Let's see which characters and their paradigms are best in Final Fantasy XIII! Footage: / @bossfightdatabase / @thetronicles / @saientist / @fbgorillius Thumbnail Template by www.freepik.com
FFXIII is a mixed bag. It has some great wonderful stuff in it (the stellar music) and some not good stuff (hallway chapter design). To me personally however I'm with you; I find the battle system and the paradigm mechanic excellent. I really enjoyed the battle style in FFXIII. Only one caveat is that if your character dies it shouldn't be game over immediately, only upon all three dying should it be game over.
@@j.r.cilliangreen4083 True FFX does have a linear progression with similar hallway like maps at times. The difference I would say is both pacing and world structure. In FFX you can head BACKWARD. Each area is interconnected to the next and unless a story point is preventing you from doing so, you can always head back. In FFXIII for most part once you progress a chapter there's no heading back. There's also no sense of interconnection or how each area connects with other areas in the world physically. Its just random different areas. FFX's pacing is also handled much better in its story. That's subjective but I think most people would easily agree with that. FFX is heavily praised for its pacing and it shows. So it just goes to show you can have the same hallway style structure, but it's the execution that makes the difference.
@@pyguy7 points well made. I love both for different reasons...and the pacing in X is definitely more forgiving in terms of sticking around to the end. XIII as much as i adore it does demand a LOT of someone on the front end.
dude, that last point. how in the world did SOOO many people approve of that idea to make it in to the final version? theres not even an option to switch out to the other party members like they did in 12.
i like everyones commando and sentinel just cause you get to see some characters do animatons they wouldnt normally do, like vanille waving and sahz bobbing his fro for their taunts
If you abuse ATB refreshes, the commando roles on everyone is actually really good. You just get a monstrous burst of damage. And you just need to get the mage duo up to ruin for it to work well. So its surprisingly not that huge an investment.
Hi, FF13 expert here: Sazh is not the worst character gameplay wise. Snow is. Sure, worst stats, but he has HELLA utility. Plus, one of the two best parties has him in it (Fang/Vanille/Sazh or Fang/Lightning/Hope). It’s borderline slander.
Yeah I agree Sazh has low stats but his utility makes it up His the best synergist by far in the early game, only Hope competes with him late game in this role, Sazh weapons can prolong the buffs, his useful in any battle since he can always buff the team He might be an average Commando and Ravager but still better than Snow as a commando because of his unique blitz Snow has a faster cast animation making him the better Ravager and medic, Snow is the best Sentinel but honestly sentinels are not always needed, they are situational So Sazh is better than snow overall because Sazh is always useful in any situation Yes Sazh isn’t the best character but his still useful
Most of the conmplaints i've heard about this game come from how long it takes for the battle system to open up, people calling the game a hallway simulator. People seem to be mixed on their opinion on lightning, some like her and some think she's a boring female version of cloud. Personally if i had to chose between cloud or lightning i'd chose Zack
That was my problem with it at first. I got while on deployment. We were stuck on a ship in the Red Sea and I had no access to internet and didn't pay the proper attention to how the battle system worked. I was expecting an open worldish like the other games and didn't like the linear level design. Once I got home and learned how I was supposed to play the game I enjoyed the combat immensely.
Arguably. But not always in practicality since he is slow and having a more limited moveset can be a boon as well for support characters. And Vanille and Fang have specialized weapons for debuffing. In practice Lightning is often the more useful secondary sab, since the debilitations are less useful than the offensive debuffs.
