Guide: Marching Beasts (Europa) – Two Methods

For the Scorn of the Marching Beasts trial, I want to give some tips and present two example teams that are able to clear the trial with all missions. I use different units for each team, but Fina appears in both (she’s my only good healer). I do show how to clear it without aoe re-raise in the Terra setup so any single target re-raise healer can replace her.

This was the team built around Terra:

and here’s the team built around Hyoh:

Both of these teams rely on being able to OTK some of the initial enemies leading to the final encounter to avoid certain dangerous attacks.

Trance Terra Team

I’ll go over the strategy for the Terra team first, so scroll down to the Hyoh section if using that team instead. For the initial 8 waves of enemies before the final encounter, the Terra team has it easier. With decent gear, two Terra’s chaining a quad-casted Chaos Wave should OTK waves 1, 2, and 3, but wave 4 might want a magic buff before chaining to be safe. For the 5th wave, quadcast her fire spell instead. On wave 6 (the Terror Knight), use one of the Terra’s to cast Full-Life on the knight to OTK it while your healer uses aoe re-raise. If you do not have aoe re-raise, you need to tank the knight for two rounds while you dualcast ST re-raises on units before OTK’ing the knight (break him, use evasion cover, apply resist buffs, etc).

Wave 7 is a good wave to stall and recover everyone’s mana. Break the stats of the Chimera, use water resist, and cover with your evasion tank. That should prevent most or all of the damage except the gravity attack from the chimera (which won’t kill anyone). Spend a few turns regenerating mana, then when ready go ahead and activate quadcast, then OTK both units with Terra. For wave 8 use a magic buff, then quadcast Chaos Wave again to OTK it. During these 8 waves, use them to tag enemies with fire, thunder, and earth damage with KnightDelita for the mission requirements (Phoenix esper gives him fire/earth, he has lightning naturally). Use your mana battery units to keep the Terra’s going during all this quad casting. If needed, stopping on wave 4 is also relatively safe to regenerate a few rounds before continuing (if resting on wave 4, then evade cover, use fire resist from Terra, break the MAG of the Flameblade).

When you get to Europa, for turn one you’re going to want to do the following:

• Zargabaath — Cast Archadia’s Might

• Fina — Dualcast Dispelga and Wind Resist

• Illusionist Nichol — Redirect Zargabaath

• Knight Delita — Limit break Europa (after Fina’s dispelga)

• Trance Terra x2 — Quadcast Chaos Wave (after Zarg finishes buffing)

That should OTK both searchers (preventing all the nastiness like enemy chains, imperils, stop, charm, etc). Europa will now use an AoE wind attack and some physical stuff. For turn 2, cast Magical Activation (NOT the cooldown version) on both Terra’s, have Zargabaath use Prismatic Barrier, and have iNichol refresh re-direct on Zarg. On turn 3 the searchers will have re-spawned and buffed their team. You need to dispel with Fina, then use Wave Cannon with iNichol, then have the Terra’s dualcast awakened Chaos Wave, which should OTK both searchers again.

At the end of turn 3, Europa will switch to his “Impact” mode, which alters his attacks for two turns. Now he’s going to start using a ST non-elem magical nuke on random targets a few times per round. To handle this, you want to use Zarg’s LB for the AoE stat and mitigation buff, and with it’s two turn duration, it will last for both turns of Impact mode (and with 8 auto-limit, he always has his LB ready guaranteed at the start of each Impact Mode phase).

From there, you just keep this general rotation:

• Zarg — Limit on the first round of Impact Mode, Prismatic Barrier on the first round of Shooting mode. Otherwise keep up stat buffs and mana regen.

• Fina — Dispel the enemies when they buff themselves or heal.

• iNichol — Wave Cannon when Searchers respawn, otherwise always keep Re-direct refreshed on Zarg.

• Knight Delita — Limit break Europa any time you dispel him or he dispels himself (which sometimes happens).

• Trance Terra — Refresh Magical Activation when Searchers are dead, dualcast or quadcast Chaos Wave when Searchers respawn.

That’s basically it. Searchers will respawn every three turns when the boss is above 50% health, and every other turn when the boss is below 50%. Don’t forget to tag Europa with a spell (Ultima from Fina) during the killing blow for mission credit. As long as the Searchers always die instantly on respawn, the fight is relatively basic and low risk (with this team).

CG Hyou Team

For those of you who want to use a team with Hyoh as your dps instead, it’s slightly more involved because you can’t AoE OTK every trash wave (unless using something like Nyx and spamming Hyoh’s LB, but that’s outside of this guide’s focus). I’ll be going over each enemy wave and pointing out how to handle it:

• Wave 1: Provoke with Wilhelm and Blade Servant chain to OTK Belmodar (the lizard). The mantis is pure ST physical and can’t hurt evasion Wilhelm.

