FINAL FANTASY XIII

For this achievement, you'll need to have all roles for all characters at level 5. This requires a LOT of CP (in the tens of millions), since non-innate roles for your characters sometimes cost as much as 120,000 CP for a single node.

There's plenty of back and forth discussion as to where the best place is to grind. There are a lot of variables, which depend on the strength of your party, as well as ease of access to the spot, ease of battle, proximity to save points and chocobos, etc. So what I will do is list three prominent methods for post-game CP grinding as well as some information about them, and then you can decide which is best for you. If you are going for the Treasure Hoarder achievement, and have a plenty strong party already, I will point out a better grinding spot later that will also help tremendously in gaining the gil and items you need to upgrade your weapons.

Spot #1: King Behemoth vs. Mega-whatever method
You can find this in the northern section of the Archylyte Steppe, near the path leading to Mah'haraba. You'll see a King Behemoth and Megisthoterian duking it out. This is always a pre-emptive strike, so if you're strong enough to take out the King Behemoth before he stands up and heals himself, then this battle is a cinch. You can find a video if it here, along with a map of the location:
-My average CP per second: 129.9 CP/sec
-Guaranteed pre-emptive strike makes this a very low-risk battle
-Very easy to get to, and close to a warp stone, a save point, and a chocobo (eventually)
-A great beginner's CP grinding spot, as you can attempt this with a relatively weaker party, even before you've beaten the game.
-Recommended set-up: Lightning, Snow, and Fang as RAV/COM/COM when you're starting out (to stagger the King Behemoth). Eventually you'll get strong enough that you don't need to stagger him to kill him, at which point COM/COM/COM becomes best.

Spot #2: The Western Basin Rangda method
For directions on how to do this, check here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=950899&a...
-My average CP per second: 99.8 CP/sec
-Moderately easy to access, not close to any save points, chocobos, or warp stones
-This isn't my personal favorite, but it could work for you depending on your party strength.
-Recommended set-up: Lightning, Fang, and Snow as COM/COM/COM. Use blitz often, and make sure to target the guys that are summoning, as they can bring a King Behemoth into battle

Spot #3: The Cryohedron x 6 method
To access this, you need to gain access to a secret section of the Mah'haraba caverns. To do this, go back to Mah'haraba and ride Atomos (the big spiky ball Fal'cie) to Sulyya Springs, then ride him back. He'll have parked in a spot that now allows you to jump off of him and access the new part of the tunnels.
Enter this new area and head forward. You'll come a fork where you can jump off to the right..... but don't. Stay left. You'll come to another fork....stay left again. After this last left you'll eventually come to a mechanical tunnel. Kill the dancing birds at the end of this tunnel, then head up the stairs. Here, 6 cryohedrons will come out of the gates. Fight them for 7,140 CP, then go back down the stairs and take a few steps into the mechanical tunnel. Go back to where the cryohedrons were, and they should have spawned again. Rinse and repeat.
-My average CP per second: 145.7 CP/sec
-Moderate to poor access to save point and warpstone
-Heavily depends on having a stronger party in order to wipe them all out quickly
-This is my personal favorite spot. I'd recommend starting first at Spot #1 to strengthen your party a bit, then coming here. Once you can consistently take out the cryohedrons in 17 seconds or less, this becomes the best spot.
-Recommended set-up: Lightning, Fang, and Snow as COM/COM/COM (use lots of blitz!), or Lightning, Fang, and Hope as RAV/COM/RAV (spam fira spells), either works.

I'd HIGHLY suggest testing each of these spots for yourself, because, as I said, results will differ for everyone depending on party strength.

