What level do you need to be to realistrically beat the Weapons?

[SenMithrarin85]

First time though the game and it looks like they'll be available to fight soon. Cloud is Level 60 and the other members are mid-high 50s. How much more training do I need and are there any special measures I'd need to take besides equipping Ribbons that is? Thanks in advance.

[Koolkit]

The stats vary depending on which weapons you're talking about. Ultimate Weapon can be easily defeated when your characters are beyond level 50, you just need KotR. Emerald weapon however, requires that your characters all have 9,999 HP, and 999 MP (preferably). Emerald Weapon requires you to have 3 mimes, 1 fully mastered KotR, 1 fully mastered Phoenix, 1 fully mastered final attack, underwater materia, and W-summon. Including a mastered HP plus... you should get 9,999 HP right around level 75 or so. Ruby Weapon can be done at any time, you just need to have more than 7,777 HP on any one character. Just get one of your characters into lucky 7's, then kill off the other two. Ruby Weapon should be a cakewalk after that.

[SenMithrarin85]

Thanks, man. Not to sound noobish, but how do I get a character's HP to exactly 7,777? Is there a particular way to do it?

[Zork Nemesis]

I'm going to point out that you don't need KotR for Ultimate Weapon. I fought and beat him just before entering Midgar at the end of disc/part 2; was about level 40. You can't even one-shot it due to scripting. Ultimate only has about 100k health (compared to Emerald's million or so). The only thing about him is that he'll run away every so often requiring you to find him between fights. He won't heal between battles and he'll stay at Cosmo Canyon when he reaches the 20k mark.

For Ruby and Emerald, you'll want to be at least in the 60s. While Kool's got a good and safe strategy, you don't need to have everything mastered and by the time you do you'll likely be in the 90s. What you'll want for Emerald in my opinion: At least a level 2 KotR linked with HP-absorb, W-Summon on the character equipped with KotR, at least one Mime linked with Counter if you can, and have at least a level 2 Final Attack-Phoenix on standby, plus the Underwater materia to get rid of the 20 minute time limit (which doesn't freeze during KotR's animation). The trick to surviving Emerald weapon is to go in with as little Materia as possible. Emerald's Aire-Tam Storm attack specifically deals 1,111 damage per equipped materia to each character. Having nine or more equipped is instant death and this attack is unavoidable. If a character has 9,999 max HP, you can potentially use Aire-Tam against him by equipping said character with exactly two materia. If he uses Aire-Tam against you and that character is at full health, he will go into the lucky 7's shot. I wouldn't rely on that though.

For Ruby, it's important to know that he's completely immune to everything so long as two people in your party aren't dead. Unfortunately this forces you to 1v1 it. I rolled the same setup as Emerald on Cloud, but nearly got killed. KotR-HP Absorb still helps and you'll still want Mime, though you'll want KotR at level 3 in this case. It also helps to equip Hades and use that in conjunction with KotR on the first round to inflict a variety of status debuffs. Your first KotR should target the tentacles and not Ruby itself to get rid of them. Link Final Attack with Revive instead of Phoenix so you only ressurect yourself. Equip a Mystile to help dodge Ruby's abilities as he will counter every KotR cast (that isn't a Counter-Mime) with Ultima.

I wouldn't recommend going in with Lucky 7's. 7's won't even kill Emerald without having to attack it; I've tried. You get exactly 64 7,777 hits (even if more than one character is in 7's) which isn't enough to kill Emerald. If you want to use it, the best way to do so is to fight random battles against weaklings and have a character's HP get to x,x77, where x is less than 7. Out of battle use Potions and Hi-Potions on the character until their HP reaches 7,777. The next battle you enter you will automatically be in the Lucky 7's mode.

A second strategy involves the Enemy Skill Chocobuckle, which does damage equal to the number of times you've run away from combat. If you have the paitence to run away exactly 1,111 or 2,222 times, you can instantly go into 7's with a friendly fire.

A final Weapon strategy that I don't recommend. If you have Vincent land 65,536 or more killing blows, you can use a failsafe with the Death Penalty. The weapon's damage is equal to the number of creatures he's specifically killed. The value would overflow and reset to 0 when he reaches 65,536 so Square put in a failsafe: if the value were to roll over it makes it so that the Death Penalty deals instant unblockable death, which can in fact one-shot the Weapons.

[SenMithrarin85]

Thanks a lot for all the detailed advice guys. I know from research that the KOTR materia and Mime both need a gold chocobo to be reached. What's the most efficient way to do this? Thanks again

[NinjutStu]

Your best bet is to look up one of the Steam guides for Chocobo breeding.

There is no fast way to getting the Gold Chocobo, it involves catching various types and then hatching chocobo eggs. The eggs will ranomdly hatch into certain types of chocobo based on their parents, so it's a lot of reloading save files if you want to do it the quicker way.

[Zork Nemesis]

I followed this guide for breeding chocobos:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/197341-final-fantasy-vii/faqs/58077

To summarize, you'll want six stables, three Carob nuts, a Zeio nut, and a crapload of Sylkis Greens (the greens are optional, but recommended to increase stats for racing). Expect to spend 200k+ gil on greens alone. Catch a pair of Good and Great chocobos (Good from Gold Saucer area, Great from Mideel), one of each category and gender. Race the Great chocobos until they win four times (or race so that your pairs have a total of four wins each). Breed the Goods/Greats together (for example, Good male, Great female/Good female, great male) with a Carob nut to get your Green/Blue chocobo. Make sure they have opposite gender (be prepared to save and potentially quit multiple times). Race the Green/Blue until they have nine total wins among them. After they're allowed to breed, breed the Green and Blue with a Carob nut to get a black. Catch a Wonderful chocobo (Icicle area) that's the opposite gender of your Black. Race the Black/Wonderful until they have a combined total of twelve wins, then breed them with the Zeio nut.

Save before you do anything that can affect the gender: Save before breeding and save before moving. The wrong offspring means wasted time and potentially wasted resources.

In terms of what you can get: The Blue chocobo gets Quadra Magic by Mideel (though you can glitch to it with the Highwind), the Green gets Mime in the Wutai area, Black gets HP<>MP near Corel, and Gold gets Knights of the Round on Round Island in the northeast corner of the map. That said, Black and Gold can reach the caves of their previous kin. Furthermore if you haven't defeated Ultimate Weapon yet, you can also reach the Ancient Forest with a Green/Black/Gold chocobo.

[SenMithrarin85]

Thanks once again, guys. Look like i've got a bit of work to do lol