Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Pt. 2 Rebirth

[JagdPanther]

Through Chapter 13 on Hard Mode. Finally jumped back out and reset to the start of Chapter 13 to tackle Can't Stop, Won't Stop and as many of the Legendary/Brutal Challenges as I can bear.

Demon Gate on Hard was shockingly easy once I figured out how to properly Brumal Form spam in an ATB Ward. Yuffie is so cute-funny when she's constantly shouting whatever she does during that Ability.

For all the trouble with King Zu's during the Musclehead Colosseum fights, the Yuffie Legendary Bout version was also shockingly easy. I didn't expect that she'd have enough Magic Power to cripple a wing with 1 Thundara. Just kited the thing around maintaining 2 ATB as much as possible and then cast Thundara back-to-back to cripple the wings. Rinse, repeat.

Conversely... I read that Red XIII's Legendary Bout was supposed to be the easiest of one of the easiest. BEE. ESS. My God. I spent nearly 3 hours trying to beat it. I was stunned by how insanely tanky the enemies were. Gigatoad barely flinched at Blizzaga. Most of my trouble was the middle 3 battles. I couldn't routinely get past Gigatoad, and even when I did, Leviton railed me bad. I had an idea that maybe Lightning-Elemental on the armor would help, but definitely not. I had to train a bit on Counterstance, which I didn't really understand because I *never* use Red XIII. Thank God Greater Marlboro was basically as easy as a tutorial; the only damage I took was its constant drain but with HP Absorb linked to Ice I was never below even 75%, I think.

I think this week I'll focus on Queen's Blood, 3D Brawler, and the Colosseum for Can't Stop, Won't Stop.

[Kafriel]

Nanaki is most likely the weakest character in the roster; he is 100% grounded and needs to be hit in order to get his stuff going. As a main tank/support, his best damage is retaliation, but that's single-use, so... I had to rely on sidewinder and stardust ray, which are literally his starting abilities. At least he's really good at staggering things!

For that particular side quest, Queen's Blood is the easiest. 3D brawler is ridiculously hard, but feasible. The colosseum will be... well, let's just say that you're definitely going to laugh at first.

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Nanaki is most likely the weakest character in the roster; he is 100% grounded and needs to be hit in order to get his stuff going. As a main tank/support, his best damage is retaliation, but that's single-use, so... I had to rely on sidewinder and stardust ray, which are literally his starting abilities. At least he's really good at staggering things!

For that particular side quest, Queen's Blood is the easiest. 3D brawler is ridiculously hard, but feasible. The colosseum will be... well, let's just say that you're definitely going to laugh at first.

Sooooo.... I may have F'd up. I left Can't Stop, Won't Stop unfinished when I beat the game, figuring I'd do it post-game. I did all the side quests on hard mode to get the manuscripts from every chapter and sidequest and went through Chapter 13. I then reset to the start of Chapter 13 to do Can't Stop, Won't Stop finally, but I set it to Normal. I just finished the quest, but realized since I wasn't on Hard I didn't get the manuscript.

Thankfully, I didn't save before realizing that, so I created a new save slot and just went back to my save before beating 3D Brawler with LOTS of Pause-scumming.

I *think* all I will need to do is just reset to Chapter 13 on Hard Mode and do the entire quest over again...? Because otherwise I'd have to do *every* sidequest over again, I think, if I continued on the save with me having finished Can't Stop, Won't Stop on Normal.

There may be another way to do *just* Musclehead depending on how that one option for how to treat quest data works when doing Chapter Select...

[Kafriel]

I THINK you only need hard mode for the musclehead part of the quest, not 100% certain though. You can always restore your quest progress on each mode, but I can't remember if it counts parts of a quest or not...

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Nanaki is most likely the weakest character in the roster; he is 100% grounded and needs to be hit in order to get his stuff going. As a main tank/support, his best damage is retaliation, but that's single-use, so... I had to rely on sidewinder and stardust ray, which are literally his starting abilities. At least he's really good at staggering things!

I'd argue the weakest is either Nanaki or Aerith.

