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The objective is to kill Emerald with the least time on the clock in the menu, beat him in as little time as possible after starting the game.

I've never done a speedrun before and, frankly, I don't really see any point when there are already some really good ones out there. What I still can't find is an Emerald speedrun, where the idea is to beat Emerald with the least possible time on the clock. It would be a huge challenge but at the same time immensely rewarding, and it won't take long to do by nature. It doesn't necessarily mean fighting Emerald from the moment the submarine is available but just as short a time as possible. Also it will definitely mean doing leveling, but only what is necessary.

This thread is basically open for ideas in how exactly to do this. Think about which characters to use, which materia to level on the way, what to buy, strategy, and anything else you think is useful. Also, if you already know of something like it then please share I'd like to see it. I'll explain what I have so far.

Characters will be Cloud, Barret and Cait Sith for their HP growth, but I can see faults in this. For one thing it forgets that Red XIII gets a double AP growth weapon earliest in the game, and that there are better limits out there. Double AP is nice but I'm probably just going to get through the game quickly then do a bit of quick grinding outside Mideel as soon as I can, which renders it potentially unnecessary. Cid is very tempting because he has his Scimitar with triple AP growth, found just before getting the sub, meaning I'd level everyone up at Mideel just afterwards. I'm not going to use Cait Sith's ultimate limit break just because it's more fun without it, but it is there if I want to do the fastest possible kill. Really not sure about who to use TBH.

Equip is difficult to decide. As far as I remember it's possible to fight Rude in Rocket Town, steal the Zeidrich then run away back to the world map without going into the rocket, which would be nice if it works but otherwise the space part might take too long. The Zeidrich is a no-brainer because it halves Emerald's physical attack damage before the 'defence' stat even comes into play. One character will have little or no materia for Aire Tam Storm so I don't mind not having any slots with it. Probably a Warrior Bangle and a Dragon Armlet for the other two, however it depends on how many HP Pluses I'm going to need, and whether defence is better than HP. Two Curse Rings with one character having Added Effect with Destruct for an anti-death, the other guy with a Circlet I'd imagine.

Materia will be similar for two characters and different for the other. One character needs to take an Aire Tam Storm so I'm thinking either no materia or just one HP Plus to keep him alive. The other two will be packed with materia. Crucial ones are two Enemy Skills with Big Guard and two Gravity materia because that is going to be my only lane of attack, and a pretty weak one at that! Luckily there is a Quadra Magic available so I'll pair it with Gravity. I mentioned the Added Effect coupled with Destruct for a protection from the Curse Ring. Any spare slots will be HP Plus so we can actually live longer than one stomp.

Misc. Just a few random ideas. I'm thinking it would be worth betting on chocobos for Hero Drinks. I'll pick one up in the north but it would be nice to have a minimum of one for each character and a maximum of three for each. Also it might be worth using the infinite Elixir cave in the north mountains for 20 or 30 Elixirs. Shouldn't take too long. Selling a mastered All or two will give me enough money to buy everything I need, i.e., 99 Phoenix Downs and about 16 HP Pluses!

Strategy is a simple idea but difficult to execute. The plan so far is to stay alive long enough for him to bring his eyes out, whilst getting in all the Hero Drinks and keeping up a Big Guard. I will have to heal, reluctantly, because his stomp could kill us all. When someone dies it's important to get a Tranquillizer out for them to halve Emerald's damage. This period will be ridiculously hard in itself.

When he does get his eyes out the plan is to knock out his two blue eyes and one of the yellows. Now his attacks will be Emerald Beam which does percentage damage, a very strong MP attack from the eye, a counter-attack that has the potential of killing anyone who isn't healed, and Aire Tam Storm which will kill the mages and hit the other for 1111 or 0.

My attacks will be Gravity and Limit Breaks on the middle, so multi-hitters are not welcome. Luckily I don't think I'll even have the option because we'll still be in Climhazard land, if that. I'll try to keep the HP high to avoid dying from his counter-attack. It means I'll probably be doing about 9999 damage every minute or something painful like that. At that rate he'd be dead in a cool 1 hour 40, but that's a crude way of working it out, I'd expect it to take a bit longer.

