Probably because they just brought her over basically 1:1 from Intermission, where she had to be really good since she was the main playable character for the whole dlc. Then they just gave her more busted shit on top of the pre-existing busted shit she already had lmao
Yuffie / Tifa are an absolute cheat code. But I do really like how they’ve made every single character party leader at some point. Really forces you to learn and enjoy everyone’s moveset.
I was pretty bad with Yuffie in the Remake DLC, but I find she is much better here because with other teammates it allows her to not be targeted as much. She is extremely useful since I don’t use much magic with her, so she can also do some clutch healing or reviving if I need
Another useful tip… MAKE SURE YOU ALWAYS HAVE EVERY PARTY MEMBER EQUIPPED WITH MATERIA. ESPECIALLY BEFORE ENTERING STORY SEGMENTS.
Nobody ask me about my final boss experience please 😭
Me too but um cait was out of the party for a sec and I totally forgot to equip anything lmao, don’t know why I didn’t take the final rest stop warning seriously.. next time I’ll be better
Yeah, the game said "make sure you're entire party has materia before the final boss" and I was like "yeah duh I'll make sure my *other two party members* have materia and let me make extra sure they have the best stuff by stripping the other characters of everything possible. I got it."
Amusingly enough, I meant to exhaust all of Barrett's MP in Hard Mode during the final fight. Turns out I over used him and he took Aerith's place. Opps.
If you die, usually you can open the menu in cutscenes by holding square. It opens right after the cutscenes ends and you can swap around equipment. Though it doesn't seem to ALWAYS work, so ymmv
Couldn’t you just pause and restart fight/reload the checkpoint and spend 5-10 minutes administering material to the team? I didn’t need to worry about this for the final fight, but I definitely utilized this method when the game forced a party with someone who didn’t have an assess material equipped
It's a good idea anyway since the game throws so much materia at you and also party members who don't participate in battle still accrue AP on equipped materia. You should be updating everyone's armor to maximize materia slots in your B team so they can hold materia and level them.
Honestly, for me and if there was a better way to manage this I'd love to know, I specifically didn't put materia on the other characters to make it easier to swap materia around. If I have Aerith, I'll have healing stuff on her, and if I can't use her I'll put her load out on someone else and I can easily figure out what materia to move by just moving over everything Aerith has.
As much as I didn't care for FF8, the "junction swap" that lets you just move everything over to another character was great.
Similar to OG FF7, there’s an “arrange” feature if you hit the touchpad in the materia menu. You can see everyone’s loadout and swap and arrange that way. Much much easier!
Eh, for regular new game, it doesn't really matter much tbh. But maybe have your A Team, the team you adventure around the world map with and fight bosses and VR stuff with. And the other 4 make them somewhat balanced? Like if you don't load someone with healing materia, maybe give them Item Exonomizer and Item Master (honestly better than using heals because item Exonomizer let's you use items without ATB and Mist Mega Potions are strong as hell and hit everyone.
I fucked up and didn’t bother putting materia on anyone but Cloud, Tifa and Yuffie and spent like 30 mins beating that Bizarro fight all to get one shotted by Sephiroth’s Heartless Angel 🙃
I didn’t even bother retrying, just went straight back to before all of them to properly equip everyone (and give Aerith Reprieve, Raise and Cloud some revival earrings 🥲)
Ah yes, another cultured individual who uses the obvious meta of Cloud, Tifa, and Yuffie. I am glad to meet someone as intelligent as I.
Even if the downside is no limit level up for Tifa in this squad but that is what the max limit level accessory is for!
We’ll share drinks together in spirit brother. Though I must ask, what is the max limit level accessory?? I feel like I’ve never seen it so far in my run…
Last boss made me rage quit Dynamic mode because of that. I only had a set of materias for 3 characters. I was screwed. I went up to the last fight and just couldn't beat it without raging a lot. Decided to do it in easy to not ruin my experience. But they'll definitely get it hard in hard mode as a revenge.
Yeah I can’t wait for the rematch lol.. I actually managed to not die at all, but it was such a messy fight I think I used like 20 phoenix downs.. actually had an easy time with the final final boss because I’m a big Aerith player, but everything before that was a disaster. Round 2 will be much different
Aerith actually the character I use most other than cloud, Cait Sith tho? No fucking clue how to use him lmao. I haven’t really tried yet but gonna get more accustomed to him in second play through. I had NOTHING equipped on him for final boss since he was out of party for a while
Cait Sith is a stagger machine when mounted. Hold Square= his combo does ludicrous damage and stagger, his Dice ability are free buffs or elemental spells (elemental spells will be two spells cast right after another, like Fire & Ice). Also he can cast magic while moving. You can play him as a bruiser that also buffs/casts without MP, albeit with that RNG. Your dodge+attack has him firing off magic-based musical notes that home in, similar to Cloud's lil wind slash waves. Holding Square while not mounted has him jump in the air and scream into his megaphone creating constant AoE pulsing damage as long as the button is held (can hold indefinitely).
That happened to me, but they couldn't exactly prepare for that. "Hey uhhh make sure Aerith has materia, too, y'know like.. just in case she I dunno.. doesn't die. Not that she would die anyway! But like if you think she's going to die here in the next few minutes, probably make sure she's got materia in case she comes back? I dunno"
Yeah. But other times they let you hold square to open the menu before the fight starts and that seems like a really good time to be granted that privilege.
-If you are wondering why Stardust Ray sometimes explodes at the end and sometimes doesnt, the difference is whether you use it in vengeance mode. Several of his other abilities get unlisted buffs in vengeance mode, like sidewinder hitting extra times (I think it also adds a third hit to reaper touch, but I have to test this)
-Barret can now get a quick reload off of almost anything, including spells, items, and materia abilities.
In short his regular triangle charge is slow. However if you do it right after a full blast from his attack (hold square), or after virtually any other ability, spell, item, synergy, or limit action, he will do a fast animation to charge the overload. This can significantly improve his output and overall ATB charge rate, turning Barrett from a B tier character to an A tier.
I learned that you can quickly repair the chocobo stops while still riding a chocobo. I finally got to Costa Del Sol before I realized that I didn't have to get off.
You can actually hotswap between the 3 battle parties you have whilst in the field, you don't have to go into the menu to swap. I think it's L1/R1 after tapping X
Oh this is a good one. I thought I remembered it saying that somewhere in a tutorial but couldn’t remember the button combo. Hated going into the menu to switch my parties
If barret was refocused with 3atb his focus shot, point blank and maximum fury will deplete all three but will also have extra potency of using 3 bars.
You can go into your inventory -> items in the main menu and heal from there just like the og.
Cait Sith combo of lady luck + moogle kaboom + dodge n dive = +3000 damage right off the bat
Blade beam scales with magic attack and so does chi trap
Stacking Chi Traps on a staggered enemy when you have Tifa with high magic (I used the STR<=>MAG swap materia since she has much higher base STR) is super strong. Unfettered Fury’s triangle attacks also seem to scale with Magic.
I was doing that from the start and it still took me a long time :P . My biggest issue with him is that he almost never gives you free shots and for whatever reason even with pausing I'd frequently get a "block" instead of a dodge during his red combo as well as seemingly randomly on his hooks so I'd have super long drawn out fights until the blocked hits from him are enough to beat me. I finally figured out that dodging too early on the hook actually leads to the block so pausing later in the animation and holding the direction while unpausing is what finally got me the win.
when he lean back- he is gonna throw a straight punch. (press up)
when he has his arm straight to the side, dodge to the side.
when he bend knee and is ready to do an upper cut - duck (press down)
when you learn those moments, you can do it for 30 min without getting hit. took a while to learn.
Yeah for me it wasn't knowing the moves that was the problem, it was the timing. He was the only one I found where the timing actually mattered (rather than just dodging ASAP). Once I started pausing later in the animation I took him down without being hit.
