Paradigm Shifting

This is one of the most important battle strategies in FFXIII.

Check out the full Paradigm List.

Why You Want to Shift

Whenever you switch Paradigms, you have about a 50% chance of getting a full ATB bar. You’ll find that constantly switching Paradigms, after every attack, is MUCH faster than waiting for your ATB bar to regenerate.

Secondly, if after you switch Paradigms you don’t receive a full bar of ATB, you should immediately trigger your attacks by pressing TRIANGLE or Y (don’t wait for a full chain of attacks) and switch Paradigms again. You shouldn’t wait for the bar to regenerate because your allies ALWAYS receive a full ATB bar. So even if you don’t get off a full chain of attacks, your allies will. Using this strategy your allies are always attacking with full ATB, and your lead character half the time with full ATB.

The Fastest Kill

For the fastest possible attack speed, you should switch to the Paradigm list as soon as you trigger your attack chain. Watch the screen for the last damage number to appear and then trigger the change.

Double it Up

We have 2 of the same paradigm (one right below the other) so that with every Paradigm Shift we have the same attacks. This helps with consistency and allows us to keep the desired party effects even though we are changing Paradigms.

When you read our Paradigm Setups in the walkthroughs, you'll often see a (2) next to a Paradigm. This simply means we reccomend using the above strategy, quickly rotating between two of the same Paradigm.