No farming needed until Eden. As long you don't intentionally skip/sneak by any mobs along the way to Eden, go with the Ceith stone mission flow of number, your party members crystarium growth should be on par to any mob or boss you meet.

As [d]-ky said, no need to invest in non-innate role first. The growth value per CP invested not really worth it. The only non-innate role I go for is the medic and nothing else to boost healing augmentation value of other main healers when I need speed healing in MED/MED/MED.

There's no fixed role for each party members. All their 3 natural roles are very useful when used at the right situation, timing and combination. Go wild and experiment them and see what combo suit your playstyle. Here's some of mine (just a tip of an iceberg, there's whole lot more combination I got):

Sazh/Hope/anyone
Sazh as commander is good against enemies that move around alot or have high evasion properties. Sazh/Hope opens up a combo for speed synergy build up when enemy is immune to alot of debuff. Don't autobuff when you're controlling one of Sazh/Hope, go manual control so both won't like cast haste on the same party member.
COM/RAV/RAV (Standard battle starter)
RAV/RAV/RAV (Speed stagger meter build up)
COM/MED/MED (Speed heal + holding stagger meter, works well with triple RAV)
SYN/SYN/SAB (When enemies are tough)

Fang/Vanille/anyone
COM/RAV/RAV (Standard)
SAB/SAB/RAV (For speed success debuff, 2 SAB have better success debuff rate than 1 SAB. Remember that role bonus affect other members too, not just self)
COM/MED/MED (Speed heal)
SEN/RAV/COM (To survive mass mob, if you still haven't got any 3 ATB nukes)
SEN/MED/COM

Light/Snow/Sazh
COM/RAV/RAV (Standard)
RAV/RAV/RAV (Speed stagger meter)
COM/COM/COM (If only one staggered enemy with at least 500% staggered status)
COM/SEN/RAV
MED/SEN/SYN
MED/COM/RAV

Battle tips:
- When enemies are tough, don't hesitate to start off with SYN+SAB with no offense at the beginning. It pays to be prep up for the kill. Debuffed enemies contributes to the speed of RAV building up stagger meter, even more so when you hit them on their elemental weakness after imperil debuff.
- Abuse that launch effect skill whenever you can (either by COM or RAV). Launched enemies = semi-dazed enemies. They can do nothing to you (or themselves) in this situation. Launched enemies are helpful to stagger meter build up too.
- When dealing against a single enemy, prioritize SAB over SYN. It's quicker to debuff 1 enemy than buff 3 allies. (Only applicable if enemy is not immune to debuff and you can survive their nukes if any.)
- Don't rely fully on "auto"-battle. Occasionally you'll need to go manual to control the battle. Recognize when to hit early/late, when to nuke, which enemy to aim (position awareness), which buff/debuff to prioritize. Control the battle well and you'll be awarded with 5-stars rating where auto-battle could not.

About what I said no farming till Eden, guess only applicable if not skipping any Ceith stone mission. Those who goes straight to Oerba/Eden would encounter lot less mobs, so will need some farming.

My question to farmers: why not complete stone missions while farming, 2 birds with one stone? Is it because too slow as a playstyle? (My playstyle would be more to exploration in nature)

Yep. And here I can't wait to download FFXIII-2.

It's a pain in the ass but.....(see spoiler)



This post has been edited by sumjs_5624: Dec 6 2014, 03:06 PM

No need purposely grind for hours straight. Just set a goal each day is good. Example, take down 3 to 6 'tortoise' boss each night and off to do something else. It'll be slow but at least not that torturing. That's how I make my way to 'treasure hunter'. (well the luck counts too, so don't waste your luck quota on gambling or something else )

Ahh, the key defense is barfire + protect. Debuff that jugg with imperil and switch to full SEN when he's gonna hammer you. Then take your time poking him when he's bathing in steam cleaning. When staggered, make him float in the air helplessly.

This post has been edited by sumjs_5624: Dec 6 2014, 05:03 PM

FFXIII-2 pre-load option is up

Perhaps lesser pre-rendered cutscene videos.
*FF13 has 19.8GB pre-rendered videos.

This post has been edited by sumjs_5624: Dec 10 2014, 05:50 AM

Same for me, 12.9GB (SEA version)

This post has been edited by sumjs_5624: Dec 10 2014, 07:11 AM