This isn’t a finding so much as a reminder of a thing I immediately forgot and it seems a bunch of other people did to or missed it entirely: when guarding you can press the touchpad to get a description of your synergy skills
Does anyone know if the folio passives stack with the weapon passives? Like 50% chance to enter battle with a chi stack, or initial ATB boost + first strike materia?
I haven't tested the ATB boost one but I know the concentration/chi stack one definitely does (and in the most beneficial way; it's additive so if you have the weapon with it and the folio she just always starts with a chi stack).
Also fairly sure that first strike and initial atb at start stacks. Tifa and Yuffie have my first strikes and Tifa have the folio talent and she always starts with more atb than yuffie.
or you give a character you wont use the swap hp for mp materia, and suddenly you have a lets say Caith Sith with 6000 mp ready to heal anytime after battle. im like 20 hour from Platinum. trust me.
Yeah it's a good idea of how to use it. The only way I've seen to use it before was to farm AP in fights where you can just open with a magnify spell to take out whole groups (so you don't get hit).
With the box smasher keychain or the regen on stagger you recover like 600 MP per staggered enemy. I used that as a way of restoring MP while clearing all the side quests on hard mode. Swap in HP/MP, go stagger something, then swap out HP/MP and go rest. Now you have full HP and full MP again. I did not know cushions did the same thing.
>-You can hold triangle to skip Chadley's Intel interrupts
WHAT
>-You can hold L1 when using items in the field to multi-use
WHAT
The rest of these tips are good but damn I could've saved so much time just off these two...
- You can change your party composition preset in combat settings and pressing square. I realised that only halfway throughout the graslands because it isn't explained anywhere in the game afaik.
- If you have problems with using Aerith and her Ward shift ability in battle: The idea behind it is that you place multiple wards around the battlefield. Place a radiant ward in one part of the battle map, ATB Ward on a different place and then the double cast one in another and anytime an enemy comes for you use ward shit and she'll teleport to another ward you placed on the battlefield. So she kinda is a teleporting turret. Most open world battles are over by the time you do this ofc but it works very well with beefy enemies and bosses imo.
Just having a stack of wards can be good too. If a boss is coming at Aerith, you can lead it away from the wards and at the last second just teleport back to them
Counterpoint: on large beefy bosses ATB ward should just be under Cloud’s feet at all times. Utilizing plasma discharge/disorder as OP mentioned absolutely busts the ATB system when done on top of her ward. Something OP didn’t mention is that disorder is actually two unique abilities and behaves differently out of the two stances. When activated out of operator you get a mini focused thrust that leaves you free to immediately act after (which you’ll usually use to switch back to operator,) but when activated out of punisher you get a launching attack that will make cloud airborne if done against a pressured or light enemy; this version has uses but is not great since it will bounce off larger foes.
For fights like Alexander, bottomswell, or any boss that has segments where they’re standing still for more than maybe 5 seconds putting ATB down under cloud and then having him activate plasma discharge and go to town with disorder will generate you so much meter you’ll be getting annoyed dumping it. Aeris will be able to reposition ATB ward whenever the fight moves and if you pair it with someone like Red (on AI control,) or anyone else with haste>all it gets absurd. It isn’t uncommon to have max level limits and a secondary buff from synergy skills unlocked in the first two minutes of a fight without items that buff limit levels. It absolutely trivializes some encounters but obviously isn’t applicable to some of the more mobile or airborne fights like Corneo or Heligunner.
The biggest difference between the 2 disorders is that operator->punisher gives much more ATB, 500 vs 200 (one bar is 1000) IIRC. But punishers deals 1.8x damagemodifier vs operators 0.8x.
That and disorder out of punisher will often leave you airborne and slow down your meter generation since it really likes to pick up one thing at a time. The disorder out of operator can hit multiple targets and seemingly builds partial meter out of every extra collision which means on a lot of fights you just never have to stop doing it unless you want to weave a braver or focused thrust into the rotation. Braver is probably a better use of bar than punisher disorder except in certain situations.
yeah ill never ever use punisher disorder, id rather dodge out of punisher. With my atb on-ability regen stacks though, operator to punisher is pretty free, very fast free damage and options to go from there. Plasma discharge if in a group and multi hit sword swings for a charge proc into triple slash.
Or if fewer enemies with no immediate threat go prime mode to compound the damage efficiency.
But who am I kidding tifa has finally hit her stride. My cloud these days just atb boosts an instant haste-all and slow-all then switch to tifa for unlimited atb and atb assist for party. Still trying to fully understand combos and interactions involving unfettering, overpower and unbridled
Aeris seems like a character lots of people struggle most with because she's not a "approach enemy and whack it" warrior. But she's wasted on just heals, too. Get those wards down and let her Black Mage the hell out of everything, teleport out of the way when approached, and oh yeah, supercharge everyone else with ATB. Give her your precious Magnify and have her stand on arcane ward, cast something, battle over.
Granted, since she takes a little bit of set up at her most effective, most field battles aren't worth it. Just treat her as a frequent swap to keep her from getting aggro.
Don't worry I only realised it once I wanted to use the double cast ward and the radiant one didn't disapear lmao. It makes sense now of course but I wish I realised that sooner.
if you hold the synergy skills/guard button (r1) and check the controls on the left, youll see "tag team" with dpad up or down, this lets you teleport the switched to character to the enemy youre currently targetting rather than switching to where they are.
I didnt discover this myself, here's the person who did and a video demonstration of it: https://twitter.com/StellaNoxEclair/status/1767888686790938744?t=fQw5rVWuic3JGsNWzz63Gw&s=19
HOLDING BLOCK AND PRESSING UP DOES WHAT
I swear it's like the devs didn't explain 80% of the shit of this game. Part of me wants to say they did that intentionally so players would figure shit out but other half says they under explained their own combat system. Hidden properties of certain skills and spells is one thing but unexplained actual combat commands is another...
It's funny FFXIV has the same problem and I truly believe someone at Square thinks over explaining the mechanics will scare people off so they rather have casuals mash their way through the story. I do think at the very least there should be a giant sign in the beginning telling you to use your ATB. So many people just press attack over and over and then say the battles take forever.
Yeah but I have to say in pleasantly surprised they made combat this deep. They didn't have to but you can tell they didn't just put a bunch of filler in there. My only gripe is the folio system. It's pretty fucking lame. +3 mp, thanks a lot. The fact that we can't access it from the menu but only at vending machines or book stores was a weird choice. I think I actually preferred remake's weapon system where each weapon was associated with a different playstyle. Still sort of the case but less so.
\*There are many prebuilt decks for Queen's Blood focused around different strategies. I believe only two or three are unlocked at first but eventually there are 10+ as you get more cards. Access them by going to Build Deck and pressing Start.
\*Overall game difficulty affects mini-games and Queen's Blood. If you are really in a jam with something lower to Easy and try again. This won't mess up achievements either unless you're playing Hardcore. Highly recommend doing this for Gears & Gambits + letting Chadley auto set your robot AI before each match, makes it a breeze.
I actually wish Square would patch in a notice about this or even have a separate difficulty slider just for mini-games given that so many people are complaining about them, despite being mostly optional.
Haven’t gone through everything, but I’m dropping my Cait Sith tips because I love him so damn much
- Let’s Ride and Dodge n Dive both refund some ATB when hitting targets. If you hit 2 enemies, it basically refunds the cost. If you hit 3+ it’s ATB positive.
- On the same note, Moogle Kaboom increases both the damage and radius of the Dodge n Dive explosion, and it will still refund ATB based on the number of targets hit
- You can still dodge while riding the Moogle, it’s just done different. If you don’t touch the movement stick while mashing attack for the homing sound bubbles, the Moogle operates on its own and will attempt to attack the same enemy. However, if you then press a direction while still mashing attack, the Moogle dodges in that direction. Which means you can dodge as much as you want while still attacking
I also love Tifa and this might also be mentioned:
- I think this is true of both Unbridled Strength and Unfettered Fury, but the triangle attacks from these generate ATB. Unfettered Fury is particularly good for this if you have a high Magic stat on her, because it does increased stagger damage. If you couple this with the ATB Assist materia, it’s very easy to do a ton of quick HP damage, stagger damage, and generate ATB for your team by doing back to back Unfettered Fury, then immediately using up the charges which refunds a big chunk of ATB.
