Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Pt. 2 Rebirth

[Kafriel]

Odin is a hard counter to Barret, true, as are some of the elites of the game; some parties are just better than others in certain fights. Still, Barret can survive most ultimate attacks by himself and bring everyone back to life. Double chakra on ATB assist is one of my favourite combos, surpassed only by double unbridled fury, also on ATB assist

[Shadow5YA]

Barret only has high Vitality and physical defense. He has pretty poor magic defense, so Red XIII ends up being a more balanced tank with not that much less HP.

Even Cloud can technically gain higher defense than Barret due to bonuses from Umbral Blade. The one thing Barret has going for him is that he's easy to play.

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

That's odd, I always felt like he could take enough for the whole team, literally. Steelskin+Lifesaver, along with his defensive synergy skill give him everything he needs to just block things. Getting hit on dodge deals a lot of damage, and he has the worst dodge in the game, so I rarely went for that.



Believe it or not, my end-game Yuffie only runs revive, cure and time materia, I feel she has the most abilities in the game!

P.S: Cloud/Barret/Tifa is probably the best team all-around.

I almost certainly don't have Barrett optimized or know how to play him well largely because I just straight up don't like playing as him. The Dyne fight just left a bad taste in my mouth, reinforcing how much I don't like playing as him.

My stance in any JRPG where you have party choice is whether certain characters are better or not at certain things I want to run the party I want to run, and if that means having non-ideal characters for various fights, so be it. Short of being completely unable to get past certain points with certain characters, I won't switch away from the characters I just like.

Funny thing about the Revive... I tried the Combat Simulator challenge last night where you need to beat the Mindflayer first with two of those annoying other facehugger-ish enemies. Was having a hard time, and my first character to die was Tifa, who, of course, was the only one of my three characters who had Revive equipped. lol I just skimmed a GameFaqs thread and see that one of the tips for the battle is to cast Magnify-Sleep on the other enemies so keep them out of the way while you build up Synergy points to pressure the Mindflayer.

[Kafriel]

Yeah, that fight in particular is really annoying. Magnify sleep is indeed the way to go, but it always takes a few attempts.

On the discussion about party members: my least favourite character is Cloud, and I literally can't play without him, because he is locked into the party 90% of the time. Thankfully, he is a true all-rounder with no weakness, so if you like Cloud, you can beat the whole game with anyone supporting him. At the end of the day, there's no battle that is impossible with a certain party

Barret only has high Vitality and physical defense. He has pretty poor magic defense, so Red XIII ends up being a more balanced tank with not that much less HP.

Even Cloud can technically gain higher defense than Barret due to bonuses from Umbral Blade. The one thing Barret has going for him is that he's easy to play.

Cloud's defense maxes out at 249 (cetran bracer, carmic cowl+ and 2 VIT ups) even with Umbral Blade's +50, Barret's at 255 with pretty much any weapon, since none give him a DEF boost. Barret has two selfish recovery ups from his folios and one selfish buff up, so he heals better and his buffs last longer - including the one where he takes all the damage for the party without having to physically interfere with the opponents. Red is great too, but he has two major weaknesses: zero air control and he REALLY needs to be hit to build up his vengeance gauge.

I will say that all of them are very good at staggering opponents (punisher, bonus round and vengeance mode) and they're also great at building ATB, so they can play the role of tank/support very well if you want them to.

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Yeah, that fight in particular is really annoying. Magnify sleep is indeed the way to go, but it always takes a few attempts.

Tried it a few times today but no dice so far. The Magnify-Sleep strategy didn't keep the suicide thingies down for long, and even when I managed to land a Synergy Attack on the Mindflayer, the suicide thingies got me right after, so I couldn't kill the Mindflayer in time.

[Kafriel]

You get a really, really good enemy skill from that fight, but you might be better off leaving it for later - you'll have more materia, your starting ATB and gains get higher as the game progresses, as well as your limit buildup, so... it's going to be somewhat easier later on. If you do decide to deal with it now... good luck!

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

You get a really, really good enemy skill from that fight, but you might be better off leaving it for later - you'll have more materia, your starting ATB and gains get higher as the game progresses, as well as your limit buildup, so... it's going to be somewhat easier later on. If you do decide to deal with it now... good luck!

Did a few more tries today and got it finally. I got close on one attempt and then had (non-controlled) Aerith die in the suicide hug right as I got Mindflayer staggered. I was soooo pissed.

I think it was my next attempt that I finally got it. One thing I saw online was to have Cloud and Tifa both with at least 1 ATB before initiating the Synergy Ability so that even during the ability you could pre-plan Focused Thrust and Focused Strike for them to immediately bump up the stagger gauge since a Synergy Ability alone wouldn't get the Mindflayer to Staggered.

Anyway... Blew the better part of multiple sessions doing almost every intel item in Cosmo Canyon (region) before proceeding into Cosmo Canyon (town) tonight. The latest piano piece... yikes. Life comes at you fast in that one.

Still irked I am having to skip side missions to ensure everyone stays below Tifa for relationship points, though fortunately I saw that it's a good idea to start Yuffie's Cosmo Canyon side quest because you get a new weapon for her if you Rank III the first Glide de Chocobo training course.

[Kafriel]

Congratulations on unlocking Mind Blast, it's basically AoE stagger, but you can only use it once per battle! If it helps any, there are many quests which you can't finish until you advance the plot and come back later (like the protorelics in Corel), so don't worry too much about missing stuff. Glide de chocobo takes some getting used to, but I'll leave you with my greatest tip: if you want to soar from low altitudes, you must first dive until you break the air barrier. That way you won't touch ground as soon as you pick up a low hanging ring. Took me a long time to figure that out. Have fun~

[JagdPanther]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Congratulations on unlocking Mind Blast, it's basically AoE stagger, but you can only use it once per battle! If it helps any, there are many quests which you can't finish until you advance the plot and come back later (like the protorelics in Corel), so don't worry too much about missing stuff. Glide de chocobo takes some getting used to, but I'll leave you with my greatest tip: if you want to soar from low altitudes, you must first dive until you break the air barrier. That way you won't touch ground as soon as you pick up a low hanging ring. Took me a long time to figure that out. Have fun~

Thanks! I'll have to try out the ability on my way through the Gi Cave coming up.

I *kinda* get the descend/ascend mechanic for Glide de Chocobo, but not entirely. I really struggled to get even Rank I on the second training course. I may come back later to try the third course, but we'll see. Not going to spend a lot of time on that one, probably. I've already done the vast majority of Cosmo Canyon (region) so there's not a huge need for me to be good at that mechanic.

[Kafriel]

The first time I played it, I thought it was going to be a bad minigame, where I'd have to memorize ring positions through a lot of trial and error, but once you actually get the glide/dive/ascension stuff, it's... normal. I THINK it took me 7 attempts for #2 and I got the third one in my second attempt, so I'd wager it won't take too much of your time - around half an hour or so. Still, there's no reason to take it on right away, I had left it for one of my last things on my to-do list.