Thanks my dude! Gonna pin this for those who don’t want to hear me rambling on about the build and just wanna see it in action

Opening: Wave 1: Aerith: Arcane Ward -> Cloud Cloud: ATB Boost, Thundaga Aerith: ATB Boost, Aeroga Cloud: Power Clear (Synergy Skill) until 2 atb Cloud: Thundaga (Arcane Ward) Tifa: Blizaga Cloud: Synergy Ability - Firework Blade Wave 2: Same, BUT don't switch off aerith until arcane ward is placed Wave 3 Notes: Cloud first Thundaga, Right arm Aerith Aeroga, Left Arm Cloud: hold square to close gap, tap square for 3 attacks, block and wait for 2 atb Cloud Thundaga, odin Cloud: Power Cleave x2? get 2 atb Aerith: Place second Arcane ward -> cloud Cloud Thundaga, odin // Power cleave // Thundara odin Wave 4 Notes. Normal start BUT Firaga from Aerith and Tifa instead of aeroga/blizzaga At stagger waiting for tifa Firaga, spam spellblade (cloud synergy skill) to boost tifa Synergy, firework blade Tifa, spam square until two atb, // jump to arcane ward // firaga Cloud: back to arcane ward // thundaga Tifa: Synergy Ability, Relentless Rush Aerith: spam square until stagger // Limit level 2 Wave 5 Notes: Same opening BUT aerith use Firaga Cloud: 2x Power Cleave Tifa: go to arcane ward to cast firaga Cloud: Powercleave (Synergy Skill) even with 2atb (gives aerith atb) Cloud: Firaga Aerith: Synergy Skill Spellbound Blast (wait until after sephiroth lands from firaga to keep stunlocked) Aerith: Ward shift, Firaga Cloud: Spam square until phase pused and have 2 atb Cloud: Snergy Ability: Firework Blade Tifa: Spam square until stagger + 2 atb // Blizzaga Cloud: Spam spellbound blade to boost tifa If needed: Cloud: Thundaga Aerith: Aerora Synergy Ability: Devine Punishment

@@SatsuiMCOC I appreciate you taking the time to make the video. Still think its important to watch. Read steps, watch video, and then read steps as you play using the touchpad to pause the game while you update what to do next.

@@damcracindeed, it takes time to build up muscle memory

I am beating chapter 12 on hard mode so far. I plan on doing the rest of Chadley's challenges after that. I tried Cloud vs the warriors several times, finally got past that wolf, then got instant koed by the next enemy lol ​@SatsuiMCOC

😂😂 the zu was poping up a lot

if you put fire and elemental linked on your defense king zu can't do much to you

After almost three days practicing, I’ve been able to consistently get as far as Gilgamesh. Unfortunately he always ends up stun-locking me. Sometimes if I get lucky and beat him, I’m not quick enough with the mechanics to take down Sephiroth.

You’re almost there. The trick for sephiroth is to pull off the rotation quickly so he doesn’t have time to bind you with shadowy chains. Oh and release the power cleaves and magic cleaves on time too… too early and it messes up the timing

Good call, just got caught up in the fight so I forgot to boost damage by turning off mag!

Yes and no, there’s actually some really decent splash damage. So much so, that as long as they are close together it’s well worth it

@@Broadmoore Still splash damage on unmag spells if the bosses are reaally close

I wonder if there's room for magnified healing just in case

@@Broadmoore Against the Solo bosses no point, its 1V1 against Gilgamesh and Sephiroth.

Oh yes, perhaps but I prefer placing one mahic focus on cloud and tifa as they would be the main damage dealers in terms of frequency of attacks and genji gloves respectively. Probably another auto cast on Aerith for more magic damage. Maybe a luck up to make it more likely she’ll crit.

Good on ya bro! Go get ‘em!

I beat hard mode without it it’s insane though. This is the one that has me stuck

Have at it! It’s a really fun way to thrash these bosses!

It’s well worth trying out this rotation for fun and who knows it may still be highly applicable to part 3 as well! 😉

Power cleave will not gain ATB if tifa is occupied by an action like casting a spell. Perhaps that’s what’s happening?

Glad you found this helpful!

You’re welcome my dude!

Disable those weapon ability shortcuts on her. Only magic shortcuts

@@SatsuiMCOC Thanks, man! Just beat this challenge this morning, and man it was a hard one... finally gonna get the plat 😄

@@thiagoaleixo5533 go go go!!

@@SatsuiMCOC omg

Better late than never

I think you’ll have to straight away go into Arcane ward at the start during tactical. You could try placing Thundaga on cloud as a shortcut to activate it immediately after the arcane ward has been placed and you’ve switched back to him. While casting Thundaga he won’t be interrupted.