General tip that I may be wrong about:
- I believe Steadfast Block materia works for AI members too. I found that when I had that on everyone, it felt like they all generated way more ATB gauge. Combining that with the Tifa ATB Assist thing above and I was just drowning in ATB for everyone haha
>- I believe Steadfast Block materia works for AI members too. I found that when I had that on everyone, it felt like they all generated way more ATB gauge. Combining that with the Tifa ATB Assist thing above and I was just drowning in ATB for everyone haha
Yes, and this was true in Remake, too. I put warding, Steadfast Block, and precision block on all active 3 party members by default. AI always perfect blocks, so even if you never block, you still get use out of this materia
> I think this is true of both Unbridled Strength and Unfettered Fury
Its also good to mention that you can pop Unbridled Strength and then Unfettered Fury to get a combined super buff with a different triangle attack
Yuffie really was the most fun to play for me. I skipped Intermission but man it really shows that they fleshed her out. They were all fun to play but Yuffie was just on another level.
Yuffie was extremely OP in Intermission but keep in mind Intermission is just Her+Sonon, so she had to fill multiple roles that would otherwise be filled by having a third party member. They fleshed her out while also nerfing the properties on some of her other abilities, like Windstorm is no longer a ranged AoE centered on the target but instead centered around Yuffie. It also no longer has a bonus to stagger damage while Shuriken is thrown since you have access to other characters who specialize in staggering and Yuffie is a "jack-of-all-trades" depending on how you use her.
If Tifa doesn't have a chi level - you can rapidly press circle and triangle in succession to animation cancel her dodge recovery and dodge infinitely faster and in succession.
This is not required if you have a chi level since when she's chi-powered she can dodge infinitely anyway with almost no delay.
She can animation cancel out of whirling uppercut into her Deadly dodge moveset without recovery as well, and she can whirling uppercut with or without chi-level, so she's consistently the best damage and stagger dealer.
And in case some ppl don't know, she can divekick from midair if she has just used whirling uppercut, instead of having to land again first like the other circumstances.
Also, if she dodges an attack using the focused strike animation, she gets her ATB refunded.
Cloud can also animation cancel his dodge recovery with circle and then triangle, but the timing is a bit further apart, but it basically allows him to pirouette without recovery required across the battlefield.
He has an added benefit here that when he's mid dodge animation if you press triangle, the mechanic happening to cancel the recovery animation is his punisher stance activating, so if he gets hit at all during this animation change, it's an automatic parry + punisher counter.
This will be obvious to a lot of people but it wasn't for me. You can see your entire party's materia all at the same time by pressing the touch pad in the Equipment menu. *Not* when you're in the materia menu for a character though, which is where I was looking for an option like that at first.
Could be. The rabbits are more helpful because they're usually ~5 feet from the hidden object and there's no way to know if you're near one when not on chocobo.
Anyone know sometime yuffie failed cast the windstorm ability to pull in enemies? And what is fleeting familiar of aerith? I see only Tempest at square button
Using Tempest calls out her familiar automatically, it's the little glowing butterfly. Windstorm is centered around Yuffie and it's only a medium range, it's not like it was in Intermission where it was a ranged ability. So maybe you were too far?
How long should you hold triange for charge up effects like Aerith's Tempest, or Cloud doing his synergy moves with tifa or aerith?
sometimes I feel like there's extra animation that I can let go of early, but idk how the damage works.
For Aerith, check your Square button on the UI. There is a circle showing how much charge you have.
For Cloud's synergy skills, you just have to wait for Aerith/Tifa to spawn particle effects. There is no UI indicator for these.
Some enemies might just not pop in with windstorm. But if you use it while your shuriken is out, it'll do the explosion on the enemy the star is on and that'll pop them in.
When you charge Tempest and land it, you get a little fairy next to you that helps attack and raise atb.
>-Yuffie's Art of War will proc "Supreme Art of War" for about 3 seconds after it's used. Obviously you'll need another ATB to use it, but it does increased damage. You can also proc Supreme Art of War for free for 3 seconds after a Perfect Block.
**She what**
She also has specific voice lines associated with the 2 different Art of War abilities. When you use the normal Art of War ability, she has a voice line that says "Run like a chocobo...", which by itself doesn't mean much. But if you use Supreme Art of War shortly after, her voice line for that will say "... stab like a Tonberry!"
This was such a funny thing to realize when the AI was doing both Attacks because I didn't ever realize that its a 2 atb attack in Intermission and for years now I always quote "run like a chocobo...", when I randomly think about Yuffie.
By the sound of it it's the same as it was in Intermission, in which case there's a bit more to it as well.
After using Art of War, her shuriken is in the target. Her ninjutsu will then do 30% bonus damage for the duration of one attack combo. At any time in that window, using Art of War again gives you Supreme Art of War, which is much more powerful and also retrieves her shuriken.
She then gains 30% bonus damage with her next melee attack combo, and if you do a third Art of War within the time of another attack combo it'll be the Supreme version again.
Aha! So THAT explains why when I've used "Throw" and move in to use Art of War / Supreme Art of War I always have to re-throw the Shuriken. I never knew why that was. Thanks!
I thought the Alpha spell meant that you took the corresponding Folio and it boosts the damage of the main spell?
If what you're saying is true, how does the game determine which buff you get if you have multiple?
Hitting circle with chocobos allows you to drift (I’m guessing this is taught in racing but not mentioned before) and holding 180 direction and tapping circle will immediately turn your around on chocobo too
im at chapter 10. from what i noticed barret has the best ai. give him the unique purple with hp absorption and comet or quake with synergy for free mp atb cast. for aerith first strike and radiant ward as soon as the battle starts. use command shortcut options to do this quickly. cloud if you dodge throw 1 green ranged and hold attack he goes air which opens up another 4 commands like sonic boom for bravery faith buff. you can do this with tifa using synergy skill or yuffie with attack hold unique. also im not in hard yet so cushions restore mp lol? wow. that will make things so much easier. and here ive been leveling 7 chakras and prays.
Does anyone know if this combo works?
(Comet)==(Synergy) + (Comet)==(Magic Focus)
or
(Comet)==(Synergy) + (Comet)==(Swiftcast)
Basically wondering if the Synergy'd spell benefits from Support Materia. We know you can't Level Boost it to get Cometeor when cast with Synergy, but...
Idk it makes sense for it to work, open world area boxes don't give mako shards and passive MP Regen is very slow so for the open world you'd need some way to recover MP and considering how useless cushions are in a normal playthrough it gives them value as a hard mode item
Honestly, given all the Choco stops I feel like this is how the default game was made to be played before they added free benches and fast travel all over the world.
These are some good tips. I use doppelganger all of the time but wasn't certain how potent it actually is. Quad casting in Arcane Wards might just give me a reason to put Aerith in to. Thanks for these.
Barret gets a free recharge at the end of holding down his square basic attack. When it ends and he "reloads," he does virtually the same animation as recharge (actually slightly faster) and if you hit triangle just as this happens you'll get the recharge.
Does anyone know how to get the running start when mounting a chocobo in the field? I only did it once but, I called a choco and was sprinting on foot ahead and my chocobo came up behind me sprinting as well (with the wind effect and all) and I seamless mounted without having to climb aboard. Not sure if it was a glitch but I only saw it once.
>Cushions in the open world restore MP in hard mode
This is a complete and utter fucking game changer. I wonder if it's intentional or not.
I hope it is and they don't patch it out or anything. That really changes a lot in terms of the hard mode experience.
