Neochu (Final Fantasy XIII)

Neochu is an enemy in Final Fantasy XIII. It is the mark of Cie'th Stone Mission 45 and 55. Like its weaker variant, Neochu is not fought on its own, as it can spawn four to five Picochus to fight alongside it when its health reaches certain thresholds.
Neochus resemble Ochu, but are brown instead of green. Fighting Neochus is optional and quite difficult, but the rewards for completing the missions are worth the effort: Mission 55 gives a Growth Egg that doubles CP gained from battles, while Mission 45 rewards the party with Hunter's Friend that casts Libra on defeated enemies.
== Mission ==
===45 - Emergent Evolution===
Mark: 		Neochu
Locale:		Faultwarrens - Titan's Throne
Class: 		A
The soul is vessel to the Divine. Divine will fills it, and through it is truth expressed.
Entreat with the neochu, who sings of earthen bounty, and becomes one with life's circle here again.
===55 - Can't We All Just Get Along?===
Mark: 		Neochu
Locale:		Archylte Steppe - Aggra's Pasture
Class: 		A
A new variety of ochu, dubbed the neochu, has sprung up in Aggra's Pasture. The pest has been driving the garden—variety ochu out of its limited habitat and straight into the jaws of extinction. Needless to say, my Focus appears to be elimination of the neochu before it can succeed.
Why do the fal'Cie seek to solve every problem by having it killed? Can't they craft a world where we can all just get along?
== Stats ==
== Battle ==
Neochu is immune to preemptive strikes, rendering Deceptisol useless. Its basic physical attack deals moderate Earth-elemental damage and knocks its target into the air. Screech deals high damage to the party over a large radius and can remove status enhancements, while buffing Picochus with Bravery and Haste. Seed Dispersal summons additional Picochus, and is used after a portion of the Neochu's HP is removed. Pollen fully heals nearby Picochus and removes status ailments, while damaging the party, removing status enhancements, and inflicting Debrave, Defaith, Deprotect, Deshell, Imperil, Poison, Slow, and Curse.
Excluding summoning Picochus, the Neochu's attack pattern is to use five tendril strikes, Screech, and then Pollen. The time between the fifth tendril attack and Screech is longer, giving the player more time to prepare for the Neochu's strongest attack. If a Picochu is at low health, it will use Plead on the Neochu, which has a small chance of provoking it to use Pollen outside of its attack pattern rotation.
=== Strategy ===
The battle is easier if all characters have over 10,000 health. The player should use all the physical defense and Earth-resistance accessories on the Sentinel(s). Aegisol and Fortisol are helpful.
Neochu is immune to preemptive attacks. A Sentinel is nearly essential at lower levels as they mitigate damage to the entire party. A Medic or two is also essential. At lower levels, a recommended paradigm deck is Tri-Disaster (RAV/RAV/RAV), Delta Attack (COM/SEN/RAV), Solidarity (COM/SEN/MED), Attrition (SAB/SEN/MED), Strategic Warfare (SYN/SEN/RAV), and Consolidation (SEN/SEN/MED). A party of Fang, Snow, and Hope yields good results with these paradigms.
Overall, the best strategy (other than RNG instant-win tactics of Vanille's Death or Random: Instant Chain) is to build up the Neochu's chain gauge using only Ravagers for the first half of its HP. This way, its chain gauge will be roughly around 300% by the time it uses Seed Dispersal, allowing the party's primary Commando to reduce the remaining HP as quickly as possible. For lower-level parties, players will not survive long while both the Neochu and its Picochus are on the field, so preparing for this change in strategy once the Neochu uses Seed Dispersal for the first time is the primary focus for most of the battle.
The player should start off in Attrition and cast Imperil until Neochu is inflicted, or until the party needs healing. This (and Death) are the only status ailments that the Neochu is not immune to, and Imperil is essential for boosting the chain gauge damage dealt during Tri-Disaster. Having a Synergist cast Haste on the party, Protect on the primary Sentinel, and Faith on the primary Medic is recommended early on. When the Neochu uses Screech, the player should immediately swap to Consolidation. With two Sentinels, the Medic will be protected from taking enormous damage, especially if either one is defending during the attack. When the Neochu uses Pollen, the player should attempt to remove as many de-buffs as possible with Esuna. Dispelga is also recommended as a counter to this attack, but is much more effective while Pichochus are present, since Pollen also casts buffs on them that Dispelga will remove.
At this point the Neochu will repeat its attack pattern. Throughout this part of the battle, the player should frequently switch back to Attrition to recast Imperil and reduce the chain gauge's depletion rate. Should the chain gauge return to 0%, it will become much more difficult to win, since the Neochu's defenses will be much higher by the time it reaches half HP. The time between each tendril attack is long enough that if the player needs to, they can switch to Consolidation to maximize damage mitigation and possibly avoid being launched into the air.
