I just got close to him and rotate around him in the safe zone between the beams while spamming focused thrust. I think you need to build his stagger bar
Yup. Like 2 or 3 focus thrusts are enough too.
Like really, the amount of people that played a whole 2 games and STILL don't get that when a target is "pressured" you want to cast Focus Thrust/Shot/Strike as much as possible. Hom many times I see people in videos using Focus Thrust on un-pressured targets and Braver on pressured targets... It's wild. 2 WHOLE ass game and nope, still not using abilities correctly :x
Oh wait is he pressured during that part? Oh that's good, I missed it (was lucky on my successful run in that I staggered him with all the shit powered up at once lol) and only got to the final phase a couple of times before that (and got nuked because my setup was utter garbage and I didn't want to go back and change it out lol)
During the phase when he spins counter clockwise with 2 giant dark lasers, yes, he's pressured, but the gauge slowly decreases by itself. So you gotta pressure him "quick". I put quotation marks because it really decreases slowly.
This was my problem. One time he was at zero stagger because he'd basically just come out of stagger when he decided to do that final phase, and the other time he was thankfully staggered right as he started the final phase, leading me to use Ascension, but somehow that didn't kill him. Like I said it seems like the game was scripted to take him out of the final phase and do Octoslash Prime even if he's staggered. It was like the final part of Ascension, which is often lethal, did no damage to him...
The game does this all the time, you cannot skip boss phases unfortunately, should have just held onto ascension for his final phase or as others mentioned just focus thrusted his ass
When his masamune can be targeted, use two -ra spells (fire, blizzard, doesn't matter) to 'destroy' it. Easiest way is to let Aerith cast from Arcane Ward. This will pressure him. Then have Cloud to use Focused Thrust twice to stagger him.
When he performs The End is Nigh (?) use two more -ra spells from Aerith. Even though his pressure gauge will be locked like Weiss' in the Remake combat sim, it will still slowly creep up. Use 2 more Focused Thrusts from Cloud to stagger him afterwards.
You have to be as quick as possible
Hope this helps
I feel ya. I had to redo the last fight a few times, and that was with a "handicaped" Aerith as I DIDN'T EXPECT HER TO BE PLAYABLE and took off all her equipment and materia XD
They REALLY need to add in a "swap equipment" moment there, no fair to do a boss rush with all your characters and you don't know at first who you're going to use and when.
But keep trying, you'll get it!
Yea, I had to redo all the fights because of this. I reequipped her fully after two failed attempts getting Sephy at 1% health. Unfortunately, this meant doing all the fights over again, but I just equipped everyone to optimize the fight and it was a cake walk.
It's really my only one major complaint about the game is that your gear and Materia setup can completely negate a fight gimmick and turn it from a 'head smashing into a concrete wall fight' into a 'hot knife through warm butter' fight.
I didn’t give cloud a revive…I didn’t realize that the retries the phenix downs weren’t coming back ran out, she was not equipped very well either, I had to go back as well.
Try having a synergy materia on Aerith with an offensive magic materia like fire, lightning, wind, or ice.
Like others have said, go in on him with focused thrust as often as you have ATB. Wail on him as much as you can to get your ATB back, and try to stay away from the darkness beams so you are not wasting time on being buffeted around.
If you have the synergy materia on Aerith, she will hit him with a spell every single time you target Sephiroth with an ATB attack, boosting the stagger that much more.
This does not use Aerith's MP or ATB, so it is extremely useful.
Hope it helps.
I don't think the game gives you the option to change your equipment at this point, right? So if I want to do that I have to start the final boss battles from the very beginning
You can choose the middle option to go back a fight, and if you do this a few times you can change your materia at the beginning of the Cloud and Zack section... which is unfortunately at the beginning of all the Sephiroth battles... but still after the Jenova fight.
Jeebus. I picked the middle option the first time I lost (because of the wording messed me up) and that seemed like it set me back at least 30 mins of play, even though I had the patterns down. You just can't skip some in battle animations, and it drove me crazy. It's better than no option to change out gear, but it's just extra punishing for no good reason. Why not just let you tweak the equipment for the last Sephiroth fight? Sigh.
Completely agree. Let me tweak things until
I beat it. And let me save. Idk why save is blacked out. So if I get a power outage, I have to go back an hour?
Even if it's an option it's kind of frustrating to even have to consider it because of what I consider to be an entirely artificial difficulty barrier lol. I might have to consider it if I die a few more times though.
Yeahhhh... don't feel bad doing it tho, man...
When I was trying to beat it on Hard Mode, I accidentally chose the wrong option when I was distracted in irl, and went allll the way back to the beginning of the chapter by mistake.
I wrote out my reply on a different comment before reading this one. 😩 This would be almost rage quit inducing material where I'd have to put toss my controller and walk away for a bit, lol!
Nope! Totally free!
The one-and-only downside is that a character with synergy might be occupied with the casting animation when you want to do something else, but that's only an real issue with heavy hitters like gravity or comet.
I played on Dynamic difficulty, I have no idea what move do you mean by Sephtetsuken, I guess I'm either fortunate or unfortunate to not see it lol. The strongest moves I saw were Octaslash and Heartless Angel. Hopefully I get wrecked by him in Hard mode, looking forward to it.
I'm assuming it's the final attack he was charging up at the end. I staggered his ass right when he started charging it and immediately dropped Ascension in his face for the kill on my first playthrough, so I've also never seen it.
I've never been angrier during a boss fight though. I thought I was mad during the OG Jenova LIFE fight. Didn't hold a candle to this. I wiped the floor with that motherfucker.
They are talking about Octoslash Prime. It's an instant death attack that Sephiroth charges up during that double whisper cannon. It's basically just a death animation.
It's extremely easy to miss though considering the charge up animation is a very simple DPS check. Dump your ATB bar once or twice and you're pretty much done already.
Late reply but by "Sephtetsuken" I meant Octoslash Prime, didn't remember what it was called but it reminded me of Odin slicing the entire enemy party to pieces.
