Gigantuar ( Final Fantasy XIII ) Gigantuar is a mark in " Final Fantasy XIII " fought in Mission 54 . To activate the mission the player must find a Cactuar on Archylte Steppe . One can be found on Eastern Tors , the bit of the Steppe guarded by Adamantortoises ( one can sneak past them easily ) ; on the hill of that area the party comes across a Cactuar that Sazh notices . After the cutscene , Cactuars have been released on the Steppe and can be fought as regular enemies . Defeating Gigantuar earns the player the Floraphobe achievement . Battle . Despite being given as rank B mission , Gigantuar is one of the hardest missions . He uses 10 , 000 Needles , which deals exactly 10 , 000 damage and sometimes inflicts the target with Pain and Fog . It is possible to reduce the damage from 10 , 000 Needles with a Sentinel . 10 , 000 Needles also has a dispel ling effect . Gigantuar is vulnerable against Daze and . Strategy . Equipping Pain Dampeners on the Commandos and White Capes on the Medics can help prevent Gigantuar from disabling the party . A party member can get Random : Instant Chain by equipping a Stagger Lock or Quick Stagger weapon with a sash as accessory , by equipping a sash and a Champion ' s Badge , or by equipping multiple sashes and the Survivalist Catalog . Instant Chain activates randomly when the character attacks a target . Gigantuar does not have much HP so getting him to stagger should be enough for a win . This way it is possible to defeat Gigantuar even with low level characters , if one gets lucky . Sazh ' s Full ATB skill Cold Blood is the superior ability when used in conjunction with Random : Instant Chain ; a single Cold Blood hits 17 times , each time carrying the chance to trigger the instant chain . Lightning ' s Army of One and Hope ' s Last Resort can also be used for the same effect , but don ' t hit as many times as Cold Blood . The chance of Random : Instant Chain activating is 0 . 5 % per hit , but if a player attacks relentlessly with one character , it will trigger eventually . A good strategy is to use Sazh as the player character and have the allies as Sentinel and Medic all through the battle until the Gigantuar is staggered , at which point they can switch to a team of Commandos and Ravagers . The target time for a higher level party is short , so the only way to five star this battle is to achieve an instant chain in the first 30 seconds of battle and switch to Cerberus ( Com / Com / Com ) . Another strategy is to enter the battle with the set - up of COM / SEN / MED . Gigantuar will concentrate its attacks on the Sentinel while the Medic heals and one party member is left over to attack . It is not the fastest method , however . It is recommended to use Hope or Vanille as the Medic , as they have access to Curasa and Curaja . Hope has been noted in other strategies to be more concerned with dispelling Fog and Pain than actually healing . The player should use caution when having Hope as the Medic and stay on top of the party ' s status ailments with items , rather than relying on Esuna . If the player uses Sazh as the Commando , he will back far away from the battle which has him being hit less often . It ' s also possible to exploit Gigantuar ' s vulnerability against Daze . Daze works like Sleep in the other games : attacking the target physically will wear it off . One can start with a team of Saboteurs and Synergists and buff up ( making sure not to forget Enfire ) the team while Gigantuar is dazed , then switch to COM / COM / COM for damage , and move back to Saboteur to Daze it again . Daze allows characters to inflict double damage with the hit that will bring it out of the Daze state , so one may wish to consider COM / COM / SAB , as long as the SAB has access to Daze . Snow might be a good choice of a Saboteur because of his liberal use of the Daze spell . Alternatively , the player may use Libra or a Librascope at the beginning of the battle so that the AI knows to only use Daze . Because Gigantuar has low HP the Commandos can finish it off fairly quickly . Use of debuff resisting equipment , such as Pain Dampener and White Cape , will help . If the party is still struggling , use of a Sentinel may help the player endure 10 , 000 Needles long enough to finish it off . Lightning is a good choice of Sentinel for this battle , since her Elude vastly reduces the number of hits she takes , therefore also reducing the chance of her being inflicted with Pain .