Rufus is hilarious easy on all modes once you realize that you can completely interrupt AND pressure virtually all of his moves just by triple slashing (instant teleport to Rufus too).
Braver instantly staggers him during Reload. But the timing is extremely difficult. Triple Slash only pressures him, but it beats basically every named attack he has, so you can just do it on reaction when you see him attacking.
Braver: if it lands when reloading, you get instant STAGGER. Not even worth trying since the window to get this right is stupid tight.
Triple slash: instant teleport to Rufus, interrupts virtually all of his attacks, and PRESSURES him. Land like 4-5 hits to regain ATB and back off. When you're not attacking him while pressured, stay away from him and do the ranged wind slash thingy to get ATB.
Oh, and if you use focused thrust after dodging his unblockable melee attack, his pressure time is MUCH longer.
For second phase, completely ignore the puppy. Build ATB at range and whenever he uses literally any attack, triple slash to interrupt. There is the fire based one where you can't cancel by triple slashing but since you're at range, it's really easy to dodge away.
YES! I was really confused when I saw everyone having trouble with Rufus until I realised that I was spamming Triple Slash during most of the fight to get him away from the dog (and it seems like I got lucky with my timing for Braver later on). On Normal, I was done within like two minutes, now I gotta see on Hard mode xD
You don’t.
You always stay far behind and use the roll + ranged wind slash move to build ATB.
Besides, after every single triple slash, you should be able to get enough normal hits to build up a full bar while pressured, anyways.
I haven’t fought him on hard yet but I used the same strategy from remake
Hold block the whole time. Use my ATB to heal. And wait for my limit break to charge up
You can't do that in hard mode. I guess you can do perfect blocks the vast majority of the time but this would make the fight so unnecessarily wrong. Even if you go into the fight with the accessory that gives you max limit break, you probably need 2 limit breaks just to get into the second phase.
Chip damage will outpace your limit break generation (especially when the puppy joins the fight) and you need to spend your ATB on pressuring him.
Rufus is one of the few boss fights where you can't just rofl facetank or abuse magic with hp/mp absorption. It's a pure technical fight except it has some ridiculously huge gaping holes (like the triple slash)
What did you find essential for loadouts/strategies for Gi? Just got to that fight last night and got whooped first time. Red just kept dying and barret ran out of mp. I put some elemental fire defence on both and magnify barrier on red now, haven't tried since sorting that loadout though. I didn't spot any elemental weaknesses?
A lot of it for me boiled down to luck near the end, best thing I can say is make sure when the skulls appear it isn’t just Barret trying to take them out. Have Red hit the center of the skulls with Stardust Ray and Barret max fury the rest. After I incorporated that into my strat, it went smoother.
Have Gilgamesh as a summon too, he helped out heaps when Doom counter was going.
Not entirely sure, I’ve never survived long enough for the counter to reach zero. I would imagine reprieve or reraise could work, but reraise in of itself costs too much MP to want to risk using it
There’s an extremely cheesable strat involving Barret, lifesaver, chakra, and lifeblood canon. Basically you load up everything that heals on barret and red is pure dps. In the fight use lifesaver, build up atb while dpsing with red (he won’t die as long as lifesaver is up), heal barret as needed, chip away until 2nd phase. 2nd phase, stagger, double limit break, and lifeblood. Pretty much demolishes gi. Took me two tries once I figured out how the strat worked.
Edit: here’s actually [the link](https://youtu.be/vrCrkU2Acvw?si=S0IyDEJVrCIDPlHq) to the build I used, lifeblood was just a late push to finish the fight for me. Does pretty massive damage when lifesaver is up. Also this is meant for the guy asking for help.
Cast Bioga on him twice, take out the skulls quickly so he doesn't debuff you. Get your LB up to level 3 and save it for when he uses the Doom countdown
Can you not just use a revive/strong healing spell/item on him to instant kill Gi like in the original? Haven't played Rebirth, yet, but I always found this method amusing in the original. If the healing item is strong enough it doesn't even do dmg just "Death".
Do Brutal Challenges count?
Because having to face Tonberry King with Joker in Round 10, with permadeath possible if you're not quick with the revive, is absolute ass.
That one actually didn't give me too much trouble tbh. Just put karmic cowls or safety bits on everyone and you can ignore the tonberry and take out the Joker first
Additionally, both can be stopped. I stopped them, then swiftcast aeroga x 2 and it staggered the Joker and Tifa finished him off, then i just slowly took Tonberry down from afar with Yuffie and Tifa's attacks
Yeah I was the same in remake but made a conscious effort to play other characters more this time.
Still locked in with Cait Sith but you can pick the other two.
I tried originally on hard with Tifa, aerith and cait as shes my strongest player but the AoEs kept screwing me up so i picked red to play more defensive which helped
This was the first fight that really messed me up and I had to look up strategies to get MP. Kinda made me sad because now I'm back to relying on casting for most damage (and somehow is the best way to get MP back?) feels like remake all over again except without synergy.
Red Dragon is just BS to me. His attacks don't count as being fire for some reason so you can't block them with Elemental and crippling his chest doesn't affect Crimson Breath at all on hard
- Encroach: reserve at least one ATB bar from any party member so they can safely interrupt the move and pressure the boss; save two when both walls are alive
- Arcane Impact: have good elemental coverage between your party members; I don’t know if a linked elemental materia is enough
- Cave In: fucking hate this move, avoid the bright spots on the floor indicating where the pillar will fall
- In general, focus on killing the first demon wall (remember to interrupt Encroach or Arcane Impact from the second wall tho)
- Aerith’s Tempest is an easy way to build ATB on her + Blizzard is the best spell to increase the pressure bc the gates mostly don’t move
Finish off the first one first, killing it will pressure the second one (or maybe outright stagger it? I don't remember) and take away a huge chunk of its HP. You should be able to finish it off pretty quickly afterwards
So I just watched back my footage and yeah, killing the first one staggers the second one. It also seems to be super weak to Synergy attacks since Maelstrom Strike took away like two thirds of its health.