Any thoughts, criticisms or new ideas are very welcome.

This post has been edited by sweetdude on 23rd April 2010 04:26

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

Beat Emerald Weapon in less than 2 minutes:

Max out Barret's stats (everything up to 255). Activate Level 3 limit break. Equip 9 Mime materias (1 million AP).

Enter battle with two living characters. At the start of battle use W-Item and throw Hero Drinks on Barret. Emerald will counter using Emerald Beam. Use UNGARMAX limit break and then Mimic. Watch how Barret destroys Emerald Weapon in no time.

One shot of destruction:

Equip master SNEAK ATTACK+DEATHBLOW on Vincent and watch Emerald Weapon die in one shot.

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PS3 tag: TipoDLuffy

"...quite possibly the greatest game ever made"

I've never actually tried to beat Emerald Weapon right away. I'm trying to think of what you'll actually have available. Will you have Mime? Because if you are consistently using these same characters I'd say you can probably get their limits up pretty high. I don't doubt that you could have Barret's Ungermax by then, so having a Mime materia on him would go a long way to defeating Emerald. As for the rest of your strategy, I think it's coming along nicely. You've dealt with Aire Tam Storm, and while there will definitely be some hairy spots in there, you should be able to pull through. Good luck!

Well, at level 99, all level 4 limit breaks, ultimate weapons, Ziedrichs on, champions belt (no need for ribbon, and a stock of megaelixers, you can beat emerald with no materia equipped, no need for maxed stats, AND in under 10 minutes. Try it. He be cryin like a little baby.

Sorry I don't think I was clear enough about this. I mean a speedrun as in kill Emerald Weapon in the quickest time after starting the game. Time on the clock was a bit vague I'll admit, I meant the clock in the menu. I've beaten him in 30 hours on a normal game where I watched all the story and didn't do much leveling, and maybe an hour or two at the Gold Saucer. I know it can be done a lot quicker than that. I'll change the first post to make it clearer.

Basically, SaffireWeapon and ntoole, I won't be level 99, I'll have no Ultimate Weapons, no Sneak Attacks, no Final Attack, potentially only one Hero Drink unless I bet for them, and probably no Champion Belts unless I think doing a few runs on the Battle Square is time well spent. Curse Rings and Circlets are better IMO.

Kane, I won't have Mime I don't think, Chocobos would take too long to train and I don't think I'd even get the chance to mimic a limit break. I can however have Quadra Magic as soon as I get the Highwind. And in my aforementioned 30 hour time for beating him I didn't have Ungarmax by then! I doubt I'll have it. As part of my strategy I don't think a multi-hitting limit break is useful anyway, unless it's to kill off a few of the eyes with.

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

I'm sorry if this is off topic but,can emerald weapon be killed without knights of the round?

I know ruby can be killed without knights of the round,but it takes a really long time

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We are stardust.Our bodies are made from the guts of exploding stars.

Neil Degrasse Tyson.

Quote (Magitek_slayer @ 23rd April 2010 13:31)

I'm sorry if this is off topic but,can emerald weapon be killed without knights of the round?

I defeated Emerald with the Following materia setup:

Characters:Yuffie, Cloud and Cid

Materia:Yuffie - Conformer: Cover, Counter Attack, Counter Attack, Counter Attack, Counter Attack, Counter Attack, Counter Attack, HP Plus.
Mystile: Counter Attack, Counter Attack, Counter Attack, Counter Attack, Counter Attack, Counter Attack.
Cloud - HP Plus
Cid - Final Attack + Phoenix

OH! That could be your Setup! Just keep throwing elixirs on Yuffie

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Does anyone actually like Cait Sith?

