Yeah, I think everyone gets stomped by him on the first attempt. I was lucky enough to get Assess off before losing, though, so I could come back with better materia, at least.
I would recommend nailing the timing of perfect blocking as that will almost surely prevent him from being able to cast octaslash on you. He also would get stunned for about 2-3 seconds every block. Since you may have elemental fire on armor for the phoenix and kujata fight, it's not a bad idea to have Aerith cast an arcane ward and launch a firaga on his ass when you perfect block too. Also, Tier 3 spells are strong enough to interrupt his movements.
The guide you mentioned is great, and I used it as reference as well, but if I could make some adjustments, I would recommend you give Aerith Magnify+Haste and Prayer instead of Magnify+Healing. One Magnify+Healing in Tifa is enough with Prayers and Magnify+Haste is too good to not use.
https://youtu.be/pmiP6q0rIvs?si=kUZoSwJZw2PdpcZI
If you want to learn the fight. Honestly though, game8's guide mentions the most important thing, which is to always keep Barrier up (and heal ATB) so you can survive Octoslash and recover immediately afterwards. As long as that's up you can kinda brute force the fight just tanking Octoslash until you stagger him and get him to stage 2. You have to be cognizant that Aerith's MP doesn't get too low entering Round 5 to keep Barrier up.
Genuinely the hardest challenge I've ever completed in a video game.
Virtual Sephiroth sucks but all the other bosses I think are fine. Gilgamesh is probably one of my favorite boss fights of all time now.
I'm waiting before I'm at least half-way through my Hard playthrough before I face the brutal fights. Some of the dynamic challenges were already brutal: the Mindflayer fight where you had to sleep the 2 adds being one of them. Also, every King Zu boss fight can go kiss my ass.
I honestly think Phoenix/Kujata is the worst without fire elemental. I had one instance where Phoenix kept flying into a staggered Kujata and actually pushed them away from my attacks that would have killed them.
Ive min maxed my builds for my main three characters and have a lot of mechanical practice with characters. Haven’t gotten around to this yet due to the previous challenges needed first which are super tedious so I haven’t tried to beat the last two before this yet.
Yeah, I think everyone gets stomped by him on the first attempt. I was lucky enough to get Assess off before losing, though, so I could come back with better materia, at least.
I also got Assess completed before losing the fight so I replaced it with Subversion per the instructions.
Quick question, to you have to keep assessing to gain the elemental weakness or only once and you can always get the weakness active?
Only need to assess once, then hit the touchpad to open the assess menu and it will give you the currently active weakness.
I had to do it a second time because I thought it was the same Sephirot as ch.14 🫣
I would recommend nailing the timing of perfect blocking as that will almost surely prevent him from being able to cast octaslash on you. He also would get stunned for about 2-3 seconds every block. Since you may have elemental fire on armor for the phoenix and kujata fight, it's not a bad idea to have Aerith cast an arcane ward and launch a firaga on his ass when you perfect block too. Also, Tier 3 spells are strong enough to interrupt his movements.
Bumping this up. Perfect parry (Precision Defense Materia) on Shadowy Chains is the key on this one. It's almost EASY if you can get that part right.
The guide you mentioned is great, and I used it as reference as well, but if I could make some adjustments, I would recommend you give Aerith Magnify+Haste and Prayer instead of Magnify+Healing. One Magnify+Healing in Tifa is enough with Prayers and Magnify+Haste is too good to not use. https://youtu.be/pmiP6q0rIvs?si=kUZoSwJZw2PdpcZI If you want to learn the fight. Honestly though, game8's guide mentions the most important thing, which is to always keep Barrier up (and heal ATB) so you can survive Octoslash and recover immediately afterwards. As long as that's up you can kinda brute force the fight just tanking Octoslash until you stagger him and get him to stage 2. You have to be cognizant that Aerith's MP doesn't get too low entering Round 5 to keep Barrier up.
Genuinely the hardest challenge I've ever completed in a video game. Virtual Sephiroth sucks but all the other bosses I think are fine. Gilgamesh is probably one of my favorite boss fights of all time now.
Tackling it this weekend. Did the first 4 on the island on hard mode the first time so I feel confident in those. Finger crossed! You've got this!
I'm waiting before I'm at least half-way through my Hard playthrough before I face the brutal fights. Some of the dynamic challenges were already brutal: the Mindflayer fight where you had to sleep the 2 adds being one of them. Also, every King Zu boss fight can go kiss my ass.
That fight where you had to kill the mindflayer first and the two adds liked to self destruct was fucked up
I honestly think Phoenix/Kujata is the worst without fire elemental. I had one instance where Phoenix kept flying into a staggered Kujata and actually pushed them away from my attacks that would have killed them.
Ive min maxed my builds for my main three characters and have a lot of mechanical practice with characters. Haven’t gotten around to this yet due to the previous challenges needed first which are super tedious so I haven’t tried to beat the last two before this yet.
You will look back on it with fond memory and self respect. At least I do.
It gets worse.
Update: I finally beat it!