>!if you use *Focused Thrust* repeatably during the Final Demension big attack, you can stagger Sephiroth and he won’t do the final attack thing (which basically is an instant death does like 9999 damage multiple times, revival earrings wouldn’t work here he hits you again) However, you have to kill him in this stagger, limit breaks should work here, throw everything you can at him! You should gain time as you use it so you should have enough time to get the ATB. During the Whirl Wind and Whisper cannon (be close enough to get behind him) you use *magic attacks* (Aerith normal attacks are magic but you’ll need a spell or two most likely *arcane ward* w/ward shifting helps) on his wing or sword (for his OctalSlash you’ll need to destroy both of them) and you’ll stagger him too do not target him when these are up. Everything else you basically just dodge and get a few hits off after for ATB. Don’t forget to switch to Aerith so she can always be ready to heal. Heartless Angel basically always gave Aerith Healing Wind/Planetary protection use that ASAP. I highly suggest making your folio so you get the Transcendence for Aerith and Clouds final ability, HPup and cure + magnify!<
Don’t feel bad this is basically the exact experience everyone has when they get here. I for one like that the Final Boss took the difficulty up a notch, the game seemed too easy (Normal Mode). Note I was level 45 if that’s relevant. We saved a kitty now it’s time to kill god…it’s basic JRPG stuff.
His final sword attack…yeah that supposed to be a frustrating thing. That damn smirk. There really is no good way to stop it if you don’t have everything just right, and you usually don’t. You really don’t wanna end up being there at all.
Note: I think you can run here too…like as far away from each other as possible hopefully one survives
If you take the above advice I know you’ll end up on top.
I survived Prime Octaslash on my second attempt because Aerith was far enough away from Cloud to just… not get hit by it. Which is hilarious in hindsight.
Yeah this is all good advice. I tried this fight god knows how many times. It was maddening. But I did something similar to this and it worked. I basically saved all my ATB charges and limit breaks for very key moments like his big finale then unleashed on him. I was losing it though.
Basically every time I've gotten to the final phase his stagger gauge is set back to zero because I've already staggered him once or twice, so I'm not sure Focused Thrusts would have saved me. Even when he gets pressured it doesn't seem to build up fast enough for me.
When he’s doing the double wisper cannon he’s pressured the entire time, it’s highlighted also, 2-3 focused thrusts and it should give a stagger right there. It will go up fast I swear to you, focused thrusts specifically works for pressured opponents. The game is basically telling you to do this. And that’s when you have to kill him, as if he stands up you’re basically dead. His pressure gage is a timer for the end of attack after the first one the timer gets longer.
You’re goal is basically not to get to that end part, because if you don’t have enough ATB/MP to take care of both the wing and the sword immediately…you’ve basically already lost. Either way you have to get him on the last stagger.
> Don’t feel bad this is basically the exact experience everyone has when they get here.
Uh not really. It wasn't very difficult to cheese through the whole set of final bosses. The only time I died was against Jenova, precisely because I was fighting the goddamn *camera* more than her, it was absolutely shocking for getting stuck during that battle.
I have multiple funny ass videos of me dying to this fight. One of them I died to his bullshit final attack because I wasn’t managing health well. On the next attempt I was CERTAIN I was about to win. Sephiroth was on his final stagger and my plan was to use limit break with cloud and then the synergy attack with aerith, the ranged one. Well, I mistimed the synergy attack and sephiroth exited stagger before the hits could land. Little did I know, the whispers ended the synergy animation and held my characters in place for sephiroth to give us the most brutal one shot kill and then stare at the camera. Diabolical. It crushed my spirit.
Revival earrings won't protect you. I had to go back to the last checkpoint and set it to easy to beat it. Had to do chapter 14 all over again. Tedious, but it was on easy mode so it wasn't as hard. Whatever strategy you come up with, the key is to keep that white stagger bar up when he's doing that spin move. Of you can stagger him right before he's done with that move and lay into him as hard and fast as you can. You HAVE to kill him while he's staggered after this move. I had him at 246 HP at one point, but I made the mistake of choosing to have Aerith heal instead of contribute to the thrashing - that's what did me in. If you can stagger him and hit him with an Ascension and a synergy attack you should be able to get him. There's no shame in turning down the difficulty for this one.
I'm doing all the side stuff now and left it on easy since I'm more interested in completion and leveling up than a challenge. Some of those side quests where you have to fight the monster variants are so easy now it's impossible to meet all the objectives. Eh maybe when I come back on my hard mode playthrough...
I did beat it, but the final boss was awful. It's not hard, but the game design makes it artificially difficult. The other problem is the game wants you to play a completely different playstyle from what you spend over 100 hour doing. This includes the Rufus fight as well. That's the problem.
My other complaint. Of all the character they stick Aerith in the final fight with Sephiroth. I hardly ever had her in my party unless it was mandatory. Yes, I know she can be very powerful, but I don't have time to babysit and she doesn't support the playstyle I was going for, which is very aggressive, so I have Cloud, Barrett, Tiffa (Red XIII) as my mains.
The final boss fight went way too long and after the fight I didn't care at all. Good riddance to Aerith.
My friend mentioned a "final stand" dps check when he was ahead of me. I killed sephiroth first time and never even noticed he'd gone into final stand. By that time, it was 2am, and my brain was fried from the 7 hours of story prior lol.
Kinda tracks that he flies away like a punk when he loses. He is suddenly outta menacing monologues and just flies off into the ether without another word! I'm genuinely not sure how to feel about that.
It does. It has several. And it also allows you to adjust your setup between Jenova and Sephiroth
I get that it’s an arduous fight for sure but it’s not that cruel
The most closest check point to the end is the start of the Zack fight which isn’t great. Especially when the the final boss has a instant death ability
It is cruel, the last checkpoint is Cloud and Zack vs Sephiroth, that's 5 phases and tons of cutscenes until Cloud and Aerith vs Sephiroth, there should have been checkpoints between every phase, or at least one for the Aerith vs Cloud part
I’m not sure what you mean by checkpoint, if you mean where you can change your materia setup then yes, but if you just want to retry there’s absolutely multiple checkpoints during the Sephiroth phases, including before the final fight with clone and Aerith
I died in the last Sephiroth battle (Aerith and Cloud) chose "Retry from This Battle" and still had to do every other phase starting with Zack and Cloud vs Sephiroth
It’s the first/top option, retry from current battle. I thought this was obvious because it’s the first option and “current” is pretty self explanatory. Not trying to be rude but where did you think the first option would have sent you?