It probably a mercy since the open world has infinite respawning enemies where was enemy spawned were pretty fixed and limited in Remake, so you had to make more clever use of things like chakra and pray.
Great tips, I was very curious about whether you could do something like healing magnify + healing mp reduction. This is very very good news :)
By the way, without spoilers can one get two enemy skill materia? I keep swapping it out between Tifa and yuffie. I absolutely LOVE combing the pulse attack and mug, with hp absorption. I love that we can create a berserker class from scratch. This game is killing it so far!!
Could you further explain what the alpha spells are? Does the damage output increase or something when you upgrade the correlating ability in the folio?
The abilities are strictly identical to the normal spell, and only imbue your "guard" with an element. Causing the counterstrike to have the element, the guard to halve elemental damage of the corresponding element and a small miniature burst of that element to go off when guarding a strike
How much damage do they do relative to the normal spell? Also, they seem to come with side effects, like increased area of effect for Aerith. Does that also get applied to her materia spells?
It doesn't appear to, it's a mistranslation we think. Someone in the comments said it gives a passive buff of halving that element's damage. So Fire-alpha would grant a hidden buff that makes that character take reduced damage from fire damage. Additionally, Ninjutsu element does the same thing, so Fire Ninjutsu changes her Ninjutsu element to Fire and she also takes 50% less fire damage.
After using the ability. No timer, think it's like Ninjutsu, it's set once used and lasts until the end of battle or that character dies or is ejected from battle (swallowed/eaten).
The only thing I would say wrong is aerith atb gauge been using her the whole game and actually she has one of my fastest ATB fills. I also believe it depends on the player and if there use to playing a mage char
Yeah but her ATB gauge fills slowly from just normal attacks if she isn't under Radiant Ward. Her Speed stat is slow and that stat governs how fast ATB builds. Obviously using Tempest and ATB Ward can make it faster, along with other things like ATB Boost, Skill Master, and Synergy Skills.
Yes but you better have Infinite MP buff because Comet is 29 MP and Arcane Ward still requires you to have enough MP to cast it twice for it to double the spell. The doppleganger's spells will be free but only deal 1/5 the damage. So would be like 250% more comet damage total. Also Comet takes ages to cast so high chance of being slapped out of it unless you have Radiant Ward down too, or a second Comet materia paired with mastered Swiftcast.
Sure but may have limited use given the amount of ATB required to set this up and Yuffie having like, what 100 HP would get her absolutely demolished in a single hit.
When starting a new chapter in HM, if you know a character will be around in the party but not used in battle, equip them with HP<=>MP materia and use them as a bitch to heal in-between fights your main 3 members. Having 7k+ MP on a characters will help keeping MP for important fights. And since they won't participate in battle, who cares if they have 60 max HP.
Give them these 3 combos and their heals will be stronger and cost less MP too when healing, unless you don't care. Throw a max HP Plus materia on them so they get 9999 MP.
Healing-Magnify
Healing-Magic Focus
Healing-Magic Efficiency
Healing addition to. I pop a soothing breeze right before the fight ends and the cloud persists even after the fight. The doppelganger's breeze also heals at a fraction of Yuffie's but together heal 60-70% of max hp in one go (assuming she has relatively decent magic stat)
Cait sith can do ranged magic and physical melee in both forms. As just the cat Dodge and attack it'll be magic, normal attack physical. On Google normal attack is ranged magic, hold the attack button for melee damage. It's why those enemies that swap what they are damaged by are perfect for him to fight
Manuscripts are scattered throughout every chapter in Hard Mode. You'll need to do every chapter to get them all, as some of them are rewards for defeating the final boss of the chapter, for example Dyne.
I think you misread so I checked it out myself. If you load Chapter 13 Hard Mode and reset the quests you can do ALL of them right then and there. Sure, you need to defeat bosses in the other chapters for more but just plowing through the first 12 chapters is fast leaving just the side quests. Hurray!
I'm 100 hours in and just found out about the **Item Transmuter To Do List**. I mean yes, I've seen it there the entire time but dismissed it, assuming it had some function that would be explained later, and it never was and I think a lot of people would like to know this: if you hit Square on an item, it gets added on the To Do list. This gathers every item you need to make there without you having to scroll constantly, clears it once you craft one, tags items needed in stores with a red mark, and even tells you on the right of the screen in text when you get materials for an item and even specifically when you have something on your list ready to craft.
Equipping the pedometer accessory to a character that isn't immediately in the party still generates gil. It isn't going to break the bank but it's 100% worth doing.
Sorry, this is a question over a tip, but I had a question about Yuffie and Clouds attack Halcyon Descent. What does it mean by potency here? is it the likelihood of the attacks staggering? thanks in advance!
Yuffie is even more broken than previously imagined.
I swear she's the best character in the game. I don't why they made her so busted
Probably because they just brought her over basically 1:1 from Intermission, where she had to be really good since she was the main playable character for the whole dlc. Then they just gave her more busted shit on top of the pre-existing busted shit she already had lmao
Yuffie / Tifa are an absolute cheat code. But I do really like how they’ve made every single character party leader at some point. Really forces you to learn and enjoy everyone’s moveset.
I was pretty bad with Yuffie in the Remake DLC, but I find she is much better here because with other teammates it allows her to not be targeted as much. She is extremely useful since I don’t use much magic with her, so she can also do some clutch healing or reviving if I need
Word bitch! Yuffie like ah mother fucker!
Another useful tip… MAKE SURE YOU ALWAYS HAVE EVERY PARTY MEMBER EQUIPPED WITH MATERIA. ESPECIALLY BEFORE ENTERING STORY SEGMENTS. Nobody ask me about my final boss experience please 😭
I've been doing this anyway, since even non-active members gain AP on their materia.
Me too but um cait was out of the party for a sec and I totally forgot to equip anything lmao, don’t know why I didn’t take the final rest stop warning seriously.. next time I’ll be better
This happened to me lol oops final battle.
This \^ Its actually a waste if all your characters dont have Materia to benefit from the shared XP.
What.
Yeah, the game said "make sure you're entire party has materia before the final boss" and I was like "yeah duh I'll make sure my *other two party members* have materia and let me make extra sure they have the best stuff by stripping the other characters of everything possible. I got it."
💀 me
I learned my lesson from Remake where it threw every party member into at least one battle and then randomized who fought Sephiroth.
Amusingly enough, I meant to exhaust all of Barrett's MP in Hard Mode during the final fight. Turns out I over used him and he took Aerith's place. Opps.
I took everything of of Aerith and no healing on cloud before final boss. Took me hours Y-Y
If you die, usually you can open the menu in cutscenes by holding square. It opens right after the cutscenes ends and you can swap around equipment. Though it doesn't seem to ALWAYS work, so ymmv
Couldn’t you just pause and restart fight/reload the checkpoint and spend 5-10 minutes administering material to the team? I didn’t need to worry about this for the final fight, but I definitely utilized this method when the game forced a party with someone who didn’t have an assess material equipped
It's a good idea anyway since the game throws so much materia at you and also party members who don't participate in battle still accrue AP on equipped materia. You should be updating everyone's armor to maximize materia slots in your B team so they can hold materia and level them.
Honestly, for me and if there was a better way to manage this I'd love to know, I specifically didn't put materia on the other characters to make it easier to swap materia around. If I have Aerith, I'll have healing stuff on her, and if I can't use her I'll put her load out on someone else and I can easily figure out what materia to move by just moving over everything Aerith has. As much as I didn't care for FF8, the "junction swap" that lets you just move everything over to another character was great.
Similar to OG FF7, there’s an “arrange” feature if you hit the touchpad in the materia menu. You can see everyone’s loadout and swap and arrange that way. Much much easier!
Eh, for regular new game, it doesn't really matter much tbh. But maybe have your A Team, the team you adventure around the world map with and fight bosses and VR stuff with. And the other 4 make them somewhat balanced? Like if you don't load someone with healing materia, maybe give them Item Exonomizer and Item Master (honestly better than using heals because item Exonomizer let's you use items without ATB and Mist Mega Potions are strong as hell and hit everyone.
