Tifa

[id795078477]

How to best use her abilities? What are the recommended weapons and/or maybe gems?

I found it relatively easy with Barret (shoot and dodge, use magic if installed, use "E" when ready), Aerith (stay behind, support the party, run away from danger) and Cloud (swing that big-@ss swords into their faces, prefer groups for those AoE swings or switch to heavy mode for single tough targets).

But with Tifa I'm a bit stuck. She's not very durable to easily go against groups of enemies (or I'm not doing it right) and her attacks are single-target mostly. If she's caught by any CC it hurts her badly. So what's the common tactics with her?

[level3]

people may have an easier time to recommend stuff, if they knew how far into the game you are

[id795078477]

Originally posted by Imperial:

people may have an easier time to recommend stuff, if they knew how far into the game you are

I was struggling with the bits where I had to play as Tifa after Shinra dropped the plate onto Sector 7 - before that I could compensate with other team members.

Playing as Tifa is really cool (I also absolutely love this aspect of the game - that it has the story making you play as different characters) - but it was really "sweating" to make it work. Seeing as I did fine as a solo-Barett right before that I have the feeling it's not Tifa, it's me.

[Xengre]

Rather than giving you a detailed post on this I'm actually going to just direct you to her section on the wiki, specifically the party member section, about her combat abilities in the Remake.

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Tifa_Lockhart_(VII_Remake_party_member)

It has detailed information about her abilities, mechanics of her abilities, what weapons specialize in what, materia choices, tactics, etc.

Afterwards, if you have particular questions it would be worth asking them here.

Personally, she is not a character I typically control. How I set her up is typically with a ton of purple materia to enhance her, generate ATB for teammates, etc. On hard I give her revive & haste (since she isn't using magic she has a huge pool of MP specifically dedicated solely to revive as a priority, saving my actual casters, and on stronger bosses haste while my offensive casters also have it but focus on offensive magic unless she runs out of MP or she is the one dead). I also give her Chakra for self sustain (great materia in hard when her HP gets much higher at higher level and also because of Hard's no item & no bench MP recovery mechanics).

I use her True Strike skill from her Purple Pain weapon (this is Shinra building lobby in the car area when she falls, on top of one of the displays or whatever) which used on a staggered enemy boosts the stagger bonus dmg multiplier allowing you to get insane DPS output after staggering a boss (also for the VR challenge that needs it).

[blogart]

generally tifa shines with good timing - have 2 stacks of her unbridled rage by the time an enemy is staggered. besides that i just use star shower(i think its called that) which has a delay, keeps her safer and do something with someone else. once stagger happens hit with the 3 abilities to quickly tick up the % bonus... and thats just the basic you get more and more abilities and options.

[Miyuka]

Tifa is good with fast atb building with her speed. I mostly use unbridled strength to power up her chi level, then use rise and fall or omnistrike until enemy is staggered, then use her other abilities. Her range seems to be a bit smaller than Cloud and sometimes I find myself punching the air if not aimed right, so its better if you lock on a target first. Against a group of enemies, you can try to use chi trap, it deals magic overtime damage to enemies close to it, you can even spam second one on the battle field if you are fast. The weapon choices depend on if you want her as magic main, strength main or balanced. Generally, I put more magic on her if shes the main healer of the party, otherwise Aerith is the main healer and magic caster of the party. For materia, it depends on your playstyle. Steadfast block or parry, may help her, since shes mostly in the frontline. ATB stagger if you use Tifa often for abilities after using her to stagger enemies. If shes caught in cc, have other member use items to cure her, or use abilities from the cleansing materia such as Esuna to remove all negative effects. Addtionally, you can put a warding matera linked to certain magic materia on her to reduce negative debuff duration.

[level3]

I'm not much further into the game. What ive been using with success:
Chi trap, unbridled strength, omnistrike, star shower, rise and fall (??) and ofc the materia, which can change your dodge if you hold block. Man that materia alone changes the game completely. Since you can cancel recovery frames of certain moves with the dodge, you cancel into slide and are ready for action again very fast. What i do most of the time: slide into the back, build up 1 atb, chi trap, build atb, unbridled strength and go from there -> omnistrike or starshower or an additional chi trap etc. If you like to play as tifa do yourself a favour and get that materia. Its op. I hope they'll keep that in Rebirth. Granted, i'm using TP boost materia with tifa even on normal....

For bosses the tldr is: i'm stacking chi trap (mythril fists) over and over again and buff the dmg multiplier with rise and fall, when boss is in shock state.