XIII challenge run weapons advice? (plus battle mechanics discussion)

So you are limiting yourself to Tier 1 weapons?

I honestly think most of the synthesis abilities are fairly unimpressive. Boost group is solid, Gestalt is good for R:IC cheesing tough but non-boss enemies and Positive Effect is reasonable. Everything else is either minor (most of them), on bad weapons (e.g. Vampiric Strike) or far too unreasonable to get (ultimate magic/physic).

For Light I am inclined to say Axis Blade would still be decent if you are using synthesis group too (you will get 40% of a single bar from a round of attacks with ATB Charge at this point, which is handy but not excessive). Axis blade scales well as your stats get higher.

I think any of her other four decent weapons (blazefire, edged carbine, gladius, lionheart) are ok although probably not gladius. Edged is probably best if you are manually controlling light as a magical lead (which is her optimal way to play ravager), Blazefire if she is going to be AI controlled and therefore likely splitting physical and magicl attacks. Lionheart would be useful for strong, non-boss encounters if you abused R:IC, but outclassed vs bosses.

For Sazh, consider the Pleiades Hi Powers (found at Oerba) which have way more power than any other weapon pre-Tier 3 and might be useful for Blitz spamming certain enemies (although they cost you most of your HP). If you are using Sazh for other purposes, I think any of the choices you mentioned are fine.

For Snow I would go with the power circle unless you really need the tankiness. If you are using him pretty much only as a sentinel, go with Paladin.

Hope I agree with the two you mentioned, would probably just stick with Hawkeye.

Death isn't affected by the Belladonna Wand. But it is only costing you 9 magic so it is still the best.

Taming Pole isn't the only option for Fang, just the generalist one. In a normal playthrough, there are three other Fang spears that have legitimate uses. Taming Pole is your best option for now, but you will probably want a Dragoon Lance later on if you ever farm toises (more power, no stagger lock).

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