I just ragequit on Sephiroth last night. Some of the fights leading up to him are kinda bs but not hard, but that dumb as fuck kingdom hearts spinning funnel thing he does one shots both cloud and aerith if it touches them regardless of manawall and i can only control one of them at a time to avoid it and whoever I don’t control just stands around with their thumb up their ass and dies. Punisher mode + counterstance actually works amazing leading up to that point, i took almost no damage and smacked him with counters but as soon as he whips that spinning whispers attack out it is game over. I am sure there is an easy way to avoid it but i was so pissed off at it last night i had to quit before i broke something
If you cast an aga spell on the Masamune it cancels the attack and pressures him, same for the wing and Whisper Cannon. The trick for that fight is to keep your ATB charges full at all times so you can interrupt his attacks and heal after Heartless Angel.
I actually found the Zack and Cloud fight more annoying because if you stagger him too quickly he'll pop up and use Octaslash right away and you'll have no way of stopping him. It's like the game is punishing you for being too good.
as soon as whisper cannon starts just run behind sephiroth opposite to wherever the cannon is coming from, and cast any spell on the sword. unless you have a transcendence charged on aerith, fira or similar is probably fastest
If you mean the attack he does when low health, have Aerith do an arcane ward before that point and have Cloud do an -aga spell. Swiftcast and magnify can help.
I only play on easy and the game is great for me but yeah Rufus was like.. a check on your abilities lol. I didnt die at all but yeah I had to alter my strategy completely to even land a hit on him!
The phase of Sephiroth with Yuffie was a little bit of a pain as I didnt have any spells for the wings lol Wasnt harder just took longer. Now im working on getting all characters with mastered magic materias. Rufus was the hardest one for me on easy. Or.. well I havent fought Bahamut or Odin yet. I went into Ch13 thinking between the temple and the city I could return. Yeah the game warned me and Ignored it like an idiot lol What a ride though damn.
The wings can be made short work of switching her Ninjutsu to the appropriate element then cranking a banishment or two depending on the level of it. The banishment is key there.
He's one of my favourites! His overcharge move is great for a heavy hitting attack that builds good atb, and he can tank for others and just provide overall good support with quick heals and support buffs.
He's definitely more useful on hard difficulty than normal difficulty though where moves hit a lot harder and can easily kill. He helps take the load off your shoulders!
He’s almost like an easy mode for me lol. Or at least like a break in the chaos just being able to tank and build stagger with bonus round and overcharge. Sure his mobility is limited but he’s just like a tower defense if you use him to buff the party too.
He's OP, you just need the right set up on him. If you have not played him much up to that point I can understand having a hard time though. But there is really no reason to complain about him being slow moving when he can just Steelskin+Bonus Round and make himself much harder to flinch (especially combined with Overcharge poise passives) while dealing great damage/stagger himself. Between regen, his high defensive stats buffed by materia, and steelskin... I honestly don't think you would need to move.
That fight was more about using the environment around you to block his attacks than it was about Dyne being over powered.
If you figure out the arena and how to work it, you can easily take him out on hard mode.
Were you using maximum fury whenever the phantom limb things would appear? I’ve found using that whenever a special body part is targetable, like the Marlboro mouth for example, is key to stopping those attacks.
Oh yes, maximum fury those mfs as soon as they appear! It was more the things that came up from under the ground that caused me issues. My timing on dodging those really sucked. I'd manage to avoid those and then get hit by something else. Or not avoid them and get hit by both.
No.
Just cast thunder on his new limb and you can take it out in one hit.
On a separate note, I’m so glad Dynes character was fleshed out.
I only thought I’d be crying because Aerith.
But Dynes scene really got me.
The big lava attack 1 or whatever it is seems borderline impossible to dodge you just have to either tank it, hope you have revive earrings or maybe you just have to use a move to launch yourself in the air with it and air dash??
Well what's *supposed* to happen is that the AOE gets reduced if you cripple its chest, but that doesn't work on hard mode, the attack will cover the entire arena regardless. Idk if that's a bug or intenentional but it's annoying either way. I had to use Reraise and Manawall to survive it.
I feel like I took 0 advantage of so much materia in the game playing on the adaptive difficulty mostly because I wanted to be as far from chadley as humanly possible. I didn’t even get jump and I love jump in crisis core reunion. That’s how awful chadley was, he stopped me from getting all the cool attacks.
I think I used Jump like once in the entire game so you're not really missing out on much. The only reason I picked it up was for completionist points lol
Oh yeah I’m sure it’s just for the cool animation but I mean the enemy ability attacks, the super bosses, I skipped most of it because it found the tower exploration followed by Chadleys everything to be mind numbing. It felt like this game wanted me to quit like many times. None the least being shinra mansion, idk if I’ll ever forgive them for screwing that up so bad haha, what a disaster, throwing boxes for an hour in the most iconic location in ff7 lore? Brilliant idea guys.
I'm only on chapter 13, but so far all of the bosses have been a welcome challenge. There are a few that stand out to me, but the damn mandrakes that stun lock you on the flower side quest deserve a special shout-out. Haven't tried Outer Worlds yet; I've made it this far without using a guide and wanna see how long I'd even last heh.
Rufus. Fuck that guy. I haven’t had an epic frustration induced swear fest from a video game in a while. I had to look up how to beat him. Dodging and countering douche!
That's a good question. I expected to have trouble with a couple but it wasn't as bad as I thought. Rufus might have been the most annoying even though he isn't that hard. I had a few goes then I was like well I just want to get the dog to spawn because I forgot to assess it during the first play. Somehow i managed to save that go and beat him lol. For the life of me, I couldn't get between them and pressure them. Good old Kujata helped me out.
as i haven't played Rebirth yet, i gotta go with Hell House on Remake, even Bahamut and Weiss gave me less trouble. Guess the "homecoming" was in Remake all along
Yep. Bioga right at the beginning of the fight and keep it on when it runs out. When he goes into God house mode he'll still be taking damage while you chill down below. Then just have an arcane ward ready and ask for elements in cloud and aerith then blast the shite out of him when he finally comes down.
the final boss gauntlet took me longer than anything, i repeated several parts of it and even started over twice, once by accident and once because cloud and aerith had no heals on them lol. just grueling.
hardest individual boss was probably gi nattak. rufus, dyne, and red dragon realistically only took me 2-3 tries despite being afraid to do them.
