GUIDE: HOW TO BEAT WEISS EASILY IN 10 STEPS – FF7 REMAKE

Welcome to my 10-step strategy guide to to defeat Weiss easily in PS5 FF7 Remake Intergrade.

Introduction

At first glance, Weiss can seem to be a very difficult boss:

• Any of his abilities can wreck one of your character quickly.
• You can’t attack him head on or he’ll just counter you
• He’s extremely tanky
• 1st phase (Dual Katanas): you can only damage him after dodging one of his 3 unblockable abilities (Evisceration, Crosswide Cleave and Stab)
• 2nd phase (Gun): he’s immune to physical attacks in this phase
• If you don’t defeat him quickly enough, he’ll use Immaculate End and wreck your whole party for 9999 dmg.

There are a lot of strategies going around to beat him slowly and using Revival Earrings to survive his ultimate attack, but this is definitely not the best way to beat Weiss. You can defeat him easily within 3 minutes, without any of your party members dying or even taking a single hit. If you follow this strategy, Weiss won’t even get to his 2nd phase and you’ll destroy him during the first Stagger.

This strategy is easy to reproduce, it just takes a little bit of practice to learn how to dodge his 3 abilities with Tifa, and you’ll have plenty of room for mistakes thanks to our gear and materia setup.

VIDEO GUIDE

There is a video guide on my YouTube Channel that showcases this strategy, if you prefer this format. Here’s the direct link: Weiss Guide on YouTube

WEISS EQUIPMENT SETUP

Cloud:

• Mythril Saber (with all the Magic Attack upgrades)
• Force Bracelet
• Fury Ring

Tifa:

• Metal Knuckles (with all the Physical Attack upgrades)
• Chain Bangle (she’s the only one who might take damage, so she needs the best defense)
• Fury Ring

Aerith:

• Mythril Rod (with all the Magic Attack upgrades)
• Force Bracelet
• Fury Ring

WEISS MATERIA SETUP

Cloud:

• Magnify (linked)
• Time (linked)
• Fire
• Barrier
• Skill Master
• First Strike
• Magic Up
• Refocus
• Refocus
• Refocus
• Bahamut

Note: Refocus materias are only there for the stats boots. They give +4 to your stats and we’re interested in the +4 Magic Attack. The higher Cloud & Aerith’s magic attack stat is, the more damage their spells will do, and you’ll see why this is important later in this guide.

Tifa:

• Fire
• Parry
• Steadfast Block
• ATB Stagger
• Skill Master
• ATB Assist
• Luck Up
• Luck Up
• HP Up
• HP Up
• Ifrit

Note: Tifa will be our Tank for this fight and we’ll control her the whole time and give commands to Cloud & Aerith via the tactical menu only.

Parry materia will help us a lot to dodge all of Weiss‘s attacks. If you miss some Parries you’ll be okay because of our High HP and High Block thanks to Steadfast Block (which works while you’re using Parry too!). We’ll also have Barrier on Tifa at all times to mitigate even more damage while you learn to dodge Weiss’s abilities.

Aerith:

• Synergy
• Fire
• Barrier
• Healing
• Skill Master
• First Strike
• Revival
• Subversion
• Subversion
• Magic Up
• Leviathan

Note: Revival and Subversion materias won’t be used in the fight, we’re only slotting them in for the +2 Magic Attack stat boost they provide.

WHY THOSE MATERIA CHOICES?

Skill Master Materia: all 3 characters have it equipped for a good reason, we want all 3 Skill Master materia to be triggered during the Stagger phase to get extra ATB back and do more damage. So we will make sure to use 2 different abilities on each character before the Stagger phase and we’ll use a 3rd ability at the start of the Stagger phase, which will give almost 1 FULL ATB back to each party member.

ATB Assist Materia: we’ll trigger this materia 3 Times during the fight, and 2 times during the Stagger phase. This will feed ATB to Cloud & Aerith, allowing them to chain cast Firaga during the Stagger.

Luck Up Materia: Luck stat increases crit chance, so more potential damage for Tifa.

Other materias are self-explanatory.

BATTLE SETTINGS

This is just a suggestion for a quality of life, but you can do everything via the tactical menu if you’re not comfortable with shortcuts.

I recommend binding a shortcut to Focused Strike because we’ll use it a lot in this fight

I also recommend binding Unbridled Strength and True Strike because we’ll use them twice in a row quickly to trigger ATB Assist Materia.

TIFA LEADER

In the Battle Simulator, set Tifa as Team Leader. You want to control her at the start of the fight. Weiss will only chase whoever you’re controlling.

The rest doesn’t matter, pick any order for Aerith and Cloud.

WEISS STRATEGY GUIDE – STEP #1

• (L2) Haste(Magnified)
• (R2) Barrier on Tifa

Barrier on Tifa will make it easier for you to learn how to dodge Weiss’s attacks, she can take a few hits while your learn the timing.

