If you played through Lightning Returns and struggled with finding a good balance between each enemy's difficulty and your builds, you're probably having a hard time with the Hard mode. Truth is, Lightning Returns is not a particularly difficult game, even on its hardest difficulty -- the only problem being how skilled the player is.

This guide will give you ONE "easy peasy" overall build (formed by three main schemata builds) that should work for every general encounter and some bosses. Yup, even Earth Eater and Chocobo Eater won't last long with this specific build! However, I'd like to stress out that you are not obligated to use this setup. You can either follow this guide step by step at your own discretion or take it as a collection of hints and advices to help improve your own style and ability.

This guide is entirely based on my experience of over 10 in game days on Hard (after a 14 days smooth Normal playthrough, including Double Deity farming) as of the moment I publish this. If you happen to know something that works as good as or better than my proposition, feel free to comment or even start your own guide if you wish to. We're here to help other players, not to fight over who's the best :)

Before we dive into the builds, I have to make clear that I didn't follow any other guides or researched how stats and damage work in LR. I built these schemata from experience, testing out to see what worked for my goals and what I was comfortable with. To make it simple, I wanted an overall build that would make general enemy encounters smooth enough so that I wouldn't have to keep changing builds for each specific enemy. Once again, you can take everything presented here as advices to improve your own skills.

Note: I tried reaching 5k on both damage dealer garbs' respective main stats. According to logic, the higher the stat you're using, the more efficient it will be, so maxing STR and MAG should make you deal more damage. I also wasn't looking for the most cost efficient path when upgrading my gear, so my upgrades are probably more than I needed. Remember, you can take all this as advice!

Soldier of Peace is known for Artemis's Arrows, one of the most powerful physical skills in LR. In some cases, SoP will be the driving force of the combo.

Ever since I found out how useful Quiet Guardian is, it has been one of my favorite garbs. Not only does it look slick with the Thief's Silk Hat, but it can fill two original FFXIII roles quite easily!

Last but not least, Yuna's summoner garb from FFX is known for being ridiculously powerful, its Elementa base damage exceeding that of a fully upgraded loose Elementa. It might suck that console players had to pay money for it, but thankfully we got it as part of the package! Spira's Summoner can either be used to stagger enemies, deal massive damage or, in my case, help out with a combo I will explain later on.

These can either replace Soldier of Peace and/or Spira's Summoner or be part of an entirely different combo. I have used Martial Monk instead of Soldier of Peace before and while I couldn't pull it off, I certainly see how it can work. L'automne is a garb I never got around using properly as I have been spoiled by Spira's Summoner since the very beginning. And Miqo'te Dress can be a fun Gil farmer.

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Martial Monk, along Soldier of Peace, can be one of the most powerful garbs thanks to Whirlwind Kick, which turns Punt into fast kicks that when perfectly timed, can deal a great amount of damage. Mastering this ability can be challenging even with the help of Forsaken Tie, however, and its power doesn't compare to Artemis's Arrows if poorly executed. On the other hand, the last kick has a higher chance to knock down even the Eaters if compared to the Hard Hitter ability.




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Very popular, L'automne is a common choice for those seeking decent staggering power and challenge. Its focus on -ra spells makes it perfect to stagger enemies, but if there isn't sinergy between this and the COM-esque schema, it can run out of ATB quite quickly.




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When I first came in contact with the concept of farming Gil efficiently in LR, I thought Miqo'te Dress would be a good choice for the job as Magic Slash can be a useful ability. From my experience with Ereshkigal, Magic Slash + Bonecracker is a very powerful combo. Indeed, it didn't disappoint! I still think SoP can be faster, but if you're missing the funds to make it useful whilst using Beggar's Beads, This setup for Miqo'te Dress can save your skin!

The combo I came up with through testing and adapting consists solely of a single setup for Quiet Guardian, Spira's Summoner and Soldier of Peace. With this combo you can take down small to big enemies quite easily. The process varies from enemy to enemy, but the overall idea is the same. Let's have a look at an illustrated explanation of the basics:



















To summarize, we'e making the enemy weaker and charging Soldier of Peace as fast as possible while still keeping Spira's Summoner's bar useable so that both offensive garbs can be spammed depending on the situation. In the case of smaller enemies, casting Impreil + Deshell and then casting Elementa solves the problem in a few seconds. Groups of enemies may take a while longer with this method, but since Soldier of Peace will charge in the process of trying to eliminate the whole group at once, Artemis's Arrows can be used in succession to finish each one individually with one swing at best.

Some enemies might require a more elaborate strategy, so remember to check their staggering conditions and adapt the combo to that if you're having difficulties.

Unfortunately, the combo is not as simple as smashing buttons in a specific order. This is the Hard difficulty we're talking about and even though I said LR is not particularly difficult even on hard, that doesn't mean you can get sloppy.

The biggest problem with this combo is probably the need for perfect timing. You perform perfect timing by pressing the next ability button (whether it's the same attack or another one) AFTER Lightning starts the attack animation but exactly BEFORE the attack lands or the magic leaves her hand. Complicated? Yup, quite. But, mastering perfect timing is worth it as the ability will be executed more efficiently, so for example, a physical attack will deal more damage.

If you're struggling with perfect timing, I strongly suggest you practice by equipping the Forsaken Tie (drops from the Arcangeli Ω, so it's something you can only use from the last day onwards) to the schema that's giving you trouble. This accessory will activate Grace Period, which gives a larger window in between attacks, allowing you to perfect time them more easily. I don't recommend using the Forsaken Tie too often, as you'll be sacrificing a potentially useful accessory in order to perform perfect timing. It's best to use it as practice, not as reisgnation. Don't worry about missing it. Performing this action is difficult and requires a lot of skill, but at the very least this isn't Dark Souls, so you won't be severely punished for missing the mark. Even as you become more skilled, you will still miss it sometimes, but is not the end of the world and you can recover quite quickly.

With that out of the way, it's time to make the combo a little more complicated:















Basically, we're perfect timing (or trying to) every action. Between the beginning of the fight and the second Elementa cast, everything must be perfectly timed. Every other action taken is perfectly timed, even recasting debuffs so that you can link those to another Elementa x2 combo, making it stronger. One Elementa linked by perfect time to Artemis's Arrows can be hard to achieve at first, but the amount of damage dealt makes it all worth it. Even Last Ones fall easily for this little trick!

Perfect timing can be useful for smaller/weaker enemies, but it's not strictly necessary. Learn which small enemies would require only one or two Elementa casts right off the bat and which would require some debuffing first, or which would fall easier with Artemis's Arrows. How you adapt the combo and make it succeed in different situations depends entirely on you as you have to experiment and learn for yourself how this will work for each enemy.

Lightning Returns may not be a difficult game most of the time, but getting too comfortable never ends well. It's important to keep on improving your equipment, abilities and skills and experimenting with what builds and combos work best for you and what you're aiming at. Remember that LR is one of the few RPGs with a great selection of gear that actually gives you reasons to experiment, so have fun with it and try new things, add something you saw someone doing to your style and perhaps discuss your approach with the community to have a better understanding of not only what others are doing, but also what you are doing.

This combo works for me and it's something I've been perfecting ever since I started NG+ on Hard. It may or it may not work for you, but the important thing is that you understand what I do and either do exactly the same (and perhaps even start making modifications according to your own observations and preferences) or take something out of it to enhance your own style, which I think is the best way to go. Just don't forget to have fun!

I hope this guide helped you in some way. If you have anything to add, or would like to ask questions or make suggestions, feel free to leave a comment :)