Now that you've settled on a spot and gotten your grind on, I recommend grinding until you have at least 2 of every character's 3 innate roles maxed out. You'll then want to obtain the growth egg as early as possible, which doubles your CP. You can obtain this from Mission 55, from a little bastard called Neochu. Ok, I lied..........he's pretty big, and he's among the hardest and nastiest bosses in the game, but there's a neat trick to beating him which you should be able to pull off at your current level (2 out of 3 innate roles maxed). Set Vanille as party leader, then pick a good Sentinel and Medic (I used Snow and Hope, respectively). Set up a SAB/SEN/MED class as your starting paradigm, then some offensive paradigm of your choice with a medic in them (Ravager/Commando/Medic, for example), as well as an emergency Combat Clinic paradigm (MED/COM/MED). You'll want to equip the Belladonna Wand on Vanille. If you can upgrade it to a Marlboro Wand, great (requires a Mnar Stone), if not, just leave it, either will work. As Vanille, just spam death over and over and over on Neochu. All of the little Pikochu's should target Snow when he provokes them, and Hope will heal Snow as needed. This means that you only need to worry about Neochu's group attacks. They're quite powerful and inflict some nasty status effects, and it's almost certain that you'll die once he uses them. But, before that happens, you should be able to get off a good number of Deaths, and eventually it'll hit. It took me about 7 tries, but it will happen eventually. Once that happens and Neochu bites the dust, (carefully!) switch to a more offensive class when you're fully healed, and take out the Pikochu's one by one. Don't push it here....these little buggers are still pretty powerful, so make sure to ALWAYS have a Medic active in this last phase, and when need be, switch to your Combat Clinic. Once you've taken them out, the growth egg is yours, and chances are you've five star-ed the mission as well! Congrats! Now equip that sucker and get back to leveling at your spot of choice (at this strength, I recommend Spot #3, but it's up to you).

Once you've maxed out all 3 innate roles for all characters, you can now attempt the Adamantortoise battles. They're in the family of mammoth dinosaur looking things that you (probably) have been avoiding while wandering about Gran Pulse. They give 40,000 CP per battle (80,000 with growth egg), AND AND AND they also drop Platinum Ingots as their regular drops (sell for 150,000 gil), and Trapezohedrons as their rare drop (need 6 to upgrade all weapons). If you're going for the Treasure Hunter achievement, this is extremely useful since you'll need a lot of gil as well as trapezohedrons to upgrade all of your weapons (required for the achievement). I will refer to this as Spot #4, only to be attempted by the very strong. I recommend all three innate roles maxed, at minimum, though more than this will certainly help. You will also need to upgrade Vanille's Belladonna Wand to a Marlboro Wand, if you haven't already, and you will need a maxed out Collector's Catalog (increases rate of regular drops) and Connosieur's Catalog (increases rate of rate drops, get this by upgrading a Collector's Catalog). If you're not familiar with upgrading, go here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=928790&a... . You only need one of each, the bonuses do not stack. Additionally, equip accessories that boost HP, protect against physical damage, and reduce earth magic.

Spot #4: Adamantortoises
There are two of them in Gran Pulse. The best one for farming is located in the "Eastern Tors" section of the Archylyte Steppe. You'll notice that there are two paths that encircle a large, inaccessible middle section. One of these paths has a save point at the beginning of it. The adamantortoise you want is located at this path (if this description is still confusing, leave a comment and I'll try to clarify). Create a party of Vanille, Snow, and Hope, and a starting paradigm of SAB/SEN/MED, as well as an emergency paradigm of MED/SEN/MED. Now approach the adamantortoise (assuming you've made the preparations I've listed above).
If your set-up sounds familiar, it's because you're using the exact same strategy as Neochu. Spam death with Vanille. Hope should be able to keep up with adamantortoise's stomps.
The only dangers here are the Quake and Roar attacks. Every so often, a stomp will be followed by a quake spell. Your party SHOULD be strong enough to withstand this double-whammy, although you'll probably be in the red (if not, level up some more until you can survive it). Whenever he casts Quake, immediately switch over to MED/COM/MED and begin spamming Curaja's until you are mostly healed. Then switch back to SAB/SEN/MED and continue spamming death. It might take a bit, but the death will eventually get him. Once you win, head back to the save point, save, then quit out and reload. Adamantortoise will have respawned and you can do it all over again.
In the first fight that you win, take notice of the Target Time and divide that by half. In subsequent battles, if the battles goes longer than that time, just retry the battle. This is because you need five stars to get a decent shot at platinum ingots and trapezohedrons, so any battles that don't result in 5 stars are a waste of your time.
There is an alternative strategy for Adamantortoises (or any similar monster) that involves using shrouds and summoning Hecatoncheir at the beginning of the battle (which will automatically disable his legs), then going to town on him. I tried this and personally didn't like it, because each summon takes 3 TP, so the amount of time spent fighting more battles to regain TP was a lot less efficient than just spamming Death. With the Marlboro Wand and a decent magic stat for Vanille (1500+), I find that Death will most often have succeeded within 6 minutes. Sometimes it won't (at which point you should restart anyway because you've lost your five stars), but either way this is faster than the summon method. But, feel free to try it.