• Wave 2: Provoke with Wilhelm and Blade Servant chain to OTK the big Ochu. The small ones are ST phys and can’t hurt Wilhelm. Dispel their buffs with Fina and just ST chain them down one at a time with Hyoh’s afterwards.

• Wave 3: Provoke with Wilhelm and Blade Servant chain to OTK the Roper. The small slimes are ST phys and can’t hurt Wilhelm (see a pattern yet?).

• Wave 4: Provoke with Wilhelm and Blade Servant chain to OTK the Flamesblade. The rider is ST phys and can’t hurt Wilhelm. When rider uses AoE paralyze just cure it with Prime Heal from Fina.

• Wave 5: Chain Hyoh’s LB to OTK the Squid’s head, which instantly completes this wave.

• Wave 6: Limit with Fina to AoE Re-raise, then cast Raise on the Knight with Wilhelm (on Phoenix esper) to instantly win.

• Wave 7: Provoke with Wilhelm, cast Stats + Water Resist with Nichol, break atk/mag with VoD, Blade Servant to OTK chain the Chimera with Hyoh. The chimera might survive, then it will do some water attacks and gravity vs Wilhelm. Next round finish off the Chimera, then finish off the Antlion (who can’t kill anyone since Wilhelm evades it, and his only AoE is gravity).

• Wave 8: Provoke with Wilhelm, Blade Servant chain to OTK the Wandering One. The following round OTK the wyvern. If the Wyvern dropped below 50% from Hyoh’s AoE it’s going to charge up, then do a lethal AoE on your team. Use Fina’s AoE re-raise to revive afterwards, then finish the Wyvern.

When the Hyoh team reaches Europa, your first turn should be:

• AoE dispel and wind resist buff with Fina

• AoE break with DarkVeritas

• Limit with Nichol to cure your breaks and buff the team

• Provoke with Wilhelm

• Chain Hyoh’s limit to OTK both searchers

While in shooting mode, Europa will use an elemental attack based on the following order: Wind -> Light -> Water -> Ice -> Dark. Make sure that you always have a 70% resist buff active to the element that will be used next from either Fina (from Tetra esper), or Nichol (he has the other four resist buffs naturally). When the searchers respawn, dispel the buffs they applied with Fina, aoe break with Veritas, and kill them again with Hyoh LB’s.

If the searchers respawn and both Hyoh’s do not have their LB available then how you handle it depends what mode you’re currently in. If Europa is currently in shooting mode, you MUST single target OTK the right side searcher with Hyoh’s. Because the left searcher will be left alive, it’s going to use Stop (during Shooting mode), so apply a stop immunity buff with Nichol (from Lakshmi). You can otherwise ignore the left searcher for now.

If Europa is currently in Impact mode, you can safely ignore both searchers, but you will need to apply Charm immunity from Lakshmi. When Europa eventually swaps back to Shooting mode, if Hyoh’s LB is now ready then go ahead and LB to kill both searchers. Otherwise see the previous paragraph on how to handle searchers during shooting mode (stop immunity, ST chain to kill the right searcher).

During Impact mode, make sure to AoE cover with Wilhelm, and keep his provoke active as well. Wilhelm will take a lot of ST magic nukes during this phase, which will deal a lot of damage, so keep re-raise on him as well.

That’s basically it for the Hyoh team. Once again be sure to tag Europa with a spell (like Ultima) as it dies for credit, and at some point during the trash wave clearing use the required elemental attacks (from an esper, elemental weapon on a support unit, whatever).

Here’s a reference of Europa’s first 10 turns

• Turn1 — Shooting mode (wind)

• Turn2 — Shooting mode (holy)

• Turn3 — Shooting mode (water)

• Turn4 — Impact Mode

• Turn5 — Impact Mode

• Turn6 — Shooting Mode (ice)

• Turn7 — Shooting Mode (dark)

• Turn8 — Shooting Mode (wind)

• Turn9 — Impact Mode

• Turn10 — Impact Mode

• Turn11+ — repeat the cycle (the elements used follow the pattern Wind -> Holy -> Water -> Ice -> Dark -> loop)

Extra Method for non-chainers

I went back for a third kill, this time without using any chainers at all and no OTK’s. It was slow and long, but it’s an option for anyone that has problems with chaining, or doesn’t have chainers at all. The team for this third (slow) kill was:

Everyone wants at least neutral, but preferably 30’ish resist to every element so that you can handle every wave safely (mostly). Wave 4 is especially challenging because of the multiple AoE deaths if you don’t OTK the flamesblade, but it’s doable with proper management. See the wiki or my video to know which elemental resist you need per wave.

For Europa this clear completely ignores the Searchers, and only uses Shiva’s 40% breaks during impact mode (no breaks at all during shooting mode). Just focus down Europa until it dies with Emperor, then clean up the Searchers afterwards.

If you have your own Terra or Hyoh, I recommend you use one of the much, much faster clears at the start of the post, but this team is an option for those of you without good chainers.

Special credit: Sinzar_