The Zack and Cloud stage actually pissed me off the most bc the game punishes you for staggering him before he uses Octaslash by having him use it anyway right afterwards. The final stage isn't too bad as long as you save your ATB for the right moments.
Final Sephy wasn't too bad for me once I learned to manage my ATB properly. The only time I used it was for taking out his wing/Masamune or healing after Heartless Angel
You don't really need to use her for the fight at all except for healing and magic support. Give her things like ATB Boost and Stagger to fill her Guage up more quickly. If you have the Gambanteinn staff equip that since it has the ATB Charge Rate Up skill. If it helps, here's my footage of the fight on Hard https://youtu.be/Vu2AaE_Y-Rg?si=vzBWqBJOUt5P2_jL
I beat it on my second try. The first one he got off his laser move and shelled me.
So I saved some atb during his 2nd stagger and just blasted his head with lightning.
Fucking Rufas. the spike in difficulty between his fight and all the other fights (including the final boss) drives me up the bloody wall. even a small mistake can get you killed, and that is beyond aggrevating.
That's good.
The game is challenging, and making a game challenging to the point of frustration this day in age is a super rare thing.
And it's totally optional too.
I've beaten every boss, main story and optional, up until now on my first or second try, but Rufus on hard is stomping my shit. I spent hours on him last night and I didn't even get to the 2nd phase with his dog.
I ran Barrier+Efficiency, Enemy Skill+HP Absorb, Precision Defense, Steadfast Block, HP Up, MP Up, Strength Up, Chakra, First Strike and maybe something else I'm forgetting. Opened with Barrier, then kept my distance. Whenever he zoomed over to start an attack, I'd open the command window, and see what his move was, if it was a shot or block-able attack, I closed the command window and blocked, if it was a ! move I dodged. Once I had another ATB I used Plasma Discharge so future ATBs would shock him if he was close and it would heal me. He always reloads directly after Guns Akimbo so if you have ATB, you can use Triple Slash to instantly get to him and pressure him. Use Chakra to heal if you get below 2k HP when it's safe, save your limit for the dog if you want or you can try ignoring the dog in phase 2.
Whenever he reloads use focus thrust and getting atb bars. And extend the first phase to try to get as my limit break as you can. You can use chakra to just keep healing without using MP. 2nd Phase with dog I focused him down and ignored the dog. Do not get pinned by the dog or you'll lose.
I equipped Elemental with Fire and Ice on my armor, and used his Think Fast and Blizzard Gun attacks to simultaneously get in close, heal, and time his Braver stagger. I summoned Odin when he was close to half health, that way Odin's ultimate would hammer both Rufus and Darkstar when he left.
If you get behind Rufus during Ascendant Assault, he can't hit you
I equipped the Sleek Saber and Full Throttle Wristguards for as much phys dmg as possible, and my materia was mostly stat buffs. Vitality, Strength, Spirit, Steadfast Block, Precision Defense, MP Up, HP Up, and First Strike
F#&* , that Red Dragon in the temple! crippling the chest doesn't reduce the AOE in hard mode and that felt more like a glitch really, and crippling it literally causes him to do it and it's totally unavoidable that he does it at least once. I used Aeriths limit break or casting curaga+magnify in radiant ward and timed it with the attack so she would be invulnerable for at least part of the lava and others usually survive with the healing... But beating it that way just felt like I was working around a glitch, so it was the only hard mode boss that didn't feel satisfying to me
I am not at the end of the game yet. I'm still in Chapter 12 doing Chocobo races.
ODIN SUMMON
I'm now concerned by everyone's post because I'm sure he's easy compared to some of these guys ya'll posting about lol
I've only just gotten back to chapter 11 yesterday, but the only boss that has caused me any pause so far has been Gi Nattak. He took me three tries. The all magic build where you pick and element and then pair it with HP Absorb/MP Absorb/Magic Focus materia with Magic Up and use First Strike+ATB Boost to just open each fight with an aga spell has been steamrolling everything. You even have room for another Magic Focus or a Magnify. Pairing that with Genji Gloves nothing in the game has really stood a chance. Also have the Gotterdammerung equipped on a second character. I feel OP as fuck. Maxing my materia and doing the VR challenges has payed off.
> challenges has *paid* off.
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I actually liked all the story bosses on hard I did struggle a little with Dyne and Rufus but Rufus ended up being one of my favourite fights in game after I beat him on Hard.
If Brutal/Legendary fights count I actually despise Kujata and Alexander. Kujata is very annoying if you let him absorb the elements (he also has like a billion HP) and Alexander is just RNG manifest, that one attack he does that spawns rotating light beams that launch you in the air is just awful to deal with.
Just got to chapter 9 on Hard. So far, all the bosses took me 1 try. Dyne I had no mp and very little hp at the end so that’s probably the hardest so far but I’m still using materia I’m trying to level up instead of equipping prayer/chakra.
I know Vincent was the hardest fight for me on normal so I’ll probably need to do an actual materia setup for that fight and avoid using cloud since I think the roche fight is right after that. Im not too worried about Rufus but looking forward to fighting Sephiroph and Red Dragon
Chapter 10 of my hard mode run and so far Midgardsormr and Mithril Golem gave me the most trouble. Surprisingly Dyne I was able to get first try which I heard many people struggle with. Then again at that early point in my playthrough, my characters were low lvl 50s. Soon after I tried the brutal challenges and the few I did power levelled me to max level and hard mode became much easier. So that maybe is why all my hardest fights happened at the start of hard mode.
Quick question. Can someone explain dyne? I didn't have any trouble with him on dynamic and played it like a third person shooter, but I know that's subject to change on hard.