Once you're consistently taking out Adamantortoises, the 80k CP per battle should have you well on your way to getting this achievement, as well as the Treasure Hunter achievement as well. It's a long process, so I'd recommend having a laptop or TV handy to occupy your attention. Good luck!

It's worth noting that you have to fill EVERY node of EVERY level for this to pop. I eached level 5 with each role and character but the achievement didn't go! So you have to go through and finish all the little 'extensions' you might have skipped over.

All of the options offered by Puertoricarious are viable and will work for you but I have found that later on the process when you're looking at 60k cp for the least expensive skills, Adamantortoise / Adamantoise farming is the way to go. There is a very easy method that will allow you to kill them without having to use shrouds or a summon (which can become costly after a while).

1. It goes without saying that by the time you're able to take on Adamantortoises, you should have acquired the Growth Egg to allow you get double CP for every encounter. Set up your paradigm deck like so: Cerberus (3 Com), Tri-Disaster (3 Rav), Infiltration (3 Sab), Rapid Growth (3 Syn), and Salvation (3 Med) for Fang, Hope, and Lightning. It's not necessary to have each person all the way leveled up in each of those classes you're just going for speed in each phase of the fight.

2. Have Genji Gloves (if you've got them) on Lightning and Fang and set your Rapid Growth paradigm as the default. I also had an Energy Sash on Fang and Collector's and Connosieur's Catelogs on Hope. The rest of my accessories are strength and magic stat boosts. Finally, make Fang party leader.

3. Make the pull and begin by buffing everyone with Haste, Protection, Bravery, and Faith. Shell will help if he manages to get off a Quake but is not essential. Once everyone is buffed top off your hp with Salvation and switch to Infiltration to debuff one of the legs. Deshell, Deprotect, and Imperil are all you really need. Odds are the leg is already staggered from being debuffed but if it is not, quickly go into Tri-disaster to get it there and finally go to town with Cerberus. Once the leg is at about 70% hp, you should be able to use Fang's Highwind attack to kill it the rest of the way in one action. Heal up if you need to and repeat on the other leg. Once you're buffed, taking out the two legs should only take you about 40 sec or less.

4. As he starts to fall, switch to infiltration once again and inflict him with Deshell, Slow, Deprotect, and Imperil. Now quickly switch to Tri-Disaster and bring the stagger meter to a minimum of 750% or so (more is better but time is a factor so use your judgement). Then switch to Cerberus and his health will just melt away. This is where the Genji Gloves become essential on at least Fang. In my game when I switch to Cerberus, her first attacks are dealing more than 120k damage. It should die quickly without being able to get back up.

This tactic seems as though it might take more time than a summon but once you get a rhythm down you should be able to kill one in about 2-2.5 min and get 80k cp as well as a fair number of Platinum Ingots and a few Trapezohedrons. The strategy also works well for the Adamantoises you just may need to heal one or two more times before you bring him down.

Because you're not relying on summons, you will have TP available to use one if something goes wrong. Should that happen, the Energy Sash refills a large portion of the meter with every Adamantortoise kill and as long as you don't rely on it too heavily, you shouldn't have to farm TP points at all. If you find you have to use summons more often than I did, you can try also equipping a Champion's Badge. Once all 4 Oretortoises (or 5 if Mark 63 is active) are dead, save your game and reload the save to respawn them. You'll get the CP you need in no time and you have the added benefit of cash from the ingots and catalysts to craft your ultimate weapons.

I find this method works better for me than spamming Death with Vanille as it is 100% consistant once you get the required rhythm down. As a side note, there is one Adamantortoise that has 3 lowlevel dog/wolf/skag things running around in front of it. The strategy for that fight is exactly the same, just open with Cerberus and spam Blitz and they should die in 2-3 seconds. After that, continue as normal.

*EDIT*- A Genji Glove is more or less essential if you want Fang's Highwind attack to be effective (without it it will cap the attack's damage at 99,999). With the accessory it will easily do over 300-400k damage on a staggered leg.

As per Seraphim Needed's suggestion, I'll outline where to get Genji Gloves and the Growth Egg.

The Growth Egg is acquired for completing Mark Mission 55 (Cant We All Just Get Along?) by killing a Neochu. Without going into too much detail, this is easiest done by spamming Death with Vanille. Puertoricarious has a good method for accomplishing this in the guide above.
Genji Gloves can be acquired in 3 different places: Mark Mission 51 (Attacus, The Soulless), Mark Mission 62 (Indomitable Will), and Mark Mission 63 (Crushed By Doubt)

Try this method once it gives you 1.8 million cp per hour I did it myself and it really worked
PS. read the text below the vid for paradigms and the right way GL.
Please have the balls to tell me why you vote negative so I can improve the solution.