Well I just beat Ruby with Cloud alone, although that has nothing to do with emerald. To beat Emerald my advice is to have Cloud equipped with Mystile, Ultima weapon, Champion belt, Final Attack with Phonix, W-summon, Quadra magic on Bahamut Zero, HP absorb on Knights of round, three mastered Hp pluses, and Ultima. Have two more chracters and equip one of them with W-item and have them equipped with mimic, and have some hero drinks. Just have everyone mime Cloud's summon and don't worry about Emeralds Aire tam de slam because even if it kills everyone Pheonix will automatically come and revive everyone to full health. Now just keep doing that and you'll win in no time. I have no idea how to do it in just thirty hours. (My FIRST POST!!)

This post has been edited by ~HEARTLESS ANGEL~ on 13th May 2010 16:37

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Without darkness there can be no light, so how can darkness be truly evil?

I've never beaten Emerald myself. I've done a speed run but got stuck on Demon's Gate so what you're going for sounds pretty tough. Have you managed it yet or are you stumped?

I'm probably going to do this sometime soon now that my term has ended. I don't think I'll get stumped at any point. I'm going to keep a stack of saves throughout the game, maybe even one every 30 minutes or so, so I can go back as far as I need to if the plan falls apart. The whole playthrough will be structured and planned, but I still don't know the exact plan yet to get the least time but also enough to kill Emerald. One thing is for certain, he's absolutely solid, and underestimating him will be fatal.

Do you have any videos or walkthroughs you could link Mert? Anything you used to help, and if there's anything you did archived I'd be interested in seeing it.

Edit

Oh yeah, I'm emulating this game for savestates, and to make matters a lot worse my laptop finally gave in, so I've had to buy a new one, and one of the very few things I didn't have a backup copy for was FFVII saves. So all the work I've put in already has gone to waste. I'll just have to do it quicker this time.

This post has been edited by sweetdude on 15th June 2010 11:01

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

Quote (~HEARTLESS ANGEL~ @ 13th May 2010 16:35)

To beat Emerald my advice is to have Cloud equipped with Mystile, Ultima weapon, Champion belt, Final Attack with Phonix, W-summon, Quadra magic on Bahamut Zero, HP absorb on Knights of round, three mastered Hp pluses, and Ultima.

But the thing is, you really would want to get all that juicy AP for that hungry materia, but with Ultima Weapon it'd all go to waste...

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Does anyone actually like Cait Sith?

I won't have any of these things! It's a speedrun, I need to save time and only get the equipment and levels that I absolutely need.

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

I'm outside Junon before the Underwater Reactor at under 7 hours. Not bad. Unfortunately Emerald will kill me in one hit, so I'm going to need to do some acquiring before the fight, and quite possibly some levelling as well. I'm aiming for under 10 hours but we'll have to see. I'll definitely do an optimum kill with Game Over from Cait Sith at around 7:20 on the clock. For now though I want to do it properly.

I'm still unsure of the best way of staying alive and killing off his two blue eyes. Once they're dead the fight will be winnable. One thing utilised to brilliant effect in the speedrun is a combination of Powersoul / Curse Ring or Death Sentence / Deathblow + Added Cut / Critical HP on Tifa. This results in a 9999 Deathblow hit and a strong follow-up attack. A T/S Bomb (Demi 2) hitting the eyes for 9999 at a success rate of 255% followed by Tifa's combo is probably the best idea I have so far.

I've used a brilliant FAQ to do this run so quickly. It would be unfair not to link it. http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/197341-final-fa...-vii/faqs/31141

This is just a trial run so it's probably going to have to replay a lot of the game when I realise I need a specific item or materia. It's still progress though! The best result for me would be to somehow beat him in under 30 minutes and be able to do the fight as soon as the team get the submarine.

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

personally for me Emerald was a total pain and took me like infinity tries to beat. then again I was doing it underleveled and was relying entirely upon omnislash for damage. i couldn't even imagine doing a speedrun on him, but maybe if I put enough time into it I can pull it off.