Thanks for your reply. I have managed to get to mostly being able to cast thundaga. I tried the shortcut but because I can’t pick the target it doesn’t work quite right. The main problem I’m having now is that Cloud gets an ATB boost in your video immediately after Aerith casts Aeroga, but when I do it he never gets the boost. Presuming it’s ATB assist doing that and unsure why it’s not working for me.

@@725Chrisj oh yes, the ATB assist on Aerith is giving him that extra bit; after casting Arcane ward and then switching back to her for an ATB boost then -ga magic, she’ll give all party members ATB if done quickly enough

It’s worth a shot, don’t sleep on it 😉

I’d love to help, could you tell me the exact situation as to how come they weren’t in hit stun when you did the rotation?

@@SatsuiMCOC yeah, i followed this hit him with thundaga, went to build up ATB with spell or cleave (can't remember) and he just went bonkers and threw me in air and then trampled me haha! Happened three times in a row where he got hit but just seemed to run through it, weirdly, phoenix seemed like it was stunned as it didn't cast it's opening fire magic attack

@@infinitestrengthcoach3522 is your Thundaga magnified and linked to swift cast? Also when building ATB make sure Kujata is stunned by the Aeroga cast by Aerith. You have to do these 2 back to back to give yourself an opening to charge power cleave.

@@SatsuiMCOC yeah, perhaps i'm just unlucky I'll give it another go tomorrow when I have the time

I agree I followed this guide to the T with exact build max everything and made the exact same moves shown and Kujata just ignores everything and plows right through. I don't get it

You’ve almost got it. Try throwing the final synergy and blizzaga at the exact moment when Kujata dies.

Based on the feedback I shall release another video soon on how to adapt to variations in the AI with the same build and method. For fights 1-3 the same rotation will definitely work. Just takes a bit of practice, but more importantly knowing how to adapt if the AI starts to misbehave. I would know as when I made this guide I pretty much experienced all variations of AI.

@@SatsuiMCOC Good to know. Thanks for the reply!

He won’t usually push you around, neither will phoenix. The key is speed in setting up the rotation. In fact as you saw in the video you would want phoenix to come into contact with Aerith just as she’s about to fire off the magnified aeroga. So that both get hit by multiple blasts

Yes indeed it can be used for ALL! Hope this helps 😉

Don’t sweat it, if phoenix resurrects you can just switch to cloud to focus on killing Kujata with thundagas. After phoenix is fair game once more. The part about killing phoenix early is that you just save time on the run.

@@SatsuiMCOC seems ATB starved afterwards would you continue to Power Cleave/Spell Blade? I think theres lots of nuance in what you executed - you just made it look easy 😝

It’s really ingenious the way you initially figured it out cos magic in this as well as remake is very OP.

@@SatsuiMCOC it was kind of cool, I started realizing the summons are weak to wind. Then aga spell cost 2 atb while AP farming i started using spell blade and cleavage. Then they kick my ass.. I was like wait a minute..... If i do this and this.. But no aerith.. Too slow

Yeah fuck this game and the developers. Happy other people were able to make it work. I had the same lead, pieced together 99% of Valkyrie's video myself. When I went to double ATB boost with Aerith her gauge wasn't maxed out. Tired of this game's bullshit and the community's consistent dickriding. When the trending way of succeeding these challenges is to spam brumal form yuffie, I could give a rat's ass about whatever arguments to or for this game's combat system because it screams mindless fuckery and that's exactly why they can rot in a sewer for this bullshit. Venting online is slightly therapeutic but I do hope that everyone else has an amazing day !

Having the same issue with Phoenix, I dunno how this guy is able to pull off the commands so fast 🤷‍♂️ will keep trying but these challenges are way more annoying than Remakes.

@@dylanarnold5010don’t lose heart, practice makes perfect. You’ll get it in no time!

@@xRoycexI feel ya frustration. That’s why I also play only using tactical mode as I’m well aware of my own limitations in using only real time shortcuts for boss fights. I would say practice makes perfect and you’ll be able to build up muscle memory to overcome the difficulties you’re facing bro!

sorry you suck. skill issue@@xRoycex

The Bonds of Friendship Legendary Bout with Cloud and Zack can be an absolute nightmare and was the Bane Of my Existence for a couple of days. That one Combat Sim forces you to get very good and very fast in order to beat it.

Don’t worry about them not aligning up properly for maximum damage at the set start. As long as you are able to fire off the rotation fast enough you will be able to prevent phoenix from flying pushing you around the arena. To get 2x power cleave, make sure to hit kujata while he’s stun locked by the magnified aeoroga, and just whittle down the rest of his hp with more thundagas and attacks from Cloud. Once he’s dead immediately, and I mean immediately target phoenix with a Blizzaga from Tifa to prevent rebirth flames. The fight may just a bit longer if they don’t align but you’ll still finish this pretty quickly.