In my head canon Sasz, Snow and Vanille, are kinda like specialized characters that are very good in one skill but not great as a permanent team member, wherea Lightning and Fang were a permanent member i played with. Getting the best weapons is a pain but those can make a huge difference, but its so highly complicated you need a walkthrough
So this isn't actually ranking the paradigms, but the roles for each character. I suppose the ranking is done with a maxed party in mind. Here are my thoughts on the ranking: Commando, which is not a purely physical damage dealer as implied at the beginning: Vanille is the worst com as long as she doesn't have Adrenaline, but then she is better than Hope, even being comparable to Lightning since Lightning never gets Adrenaline. Snow is also stronger than Lightning in most fights where single-target damage is more important than aoe as long as Adrenaline can be upheld. Ravager, which is not a pure magic casting role as implied at the beginning: Good ranking, would like to mention that Vanille is even slower than Sazh regarding cast speed, although she is faster as a support character if Sazh alternates between physical and magical skills. Her getting all elements is rarely a significant benefit over Sazh. Cold Blood on the other hand can be very beneficial with Sazh lead. Sentinel: Nothing to add. Synergist: Ranking here is tough, but in endgame Fang or Vanille with their -ra spells offer something substantial for the hardest fights. Fang is definitely all around the better syn of those two with much better development and Haste whereas Vanille has the most terrible development of any secondary syn in the game getting all the good stuff (Bravera/Faithra) she has in stage 10 only. Snow is the most lackluster syn of all though, being a worse syn than Lightning in nearly every regard apart from Haste acquisition. Saboteur: The most baffling ranking here. I can't see Hope as 3rd best sab with his skillset. -ga spells are useful for group fights only whereas Lightning is a very well rounded Saboteur, practically on par with Vanille in the late game. Lightning takes his place for sure. And Sazh is practically the same as Light with slower speed and with a complete focus on single target spells which are generally more useful than multi-target ones. He can also daze spam, where his slow speed is actually useful in theory. I would put Snow and Hope at the bottom for their niche use cases, whereas Light and Sazh (Light above Sazh) are above them. Medic: Would put Hope over Vanille, for faster healing speed and higher magic. During stage 8 of development she is better for sure with Curaja, but not after that except maybe with the Healer's Rod which isn't very useful in general.
Could you please guide me on the primary and secondary rol you would use? I'm gonna start the game but I'm a but lost... I would like to use Lightning and Hope as much as possible.
@@azimbague1004 Well, if you are new to the game I wouldn't worry too much as with most games and just familiarize yourself with the battle mechanics choosing whichever team you like and upgrading in whatever order you prefer. Generally I would advise to prioritize getting abilities/accessory slots/the sole ATB boost (only one for each character at stage 8) first, then focus on maxing offensive roles (Com, Rav) before defensive/supportive roles. When in doubt ignore secondary roles completely until post-game, they are far more expensive than the primary roles and give far less stat boosts. This isn't a game where you resign your characters to single primary roles, always use and upgrade all three as needed. Stat boosts earned in one role are permanently effective. With Hope you could try to get Ruin early in his Com secondary role to be able to use him as a magic com, as it will increase your damage output relative to just letting him stay as Rav for dealing damage.
@@AndreasFleissner thank you for the info. I beat the game once on Xbox, so it's not like everything is new to me, but I remember chapter 11 I think it is when you have "freedom to explore" that the gap between me and the monsters was enormous. This time I want to build the characters properly so I can cover the difference easier. I'll start like you say and then look for the equipment.
@@azimbague1004 Battle tactics are the actual greatest factor influencing ease and duration of battle. Don't think too much about upgrade order. Use Saboteurs and Synergists, offensive buffs and debuffs make a huge difference if an enemy seems too tanky. Of course also use stagger in those cases if possible or just build up a high chain bonus instead. One of the most interesting parts of the combat system is trying to maximize stagger. One long stagger to kill the enemy instead of 2 short ones is more time efficient and achieving those is far more satisfying as well. Don't forget about the Sentinel for particularly hard-hitting enemies. It might be necessary sometimes to use one for the majority of the fight. Most of the time you won't explicitly need them though.
2:38 Aaaaaaand there goes all the credibility of this video right away. Sahz is the first to get access to Haste and offensive buffs as a synergist, and with Commando and Blitz is one of if not the best Damage Dealer in the game, not even factoring his Cold Blood as Ravager which you can increase the damage by switching to Commando as he starts the animation for it and has a much faster animation than lightning's one, so much for being the worst character in the game.
Sazh is an awesome turtle killer with Blitz and Hyades Magnums before the post-game! In the post-game, he gets outclassed in almost every way, sadly. The RAV-to-COM swap during Cold Blood does help his damage output post game, though. When compared to the other five members of the cast post-game, he does end up being the worst. The problem with the way people perceive tier lists is that they think "Low Tier" always means "F" rank. In games where every character is viable and things are relatively balanced, sometimes the worst character in the game can be "C" rank or even "B" rank! In a pantheon of gods, someone still has to be the worst.