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A creature born from eternal darkness and heavenly light. One single entity, birthed of two opposites. They somehow coexist, to create I, the Lunarian Prince...

Quote (sweetdude @ 29th June 2010 23:31)

I'm outside Junon before the Underwater Reactor at under 7 hours.

...............makes my 7 hours to Demon's Gate look a bit silly. Apparently the PC version is faster than the PS though.

I didn't seek any online assistance for my run apart from here so it was more trial and error than anything else. I'd do certain sections and then redo if I was unhappy with the time. Also with cases like running up the stairs or fighting your way through in Midgar and dating the Don - I'd find out what the fastest way through was and then redo it to make sure it was as smooth as possible.

As i've probably said before I've never even beaten Emerald so I won't be any help there either.

Thanks for the link, when I have more time I'm sure I'd like to give it another go. All the best with yours.

I've been away so I've not had a chance to redo this. Before I left I reran the game in just over 7 hours with a lot of extras to be able to beat him. The Laser Enemy Skill and Slots for Lucky Girl and Mog Dance were the biggest changes. Right now I'm outside Emerald with all the potential for a win but no success after so many tries. My friend and I are trying to crack it but the strategy relies on a lot of luck. The big bastard fact is that he counter-attacks Laser, which we hadn't really anticipated. One day...

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

This interested me, so I decided to try it.

At 10:58:43 I fought Emerald for the fifth time with Barret at Limit Level 3, having Missing Score and a Mystile equipped.

This is a list in the form materia(stars)
Weapon:
Counter(5)=Mime(2) Counter(5)=Mime(2) Counter(3)=Mime(1) Empty=Empty
Armour:
Empty=Empty Empty=Empty Empty=Empty

My other characters where Cloud and Cid.
Cloud had Final attack(2)=Phoenix(3) and W-Item in his Mystile and Apocalypse equipped, with some materia I wanted to level .
Cid was also equipped with a mystile and had Enemy Skill and Underwater Materia.


The strategy was mostly based on luck, as not all my mime and counter materia was mastered, nor final attack.

By this point I had already maxed out these three characters in everything but spirit.

Since I had Mystiles equipped I rarely got damaged other than when Emerald used Aire Tam Storm; which would fill up Barret's limit bar.

Before the fight barret should have a full limit bar and the Ungarmax Limit(3.2) and try to stay alive until Cloud has chucked a few(I used 4) Hero Drinks on Barret(allowing him to reach 9999 damage per hit.)

Have Barret use Ungarmax and he should hit for 9999 18 times: which ~180 000 damage.

With any luck, Emerald will use Emerald shoot or something attack Barret: making him Counter(hopefully) 3 times with Ungarmax, which means that he would do 540 000 damage, plus the original 180 000 brining the total to exactly 719 928, leaving Emerald only 280 072 health to play with.

The way I did it was just have Cloud and Cid also with limits(Omnislash and Highwind) and attack under the influence of Hero Drink. This should make Cloud hit for 149 985 and Cid for 179 982.

Emerald Weapon = Dead

EDIT: the time was 10 hours, not 11

This post has been edited by iSeizmik on 1st September 2010 02:07

10:58? That's impossible. How on Earth did you manage to get so much equipment and materia? The thought of getting Counter, then Mastering it twice is obscene. Even if you could get to the Northern Crater for the Movers it would still take a huge amount of time to get there and back, and to fight them. Also Apocalypse? Green Chocobos would take too long so you must've beaten Ultimate Weapon, and that's another big chunk of time. Barret, Cloud and Cid with a Level 3 Limit? Not possible. You'd need to run around fighting the flies at the Temple of the Ancients or the mushrooms at Rocket Town to even have a chance of that, and that took me a long time on a normal run. At 10:58 you'd need to do it on the way past, and even then it would take too long, especially for three characters. Omnislash from the Battle Square? Too much time. I'll need to see this to believe it I'm afraid. If you used cheats then I'll believe it.

Quote (mertinatron)

Apparently the PC version is faster than the PS though.