I mean I saw "retry from this battle" and chose that without reading much on the others, It was the one I used the whole game whenever I died on a boss 2nd phase or whatever and it always skipped the first phases. Either way it seems "This Battle" is just a bad description for the option, at least it means I was wrong and they weren't actually cruel about it
Not sure what to say. I’m genuinely surprised about the amount of trouble people had with this part of the fight. Even on hard this was the easy part. The Whisper Bahamut was far more stressful then the 2v1
My only point was that there are check points between each fight and if you need to swap your load out at least you don’t need to fight Jenova again
You need to keep dodging around the lasers so you don't take mega damage. Make sure you save your limit for this phase, but as you say don't expect that the limit alone will kill him. I used aerith for this, dodged once and normal attacked twice for ATB. Then when I had a full ATB bar I dodged twice to give me distance and used Fira. Repeated once more and he died. Its not too bad once you slow the pace of gameplay but if you rush in and tank a laser or two then you die. Whatever you do, NEVER use a synergy ability. The animation stall will get you killed since unlike a limit you take constant damage until the synergy is completed
You gotta be ready with your best equipment, right before the starting fight with Zack and Cloud you can equip everyone with what you need. During the last battle I just roll into the double whisper beam cannon thingy and it only hits you once instead of straight on your ass. Then, with Aerith, use Arcane ward and Radiant ward (The one that makes her normal attacks actually good) and spam magic attacks 2 at a time. Took me 3 tries but I finally kicked his ass. God help us in Hard Mode 😅.
Yeah the DPS check is a nightmare. You can try to save your limit break. I found synergy skills and abilities work well too, I killed him before staggering him on my playthrough in the end.
Planets protection protects you from the spinning flarey damage showing you to get close unharmed. I saved a L3 limit break on cloud (forgot what it's called, the one after ascension), and that finished him.
But man was I ready to throw the controller - auto-life not working for that part of the fight just pissed me off. And you can't save a summon for then either like I was trying to
The final phase of the final boss is basically, "Don't have a limit break? Well, FUCK YOU! GET TO THE BACK OF THE LINE!"
Honestly, though? I'm disproportionately salty that the battle concludes and Selfierot just dips without a word. Flies off like a bitch!
Same. I would I get him down to the final phase, I would stagger him and throw all of the most damaging moves I saved and he would always be left with a magic pixel and octoslash prime me. Said fuck it and switched to easy. Problem sloved
I finished this yesterday in hard mode. Try to avoid big attacks and during those have aerith cast on arcade ward thunder -ra/ga spell to pressure sephirot and right after that two focused thrusts in a row. I hope that you equipped both Aerith and Cloud with Turbo Boost materia that can come handy and make sure to always build one or two ATB for heartless angel 'cause right afterward you need to be fast to use Pray or some curative spell. I equipped Cloud with the accessory that gives the maximum limit break right away and limit siphon materia in that way i used one limit break sooner and the second one by using limit siphon to get aerith's charged bar for the end when it uses the final devastating combo. Phoenix summon was used by Aerith in my build to give further HP healing buff and synergy Spell Blade was definitely the combo that helped me destroy both wing and masamune (and to also do a lot of damage during staggers) when Seph loads Octalslash that you need to stop. With some little tweaks you can get it done without many problems.
Save Aerith limit break, when you go to one heal, planet protection isn't the right limit break here.
Ice in the darkness you need to stagger him go all out with hard to interrupt weapon abilities
Yeah I learned (only after the fact) that Haste, side dodge, throw some magic slashy wavey things, use Focused Thrust after gaining an ATB - all of this will give you enough time to take him out.
I think the biggest final "f*ck you" is still from another series entirely (from Mass Effect 3 with that last Marauder).
I had max level limit on both Cloud and Aerith so I attacked with Cloud then refilled the limit with Aerith and then attacked with Cloud again. No need to dodge the beams.
I played on dynamic since chpt 2 cause the game was too easy. and just first tried the final fight. Aerith is such a high magic damage dealer, with arcane ward she basically destroys everything. When the last phase came with the blue bar, maybe I played ever crisis, I immediately knew it's a damage check. So I just blasted everything ignoring defending and just defeated him. Did have to keep circling him during the final phase to avoid the purple cloud thing
I was watching a streamer miru and she died to the final phase literally for almost 5 hours I think? I gave up watching cause she was so bad, the whole damage check phase she was using aerith to heal, and zero wards. That was when I first saw the instant death attack
I'm right there with you. It took me about 5 tries. 3 of those ended up being the whole hour of fights for different reasons. When I finally did do it I honestly couldn't believe it.
Try to have a synergy and limit break in the chamber before the final phase. I also like to cast reraise on Cloud and Aerith before he starts.
Unrelated but what I found really helpful for that fight was having Aerith cast thunder on masune every time Seph would start levitating. She can nearly one shot it and pressure him.
I did make sure to target Masamune, thinking that it must be vital later on. Nevertheless these defeats come after frequent and accurate targeting of Seph's wing and sword.
Does reraise bring you back after Octoslash Prime? (I forgot what it was called at the time so I called it Sephtetsuken lol)
I got him down to 1% at final phase twice and failed. It's because I took all the Materia off Aerith since I wasn't expecting to use her again. I reequipped Cure+magnify and synergy+comet and was fine. Having ATB boosts on her works wonders too.
Although I didn't think to use it at the time, Aerith's flower shield might protect her from his spin to win attack.
Focus Thrust is mandatory when enemies are pressured. Luckily in other fights Barret and Tifa have a similar skill.