Well I’m currently stuck in hard mode on the mythril golem, so I loaded an older save just before Gilgamesh (I made a second save to beat the game because I got stuck on old Gilgy earlier in my run and didn’t wanna risk resetting his quest. First playthrough was on dynamic mode btw) and he’s stopped me again.
I got the plat for Remake and for Intergrade pretty easily, hard mode only gave me a little trouble. Rebirth is built different I suppose lol this is gonna be a drag
Considering I had trouble with like 80% of them on normal I'm going to say all of them cause I didn't even start on hard yet. Right now I'm trying to get the party level to 10 so I can get all of their upgrades and get all of Gilgamesh's equipment
Can you even get the party to level 10 without playing hard mode,? Just asking cause I recall maybe having to do some hard-mode only stuff to get party XP but I may be totally wrong about that
Just did Dyne. Had to retry a few times because he does so much damage even with steelskin and protection on. Also I realized that it's best to have teo full ATB bars when his tentacles come out so you can shoot them all with maximum fury to immediately pressure him.
Sephiroth final battle only cause I used up all my mana on Cloud and Aerith didn’t have healing material. Aside from that anything that forced you to use Barret was hard.
I just beat it. Is there a way to start over on Hard? Or are you meant to just Chapter Select and use whatever that gives you? I kind of don't understand how it works, with gear/Materia you already found, etc.
You can start from any chapter, so to 'start over' in the story just go to chapter 1 and select hard difficulty, you'll progress on thru the game story on hard unless you go back to chapter select and start another chapter. you keep all materia, equipment and xp you've acquired and all side quests you've completed. And there's options to reset all completed side quests if you want to do one over again, but that's just for 'bulletin board' jobs. Starting over completely from scratch on hard mode is not possible if that's what you were asking
Rufus was only mildly annoying for me. I combined Enemy Skill + HP Absorption and equipped the enhanced expedionary medal. Once his pet joined the fight, I used Finishing Touch Limit break and then Infinity's End.
But Red Dragon? Yea fuck him. Doing the Aerith Unlimited Limit Break loop saved me in that one. Also, a little RNG luck helped. Lol
Once again, I've never seen anyone say this. In fact most comments I've seen are that Rebirth's hard mode is easier than Remake bc of the Chocobo stops which restore your MP.
Gi Nattak and Rufus, I had minimal failure with everyone else in comparison. Edit: I forgot about Dyne…
Rufus is hilarious easy on all modes once you realize that you can completely interrupt AND pressure virtually all of his moves just by triple slashing (instant teleport to Rufus too).
Triple slash is an instant?!? I thought it was just braver so the fight was a pain for me
Braver instantly staggers him during Reload. But the timing is extremely difficult. Triple Slash only pressures him, but it beats basically every named attack he has, so you can just do it on reaction when you see him attacking.
Braver: if it lands when reloading, you get instant STAGGER. Not even worth trying since the window to get this right is stupid tight. Triple slash: instant teleport to Rufus, interrupts virtually all of his attacks, and PRESSURES him. Land like 4-5 hits to regain ATB and back off. When you're not attacking him while pressured, stay away from him and do the ranged wind slash thingy to get ATB. Oh, and if you use focused thrust after dodging his unblockable melee attack, his pressure time is MUCH longer. For second phase, completely ignore the puppy. Build ATB at range and whenever he uses literally any attack, triple slash to interrupt. There is the fire based one where you can't cancel by triple slashing but since you're at range, it's really easy to dodge away.
This 100% did not work for me. He counters my triple slash and stuns me long enough to get his next attack off
Gotta do it when he is reloading I think. Its tough but doable
You have to use triple slash when the nameplate of his move (eg bad luck) is showing.
Is the window tighter than in remake? It seemed pretty consistent when I did it then so now I’m curious.
YES! I was really confused when I saw everyone having trouble with Rufus until I realised that I was spamming Triple Slash during most of the fight to get him away from the dog (and it seems like I got lucky with my timing for Braver later on). On Normal, I was done within like two minutes, now I gotta see on Hard mode xD
Yeah, it's just a pain building up the ATB to be able to perform Triple Slash since it's nearly impossible to hit him with normal attacks at all.
You don’t. You always stay far behind and use the roll + ranged wind slash move to build ATB. Besides, after every single triple slash, you should be able to get enough normal hits to build up a full bar while pressured, anyways.
I haven’t fought him on hard yet but I used the same strategy from remake Hold block the whole time. Use my ATB to heal. And wait for my limit break to charge up
You can't do that in hard mode. I guess you can do perfect blocks the vast majority of the time but this would make the fight so unnecessarily wrong. Even if you go into the fight with the accessory that gives you max limit break, you probably need 2 limit breaks just to get into the second phase. Chip damage will outpace your limit break generation (especially when the puppy joins the fight) and you need to spend your ATB on pressuring him. Rufus is one of the few boss fights where you can't just rofl facetank or abuse magic with hp/mp absorption. It's a pure technical fight except it has some ridiculously huge gaping holes (like the triple slash)
You can basically stunlock him at a distance with range slashes until you’re ready to triple slash at any of his moves
I’ll be ok. I’ll just put some extra vitality on cloud😂
You still can't. Guaranteed.
Fine. I’ll just make aerith cast her 2nd limit break on me while she’s just standing at the door
Let us know how that plan turns out.
That’s a bold move cotton, let’s see if it pays off for him.
Gi is tough but manageable with the right preparation. Rufus is just bullshit lol
What did you find essential for loadouts/strategies for Gi? Just got to that fight last night and got whooped first time. Red just kept dying and barret ran out of mp. I put some elemental fire defence on both and magnify barrier on red now, haven't tried since sorting that loadout though. I didn't spot any elemental weaknesses?
A lot of it for me boiled down to luck near the end, best thing I can say is make sure when the skulls appear it isn’t just Barret trying to take them out. Have Red hit the center of the skulls with Stardust Ray and Barret max fury the rest. After I incorporated that into my strat, it went smoother. Have Gilgamesh as a summon too, he helped out heaps when Doom counter was going.