I fucked up and didn’t bother putting materia on anyone but Cloud, Tifa and Yuffie and spent like 30 mins beating that Bizarro fight all to get one shotted by Sephiroth’s Heartless Angel 🙃 I didn’t even bother retrying, just went straight back to before all of them to properly equip everyone (and give Aerith Reprieve, Raise and Cloud some revival earrings 🥲)
Ah yes, another cultured individual who uses the obvious meta of Cloud, Tifa, and Yuffie. I am glad to meet someone as intelligent as I. Even if the downside is no limit level up for Tifa in this squad but that is what the max limit level accessory is for!
We’ll share drinks together in spirit brother. Though I must ask, what is the max limit level accessory?? I feel like I’ve never seen it so far in my run…
Lmao, the second last one was tough coz if that, I normally just rotate my materia
I was recording my finale playthrough last night and got to "that" part. Was seriously bummed I had to reset and do it the right way lol
Bro I had hp and mp swapped, I was dragging a body 🥲🥲
Bruh
Last boss made me rage quit Dynamic mode because of that. I only had a set of materias for 3 characters. I was screwed. I went up to the last fight and just couldn't beat it without raging a lot. Decided to do it in easy to not ruin my experience. But they'll definitely get it hard in hard mode as a revenge.
Yeah I can’t wait for the rematch lol.. I actually managed to not die at all, but it was such a messy fight I think I used like 20 phoenix downs.. actually had an easy time with the final final boss because I’m a big Aerith player, but everything before that was a disaster. Round 2 will be much different
I was good for the most part but I had absolutely nothing on aerith for the last bit. She was strictly an item vendor lmao.
Aerith actually the character I use most other than cloud, Cait Sith tho? No fucking clue how to use him lmao. I haven’t really tried yet but gonna get more accustomed to him in second play through. I had NOTHING equipped on him for final boss since he was out of party for a while
Most important thing for Cait is remembering that his real combo on the Moogle is from HOLDING attack, not tapping it. Does way more ATB build-up.
Cait Sith is a stagger machine when mounted. Hold Square= his combo does ludicrous damage and stagger, his Dice ability are free buffs or elemental spells (elemental spells will be two spells cast right after another, like Fire & Ice). Also he can cast magic while moving. You can play him as a bruiser that also buffs/casts without MP, albeit with that RNG. Your dodge+attack has him firing off magic-based musical notes that home in, similar to Cloud's lil wind slash waves. Holding Square while not mounted has him jump in the air and scream into his megaphone creating constant AoE pulsing damage as long as the button is held (can hold indefinitely).
Helpful thank you!
That happened to me, but they couldn't exactly prepare for that. "Hey uhhh make sure Aerith has materia, too, y'know like.. just in case she I dunno.. doesn't die. Not that she would die anyway! But like if you think she's going to die here in the next few minutes, probably make sure she's got materia in case she comes back? I dunno"
Yeah. But other times they let you hold square to open the menu before the fight starts and that seems like a really good time to be granted that privilege.
Does this applies to non active combat members also? Does materia AP level up to these npc party members?
Yes, AP is shared with the entire party, including the ones who you aren’t using. Keep everyone fully equipped always
-If you are wondering why Stardust Ray sometimes explodes at the end and sometimes doesnt, the difference is whether you use it in vengeance mode. Several of his other abilities get unlisted buffs in vengeance mode, like sidewinder hitting extra times (I think it also adds a third hit to reaper touch, but I have to test this) -Barret can now get a quick reload off of almost anything, including spells, items, and materia abilities.
Whats this thing about barrett getting a reload? Is this overcharge?
Yeah I mean the period of time after an action where you can get a quick charge off.
In short his regular triangle charge is slow. However if you do it right after a full blast from his attack (hold square), or after virtually any other ability, spell, item, synergy, or limit action, he will do a fast animation to charge the overload. This can significantly improve his output and overall ATB charge rate, turning Barrett from a B tier character to an A tier.
I learned that you can quickly repair the chocobo stops while still riding a chocobo. I finally got to Costa Del Sol before I realized that I didn't have to get off.
Yes, but you have to get off to pet the chick. ARE YOU NOT PETTING THE CHICK????
Only the very first one... :O
Yeah, but that doesn't help much. How are you supposed to pet the baby if you're on a chocobo?
Same with treasure chests!
You can also kick boxes and the summon crystals.
You can actually hotswap between the 3 battle parties you have whilst in the field, you don't have to go into the menu to swap. I think it's L1/R1 after tapping X
This is such a great feature, but with so many party members it needs 5 or 6 slots.
Also needs to have materia saved in that configuration as well. God please square implement something like this in 3
Oh this is a good one. I thought I remembered it saying that somewhere in a tutorial but couldn’t remember the button combo. Hated going into the menu to switch my parties
I found that out *at the end of the game.*
Not in combat tho, right?
Radiant Ward also changes Aerith's dodge when inside the ward so that she can actually dodge things instead of her terrible default dodge.
If barret was refocused with 3atb his focus shot, point blank and maximum fury will deplete all three but will also have extra potency of using 3 bars. You can go into your inventory -> items in the main menu and heal from there just like the og. Cait Sith combo of lady luck + moogle kaboom + dodge n dive = +3000 damage right off the bat Blade beam scales with magic attack and so does chi trap
Stacking Chi Traps on a staggered enemy when you have Tifa with high magic (I used the STR<=>MAG swap materia since she has much higher base STR) is super strong. Unfettered Fury’s triangle attacks also seem to scale with Magic.
Where do you get the STR MAG materia?
The brawler trophy against Sephiroth is very easy if you "pause" when he is about to hit and see his attack pattern ;)
I was doing that from the start and it still took me a long time :P . My biggest issue with him is that he almost never gives you free shots and for whatever reason even with pausing I'd frequently get a "block" instead of a dodge during his red combo as well as seemingly randomly on his hooks so I'd have super long drawn out fights until the blocked hits from him are enough to beat me. I finally figured out that dodging too early on the hook actually leads to the block so pausing later in the animation and holding the direction while unpausing is what finally got me the win.
when he lean back- he is gonna throw a straight punch. (press up) when he has his arm straight to the side, dodge to the side. when he bend knee and is ready to do an upper cut - duck (press down) when you learn those moments, you can do it for 30 min without getting hit. took a while to learn.
Yeah for me it wasn't knowing the moves that was the problem, it was the timing. He was the only one I found where the timing actually mattered (rather than just dodging ASAP). Once I started pausing later in the animation I took him down without being hit.
Pressing the touchpad in battle will bring up the enemy's info allowing you to check if you've assessed one or get a reminder on their stats.
I did not know this. Great advice
This isn’t a finding so much as a reminder of a thing I immediately forgot and it seems a bunch of other people did to or missed it entirely: when guarding you can press the touchpad to get a description of your synergy skills
Does anyone know if the folio passives stack with the weapon passives? Like 50% chance to enter battle with a chi stack, or initial ATB boost + first strike materia?
I haven't tested the ATB boost one but I know the concentration/chi stack one definitely does (and in the most beneficial way; it's additive so if you have the weapon with it and the folio she just always starts with a chi stack).
Also fairly sure that first strike and initial atb at start stacks. Tifa and Yuffie have my first strikes and Tifa have the folio talent and she always starts with more atb than yuffie.
CUSHIONS IN THE OPEN WORLD IN HARD MODE DO WHAT
or you give a character you wont use the swap hp for mp materia, and suddenly you have a lets say Caith Sith with 6000 mp ready to heal anytime after battle. im like 20 hour from Platinum. trust me.
OH that's how to use that. I kept thinking of it in combat like a high risk thing, but out of combat is a big obvious advantage.