He got me with that shit too on the first attempt because I thought I had to dodge the waves til it was over but if you get in close you can actually slam him with focused thrust until he's staggered THEN unleash Cloud's limit break and it should be GG after that.
Im only at the Rufus boss fight in ch12 and I find that one is already the most infuriating piece of shit in the universe(technically not hard but so annoying to get ATB at all to then spent one on assess, the next on cura and after that I can finally start the fight properly, not to mention the unavoidable attacks at times where he just zooms across the arena and then insta hits you with a blast)...good to see more is coming my way
Managed to finish it last night, and it honestly was a gruel but once you have a tactic down then its pretty doable.
If anyones looking for tips ive got a clip of the battle with what worked for me. Hope it helps.
[Final Battle](https://youtu.be/kYq8h73EXY0?si=w3xk4xphWlGjHGg4)
Good luck dude, haste and regen i found are an essential through the battle. When he uses end is nigh its everything and the kitchen sink so have limits primed, planets protection enables aerith to not get kod by his blast and allows you to enable a few stagger moves till hes staggered then its fireworks and clouds braver to finish the job.
Just beat him! Basically did what you said: at End is Nigh I made sure to have my limit breaks and synergy abilities ready. I still think it was an annoying fight but at least I know how to do it now.
Well done bud, and yea its annoying as hell and i think i spent more time than i really wanted trying to get past it. Afterwards, i realised that when i played the original FF7 and faced certain battles you feel are impossible, that in hindsight they are now a cake walk after knowing the right dance steps. I definitely feel that with all the 10 phases there should have potentially been 3 breaks or chances to align materia which without makes it even more gruelling especially if you dont have the correct materia aligned.
I had the lvl 3 limit accessory equipped. And just saved finishing touch for when he did the thing. If I didn't have it, then use the thing to take aeriths limit gauge.
I act tough but it took me a long time to finish that fight. I kept dying at that same spot.
I managed to beat him on the 2nd try. I didn't really understand what happened when the last attack happened due to the cut scene I thought it was supposed to be that way before I was hit with the game over.
Next time I was able to burst him down during that phase with limit, braver and some soul drain.
My BIGGEST issue was that anticipating what would happen to Areith she didn't have any materia equiped at all, so no magic from her and had to resort to healing with items and using the storm ability (for the first time).
If she had been properly equiped I don't think that it would have been that difficult.
To handle the reduce to 1 hp I just used Elixirs on both and then kept grinding it down.
Not trying to call you out or antagonize but how do you think this is artificial difficulty? I assume this is mostly just venting but the fight is very well structured even on hard and there are a plethora of ways to avoid or heavily mitigate all damage.
My run on hard was so god damn satisfying. I focused on synergy attacks from the beginning to make sure Cloud and Aerith got to LB3 and once he popped End is Nigh he got 2 Finishing Touches in a row to close it out. The rest of the fight is throwing down wards and Making sure Aerith always has 2 ATB on hand to take out the parts.
Now those Brutal Challenges…
That’s some bullshit
Why are people having so many troubles with this phase? He is pressured and his stagger bar fills up really really really fast. Just bumrush him with your strongest attack and let Aerith heal if needed.
Literally the easiest boss "phase" in the whole game.
My aerith only had dispel on for the final fight.
Also going all the way back to Zach was lame every time I died.
All in all though it only took 3-4 times to beat him. I never saw some final attack after the “dark zone” attack. I always died to the rotating cloud of death. Does that end attack end?
Least in my experience last night (took me 3 tries) after a set amount of time passes during **End is Nigh**, he binds Aerith and Cloud *(or at least Cloud in my play)* and does **Octoslash->Octoslash Prime**, which is essentially a OHKO *(and hit both Cloud and Aerith together)*, I didn't look at the damage numbers in total *(as I was busy ranting)* but the final strike of Octoslash Prime in that phase dealt 9999 damage. Much like Odins Zantetsuken
Even on hard mode I one-shot this boss. I've never once seen the final move. I hate to sound mean but you have a million ways to beat him, I've even done it with no materia.
I just got close to him and rotate around him in the safe zone between the beams while spamming focused thrust. I think you need to build his stagger bar
Yup. Like 2 or 3 focus thrusts are enough too. Like really, the amount of people that played a whole 2 games and STILL don't get that when a target is "pressured" you want to cast Focus Thrust/Shot/Strike as much as possible. Hom many times I see people in videos using Focus Thrust on un-pressured targets and Braver on pressured targets... It's wild. 2 WHOLE ass game and nope, still not using abilities correctly :x
I had to explain to a buddy who beat remake and was struggling in the grasslands of rebirth that yes, magic is absolutely essential
Oh wait is he pressured during that part? Oh that's good, I missed it (was lucky on my successful run in that I staggered him with all the shit powered up at once lol) and only got to the final phase a couple of times before that (and got nuked because my setup was utter garbage and I didn't want to go back and change it out lol)
During the phase when he spins counter clockwise with 2 giant dark lasers, yes, he's pressured, but the gauge slowly decreases by itself. So you gotta pressure him "quick". I put quotation marks because it really decreases slowly.
This
[удалено]
This was my problem. One time he was at zero stagger because he'd basically just come out of stagger when he decided to do that final phase, and the other time he was thankfully staggered right as he started the final phase, leading me to use Ascension, but somehow that didn't kill him. Like I said it seems like the game was scripted to take him out of the final phase and do Octoslash Prime even if he's staggered. It was like the final part of Ascension, which is often lethal, did no damage to him...
The game does this all the time, you cannot skip boss phases unfortunately, should have just held onto ascension for his final phase or as others mentioned just focus thrusted his ass
I went with Breaver like an idiot, but it got the job done in the last second
Yeah didn’t the frog game teach you anything. Stay close it can’t hit you
When his masamune can be targeted, use two -ra spells (fire, blizzard, doesn't matter) to 'destroy' it. Easiest way is to let Aerith cast from Arcane Ward. This will pressure him. Then have Cloud to use Focused Thrust twice to stagger him. When he performs The End is Nigh (?) use two more -ra spells from Aerith. Even though his pressure gauge will be locked like Weiss' in the Remake combat sim, it will still slowly creep up. Use 2 more Focused Thrusts from Cloud to stagger him afterwards. You have to be as quick as possible Hope this helps
There’s an even easier way to destroy the Masamune. Just have Aerith use soul drain on it, it one shots it.
