Final Fantasy XIII-2 End-Game Walkthrough Part 32: Oerba 400AF Part 2

This guide covers an optional boss fight against the enemy Raspatil. You can find this rare creature in the Ashensand area at any time after beating the main storyline. This is a battle that you can complete many times, not just once, as long as you keep finding Raspatils in the wild. For this reason, this makes for a great way to farm gil and experience if you need to buy anything or level your characters up more. Equip the Durable Collector Catalog to get even more rewards.

Boss Battle: Raspatil

Raspatil itself is far from the toughest boss you will have faced by this point, but it can still be a very dragged out, annoying battle if you allow it to be. This is largely because of the minions whom Raspatil will summon to the battlefield to aid it. Every time the boss summons creatures to come to its aid, the summoned creatures will be of a stronger and more bothersome variety. At first, you will be faced with somewhere between two and four Varcolaci. The second wave that Raspatil summons will be the same as the first – two to four Varcolaci. After this, the boss will begin to summon Vampires. After you have plowed through a few waves of Vampires, it will again begin summoning more powerful creatures, and Wladislauses will begin squaring off against you in the Vampire’s stead. At this point, it will be very difficult for you to consistently deal damage to the boss, as you will be scrambling to heal and buff yourself while debeffing and rebutting enemy attacks. The only good news in this situation is that Raspatil does have to summon these enemies to the battlefield; it takes up a turn for the boss, and the whole party of Varcolacis won’t be facing off against you as soon as the battle begins.

Take advantage of this fact by getting a Preemptive Strike on Raspatil while you are still on the overworld map. Raspatil will appear randomly just like any other enemy might, so strike quickly when you see its snakelike body and large, pointed wings. Once you get the Preemptive Strike, begin the battle in the Tri-disaster Paradigm. Cast a wave of spells against Raspatil to quickly boost the Chain Gauge,and  then switch to the Smart Bomb Paradigm. Use Imperil to weaken Raspatil. Now switch to a Paradigm that contains a Synergist and cast Enfire or another of the elemental infusion moves on your party to strengthen them up a bit.

Switch to the Bully Paradigm (Saboteur, Synergist, and Commando) after this. Allow your Synergist to buff your party while you attack Raspatil. The boss’ Chain Gauge may be pretty high at this point, but don’t bother with staggering it just yet. If it hasn’t already, Raspatil will soon summon in the first wave of Varcolaci enemies, and if you stagger Raspatil now you will end up spending more time defending against the Varcolaci’s attacks than lashing out with attacks of your own. Sure enough, the summoned enemies should appear on the battlefield any second now. Cast Deshellga on the entire enemy party. This move will maintain Raspatil’s Chain Gauge even as it has a chance of weakening it and its minions.

Once you have done this, switch to the Strike Team Paradigm and use Faith on yourself. Once you have been buffed, switch to the Cerberus Paradigm and focus all of your attention on the Varcolaci. Use your entire party to attack one at a time, and they should go down fairly quickly. Positioning can be important in this battle as well as tactics and timing. If the enemies are clumped together, an occurrence that is especially likely if Raspatil ended up summoning four of the creatures, you can use Ruinga to hit several of them at once. Watch out for their poison-based attacks, though. If you get hit with this, you can either smash through the remaining opposition as quickly as possible to heal, or chance ruining your combo and switching to the Discretion Paradigm or another such defensively-minded Paradigm in the middle of your attack.

As you whittle down the Varcolaci’s health, keep in mind a certain move that Raspatil has at its disposal called Beseech. This move will absorb the minions that it has summoned into its body in the name of strengthening its upcoming attack. The more enemies it absorbs, the stronger the attack that Raspatil can use on its next turn. It might seem like a good idea at first to ignore the minions and focus exclusively on Raspatil, but this would be a mistake, as absorbing all of the enemies will allow the boss to cast Aleph Zero. If Raspatil does somehow cast this attack, you only hope is to switch to the Tortoise Paradigm and hope to weather the damage using Sentinels. The other move that uses absorbed minions, called Darkness Cutter, is also heavily damaging, but not nearly so much as Aleph Zero. If you have been keeping up with buffing your party and debuffing the enemies occasionally, you should be able to take the attack and keep going. It’s still best, however, to not put yourself in this situation at all. For this reason, you should focus on destroying the minions that Raspatil summons as quickly as possible.

Once you have defeated all of the summoned enemies and Raspatil is the only one that remains on the battlefield, you should focus on staggering the boss. Do this quickly, before it can summon more Varcolacis, or worse, Vampires. Use the Tri-disaster and Smart Bomb Paradigms to increase your Chain Bonus as high as you can make it. Use Deshell and Imperil on the boss again, as they will have worn out by now. Finally, you may want to cast Faith or Faithga if you have it on your party as well, as this can be helpful in drawing out every last iota of damage from your attacks. Once you are satisfied with your buffs and debuffs, launch your attack in earnest. Switch to the Cerberus Paradigm as soon as Raspatil is staggered. You will not be able to kill the boss outright during this first stagger, but you should at least drain its health down halfway or more.

As the boss exits its staggered state, it will likely summon more allies. Repeat the same strategy for taking them out, focusing exclusively on one enemy at a time until they’re all dead and Raspatil can’t use them to fuel its attacks. Repeat the same general strategies that got you to the stagger earlier, being sure to build the Chain Bonus alongside the actual Chain Gauge itself. You should be able to at least get Raspatil close to defeat by the time the second stagger ends. You can stay in Cerberus to continue your attack until it dies if this is the case. Otherwise, watch out, as the boss will begin to summon more powerful allies this time around. If you need to, repeat the process of taking out each of the reinforcements before focusing your attacks on Raspatil itself. You won’t be getting a five star rating for the battle at this point, but at least you’ll still the valuable experience and gil that the boss will drop as you defeat it, along with its spot in the in-game bestiary.