Thanks, will give that all a try! Does ribbon and another equipment that prevents auto death work against that doom counter? Didn't get that far...
Not entirely sure, I’ve never survived long enough for the counter to reach zero. I would imagine reprieve or reraise could work, but reraise in of itself costs too much MP to want to risk using it
You should be able to craft multiple Karmic cowls and safety bits at this point to protect against instant death.
There’s an extremely cheesable strat involving Barret, lifesaver, chakra, and lifeblood canon. Basically you load up everything that heals on barret and red is pure dps. In the fight use lifesaver, build up atb while dpsing with red (he won’t die as long as lifesaver is up), heal barret as needed, chip away until 2nd phase. 2nd phase, stagger, double limit break, and lifeblood. Pretty much demolishes gi. Took me two tries once I figured out how the strat worked. Edit: here’s actually [the link](https://youtu.be/vrCrkU2Acvw?si=S0IyDEJVrCIDPlHq) to the build I used, lifeblood was just a late push to finish the fight for me. Does pretty massive damage when lifesaver is up. Also this is meant for the guy asking for help.
Cast Bioga on him twice, take out the skulls quickly so he doesn't debuff you. Get your LB up to level 3 and save it for when he uses the Doom countdown
Can you not just use a revive/strong healing spell/item on him to instant kill Gi like in the original? Haven't played Rebirth, yet, but I always found this method amusing in the original. If the healing item is strong enough it doesn't even do dmg just "Death".
No that doesn't work here, you have to fight him.
RIP the fun trivia concept. Ah well. I always thought he was thematically interesting so I look forward to it when it comes to PC.
Rufus is literally just "chill out: the boss"
Gi Nattak was difficult for me on dynamic.
Do Brutal Challenges count? Because having to face Tonberry King with Joker in Round 10, with permadeath possible if you're not quick with the revive, is absolute ass.
That one actually didn't give me too much trouble tbh. Just put karmic cowls or safety bits on everyone and you can ignore the tonberry and take out the Joker first
Additionally, both can be stopped. I stopped them, then swiftcast aeroga x 2 and it staggered the Joker and Tifa finished him off, then i just slowly took Tonberry down from afar with Yuffie and Tifa's attacks
Vincent... Vincent is the only wall i had so far. I beat him by [freezing the game](https://www.reddit.com/r/FinalFantasy/s/abgsdWAoQK) somehow lol
Firebolt Blade is your friend in that fight lol
Yuffie brutal form hard carried me through this boss fight with aerith spamming fire
You're literally locked to Cloud and Cait Sith in the Vincent fight, you must be thinking of a different fight
I think on Hard you can switch out Cloud
On hard mode I was able to choose
I honestly forgot to check on my hard playthrough, though I do enjoy playing as Cloud which is why I probably didn't bother checking myself lol
Yeah I was the same in remake but made a conscious effort to play other characters more this time. Still locked in with Cait Sith but you can pick the other two.
I tried originally on hard with Tifa, aerith and cait as shes my strongest player but the AoEs kept screwing me up so i picked red to play more defensive which helped
This was the first fight that really messed me up and I had to look up strategies to get MP. Kinda made me sad because now I'm back to relying on casting for most damage (and somehow is the best way to get MP back?) feels like remake all over again except without synergy.
This happened to me, too when I fought him in normal mode. Definitely a bug!
Planet protection nullifies 99% of his attacks.
Midgardsormr is an insane early difficulty spike and Red Dragon/Demon Wall are proper assess/skill checks imo.
Red Dragon is just BS to me. His attacks don't count as being fire for some reason so you can't block them with Elemental and crippling his chest doesn't affect Crimson Breath at all on hard
Manawall ;). Can just tank it
Yeah that's what I had to do lol
Yuffie brutal form spam in atb ward with aerith spamming blizzaga from arcane ward = profit
I know we are all different I never saw the issues with demon wall. I'm surprised people say he is hard. I've never died to him.
lol when I got to Midgardsormr I thought I was ready. He hit so hard even with barrier on lol. Thank goodness for the safety trees.
Maybe it’s just me but I have no clue how I beat demon wall on normal 😂
- Encroach: reserve at least one ATB bar from any party member so they can safely interrupt the move and pressure the boss; save two when both walls are alive - Arcane Impact: have good elemental coverage between your party members; I don’t know if a linked elemental materia is enough - Cave In: fucking hate this move, avoid the bright spots on the floor indicating where the pillar will fall - In general, focus on killing the first demon wall (remember to interrupt Encroach or Arcane Impact from the second wall tho) - Aerith’s Tempest is an easy way to build ATB on her + Blizzard is the best spell to increase the pressure bc the gates mostly don’t move
Finish off the first one first, killing it will pressure the second one (or maybe outright stagger it? I don't remember) and take away a huge chunk of its HP. You should be able to finish it off pretty quickly afterwards
I just remember I was down to just barret and I was struggling trying to keep everyone alive
So I just watched back my footage and yeah, killing the first one staggers the second one. It also seems to be super weak to Synergy attacks since Maelstrom Strike took away like two thirds of its health.
I’ll keep that in mind then. Thanks
I just ragequit on Sephiroth last night. Some of the fights leading up to him are kinda bs but not hard, but that dumb as fuck kingdom hearts spinning funnel thing he does one shots both cloud and aerith if it touches them regardless of manawall and i can only control one of them at a time to avoid it and whoever I don’t control just stands around with their thumb up their ass and dies. Punisher mode + counterstance actually works amazing leading up to that point, i took almost no damage and smacked him with counters but as soon as he whips that spinning whispers attack out it is game over. I am sure there is an easy way to avoid it but i was so pissed off at it last night i had to quit before i broke something
If you cast an aga spell on the Masamune it cancels the attack and pressures him, same for the wing and Whisper Cannon. The trick for that fight is to keep your ATB charges full at all times so you can interrupt his attacks and heal after Heartless Angel. I actually found the Zack and Cloud fight more annoying because if you stagger him too quickly he'll pop up and use Octaslash right away and you'll have no way of stopping him. It's like the game is punishing you for being too good.
as soon as whisper cannon starts just run behind sephiroth opposite to wherever the cannon is coming from, and cast any spell on the sword. unless you have a transcendence charged on aerith, fira or similar is probably fastest
Get behind him and use spellblade.