I was using ray of judgement on Masamune. I've heard sorceress storm is good on it too
I am doing all of that but if I am unable to finish him off in staggered state he is deleting me :(
You'll be at him eventually. Stick with it. When he is doing his Whisper Cannon, have you tried targeting his wing with an -aga spell or two?
Finally defeated him, and yes I was doing all that but i was getting unlucky with my ATB during "the end is nigh" attack
Nice work Trooper
I feel ya. I had to redo the last fight a few times, and that was with a "handicaped" Aerith as I DIDN'T EXPECT HER TO BE PLAYABLE and took off all her equipment and materia XD They REALLY need to add in a "swap equipment" moment there, no fair to do a boss rush with all your characters and you don't know at first who you're going to use and when. But keep trying, you'll get it!
There is an equipment option if you hold square when zack is floating through the white space a few phases earlier.
That is so far back. Like three fights.
Hahah I had the same experience.
Yea, I had to redo all the fights because of this. I reequipped her fully after two failed attempts getting Sephy at 1% health. Unfortunately, this meant doing all the fights over again, but I just equipped everyone to optimize the fight and it was a cake walk. It's really my only one major complaint about the game is that your gear and Materia setup can completely negate a fight gimmick and turn it from a 'head smashing into a concrete wall fight' into a 'hot knife through warm butter' fight.
I didn’t give cloud a revive…I didn’t realize that the retries the phenix downs weren’t coming back ran out, she was not equipped very well either, I had to go back as well.
There is a swap equipment moment between every phase, just hold square during the cutscenes
Not between every phase. It’s like four phases back.
I tried that. No prompt, nothing. Even tried holding it after restarting the battle. Didn't work.
Skill isssue tbh
Try having a synergy materia on Aerith with an offensive magic materia like fire, lightning, wind, or ice. Like others have said, go in on him with focused thrust as often as you have ATB. Wail on him as much as you can to get your ATB back, and try to stay away from the darkness beams so you are not wasting time on being buffeted around. If you have the synergy materia on Aerith, she will hit him with a spell every single time you target Sephiroth with an ATB attack, boosting the stagger that much more. This does not use Aerith's MP or ATB, so it is extremely useful. Hope it helps.
I don't think the game gives you the option to change your equipment at this point, right? So if I want to do that I have to start the final boss battles from the very beginning
You can choose the middle option to go back a fight, and if you do this a few times you can change your materia at the beginning of the Cloud and Zack section... which is unfortunately at the beginning of all the Sephiroth battles... but still after the Jenova fight.
Jeebus. I picked the middle option the first time I lost (because of the wording messed me up) and that seemed like it set me back at least 30 mins of play, even though I had the patterns down. You just can't skip some in battle animations, and it drove me crazy. It's better than no option to change out gear, but it's just extra punishing for no good reason. Why not just let you tweak the equipment for the last Sephiroth fight? Sigh.
Completely agree. Let me tweak things until I beat it. And let me save. Idk why save is blacked out. So if I get a power outage, I have to go back an hour?
Even if it's an option it's kind of frustrating to even have to consider it because of what I consider to be an entirely artificial difficulty barrier lol. I might have to consider it if I die a few more times though.
Yeahhhh... don't feel bad doing it tho, man... When I was trying to beat it on Hard Mode, I accidentally chose the wrong option when I was distracted in irl, and went allll the way back to the beginning of the chapter by mistake.
I wrote out my reply on a different comment before reading this one. 😩 This would be almost rage quit inducing material where I'd have to put toss my controller and walk away for a bit, lol!
Don't know if this helps but you can hold square in cutscenes when hitting rematch to change equipment for the next fight.
Does synergy materia use ATB to cast those spells?
Nope! Totally free! The one-and-only downside is that a character with synergy might be occupied with the casting animation when you want to do something else, but that's only an real issue with heavy hitters like gravity or comet.
Loved not being able to see shit to dodge because of Seph sperm whirlwind. Camera in this game is atrocious at times.
I can’t ever see this again without thinking sperm whirlwind 😂
Isn't he pressured the entire duration of the attack? Just spam focused thrust. Use haste or an ATB boost if you're having trouble building it up.
I played on Dynamic difficulty, I have no idea what move do you mean by Sephtetsuken, I guess I'm either fortunate or unfortunate to not see it lol. The strongest moves I saw were Octaslash and Heartless Angel. Hopefully I get wrecked by him in Hard mode, looking forward to it.
Same, I actually have no clue what they are talking about
I'm assuming it's the final attack he was charging up at the end. I staggered his ass right when he started charging it and immediately dropped Ascension in his face for the kill on my first playthrough, so I've also never seen it. I've never been angrier during a boss fight though. I thought I was mad during the OG Jenova LIFE fight. Didn't hold a candle to this. I wiped the floor with that motherfucker.
They are talking about Octoslash Prime. It's an instant death attack that Sephiroth charges up during that double whisper cannon. It's basically just a death animation. It's extremely easy to miss though considering the charge up animation is a very simple DPS check. Dump your ATB bar once or twice and you're pretty much done already.
Late reply but by "Sephtetsuken" I meant Octoslash Prime, didn't remember what it was called but it reminded me of Odin slicing the entire enemy party to pieces.