Also, that’s 1 ability out of 3 used for Cloud & Aerith to trigger Skill Master Materia (3 Different Abilities needed)

PARRY MATERIA

Use Parry Materia to dodge Weiss’s attacks, it’s the easiest way to do avoid damage

CROSSWISE CLEAVE

Keep running away and use Parry at the last second to Dodge it.

==Weiss Pressured==

(Square) Attack a few times until Weiss is tossed up in the air, then use Focused Strike and run away

On this screenshot you can see Weiss is tossed in the air after a couple of punches from Tifa. This is the moment to use Focused Strike safely.

STAB

This one can only be dodged by Jumping over Weiss

The timing is not that hard to learn. You have to run TOWARDS Weiss and then hit (Circle) at the last second

==Weiss Pressured==

(Square) Punch until Weiss is tossed in the air then use Focused Strike again

EVISCERATION

This is the easiest to dodge of all 3 abilities. Just Parry away. Normal dodge also works of course but Parry Materia makes this much easier

==Weiss Pressured==

Punches + Focused Strike again.

And that’s all you need to learn for the Double Katana phase. You only need to learn how to dodge those 3 abilities and you’ll get to the STAGGER phase easily

WEISS STRATEGY – STEP #2

Use Cure with Aerith on Tifa

Skill Master Materia (Aerith):

• 2nd Ability used.
• 1 more to Trigger it

You can use Cure as many times as you want, just don’t use Regen or Cura or Curaga or any other ability besides the 2 we’ve already used so far (Barrier and Cure) or this will trigger Skill Master Materia and we’re saving that for the Stagger phase to get ATB back and increase our damage output.

WEISS STRATEGY – STEP #3

Refresh Tifa’s Barrier with Cloud this time

Skill Master Materia (Cloud):

• 2nd Ability used
• 1 more to Trigger it

WEISS STRATEGY – STEP #4

Keep dodging Weiss and applying pressure with punches + Focused Strike

But don’t stagger him yet!

WEISS STRATEGY – STEP #5

Refresh Haste (Magnified) with Cloud

Then right after Dodging one of Weiss’s skills, use Unbridled Strength twice in a row quickly with Tifa

==ATB Assist Materia Triggered==
Cloud & Aerith should have Full ATB or close

WEISS STRATEGY – STEP #6

Before Staggering Weiss, we want Cloud & Aerith to be close to Tifa, because once Weiss is staggered, we can’t waste a single second moving our party members around, everyone must be close to Weiss when he becomes Staggered.

So run in circles around Cloud & Tifa and wait for Weiss to use Stab or Evisceration, dodge it and then Stagger him.

Crosswide Cleave is no good because of the long travel distance. So wait for Stab or Evisceration.

WEISS STRATEGY – STEP #7

==WEISS STAGGERED==

Follow this skill order closely and you will wreck Weiss in one stagger.

• (R2) Arcane Ward on Cloud
• (L2) Cloud: Firaga

==Skill Master Materia Triggered== for Cloud & Aerith

Note: do no waste any second in between each ATB Command. As soon as you use one ability, pull up the Tactical Menu immediately to use the next ability. You have plenty of time to pick the abilities while time is ultra slowed down in the Tactical Menu, so make sure you pull it up quickly after each ability (Reminder: you can use either Cross, R2 or L2 to pull up the Tactical Menu)

WEISS STRATEGY – STEP #8

• (R2) Aerith: Firaga
• (L2) Cloud: Firaga
• (Cross) True Strike
• (Cross) True Strike

==Skill Master Materia Triggered== for Tifa.
1st ability was Focused Strike
2nd ability was Unbridled Strength

Use True Strike twice in a row quickly to trigger another ATB Assist and feed more ATB to Cloud & Aerith.

==ATB Assist Triggered==
Cloud & Aerith gain ATB Back

WEISS STRATEGY – STEP #9

• (Triangle) Rise and Fall
• (Triangle) Omnistrike
• (Triangle) Uppercut
• (Cross) Pull Tactical Menu again quickly right after Uppercut.

Tifa should be at Full ATB, if not, just Punch once and will be back to 100% ATB

WEISS STRATEGY – STEP #10

• (R2) Aerith: Firaga
• (L2) Cloud: Firaga
• (Cross) True Strike
• (Cross) True Strike
• (Triangle) Uppercut

==ATB Assist Triggered==

Weiss should be dead or close if you did the stagger phase correctly.

WEISS STRATEGY – FINISH

You have plenty of ways to finish the job:

Cast Fire or Fira with Tifa and Aerith will cast Fire thanks to Synergy Materia and do massive damage

You can also just cast Firaga with Aerith or Cloud to finish the job, they should have some ATB left or will get some back quickly thanks to Haste.

GG!

Please drop a comment and tell me how it worked for you! Don’t forget to subscribe on my YouTube channel if you don’t want to miss out on more detailed guides 😉

-Jame