minerva setup

[InstableMonster]

so I still get my ass handed to me

all genji equipment

aerial drain +999 hp
atk up +77
quake +999 hp
curaga + 50spr
costly punch +40vit
hell firaga +42mag


is the only way to beat this boss really to just stack 99 phoenix down and pray? or is there something I'm missing, ok I havent hit 255 in all stats but I feel still getting hit for 99 999 is a bit much

[Sayo]

Take a "jump" command Materia and use the invincibility frames from it to doge her attacks. Also you can steal 99 Phoenix downs from her.

[Sayo]

Also her judgement arrow attack does fixed damage. I personally used Hammer fist and an accessory that nullified AP cost.

[InstableMonster]

Originally posted by Sayo:

Take a "jump" command Materia and use the invincibility frames from it to doge her attacks. Also you can steal 99 Phoenix downs from her.

yeah aerial drain is a jump that also steals hp and lets me heal

Originally posted by Sayo:

Also her judgement arrow attack does fixed damage. I personally used Hammer fist and an accessory that nullified AP cost.

genji removes all costs

So i guess its really just down to having a ♥♥♥♥ ton of phoenix down and hammering away, thanks

[Sayo]

Originally posted by InstableMonster:

Originally posted by Sayo:

Take a "jump" command Materia and use the invincibility frames from it to doge her attacks. Also you can steal 99 Phoenix downs from her.

yeah aerial drain is a jump that also steals hp and lets me heal

Originally posted by Sayo:

Also her judgement arrow attack does fixed damage. I personally used Hammer fist and an accessory that nullified AP cost.

genji removes all costs

So i guess its really just down to having a ♥♥♥♥ ton of phoenix down and hammering away, thanks

Which attacks specifically are you having trouble with?

[That Guy Bis on YouTube]

Put it on normal, makes it 10x easier

[Xenomus]

Something interesting I found out is that if you raise your Buster Sword Proficiency enough the stance can actually nullify a lot of attacks. As in, they do 0 damage, Ultima and her big ability still will hit you, but basically everything else will do nothing.

I also tried it on hard mode and it still worked. Seems the Buster Sword can just be straight cheese if you can be bothered to grind it out.

[InstableMonster]

Originally posted by Sayo:

Originally posted by InstableMonster:

yeah aerial drain is a jump that also steals hp and lets me heal




genji removes all costs

So i guess its really just down to having a ♥♥♥♥ ton of phoenix down and hammering away, thanks

Which attacks specifically are you having trouble with?

Foe one the ice one where I dont get why its hitting me when my armor is suppose to absorb elemental damage, i guess all her attacks dont have a type, and that one hits me for 99k

But I'll try the other advice and lvl up my buster sword proficiency to see if thats helps when blocking

I just tried her 4-5 times today and wanted tips before going to hit my head on what seemed like a wall if you didnt min max everything

[Manemo]

Instead of using all genji, try switching the shield for some stat gear - ziedrich for example does wonders there and you can use wall materia to get your defense up. Also get your mag up more to make your curaga more effective.

Krysta is best dodged by your aerial drain, time it right and you can immediatly follow up with costly punch. Thor's Hammer just dodge roll. Crimson is best blocked. Depending on the difficulty Flash Slash is extremely dangerous - try to approach her and immediatly run away once she starts the first part of the attack. Then you can dodge roll to either go for a costly punch or out of her range.

Keep your Wall and Raise up, don't get greedy, especially on hard mode - that battle can take over a hour.

[Sayo]

Originally posted by InstableMonster:

Originally posted by Sayo:

Which attacks specifically are you having trouble with?

Foe one the ice one where I dont get why its hitting me when my armor is suppose to absorb elemental damage, i guess all her attacks dont have a type, and that one hits me for 99k

But I'll try the other advice and lvl up my buster sword proficiency to see if thats helps when blocking

I just tried her 4-5 times today and wanted tips before going to hit my head on what seemed like a wall if you didnt min max everything

What I did to beat her was dodged all her attacks with the jump Materia for i-frames, then punched her. Rinse and repeat.

[Rad Dad Redemption]

Ziedrich (+100 Vit/Spr), Genji Armor (HP Break + Endure + Regen), Genji Glove (Break DMG Limit, Always Critical), Protect Ring (Auto-Wall). Costly Punch +999 HP, Mug +100 Vit/Spr, Curaga +100 Vit/Spr (need 100 of both), the rest doesn't matter but make sure you have 99999 HP and 255 Vit/Spr. Dodge or Guard all her attacks, Costly Punch and heal as needed. Judgement Arrow you should be able to get to 25-50%, BUT it clears your Phoenix Down. Luckily, her steal is 99 Phoenix Down, so use one after every Judgement Arrow and it's easy peasy.