I feel like people that like this game are the ones who actually did all the ceith stones. I can still fondly remember how awesome the end game was and how awesome it was to kill my first adamantoise
I searched once for Longgui battle, death can be useful if player changes Vanille into commando during death animation, it deals 999,999 damage to staggered and felled-down Longgui because it counts damage using the commando role. But you have to spam it, and keep switching roles (this will interrupt party member attack animation), you can do about 6 death before Longgui stands up, leaving some HP left... I'm not sure if anyone one-go with death. Sazh summons deal the most damage, and blitz, of course, Longgui battles only
Interesting because i knew a bunch of people who hates it when it come out and love it now. I have always loved it. I have my grievances with it sure, like party leader death for one😑😑😑 but aside from those things, i enjoy it for what it is and i enjoy the characters. I heard once that vanille was meant to be the main character originally, and given that i really love vanille. Playing the game through the lens that shes the main character, makes it an overall more enjoyable experience for me.💜💜
I feel stats also play into this. Lightning maxes out naturally at 20,000 HP, 1,700 Strength and 1,700 Magic. Snow ends up with 30,000 HP, 1,500 Strength and 1,200 Magic. Vanille gets 21,050 HP, 1,400 Strength and 1,700 Magic. Sazh, unfortunately, acquires 27,000 HP, but only gains 1,000 Strength and 1,000 Magic (his weapons REALLY help him out). Hope has 18,000 HP, 1,100 Strength and 1,900 Magic. Finally, Fang obtains 24,000 HP, 2,005 Strength and 1,300 Magic. As it stands, the best party is Lightning, Hope and Fang unless you need a Sentinel in which case swap Fang for Snow. Lightning, Hope and Fang have higher end stats and fast animations.
I’d place Lightning commando as higher than fang… well, maybe after disregarding Highwind, but I digress, why? Because fang’s attack animations are so slow comparatively. She may be stronger, but when I’m trying to kill something staggered quickly that way it doesn’t kill my equal strength party, the 2 seconds it takes Light to do similar damage to Fang’s 5 second combo feels a lot more clutch
I love ff13 shame others don't like it as much but each its own but the best if the cast in my opinion. 1. Fang- great character, shes strong and i love hitting the enemy up and damaging them. Even tho shes a later party memeber shes always a great pick too be the strong backbone of the group. 2. Sazh- he has great buff and debuff abilities that honestly save me from getting preety demolished in battle and his guns help the staggered guage effectively. 3. Lightning- is very strong swordswoman and she kinda haves a jack of all trades, but a master of none feel too her, but shes useful start too finish. And her summon was the one i used more than anyone elses. 4. Vanille- too me is more of a black and white mage. abilities that makes her helpful in battle and a good support tho hope is the better medic i perfer her,she has great debufs as well. 5. Snow- snow at first i didnt care for but he grew on me and hes a great damage dealer and the abilities too heal so he doesn't really need much just black magic and debuffs too stagger the enemy and he will take care of the rest. 6. Hope- is a support medic in my opinion, he is my least favorite memeber but i still like him alot. he can be up there but ig i haves bias favortism.
Here are maximum stats. Lightning maxes out naturally at 20,000 HP, 1,700 Strength and 1,700 Magic. Snow ends up with 30,000 HP, 1,500 Strength and 1,200 Magic. Vanille gets 21,050 HP, 1,400 Strength and 1,700 Magic. Sazh, unfortunately, acquires 27,000 HP, but only gains 1,000 Strength and 1,000 Magic (his weapons REALLY help him out). Hope has 18,000 HP, 1,100 Strength and 1,900 Magic. Finally, Fang obtains 24,000 HP, 2,005 Strength and 1,300 Magic. Do with this what you will.
@@redmagelala Max stats are not that usefull anyway and maxed upgraded weapons are not either XD You don't need to max every Crystarium and Weapons. Sazh's Hyades Magnum is the best weapon in the game for a good reason. It's a 2nd-tier weapon that hits as hard as a 3rd-tier weapon.
@@groudonvert7286 At the really bad drawback of less HP (40% less is a death sentence). That's lost DPS spent reviving Sazh. It isn't an ideal weapon for it's HP reduction and lack of Magic stat. Power means nothing. Spica Defenders or Rigels are better for him, objectively. And if you REALLY need power, Rigels cap at 1,006 Strength and 1,014 Magic, respectively. Versus 1,150 Strength and 0 Magic. You lose out on 144 Strength but you gain 1,014 Magic and have Stagger Lock, but that's not an issue if you keep him in Commando. Spica Defenders caps at 713 Strength and 911 Magic. And gains Augment Maintenance II which, need I remind you that Haste is broken in FFXIII? And longer buffs means longer Haste? Silk Tiger does not warrant the power outside of meme (bad) strats.
