FFVII: Character and materia management
Nothing like hotseating a console game with an out-of-town friend for a few days to get you long past the end of disk one.
But with controller swapping, comes strategic differences and philosophical clashes. After hashing out our differences in front of the monitor with Irish Whiskey, we came up with a standard, go-to party structure.
My general philosophy, despite what the structure of the materia system seems to imply, is to separate each character into a distinctive role. Cloud is the hearty melee fighter, Yuffie is the healer, and Cid casts most of the offensive spells. Materia configuration, of course, is always contextual but a typical setup would look like this.
Cloud:
Weapon
- Added effect paired with Time for stop and slow
- Elemental with Phoenix for fire damage with the added bonus of the toughest party member with a life all.
- Counter Attack
- Luck Plus
Armor
- Deathblow pair with Added Cut, so if Deathblow misses there is still some DPS.
- HP Plus
- Cover since he has the most HP with the bonus that it encourages more limit breaks. (context will occasionally dictate that Cloud also be given fury, if he can stand the damage increase debuff)
- Speed Plus
- And Ultima for a powerful attack all spell or Enemy Skill for its utility (attack all, heals, dispels and the like)
Yuffie:
Weapon
- Restore plus All materia
- Comet for some sort of strong magic attack
- Fullcure
- Odin (the power of the summon materia attack is a bonus, I really just use it for MP and Magic buffs)
- Enemy skill for utility (e.g., Big Guard!)
- Steal
- Magic Plus
Armor
- NeoBahamat, and Leviathan
- MP Plus
- Revive
Cid:
Weapon
- Contain for powerful single target magic with the attending debuffs (freeze, slow, etc.)
- Barrier, mostly for Reflect which, as you know is a tricky spell to use.
- Destruct for the DeBarrier and DeSpell
- Gravity
- Heal, so Yuffie can focus on healing HP when poison and other status effects are housing the party.
Armor
A few other thoughts, for other party memebers not shown here.
Thoughts, philosophical differences, or confused questioning encouraged in the comments.
Disc: 2
Location: Golden Saucer Area
Cloud’s level: 50
Timer: approx. 13:26 (we have the snowboarding mini-game, people!)
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Read Gavin Craig’s week 6 post
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[…] Don’t get me wrong, he is a strong melee character and Daniel’s right when he says his limit breaks hit hard, but with such an emo-y cast of characters it would have been nice to see the old, smiley Cid, a […]
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[…] I’m not sure how that happened, but I’m going with it. He fills the Yuffie/Tifa role in Andrew’s optimal battle party.) I was holding my own, and Sephiroth pulled out his Super Nova summon, which at nearly two full […]
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[…] the game in about nineteen hours with Cloud at level 68 (and I could have done it faster), using a pretty standard materia layout. With such an easy last boss, the only real cookie they give you is the cut scene and glorious […]
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[…] do enough damage to be worth including. The Cloud, Vincent, and Cid party roughly line up with Andrew’s optimum party, with Vincent filling the Yuffie/Tifa role of primary healer, Cloud using haste and double cut (I […]
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[…] the game in about nineteen hours with Cloud at level 68 (and I could have done it faster), using a pretty standard materia layout. With such an easy last boss, the only real cookie they give you is the cut scene and glorious […]
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[…] later, it still makes for great story telling.”), how it should be played (see Andrew’s character and materia management piece), and sometimes, in the process, what it says about its players (Gavin: “I feel a bit […]
I find myself almost developing materia more than developing characters. I could take or leave Yuffie, but I’m deeply invested in a particular All-Restore combo.
This is the party I used to beat Disc 1. Great minds, as they say. I popped Tifa in for Cid while slugging it out in the Great Glacier area, just for a change (and to get some of her Limit Breaks), but I may go back to Cid.
For sheer amusement, I Googled “best final fantasy vii party” the other day, and your party was the frequent top choice (with Tifa in place of Yuffie coming second, usually).
I like Cid as a character and I like his hard-hitting Limit Breaks.
I’m glad to see that our hard won-compromise turns out to be the FFVII all-time best party. We made the right choice, it seems.
Indeed, I had no idea, but the party has been strong.
I gave your materia set-up a go (with a couple of changes) last night, and in doing so, I realized how much sense it makes. I have not been devoting AP building to any of my Summons.
I have Tifa in the party instead of Cid, for now, and I gave her the Deathblow-Added Cut combo, since Cloud is plenty strong on his own. Yuffie also has Mug learned too, which helps considerably.
Man, I would love to have mug. This is where my blowing through the content is not serving me well.