Talk:Sacred Valley/New Trial at the Sacred Castle

Rush strategy
If you're lacking the Silemce abilities to shut off Alexander's dispel, this gets around that.

What you need:
 * Buffer
 * Breaker
 * Physical cover/provoke tank
 * Healer
 * Two 7* Trance Terras with at least 1.6k MAG and M Machine Killer from Alexander.

Build Alexander esper for M Machine Killer and Light resist buff. Healer needs a means of party dispel (Dispelga or Bushido Freeform). A better light resist buff than Alexander's is recommended (MS Nichol's for example), as Alexander's is just there in a pinch. Anima is best used on the tank, if you can push its Light resist above 100.

First turn, quad-cast Choas Dark after buffs, activate cover, use breaks. Pay attention to how much health this knocks off.

Second turn, Full Magical Activation, provoke, dispel and re-break Alexander.

Third turn, quad-cast again, guard with tank, recover.

Those three rounds should have pushed Alexander to 50%, getting rid of the dispel rotation. Alexander will apply a 300% light debuff in retaliation, so dispel that and restore buffs. Restore cover/provoke and breaks.

Alexander does a lot of damage, but his pattern is straightforward and you should be safe with buffs. Activate limit bursts and Anima when the opportunity arises. Use single-cast Chaos Dark to slowly knock down Alexander's health until he's below the amount you did in the first turn. Finally, use full Magical Activation again and quad-cast to finish, tacking on a damaging limit burst near the end for credit.
 * 172.58.92.67 23:34, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Rasler?
I haven't actually done this yet (still in the planning phase), but I just happened to be looking at Rasler (as a potential canditate for this weeks bonus in the arena) and noticed he has 100% light resist, physical cover and a 5 turn 70% aoe light resist.

He doesn't have a provoke, but stick Golem on him for his 70% provoke command and give him a 30% passive provoke should bring him up to 100% (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Here [] is a good place to look for light buffers etc. Note that Rasler is only listed as having "Increase light resistance (50%) for 3 turns to all allies", but this can be awakened very cheaply (2x60,000 gil) to 5 turn 70%. His cover can also be awakened but it is a tad pricier.

Anyway I'm not sure if I'll even use him myself but I think he's worth a look. Good old WoL also has inherent 100% light resist, but it is the Light buffing on Rasler that I find tempting.

Slow'n Steady (also random friend and no reraise)
In case if you, like me, lack any sort of overpowered damage source (TDH equip and top magic chainers, I'm looking for you in not-my-pull) and forced to go through all of the stages, here's some tips.

This guide works around this team:


 * 1) 2 phys chainers (at least one of them – your chainer – with dark weapon, friend can go along with own imbue with either water or dark – Sephirot or Jecht are good choices; also prioritise unit itself, equip and materia with both HP/SPR and damage attached to them, examples: Azure Crimson Soul, Bomb Engagement Ring, weapons with +HP on them from IW, Proud Fencer, Adventurer, Strategist's Ingenuity for mages, etc), in my case thoose was my Raegen and friend's Sephiroth.
 * 2) Breaker (also with dark weapon, for the circle rotation), in my case HT Lid.
 * 3) Healer (just good SPR will do, no need for reraise, but AoE break immunes will do good), in my case Folka.
 * 4) Buffer (light res buff at least 50%, pref 70%, required), in my case MS Nichol.
 * 5) Tank (100% passive provoke will help alot, also use dark weapon, also he probably won't need that much survivability), in my case Sieghard.

All units 7* except MS Nichol.

The main two things you should consider (except for obvious such as always strong breaks, good buffs and light res buff) are getting rid of nasty light imbue from the boss and also 300% light imperil, and gear up for light resistance.

For the first: my healer didn't have Dispelga, so I've used Bushido on tank (surprisingly covering for tank isn't that important here, he'll only cover one ability which doesn't deal that much damage in the first place).

For the second: this is actually the part that took the most time for me to figure out, but yeah. You probably need either very good survivability on unit (healer and tank can forego light res equip almost entierly, just make sure it's not negative, because tank will use Anima for the mission) or 90%+ light res with gear. Things that will help: espers (Carbuncle and Alexander itself), Lustrous Shield, Rust-Red Circlet, Ashe's Ring, Kirin's Odose (50%), Portal Charm, Patriotic Recall (you can spam like 2-3 of thoose on literally any unit, but I was fine with just one on tank) (30%). In case if you lack thoose equip, you can either use whatever lower res we have from not-limited equip or spam with Ashe's Rings and Patriotic Recalls (which is TMR from non-limited 4* bases, so you can easily have at least few of them). Just make sure your guys do have some bulk in them in order to survive non-elemental AoE magic attack.

The priority of buffs: light res, damage mitigation, def/spr, def/spr break immuntiy, same for atk/mag.

