Adamantoise (Final Fantasy XIII)

The Adamantoise is a powerful enemy on the Archylte Steppe of Gran Pulse in Final Fantasy XIII. During the first exploration of Gran Pulse, it is best to avoid them, as they will take the team out in one stomp. It is recommended to return after completing the story to battle them, when the party's HP is around 15,000 and Strength exceeds 1,500.
An Adamantoise also appears on the Leviathan Plaza in Edenhall. To respawn this one, the player can walk up to the sliding fal'Cie door and return; going through will cause the soldiers and Humbaba to respawn alongside the Adamantoise.
== Stats ==
== Battle ==
Adamantoise is immune to preemptive strikes, even with Deceptisol. Destroying the forelegs (Left Foreleg and Right Foreleg) will topple the oretoise, damaging nearby party members. It is unable to attack in this state, but will stand back up after roughly one minute and regenerate both legs. The legs are also disabled when an Eidolon is summoned and while the summon is out, the timer for when the Adamantoise can stand back up is paused. When fallen, the Adamantoise has lower elemental resistances and chain resistance, and becomes susceptible to Deprotect, Deshell, Imperil, and Slow.
It uses powerful Earth attacks, Stomp (physical) and Quake (magical), which hit all ground-based targets. After the sixth Stomp, Adamantoise will use Quake. Both the leg and the shockwave from Stomp can hit a character, dealing severe damage. Adamantoise's Roar is a physical attack that ignores type-based defense and can inflict Daze and dispel status enhancements.
=== Strategy ===
==== The Death strategy ====
If Vanille has learned Death for her Saboteur role, it is possible to defeat the Adamantoise with it, but the chances of successfully landing instant death are low (1%).
Death's success rate can be improved by:
* Having Vanille at Level 5 in her Saboteur role.
* Having other Saboteurs in the current battle formation, the higher level the better.
* Inflicting the Adamantoise with as many debuffs as possible.
Because Death is not classified as a debuffing spell, its chances to kill cannot be boosted by equipping Vanille with Belladonna or Malboro Wands, nor can its success rate be improved with Faith or high chain bonus.
Faith and Haste are still good buffs for Vanille. Haste allows her to cast Death at a faster pace, while Faith boosts her Magic stat, allowing Death to deal more damage when it doesn't result in instant death.
This technique is helpful for characters with stats too low to fell the Adamantoise otherwise.
A good approach is to have Vanille, Fang and Hope, with Vanille as the leader, and to use the Espionage paradigm (SAB/SAB/SYN) with Hope as the Synergist. The team should have at least three TP bars full before entering the battle. At the start of battle, Vanille should instantly summon Hecatoncheir to disable the Adamantoise's legs.
Hecatoncheir will stop Adamantoise from getting up, so Vanille should use Auto-battle until three debuffs are inflicted, then use Death until Hecatoncheir leaves, or the Adamantoise dies. When Hecatoncheir leaves, Hope should cast Haste, Bravery, Faith, and Veil, while Fang casts Slow, Curse and Fog.
If Hope has advanced in the Saboteur role at all, the player can shift to SAB/SAB/SAB to boost Vanille's chances at landing Death as soon as the party is buffed. Vanille must keep casting Death until the Adamantoise dies. Vanille can be equipped with Sprint Shoes and a Collector Catalog, as well as two Whistlewind Scarves to add Haste and the synthesized ability ATB Rate +15%.
==== Without Death ====
Adamantoises are best tackled when the characters have at least Tier 2 weapons and have mastered their main roles at the Crystarium. Each party member should be equipped with a fully upgraded Gaian Ring, Entite Ring, or physical resistance accessories. Fang should be the party leader and will need a Genji Glove equipped to break the damage limit.
Useful paradigms include:
*SYN/SYN/SYN
*COM/MED/MED
*SEN/SEN/SEN
*SYN/SAB/SAB
*RAV/RAV/RAV
*COM/COM/COM
The party should start the battle with SYN/SYN/SYN, and after the buffs are in place, use RAV/RAV/RAV to stagger one of the legs. Debuffs on the legs are not necessary at this stage due to Highwind ignoring them during damage calculation. Until both legs are taken out, the only buffs each character needs are Haste and Protect/Protectra, while Fang may want to have Bravery or Bravera if she can't one-shot the legs without them.
