In Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the sequel to 2020’s Final Fantasy VII Remake, you have access to one of the franchise’s most powerful white mages ever – Aerith Gainsborough. With her affinity for casting spells and game-breaking abilities such as Arcane Ward, she can help your party overpower any enemy. But did you know she can literally turn enemies into stone? And when she does, it doesn’t matter what their remaining HP was, they’re just considered defeated? Using an intricate materia setup, we can literally turn Aerith into Medusa as her powers will harden them into stone. To do this, we’re going to take advantage of the Petrify Materia and anything that powers up Aerith’s Magic Attack or causes her to double cast a spell, such as the aforementioned Arcane Ward ability.
The Petrify Materia has a special characteristic – it doesn’t just chuck earth and stone at your enemy, it also builds up a special meter that once filled all the way, turns your enemy completely into stone, defeating them instantly (provided they don’t have immunity to petrify). You can see this meter build up underneath your enemy’s health bar. The best and quickest way to get this meter to the max is by casting petrify over and over again with Aerith (we’re choosing her because her magic attack stat is naturally the highest out of all characters, though you’re free to use any character you like). Here’s a quick summary of how it will work:
- Pumping Aerith’s magic attack stat is key, so we’re going to use materia and an optimal equipment setup to make sure it’s at its highest.
- We’re going to give Aerith three petrify orbs (one of them will have to be the Poison and Petrify orb), the lone ones attached to a Magic Focus orb and the Poison and Petrify attached to a Magnify orb, to greatly amplify the effects of the petrification on enemies as well as hit every one of them. We’re also going to give Aerith the Magic Up Materia.
- We’re then going to cast Arcane Ward with Aerith, stand in it, and spam magnified petrification spells over and over until our enemies are turned into stone.
Orb of petrify materia.
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The Materia and Equipment Setup
Materia That Will Help You Turn Aerith Into Medusa
For this to work, we’re going to need a specific materia setup for Aerith. For the purposes of this guide, it is assumed that all orbs are maxed out. Here is the recommended setup:
- Magic Focus Materia linked to Petrify Materia
- Magic Focus Materia linked to Petrify Materia (again)
- Magnify linked to Poison and Petrify Materia
- Magic Up Materia
- First Strike Materia
- Speed Up Materia
- ATB Boost Materia
- MP Up Materia
With this setup, we’ll ensure Aerith is casting powerful petrification magic against all enemies, bringing them closer and closer to turning to stone with each one. Keep in mind that both the Petrify and Poison and Petrify materia orbs can be purchased from Chadley. The Petrify Materia can be bought in Gongaga during Chapter 9 while the Poison and Petrify orb can be purchased in Cosmo Canyon during Chapter 10. One last note on this matter is that you’ll probably never be using the poison side of the Poison and Petrify orb, it’s essentially just a third orb of Petrify Materia.
Equipment and Accessories That Will Help You Turn Aerith Into Medusa
As far as equipment and add-ons go, I recommend focusing on pumping up Aerith’s magic attack stat and boosting the duration of her status debuffs. Perhaps the most important accessory you can give Aerith in this scenario is the Enhanced Malboro Orb, which not only raises her MP by 5%, it also both greatly increases the duration of detrimental status effects inflicted by the wearer and reduces the duration of them when the user is afflicted by them. If you don’t have the enhanced version of the orb, the normal one will do just fine. Furthermore, make sure to unlock the Debuff Extension stat boost from Aerith’s skill tree from the book shop, this will enhance the effects of petrification.
Aerith’s debuff extension stat boost on the skill tree.
Adding an Extra Layer
Readers of my guides should find the following methodology familiar by now, but it’s so effective in this scenario that it has to be mentioned: taking advantage of the combination of Aerith’s Arcane Ward and Yuffie’s Doppleganger. Aerith’s Arcane Ward creates a zone on the ground that doubles up any magic spell cast when a character is standing in it for free while Yuffie’s Doppleganger creates a clone of herself that copies whatever moves the original does (albeit at a lower percentage of both damage and detrimental status effect). This means that if you equip both Aerith and Yuffie with Petrify and activate both Arcane Ward and Doppleganger, you can cast six instances of petrify in no time (Yuffie and her Doppleganger would each cast two while Aerith will cast another two – this only works if everyone is standing in Aerith’s Arcane Ward).
How Petrify Works
Petrify is a unique detrimental status effect in that it shows up on enemies in two parts. When your enemies are first afflicted, the status appears to do nothing and has no effect – it simply shows a meter filling up. However, once that meter reaches full, the enemy will turn to stone, no matter how many hit points they have left. A video example is above. This is a great tactic to take out tough foes with a lot of HP that normally take a long time to finish off. Using this method, most battle times will be cut in half or more. Though if your plan is to take out bosses this way, which is possible, just make sure to use the Assess materia beforehand to make sure they aren’t immune to petrification.