Nanaki has some of the best stats in the game, but most of his better abilities are tied to the Vengeance Gauge and Stardust Ray needs 2 ATB.

Aerith has slow ATB generation and requires a lot of setup. Before she can make use of her high magic stat, she needs to put down Radiant Ward to fix her terrible normal attack, and then Arcane Ward if you actually want to push her damage over what other characters can do.

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

I THINK you only need hard mode for the musclehead part of the quest, not 100% certain though. You can always restore your quest progress on each mode, but I can't remember if it counts parts of a quest or not...

Thankfully, I realized my error before I screwed myself over with my save game. I read online that other people did what I did except they saved over things and realized they had to do *every* quest again if they beat Can't Stop, Won't Stop on normal.

All I had to do was Can't Stop, Won't Stop over again. I did Space Ranger, Chocobo racing, and G-bike this morning before work and then Queen's Blood, Musclehead, and 3D Brawler after dinner. Didn't take that long to do everything over again, and now I've got every manuscript you get from a Hard Mode sidequest.

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

I'd argue the weakest is either Nanaki or Aerith.

Nanaki has some of the best stats in the game, but most of his better abilities are tied to the Vengeance Gauge and Stardust Ray needs 2 ATB.

Aerith has slow ATB generation and requires a lot of setup. Before she can make use of her high magic stat, she needs to put down Radiant Ward to fix her terrible normal attack, and then Arcane Ward if you actually want to push her damage over what other characters can do.

I've learned the last couple weeks that Aerith can mow down enemies as long as it's not a prolonged fight. I did her Legendary Bout yesterday and crushed every enemy within like 20 seconds max except for the last one that I had to kite a bit to hit it with enough spells to stagger it.

Her slow ATB is definitely frustrating, though, if you have to rely on her. ATB Boost can help you out. I'd never used it much, but I have been more recently, especially on her.

[Kafriel]

Aerith has the most setup, along with Cait Sith, but she's got the highest single-hit damage, doing 99,999 on single targets and ~80k with magnified magic. Even without materia, Transcendence adds a hefty magic buff and Radiant Ward is all she really needs; First Strike, ATB boost and ATB ward are always welcome, of course. She also has a heavy-hitting synergy skill in Spellbound blast (seriously, don't sleep on this).

I rate her pretty high, but I'll swap her depending on the fight - I almost always use Barret though, so that means my third pick will be among Cloud, Tifa and Yuffie.

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Aerith has the most setup, along with Cait Sith, but she's got the highest single-hit damage, doing 99,999 on single targets and ~80k with magnified magic. Even without materia, Transcendence adds a hefty magic buff and Radiant Ward is all she really needs; First Strike, ATB boost and ATB ward are always welcome, of course. She also has a heavy-hitting synergy skill in Spellbound blast (seriously, don't sleep on this).

I rate her pretty high, but I'll swap her depending on the fight - I almost always use Barret though, so that means my third pick will be among Cloud, Tifa and Yuffie.

I saw someone with a speedrun of a boss using Spellbound Blast and was surprised at how much damage it was doing. I think I may have used it once or twice, but I probably need to look into it more. I've hardly used the Synergy Skills in my 190+ hours.

Even though Aerith has the highest magic stats, I am guessing Cloud is used as the caster in so many videos I see because he can generate ATB way faster, so the trade off for a bit less magic (as he can still get up there) is that you can cast much more frequently.

I also hardly use Cait, but I used him as part of the guide I was following this evening for Hellions Intonement, which needed to max out Stop as much as possible.

Now that I have the 3rd Magnify materia I am going to grind that up along with some other materia (the 3rd Element, maybe 1 more Warding, and some random other stuff I've collected) before tackling the last 2 Brutal Challenges to get the Gotterdammerung, the last 4 Legendary Bouts I have, and Chapter 14 on Hard Mode.

I am floored at how much time I've put into this game. I don't think I've ever come anywhere near 190 hours in any other game except like Battlefield 4.

[Kafriel]

The last ones are the hardest, good luck

I've hardly used the Synergy Skills in my 190+ hours.