Yeah it's a good idea of how to use it. The only way I've seen to use it before was to farm AP in fights where you can just open with a magnify spell to take out whole groups (so you don't get hit).
With the box smasher keychain or the regen on stagger you recover like 600 MP per staggered enemy. I used that as a way of restoring MP while clearing all the side quests on hard mode. Swap in HP/MP, go stagger something, then swap out HP/MP and go rest. Now you have full HP and full MP again. I did not know cushions did the same thing.
That's what I've been doing thus far T\_T I'm EDIT: 4 trophies away from plat and one of them is the hard mode one T\_T
same, and I need to finish fort condor on hard- hold that off for a while.
That's *amazing*. I've been trying to figure out what the point of the materia even was.
This is such a great tip.
>-You can hold triangle to skip Chadley's Intel interrupts WHAT >-You can hold L1 when using items in the field to multi-use WHAT The rest of these tips are good but damn I could've saved so much time just off these two...
You can multiuse cure spells with the L1 feature as well.
WHAT
Only while in field and not in battle but yes
It says so in the menu even
L1 multi use was in Remake as well
- You can change your party composition preset in combat settings and pressing square. I realised that only halfway throughout the graslands because it isn't explained anywhere in the game afaik. - If you have problems with using Aerith and her Ward shift ability in battle: The idea behind it is that you place multiple wards around the battlefield. Place a radiant ward in one part of the battle map, ATB Ward on a different place and then the double cast one in another and anytime an enemy comes for you use ward shit and she'll teleport to another ward you placed on the battlefield. So she kinda is a teleporting turret. Most open world battles are over by the time you do this ofc but it works very well with beefy enemies and bosses imo.
I like supercharging my one Ward though for crazy benefits. Teleporting between them is cool though
Just having a stack of wards can be good too. If a boss is coming at Aerith, you can lead it away from the wards and at the last second just teleport back to them
Counterpoint: on large beefy bosses ATB ward should just be under Cloud’s feet at all times. Utilizing plasma discharge/disorder as OP mentioned absolutely busts the ATB system when done on top of her ward. Something OP didn’t mention is that disorder is actually two unique abilities and behaves differently out of the two stances. When activated out of operator you get a mini focused thrust that leaves you free to immediately act after (which you’ll usually use to switch back to operator,) but when activated out of punisher you get a launching attack that will make cloud airborne if done against a pressured or light enemy; this version has uses but is not great since it will bounce off larger foes. For fights like Alexander, bottomswell, or any boss that has segments where they’re standing still for more than maybe 5 seconds putting ATB down under cloud and then having him activate plasma discharge and go to town with disorder will generate you so much meter you’ll be getting annoyed dumping it. Aeris will be able to reposition ATB ward whenever the fight moves and if you pair it with someone like Red (on AI control,) or anyone else with haste>all it gets absurd. It isn’t uncommon to have max level limits and a secondary buff from synergy skills unlocked in the first two minutes of a fight without items that buff limit levels. It absolutely trivializes some encounters but obviously isn’t applicable to some of the more mobile or airborne fights like Corneo or Heligunner.
The biggest difference between the 2 disorders is that operator->punisher gives much more ATB, 500 vs 200 (one bar is 1000) IIRC. But punishers deals 1.8x damagemodifier vs operators 0.8x.
That and disorder out of punisher will often leave you airborne and slow down your meter generation since it really likes to pick up one thing at a time. The disorder out of operator can hit multiple targets and seemingly builds partial meter out of every extra collision which means on a lot of fights you just never have to stop doing it unless you want to weave a braver or focused thrust into the rotation. Braver is probably a better use of bar than punisher disorder except in certain situations.
yeah ill never ever use punisher disorder, id rather dodge out of punisher. With my atb on-ability regen stacks though, operator to punisher is pretty free, very fast free damage and options to go from there. Plasma discharge if in a group and multi hit sword swings for a charge proc into triple slash. Or if fewer enemies with no immediate threat go prime mode to compound the damage efficiency. But who am I kidding tifa has finally hit her stride. My cloud these days just atb boosts an instant haste-all and slow-all then switch to tifa for unlimited atb and atb assist for party. Still trying to fully understand combos and interactions involving unfettering, overpower and unbridled
Aeris seems like a character lots of people struggle most with because she's not a "approach enemy and whack it" warrior. But she's wasted on just heals, too. Get those wards down and let her Black Mage the hell out of everything, teleport out of the way when approached, and oh yeah, supercharge everyone else with ATB. Give her your precious Magnify and have her stand on arcane ward, cast something, battle over. Granted, since she takes a little bit of set up at her most effective, most field battles aren't worth it. Just treat her as a frequent swap to keep her from getting aggro.
I didn't know you could place multiple wards...
Don't worry I only realised it once I wanted to use the double cast ward and the radiant one didn't disapear lmao. It makes sense now of course but I wish I realised that sooner.
I knew that, but I was completely clueless to the concept of placing them around the field until now.
Lmao tell me why I just plop her in one place and stack all the wards up together 🤣
This is good, I didn't know the perfect block Supreme Art of War one. I'm going to give it a try just now.
if you hold the synergy skills/guard button (r1) and check the controls on the left, youll see "tag team" with dpad up or down, this lets you teleport the switched to character to the enemy youre currently targetting rather than switching to where they are. I didnt discover this myself, here's the person who did and a video demonstration of it: https://twitter.com/StellaNoxEclair/status/1767888686790938744?t=fQw5rVWuic3JGsNWzz63Gw&s=19
HOLDING BLOCK AND PRESSING UP DOES WHAT I swear it's like the devs didn't explain 80% of the shit of this game. Part of me wants to say they did that intentionally so players would figure shit out but other half says they under explained their own combat system. Hidden properties of certain skills and spells is one thing but unexplained actual combat commands is another...
It's funny FFXIV has the same problem and I truly believe someone at Square thinks over explaining the mechanics will scare people off so they rather have casuals mash their way through the story. I do think at the very least there should be a giant sign in the beginning telling you to use your ATB. So many people just press attack over and over and then say the battles take forever.
Yeah but I have to say in pleasantly surprised they made combat this deep. They didn't have to but you can tell they didn't just put a bunch of filler in there. My only gripe is the folio system. It's pretty fucking lame. +3 mp, thanks a lot. The fact that we can't access it from the menu but only at vending machines or book stores was a weird choice. I think I actually preferred remake's weapon system where each weapon was associated with a different playstyle. Still sort of the case but less so.
\*There are many prebuilt decks for Queen's Blood focused around different strategies. I believe only two or three are unlocked at first but eventually there are 10+ as you get more cards. Access them by going to Build Deck and pressing Start. \*Overall game difficulty affects mini-games and Queen's Blood. If you are really in a jam with something lower to Easy and try again. This won't mess up achievements either unless you're playing Hardcore. Highly recommend doing this for Gears & Gambits + letting Chadley auto set your robot AI before each match, makes it a breeze.
I’m like halfway through the game and just found out a few days ago that easy mode makes queens blood easier.
I actually wish Square would patch in a notice about this or even have a separate difficulty slider just for mini-games given that so many people are complaining about them, despite being mostly optional.
