Final Fantasy VII

Leveling Up

What Do You Mean, Level-Up?

Unlike most games, this is an important point to address early on. There are four kinds of leveling that you should be aware of: Characters, Materia, Limit Breaks, and Stats.

Leveling Limit Breaks

Limit Breaks can be leveled up by using them and killing enemies. Most characters have four tiers of limit breaks, with two limit breaks in the first three tiers, and a single in the fourth. Using a character’s starting limit break enough times will unlock a second limit break in that set. Tiers 2 and 3 are unlocked by that character killing enough enemies. The fourth tier is learned through a unique item, which can only be used when a character has learned all their other limit breaks.

Getting the second limit break in the first three tiers requires using the first limit break in that tier several times. The limit break gauge is charged when a character takes damage. To maximize the chances of taking damage, put the character in question in the back row and equip them with Cover Materia. The higher the level of that materia, the more likely it is they’ll jump in front of another character and take the damage. Use them when you get them, and you’ll get to the next tier quickly. HP Plus Materia and Long Range Materia are also helpful.

Getting to tiers 2 and 3 involves having that character deliver the killing blow in enough battles. This should be self-explanatory by the time you get here.

Leveling Materia

Materia level up when they are equipped. The AP you earn at the end of a battle is applied to all equipped materia. Be sure you’re intentional about what materia you have equipped and what kind of growth bonus each materia is getting.

Not all materia needs the same amount of AP to level up. For example, a Fire Materia may only need 18k AP to reach the max level, but the Knights of the Round Materia takes 500k. Be sure you put the stuff that takes the longest to Max out in your weapons’ triple growth slots. Between Cloud’s and Cid’s , you should have 5 slots. The materia that need the most AP are:

Knights of the Round Materia (500k)
Bahamut ZERO Materia (250k)
Typhoon Materia (250k)
Hades Materia (250k)
Phoenix Materia (200k)

Leveling Characters

You’ll figure out how characters level up pretty quickly - just fight battles and don’t die. As you get to higher levels, your stats gradually increase - until you hit your characters’s maximum potential stat limit.

Leveling Stats (Stat-Maxing)

Going beyond the character’s natural maximum stats is where Stat-Up items come into play. By default, Cloud’s max strength will be around 80-90. But every you give him adds one to that. If you give him enough, he can reach 255.

There are several places in the game where you can level up your characters and materia, but only a few places where you can farm the stat-up items. That’s what this section of the walkthrough focuses on.

When to Begin?

Technically you can begin farming stat-up items pretty much any time after you acquire the Morph Materia in the Temple of the Ancients.

That being said, my advice is to split this into two steps. After you acquire the sub on Disc 2, visit the Sunken Gelnika and get Yuffie’s weapon. That lets Yuffie use Morph without its regular damage penalty that limits your attacks to around 12.5%. If you opt not to wait even that long, it will probably take you a long time to get your stats all maxed out.

Once you have the , you can focus on the Strength Up section below, followed by the Vitality Up section. That should make your party nearly invincible to all but the most powerful bosses, and lets you get to the final materia toward the endgame faster.

However, I would put off any serious grinding until after the Rocket Town Huge Materia section, when you revisit Cosmo Canyon and obtain Bahamut ZERO Materia. At that point you can have all of the Summon Materia, so your stat-up grind can also help you work toward Master Summon Materia.

If you want to minimize time spent grinding even more, you can wait until you get Shield Materia and the Mega All Materia. Then you can also work toward Master Magic Materia while you grind. By equipping the Mega All Materia, you can also ensure every attack hits all enemies. Note that this does mean you’re pretty much waiting until endgame.

Best Equipment

For your typical grinding party, I recommend Cloud, Cid, and Yuffie:

Character	Weapon	Why
Cloud		3 triple-growth slots.
Cid		2 triple-growth slots.
Yuffie		Best morphing weapon.

All three should start with equipped for the four double-growth slots. Use the triple-growth slots on your Summon Materia, then swap in other stuff later.