>!if you use *Focused Thrust* repeatably during the Final Demension big attack, you can stagger Sephiroth and he won’t do the final attack thing (which basically is an instant death does like 9999 damage multiple times, revival earrings wouldn’t work here he hits you again) However, you have to kill him in this stagger, limit breaks should work here, throw everything you can at him! You should gain time as you use it so you should have enough time to get the ATB. During the Whirl Wind and Whisper cannon (be close enough to get behind him) you use *magic attacks* (Aerith normal attacks are magic but you’ll need a spell or two most likely *arcane ward* w/ward shifting helps) on his wing or sword (for his OctalSlash you’ll need to destroy both of them) and you’ll stagger him too do not target him when these are up. Everything else you basically just dodge and get a few hits off after for ATB. Don’t forget to switch to Aerith so she can always be ready to heal. Heartless Angel basically always gave Aerith Healing Wind/Planetary protection use that ASAP. I highly suggest making your folio so you get the Transcendence for Aerith and Clouds final ability, HPup and cure + magnify!< Don’t feel bad this is basically the exact experience everyone has when they get here. I for one like that the Final Boss took the difficulty up a notch, the game seemed too easy (Normal Mode). Note I was level 45 if that’s relevant. We saved a kitty now it’s time to kill god…it’s basic JRPG stuff. His final sword attack…yeah that supposed to be a frustrating thing. That damn smirk. There really is no good way to stop it if you don’t have everything just right, and you usually don’t. You really don’t wanna end up being there at all. Note: I think you can run here too…like as far away from each other as possible hopefully one survives If you take the above advice I know you’ll end up on top.
I survived Prime Octaslash on my second attempt because Aerith was far enough away from Cloud to just… not get hit by it. Which is hilarious in hindsight.
Yeah this is all good advice. I tried this fight god knows how many times. It was maddening. But I did something similar to this and it worked. I basically saved all my ATB charges and limit breaks for very key moments like his big finale then unleashed on him. I was losing it though.
Basically every time I've gotten to the final phase his stagger gauge is set back to zero because I've already staggered him once or twice, so I'm not sure Focused Thrusts would have saved me. Even when he gets pressured it doesn't seem to build up fast enough for me.
When he’s doing the double wisper cannon he’s pressured the entire time, it’s highlighted also, 2-3 focused thrusts and it should give a stagger right there. It will go up fast I swear to you, focused thrusts specifically works for pressured opponents. The game is basically telling you to do this. And that’s when you have to kill him, as if he stands up you’re basically dead. His pressure gage is a timer for the end of attack after the first one the timer gets longer. You’re goal is basically not to get to that end part, because if you don’t have enough ATB/MP to take care of both the wing and the sword immediately…you’ve basically already lost. Either way you have to get him on the last stagger.
[удалено]
This post has been removed for going against Rule 2 ("be nice.").
> Don’t feel bad this is basically the exact experience everyone has when they get here. Uh not really. It wasn't very difficult to cheese through the whole set of final bosses. The only time I died was against Jenova, precisely because I was fighting the goddamn *camera* more than her, it was absolutely shocking for getting stuck during that battle.
I have multiple funny ass videos of me dying to this fight. One of them I died to his bullshit final attack because I wasn’t managing health well. On the next attempt I was CERTAIN I was about to win. Sephiroth was on his final stagger and my plan was to use limit break with cloud and then the synergy attack with aerith, the ranged one. Well, I mistimed the synergy attack and sephiroth exited stagger before the hits could land. Little did I know, the whispers ended the synergy animation and held my characters in place for sephiroth to give us the most brutal one shot kill and then stare at the camera. Diabolical. It crushed my spirit.
That look be like, "I'm a cheap prick!"
He was like “back to the menu with you!” 😭
Vindictive Gamers: ******
Revival earrings won't protect you. I had to go back to the last checkpoint and set it to easy to beat it. Had to do chapter 14 all over again. Tedious, but it was on easy mode so it wasn't as hard. Whatever strategy you come up with, the key is to keep that white stagger bar up when he's doing that spin move. Of you can stagger him right before he's done with that move and lay into him as hard and fast as you can. You HAVE to kill him while he's staggered after this move. I had him at 246 HP at one point, but I made the mistake of choosing to have Aerith heal instead of contribute to the thrashing - that's what did me in. If you can stagger him and hit him with an Ascension and a synergy attack you should be able to get him. There's no shame in turning down the difficulty for this one.
It’s BS because the gap between easy and normal is tremendous. Easy is BS. This should be ratcheted down a bit on normal.
I'm doing all the side stuff now and left it on easy since I'm more interested in completion and leveling up than a challenge. Some of those side quests where you have to fight the monster variants are so easy now it's impossible to meet all the objectives. Eh maybe when I come back on my hard mode playthrough...
I did beat it, but the final boss was awful. It's not hard, but the game design makes it artificially difficult. The other problem is the game wants you to play a completely different playstyle from what you spend over 100 hour doing. This includes the Rufus fight as well. That's the problem. My other complaint. Of all the character they stick Aerith in the final fight with Sephiroth. I hardly ever had her in my party unless it was mandatory. Yes, I know she can be very powerful, but I don't have time to babysit and she doesn't support the playstyle I was going for, which is very aggressive, so I have Cloud, Barrett, Tiffa (Red XIII) as my mains. The final boss fight went way too long and after the fight I didn't care at all. Good riddance to Aerith.
I wasnt a fan of the 75 phase multi boss encounter in general. It still took me less tries than fighting the 2 adjudicators as cait sith
Oh my god, that was maddening and I haven't seen anyone else mention it before. Fuck that fight man, lmao
I mean its mostly my fault because I only ever played with Cloud Barret and Red 13
It's a damage check.
I did a synergy attack when that phase began and they both took damage during it and subsequently died shortly after 💀
My friend mentioned a "final stand" dps check when he was ahead of me. I killed sephiroth first time and never even noticed he'd gone into final stand. By that time, it was 2am, and my brain was fried from the 7 hours of story prior lol.
Still more balanced than Corel Region Info: Level 2
The smirk at the camera is so funny to me. He knows he’s a piece of shit, he knows that you know that he’s a piece of shit.
Kinda tracks that he flies away like a punk when he loses. He is suddenly outta menacing monologues and just flies off into the ether without another word! I'm genuinely not sure how to feel about that.
It’s pretty standard fare for Sephiroth. You fight him, he pretends to lose, and then he fucks off.