I don't go anywhere near the PC version. I'm all for fast runs and getting things done in the quickest time, but without savestates it's more like a self-harming exercise in places. For example when you need to steal a certain item or a boss has to begin the battle with a certain attack it can take 10 or more attempts. Without savestates it would take hours, literally hours, of playing the same areas and restarting. I'm glad to say I still find the whole effort fun and I'm looking forward to returning to it.

This post has been edited by sweetdude on 1st September 2010 16:06

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

Quote (sweetdude @ 1st September 2010 11:16)

10:58? That's impossible. How on Earth did you manage to get so much equipment and materia? The thought of getting Counter, then Mastering it twice is obscene. Even if you could get to the Northern Crater for the Movers it would still take a huge amount of time to get there and back, and to fight them. Also Apocalypse? Green Chocobos would take too long so you must've beaten Ultimate Weapon, and that's another big chunk of time. Barret, Cloud and Cid with a Level 3 Limit? Not possible. You'd need to run around fighting the flies at the Temple of the Ancients or the mushrooms at Rocket Town to even have a chance of that, and that took me a long time on a normal run. At 10:58 you'd need to do it on the way past, and even then it would take too long, especially for three characters. Omnislash from the Battle Square? Too much time. I'll need to see this to believe it I'm afraid. If you used cheats then I'll believe it.

Quote (mertinatron)

Apparently the PC version is faster than the PS though.

I don't go anywhere near the PC version. I'm all for fast runs and getting things done in the quickest time, but without savestates it's more like a self-harming exercise in places. For example when you need to steal a certain item or a boss has to begin the battle with a certain attack it can take 10 or more attempts. Without savestates it would take hours, literally hours, of playing the same areas and restarting. I'm glad to say I still find the whole effort fun and I'm looking forward to returning to it.

I used the PSN version, so PC doesn't matter.

You only need 100 000 AP to Master Counter Materia; yes getting to the North Cave, mastering and back DID suck up about an hour or two from my game time. If you use Enemy Away(which doesn't take that long to get in the battle arena) you can put that in rune blade and watch it just throw enemies at you.

I didn't fight Ultimate Weapon, I fought Ruby.

Ruby Weapon was HARD!...(I needed the Gold Chocobo); I had to use the Dazers/Spider Web tactic to beat him, with Ungarmax and Highwind of course. I used this Chocobo to get Mime and do the Ancient Forest. In the forest I would reload every time I did something even slightly wrong(got caught on a tree root, didn't jump from platform first time). This took about 30 save/reloads.

Hit the battle arena and be as efficient as possible, using Cloud and hoping for 'All Materia Broken' at the last slot about 4 times, this gave me the BP for Omnislash and A couple of Enemy Lure Materia. This was the biggie, no less than 60 save/reloads for this(and some on the 4th time through!)

So now that I have l have all my pre-requisites I can fight Emerald with ^that^ strategy.

I would use the Knights of Round tactic(since I can get it) but that would take over 20 minutes...more than likely, and I didn't want Aire Tam Storm doing any more damage to me.

I didn't start the game afresh just to do this, I used an old speedrun of mine (8:12 at the centre of the Earth) and beefed it up a little.

Please, don't ever suggest I cheat, it's quite insulting.

How did you fight Ruby Weapon without fighting Ultimate? He only appears after Ultimate's dead, right? I won't believe this until I see it. It's a good time but I just don't see how on Earth you could amass so much equipment, and kill Ruby without killing Ultimate, and get everyone's limit to level 3 and 4.

This post has been edited by sweetdude on 2nd September 2010 11:56

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

At a stretch, I could probably believe this, but the one thing that makes it certainly impossible:

Quote

By this point I had already maxed out these three characters in everything but spirit.

Not a chance. Sweetdude's got your number, and sweetdude says it's right.

Quote (SaffireWeapon @ 19th April 2010 10:49)

One shot of destruction:

Equip master SNEAK ATTACK+DEATHBLOW on Vincent and watch Emerald Weapon die in one shot.