@@redmagelala Hyades Magnum is a tier 2 weapon that goes up to 1140 strength. There's no point in upgrading it to tier 3 since you only gain 10 points in strength. So... now compare the Hyades Magnum to any Tier 2 weapons, none of them are stronger (and the cost is not that important either for a weapon that strong). Except if you want to use Magic for a specific enemy, in that case changing the weapon is an option, there's no point for Sazh to have Magic. His Ravageur is used for chaining (with Cold Blood most of the time) and the Commando it's usually better to spam Blitz all the time. Sure the HP reduction can be a problem, but you can play safely with a Sentinel without a problem (seriously with low Crystarium investment, Sazh is the only character able to kill, on his own, Neochu in one stagger, that's how powerful Magnum is). It's also the only character that can reliably kill (so no Death) an Adamantoise early. And of course Sazh has to be played as a Leader. He's completely outclass by other characters otherwise.
@@redmagelala By the way the "meme bad strat" as you say is used in pretty much every speedrun categories that is not a joke category. Every single category in FF13 has at least one route that uses Hyades Magnum (yes even Any% has a Magnum Route). By the way, it's very rare that Spica Defenders has any utility if you're good with the game. Rare are the fights that exceed 5 minutes.
Not everything needs a remake. I loved FF13 when it came out and I still love it. I'm playing it again now. I would never have gotten that opportunity if Square decided to remake every FF in the history of ever instead of making something new and original. The graphics are still great and it had voice acting and movie sequences. It's a bit too modern to require a remake. I want to see a new standalone offline FF that is free to create its own story from the ground up.
You don't have 4800 people interested un trails in the sky. Half of the views come from me (I'm a slow learner). I'm still hoping for the not so likely Sky SC video by the way.
outside how slow the combat can be and having to be a babysitter i do like how thoughtful the character and roles are. - it being about stats-attack speed- coverage- abilities- and limit breaks/summons, health, control commando- str vs mag , close range vs longer range ravager- coverage vs attack speed sentinel- offensive vs defensive vs lightning dodge tank (allowing you to beat enemies that would kill snow) sabotour - coverage + exclusive synergist- coverage + exclusive medic- magic, cast speed, spells/ai There's always a pro and con to using a character like hope having strong heals but low hp to get knocked out vs snow with faster heals but tougher and weaker + the other roles and coverage. I think the reason its game over when the controlled character dies is to add the risk of control since the AI doesn't really need you to issue an attack command since they are far faster. do you control a squishy character and use -aga spells for CC or not. a lot of the combat was thought out, it's just too bad it takes so long to get to the good part and by then you can pick up limit breaks and end the game. even if i don't like 13 my worst turned best character has to be Snow. He has character in all 3 game vs the other casts not to mention that he never got to marry Serah. Lightning- loses has little to no emotions and all 3 games. Vanille/fang- 1 game and its more backstory hope- grows up sahz- where's my son the trilogy Snow: from wannabe hero -> paradox fighter for Serah -> depression overload.. eternally engaged never married. I would like to go back and finish f13 someday, i have beaten the final boss but not on my own file which i stopped at the end of Grand pulse.
Fang is a Synergist that can only be used as a Leader (mostly because of Veil) and she doesn't have access to En-Spells. Lightning doesn't have access to -ra buffs, but she's versatile enough to help the team either at low crystarium advancement (for Wladislaus farming, she's the best Synergist, Hope and Sazh don't really match with a fast farming) or in later developpment. All in all, Lightning can be used as both Leader and AI with her synergist, it makes her slightly better than Fang who can't be used outside of Leader.
I played through 13 6 months ago and it was really good when I was in battle or looking around at the cool environments and pretty bad when the story was happening.
Summary was generated by Summatim, let us know if there are any inaccuracies! 🤖 0:01: Introduction 0:27: Final Fantasy 13 1:08: Paradigm Shifts 2:19: Character Tier List - Bottom Tier 4:11: Character Tier List - Mid Tier 5:07: Character Tier List - Upper Mid Tier 8:57: Conclusion
FFXIII is a really good game gameplay wise... when you get to grand pulse... one of the best. If the whole game was like that it would actually be top tier. The areas are all pretty visually pleasing too... I wish we could have explored them more like we can gran pulse. I wish we had the hunts and quests through out the game... like they do on pulse. As for pulse... why show us the gigantic monster eating the humongous turtle like tictacs if we can't fight him. The villain is pretty forgettable and the story starts at season 2 episode 8. I will be honest... I do like it more than anything after it except final fantasy 7 remake.
