DFFOO[JP][Divine Leviathan]Keep the orb way with Aphmau and Zack (BT+0)(bonus clip at the end)
11I threw a few tickets and Zack BT appeared. So here he is with Aphmau. The main version that I would advocate is the Ramza/Leila version. However, Aphmau and ?????? actually fulfils the requirements of the fight just fine. You just have to stomach through the numerous enemy turns. Ultimately it is not a hard fight, it is just a matter of style of how you want to go through it when you include certain elements in your party.
Orb [Non-lethal]: The Divine Ifrit Style Orb (limit: 45)
+1/person with reduced BRV dmg taken via certain effects
+1 when dodging an attack
The orb disappears once it goes beyond 45. It reappears whenever Divine Tsunami+ (orb attack) goes off or when the boss reaches 50%/90% HP threshold.
The orb has a passive effect that delays you by 2 turns when it exists.
Overall, after having tested different ways of persistently eating attacks from the piles of enemy turns, I would say it is not really worth an effort to push the orb all the way to 45. The adds either die too fast or the boss' HP is very close to 50% by the time you make the orb disappear so that it will reappear very soon or the boss is just almost dead if we are inspecting the second half.
Reduction: 80/70
There are 3 major gimmicks in Divine Leviathan Lufenia+. It is quite similar to how Divine Ifrit was designed.
Divine Leviathan, like Ifrit, would initiate the ultimate attack (+version) at 30,50,70,90% HP thresholds and you cannot stop the process. Once that goes off, the bubble adds would spawn. They exist to blob the turn queue, throw out AoE HP attacks and inflict a nasty HP dmg down debuff onto your party. They practically have no defence and are moderately easy to kill. If you have sufficient dmg mitigation and debuff evasion, you can pretty much ignore them unless you lack some way of frequent healing.
After the +version of Divine Tsunami goes off, Leviathan will follow-up with "Resist Veil". It is a field aura effect (5 turns) prevents Leviathan and the bubbles to not go below 1% mBRV, practically making them impervious to be broken. Not even Caius and his doom debuff can break them. This also imply that you cannot "crit" them normally. If you want to bypass this and do crit dmg, you may need someone like Sazh/ Barett that buffs the party with Crit Rate.
Leviathan with the orb present will keep delaying you by 2 turns, regardless of what type of action you are doing (including CAs). Combining with 2 adds they will keep getting turns, thus filling its recast rapidly. The normal version of recast inflicts a debuff called "water demon", which completely blocks your BRV gain. For the same reason as the adds, including debuff evasion saves you a lot of trouble.
Basically, bring debuff evasion, dmg mitigation, healing. If you can't find some consistent party member with delay or turn manipulation, you may have to sit through a long string of enemy turn attacks.
Aphamu:
She may have seen better days but what her turn manipulation, debuff evasion, dmg mitigation (from LD) and constant healing precisely fit this fight. Her LD would make the delays much more bearable and by putting her with Zack together, it is actually really hard for your party to die.
Zack:
His normal skills do not really change much from the rework during the first month of Lufenia+. His LD does get one more set of HP dump, and it comes with 3 stacks of "embrace your dreams" with additional HP dmg up. It is his C85 bringing self BRV dmg and Brv gain up that makes his dmg much more consistent and less reliant on external support. The barrier is extended by 2 turns and he starts with his EX now.
His C88 comes with 40% BRV cap increase and further increase on his iBRV buff, which is still vital to his shield to this day, even more so when it comes to his BT.
His BT attack itself is quite special. It is a 12 hit attack that may possibly be optimized in certain ways to deal extensively more dmg than it normally does. He also takes dmg for around half of his HP when "that part" of the animation plays.
What his BT does is it basically grants a shield to all party members, while he direct all the AoE dmg to himself, similar to what Basch does. He also has last stand until his BT wears off. He does give the party some BRV dmg/ cap up and HP dmg up. When the BT reaches +2, it also increases the HP dmg up effect and the cap.
It is a solid package from his BT, both offensively and defensively. That said if you don't need a tank or major mitigation in your party, you probably would not bring Zack specifically for buffing your party. His dmg is quite good on both ST and the AoE front, so in a way he is quite an offensive tank when compared to others.
Coincidentally, ?????? pairs really well with him in this fight because of debuff evasion, buff prevention and healing. So I included a clip of her in the end. Do enjoy.