This doesn't work as simply as that. This only works once you've satisfied the requirements of the Overflow Glitch - mainly killing over 65,535 enemies as Vincent with the Death Penalty, or having Barret equip a Missing Score filled with mastered Knights Of The Round materia.

When this happens, the damage dealt is registered as so high (even though only 999 damage is dealt, the game keeps track of the true damage that would be done), it overflows over the maximum level, flips out and instantly kills whatever you hit. In this case, it would be one-hitting Emerald Weapon.

I've been trying this out again. The strategy I used last year just can't work. It requires about a 1% chance of things going right, and even when they do the perfect outcome is still impossible because he uses Aire Tam Storm too quickly and counter-attacks all the time. Just for the record I've added the text from an old file I sent to a friend to share it all with him. You can read it and see exactly how the fight works. It's a completely mind-bomb by stage #4. Still I'm quite proud of the idea to use Petrify to survive Aire Tam Storm, then White Wind them back into the fight. That will probably get used in the final fight.

So... I needed a new plan. I read that it's possible to get a gold chocobo in around 30 minutes by manipulating the RNG, so I tried it, and it worked! Now I can add Knights of the Round, Mime, HP<>MP and Quadra Magic to the list of materia. I think it's worth the time taken to get the extra stuff. Still trying to work them all into a new strategy. Here's the chocobo guide if anyone wants to get a really quick Gold chocobo: http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/197341-final-fa...-vii/faqs/58077

Well that's the long and short of it thus far. Next I'm thinking of racing the gold chocobo in the Gold Saucer for some quick extra materia like Counter. I'm really lost for ideas right now. Even with going to the Gelnika, getting a Gold Chocobo and all the rest of it the final time I'll start the Emerald fight will be between 7:30 and 8 hours. This is a bit of a cry for help. If anyone can think of any tricks or strategies that are feasible to a low level character with low level materia I'll be up for hearing it. I'm even considering levelling HP Plus materia with Scimitar to get to 7777 HP.

Quote

Cloud
Buster Sword = Contain + Added Effect
Warrior Bangle = Gravity + All + HP Plus + HP Plus (Gravity 2 Star)
Touph Ring
==Contain + Added Effect gives his attacks a 20% chance to inflict petrify, which, frankly, is pathetic. If a character is petrified then they'll be immune to Emerald's Aire Tam Storm. I'm still deciding whether to use this or steal Vagyrisk Claws from the Basilisks (68% hit chance), or to use both.

Cait (with Limit Break)
Yellow M-Phone = Enemy Skill
Zeidrich
Circlet

Tifa (front row)
Powersoul = Underwater + HP Plus + HP Plus + HP Plus
Gigas Armlet = Deathblow + Added Cut + HP Plus + HP Plus + Enemy Skill
Curse Ring
==Tifa does major damage with Powersoul + critical health + death countdown + Deathblow. It brings her damage to x16 of normal.

Emerald's Eyes = 25000 HP
Emerald = Too much HP

Tifa  = 1900 HP
Cloud = 1900 HP
Cait Sith = 2200 HP

Lucky Girl = One of Cait Sith's Slots. All attacks are automatically critical hits, lost if character is KO
Laser = Damage equal to 1/2 HP, 100% hit chance
Demi 2 = Identical to Laser, 75% hit chance
Mog Dance = Another one of Cait Sith's Slots. Full recovery to all team members.

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Strategy

1. Survive eyes-closed period ensuring Tifa gets a Hero Drink and Lucky Girl. This involves a lot of Phoenix Downs. All characters must have Big Guard when Emerald opens his eyes. Tifa and Cloud must retain Sadness status to be able to survive Emerald's eye attacks. HP doesn't matter.