[SlowNail]

I was really struggling with Costly Punch. Had a much smoother time spamming charged High Jumps. Still hits for max, you spend a lot of time in the air and you're saving up health for Judgement, instead of spending it. I also switched Genji Helm for Ziedrich and just topped up with Elixirs when AP was low.

[Lucus]

Originally posted by Rad Dad Redemption:

Ziedrich (+100 Vit/Spr), Genji Armor (HP Break + Endure + Regen), Genji Glove (Break DMG Limit, Always Critical), Protect Ring (Auto-Wall). Costly Punch +999 HP, Mug +100 Vit/Spr, Curaga +100 Vit/Spr (need 100 of both), the rest doesn't matter but make sure you have 99999 HP and 255 Vit/Spr. Dodge or Guard all her attacks, Costly Punch and heal as needed. Judgement Arrow you should be able to get to 25-50%, BUT it clears your Phoenix Down. Luckily, her steal is 99 Phoenix Down, so use one after every Judgement Arrow and it's easy peasy.

you don't even need 99 phoenix downs, also you can steal them from mock soldiers in M9-6-5: Life Form of Energy provided you equip Mog's Amulet to make sure every steal is a rare item.

meaning you can skip having mug/steal for the fight against her and have room for another ability, you could potentially use high jump for iframes and aerial drain to heal.

[Xengre]

The best method for normal Minerva is to throw money even if it doesn't do max dmg. It is easily a hundred times more efficient (not literally but metaphorically) than the jump or Costly Punch methods. Jump is really only for avoiding some attacks and not good for dmg (it sucks for dmg, frankly). There are ways to farm a ton of gil on a specific large Tonberry boss to make this not take long and just rofl stomp the boss in like 2-3 mins.

If you are doing Hard you can do the coin trick but farm a bit more coin which will require a bit more time. Alternatively and better, just get further and get Assault Twister+ and enough of the SP (IIRC) dmg boosting materia (honestly can't remember the name atm) and just use that instead. Grinding the SP for it is far faster since you can get millions in minutes but this comes later and requires higher stats to be effective than the money method so it depends on how far in you do this with the gil toss method being the moment she becomes available to fight essentially.

The biggest benefits of the Gil Toss method is it totally prevents her limit break from casting reliably, has no walk to boss travel time cutting into DPS, doesn't place you in a bad position to avoid dmg, and is faster to spam / higher sheer DPS in general due to number of hits even when not hitting anywhere max dmg.

Note that when she gets low her animations all speed up which is designed to intentionally catch you on a Phoenix Revive. Never cast Phoenix the moment you revive when she is low. Simply back up / dodge her next attack (if she doesn't attack immediately, though she almost always does) simply wait for it and then dodge. After that and far enough back then use Phoenix Down. Otherwise you will die before the phoenix down can finish casting causing immediate game over after just reviving from the prior one.

Costly punch is insanely bad on her and was mainly recommended because of its power in the original PSP version. It is a hilariously bad attack in this game for both this boss and in general. For its replacement outside this boss Darkness (which is also AoE) is far better though be warned some mobs are scripted to perform certain actions when Darkness is used like those little egg enemies so there are a few tactics to use there or just get good at dodging Delta.

Magic is worthless on her no matter how high your stats are so do not bother. Her Limit Break, if you aren't using Gil Toss, is based on how many bars she has of the limit break at finish casting. You need to break at least 1 bar and have high enough HP and of course the more bars you break the lower the HP needed to survive. It bypasses Phoenix Down. You cannot absorb any of her elemental attacks as they're all non-elemental for dev troll balance reasons so don't bother. Defensive stats are also essentially worthless on her unless at 240-255 (aka the literal max / near absolute max, drop even slightly below that and your defensive stats are worthless due to her absurd literal stat cap breaking stats). HP is most important for not dying to her and, of course, jump for easier time dodging most attacks.

[Theroux]

255 VIT/SPR really is essential. Her attacks just aren't survivable otherwise.

[WhateverWorks]

I went into my first Minerva fight (on psp) with max stats, 3 genji pieces and a Zeidrich. I used mostly regular attacks to kill her. It's not a hard fight, you just need to learn which attacks you can block, which ones you can dodge, and when you hit back.