Iron Defense and Counterfire are OP. Most of the rest are pretty handy too, but IMO these two take the cake.

I am floored at how much time I've put into this game. I don't think I've ever come anywhere near 190 hours in any other game except like Battlefield 4.

I put around 200h in Rebirth, but I've played other games for far longer; 300h on Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, Nioh 1, Nioh2 and The Division 2... that's 300h each. I honestly don't mind as long as I'm having fun, it's quality time well spent.

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

The last ones are the hardest, good luck


Iron Defense and Counterfire are OP. Most of the rest are pretty handy too, but IMO these two take the cake.

I've tried Counterfire on purpose (and by accident, I guess?) a few times, but since I'm so bad with defense/blocking it hasn't seemed worthwhile.

As for the last Legendary ones, I watched videos on the Seventh Seal today. It's amazing how two people approach it seemingly similarly yet have wildly different results. The first one I watched the guy clocked in at 18 minutes, and then in the next one the guy clocked in at 6 minutes. I'm curious about the 6-minute one because the guy relied much more heavily on Tifa being totally OP, and Tifa is my girl, soooooo.......

But, gotta grind materia first. That'll be later tonight for a while.

[Kafriel]

Tifa is the easiest character to abuse. Yuffie is technically the strongest, but her skill ceiling is insane. As for methods, I just tried many different styles and settled with one (surprisingly, not magic-focused). Taking advice and watching others is fine, but the game lets you pick a style that best suits yourself, so take advantage of it.

I've tried Counterfire on purpose (and by accident, I guess?) a few times, but since I'm so bad with defense/blocking it hasn't seemed worthwhile.

Sucking at parries is unfortunate, that skill basically negates attacks.

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Aerith has the most setup, along with Cait Sith, but she's got the highest single-hit damage, doing 99,999 on single targets and ~80k with magnified magic. Even without materia, Transcendence adds a hefty magic buff and Radiant Ward is all she really needs; First Strike, ATB boost and ATB ward are always welcome, of course. She also has a heavy-hitting synergy skill in Spellbound blast (seriously, don't sleep on this).

I rate her pretty high, but I'll swap her depending on the fight - I almost always use Barret though, so that means my third pick will be among Cloud, Tifa and Yuffie.

The only setup Cait Sith needs is First Strike to use Let's Ride!, and 2 maxed out Luck materia to get his Luck as close to 500 as possible. In terms of on field setup, he's not any more costly than Barret who wants Bonus Round.

As long as his luck is maxed, he'll be one of the first characters to hit the 9999 damage cap before you start using Genji gear.

[Kafriel]

For optimal Cait Sith usage, I go with Let's Ride, Moogle Magic and Lady Luck, sometimes roll of the dice (not a fan of RNG skills), then for physical attacks, either moogle knuckle or fortune telling. For magic setups, I switch to moogle mine or magnified sleep, then slots. I don't know how many people use slots, but it's easy enough to get either three stars or three fat moogles, both of which deal amazing damage. The downside is that it requires some actual time to do, hence the need for sleep/stun traps. He's got an easy 30k limit break, as well as quite a few potent synergy attacks, but Let's Ride doesn't generate SP, which is quite the downside, since it's basically his main skill.

[JagdPanther]

Got through Seventh Seal, Rulers of the Outer World, Barret vs. the Colossi, and Cait Sith vs. the Abominable this weekend.

YIKES.

Seventh Seal made me hate the Suevite Disgorgon enemy more than I thought I could. Dear God that thing is ultra tanky and annoying. I had a lot of trouble getting past that round. The Gigantaur and Gargantaur wiped me easily the first time I got there. Just could not setup and cast fast enough to stagger both before they annihilated me with Needle Rains and 1,000 Needles spam. When I finally got past them, I thought the 10th round wouldn't be too bad, and it was going pretty well until 2 characters got killed by Executions and I was down to like 700 HP on my 3rd, furiously trying to build ATB to cast Raise. I made it out of that barely.

