One of the core mechanics of the Materia system in Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is the ability to link green and blue materials, allowing the latter to modify the former. And the best Materia combinations make the game frighteningly easy (most of the time, anyway). Here are my picks for the ones you should use.
Spoiler alert: Some of the Materia listed here don’t appear in the game for many hours, so if you want to be surprised by what’s on offer, read no further.
Important Notes on FF7 Rebirth Materia Combinations
The first thing to know about Materia combinations is they can only happen between green and blue Materia across a set of two linked Materia slots. Linked slots look like two regular slots with a line connecting the two single slots. Additionally, you’ll know the combination is active because the linked slot will glow bright white in the Materia menu. Neither yellow nor purple Materia can confer synergistic abilities if linked to another type of Materia.
Note also that some blue Materia, like HP Absorption and Warding, don’t synergize with every green Materia, though these conflicts are usually fairly logical. You can’t absorb HP from a healing spell or ward against a damage spell that has no debuff attached, for instance.
We’ll be covering my six favorite Materia combinations in this guide, all of which I’ve used to great effect in even the toughest fights in Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth. Some are a bit more powerful than others, but all have their place.
The Best Materia Combinations to Equip in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
1. Auto-Cast and Healing, Revival, or Time
Auto-Cast is probably the best all-around blue Materia in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, because it makes your AI-controlled teammates much more useful. Auto-Cast allows the characters you aren’t controlling to cast the linked Materia without your input, and the number of times I lived a boss fight because of an Auto-Cast Cure spell is not countable on two hands.
Both Time and Revival Materia are also great choices, though Revival is much more situational. Having your teammates cast Haste, Slow, or Stop at the best time can turn the tide of almost any fight.
2. Magnify and Any Damage Magic Materia
The Stagger system is the main reason you should have at least one character with Magnify and damage magic. 90% of enemies, including bosses, become Pressured when you attack them with their elemental weakness and Magnify extends how many enemies your damage Materia can affect with a single usage. At max level, you could conceivably Pressure or even Stagger whole hordes of mobs with one cast of, say, Fira, instead of needing to cats multiple times and spending dozens of MP.
3. Warding and Petrify or Time
Warding is fantastic because it decreases the amount of time you’re affected by the debuff applied by the linked green Materia’s magic. Both Petrify and Time magic come with some of the deadliest effects. Being Stopped is effectively a death sentence, especially in harder boss encounters, and Petrified makes you technically dead, as an entire team affected by the status will still get a game over.
4. Level Boost and Revival or Cure
The Level Boost Materia does exactly what it says on the tin: increase the level of the linked Materia by one star. In my experience, unless you’re a master of leveling your Materia, you’ll want to have Level Boost attached to either Revival or Cure Materia. Revival only has two stars, but reaching that second star requires a whopping 5,000 AP, a value I didn’t reach in almost fifty-five hours of consistent play.
5. HP Absorption and Max Level Damage Materia
Any damage Materia with HP Absorption linked will act like lifesteal for that damage, returning a portion of it as health when the magic connects. I recommend using it on max-level green Materia primarily because, unless you’re attacking a Staggered enemy or an enemy with a particular weakness, the returned HP won’t be too significant. Having and using higher-level damage Materia ensures you’re getting a bit more back every time you cast.
6. Magic Efficiency and Healing or Barrier Materia
You’ll be using Healing Materia a lot in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and Magic Efficiency adds a percentage reduction to its linked Materia’s cost, up to 50% at max level. The game’s later fights require prodigious use of Cure spells as you learn them, and having effectively double the amount of uses before needing to use an MP restore is invaluable. Barrier Materia is just as useful as Healing if used correctly, as it can halve the damage taken from both Magic and Physical damage, meaning you need to heal less overall. Barrier spells are also much more expensive up front than Healing spells are, but they have a much longer duration and can effectively cost you significantly less overall than one Curaga ever could.
Those are my picks for the best Materia combinations available in FF7 Rebirth. I’m sure as more and better players than myself dig into the game, there will be tons of busted builds that make the rounds. For now, though, this guide should get you started.
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