Fully developing all characters means just that, achieve role level 5 with every character on every role of the crystarium, and don't miss any of the nodes along the way.

First, get the growth egg, which you win at the end of mission 55, which is a Neochu, one tough enemy. The easiest way to beat the Neochu is spam death with Vanille, while the others soak up damage with Sentinel and Medic. Eventually, you'll take out the big guy and then all you need to do is get relentless assault going to take out the rest of the Picochu's, they aren't too hard.

Then, equip the growth egg, and get grinding. (all CP values are with growth egg)

Some good grinding places I find are:

1. The Faultwarrens

When you are fairly highly trained already, you can run a pretty quick and pretty high reward run across the faultwarrens, that can net you over 200,000 CP in around 20 minutes with the growth egg, without relying too heavily on luck. Taking the path A1, B1, C1, D2 brings you in contact with some high reward enemies, including Borgbears and Flowering Cactuars. The former come in packs of 2 or 3, are easily staggered and easily killed, and net 12,000 and 18,000 CP respectively, with the Borgbear Hero battle at the end of D2 netting over 32,000.

Flowering Cactuar's drop 15,000 CP each when killed, the only issue being they run away. There is 2 battles against the cactuars in the faultwarrens, both found in D2. One gives 3, the other 5 cactuars, so there's potentially 120,000 CP available here if you kill them all. Personally, I'm happy if I kill 5 from the two battles, it's still loads of CP for little work. Go in with Relentless Assault and hit them quick before they leave after Parting Dance. If you stop them leaving, you'll kill them easy before they try to leave again. try hitting the middle one with Firaga, and you can interrupt more than one at a time, leaving Fang available to take them out.

If you want at the end of the Faultwarrens, if you're feeling like you can do it quick, you can kill Attacus for 150,000 CP. He can take around 10 minutes, but it's fairly straight forward. Just debuff with deprotect and deshell, and hit him as hard as you can, constantly, and make sure you maintain that stagger. Concentrate shouldn't prove too powerful, but swap to a Sentinel paradigm (I use Solidarity to heal and maintain the chain) to survive easily.

2. Eden

There's two ways to grind in Eden. First, you can fight the Adamantoise that spawns in Leviathan Plaza. Us the party of Vanille, Hope and Fang, and this paradigm setup.

1. Espionage - Sab, Syn, Sab
2. Infiltration - Sab, Sab, Sab
3. Attrition - Sab, Med, Sen

Have at least 3 TP, and start on Paradigm 1. start the battle and summon Hectoncheir. Immediately enter gestalt, and then dismiss the Eidolon by using its final attack. The adamantoise will have fallen down, and you won't have wasted too much time using your Eidolon, cus you won't need it.

Next, repeatedly cast Death, while Fang weakens and Hope buffs you. keep doing this until Hope runs out of buffs, then swap to 2, the adamantoise should still be down for a little while longer while you are in 2. The only reason I suggest this is for the extra percentage of Debuffing that having additional Sab's offers. When the toise stands up, swap to three, and continue spamming Death while the other two protect you. You should be able to ride out whatever attacks the enemy throws at you, and keep casting death until he disappears. This can also net you rare items, so be sure to have your catalogues equipped as you do it, just in case.

Alternatively in Eden, you can run a nice little route between the warp to Orphan's Cradle, and the Adamantoise area. Sacrifice's and the other enemies net you a nice amount of CP, drop some rare Perfumes, and are fairly easy to kill with relentless assault. I prefer the Adamantoise, but if you're struggling to survive, then this is nice and easy.

3. Behemoth King/Megistotherian

Personally, I don't like this method, but some swear by it. Warp to Archylte Steppe - Nothern Highplain. There you'll find the fight you want, already scrapping it out. Start the fight, and stagger and kill the Behemoth King quickly. If you beat him quick, you can also stagger and kill the wolf in the same period, and beat the battle in seconds. Then, all you need to do is walk past the save point above the two (Near the chocobo) and head back and they should have respawned. The battle nets 13,200 CP every time with the growth egg, but I just find it boring to do and more repetitive than the others, for such a small reward. If you like it though, go for it.