For Rulers of the Outer World, I got wrecked by Virtual Sephiroth after making it there on my first attempt easily, but then I spent like 4-5 more attempts not even making it there because I kept getting owned by Titan and Bahamut. Bahamut kept wailing on Yuffie in the ATB ward and not giving me a chance to get Aerith enough ATB to take out Titan or Bahamut. Then wrecked again by Sephiroth when I made it there again. Put the game down for the night, tried again today, and basically breezed to a win on my 3rd time getting to Sephiroth. Had basically no trouble with him. But, then I remembered you need to Assess him, so I actually immediately tried the fight again and managed to breeze to victory a second time in a row (with getting him assessed!), though I didn't set a new time record because I didn't get as lucky as before with knocking out Phoenix before it could raise Kujata.

Barrett vs. the Colossi was suuuper annoying. The Adamantoise wrecked me multiple times until I saw a pro tip from someone to drop MP Absorb and use HP Absorb instead because really that's the only fight you need magic for and it didn't really matter if you blew almost all your MP. The little bit of healing I gained helped a lot, as did rolling the dice with a Focused Shot at one point even though I was trying to conserve ATB for Fira and Chakra.

Cait Sith vs. the Abominable took *forever* but ended up being easy enough once I got into a rhythm. I saw a more aggressive version online that relied on a lot of blocking, but I didn't bother with that and opted for a much slower burn with just keeping Moogle as a tank and building up ATB with dodge-attack from afar.

So, that leaves 3 Legendary Bouts and Chapter 14 on Hard Mode. I also realized I did hardly any of the Queen's Blood challenges in the Gold Saucer, so I'll probably do those as a bit of relaxation before getting back to the Legendary Bouts.

[Kafriel]

Congratulations, I believe you've already cleared the hardest challenges that Rebirth has to offer. Suevite Disgorgon is indeed a bit too tanky, but the easiest enemy to predict. I'm surprised to not see fully armed Gilgamesh referenced once for your Rulers runs, it was probably the hardest fight in the game for me. Barret vs Adamantoise is indeed very frustrating, it's the only fight where his lack of speed is a liability.

Take a well-deserved breather and good luck with the rest of them

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Congratulations, I believe you've already cleared the hardest challenges that Rebirth has to offer. Suevite Disgorgon is indeed a bit too tanky, but the easiest enemy to predict. I'm surprised to not see fully armed Gilgamesh referenced once for your Rulers runs, it was probably the hardest fight in the game for me. Barret vs Adamantoise is indeed very frustrating, it's the only fight where his lack of speed is a liability.

Take a well-deserved breather and good luck with the rest of them

Thanks!

Because I was using the Brumal Form spam, Gilgamesh was pretty easy. Just blitz him with Firaga. I did have a run where he managed to turn Yuffie and Barrett into frogs, but I think I jumped around just enough to get it to wear off Barrett and cast Esuna on Yuffie. I think that was one of my runs where I got owned by Sephiroth, anyway.

I did Cloud vs. the Warriors tonight. White Terror was a big pain. I did the Punisher Mode strategy, but even with that it got me several times either with Throat Clamp or me taking too many hits without being able to heal back with HP Absorb. And then I died in stupid ways to Iraceros twice (once reflecting Thundara back onto me when I'd failed to kill it before the Stagger ended) and Ironclad a bunch of times. I saw a tip online to use Swiftcast-Thundaga to counter Graviga so you could just kite Ironclad around at range and only go for melee attacks when it was casting Firaga. Took forever, but it eventually worked after I'd died like 3-4 times against it with a melee-based approach.

So, that leaves the two 2-person Legendary Bouts and Chapter 14. Probably won't get to those until this weekend.

[Kafriel]

Poison helps a lot against high-HP enemies. White Terror is basically a knowledge check to gtfo when he bursts into homing fireballs. Irasceros is just straight up annoying (and I think immune to time magic?), Ironclad is probably the easiest to deal with, provided you know to dodge his instant kill strikes.