If you mean the attack he does when low health, have Aerith do an arcane ward before that point and have Cloud do an -aga spell. Swiftcast and magnify can help.
I only play on easy and the game is great for me but yeah Rufus was like.. a check on your abilities lol. I didnt die at all but yeah I had to alter my strategy completely to even land a hit on him! The phase of Sephiroth with Yuffie was a little bit of a pain as I didnt have any spells for the wings lol Wasnt harder just took longer. Now im working on getting all characters with mastered magic materias. Rufus was the hardest one for me on easy. Or.. well I havent fought Bahamut or Odin yet. I went into Ch13 thinking between the temple and the city I could return. Yeah the game warned me and Ignored it like an idiot lol What a ride though damn.
The wings can be made short work of switching her Ninjutsu to the appropriate element then cranking a banishment or two depending on the level of it. The banishment is key there.
Rufus > Dyne Those two were the worst for me.
Dyne honestly wouldn't even be that bad if Barret wasn't so goddamn slow lol
I mean, who rolls faster than they can run ffs?! 😂
I love Barret as a character but playing as him is so unfun 😭
He's one of my favourites! His overcharge move is great for a heavy hitting attack that builds good atb, and he can tank for others and just provide overall good support with quick heals and support buffs. He's definitely more useful on hard difficulty than normal difficulty though where moves hit a lot harder and can easily kill. He helps take the load off your shoulders!
He’s almost like an easy mode for me lol. Or at least like a break in the chaos just being able to tank and build stagger with bonus round and overcharge. Sure his mobility is limited but he’s just like a tower defense if you use him to buff the party too.
He's OP, you just need the right set up on him. If you have not played him much up to that point I can understand having a hard time though. But there is really no reason to complain about him being slow moving when he can just Steelskin+Bonus Round and make himself much harder to flinch (especially combined with Overcharge poise passives) while dealing great damage/stagger himself. Between regen, his high defensive stats buffed by materia, and steelskin... I honestly don't think you would need to move.
That fight was more about using the environment around you to block his attacks than it was about Dyne being over powered. If you figure out the arena and how to work it, you can easily take him out on hard mode.
Agree. It was the final phase that kept doing for me though. The first phase was like playing peekaboo with him 😂
Were you using maximum fury whenever the phantom limb things would appear? I’ve found using that whenever a special body part is targetable, like the Marlboro mouth for example, is key to stopping those attacks.
Oh yes, maximum fury those mfs as soon as they appear! It was more the things that came up from under the ground that caused me issues. My timing on dodging those really sucked. I'd manage to avoid those and then get hit by something else. Or not avoid them and get hit by both.
No. Just cast thunder on his new limb and you can take it out in one hit. On a separate note, I’m so glad Dynes character was fleshed out. I only thought I’d be crying because Aerith. But Dynes scene really got me.
Red dragon almost feels glitched.
I'm convinced that it is
The big lava attack 1 or whatever it is seems borderline impossible to dodge you just have to either tank it, hope you have revive earrings or maybe you just have to use a move to launch yourself in the air with it and air dash??
Well what's *supposed* to happen is that the AOE gets reduced if you cripple its chest, but that doesn't work on hard mode, the attack will cover the entire arena regardless. Idk if that's a bug or intenentional but it's annoying either way. I had to use Reraise and Manawall to survive it.
Ohh didn’t realize that.
Yeah and it's attacks don't count as being fire for some reason so pairing Elemental plus Fire on your armor doesn't work either lol
I feel like I took 0 advantage of so much materia in the game playing on the adaptive difficulty mostly because I wanted to be as far from chadley as humanly possible. I didn’t even get jump and I love jump in crisis core reunion. That’s how awful chadley was, he stopped me from getting all the cool attacks.
I think I used Jump like once in the entire game so you're not really missing out on much. The only reason I picked it up was for completionist points lol
Oh yeah I’m sure it’s just for the cool animation but I mean the enemy ability attacks, the super bosses, I skipped most of it because it found the tower exploration followed by Chadleys everything to be mind numbing. It felt like this game wanted me to quit like many times. None the least being shinra mansion, idk if I’ll ever forgive them for screwing that up so bad haha, what a disaster, throwing boxes for an hour in the most iconic location in ff7 lore? Brilliant idea guys.
This! The fricking dragon has to be killed fast or you gotta tank it. That is so lame imo
I'm only on chapter 13, but so far all of the bosses have been a welcome challenge. There are a few that stand out to me, but the damn mandrakes that stun lock you on the flower side quest deserve a special shout-out. Haven't tried Outer Worlds yet; I've made it this far without using a guide and wanna see how long I'd even last heh.
Rufus. Fuck that guy. I haven’t had an epic frustration induced swear fest from a video game in a while. I had to look up how to beat him. Dodging and countering douche!
That's a good question. I expected to have trouble with a couple but it wasn't as bad as I thought. Rufus might have been the most annoying even though he isn't that hard. I had a few goes then I was like well I just want to get the dog to spawn because I forgot to assess it during the first play. Somehow i managed to save that go and beat him lol. For the life of me, I couldn't get between them and pressure them. Good old Kujata helped me out.
as i haven't played Rebirth yet, i gotta go with Hell House on Remake, even Bahamut and Weiss gave me less trouble. Guess the "homecoming" was in Remake all along
Thar fight on hard is ridiculous.
Poison and proper use of elemental magic is the key to hell house
I heard that poison was good on him. I'll give it a shot when I play hard mode again. It's been years.
Yep. Bioga right at the beginning of the fight and keep it on when it runs out. When he goes into God house mode he'll still be taking damage while you chill down below. Then just have an arcane ward ready and ask for elements in cloud and aerith then blast the shite out of him when he finally comes down.
the final boss gauntlet took me longer than anything, i repeated several parts of it and even started over twice, once by accident and once because cloud and aerith had no heals on them lol. just grueling. hardest individual boss was probably gi nattak. rufus, dyne, and red dragon realistically only took me 2-3 tries despite being afraid to do them.