Once at half HP, it will use Seed Dispersal to summon four or five Picochus. Picochus deal a lot of damage in a short time, especially if they have been buffed by the Neochu's Pollen. At this point, a lower-level party must keep a Sentinel defending at all times. Starting with Strategic Warfare, the Synergist should cast Protect on the Sentinel, Faith on the Medic, and Bravery and Haste on themselves before switching to Solidarity. It is recommended that Fang be the party leader, since she has access to Bravera and Haste as a Synergist, while being a powerful Commando at earlier Crystarium stages.
Shifting between Solidarity and Delta Attack will refresh the Commando's ATB gauge—allowing Fang to attack faster—while keeping the Picochus focused on the Sentinel. With the strategy used up to this point, even a single Commando should be able to quickly knock off the Neochu's remaining HP. It is advised to use Dispelga and recast all buffs immediately whenever the Neochu uses Pollen, and ensure everyone in the party has a sufficient amount of HP to survive Screech once it comes around.
Since Pollen not only casts Haste and Bravery on all Picochus, but also fully heals them, killing the Neochu before attacking the Picochus is highly effective. If a Picochu is at low health, it will use Plead on the Neochu, which has a small chance of provoking it to use Pollen outside of its attack pattern rotation.
Once the Neochu is killed, it is safe to use Dispelga and recast any and all buffs the player wants, since the Picochus' attacks have no effect on buffs and don't induce any status ailments or Dispel. For lower-level parties, a Sentinel may still be necessary even with the Neochu gone. Picochus are powerful and fast, but can be taken down fairly quickly by a Commando enhanced with Bravery and any En- spell (other than Enwater). (Unlike the Neochu, who resists all elements, Picochus are susceptible to additional damage from Commandos buffed with Enfire, Enthunder, or Enfrost.) Delta Attack allow the primary Ravager to complement the Commando's attacks with chain gauge should healing not be critical. Without the Neochu present, taking out the Picochus to end the fight should be fairly straightforward.
This strategy should earn even a lower-level party a 5-star ranking, while also allowing the player to update the Bestiary with information on Picochus.
=== Death strategy ===
Neochu is susceptible to Vanille's Death attack. The player should have Vanille as the Saboteur/Medic, Fang/Snow as the Sentinel, and Hope as the Medic/Synergist. The player should set the paradigm to Attrition (SAB/MED/SEN), Combat Clinic (MED/MED/SEN), Premeditation (SAB/SYN/SEN), Protection (MED/SYN/SEN), and Entourage (RAV/MED/SEN) or Diversity (RAV/MED/COM) and follow any of the above recommended defensive techniques to ward away damage and status ailments.
Hope should cast Haste on the party, and especially Vanille. As the Neochu wails away at the Sentinel, Vanille can repeatedly cast Death, and switch to Combat Clinic when hit by Screech and Pollen. To speed things up, the player can switch over to Attrition once a few status ailments have been removed. Hope will cast Esuna as Vanille casts Death. Eventually the Neochu will succumb to the spell. If there are Picochus left, the party can switch to Entourage and Diversity to finish them off.
Death has a 1% chance of succeeding, increasing with each debuff. Thus, casting Imperil on Neochu, its only debuff weakness, can boost the chance of success with Death to 2%.
The battle can last an undetermined amount of time, anywhere from 20 seconds to 30 minutes. Death works like a roulette wheel. The possibility of it working on the Neochu is reset each time it is used, so the party might be in the fray for a while. It is a good idea to restart the battle when the Neochu summons Picochus at half its base health, since things can quickly become complicated.
For Mission 55, the player can summon Hecatoncheir, getting a reasonable Gestalt bar and then go into Gestalt mode. The Neochu and Picochus are susceptible to Earth damage, so the player can take a good amount of HP off the Picochus, and if one is lucky, killing most of them. Then the player can go into Diversity to pick off the last of the Picochus, and then to Attrition to spam Death.
=== Instant chain strategy ===
Neochu can be defeated with the Random: Instant Chain synthesized ability, as it is quicker than using Death. Instant Chain has a small chance of filling the target's chain gauge immediately, and when this happens, one is able to kill Neochu quickly because its stagger threshold is so high. Depending on luck, it might take a while, but should be less than ten minutes.
To get Random: Instant Chain, a character must equip any two or three following items:
;Weapons
* Hauteclaire
* Durandal
* Lionheart
* Ultima Weapon
* Rigels
* Polaris Specials
* Procyons
* Betelgeuse Customs
* Unsetting Sun
* Midnight Sun
* Alicanto
* Caladrius
* Heavenly Axis
* Abraxas
* Taming Pole
* Venus Gospel
;Accessories
* Survivalist Catalog
* Hunter's Friend
* Speed Sash
* Energy Sash
* Champion's Badge
Good characters to use as party leader are Lightning or Sazh if they have learned their full ATB skills. Sazh's Cold Blood hits 17 times, and Lightning's Army of One hits 11, and each hit has a chance of activating Random: Instant Chain.
==Other appearances==
===Pictlogica Final Fantasy===
== Etymology ==
Neochu is an amalgam of the words "neo", meaning new, and "ochu".
== Related enemies ==
* Ochu
* Microchu
* Picochu
=== Final Fantasy XIII-2 ===
* Ochu
* Microchu
* Chichu
* Nanochu
Category:Final Fantasy XIII Marks