Star Ocean: The Last Hope

You need to get the #1 spot in the Tatroi battle colosseum. You can do this in solo mode (on fighter only) or team mode (as per normal).

I did team mode. Most guides say you need to be level 120+ to beat the last guy. Some even suggest grinding levels before you attempt it. Don't bother. Your life is too important to waste on boring repetative levelling. It's more satisfying to out-smart the game than out-muscle it anyway. I did this in the high level 90s for my 4 characters. It could easily be done at 80, probably even 70. With the right tactics. (the reason I was 90 is because I was doing the 7 stars dungeon at the same time and you level really fast in there).

I finished the game at around L.60 and then started the colesseum. Don't worry if you are lower, every battle was an almost instant win until I broke into the top 30 or so. From then on the following setup did me fine.

Edge
Baccus
Amurat
Sarah

Give Edge and Amurat a powerful chain combo 1 (leave combo 2 empty to make 1 more powerful), something like 3 x "Dragon roar" for Amurat. Give baccus "black hole sphere", "irradiation", "Blessed Buster" for combo 1 and 3 x "Galvatic shock" for combo 2.

In addition to levelling the above skills as much as you can, make the following skills as high level as you can

Edge: Silence, Critical hit
Sarah: All the healing ones
Amurat: Critical hit

Make sure those critical hit skills are equiped in the battle config.

Set sarah on "stay out of trouble" and everyone else on "gang up on foes will full force"

Make Baccus your leader.

Choose the curative item set for the battles.

Most battles can we won with a cyclic tactic like so...

As soon as the battle starts scan your enemies. Just to see what you're dealing with. Then fire off Baccus chain combo 1. It will hit everything and you'll do so many hits your rush gauge will be full. Go stand near Edge or Amurat (so Sarah doesn't ruin your combo) and hit X and Right trigger to enter the rush combo mode with baccus Galvatic shocks. Keep selecting Galvatic shocks. Your partner will use their combo 1 (which is why we made it so powerful). This will do a hefty amount of damage. Rince and repeat until the enemy is dead (you should lock the targeter onto them at the beginning to make sure you don't switch targets). Then lock onto another target and do the same.

Sometimes you'll need to break the cycles to avoid their rush mode, top up MP with a blackberry or raise a fallen comrade with a fresh sage, protect Sarah, etc.

Obviously you can mix up your tactics so you don't get bored but I found this one to work for the harder matches.

There are some other things to note.

1. Some enemies heal themselves and each other faster than you can kill them. So fire off a black hole sphere at the start to keep everyone pinned and then silence the symbol users with Edge.

2. Paralysis is annoying. Use anti-paralysis on Edge and Sarah (they can then use cure condition on the others).

3. Some enemies are seemingly resistant to everything except critical hits. In those cases you can still use baccus to pin them with BHS, but then switch to Amurat and Edge to do the serious damage. In this case use normal rush mode (instead of rush combo mode) to increase the number of criticals you can get.

The last guys was pretty easy. He's on his own so just use baccus to keep hitting him with the above cycle and then drawing him away when he goes into rush mode (do run away, he'll kill in a few hits). It doesn't matter if you get incap, just switch to someone else. Don't waste your fresh sages on anyone but Sarah, let her ressurect everyone while you stall by drawing him away.

I beat him only using 2 of my 8 blackberries. So I could have been doing 25% of the damage I was doing and still beat him before I ran out of MP. So don't listen to those who say you need to grind out levels. If you don't like my character set, then you can probably come up with something else, I'm sure there are loads of tactics that will eliminate the need for grinding.

To earn this achievement, you need to earn the NUMBER ONE spot on the list in either a TEAM or SOLO match....

I would suggest doing it in Solo, as the number 1 enemy in solo is easier than the #1 enemy in Team....


Just be sure to be above level 110, and choose the curative set. Keep an eye on the enemies rush gauge, and when it gets to 100, run away until it runs to 0, then start attacking the enemy again...(DO NOT BLINDSIDE HIM, IT WILL NOT WORK 95% OF THE TIME)

EDIT: Just for reference, In order to fight the lord of Dragons, you need to keep fighting the person in second place about 5 - 10 times until the "Lord of Dragons" fight.

There's no need for triple digit levels. I found Reimi to be great on solo, and she was only L62 when I won. Her bow (which eventually I used the Laser Weapon that everyone can use) lets her both avoid melee attacks and avoid the vulnerable period that a symbologist would have. Make sure you have items to be immune from void and silence, and a regeneration symbol paired with L10 Auto Healing and L10 HP Boost. I had also synthed a Slayer's Bangle to her equipment for the extra damage towards the end. Spam Sonic Thorns/Squall/Hunter's Edge (alternately Seraphic Thunder for some enemies) and take your time for the win