Farming Adamantortoise is one of the most effective means of saving up the Gil you need to complete the Treasure Hunter Achievement/Trophy. The initial battles against Adamantortoise, or any of the large Oretoises, are fairly difficult, but they can be made much easier with some preparation work and the application of basic strategy.
The large Oretoise enemies wandering around the Archylte Steppes include five different subspecies: Adamanchelid, Adamantortoise, Adamantoise, Shaolong Gui and finally Long Gui. The enemies in this previous list were mentioned in the order of easiest (Adamanchelid) to most difficult (Shaolong Gui).
The most efficient Oretoise to farm are the middle ones and this has to do with both the difficulty/efficiency of the battle and the potential spoils you could receive after battle:
| Oretoise | Rare Drop | Common Drop | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adamanchelid |  Scarletite 1% |
Gold Dust 25% |
Adamanchelids are very easy to defeat and you will not need to take out their legs in order to defeat them. These are the Oretoises you will first face in Eden |
| Adamantortoise | Trapezohedron 1% |
Platinum Ingot 25% |
Adamantortoise has less HP than an Adamantoise but some players argue that Adamantoise is easier to defeat and farm (refer to the note below). |
| Adamantoise | Trapezohedron 1% |
Platinum Ingot 25% |
|
| Long Gui | Trapezohedron 5% |
Platinum Ingot 25% |
Looks similar to an Adamantoise but has blueish color skin and is much more difficult to defeat. This is typically considered the most difficult battle in the game. |
| Shaolong Gui | Dark Matter 5% |
Gold Nugget 25% |
Looks similar to an Adamantoise but has blueish color skin and is much more difficult to defeat. |
| Oretoise | Description | Image |
|---|---|---|
| Adamanchelid | Smallest oretoise that is brown in color, missing both tusks and does not have chains. | |
| Adamanchelid | Larger oretoise that is brown in color, has chains and has two tusks with one of them broken. | |
| Adamanchelid | Larger oretoise that looks nearly the same as an Adamantortoise. It is brown in color, has chains and has two unbroken tusks. |
So how do we choose which of the five Oretoises to farm? Firstly, the drops / spoils / loot is what plays the most important role in deciding. While the Long Gui has the highest chance of dropping a Trapezohedron, it is also very difficult to defeat, whereas the Adamantortoise and Adamantoise both have a smaller chance of dropping the catalyst but the same likelihood of dropping the Platinum Ingot which sells for a high amount of Gil.
It’s should be noted that completing Mission 63 - Crushed by Doubt and the other Missions in the circle of Cie’th Stones in the center of the Archylte Steppe, will cause Shaolong Gui to replace Adamanchelids out in the field and Long Gui to replace many of the Adamantortoise and Adamantoise. There will still be one Adamantortoise left to farm though if you’ve already cleared them so no need to panic!
To summarize, it’s best to farm Adamantortoise for Platinum Ingots with a small chance to get a Trapezohedron and either keep farming these items to purchase the Dark Matter you need or consider attempting to farm Shaolong Gui. For more tips on defeating the two strongest Oretoises, check out the following pages:
Long Gui
An overview of how to defeat the most powerful enemy in the game, an optional encounter against a Long Gui.
Shaolong Gui
An overview of how to defeat a Shaolong Gui enemies in the Archylte Steppe to farm Dark Matter.
Your party for this farming strategy should include Fang, Lightning and Vanille. Hope is technically a bit stronger than Vanille (check out the Best Party guide for more information) but Vanille’s ability to quickly apply debuffs will be very handy.
There are a number of approaches to going about this farming technique, including this one, so don’t hesitate to experiment with other setups. But here is one that should work well; set up the following paradigms:
Commandos or one 
Ravager if needed)Commandos again)Ravagers)
Saboteurs with Lightning as a Ravager)
Synergists with Vanille as a Saboteur)Saboteur with both Lightning and Vanille as 
Medics)Some guides and walkthroughs suggest a more uniform paradigm setup (all characters as Medics, all characters as Saboteurs) to quickly jump between each stage of the battle setup, and this can work as well, but through experimentation, the above paradigm approach works well for quickly getting through the setup and preparation phases.
The first and most important thing that your characters will need are items which will boost their resistance to the massive amounts of damage that an Adamantortoise can deal out. This involves obtaining a 
Gaian Ring for all three of your characters and any 
Royal Armlet or Imperial Armlet that you can equip as well.
Don’t forget that you will want to have a 
Collector Catalog and Connoisseur Catalog equipped to make your farming more efficient and improve the likelihood of receiving the drops you’re after. Lastly, you should equip all three of your characters with a Genji Glove or, if you don’t have 3 of them, your two most powerful characters (Fang and Lightning are good choices).
The more properly leveled your character’s weapons are, the easier it will be to farm Oretoises. Check out the Upgrading Weapons page for tips. You should also make sure that Vanille has her 
Belladonna Wand equipped (or its upgraded forms, the Malboro Wand or Nirvana) to ensure that she has the 
Improved Debuffing passive ability.
The fight is fairly straightforward because Adamantortoise follows a standard and predictable attack pattern. It will continuously stomp throughout the fight and it has a chance to use “Quake” or “Roar” after a certain amount of time has passed. Unfortunately, if it uses “Roar” and enough of your characters are hit with 
Daze (at which point they will likely die from the next stomp) you may just need to restart the battle and try again.
The goal is to defeat both the Left Leg and Right Leg to knock Adamantortoise down, trigger a Stagger, and defeat it in a single Stagger before it stands back up. It takes increased damage while it's laying down so preparing for the all out attack once it drops down is critical and timing is everything.
Bravera and 
Faithra on your party members. Lightning will take care of getting 
Haste applied to your team and then both Fang and Lightning can get 
Protect / 
Shell up afterwards. During this time, ideally, Vanille is getting some of the debuffs you will need placed on the two legs giving you a head start on the next step.Saboteur role and it’s at this time that you need to make sure both 
Imperil and 
Deshell are active on either the Right Leg or Left Leg (
Deprotect is less critical). Once both debuffs are active, and if your party’s HP is looking good, its on to the next step…Bravera and Faithra on your party members, but these will be wearing off soon, and they absolutely need to be active when you Stagger the Adamantortoise after it drops. So in this step, reapply Bravera / Faithra / Haste to all three party members, quickly heal up, and then bring down the next leg quickly (make sure Imperil and Deshell are active on that leg).Imperil spell to have Fang get casting Imperil straight away. Vanille will start with casting Deprotect and Deshell and then will help out with casting Imperil, but it should take no longer than two full ATB bars to get all of the debuffs up and they do all need to be up!
Then switch to Tri-disaster which will trigger a Stagger on Adamantortoise but stay in Tri-disaster until the Chain Gauge gets up to at least 900%. Lastly, switch to Cerberus paradigm and rotate between the two Cerberus paradigms to take advantage of the ATB Refresh trick. Note that you can use Relentless Assault if Vanille doesn’t have a strong Commando Crystarium yet.
The goal here is to get Adamantortoise’s HP all the way down before it stands up. Once it begins standing up, even if it is still Staggered, it will take far less damage and be much more difficult to defeat.
The goal with farming is to get into a quick rhythm and rotation of engaging in a battle with Adamantortoise(s), defeating them quickly, taking any spoils you receive and going to save your game at a 
Save Station, and then resetting your game. Here are some important things to consider while farming:
Growth Egg equipped to quickly level up your characters while farming. The increased stats will increase your efficiency.Growth Egg out if your characters are at their maximum CP level as the accessory will no longer be serving any purpose.Check out the video to see this farming strategy in action and good luck!