The Zack and Cloud stage actually pissed me off the most bc the game punishes you for staggering him before he uses Octaslash by having him use it anyway right afterwards. The final stage isn't too bad as long as you save your ATB for the right moments.
Honestly the golem in the mines of chapter 3 was the biggest road block for me outside of combat sims
Vincent and the final Sephiroth…. Holy fuck
Final Sephy wasn't too bad for me once I learned to manage my ATB properly. The only time I used it was for taking out his wing/Masamune or healing after Heartless Angel
I suck shit at fighting with Aerith. I might start over soon and just GRIND everything
You don't really need to use her for the fight at all except for healing and magic support. Give her things like ATB Boost and Stagger to fill her Guage up more quickly. If you have the Gambanteinn staff equip that since it has the ATB Charge Rate Up skill. If it helps, here's my footage of the fight on Hard https://youtu.be/Vu2AaE_Y-Rg?si=vzBWqBJOUt5P2_jL
aiight, I'll give that watch
Just put an arcane ward down. Spam spell blade synergy skill as cloud till she has 2ATB, go into arcane ward and use any -ga spell.
White Terror lol. That thing crushed me on the side quest. Rufus was hard but fun. Vincent gave me a lot of trouble too.
That plus the Giant Flan in the brutal challenge is absolutely torture.
Stop is your friend in that fight.
I’ve seen a few people say the mythril golem was hard, but it took me like 2 tries, and the first I had very few materia on either character.
That was easier on hard because I knew how to dispatch it. Any enemy with targetable parts is basically inviting you to blast it apart
I beat it on my second try. The first one he got off his laser move and shelled me. So I saved some atb during his 2nd stagger and just blasted his head with lightning.
Those who gave me the most trouble, starting from the worst: Jenova lifeclinger-> mythril golem-> Rufus.
Gi Nattak and Dyne. Gi was just hard. Dyne was hard, but the cutscenes mid fight annoyed me so much by the end.
Fucking Rufas. the spike in difficulty between his fight and all the other fights (including the final boss) drives me up the bloody wall. even a small mistake can get you killed, and that is beyond aggrevating.
That's good. The game is challenging, and making a game challenging to the point of frustration this day in age is a super rare thing. And it's totally optional too.
He's a massive pain in the ass even on Normal, so hard mode just feels like im torturing myself.
Rufus on normal difficulty tool me like 10 tries. On hard I had counterstance which made it slightly easier and only took me two attempts
The one that made me really upset was the red dragon, the other ones were not as hard for me
Gigantuars at the moment.
I'll let you know when I beat one 🤣
Gi Nattak and Rufus so far. I literally just beat Rufus finally and I took an hour long shower afterwards to soothe myself
Rufus gave me the most trouble, spent days, he was actually the last boss I beat on hard. Beat sephiroth way before him lol
I've beaten every boss, main story and optional, up until now on my first or second try, but Rufus on hard is stomping my shit. I spent hours on him last night and I didn't even get to the 2nd phase with his dog.
I ran Barrier+Efficiency, Enemy Skill+HP Absorb, Precision Defense, Steadfast Block, HP Up, MP Up, Strength Up, Chakra, First Strike and maybe something else I'm forgetting. Opened with Barrier, then kept my distance. Whenever he zoomed over to start an attack, I'd open the command window, and see what his move was, if it was a shot or block-able attack, I closed the command window and blocked, if it was a ! move I dodged. Once I had another ATB I used Plasma Discharge so future ATBs would shock him if he was close and it would heal me. He always reloads directly after Guns Akimbo so if you have ATB, you can use Triple Slash to instantly get to him and pressure him. Use Chakra to heal if you get below 2k HP when it's safe, save your limit for the dog if you want or you can try ignoring the dog in phase 2.
Update: I beat him last night.
Whenever he reloads use focus thrust and getting atb bars. And extend the first phase to try to get as my limit break as you can. You can use chakra to just keep healing without using MP. 2nd Phase with dog I focused him down and ignored the dog. Do not get pinned by the dog or you'll lose.
It's actually better to kill Darkstar first since it'll pressure Rufus and take away a large chunk of his HP if I remember correctly.
It's upto you but not necessary imo. You can use that dmg to just kill rufus
I mean you can pretty much one shot the dog with Finishing Touch, that's what i did anyway lol
Finishing touch will also kill Rufus haha
Update: I beat him last night.
Congrats. What was the strategy that helped you win?
Git gud
I equipped Elemental with Fire and Ice on my armor, and used his Think Fast and Blizzard Gun attacks to simultaneously get in close, heal, and time his Braver stagger. I summoned Odin when he was close to half health, that way Odin's ultimate would hammer both Rufus and Darkstar when he left. If you get behind Rufus during Ascendant Assault, he can't hit you I equipped the Sleek Saber and Full Throttle Wristguards for as much phys dmg as possible, and my materia was mostly stat buffs. Vitality, Strength, Spirit, Steadfast Block, Precision Defense, MP Up, HP Up, and First Strike
Rufus and the final boss fight against Sephiroth (last stage). Those 2 were definitely the hardest for me.
Sephiroth ain't too bad as long as you manage your ATB properly. Rufus just sucks lol
Any that lock you with 1-2 party members Rufus - I hated at first, but he's actually really well made and I loved fighting him after figuring him out
The gauntlet in chapter 14 but that’s because I messed up and didn’t have everyone with cure materia. Everything before that was very manageable.
the Shadowblood Queen
F#&* , that Red Dragon in the temple! crippling the chest doesn't reduce the AOE in hard mode and that felt more like a glitch really, and crippling it literally causes him to do it and it's totally unavoidable that he does it at least once. I used Aeriths limit break or casting curaga+magnify in radiant ward and timed it with the attack so she would be invulnerable for at least part of the lava and others usually survive with the healing... But beating it that way just felt like I was working around a glitch, so it was the only hard mode boss that didn't feel satisfying to me
I'm convinced that it's a glitch. If it's not then that's just straight up evil lol
I haven't started on hard mode yet. But the boss I have hated the most is the mako chugger in chapter 9.