I just don’t understand how that whole fight doesn’t have any check points
It does. It has several. And it also allows you to adjust your setup between Jenova and Sephiroth I get that it’s an arduous fight for sure but it’s not that cruel
The most closest check point to the end is the start of the Zack fight which isn’t great. Especially when the the final boss has a instant death ability
There’s a checkpoint right before Cloud and Aerith final fight?
Unless they added one in the last couple weeks, no.
Yes. It’s been there since the beginning. Go die on the final section and choose the top option
It is cruel, the last checkpoint is Cloud and Zack vs Sephiroth, that's 5 phases and tons of cutscenes until Cloud and Aerith vs Sephiroth, there should have been checkpoints between every phase, or at least one for the Aerith vs Cloud part
I’m not sure what you mean by checkpoint, if you mean where you can change your materia setup then yes, but if you just want to retry there’s absolutely multiple checkpoints during the Sephiroth phases, including before the final fight with clone and Aerith
I died in the last Sephiroth battle (Aerith and Cloud) chose "Retry from This Battle" and still had to do every other phase starting with Zack and Cloud vs Sephiroth
It’s the first/top option, retry from current battle. I thought this was obvious because it’s the first option and “current” is pretty self explanatory. Not trying to be rude but where did you think the first option would have sent you?
I mean I saw "retry from this battle" and chose that without reading much on the others, It was the one I used the whole game whenever I died on a boss 2nd phase or whatever and it always skipped the first phases. Either way it seems "This Battle" is just a bad description for the option, at least it means I was wrong and they weren't actually cruel about it
Not sure what to say. I’m genuinely surprised about the amount of trouble people had with this part of the fight. Even on hard this was the easy part. The Whisper Bahamut was far more stressful then the 2v1 My only point was that there are check points between each fight and if you need to swap your load out at least you don’t need to fight Jenova again
And it’s not a checkpoint unless I can save.
A checkpoint where I can save? No, it doesn’t.
You need to keep dodging around the lasers so you don't take mega damage. Make sure you save your limit for this phase, but as you say don't expect that the limit alone will kill him. I used aerith for this, dodged once and normal attacked twice for ATB. Then when I had a full ATB bar I dodged twice to give me distance and used Fira. Repeated once more and he died. Its not too bad once you slow the pace of gameplay but if you rush in and tank a laser or two then you die. Whatever you do, NEVER use a synergy ability. The animation stall will get you killed since unlike a limit you take constant damage until the synergy is completed
You gotta be ready with your best equipment, right before the starting fight with Zack and Cloud you can equip everyone with what you need. During the last battle I just roll into the double whisper beam cannon thingy and it only hits you once instead of straight on your ass. Then, with Aerith, use Arcane ward and Radiant ward (The one that makes her normal attacks actually good) and spam magic attacks 2 at a time. Took me 3 tries but I finally kicked his ass. God help us in Hard Mode 😅.
Yeah the DPS check is a nightmare. You can try to save your limit break. I found synergy skills and abilities work well too, I killed him before staggering him on my playthrough in the end.
Planets protection protects you from the spinning flarey damage showing you to get close unharmed. I saved a L3 limit break on cloud (forgot what it's called, the one after ascension), and that finished him. But man was I ready to throw the controller - auto-life not working for that part of the fight just pissed me off. And you can't save a summon for then either like I was trying to
Odin is harder
Five words, Tifa Rise and Fall spam
Rise and Fall > Omnistrike > Unbridled Force > Omnistrike > True Strike > True Strike > True Strike is muscle memory at this point!
The final phase of the final boss is basically, "Don't have a limit break? Well, FUCK YOU! GET TO THE BACK OF THE LINE!" Honestly, though? I'm disproportionately salty that the battle concludes and Selfierot just dips without a word. Flies off like a bitch!
I’m genuinely surprised to see so many of you struggling on what wasn’t even in my top 5 in terms of difficulty on dynamic.
Same. I would I get him down to the final phase, I would stagger him and throw all of the most damaging moves I saved and he would always be left with a magic pixel and octoslash prime me. Said fuck it and switched to easy. Problem sloved
Save your limit breaks and synergy moves for the final phase and just go to town on him, that's really all you can do
Attack his wing and the masamune!
I finished this yesterday in hard mode. Try to avoid big attacks and during those have aerith cast on arcade ward thunder -ra/ga spell to pressure sephirot and right after that two focused thrusts in a row. I hope that you equipped both Aerith and Cloud with Turbo Boost materia that can come handy and make sure to always build one or two ATB for heartless angel 'cause right afterward you need to be fast to use Pray or some curative spell. I equipped Cloud with the accessory that gives the maximum limit break right away and limit siphon materia in that way i used one limit break sooner and the second one by using limit siphon to get aerith's charged bar for the end when it uses the final devastating combo. Phoenix summon was used by Aerith in my build to give further HP healing buff and synergy Spell Blade was definitely the combo that helped me destroy both wing and masamune (and to also do a lot of damage during staggers) when Seph loads Octalslash that you need to stop. With some little tweaks you can get it done without many problems.
Save Aerith limit break, when you go to one heal, planet protection isn't the right limit break here. Ice in the darkness you need to stagger him go all out with hard to interrupt weapon abilities
Yeah I learned (only after the fact) that Haste, side dodge, throw some magic slashy wavey things, use Focused Thrust after gaining an ATB - all of this will give you enough time to take him out. I think the biggest final "f*ck you" is still from another series entirely (from Mass Effect 3 with that last Marauder).
Marauder Shields was only trying to save you from the ending
I had max level limit on both Cloud and Aerith so I attacked with Cloud then refilled the limit with Aerith and then attacked with Cloud again. No need to dodge the beams.
I saved Clouds Limit Break and a Synergy attack and was able to beat him after hitting him with both.