As soon as the leg staggers, the party should switch to COM/MED/MED and use Highwind on the staggered leg to kill it while the others heal, and repeat the same to the other leg to topple the Adamantoise. With appropriate Strength, Highwind will always kill a leg at 600% chain bonus. The party should aim to stagger both legs by the sixth Stomp, as after this Adamantoise will cast Quake.
Once it has toppled, the party should re-buff themselves (so the buffs won't expire during the damage dealing phase), and debuff and then stagger the fallen Adamantoise. This can be achieved with SYN/SAB/SAB and RAV/RAV/RAV. One should manually cast Bravera and Haste on Fang, and Haste and either Faithra or Bravera on the other two characters. At least Deprotect, Deshell and Slow are useful. Sazh and Snow have Slow, and Sazh, Lightning and Vanille have Deprotect and Deshell—Hope only learns the area of effect versions and is thus not so useful for this strategy. Vanille's Belladonna Wand improves the chance of her Saboteur spells inflicting statuses, and if this is the weapon the player has upgraded for her, she should be in the party. Slow is the only debuff that remains if the Adamantoise recovers its legs. If the player hasn't advanced the party far in secondary roles yet, Fang is likely the only one who has Slow, in which case the player can modify the paradigm deck accordingly.
After the chain bonus is somewhere around 800%, the party should switch to COM/COM/COM to deal damage, and use Highwind as Adamantoise is recovering from stagger. If it doesn't die yet, the party should go back to SYN/SYN/SYN to re-buff and start again by disabling the legs. When the Adamantoise is down to around 1.5 million HP, with the Genji Glove equipped on Fang and sufficient Strength, Bravera and stagger gauge exceeding 900%, Highwind should finish it off.
If the Stomp is doing too much damage the party can switch to SEN/SEN/SEN as the Adamantoise is lifting its leg.
== Spoils ==
Adamantoise's common drop with 25% chance is the Platinum Ingot, worth 150,000 gil. The rare drop is the Trapezohedron, which costs 2,000,000 gil at R&D Depot. Trapezohedron is required to upgrade Tier 2 weapons into their ultimate forms (Tier 3).
The party can equip the Collector Catalog to increase the drop chance for Ingots and the Connoisseur Catalog to increase the drop rate of Trapezohedrons. Both can be equipped simultaneously (although it doesn't increase the drop rate of Trapezohedrons, but lets the player get more Platinum Ingots at the same time). Getting a 5 star rating gives the best chance of rare drops.
Killing an Adamantoise rewards the party with 40,000 CP with the possibility to double it for 80,000 with the Growth Egg, making Adamantoises one of the best monsters for obtaining CP.
== Other appearances ==
=== Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade ===
Adamantoise appears as an enemy.
==Behind the scenes==
The chains on Adamantoises and Adamantortoises indicate they had been domesticated, most likely before the War of Transgression that happened 600 years ago, since Pulsians quickly vanished after. The species may have a lifespan of many centuries and possibly millennia. Adamanchelids have no chains.
In a Live Trigger conversation in Final Fantasy XIII-2, Noel states that his favorite food is any type of meat, but Adamantoise if he can get it. Serah expresses astonishment that they can be eaten.
The Brain Blast quiz reveals that the outer shell of the New Cocoon Bhunivelze is made of Adamantoise shell.
Lightning can equip an Adamantoise Shell as an adornment in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.
== Gallery ==
Adamantoise Art FFXIII.jpg|Concept art (top).
FFXIII Adamantoise Eden.png|An Adamantoise appears in Eden.
== Etymology ==
Adamantoise is a portmanteau of "adamantite" and "tortoise".
== Related enemies ==
* Left Foreleg
* Right Foreleg
* Adamanchelid
* Adamantortoise
* Shaolong Gui
* Long Gui
* Wurtzitoise
=== Final Fantasy XIII-2 ===
* Long Gui
* Left Foreleg
* Right Foreleg
it:Adamanthart (Final Fantasy XIII)
Category:Enemies in Final Fantasy XIII