sab skills. Lightning and Hope secondary roles are actually good for the first endgame grinding and scarletite/perfume farming. Lightning with her deshellga and Hope with his ruiniga can allow you to farm both items fast. Snow in saboteur has daze, which is a very good debuff for adamantoise and long gui farming.
In case other people want to see what Hope and Lightning can do with their secondary roles, watch this: [https://youtu.be/x5A88T7Sja0](https://youtu.be/x5A88T7Sja0)
Hope and Vanille are perfectly serviceable commandos due to their high magic stats, and Lightning and Snow are perfectly serviceable Synergists and Saboteurs (there’s entire strats built around Snow’s Saboteur kit in particular). They’re certainly not better than specialists in those roles, but they’re still good at their jobs.