First round of circle rotation is quite the nasty one. Your objective is to push the boss to the "4 flags" pattern. I did it on the 3rd cycle, 2nd was "2-3 flags" one. Let's see the most important turns.

Your first turn is basically free. Buff yourself in whatever way you want. You can put as much dmg as possible here, but I only did like 6% or something. Don't forget to break the boss for MAG (any >=50% break will do), otherwise his counters might kill your DDs.

On second turn dispel and then break for serious. For 2 turns you should have covered all of your buffs. Damage you deal will be quite low, but still do something to help the team with your DDs (Raegen's utility was of great help here actually – Sword of Ares saved me few LBs and Hero's Edge provided at least some DEF/SPR buffs while Nichol was busy with light res+mitigation buffs), at least by generating some LB crysts.

On thrid turn guard as everyone but healer and tank. Everybody (except perhaps your friend unit) should survive. Heal heals (maybe LB heals), tank deals dark damage, but don't LB even if you have one because you'll waste its potential (except if you're using tank with useless LB like Bash or Gladiolus, then go ahead). Eh, you won't probably have LB on tank anyway.

Second round should be at least "2-3 flags" pattern.

On fourth turn you probably should dispelga your team (Guilty Rain will leave you with light imbue, for magic dd you'll still have 60% light imperil from Beam of Judgement, but mages can forego dispelga). Here "normal" breakers (not HT Lid) with 3 turn-long strong breaks will have easier time, I was forced to cover the gap with weak 60% breaks and surivived hardly. In case if you also use HT Lid, dispelga on your team is a must. Rebuff, priorotising light res and damage mitigation, heal (side-heals from DDs might be handy in case your units are on the edge of death and Bushido will kill them), prepare for the rotation. Damaging is useless here because of 15M shield, and you probably won't have time dispelling that, so better use some utility from your DDS.

Fiveth turn is the same as second. Don't forged to both LB and deal dark damage.

On sixth turn you'll have light imbue on you – dispel that if you need. Also don't forget about LB and dark damage. You'll no longer get dispelled, so you should be fine.

When you're on "all 4 flags" pattern, things will be both harder and easier. The hard part is about having to deal with Beam of Judgement every turn instead of every second turn. The easy part is that you won't need to dispelga yourself on that pattern. Your units should have a good time surviving this Beam tho. Try to keep alive your friend unit (who might lack any sort of light res, like my friend was). In case if it is down, revive with somebody but healer (hey Raegen, you helped me again) and then heal them to full with healer and either reraise or put break immunes (like I did with Folka). So, keep your breaks strong, your buffs up and your LBs and dark damage every 2+3n and 3+3n turn. Eventually you'll break the 50% treshold.

When you get to the second part of his rotation, you're most likely already won. The only thing you should consider is dispelga your team after he'll shoot you with Divine Judgement. This is the only part where you'll need to have your tank have bulk (he'll catch 2 Holys just after 300% light imperil), but almost any 7* tank (or probably even bulky 6*) will surivive that. If you have trouble on that part, guard your tank before any of this tresholds (100% passive provoke will help you covering the gaps in rotation), use mag damage mitigation, hell even put reraise. So, yeah, it's much easier.

50%-20% and 20%-0% rotations actually don't differ that much. 20%-0% part will test your unit's ability to reapply buffs fast, but you'll have an easy time with MS Nichol (or if your other units can use some time to do the buffs – say hello to Raegen yet again).

Have a good luck!

DR chain + Nyx/2B strategy
Team: Zargybaby, DV, Hyoh, Nyx, 2B, friend 2B

This is a variation on the Nyx/2B strategies in the videos section. It is what I eventually resorted to when I could find no 2B's on my friend list with a dark weapon, or much in the way of machine killers.

The basic strategy is to aoe buff everyone's ATK with Zarg, use Nyx to fill LB's, then hopefully kill it off with a DR chain combined with 2B's LB chain. Or at least get close enough to finish it on turn 2, or else you die. Note that by this time, my sole aim was simply to get 3* Alexander - if I got any of the side missions it was a bonus.

About the chaining, you need to start the DR chain first, then 2B instantly after. If you are using a macro, (actually you really DO need to use a macro), then spark chain the 2B's a frame or two later. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, DV's 50% dark imperil will take effect before the 2B's start. Secondly, by the time the 2B's start to hit, they will be hitting at 4x chain bonus from their very first hit! This makes a BIG difference!

Now for some numbers: My VoD+Hyoh were doing around 13% damage on their own, with 140% buff (I did some testing/restarting app, you see). My 2B had ATK=1826, machine killer=200% (not including 2B's inherent killers). My friend unit on my finally, just barely successful attempt had ATK=2059, killer=70%, non-elemental weapon. In testing, my 2B was doing 3-4 times as much damage as my friends!