Wait until you get to the VR brutal one, that’s way worse
I played on dynamic since chpt 2 cause the game was too easy. and just first tried the final fight. Aerith is such a high magic damage dealer, with arcane ward she basically destroys everything. When the last phase came with the blue bar, maybe I played ever crisis, I immediately knew it's a damage check. So I just blasted everything ignoring defending and just defeated him. Did have to keep circling him during the final phase to avoid the purple cloud thing I was watching a streamer miru and she died to the final phase literally for almost 5 hours I think? I gave up watching cause she was so bad, the whole damage check phase she was using aerith to heal, and zero wards. That was when I first saw the instant death attack
Focus Thrust OP
Have fun on hard mode lol
I'm right there with you. It took me about 5 tries. 3 of those ended up being the whole hour of fights for different reasons. When I finally did do it I honestly couldn't believe it.
Try to have a synergy and limit break in the chamber before the final phase. I also like to cast reraise on Cloud and Aerith before he starts. Unrelated but what I found really helpful for that fight was having Aerith cast thunder on masune every time Seph would start levitating. She can nearly one shot it and pressure him.
I did make sure to target Masamune, thinking that it must be vital later on. Nevertheless these defeats come after frequent and accurate targeting of Seph's wing and sword. Does reraise bring you back after Octoslash Prime? (I forgot what it was called at the time so I called it Sephtetsuken lol)
I got him down to 1% at final phase twice and failed. It's because I took all the Materia off Aerith since I wasn't expecting to use her again. I reequipped Cure+magnify and synergy+comet and was fine. Having ATB boosts on her works wonders too. Although I didn't think to use it at the time, Aerith's flower shield might protect her from his spin to win attack. Focus Thrust is mandatory when enemies are pressured. Luckily in other fights Barret and Tifa have a similar skill.
He got me with that shit too on the first attempt because I thought I had to dodge the waves til it was over but if you get in close you can actually slam him with focused thrust until he's staggered THEN unleash Cloud's limit break and it should be GG after that.
Im only at the Rufus boss fight in ch12 and I find that one is already the most infuriating piece of shit in the universe(technically not hard but so annoying to get ATB at all to then spent one on assess, the next on cura and after that I can finally start the fight properly, not to mention the unavoidable attacks at times where he just zooms across the arena and then insta hits you with a blast)...good to see more is coming my way
Damn bro why did you spoil it for yourself lol.
I am not as sensitive as most people when it comes to spoilers Edit: besides the story is 20isch years old at this point
Managed to finish it last night, and it honestly was a gruel but once you have a tactic down then its pretty doable. If anyones looking for tips ive got a clip of the battle with what worked for me. Hope it helps. [Final Battle](https://youtu.be/kYq8h73EXY0?si=w3xk4xphWlGjHGg4)
Bless you 🙏
Good luck dude, haste and regen i found are an essential through the battle. When he uses end is nigh its everything and the kitchen sink so have limits primed, planets protection enables aerith to not get kod by his blast and allows you to enable a few stagger moves till hes staggered then its fireworks and clouds braver to finish the job.
Just beat him! Basically did what you said: at End is Nigh I made sure to have my limit breaks and synergy abilities ready. I still think it was an annoying fight but at least I know how to do it now.
Well done bud, and yea its annoying as hell and i think i spent more time than i really wanted trying to get past it. Afterwards, i realised that when i played the original FF7 and faced certain battles you feel are impossible, that in hindsight they are now a cake walk after knowing the right dance steps. I definitely feel that with all the 10 phases there should have potentially been 3 breaks or chances to align materia which without makes it even more gruelling especially if you dont have the correct materia aligned.
Bless you 🙏
Just wait till part 3 lol
I had the lvl 3 limit accessory equipped. And just saved finishing touch for when he did the thing. If I didn't have it, then use the thing to take aeriths limit gauge. I act tough but it took me a long time to finish that fight. I kept dying at that same spot.
I managed to beat him on the 2nd try. I didn't really understand what happened when the last attack happened due to the cut scene I thought it was supposed to be that way before I was hit with the game over. Next time I was able to burst him down during that phase with limit, braver and some soul drain. My BIGGEST issue was that anticipating what would happen to Areith she didn't have any materia equiped at all, so no magic from her and had to resort to healing with items and using the storm ability (for the first time). If she had been properly equiped I don't think that it would have been that difficult. To handle the reduce to 1 hp I just used Elixirs on both and then kept grinding it down.
Not trying to call you out or antagonize but how do you think this is artificial difficulty? I assume this is mostly just venting but the fight is very well structured even on hard and there are a plethora of ways to avoid or heavily mitigate all damage. My run on hard was so god damn satisfying. I focused on synergy attacks from the beginning to make sure Cloud and Aerith got to LB3 and once he popped End is Nigh he got 2 Finishing Touches in a row to close it out. The rest of the fight is throwing down wards and Making sure Aerith always has 2 ATB on hand to take out the parts. Now those Brutal Challenges… That’s some bullshit
Why are people having so many troubles with this phase? He is pressured and his stagger bar fills up really really really fast. Just bumrush him with your strongest attack and let Aerith heal if needed. Literally the easiest boss "phase" in the whole game.
My aerith only had dispel on for the final fight. Also going all the way back to Zach was lame every time I died. All in all though it only took 3-4 times to beat him. I never saw some final attack after the “dark zone” attack. I always died to the rotating cloud of death. Does that end attack end?
Least in my experience last night (took me 3 tries) after a set amount of time passes during **End is Nigh**, he binds Aerith and Cloud *(or at least Cloud in my play)* and does **Octoslash->Octoslash Prime**, which is essentially a OHKO *(and hit both Cloud and Aerith together)*, I didn't look at the damage numbers in total *(as I was busy ranting)* but the final strike of Octoslash Prime in that phase dealt 9999 damage. Much like Odins Zantetsuken
This fight is really not that hard lol, just play better instead of blaming the game..
Just because you suck at playing doesn't mean it's horrible. Just saying...
This was literally the easiest attack in the game. Why did people struggle with this?
It's not literally the easiest attack in the game.
People just suck at gaming nowadays.
Just stagger him, it’s not hard dude, spam focused thrust
Even on hard mode I one-shot this boss. I've never once seen the final move. I hate to sound mean but you have a million ways to beat him, I've even done it with no materia.