Baten Kaitos: Chaotic Trio fight "guide"

Let's talk about the Chaotic Trio fight.

As you probably realize with the size of this pastebin (and I'm writing this at the very beginning, to tell you), there is a lot to say about this fight, and also many things AROUND it.

Let's begin with their stats:
- Ayme has 2400 HP, Fire does +30%, Water -30%, Light +30%, Dark -30%, Chronos +50%, Wind -50%.
- Folon has 2700 HP, Fire does -30%, Water +30%, Light +50%, Dark -50%, Chronos -30%, Wind +30%.
- Giacomo has 3800 HP, Fire does -50%, Water +50%, Light +30%, Dark -30%, both Chronos and Wind do +0%.

Multiple things we can say already:
- Light is the major element because they are all weak to it. Dark is the minor element because they are all resistant weak to it.
- 2 out of 3 are weak to Water. The other one is resistant.
- 1 is +Wind -Chronos, another is the opposite, and the last is +0%.

Knowing this can help a little, of course. But if you only use those data, you might not go very far. Here are some other things to take into consideration:
- Ayme attacks once per turn, deals around 200 to 250 if you don't defend, nearly always use the finisher Crazy Rabbit that does around 80 more damage, and extremely rarely she uses Chaotic Ice that freezes you (2 turns without playing that character) and does around 120 more damage.
- Folon attacks once per turn, deals around 400 to 500 if you don't defend, sometimes uses the finisher Chaotic Flames that burns you (5% of damage per turn) and does around 100 more damage, and often uses Worg Lazor that does around 150 more damage.
- Giacomo attack TWICE per turn, deals around 300 to 400 every time if you don't defend, sometimes uses the finisher End Slasher that does around 100 more damage, and often uses Imperial Force that does around 150 more damage.

At this point, I hope you understand that Ayme is a joke. She deals no damage, and she uses Chaotic Ice so rarely that some people don't even know she has it. You should NEVER focus her.
Now, who should you focus first between Giacomo and Folon? Tough question. It all depends on you, and most of all about your decks. Because clearly, you can win this fight at level 15 (you're usually around level 25 at this point) as long as you have good decks. Same for the entire game, actually. When people tell me that they struggle with this fight because they can't level up in this dungeon, I just want to smash something.

Baten Kaitos is all about glass cannons: the more easily you can attack, the more easily you can kill. That means, the game favors having low to no armors in your decks. As early as Class 3, you can ditch all your armors with Kalas and Gibari because they can use their weapons to defend. For the others, they shouldn't have more than 4/30 magnus being armors. Then at Class 4, you can remove armors for everyone.
(The only exception is if you collected the auras, in which case you should put the Fire and Chronos ones for Xelha if you gathered at least 2 armors of those elements. Kalas and Gibari don't need armors, just the auras (Light and Dark for Kalas, Water and Wind for Gibari) because they both have weapons of those elements that they can use in defense.)
(But nobody takes time to get them in a first playthrough, so I don't know if it's worth mentioning them...)

Doing so, you will never be stuck with armors in your hands. And if you put at least 80 to 90% of weapons in your decks, you are guaranteed to be able to attack every turn, which will GREATLY help you to focus on Straights, and kill Giacomo in 3 turns or less. Because yes, if you do as I say, you won't defend very often. And Giacomo deals 400x2=800 on average per turn, and Folon 650. So you wanna kill Giacomo as fast as possible. (Besides, in speedrun, he is very slow to attack, so he is the best one to focus even more.)

However, if you DON'T do as I say, and defend around 200 every turn, Giacomo will deal (400-200)x2=400 on average per turn, and Folon 650-200=450. It's basically the same, but because Folon still does more at once, and tends to focus a character compared to Giacomo that almost never does that, he appears to be more scary and you focus him first usually. That's not a bad choice, but it's not the best in my opinion. Because if you do that, it means you usually defend too much. Which means you don't attack enough. Which means you don't deal with them fast enough. Which means you can't catch up with the healing. All of this adds up, and in the end you just make the fight twice as long and you struggle more. Making this fight infuriating for you, especially if you end up losing. Which is often the case.

At the end of the day, it's your call between Giacomo and Folon first. As long as you focus Ayme last, you're not making a massive mistake. But this fight is not AS hard as people think it is, to be honest. It's just relatively hard. Its problem is even further up:

The game has a massive flaw with tutoring the player about how to build decks.

Let's be honest: The 3 NPCs that teach you how to play the game are all in Sadal Suud, and they are rather inefficient overall. I bet you didn't even know there were 3 of them. They are scattered, they don't force you to talk with them, and you just want to discover things at this point because there is so much at once.
The main problem of the game is that it doesn't punish you enough, early on. The entire Disc 1 is too easy, and even with the shittiest decks, the bosses never are a menace and you rarely die on them. Which makes you think that you are good enough, and that your decks are good enough. But that's usually false.
You should be redoing your decks ENTIRELY every 2 to 3 hours, or so. Because if you just add and remove some cards, you don't build up decks: you just "patch" and "upgrade" things, without creating a synergy in your deck.
One tip, for example: Voice Cards (1 and 2, at least) are useless. Why would you use them to do +5%, when you can simply use another attack card to deal damage? Here is the answer: they are meant to fill your decks if you don't have enough cards, to avoid having "Pass" cards. Because doing +5% is better than doing +0%.
Still, I see many people using them. It's not a problem in itself. But combined with the fact that people never think about the synergy of their decks, it ends up weakening them.

Because of all of that, your decks are usually garbage when you face the Chaotic Trio, and you get destroyed because you finally have a serious opponent in front of you, that won't forgive your small mistakes.

In conclusion: Spend more time doing your decks. That's all you need to do.
If you are stuck in the Goldoba, farm the enemies: they drop Cetaka's Sword for Kalas (that is extremely OP), Black Ash for Gibari (that is also OP despite being Dark), and even Crystal Nails if you are brave enough to play Savyna.
(She is a whole another problem in the game actually: you need to farm for ages if you want her to have weapons. Otherwise she has almost nothing, making her useless unfortunately.)

Feel free to tweet me (@Baffan) if you want me to explain more things about and around this fight!

~ Baffan
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