Knowing that Vossler was a tough fight, I wanted to start on him as soon as possible instead of waiting until the last ass minute as I did with Beatrix. I also figured that this post might be more useful not being posted on the last day of the event. Vossler wasn’t as difficult as I thought he was going to be. Once I had the right party configuration, it was a one shot. In summary: Super tank Pencil + Heroic Harmony + Unyielding Fist = trivial fight.
I usually don’t like using the cheese tactics but after Beatrix, I feel as if I deserve a small break. Having Heroic Harmony, Protectga, Steal Power, and Sentinel’s DEF buff however, increased Pecil’s mitigation and decreased Vossler’s attack so much that I am confident I could have mastered the fight without the need of Galuf’s RW cheese. So will I go back and do the fight sans Galuf? Well, we will have to see about that. This was the team that I used:
| Character | Weapon | Ability 1 | Ability 2 | Record Materia |
| Cloud | Blazefire Saber (FF13) | Lifesiphon | Bladeblitz | Dragoon’s Determination |
| Balthier | Ras Algethi (FF12) | Steal Power | Tempo Flurry | Master Sniper |
| Pecil | Aegis Killer (FF12) | Draw Fire | Dispel | Bastion |
| Ashe | Must Stick (FF12) | Ruinga | Meteor | Witch of Succession |
| Mog | Save Staff (FF5) | Renewing Cure | Protectga | Mako Might |
Roaming Warrior: Galuf (Unyielding Fist)
Notable Soul Breaks: Heroic Harmony, Blade Beam, Sentinel
Other Soul Breaks: Soothing Aroma, Tides of Fate
Since an AoE heal + regen wasn’t necessary for once and even detrimental to the fight, Lenna and her lovely SB were not needed. I tried a couple of rounds with Aerith instead of Mog for Planet Protector and Fran instead of Cloud, because I wanted to know if RS + Full Break + Defense Breakdown made up for the DPS loss. It did not, particularly towards the end of the fight where SSB spam was necessary as it usually is to finish off the boss. Keep in mind that you do have to use Dispel in order to meet the medal requirement. Banishing Strike does not count :/
Vossler’s encounter isn’t very RNG heavy like most of the other Utimate Fights. There is a bit of timing involved with getting mitigation setup properly before he starts instagibbing people with triple/quad strike, but it’s not nearly as hairy as Beatrix’s Climhazzard. Vossler is however, very much an HP management fight. The trick to CT0 is that he will cast it on the character that has the highest HP percentage (unsure if it’s only the first attack that is like this or all of them). It is not avoidable with retaliate nor is it tauntable. It’s very tempting to heal everyone up to full towards the end of the fight, but you will want to keep enough of an HP gap between your tank and the rest of the party to allow for some leeway. Curaja is likely going to heal the non-Cecil party members too much so you may want to use Curaga or Renewing Cure instead.
Other than CT0, Vossler was a fairly vanilla fight in almost every aspect, to the point where I was wondering if this encounter even was the ultimate fight, until the point at which he started triple and quadruple striking people to death that is. Also, the target scores are kind of annoying…ability tetris. I took a gamble and used Tempo Flurry to fulfill the slow criteria instead of using something more reliable like Slowga. Luckily it proc’d on the first hit. I have had other runs in the past where it just slow just wouldn’t proc at all. My fight more or less went as follows:
Until the adds are down:
Cloud: Bladeblitz the adds down
Balthier: Steal Power on Voss then Tempo Flurry the adds to apply slow
Pecil: Draw Fire then auto attack or Dispel to build SB bar
Ashe: Ruinga until Slow hits then Meteor to burn them down
Mog: Protectga, Heroic Harmony, then Renewing Cure spam
First turn after the adds are down:
Cloud: Lifesiphon spam to build SB bar
Balthier: Refresh Steal Power as needed, otherwise Tempo Flurry pew pew
Pecil: Sentinal, Dispel as needed
Ashe: Meteor/Ruinga spam
Mog: Renewing Cure
Phase 3 (somewhere between 40% and 50%)
Cloud: Blade Beam Spam
Balthier: Continue refreshing Steal Power as needed. Spam Tides of Fate
Pecil: Unyielding Fist, Dispel haste ASAP
Ashe: Continue Meteor/Ruinga spamming. Pop Soothing Aroma if everyone gets low but watch Pecil’s HP. He MUST remain #1 in HP%.
Mog: Refresh Protectga, keep Pecil topped off, Heroic Harmony
Ugh, Vossler can go sit on a tack. I struggled mightily on this one. I didn’t use Unyielding Fist though, perhaps I should’ve given I have Galuf’s weapon. My first attempt had me sleeping the adds, but they were wrecking me, so I switched out to Haste instead, which helped big time.
Cloud-Retaliate, Armor Break-Dragoon’s Determination
Vaan-Power Breakdown, Tempo Flurry-The other sap one
Quina-Boost, Full Break-Mog’s +1 SB Bar-Mighty Guard (IX)
Vanille-Ruinga, Dispel- +10% MAG, -10% ATK-Oerba’s Boon
Y’shtola-Renewing Cure, Haste- Mako Might-Medica II
RW: Sentinel’s Grimoire
For the record, Vossler wrecks you pretty hard at the end if you’re not careful. I lost Vanille to a quad strike, even at full mitigation, and couldn’t dispel his Haste. A clutch defend command managed to get me through and Champion by the skin of my teeth. One more attack and I’d have lost another character.
Serious lay disliked him, though, because those adds at the beginning sucked. Also, yet another fight I had to S/L a bunch of times because I kept getting wrecked before I could put up any mitigation. Just takes 2/3 of them to pick the same target and you’re in for a bad day. Once the adds were down though, it went (mostly) smoothly. Still the toughest Ultimate to date for me, anyhow.