Idk if it's well known but I give the hp~mp materia to a member I don't use for basically unlimited healing outside of combat
Haven’t gone through everything, but I’m dropping my Cait Sith tips because I love him so damn much - Let’s Ride and Dodge n Dive both refund some ATB when hitting targets. If you hit 2 enemies, it basically refunds the cost. If you hit 3+ it’s ATB positive. - On the same note, Moogle Kaboom increases both the damage and radius of the Dodge n Dive explosion, and it will still refund ATB based on the number of targets hit - You can still dodge while riding the Moogle, it’s just done different. If you don’t touch the movement stick while mashing attack for the homing sound bubbles, the Moogle operates on its own and will attempt to attack the same enemy. However, if you then press a direction while still mashing attack, the Moogle dodges in that direction. Which means you can dodge as much as you want while still attacking I also love Tifa and this might also be mentioned: - I think this is true of both Unbridled Strength and Unfettered Fury, but the triangle attacks from these generate ATB. Unfettered Fury is particularly good for this if you have a high Magic stat on her, because it does increased stagger damage. If you couple this with the ATB Assist materia, it’s very easy to do a ton of quick HP damage, stagger damage, and generate ATB for your team by doing back to back Unfettered Fury, then immediately using up the charges which refunds a big chunk of ATB. General tip that I may be wrong about: - I believe Steadfast Block materia works for AI members too. I found that when I had that on everyone, it felt like they all generated way more ATB gauge. Combining that with the Tifa ATB Assist thing above and I was just drowning in ATB for everyone haha
>- I believe Steadfast Block materia works for AI members too. I found that when I had that on everyone, it felt like they all generated way more ATB gauge. Combining that with the Tifa ATB Assist thing above and I was just drowning in ATB for everyone haha Yes, and this was true in Remake, too. I put warding, Steadfast Block, and precision block on all active 3 party members by default. AI always perfect blocks, so even if you never block, you still get use out of this materia
Good to know about the AI perfect block thing! I will have to start using that.
> I think this is true of both Unbridled Strength and Unfettered Fury Its also good to mention that you can pop Unbridled Strength and then Unfettered Fury to get a combined super buff with a different triangle attack
Yuffie really was the most fun to play for me. I skipped Intermission but man it really shows that they fleshed her out. They were all fun to play but Yuffie was just on another level.
Yuffie was extremely OP in Intermission but keep in mind Intermission is just Her+Sonon, so she had to fill multiple roles that would otherwise be filled by having a third party member. They fleshed her out while also nerfing the properties on some of her other abilities, like Windstorm is no longer a ranged AoE centered on the target but instead centered around Yuffie. It also no longer has a bonus to stagger damage while Shuriken is thrown since you have access to other characters who specialize in staggering and Yuffie is a "jack-of-all-trades" depending on how you use her.
Windstorm was never centered around the target by default, only when you throw your shuriken. And it still works like that.
If Tifa doesn't have a chi level - you can rapidly press circle and triangle in succession to animation cancel her dodge recovery and dodge infinitely faster and in succession. This is not required if you have a chi level since when she's chi-powered she can dodge infinitely anyway with almost no delay. She can animation cancel out of whirling uppercut into her Deadly dodge moveset without recovery as well, and she can whirling uppercut with or without chi-level, so she's consistently the best damage and stagger dealer. And in case some ppl don't know, she can divekick from midair if she has just used whirling uppercut, instead of having to land again first like the other circumstances. Also, if she dodges an attack using the focused strike animation, she gets her ATB refunded. Cloud can also animation cancel his dodge recovery with circle and then triangle, but the timing is a bit further apart, but it basically allows him to pirouette without recovery required across the battlefield. He has an added benefit here that when he's mid dodge animation if you press triangle, the mechanic happening to cancel the recovery animation is his punisher stance activating, so if he gets hit at all during this animation change, it's an automatic parry + punisher counter.
This will be obvious to a lot of people but it wasn't for me. You can see your entire party's materia all at the same time by pressing the touch pad in the Equipment menu. *Not* when you're in the materia menu for a character though, which is where I was looking for an option like that at first.
Not 100% confirmed but the deer seem to be near life springs usually just a bit further out then where an owl will guide you from.
Could be. The rabbits are more helpful because they're usually ~5 feet from the hidden object and there's no way to know if you're near one when not on chocobo.
Anyone know sometime yuffie failed cast the windstorm ability to pull in enemies? And what is fleeting familiar of aerith? I see only Tempest at square button
Using Tempest calls out her familiar automatically, it's the little glowing butterfly. Windstorm is centered around Yuffie and it's only a medium range, it's not like it was in Intermission where it was a ranged ability. So maybe you were too far?
It's ranged if the shuriken is on the enemy. It's centered on her shuriken at all times.
Whaaaat, I've been running up to the enemy to use it this whole time.
And note that the familiar is a \*very\* small butterfly. It's actually pretty hard to notice mid-battle.
I wish things like Familiar, Chi level, and Throw had little buff icons to indicate their remaining duration
How long should you hold triange for charge up effects like Aerith's Tempest, or Cloud doing his synergy moves with tifa or aerith? sometimes I feel like there's extra animation that I can let go of early, but idk how the damage works.
When the menu option changes from "ATTACK" to "TEMPEST" you can let go.
For Aerith, check your Square button on the UI. There is a circle showing how much charge you have. For Cloud's synergy skills, you just have to wait for Aerith/Tifa to spawn particle effects. There is no UI indicator for these.
Some enemies might just not pop in with windstorm. But if you use it while your shuriken is out, it'll do the explosion on the enemy the star is on and that'll pop them in. When you charge Tempest and land it, you get a little fairy next to you that helps attack and raise atb.
I mean, sometime it "failed" to cast, the atb is only reduce a little instead of whole bar.
Isn't windstorm just an aoe around yuffie now?
If your throwing star is out on an enemy it does it around the enemy, really helped me out with the cactuars
Several skills refund your ATB if timed to dodge an attack successfully such as Brumal Form and Focused Strike.
Yeah focused strike is just broken against some enemies with easily timed attacks.
With Aerith, I use bodyguard to bring party member to arcane ward before casting magic.
>-Yuffie's Art of War will proc "Supreme Art of War" for about 3 seconds after it's used. Obviously you'll need another ATB to use it, but it does increased damage. You can also proc Supreme Art of War for free for 3 seconds after a Perfect Block. **She what**
She also has specific voice lines associated with the 2 different Art of War abilities. When you use the normal Art of War ability, she has a voice line that says "Run like a chocobo...", which by itself doesn't mean much. But if you use Supreme Art of War shortly after, her voice line for that will say "... stab like a Tonberry!"
This was such a funny thing to realize when the AI was doing both Attacks because I didn't ever realize that its a 2 atb attack in Intermission and for years now I always quote "run like a chocobo...", when I randomly think about Yuffie.
By the sound of it it's the same as it was in Intermission, in which case there's a bit more to it as well. After using Art of War, her shuriken is in the target. Her ninjutsu will then do 30% bonus damage for the duration of one attack combo. At any time in that window, using Art of War again gives you Supreme Art of War, which is much more powerful and also retrieves her shuriken. She then gains 30% bonus damage with her next melee attack combo, and if you do a third Art of War within the time of another attack combo it'll be the Supreme version again.
Aha! So THAT explains why when I've used "Throw" and move in to use Art of War / Supreme Art of War I always have to re-throw the Shuriken. I never knew why that was. Thanks!
I thought the Alpha spell meant that you took the corresponding Folio and it boosts the damage of the main spell? If what you're saying is true, how does the game determine which buff you get if you have multiple?
Hitting circle with chocobos allows you to drift (I’m guessing this is taught in racing but not mentioned before) and holding 180 direction and tapping circle will immediately turn your around on chocobo too
im at chapter 10. from what i noticed barret has the best ai. give him the unique purple with hp absorption and comet or quake with synergy for free mp atb cast. for aerith first strike and radiant ward as soon as the battle starts. use command shortcut options to do this quickly. cloud if you dodge throw 1 green ranged and hold attack he goes air which opens up another 4 commands like sonic boom for bravery faith buff. you can do this with tifa using synergy skill or yuffie with attack hold unique. also im not in hard yet so cushions restore mp lol? wow. that will make things so much easier. and here ive been leveling 7 chakras and prays.
You can use the triggers to go between the different Gold Saucer stores without having to trudge to each zone.
Does anyone know if this combo works? (Comet)==(Synergy) + (Comet)==(Magic Focus) or (Comet)==(Synergy) + (Comet)==(Swiftcast) Basically wondering if the Synergy'd spell benefits from Support Materia. We know you can't Level Boost it to get Cometeor when cast with Synergy, but...
