Battle Parties
"We understand. You're not going through this ordeal alone, you know."
There are many ways to play Final Fantasy XIII. Here is my personal preference for how I set up my Battle Team in the game. My mentality is heavily influenced by all the time I spent playing in parties in MMORPGS. To start off, here are all my staples of a party.
Pillars of my Battle Team
- A melee & tank type
Snow and Fang are perfect for this position as they are formidable Sentinals and Commandos. They have high Strength and gallons of HP. I usually start this spot off as COM, and then switch to SEN when I'm dealing with a group of multiple enemies. Many people find that starting out with a SEN cuts down the need for healing/buffing, and let's the damage dealers do their things in peace for quite a while. A good SEN can stand there for eons in guard mode without dying. - A damage dealer type
This screams Lightning and Sazh. Both of these people have the two main damage dealing roles as their specialities (COM and RAV). As a plus, they also have a good support role they can switch to when more protection is needed. For Light, it's MED; for Sazh, it's SYN. - A healer type
Naturally, this spot goes to Hope and Vanille. They're the best healers of the game, and the strong magic users, so they can deal massive damage when they're not needed to heal. Hope is undoubtably your strongest magic user, however, Vanille has much better defense than Hope. You should consider using her if you're troubled by how quickly Hope goes down.
So for the most part, I freely mix and match characters on my team, as long as I have one of each type. Keeping this structure in mind gives me organization, while also allowing me to customize a team for the upcoming fight by looking at what secondary roles I need (SYN vs SAB).
Why I Play as Lightning
Enjoyment. Whoever you set as leader is who you're control. Light is always my leader because she's the most fun to play. Being the most versatile character means giving the player a lot of options on what to use in each battle. Though needed, being a SEN or a SYN is just boring. She's more expendable than the guard or the healer too, so I by controlling her, I have more freedom to do extra things like cast Libra, use items, etc.
Control. Not only is Light the most fun to play, she's the useful to play. I need to be in control of her when she switches to MED. When Light is playing Medic, it means we're in bad shape. If i'm in control then, I can direct who the heals are going to, how much, and when. No witing around wondering if Hope or Vanille can save me in time. Thus, i can recover from a bad situation faster as well.
Visual Candy. Lightning is just pretty to watch. She has an acrobatic style, always flipping around and such. She uses her weapon, which and transform from a sword to gun and back, in both physical and magical attacks. I like watching her cape swoosh about and her hair move in the wind. Plus, her voice acting is superb. You genuinely feel her struggles and pain.