2. Once he opens his eyes he uses Emerald Beam, which causes damage equal to 3/4 of current HP. Cloud uses Demi 2 + All. The Demi must hit both blue eyes . If it misses a blue then the strategy doesn't work. Tifa uses Deathblow + Added Cut to kill the leftmost eye. Cait uses Mog Dance if it's available, otherwise Megalixir. The blue eye must hit Tifa. Alternatively Cait can Elixir a character to take the hit from the blue eye, but it must hit them on Emerald's turn. The whole team have to stay alive until three of Emerald's eyes are killed.

==If that doesn't make sense, here's a bit of extra help. Emerald's eyes all have 25000 HP. His leftmost blue eye is now dead, and the others have been hit with Demi 2 + All, taking 9999 off each one.

3. Cloud uses Demi 2 + All again, doing 7500 damage to each eye, which can't hit the main body or Emerald will counter-attack, Cait uses Laser on one of the yellows and Tifa Deathblows the blue eye. The Deathblow will kill the blue, and the Added Cut must hit the same yellow eye that Cait Sith just attacked, killed that eye as well. See, Tifa has Lucky Girl, which gives her Added Cut attack a critical, and is therefore also 9999. Each eye has 7500 HP at this point after the second Demi 2, so her hits kill them immediately.

==At this stage Emerald will have just one eye, a yellow. He will from now on be using Emerald Beam, Aire Tam Storm and an MP attack. He will also be counter-attacking.

4. Now the strategy is a lot more straightforward, but also difficult and time-consuming. Aire Tam Storm will be used every two or three turns. Cait's HP must stay above 1111 when it hits. The team must get in at least one Demi or a Laser onto the main body each turn, and HP and Big Guard must be kept up. Also, Cloud can attack himself and/or Tifa to give them petrify, therefore making themselves immune to Aire Tam Storm. Vagyrisk Claws also give this effect. Cait Sith or Tifa can cure petrify with White Wind. After about an hour he'll die.

That #4 is the stage I'm stuck on. It's a lot of plates to spin.

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

Did you ever check SDA's run of FF7?
http://speeddemosarchive.com/FinalFantasy7.html

It might help inform some of your decisions if you start from the beginning again. It is done in segments, which isn't quite the same as using savestates, so you could be faster depending on how much you want to abuse savestates.

Also,

Quote

At a stretch, I could probably believe this, but the one thing that makes it certainly impossible:

Quote
By this point I had already maxed out these three characters in everything but spirit.


Not a chance. Sweetdude's got your number, and sweetdude says it's right.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/W-Item_Duplication_Bug

There is a variant of the W-Item duplication bug that lets you copy items that can be used outside of battle, provided you can morph them from an enemy without ending the battle. You can use this to copy all the Sources except for the Mind Source, which increases Spirit. So it might not be "certainly impossible" for iSeizmik to have maxed out all of his stats except for Spirit. In fact, the only thing he said that struck me as odd was, as sweetdude mentioned, fighting Ruby without defeating Ultima.

As for taking Emerald down at a low level, I don't know! I've only ever LLG'd FF6. Demi2+All is a good decision I think. It seems to me like there should be something better than Deathblow+Added cut for Tifa, but I can't think of what.

This post has been edited by jtdurai on 8th October 2011 19:54

Speedrunning Emerald weapon is a pain in the ass.I ran into him by accident when I was going underwater it was black then something happened then I found my self fighting something.And he started to chase when I was able to fight Sephiroth for the final time.but trying to speedrun him it'll be better if your in the 100s and everyone in your party ultimate Weapon and such and have the knights of the round summon.

I'd say Lucky 7's would be a help but aside from sure dumb luck is really hard unless you do this:

Lucky 7's Guide

but this would require you try and get the cats bell so this would kill some time trying to set this up.
Also, It's not hard to get cloud and barrets lv 3 limits if you know how leveling up your limit breaks works.
Use this if you don't know: Limit Break Guide

but this also might add on a few seconds every fight which would add up onto the clock in the long run.

This post has been edited by TrueBOSS on 30th November 2011 08:15

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He's Back. He is The_TrueBOSS.
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