Final Fantasy XIII – Defeating Cid Raines [Guide]

Over the course of the last two decades, the growth in the complexity of the Final Fantasy series has also seen a rate of growth in the complexity of the series’ boss fights. Where originally all you really had to worry about was a monstrous amount of HP and overwhelming attack damage if you walked in unprepared, these days the focus is more on a challenge based on the battle system’s components. A great example of such a boss fight, and one of the theoretically hardest fights in the recent history of the series, is the battle with Final Fantasy XIII’s Cid Raines.

The style of combat deployed by Cid is very much similar to the Roles available to the player characters. There are two forms in which he is fought, and the first contains the general basics of combat in Final Fantasy XIII; he has 3 ‘shifts’ available, offense (Commando) in which he uses attacking combinations and Ruin, defence (Sentinel) in which he merely uses Guard to reduce damage, and recovery (Medic) that gives him access to Cure and Esuna. He will rotate between these shifts, and will be reasonably predictable in his timing.

The challenge begins when Raines’ HP drops to 50%. He will use Metamorphose, and gain access to his second form. This change is immediately followed by the high-damage Seraphic Ray, which also removes all buffs on the party. The powers of his shifts are all increased (more powerful combos and Ruinga in his offense, Curasa in recovery) after his change, but they  are no longer announced to the player. In addition to that, he now also has control over the Synergist (Protect, Shell, Vigilance and Haste) and Saboteur (Poisonga, Deprotega, Deshellga and Dazega) roles, and utterly random uses of Seraphic Ray.

The thing to note in particular is that Slow works very well on Raines, and should be a priority move in his second phase, especially if Haste is active on him. The less he gets to do, the more you can focus on offensive techniques. Obviously, during his downtime in recovery mode’s Guard, you can use that opportunity to rebuff yourself and debuff Raines, but keep a close eye on his Stagger meter – you do not want it to reset.

If you’re using Hope especially, there is a chance of a KO that will be ever-present throughout the second phase of the battle. In cases where your other two characters are more resilient (especially if you use Fang or Snow as a Sentinel), it is much more efficient to use a Phoenix Down when this happens than switch to a Medic role with Lightning to use Raise. If your HP is decreasing more equally, think of including a Paradigm that has Hope as a Medic while Fang or Vanille Sabotages, or Lightning or Vanille plays the Medic while Hope acts as Synergist. In any case it’s a good idea to use the Saboteur and Synergist that play to each other’s strengths (Hope is the defensive Synergist, while Sazh plays more on the offensive side, same goes for Vanille and Fang as Saboteurs). If you’re using both Hope and Vanille, the Bully set up (Com/Syn/Sab) is very useful at times.

The entire battle works up to the Stagger point, as is the case with many boss battles in Final Fantasy XII. Though in this case, there is something important to keep in mind when you try to Stagger Cid – while in Guard, Raines can be Staggered, but he cannot be launched, and therefore Guard cannot be broken. It will be very hard to inflict a lot of damage on him in this manner, especially if he is Staggered at the beginning of his Defensive Shift. Make sure that if he is in Guard at the time you are close to Staggering him, you switch to a defensive Paradigm, attacking only with a Commando if you must in order to keep the Stagger bar high, but not filling it a great deal. As soon as he leaves Guard, switch to Relentless Assault (Com/Rav/Rav), or a similar Paradigm to Stagger and Launch Raines. At that point, if you can maintain a Juggle, the battle is as good as over.

There are different ways to go about defeating Cid when Stagger kicks in. One option is to have Lighting summon Odin and beat up on Raines to fill the Gestalt meter. When you use Gestalt, make sure the Stagger meter is still quite high so you have time to lay into him. Use Storm Gale and Razor Blade back and forth and finish him off with Zantetsuken if your time is running out. You can see that option being used in the included video. Another is the Juggle method, which is easier to carry out before Cid transforms, but still valid in the second phase of the battle. It requires a great deal of timing to make sure he does not hit the ground and use Metamorphose or shift to defensive mode, however.

The last option is quite a long one, and involves using a Sentinel, Synergist, Saboteur and Medic – Snow, Hope and Vanille are the ideal party here. The strategy focusses on slowly whittling down on Cid’s HP and using Relentless Assault when Staggered, switching to Bully and Protection (Sen/Syn/Med) or Combat Clinic (Com/Med/Med) when necessary. Be aware that Raines will cast Doom on the leader when the battle lasts longer than 20 minutes, but you should be strong enough to avoid battle times like that.

The below video is courtesy of the YouTube channel, RoosterTeeth:

Guide written by Chris Bakker.