XIII's battle system is too automated for my liking. Nice list though, you did your research man. Lastly, think you could do a video for the Bravely Default or Octopath Traveler games?
@@locloudanerpg If you're doing Xenoblade 3, you should do Xenogears next, as one of the characters is an expy (with the same animations even) as the main character.
@@locloudanerpg you know when you cancel an order on a Sims character that's probably what was going on here😂 trails is definitely that franchise for me in this part of my life tho
Personal opinion here, but I cannot stand battle systems that make no sense in universe. If the only way something could be taken down is with synchronized teams with powers that only the protagonists have, it bugs me how monsters in universe kill for food or territory. FFVIIR was great on that end.
They did fix it in XIII-2, which VIIR got, XIII battle system was different, but you can see the ground work that would make the best system, if only they didn't have that stupid limitation.
But this battle system does make sense? Our protags aren't the only people who can fight like this, other L'cie that you fight have the same capabilities. Only L'cie can use magic without assistance from devices. If you look at how the enemy soldiers attack with magic, they have to use an MP like system that the L'cie don't have to worry about. You'll even notice that they have to recharge their MP back up. They really did try to make it make sense in world, and it does to me.
It's not just about how other people would fight, it's how things in the wild fight too. There's no way for monsters to fight over territory if the fight lasts half a day and covering a kill is impossible if certain predators wouldn't give a damn about being attacked for ten minutes.@@Miriam_J_
Commando and Ravager has nothing to do with physical or magical attack stats. E.g. Hope can be a great Commando with Ruin and Fang can be an awesome Ravager with the Elemental Strikes.
Commando focus mainly on none element based attack, Attack is physical none element based and Ruin is magical none element based Ravager focuses on elements, they can be magic based such as fire water thunder etc or physical Firestrike Icestrike etc
I’ll be honest Im still havinga hard time accepting THIS isthe 13tf entry of final fantasy. I thought it was at best decent. But that is not a good grade for any final fantasy. That said. Cool list. I got somwhat nostalgic for the battle system
Do we still like this game? Not really, but it’s very mixed quality on all fronts. Good idea for a combat system that doesn’t allow for any interesting input from the player
sooo, i feel like i have to point this part out. the game basically penalizes you for leveling up characters to roles in which they dont specialize in (snow as a synergist or fang as a medic for examples) and when you finally do that, theyre mid tier at best or straight up garbage at worst. in fact, in this very list, the only top tier character who has a class thas not part of their specalized 3 is lightning as a synergist. i cant actively recall any other game that offers this much illusion of freedom while simultaneously frowns upon it.
I wouldn't say they are all garbage, some of them have specific usage (most notably for farming), but they are rare example of roles that have no usage at all. To explain a bit : Fang's medic is the worst lol She's a great Ravageur and Synergist though. Lightning has a great synergist, Sentinel and Saboteur (only offensive spells though) Snow is a good medic, his Synergist is decent if he's used alongside an other Synergist. His Saboteur is very specific, but he's the fastest Daze user in the game.
@@groudonvert7286 its been well over a decade since i last played xiii so i will take your word on those specifics but i was talking about specifically in battle either in late game and/or post game, not necessarily other reasons like farming.
@@keyblader2k6 Well if we take the Sentinel role, you can have all your party members learn Provoke and use the Tortoise Paradygm to tank strong stuff (like Bart3's Ultima).
@@keyblader2k6 Idk, I've seen people run Sentinel Hope or Lightning as evasion tanks and it ends up working well for them. It's almost always recommended to at least Get Fang a couple of skills from Ravenger too since she's also pretty good at it. Snow is the fastest healer by far, his healing animation almost instantly casts. Vanille can be an "ok" commando once she gets adrenaline. Sazh can get every single target debuff from Sabetour. Are any of these optimal? Apart from Fang, of course they aren't. But to say that it's penalizing when people can and have made weird roles work (sen Hope for example). Do you just mean that they aren't optimal? Or maybe because of the insane Crystal Points cost? That one id understand tbh. Idk, imagine you're playing KH2 and you get Devicive Pumpkin, the best strength key blade in the game. If you're a strength build, you aren't being penalized or punished for not using it, but it definitely isn't optimal. That doesn't make every other option worse or bad, though.
