Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth: 5 Combat Tips to Conquer Every Battle

Need help with combat in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth? Well, we've got some (hopefully) useful advice for you. In this Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth guide, we'll be outlining what we think are five all-important nuggets of knowledge that should help you find success in battle.

Blocking Is Your Best Form of Defence

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth may have a hybrid action-command battle system, but it is not an out-and-out action game where you can dodge every attack and take zero damage in every fight. Your primary — and most effective — means of defence is your block.

You can't outright avoid damage in Rebirth — the dodge mechanic just doesn't work like that. Most attacks will track your character even if you're hammering that dodge button. The only attacks that don't track are unblockables — and that's why you're encouraged to evade at just the right time.

Fortunately, for everything that isn't unblockable, you can guard to reduce incoming damage, whether you're being hit with a physical strike or a magical spell. Blocking can mean the difference between a devastating attack and a glancing blow.

The only downside to blocking is that your ATB bar won't fill while you hold your guard. As such, you should try to time your blocks in order to maximise your passive ATB gains.

On that note, we should point out that in Rebirth, 'precise' blocking is a somewhat important mechanic. If you block an attack at the last possible moment, you'll take zero damage, negate any kind of pushback, and build additional ATB. In other words, you'll be practically invincible if you master the art of precise blocking — but it's obviously not that easy.

It's worth studying your opponent's animations in order to try and perfectly guard against incoming attacks, but if there are any doubts in the heat of the moment, it's worth just performing a normal block instead.

Because blocking is so important, we'd highly recommend equipping party members with the Steadfast Block Materia, as it further reduces damage and it grants you additional ATB when guarding. It's so good that it's honestly worth using on every character.

Character Switching Is Key

You can certainly have favourite party members in Rebirth, but controlling just a single character throughout every battle isn't recommended. That's because CPU-controlled party members won't do anything other than use basic attacks, block, and dodge. What's more, they won't build ATB as quickly when you're not in command.

You can force the CPU to use abilities through equipping specific Materia, but that obviously means you're spending a valuable Materia slot on something that's not strictly necessary. Indeed, you're better off simply switching between party members.

Switching is so effective because a lot of the time, enemies will purposefully target the character that you're controlling. You'll likely be dealing the most damage as that character, and you'll therefore be perceived as the biggest threat.

Jumping to another party member basically opens your opponents up to additional attacks, since they'll be too busy pressuring someone else. And yes, this works with bosses as well.

Save Your ATB for the Big Guns

Building ATB is key to everything that happens in battles. Some characters, like Cloud and Tifa, build ATB quickly, while the likes of Aerith gain it gradually. With that in mind, you need to think tactically about how and when to spend your saved ATB. By default, you only get two bars of it at a time, with the vast majority of abilities and spells requiring one of those bars.

Now listen, pulling off flashy attacks on a frequent basis may seem like the way to go, but burning through ATB can come back to bite you. When you can, you should try to save your ATB for when it's needed. After all, a lot of abilities show their true worth when they're used in the right moments. For example, Cloud's Focused Thrust is highly effective against pressured enemies specifically — and so spending an ATB bar on that same ability, but against a perfectly health opponent, isn't what you'd call efficient.

What's more, retaining your ATB can really come in clutch when you've taken a beating. Key healing abilities like Pray, and healing spells like Cure, are useless unless you have the ATB to use them. And if you've been spending all that ATB on reckless attacks, well... the result might not be pretty.

If you really want to stay prepared in tough boss fights and like, it's good practice to try and build your ATB all the way to two bars, and then always keep one bar in reserve for when you need that all-important heal, or immediate damage.

Heal Without Using All Your MP

Especially during the game's early chapters, keeping your party's HP all topped up can be tricky. You won't have access to the Magnify Materia that lets you heal multiple characters at once with Cure, and your MP reserves will be quite limited. Healing items, meanwhile, can often be in short supply — and basic potions don't restore much HP to begin with.

So what's the solution? Well, you need to invest in Prayer and Chakra Materia. Aerith comes readily equipped with Prayer at the start of the game, and Tifa gets Chakra. You can buy Chakra a little later into the adventure, but Prayer comes much later. Still, these abilities can save you a lot of MP (and gil), as both restore HP without spending anything other than ATB.

While Pray takes two whole ATB bars, it does heal the whole battle party, and that can be invaluable during tougher encounters when everyone's running low. If you can afford to save one character's ATB for a quick Pray every few fights or so, you can keep your HP topped up with ease.

Synergy Skills Shouldn't Be Ignored

If you played Remake, you might find yourself forgetting about Synergy Skills, which are brand new in Rebirth. These tag team moves have two party members work together, either to deal damage or defend one another. They're activated by holding down the block button and then pressing the corresponding face button. The Synergy Skills that are available depend on which party members are currently in the fight.

Synergy Skills are an addition to the combat system rather than a necessity, but they can be really useful tools once you get used to them, and so it's always worth experimenting. What's more, making correct use of Synergies actually increases your ATB gain, which is never a bad thing.

Did you find these Final Fantasy 7 Remake combat tips helpful? Be sure to check out our Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth guide for much more info on the game, and then feel free to provide your own advice in the comments section below.