Emerald Weapon

Emerald Weapon and Ruby Weapon constitute the two most challenging fights in Final Fantasy VII. Neither of them are required to complete the game. They are an added level of difficulty for those who wish to continue playing and challenge themselves.

Defeating them is part of the Kalm Traveler’s side quests, and the rewards that you get for defeating both Emerald and Ruby Weapon are pretty lackluster.

Overview of the Battle - What to Expect

The first notable aspect of the battle against Emerald Weapon is the small timer that typically appears in the corner during the fight. You can get rid of the timer by equipping one of your characters with Underwater Materia. You can find details on how to obtain Underwater Materia in the Kalm Traveler guide in the Side Quests section.

This fight is all about preparation, and the first step is understanding Emerald Weapon’s attack pattern and moves. Emerald Weapon has four “eyes” across the top of it that change its attack pattern when they are open. You can hit the eyes once they open up. It will use the following moves during the battle:

Foot Stamp:
Hits all of your characters for around 8,000-9,000 damage and can only be used when all the eyes are closed.
Revenge Stamp:
Similar to Foot Stamp but hits for much less damage.
Emerald Beam:
Hits all of your characters for a fraction of their health and automatically dispels the Regen effect.
Emerald Shoot:
Hits one of your characters for just over 9,000 damage and dispels beneficial status effects.
Aire Tam Storm:
This move hits all of your characters. The damage is based on how much Materia each character has equipped and hits for 1,111 for each piece. This means that if you equip any character with 9 or more Materia this attack will instantly kill them. For this reason, you should avoid equipping any character with more than 8 Materia total. (Note: Aire Tam is Materia spelled backward).
Emerald Laser:
Cast by the “eyes” when they are open. The blue eyes hit for damage while, the orange eyes drain a character’s MP.

Preparation

This battle is all about preparation. Ensure that your characters are relatively high-level—they will need to be level 80 at a minimum. Check out the Leveling Your Characters page in the Tips and Tricks section for more information on how to level your characters up quickly. Each of your characters will need to have 9,999 HP with a minimal amount of HP Plus Materia added. Other Materia to equip include:

Materia	Description
Knights of the Round Materia (Mastered)	This will be your primary attack against Emerald Weapon as it is capable of doing the most amount of damage. Check out the Chocobo Racing and Breeding guide in the Side Quests section for more information on how to obtain this Materia. Note that the damage “Knights of the Round” Materia does is based on your character’s Magic stat, so it can be beneficial to equip Magic Plus Materia. You may need to keep leveling your characters if “Knights of the Round” isn’t doing 8,000+ damage per hit.
W-Summon Materia	This Materia will allow a single character to cast the “Knights of the Round” summon twice in a row. Make sure that you equip it to the same character that you equip “Knights of the Round” Materia to.
Mime Materia (Mastered)	You can retrieve this Materia from one of the Materia Caves. You need to master it to create a second copy of Mime Materia so that both of your characters who do not have “Knights of the Round” / W-Summon both have a Mime Materia. Check out the Leveling Your Materia page in the Tips and Tricks section for more information on how to level it up as quickly as possible.
Final Attack Materia paired with Phoenix Materia	This pairing acts as a safety net—one which you will most likely need to utilize to defeat Emerald Weapon. This pairing will cause a character who dies to summon Phoenix as their last move, which will instantly revive (and any other killed party member) back to full health. Check out the Battle Square guide in the Side Quests section for more information about how to find a Final Attack Materia.
Underwater Materia	Don’t forget to equip an Underwater Materia to one of your characters before the battle.

Equip your strongest armor as well, which should either be a Mystiles or a Ziedrichs. Fill up any remaining slots with HP Plus Materia if you have a character below 9,999 HP.

You can fill the remaining eight slots for each character with any other Materia that you like. You will earn a ton of AP once you defeat, Emerald Weapon and while you will likely have most of your Materia fully leveled up and mastered at this point in the game, make sure that you equip any of your Materia that you have not fully leveled up to a weapon or armor that has at least regular growth. Equipping Materia to your Ultimate Weapons will cause you to miss out on the AP.

Make sure to charge up Cloud’s Limit Break gauge so that he can also take advantage of using Omnislash during a lull between “Knights of the Round” castings.

The Fight

You can find Emerald Weapon swimming in the waters around the Underwater Reactor. There are a few random places where it can appear—surface the submarine and submerge again, and it will reappear in another location.

Have the character that has the W-Summon Materia and “Knights of the Round“ Materia cast the summon twice, and then have both of your other characters use the Mime command.

Dead Party during the Emerald Weapon battle

Be careful not to use Omnislash or another Limit Break in between, as the next character will attempt to mime Omnislash and will be unsuccessful. Use up your Megalixirs during this battle if you need to, and avoid casting protective spells and beneficial status effects, as most of Emerald Weapon’s attacks will remove them automatically.