I figured trick for first fight you have to target pheonix with Thundaga so he gets stunned ahead few milliseconds before he could drag Aerith away

Thanks for describing what you’re facing. It seems that the reason Aerith is getting knocked out of her spell is you might be a bit slow in transitioning from cloud back to Aerith after he casts thundaga. Once Aerith casts ATB boost and then Aeroga she shouldn’t get knocked out of it as ga spells can never be interrupted. As I was putting this guide together I experienced all sorts of AI, and it will work every time. Don’t give up, practice makes perfect.

To increase her magic stat

@@SatsuiMCOC Ooooh, of course 😅

To one shot Phoenix and Kujata back to back you’ll need to immediately fire off a blizzaga once kujata is down. If you can’t kill kujata in the first few seconds, don’t worry just keep in attacking him and parry or avoid his attacks. Phoenix will also heal you with flame attacks if you do get hit. Then once Kujata is down, a properly timed blizzaga will kill Phoenix as well. This fight will just last longer, that’s all.

I would say healing is a waste of materia slots as you wanna basically use this to burst down the bosses with minimal fuss. The damage you’ll be taking will not kill you in most instances. Rather it might be helpful to place materia that allows you to perfect parry more easily on tifa just in case sephiroth doesn’t play ball. She can solo him with unfettered fury at max level due to how quickly she can build ATB with her bnb rotation.

Nevermind, I didnt see the strenght up😅. Thought it was all auto weapon ability.

To the best of my knowledge Aerith has a low chance of acting like that; a bit of RNG is involved. But you can work around it by following what I shared in the guide.

Try to remove her shortcuts in the main menu where you can assign shortcuts. The moment you add auto weapon ability the characters use it and your atb vanishes. This is what happened to me when i was about to use tifa the atb got vanished

He didn't... He has two Magic Focus. There's only one Swiftcast materia in the game.

You’ll get the hang of it; it’s all about manipulating the AI

@@SatsuiMCOC i managed to fight sephiroth, i cannot stress him like you do, It seems I don t ever have enough atb to spam magics… while gilgamesh is completely rng if he charges against the group the fight is fucked up

Yes or else Aerith will be targeted and she will be interrupted at the start

You get the 3rd one from the Helion brutal challenge

The power Cleve and magic cleve are the key

@@luisg2665 figured that out haha. Thanks!!! Genji gloves also were key

This video was filmed post patch, it’s about adapting to the different AIs, it still works a charm.

Yes it is, all credit goes to Valkyrie. I took this opportunity to break it down for tactical mode and to also show the Materia build he used. Only difference is he did his at max weapon level for increased damage as his was a speed run, while I did mine using tactical mode at a much more comfortable pace. His method is highly reproducible for normal folks like us in tactical mode and can be applied to a myriad of situations too.

Update: upgraded my elementals to level 3 (were at 2). This made all the difference. Easy after that

Good to hear it’s all good now my dude!

It’s the ATB assist at work from Aerith due to her casting arcane ward and then Aeroga in quick succession

Well there’s a good reason. With her as party leader she will most often than not get hit and that’ll interrupt her casting actions which means you’ve gotta reset. Especially in fights against Gilgamesh and Bahamut, if he gets in your face at the start that’s it. She’s gonna get hit and your other party members are gonna be running away out of the arcane ward. Tried to get it to work but no matter how u adapt it’s never a good outcome.

Speed is of the essence. If you time your firaga spells and cleaves properly he will be in hit stun which gives you time to topple him.

Your assessment is spot on. You need to follow the build to the letter in terms of having Genji for more damage output from firaga, and also all relevant materia must be maxed out for full potency. Keep practice using power cleave and spell blade, they are the best way to build ATB for both party members (you’ll gain around a bar on avg if you do it on staggered enemies like in the video, on non-staggered it’s also quite fast).

@@SatsuiMCOC thanks- that was the furthest I got in the 'rulers of the outer worlds' round. None of the other simulations are close to this hard. Really struggling with this and White Terror for the Cloud solo.

@@88killerific Farrm the bees in the white cat quest (chapter 13; reset sidequest progress) before trying this. You really need the fully maxed materia. These fights are the hardest challenges in the game, you won't need those maxed out materia more in any other situation, might a well get them now and save yourself some pain.

@@CidGuerreiro1234 thanks for this. I finally got the genji glove, now working on ap farming.

How do you use power cleave and spell blade so quickly? Do you hold R1 and tap T or S or do you hold it?