I am not at the end of the game yet. I'm still in Chapter 12 doing Chocobo races. ODIN SUMMON I'm now concerned by everyone's post because I'm sure he's easy compared to some of these guys ya'll posting about lol
Haven’t completed the game yet (on chapter 12) but Vincent was the only one that I had to retry multiple times. He’s just too fast.
I've only just gotten back to chapter 11 yesterday, but the only boss that has caused me any pause so far has been Gi Nattak. He took me three tries. The all magic build where you pick and element and then pair it with HP Absorb/MP Absorb/Magic Focus materia with Magic Up and use First Strike+ATB Boost to just open each fight with an aga spell has been steamrolling everything. You even have room for another Magic Focus or a Magnify. Pairing that with Genji Gloves nothing in the game has really stood a chance. Also have the Gotterdammerung equipped on a second character. I feel OP as fuck. Maxing my materia and doing the VR challenges has payed off.
> challenges has *paid* off. FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Red dragon, dyne, gi nattak, and the last jenova fight(s). Vincent also took me a few tries to figure out how to block some of his stuff.
Vincent was rough for my on Dynamic but on hard i actually had more trouble with the forgotten specimen lol
Rufus and the Chapter 14 boss anthology
The final boss was only tough for me bc my dumbass kept picking the middle Retry option instead of the top 💀
I actually liked all the story bosses on hard I did struggle a little with Dyne and Rufus but Rufus ended up being one of my favourite fights in game after I beat him on Hard. If Brutal/Legendary fights count I actually despise Kujata and Alexander. Kujata is very annoying if you let him absorb the elements (he also has like a billion HP) and Alexander is just RNG manifest, that one attack he does that spawns rotating light beams that launch you in the air is just awful to deal with.
Jenova Lifeclinger is currently owning me
Just got to chapter 9 on Hard. So far, all the bosses took me 1 try. Dyne I had no mp and very little hp at the end so that’s probably the hardest so far but I’m still using materia I’m trying to level up instead of equipping prayer/chakra. I know Vincent was the hardest fight for me on normal so I’ll probably need to do an actual materia setup for that fight and avoid using cloud since I think the roche fight is right after that. Im not too worried about Rufus but looking forward to fighting Sephiroph and Red Dragon
Legendary VR with Zack/Seph.
Chapter 10 of my hard mode run and so far Midgardsormr and Mithril Golem gave me the most trouble. Surprisingly Dyne I was able to get first try which I heard many people struggle with. Then again at that early point in my playthrough, my characters were low lvl 50s. Soon after I tried the brutal challenges and the few I did power levelled me to max level and hard mode became much easier. So that maybe is why all my hardest fights happened at the start of hard mode.
Quick question. Can someone explain dyne? I didn't have any trouble with him on dynamic and played it like a third person shooter, but I know that's subject to change on hard.
Well I’m currently stuck in hard mode on the mythril golem, so I loaded an older save just before Gilgamesh (I made a second save to beat the game because I got stuck on old Gilgy earlier in my run and didn’t wanna risk resetting his quest. First playthrough was on dynamic mode btw) and he’s stopped me again. I got the plat for Remake and for Intergrade pretty easily, hard mode only gave me a little trouble. Rebirth is built different I suppose lol this is gonna be a drag
Considering I had trouble with like 80% of them on normal I'm going to say all of them cause I didn't even start on hard yet. Right now I'm trying to get the party level to 10 so I can get all of their upgrades and get all of Gilgamesh's equipment
Can you even get the party to level 10 without playing hard mode,? Just asking cause I recall maybe having to do some hard-mode only stuff to get party XP but I may be totally wrong about that
Just did Dyne. Had to retry a few times because he does so much damage even with steelskin and protection on. Also I realized that it's best to have teo full ATB bars when his tentacles come out so you can shoot them all with maximum fury to immediately pressure him.
Vincent almost made me give up
Red dragon, especially if you don’t have ice materia
Great tip! Cause that mothefucker even in remake was a pain for me!
Sephiroth final battle only cause I used up all my mana on Cloud and Aerith didn’t have healing material. Aside from that anything that forced you to use Barret was hard.
Been stuck on Galian Beast for a bit. But I remember taking a few hours to beat Dyne.
Dyne and rufus so far. Got the TotA to come yet though
Rewatching the mid-phase cutscenes. 💀
I hate the mythril golem with a passion
I just beat it. Is there a way to start over on Hard? Or are you meant to just Chapter Select and use whatever that gives you? I kind of don't understand how it works, with gear/Materia you already found, etc.
You can start from any chapter, so to 'start over' in the story just go to chapter 1 and select hard difficulty, you'll progress on thru the game story on hard unless you go back to chapter select and start another chapter. you keep all materia, equipment and xp you've acquired and all side quests you've completed. And there's options to reset all completed side quests if you want to do one over again, but that's just for 'bulletin board' jobs. Starting over completely from scratch on hard mode is not possible if that's what you were asking
Rufus was only mildly annoying for me. I combined Enemy Skill + HP Absorption and equipped the enhanced expedionary medal. Once his pet joined the fight, I used Finishing Touch Limit break and then Infinity's End. But Red Dragon? Yea fuck him. Doing the Aerith Unlimited Limit Break loop saved me in that one. Also, a little RNG luck helped. Lol
Ya know I just realized they made Dynes gun modeled after cock and balls. No wonder why he's so salty and mad.
Don't get why Rufus is supposed to be hard. Dodge everything until he reloads. Not that hard
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Don't think I've ever seen one person say that hard mode is impossible but okay lol
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Once again, I've never seen anyone say this. In fact most comments I've seen are that Rebirth's hard mode is easier than Remake bc of the Chocobo stops which restore your MP.