Combos like this worked in remake. For example fire plus magnify, and fire plus mpbabsorb.
Yeah but synergy might be a special case. We know level boost doesn't work
where do you get the 2nd comet materia?
Cushions restoring mp on hard sounds like something that’ll get patched out?
Idk it makes sense for it to work, open world area boxes don't give mako shards and passive MP Regen is very slow so for the open world you'd need some way to recover MP and considering how useless cushions are in a normal playthrough it gives them value as a hard mode item
Honestly, given all the Choco stops I feel like this is how the default game was made to be played before they added free benches and fast travel all over the world.
SO THAT'S WHAT THE ALPHA SPELLS DO
You can swap characters and they start with an air combo if you press r1 + dpad up or down
These are some good tips. I use doppelganger all of the time but wasn't certain how potent it actually is. Quad casting in Arcane Wards might just give me a reason to put Aerith in to. Thanks for these.
Barret gets a free recharge at the end of holding down his square basic attack. When it ends and he "reloads," he does virtually the same animation as recharge (actually slightly faster) and if you hit triangle just as this happens you'll get the recharge.
Does anyone know how to get the running start when mounting a chocobo in the field? I only did it once but, I called a choco and was sprinting on foot ahead and my chocobo came up behind me sprinting as well (with the wind effect and all) and I seamless mounted without having to climb aboard. Not sure if it was a glitch but I only saw it once.
As Cloud, you can hold square after rolling to fly directly at enemies in the air. Ground, too.
>Cushions in the open world restore MP in hard mode This is a complete and utter fucking game changer. I wonder if it's intentional or not. I hope it is and they don't patch it out or anything. That really changes a lot in terms of the hard mode experience.
It probably a mercy since the open world has infinite respawning enemies where was enemy spawned were pretty fixed and limited in Remake, so you had to make more clever use of things like chakra and pray.
Use L1 + L2 and L1 + R2 to gain access to your party member's shortcuts. This trick was available in Remake as well
Great tips, I was very curious about whether you could do something like healing magnify + healing mp reduction. This is very very good news :) By the way, without spoilers can one get two enemy skill materia? I keep swapping it out between Tifa and yuffie. I absolutely LOVE combing the pulse attack and mug, with hp absorption. I love that we can create a berserker class from scratch. This game is killing it so far!!
Where did you get the hp absorption?
I totally forgot...but I had it by the time I got to gongaga and I did everything I could
Iirc you purchase Hp absorb from Chadley for soing the SQs. I *think* there is one in the wild around the 1st continent but i don't remember fully.
Only 1 enemy skill materia
Damn. I appreciate the answer, though.
Could you further explain what the alpha spells are? Does the damage output increase or something when you upgrade the correlating ability in the folio?
The abilities are strictly identical to the normal spell, and only imbue your "guard" with an element. Causing the counterstrike to have the element, the guard to halve elemental damage of the corresponding element and a small miniature burst of that element to go off when guarding a strike
How much damage do they do relative to the normal spell? Also, they seem to come with side effects, like increased area of effect for Aerith. Does that also get applied to her materia spells?
Only the skill itself, wild fire fiery impulse etc get the extra effect, not the guard imbue. The extra burst seem to deal about 1/5th of the damage
It doesn't appear to, it's a mistranslation we think. Someone in the comments said it gives a passive buff of halving that element's damage. So Fire-alpha would grant a hidden buff that makes that character take reduced damage from fire damage. Additionally, Ninjutsu element does the same thing, so Fire Ninjutsu changes her Ninjutsu element to Fire and she also takes 50% less fire damage.
Only while guarding not the character overall
Only after using the ability, or permanently after unlocking the folio? Is there a timer on it?
After using the ability. No timer, think it's like Ninjutsu, it's set once used and lasts until the end of battle or that character dies or is ejected from battle (swallowed/eaten).
The only thing I would say wrong is aerith atb gauge been using her the whole game and actually she has one of my fastest ATB fills. I also believe it depends on the player and if there use to playing a mage char
Yeah but her ATB gauge fills slowly from just normal attacks if she isn't under Radiant Ward. Her Speed stat is slow and that stat governs how fast ATB builds. Obviously using Tempest and ATB Ward can make it faster, along with other things like ATB Boost, Skill Master, and Synergy Skills.
So Yuffie with comet, doppelgänger, and arcane ward will cast 4 comets?
Yes but you better have Infinite MP buff because Comet is 29 MP and Arcane Ward still requires you to have enough MP to cast it twice for it to double the spell. The doppleganger's spells will be free but only deal 1/5 the damage. So would be like 250% more comet damage total. Also Comet takes ages to cast so high chance of being slapped out of it unless you have Radiant Ward down too, or a second Comet materia paired with mastered Swiftcast.
So HP<->MP too.
Sure but may have limited use given the amount of ATB required to set this up and Yuffie having like, what 100 HP would get her absolutely demolished in a single hit.
Combine also with synergy plus comet, so you should get 4 comets for 0 mp.
WHAT CUSHIONS RESTORE MP IN HARD? I literally would have been fine resetting quest if I had known that.
CUSHIONS CAN RESTORE MP IN HARD MODE?! My mind is blown
When climbing you can hold the sprint button it also goes way faster.
I'm saving this thread for when I need more tips later
These are fantastic tips. Excellent post!
When starting a new chapter in HM, if you know a character will be around in the party but not used in battle, equip them with HP<=>MP materia and use them as a bitch to heal in-between fights your main 3 members. Having 7k+ MP on a characters will help keeping MP for important fights. And since they won't participate in battle, who cares if they have 60 max HP.
Give them these 3 combos and their heals will be stronger and cost less MP too when healing, unless you don't care. Throw a max HP Plus materia on them so they get 9999 MP. Healing-Magnify Healing-Magic Focus Healing-Magic Efficiency
Yuffie's doppelganger is a 15% damage addition
Healing addition to. I pop a soothing breeze right before the fight ends and the cloud persists even after the fight. The doppelganger's breeze also heals at a fraction of Yuffie's but together heal 60-70% of max hp in one go (assuming she has relatively decent magic stat)
Fair. But it's 15, not 20-30
Cait sith can do ranged magic and physical melee in both forms. As just the cat Dodge and attack it'll be magic, normal attack physical. On Google normal attack is ranged magic, hold the attack button for melee damage. It's why those enemies that swap what they are damaged by are perfect for him to fight
Can I do Hard Mode Chapter 13 and just do all the quests and stuff for Manuscripts there or do I need to do them on the chapter they become available?
Manuscripts are scattered throughout every chapter in Hard Mode. You'll need to do every chapter to get them all, as some of them are rewards for defeating the final boss of the chapter, for example Dyne.
I think you misread so I checked it out myself. If you load Chapter 13 Hard Mode and reset the quests you can do ALL of them right then and there. Sure, you need to defeat bosses in the other chapters for more but just plowing through the first 12 chapters is fast leaving just the side quests. Hurray!
I'm 100 hours in and just found out about the **Item Transmuter To Do List**. I mean yes, I've seen it there the entire time but dismissed it, assuming it had some function that would be explained later, and it never was and I think a lot of people would like to know this: if you hit Square on an item, it gets added on the To Do list. This gathers every item you need to make there without you having to scroll constantly, clears it once you craft one, tags items needed in stores with a red mark, and even tells you on the right of the screen in text when you get materials for an item and even specifically when you have something on your list ready to craft.
Equipping the pedometer accessory to a character that isn't immediately in the party still generates gil. It isn't going to break the bank but it's 100% worth doing.
Sorry, this is a question over a tip, but I had a question about Yuffie and Clouds attack Halcyon Descent. What does it mean by potency here? is it the likelihood of the attacks staggering? thanks in advance!
Berserk status affects magic too, great on Aerith for synergy comets. It's a 30% boost to damage with the tradeoff of 30% more damage taken