See the Sunken Gelnika section for advice on optimizing the materia layout.

What if I Don’t Want to Wait?

If you don’t want to wait, you’ll have to kill each enemy one at a time (as opposed to using the Mega All Materia which makes your attack damage all enemies simultaneously.)

If you have the HP<->MP Materia, that can be helpful if you want to farm stat-ups early on. A character with 9,999 HP and 999 MP can swap them to instead have 999 HP and 9,999 MP. This makes Demi 3 go a lot further.

This can get boring, but I like to grind picture-in-picture while I’m watching football. YMMV.

General Advice

Don’t waste stat-up items by over-feeding your characters. The maximum a stat can achieve is 255. However, the game allows you to feed a character a maximum of 255 stat-up items regardless of their current number. Since your character already has at least some points in all stats, if you feed a character a stat-up when they’re already at 255, that stat-up is wasted. Note that materia like Magic Materia give a negative effect to your strength, so when you look in the menu and see you’re close to 255, be sure to check that you’re not wasting the bonus.

A question I get from time to time is, should I bother leveling up other characters, too? That’s up to you, but I usually do. I like to use Cid as my tank early in the game so he learns all his limit breaks. Once I no longer have a bunch of Summon Materia to level up, I’ll swap out Cid for someone else and equip whatever weapon has the most double-growth slots. I’ll usually make that character my tank and have them draw enemy attacks with Cover, thus getting them all their best limit breaks, too.

There are certain materia it’s a really good idea to equip while you level up. Enemy Lure Materia can seriously limit the amount of time you spend waiting to get into a battle.

When farming stat-ups, you may not want to have your characters develop a limit break. If you give a character a , it will inflict the Sadness status (well, unless they’re afflicted with ). The sadness status prevents a character from charging their limit breaks.

You may be asking, “Why the heck would I want to prevent a limit break?” Well, if you are trying to morph your enemies into attribute-increasing items, hitting for too much damage can kill them off before you can morph them. If that doesn’t make sense, just play around with morphing enemies for a while. I’m sure you’ll see why.

Strength Up: Power Source

Enemy	HP	MP	Morph	Reward
Heavy Tank	1,600	25		340 XP, 45 AP

The easiest place to farm items is the burned out reactor near Gongaga Village. Run around the screen with the reactor to encounter the Heavy Tank enemies, which can be Morphed into a .

Note: If you wait to do this after Yuffie gets her weapon, it will go very fast for you. If you don’t want to wait that long, since morph only does 12.5% of your regular damage, you will likely need to whittle down their HP to a very small number before using Morph on them. Sense Materia allow you to see how close the enemy is to death so you don’t accidentally kill it off instead of morphing it.

Have your characters attack it a few times to get its HP down, then morph it. You’ll have to play with the numbers a few times, as your characters will do different damage than mine did. Once you have it down low enough, use Morph and it will turn into a .

If you’re getting worked by it, consider equipping a Transform Materia and casting Mini on the Heavy Tank. That will make the the damage it does to your characters negligible.

Vitality Up: Guard Source

Enemy	HP	Steal	Morph	Reward
Spiral	2,800			1,400 XP, 160 AP, 2,600 Gil

The Spiral enemies can be found south and east of Mideel. If you run up and down where the peninsula sticks up to the north, you should run across them, and an occasional Harpy.

Again: if you do this after Yuffie gets her weapon, it will go very fast for you.

If you don’t want to wait that long, use Fire to whittle them down, then have whichever character has the highest strength morph them into Guard Sources.

If you have high-level Gravity Materia, Morph Materia, and Mime Materia, this is an easy battle: Demi 3, Mime, Morph, Mime. If there are three enemies, use one more Morph. You can get a lot of vitality in a very short period of time with this.

Magic, Mind, Speed, and Luck:

After maxing your characters’ strength and vitality, head to the wreck east of the Gold Saucer to farm the rest of the stat-up items. See the Sunken Gelnika section.