FF7 Remake | Best Materia Combos - Level & Best Builds Guide | Final Fantasy 7 Integrade

Check this Final Fantasy 7 Remake (FF7 Remake, FF7R) guide on the best Materia to level and the best Materia setups and loadouts, including Materia combos (combinations) and more!

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Best Weapons	Best Equipment

Best Materia Combos

Any Element + Elemental Materia Combo

Use With Weapons For Elemental Damage

Using an Elemental Materia linked to any element materia on a weapon modifies your normal attacks to let you deal elemental damage. Taking advantage of the enemies' elemental weaknesses significantly makes battles easier and quicker. Try to look out for enemy weaknesses beforehand.

Use With Armor For Protection & Absorption

Similar to weapons, the Elemental Materia can be linked with any element materia to protect your character. If set on an armor, the materia protects your character from elemental damage from Levels 1 and 2, and absorbs elemental damage at Level 3. You can use this combination when fighting against bosses that often use elemental damage.

Cloud & Parry Materia

Equipping Cloud with a Parry Materia allows him to dodge while in Punisher Mode. As you can immediately follow up with a strong counter attack after dodging, using this Materia greatly increases Cloud's damage potential.

Point!	Dodging can be done by pressing R1 + X). If you use just press X to Evade, Cloud will revert to Operator Mode.

Tifa & Parry Materia

Tifa with the Parry Materia greatly increases her dodge speed, granting her the ability to dodge even hard to evade homing attacks. If you often play as Tifa, giving her the Parry Materia is a must!

Magic + Magnify Or Absorption

You can use both combinations on a single character if you have the required slots. Setting both of them turns your abilities into AOE spells while giving you HP recovery whenever you use them. Great for sustaining while beating groups of enemies at the same time!

Point!	The above combination uses 4 slots (2 linked slots) of any weapon. This might make your character viable in certain situations, like farming, but is not highly recommended to be set as a standard build.

Best Materia Setup & Builds

The following builds are intended to be general purpose - they are not meant to be applied to every battle situation you come across.

Best Materia Combo For Cloud

Character	Equipment
Cloud	Hardedge Chain Bangle

Weapon
・Healing ・Revival		・Elemental ・Lightning		・Time ・Steadfast Block
Armor
・First Strike ・ATB Stagger			・HP Up ・HP Up

Highlight Cloud's Offensive Capabilities

Cloud excels in dealing physical damage. You can start battles with an explosive damage output by using Haste and First Strike Materia. After dealing damage & staggering enemies, ATB Stagger will trigger, further increasing your attack capabilities.

Point!	Compared to both Tifa and Barret, Cloud has more base MP reserves. You can use him as your team's Caster if Aerith is not available.

Reasons & Other Recommendations

Materia	Type	Reason
Healing		・Every character, even Cloud, should be able to heal
Revival		・Just in case a party member dies
Elemental X Lightning	x	・Many enemies in the game are weak to Lightning damage (especially machinelike mobs)
Time		・Haste on Cloud is extremely powerful
Steadfast Block		・Decreases damage taken by Cloud
First Strike		・Lets you clear non-boss enemies much faster
ATB Stagger		・Cloud can bolster teammates' ATB gauges
HP Up		・Gives you a huge HP boost, giving you more leeway ・Run more than one if possible
Ifrit		・Powerful summon, has a 1 ATB Summon move

Best Materia Combo For Aerith

Character	Equipment
Aerith	Mythril Rod Chain Bangle

Weapon
・Healing ・Magnify		・Revival ・Lightning		・Magic Up ・Magic Up
Armor
・MP Up ・MP Up			・HP Up ・HP Up

Increase MP, HP, &Magic Attack

Aerith is the team's designated caster and support. Giving her more MP and HP helps her staying power in the battle. However, as she is very limited when it comes to Materia slots, it is also recommended that you delegate support skills that do not require the Magic Attack stat to other teammates.

Reasons & Other Recommendations

Materia	Type	Reason
Healing X Magnify	x	・Allows Aerith to AoE Heal, increasing ATB and MP efficiency massively
Revival		・A must on any healer
Lightning		・Here purely to have wider elemental coverage
Magic Up		・Raise Aerith's damage potential
MP Up		・If Aerith is your only healer, consider running two of these
HP Up		・Aerith can be squishy and needs more HP
Leviathan		・Extremely powerful summon
Time [Optional]		・Useful for buffing allies (or self)

Best Materia Combo For Tifa

Character	Equipment
Tifa	Metal Knuckles Chain Bangle

Weapon
・Healing ・Revival		・Lightning ・Elemental		・Steadfast Block ・First Strike
Armor
・ATB Assist ・Parry			・HP Up ・HP Up

Go Full Offensive With Tifa

If you're using Tifa as your main character, best equip her with Parry Materia and ATB Assist. As her MP and Magic Attack stats are low, equip her with just Healing and Revival Materias for support and for sustain.