Other tips, always have the growth egg equipped, even for little meaningless battles. Every little helps after all. By sticking the growth egg on while you're beating the rest of the hunts or going for 5-stars, you can still net quite a lot over time, and be working on two cheevo's at once.

My personal favourite team is Lightning Fang and Hope for battling with. my setup is this:

1. Relentless Assault: Rav, Com, Rav
2. Diversity: Rav, Com, Med
3. Evened Odds: Med, Sab, Syn (When Light's Syn is levelled up more, swap Hope and Light role's around)
4. Solidarity: Com, Sen, Med
5. Protection: Med, Sen, Syn (Same as 3)
6. Aggression: Com, Com, Rav
(6.a)Cerberus: Com Com Com (For if you've got the stagger to 999%)

Make use of Lightning's Army Of One, or Fang's Highwind abilities, they make a huge difference.

IT takes time, but it's an RPG, you need some patience, right?

What i have been doing since reaching my first level 5 roles is using light/fang/hope

Prerequisite for the cp i am getting

Growth egg see mission 55. I did it early on with the death tactic There are many guides and you-tube videos for that..

My Paradigms are this

Com/Com/Syn
rav/com/rav
rav/com/med
med/com/med
med/sab/syn
med/sen/syn

light and fang have random instant stagger on

Use these items to acquire random instant stagger

Survival Catalog, Hunter's Friend, Speed Sash, Energy Sash and Champion Badge.. There are a few others that work also i just can't think of them off hand..

All char have tier 2 maxed weps

I made 1 default to fight the King Behemoth and mega wolf guy

As soon as you are done sneak attacking choose attack and just set it to mega but don't attack wait til fang hits behemoth as soon as she does select him also and attack he'll die without even attacking then focus on mega Switch to 2 to make him die faster

After that then make sure you pass over the bump in the ground where they were fighting then head back up and just left of the save point is where a cactur will spawn before engaging with him switch default to 6 then attack him let him grow then mature. As soon as you see mature show up switch to 5 and let fang daze him while hope finish buffing.. Once buffed switch to 2 and go all out on him.. Hopefully you will instantly stagger him if not and you need health go back to 5 and let fang daze him again and rebuff..

Once over you will have gained 13200 from first fight and 30000 from cactur. just keep repeating the two fights one will re-spawn while you kill the other.

It takes me about 5-10 minutes max to kill both

Once you get the hang of it its over in under 5 min.

Look on you-tube for finding your first cactur and killing it. also for where the behemoth and mega wolf is at..

Hope i did good with my first guide post.. Any pointers or comments let me know..

Hi all, I've noticed no one talked about my leveling spot that I use in the game. It's in Mahabaras Maw of the Abyss. I run from the first Boxed Phalanx to the area where the juggernaut is. Without the growth egg you can net up to 22,400 cp every 5 mins. With the growth egg thats 44,800. But personally my team takes around 3-4 minutes to wipe out the 6 groups. At the final battle which is 5 or 6 hoplites, I don't recall. Simply turn around and two groups will have respawned, then run to the Boxed Phalanx and rinse and repeat.

To add to all of the people power leveling in the fault warrens, if you take the A1, B1, C1, D2 path and then follow up with the easier of the two bosses you can net 200,000+ CP without killing any of the cactuars and it really only takes 24 min (my time w/ 1 trip to the crystarium) from A1 to completing the boss. make sure to start off almost every battle casting at a minimum haste on your party. SYN/SAB/SAB works really well. when fighting the verdelets i've found the best way to go is COM/COM/COM and you can kill them all before they summon. there's also an extra 18-20,000 CP in D2 that i've seen no one else mention. start off the borgbear hero battle debuffing and instead of attacking the little ones to speed up the battle, take out the hero and as soon as his health is gone switch to a paradigm that won't let your party attack. one of the smaller borgbears will use rise to power and become a hero. if you let all of the borgbears use rise to power then you will get 56,000 CP for that one battle compared to the 32,000CP listed above. it does take you an extra minute and a half, but since you're already there it's worth it. i typically net 50,800 because there seems to always be that one that won't transform. when you fight the boss Raktavija immediately build up all debuffs(i used SYN/SAB/SYN), for you and against him, heal up (i used MED/SAB/MED to make sure all the debuffs caught), then attack him with RAV/RAV/RAV to stagger him quickly which should take 2-3 full assaults, then switch to COM/COM/COM and depending on your level, you should have him killed before he tries to debuff you and before your haste runs out that you started the match with.

BTW, i will clean this up a little later lol