In my (finally successful) run, I brought him down to 4%. I was able to finish from there using a funky chain of both DV & Hyoh's LB (to get the LB kill goal, at least) and 2B's chaining with R050: Spear.

Other random thoughts:


 * Roy sounds like a good alternative to Zarg here, as he can also do 140% with Marching Virelay, and he only needs 30 orbs to fill his LB for the goal (Nyx will fill 28 of them). However, this move locks him for 2 turns, so no LB from him on turn 2!


 * Put LB boost equip on your buffer, and give him Anima. If you are lucky enough to land on 4% like I was, you might be able to do one or the other of those goals, but not both!


 * For round 2, I also tested a few things. Using 2B's Self Destruct to cap a DR chain seemed slightly more damaging than others. Fixed damage is supposed to bypass mitigation, I think.

preventing dispelga?
I am having trouble hitting all 4 flags and preventing dispelga.

I tried two different teams with chainers on dark weapons and 100% sure hitting LB both turns but still got dispelga on turn 4. Any thoughts?

ANSWER: ALWAYS on turn 4 you will receive the worst judgment (dispelga). This happend no matter what. The flags works only after turn 4


 * The best option is to pick a team that can avoid that rotation. Try to blast him below the first threshold.--Kaputjan (talk) 05:15, 4 August 2019 (UTC) P.S.: There's no way to avoid dispelga+light debuff+ massive AoE light magic attack on turn 4.

--- PG

OMG ~32rounds, slow & lucky win! by FalconX
after so many tries & party swaps, heres the final party setup for 3* boss. 7* Wilhelm (def1376, mech. heart, cowered courage ability), Basch (def/spr 918) Sylvie (soul of thamasa), lotus mage fina (spr1234 + lb fill gear), Lulu (mag1806, hp9960, spr540) friend: Lulu (mag2k, hp4500)

> note: after 60% boss will stop doing the dmg mitigate move every 3 rounds, just gotta get boss to there. This party was for flood x2 combo from Lulu. Basch was equiped w/ dark greatsword & was only doing fulmating darkness +2, & confusing lament +2, he was on dark dmg per round. Wilhelm had breath of rose dagger for dark dmg help per round. Silvia keeps light 100resist + magic dmg reduce party, & helps heal. lm Fina keeps curaja & reraise on party, lb reraise & ability cure/reraise when can.

note: boss will counter every hit w/ magic ST, as long as have decent spr, & HP over 6000+ your character will live, but.. if have less than 5k hp, will die every round mostly. had sylvie w/ dualcast for dispelga + reraise when boss puts atk/mag+. before 60/40/20, make sure just have reraise party, no real threat, but i was sweating bullets when got to last 20%. :D

> ~32 rounds, ~2hrs+ w/ food break +pause. hope this helps, have fun! --Gogamer2018 (talk) 05:09, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

One turn kill
This strategy had a bit of luck involved with having the right friend unit, but here goes.

First off, ditch all the stuff about light resistant armor. Go on with the most powerful attack and magic enhancers that you can get for your characters. You want to do all the damage on turn 1 before perfect defense comes up.

Rivera starts off. Have her use extended tension to give everyone plus 170% bonus to attack and magic. Next comes HTL with latent ability machine disassembly to give everyone +50% against machina. I had Malphasie equipped with Alexander for Machine killer and had her do a double cast of Fiendish winds. BMG did Abyssal quasar twice. Sephiroth has Odin for +20% Katana and Kotetsu for the dark element with a Heaven's Wept attack updated twice. The kicker that helped was another Malphasie friend unit that also did the same attack twice.

One turn kill.

1-2 turn KO (0-1 objectives)
While Alexander is primarily weak to darkness, don't forget that it has a secondary weakness: Water. If you team lacks in dark units but has good water units...

Team (All *7, lv.120):

Use your two buffers then make your attackers finish him. The end. If Alexander survives (and your team too after his attack, Fina being a better alternative if your team isn't strong enough), he will probably be with 5-10% HP, so repeat the attack and it will be over despite his DEF boost. Also, if the summon gauge got full, have one of the buffers use Anima to make at least one of the objectives. If not, add water element to the other attacker if he isn't with a water weapon, just to be safe. Citan and Akstar may also unlock their triple attacks. --189.45.106.125 18:10, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Power Creep
You can turn one the boss with some units and friends.

You need
 * Source of Dark Imbue / Imperial (Doctor Aiden)
 * Source of Machine Killer (Olive has an AOE skill)
 * Two Cloud FF7 Remake Units

Just imbue/imperial, have olive add the machine killer, and then have the two Cloud's Focused Thrust it to death

--SlashAndBurn0 (talk) 18:17, 2 October 2020 (UTC)