Legendary bouts are exactly that. I recommend mastering Zack's quick-charge, his high braver deals INSANE damage (and even more on bravery). Use synergy attacks for the zero MP buff, it really helps a lot. Sephiroth has one absolutely busted move, which is sideways+special: can be spammed, dodges, deals a lot of damage and is pretty fast to use. He's a bit tricky to get used to, since his parry is unique, but he is a lot of fun to play once you figure him out.

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Poison helps a lot against high-HP enemies. White Terror is basically a knowledge check to gtfo when he bursts into homing fireballs. Irasceros is just straight up annoying (and I think immune to time magic?), Ironclad is probably the easiest to deal with, provided you know to dodge his instant kill strikes.

Legendary bouts are exactly that. I recommend mastering Zack's quick-charge, his high braver deals INSANE damage (and even more on bravery). Use synergy attacks for the zero MP buff, it really helps a lot. Sephiroth has one absolutely busted move, which is sideways+special: can be spammed, dodges, deals a lot of damage and is pretty fast to use. He's a bit tricky to get used to, since his parry is unique, but he is a lot of fun to play once you figure him out.

Iraceros wasn't bad, actually. I was shocked how easy he was. I was just an idiot on one run through and forgot he casts Reflect after stagger finishes.

A cool tip I saw about White Terror online is that if you Swiftcast-Thundaga him whenever he powers up (which I didn't know you can tell by the color of the aura around him) he'll never cast his ultimate move because Thundaga knocks him down a power level, so you can just put him into a loop of power up, power down constantly. After that, you just need to watch for Throat Clamp and you're good.

[JagdPanther]

I am so stupid. On maybe my 5th attempt at Bonds of Friendship, I had Odin at like maybe 10% health, if that, and pressure bar nearly at max. He killed Zack so I couldn't have him take the Temporal Distortion, so I tried to get by with Cloud. I panicked when he started casting Temporal Distortion and tried to Prime Mode Odin into stagger instead of blowing my Limit Break on him, which I'm sure would've staggered Odin... and I died.

That was the first and only time I've made it to Odin.

I can't even reliably make it past the first 2 battles. The closest I've gotten since then is once to Bahamut and a couple times to Mindflayer. If I make it past the first two battles I usually die against Ironclad.

I absolutely hate Bonds of Friendship.

EDIT: I didn't bother with any more attempts on Bonds of Friendship today. I switched over to To Be a Hero with the intention of beating that and then doing Chapter 14 on Hard Mode so I can get Cloud up to Weapon Level 9 before trying Bonds of Friendship again.

It took me quite a while to get Sephiroth's Shift Slash down enough that it seemed somewhat effective. Titan was absolutely destroying me over and over. I probably could've made it past Titan within a couple battles but I really wanted to figure out Shift Slash, since I understand that's super OP and useful. I eventually did it not-poorly enough to get by Titan, and then from there most of the rest of the battles were pretty easy. Jabberwock was a bit uncomfortable since I did get hit by one of the Petrify attacks and had to kite the Jabberwock around a bit.

Thank God I saw in a video to be careful with Sephiroth's MP before Odin. I entered with like 110 MP, I think, which was enough to cast Reraise twice (plus a 3rd after Double Helix gave me unlimited MP). I got Odin into Spatial Distortion easily enough (though not without a scare when he sounded the Horn, but I was able to damage him enough for pressure and then stagger right after that), but then things went sideways. He killed Cloud, but Reraise got him back, and I was able to cast Reraise on Cloud again just in time before Sephiroth got stopped; then he killed Cloud again, but Reraise brought Cloud back, and then he killed still-stopped Sephiroth, but Reraise brought him back again... Both had Limit Breaks, and I needed both to get Odin to stagger again and *just* enough time on the bar to get ATB up and cast a 1-ATB Aero spell to kill him.

*whew*

Going to look into Chapter 14 on Hard Mode next. I want that last manuscript before I try Bonds of Friendship again.

[Kafriel]

Good luck on ch.14! It's nowhere near as hard as the battle sim challenges, but... well, it is long and you'll be needing all your MP for the final series of battles. Lv9 weapons really make a difference!