Reasons & Other Recommendations

Materia	Type	Reason
Healing		・Gives Tifa some healing abilities to support teammates
Revival		・Gives Tifa some healing abilities to support teammates
Lightning X Elemental	x	・When linked in a weapon, will give her attacks lightning affinity. Many mechanical enemies have a weakness to lightning
Steadfast Block		・Decreases damage taken by Tifa
First Strike		・Fills Tifa's ATB gauge when battles start. Also gives her a passive ATB regeneration
ATB Assist		・Tifa can bolster teammates' ATB gauges
Parry		・Allows Tifa to dodge hard to evade attacks
HP Up		・Increases HP Tifa's HP

Best Materia Combo For Barret

Character	Equipment
Barret	Big Bertha Chain Bangle

Weapon
・Healing ・Revival		・Lightning ・Time		・Barrier ・Magic Up
Armor
・Steadfast Block ・MP Up			・MP Up ・HP Up

Designate Barret As Support

Barret makes use of ranged attacks to pelt enemies from afar. As he is often out of harm's way, equip him with support skills to back up your melee attackers. You can also cover his low MP and Magic Attack stats with Magic Materias and MP Up Materias. On the other hand, you can give him Barrier and Time Materias as they do not rely on the user's Magic Attack stat.

Point!	Aerith and Barret are often times not available to fight together in the story, so equip Magic or MP Up Materia to whoever is available.

Reasons & Other Recommendations

Materia	Type	Reason
Healing		・Allows Barret to support melee teammates
Revival		・Allows Barret to support melee teammates
Lightning		・Allows Barret to deal Lightning damage
Time		・Allows Barret to support the whole team with Haste and debuff enemies
Barrier		・Allows Barret to support the whole team
Magic Up		・Raises Barret's Magic ATK stat, increasing his damage or healing potential
Steadfast Block		・Raises Barret's defense against enemy attacks while filling his ATB gauge
MP Up		・Increases MP, giving you more chances to cast spells
HP Up		・Increases HP, raising Barret's survivability

Best Materias In Hard Mode

Recommended Materias

Materia	Type	Reason
HP Up		Cloud/Tifa/Barret should be over 8000 HP, Aerith should be over 6000 HP
MP Up		Cloud and Aerith should be over 150 MP, Barret and Tifa over 100 MP
Healing		Max level, at least 3
Prayer		Max level
Revival		Max level, at least
Barrier		Max level
Time		Don't need to level
Elemental		Max level (best to have 2)
Chakra		Max level
First Strike		Max level
Steadfast Block		Max level
ATB Boost		Max level
Magic Up		Max level
Fire		Use according to opponent's elemental affinity/weakness
Ice		Use according to opponent's elemental affinity/weakness
Lightning		Use according to opponent's elemental affinity/weakness
Wind		Use according to opponent's elemental affinity/weakness

Hard Mode Materia Requires Constant Adjustment

When playing on Hard Mode, you'll have to constantly adjust the Materia you're using for every major battle you come across! Meaning, you won't be able to do with just one cookie-cutter set. Try to figure out the elemental affinities of enemies you're about to face and adjust accordingly.

Best Materias In Normal & Easy

Guide Excludes Common Materia

Over the course of the game, you'll likely constantly be using Materia such as Lightning and Healing, so we haven't included them here. The purpose of this guide is to recommend Materia which you might have forgotten about!

Related Articles

• List Of All Materia In The Game
• Hidden Materia Locations

Best Materia To Level Up First

Materia	Type	Reason
HP Up		・Rank 5 provides a massive 50% boost to HP ・The more you have of these the better!
MP Up		・Rank 5 provides a massive 50% boost to MP ・The more you have of these the better!
Elemental		・Rank 2 provides you immunity to elements, while Rank 3 gives you absorption.
Warding		・Rank 3 gives you 100% reduction of the linked debuff.

HP Up & MP Up

These two Materia are absolutely essential for doing Hard Mode content, but they are useful in absolutely all aspects of the game. Simply put, the difference between Rank 1's 10% and Rank 5's 50% is massive. You can also get a maximum total boost of +100% if you combine more than one of these! This means that you'll want to buy as many of these as you can afford early game!

Elemental Materia

Elemental Materia is a godsend that will allow you to bypass many boss abilities by simply becoming immune to them! When linked in a piece of armor with another elemental magic Materia, this will give you immunity at Rank 2, and absorption ability at Rank 3. It's key to raise this to Rank 2 as fast as possible. Elemental Materia can be obtained in Chapter 6 and Chapter 14, but the conditions for the latter one are more complicated, so check out our guide below.

Warding Materia

Warding Materia, when linked with another magic Materia, will reduce the duration of status ailments by 25%, 50%, and 100% per rank. This means that getting it to Rank 3 will let you be immune to one of: poison, slow, stop, bind, and instant death! This is extremely crucial when fighting against Tonberry, who can one shot you.

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